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  Thaal forced himself not to sputter. “You brought the navy in on this?”

  “And my own military police. General, it’s a new era of interservice cooperation here on Kuratooine.” She set out, her stride long and fast, toward the plaza. “What is that racket?”

  For a moment, Thaal reconsidered his aide’s recommendation. A quick walk back to his speeder would result in his safety.

  No, he needed to see bound Wraiths, whatever they were, in front of him experiencing interrogation. In fact, Colonel Sorrel should be there beside them, strapped down and anticipating the end of her life for defying him.

  Thaal set out after her.

  He activated his comlink. “Chakham Command Center, this is General Thaal. I want a full company of troopers here, at the Old Kura City Courthouse Plaza ... place ... whatever it’s called ... to take charge of a situation. Ten minutes. Light a fire under their butts.”

  Voort danced as an audience of zero onlookers became a line of people, then deepened into a crowd.

  An enthusiastic crowd. As he ran through a full-length version of the Twi’lek Strutters’ Night, some onlookers began clapping in time.

  He decided to reward them. He grabbed the torso of his nightsuit and yanked. The whole nightsuit—like so many Wraith garments, a breakaway design—came off in his hands, leaving him in dark undershorts and socks. He spun the garment over his head as he strutted, then threw it into the crowd. He launched into a set of muscleman flexes punctuated by fanny-wiggles.

  It was working. Onlookers were still arriving, some of them at a run. The musicians were in their groove now, jamming with the skill of long experience. Voort had caught his own rhythm, old moves coming back to him.

  And now pilots and troopers were streaming his way.

  Voort began to feel something strange within him, something he hadn’t felt in years.

  He was ... enjoying himself.

  He began a series of provocative belly-rolls. Some in the crowd, ladies especially, offered a ragged cheer.

  Thaymes grinned at what he was seeing on the monitor. “Stage Boy.”

  “Time for me to go on again?” Turman was still behind the black curtain.

  “No. The general’s headed toward the confrontation point.”

  “All by himself?”

  “He’s following the colonel. I think you convinced her.”

  “Of course I convinced her. I can convince any woman of anything.”

  “Not when you smell like that.”

  Turman took a couple of seconds to answer. “I’d kill you if you weren’t right.”

  Just as Thaal caught up to Colonel Sorrel, not far from the edge of the crowd watching the nearly naked Gamorrean, a Starfighter Command military policeman approached Sorrel from the side. He saluted. “We found the pilots, Colonel. Two droids, one protocol, one a heavyweight hauler.”

  Before the colonel could answer, Thaal offered a growled reply. “They’re decoys, idiot. Protocol droids don’t fly starfighters or shoot at people.”

  Colonel Sorrel shot him an amused glance, then returned her attention to the MP. “The general knows all about decoys, Corporal. Detain the droids but continue your search.”

  “Yes, Colonel.” He fled the general’s presence.

  “I can’t think with that racket going.” Thaal left the colonel’s side and shoved his way through the crowd, up to the musicians. “Stop playing!”

  They looked at him blankly.

  “Stop. Playing.” Stang! It would not do to pull out his hold-out blaster and shoot them, not even a little.

  Someone in the crowd bellowed loud enough that Thaal could hear him: “Hey, Lieutenant Joykill, move along.” Others laughed.

  But the musicians ceased playing.

  The Gamorrean onstage, now covered in sweat, stopped dancing. He glared down at Thaal and spoke, raising his voice so all in the crowd could hear him. “What’s the problem? Don’t you support the fine arts?”

  Startled, Thaal almost took a step back. “You’re a talking Gamorrean.”

  The dancer threw his hands up and looked skyward as if imploring Skifter Station for intervention. “Why doesn’t anybody think I know that?” He stared down at the general. “I’m Professor Voort saBinring, late of Ayceezee Public College.”

  “You need—”

  “But you can call me Piggy. Everybody calls me Piggy.”

  “You need to shut—”

  “I’m a war veteran here on my first vacation in years. And I’ve just made my professional dancing debut!”

  The crowd cheered.

  Now the Gamorrean turned to the crowd and raised an arm in celebration. “Kura City audiences are the best audiences in the city!”

  The crowd cheered again. Then the cheer tapered off as the onlookers tried to figure out what he’d said.

  Thaal jabbed a finger at the dancer. “One more word out of you and I’ll bury you up to your neck in my drill yard.” He turned away from the stage and took a deep breath.

  Now, with the music cut off, at last he could think again.

  His pilot sidled up. “Sir, the troopers are inbound from the base.”

  He nodded and rubbed at his temples. “Good, good.”

  Colonel Sorrel and two of her MPs joined him. Sorrel gave him an admonishing look. “He was pretty good. For a Gamorrean.”

  “I don’t care. Colonel, I need you to do me a favor. In that spirit of interservice cooperation you mentioned. I’ll count you as a personal friend and ally for the rest of my military career if you do. Just take your people out of here. I’ll take charge of this situation. Do it for the sake of my dead pilot.”

  “General Stavin Thaal.” The voice was very loud, amplified. Thaal turned to look. So did the military personnel and civilians all over the plaza. Even the droids turned to look.

  A squat droid rolled toward the general—a large mobile waste bin with some machinery on top. Above the droid floated a holographic image, that of a man.

  Part of a man. The only portions of him that were human were his white hair and the right side of his face, one blue eye staring unblinking at Thaal. The rest of his head was mechanical. Below his face Thaal could glimpse the top of a Starfighter Command uniform, its cut and design four decades old.

  Colonel Sorrel looked at the general. “Friend of yours?”

  He shook his head. “This man is named Phanan. He was mutilated in the war against the Empire. He faked his death a long time back. Recently he’s been ... stalking me.”

  His pilot interposed herself between the droid and the general and drew her blaster. She took aim at the droid’s wheels. “It might be carrying explosives.”

  “We’ll find out.” Sorrel gestured to a couple of MPs. When the droid came to a stop in front of the pilot, they approached, scanners in hand. Both looked over at the colonel and shook their heads. But the pilot resolutely stayed in the way.

  “Every word the general says is true!” The hologram offered a partial smile. Only his right upper lip was flesh, so it was only a quarter smile. “Except for one thing. He calls himself Stavin Thaal ... but he lies. Stavin Thaal is dead. Colonel, you must take this imposter into custody.”

  Thaal felt a little trickle of worry. He kept it from his face. “Lieutenant, shut that thing down.”

  The pilot took aim at the holoprojector.

  One of the MPs lashed out, his rifle butt connecting with the lieutenant’s wrist. The blaster dropped from her hand. She clutched at her wrist, then looked back at the general for orders.

  “Like I said.” Colonel Sorrel’s voice was artificially sweet. “This is a Starfighter Command jurisdiction.”

  “That just ended your career.” The general became aware that onlookers, made nervous by the MP’s attack, were beginning to edge away. “All right, Lieutenant. We’re going back to the base. We’ll let the colonel play like she’s in charge during her last day as an officer.” He turned and immediately bumped into a gold protocol droid.

&nb
sp; Rocked by the impact, she clutched at him for support. “Oh, I say, my apologies.”

  He gave her a shove. She fell, landing on the pavestones, careful to keep from crushing her courier’s pouch beneath her. “Oh, my. Clearly one apology is not enough.”

  In the distance, Thaal could see the first speeder carrying his Pop-Dogs inbound. A few seconds of stalling and they would be here, a more potent force than Sorrel’s MPs. Nothing Phanan could say would endanger his exit.

  So Thaal turned back to his accuser. “Show yourself, Phanan. If you think I’m an imposter, despite the fact that I have to go through security screenings every day, you just step right up to my face and prove it.”

  “I think I can clear this up.” The voice was female, pleasant, and very familiar to Thaal.

  He spun. Ahead of him, moving through the crowd, a wrap of synthfur in gold around her shoulders, was his wife. She smiled and waved.

  “Zehrinne?” Confusion and relief replaced the sense of worry. “What are you doing on Kuratooine?” When she reached him, Thaal embraced her.

  “I’m here for the gambling. Skifter Station’s reputation has reached all the way to Coruscant.” She wrapped her arms around his neck, gave his cheek a kiss. “But maybe I should denounce you. Revenge for divorcing me.”

  “Not funny.”

  “No, I suppose it’s not.” Zehrinne’s voice trailed off and she stared intently into his face. She cupped his jaw with her hand.

  Then she broke away. “This is not my husband. He’s wearing false eye lenses and makeup.” She took another step back, shock on her face. “What have you done with my husband?”

  Thaal spun in the direction of his speeder as if he intended to walk away. But in turning he noted the position of every naval trooper and Starfighter Command MP near him. And of Colonel Sorrel. And Zehrinne.

  Then he turned back toward his wife. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

  Zehrinne shrugged, dropping for a bare second the pretense that she was afraid and shocked.

  Colonel Sorrel took a step forward. “General, I need to take you into custody pending—”

  Thaal reached into the coat pocket where his holdout blaster rested. Wouldn’t the colonel and his lovely traitor of a wife be startled when he drew, aimed, and discharged it right into their faces.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  On a distant rooftop, stretched out under a canopy of flexiplast matching the roof’s protective surface, Wran stared through his scope at the four oncoming Pop-Dog personnel transport speeders. They were inbound from the south and had rounded the eastern slope of Black Crest Mountain moments before.

  Mostly Wran stared at their undersides. The speeders were well up in the air, exposing the repulsors and thrusters lining their bellies.

  He zeroed in on the lead vehicle’s main repulsorlift unit, kept his aim on it, and fired.

  His laser shot hit the unit, pierced it. He saw surprise on the distant face of the pilot. The speeder continued forward, its flight speed undiminished, but it nosed over into a too-rapid descent.

  “Comm, Gun. One down.” He switched his aim to the second speeder.

  Thaymes’s voice whispered from his earpiece: “Gun, Comm. I read.”

  The other three trooper carriers went evasive, banking and losing altitude, their pilots hoping to take cover behind intervening buildings. The maneuvers were sharp, catching some of the Pop-Dogs off guard; Wran saw three spill over the side of his new target.

  He fired. A black hole appeared in the side armor shielding the motivators of his new target. He fired twice more, creating two more holes, before his laser rifle whined at him to indicate it was recharging.

  His second target continued its controlled descent as if undamaged. Troopers in the bed opened fire on Wran’s position—on the entire top floor of the building beneath him, in fact. But then the starboard side of the speeder, the side he’d perforated, dipped as though the repulsorlifts there had failed. The vehicle went from horizontal to vertical in an instant, pitching everyone but the strapped-in pilot free. Then it went upside down as it dipped beneath the buildings two streets over.

  Wran heard a crash from the vicinity of his first target, followed by the sound of metal crumpling from the direction of his second.

  He looked around. No other transport speeders were in sight. They’d gone below cover. “Comm, Gun. Two got by me.”

  “Understood. Team Shellfish, you’re up. Gun, they may be gunning for you. Get clear.”

  “I hear that.”

  The third transport rose like a submersible vessel cresting the ocean’s surface as it came over the lip of Wran’s building. Even before it leveled off into horizontal flight the vengeful Pop-Dogs in the back began pouring blasterfire into the canopy erected at the far edge. The canopy jittered and rattled as it was burned into a crisp black ruin.

  The transport came to a stop a few meters away. Two Pop-Dogs leapt off, landing in a crouch on the roof, and ran up to the canopy. One covered it while the other yanked it clear. The others took aim.

  But there was nothing beneath.

  Their own engines kept them from hearing, from reacting in time, as two speeder bikes crested the same roof edge they had just crossed. The two speeder bikes flashed by overhead, piloted by a blond human woman and a cream-brown Wookiee female.

  Each of them dropped something as she passed overhead, a globe that fell into the speeder’s passenger bed.

  Veteran Pop-Dogs dived away. Others, quicker to act than to think, aimed after the speeder bikes. One got off a first shot that missed the blond woman by a dozen meters.

  Then the globes detonated, filling the air with unhealthy-looking yellow gas. It spread across the roof, coating the Pop-Dogs all around.

  Rugged men and women who’d been trained to kill began coughing, clutching their eyes.

  Two hundred meters away, the distance increasing, the blond woman spoke into her headset mike. “Ranger to Comm. Third speeder down. Location of fourth unknown.”

  “I read.”

  “Tell Drug Boy good work.”

  There was no weapon in Thaal’s pocket. He groped for it, startled, for a moment.

  It couldn’t be gone. In the minutes since the last time he’d felt it, he’d performed no physical activity that could have dislodged it. And no one had been close enough to him to–

  That protocol droid.

  He ran. He slammed Colonel Sorrel out of the way and headed toward the oncoming Pop-Dog transports—They were gone.

  No, one was still incoming. Almost at ground level, it rounded a street corner and headed toward him.

  There was a familiar poomp sound from the interior of a black speeder parked nearby. Thaal could only watch as the grenade, fired from a military-issue blaster rifle, arced toward the transport speeder, hit the pavement in front of it, and exploded into an immense yellow cloud. Unable to maneuver in time, the transport flew through it. It emerged with its surfaces and passengers all tinged yellow. The passengers began curling into balls, clutching their eyes, heaving.

  Thaal watched as, its pilot temporarily blind, the speeder sailed past him, heading in a curved, erratic course toward the starfighters in front of the courthouse.

  Footsteps behind him, shouts to stop—Thaal turned toward the nearest vehicle, a red speeder bike with a human salesman standing protectively nearby.

  Thaal hit the alarmed-looking man, knocking him out of the way, and started up the swoop. It roared into life, its too-powerful engines perfect for testosterone-addled boys and middle-aged men.

  Then Thaal felt the sting in his neck.

  He ignored it and revved the thrusters.

  Tried to, anyway. His hands stayed clutched, unmoving, on the control bars. His feet would not budge from the pedals. The speeder bike rose a meter into the air and began a slow, slow drift forward, pushed along only by a light breeze.

  Colonel Sorrel drew alongside, pacing him at a slow walking speed. “Pending a full investigation i
nto these events.”

  The crude scapedroid pulled up to Thaal’s right, opposite her. “You will find his tan skin is makeup. Beneath, he’s a more yellow color. The lenses he wears on his eyes match Thaal’s retinal prints, but his true eyes do not. Textured false skin on his hands and feet bears Thaal’s prints, but Thadley Biolan’s prints lie beneath.” Ton Phanan shook his head. “I don’t know how long Stavin Thaal has been dead ... but it’s clear this man killed him long, long ago.” Then the image of Ton Phanan winked out.

  Trey, in the front seat of the black speeder, set his blaster rifle aside. “Nice shot.”

  Drikall put his dart rifle away. “I thought so.”

  “No, I meant me.” Trey started up the speeder and headed away from the plaza. “But you get points for brewing up a good tear gas.”

  “Thank you for your unstinting praise.”

  “Tear gas that I fired, with consummate accuracy ...”

  “You’re ruining it for me.”

  In minutes it was done. Civilians crowded around the drifting speeder bike an MP held in place. Others waited for the inert improvised scapedroid to start talking again. More MPs and Kura City Guards arrived and argued with one another about who should be arresting whom. General Thaal remained sitting, paralyzed, on the swoop he’d intended to ride to freedom. Colonel Sorrel took a dampened rag to his cheek, wiping away tan makeup to reveal yellower skin beneath. Zehrinne Thaal stayed nearby, answering investigator questions, wearing an expression of intermixed anxiety and disinterest.

  Two blocks away, Voort, wrapped in a traveler’s cloak, boarded the delivery speeder.

  Thaymes looked up and smiled as he entered. “We’re extracting?”

  “We’re extracting.”

  “Stage Boy, it’s curtain call.”

  The black curtain was swept away. Ton Phanan stood on the other side, in the black-lined rear of the compartment, and stared imperiously at the other two.

  Then he pulled his face off, revealing Turman’s features beneath. “I need a bath.”

  “You do, in fact.” Thaymes hit a comm preset. “Comm Boy to all boys and girls. We are extracting. Don’t talk to strangers on your way back. Don’t accept candy.”