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  It was indeed another Falleen who stepped out into the sunlight as Villachor reached his proper place at the vehicle’s side. But to his quiet relief, it wasn’t Xizor. It was merely Qazadi, one of Black Sun’s nine vigos.

  It was only as Villachor dropped to one knee and bowed his head in reverence to his guest that the significance of that thought belatedly struck him. Only one of the nine most powerful beings in Black Sun?

  Just because the Falleen standing in front of him wasn’t Xizor didn’t mean the day might not still end in death.

  “I greet you, Your Excellency,” Villachor said, bowing still lower. If he were in trouble, an extra show of humility probably wouldn’t save him, but it might at least buy him a less painful death. “I’m Avrak Villachor, chief of this sector’s operations, and your humble servant.”

  “I greet you in turn, Sector Chief Villachor,” Qazadi said. His voice was smooth and melodious, very much like Xizor’s, but with a darker edge of menace lurking beneath it. “You may rise.”

  “Thank you, Your Excellency,” Villachor said, getting back to his feet. “How may I serve you?”

  “You may take me to a guest suite,” Qazadi said. His eyes seemed to glitter with some kind of private amusement. “And then you may relax.”

  Villachor frowned. “Excuse me, Your Excellency?” he asked carefully.

  “You fear that I’ve come to exact judgment upon you,” Qazadi said, his voice still dark yet at the same time oddly conversational. The gray-green scales of his face were changing, too, Villachor noted, with a hint of pink touching his upper cheeks. “And such thoughts should never be simply dismissed,” the Falleen added, “for I do not leave Imperial Center without great cause.”

  “Yes, Your Excellency,” Villachor said. The sense of dark uncertainty still hung over the group like an early-morning fog, but to his mild surprise he could feel his heartbeat slowing and an unexpected calm beginning to flow through him. Something about the Falleen’s voice was more soothing than he’d realized.

  “But in this case, the cause has nothing to do with you,” Qazadi continued. “With Lord Vader’s absence from Imperial Center leaving his spies temporarily leaderless, Prince Xizor has decided it would be wise to shuffle the cards a bit.” He gave Villachor a thin smile. “In this case, a most appropriate metaphor.”

  Villachor felt his mouth go suddenly dry. Was Qazadi actually talking about—

  “My vault is at your complete disposal, Your Excellency,” he managed.

  “Thank you,” Qazadi said, as if Villachor actually had a choice in the matter. “While my guards bring in my belongings and arrange my suite, we will go investigate the security of your vault.”

  The breeze that had been drifting across Villachor’s face shifted direction, and suddenly the calmness that had settled comfortably across his mind vanished. It hadn’t been Qazadi’s voice at all, Villachor realized acidly, but just another of those cursed body-chemical tricks Falleen liked to pull on people. “As you wish, Your Excellency,” he said, bowing again and gesturing to the mansion door. “Please, follow me.”

  The hotel that d’Ashewl had arranged for was in the very center of Iltarr City’s most exclusive district, and the Imperial Suite was the finest accommodations the hotel had to offer. More important, from Dayja’s point of view, the humble servants’ quarters tacked onto one edge of the suite had a private door that opened right beside one of the hotel’s back stairwells.

  An hour after d’Ashewl finished his grand mid-afternoon dinner and retired to his suite, Dayja had changed from servant’s livery to more nondescript clothing and was on the streets. A few minutes’ walk, and he was out of the enclave of the rich and powerful and into a poorer, nastier section of the city.

  Modern Intelligence operations usually began at a field officer’s desk, with a complete rundown of the target’s communications, finances, and social webs. But in this case, Dayja knew, such an approach would be less than useless. Black Sun’s top chiefs were exceptionally good at covering their tracks and burying all the connections and pings that could be used to ensnare lesser criminals. In addition, many of those hidden connections had built-in flags to alert the crime lord to the presence of an investigation. The last thing Dayja could afford would be to drive Qazadi deeper underground or, worse, send him scurrying back to Imperial Center where he would once again be under the direct protection of Xizor and the vast Black Sun resources there.

  And so Dayja would do this the old-fashioned way: poking and prodding at the edges of Black Sun’s operations in Iltarr City, making a nuisance of himself until he drew the right person’s attention.

  He spent the rest of the evening just walking around, observing the people and absorbing the feel and rhythms of the city. As the sky darkened toward evening he went back to one of the three clandestine dealers he’d spotted earlier and bought two decagrams of Nyriaan spice, commenting casually about the higher quality of the drug that he was used to.

  By the time he was ready to head back to the hotel he had bought samples from two more dealers, making similar disparaging observations each time. Black Sun dealt heavily in Nyriaan spice, and there was a good chance that all three dealers were connected at least peripherally to Villachor. With any luck, news of this contemptuous stranger would begin filtering up the command chain.

  He was within sight of the enclave’s private security force station when he was jumped by three young toughs.

  For the first hopeful moment he thought that perhaps Black Sun’s local intel web was better than he’d expected. But it was quickly clear that the thugs weren’t working for Villachor or anyone else, but merely wanted to steal the decagrams of spice he was carrying. All three of the youths carried knives, and one of them had a small blaster, and there was a burning fire in their eyes that said they would have the spice no matter what the cost.

  Unfortunately for them, Dayja had a knife, too, one which he’d taken off the body of a criminal who’d once had similar plans for him. Thirty seconds later, he was once again walking toward home, leaving the three bodies dribbling their blood away into the drainage gutter alongside the walkway.

  Tomorrow, he decided, he would suggest that d’Ashewl make a show of visiting some of the local cultural centers, where Dayja would have a chance to better size up the city’s ruling class. Then it would be another solo excursion into the fringes, and more of this same kind of subtle troublemaking. Between the high classes and the low, sooner or later Villachor or his people were bound to take notice.

  He was well past the security station, with visions of a soft bed dancing before his eyes, before the police finally arrived to collect the bodies he’d left behind.

  Han Solo had never been in Reggilio’s Cantina before. But he’d been in hundreds just like it, and he knew the type well. It was reasonably quiet, though from wariness rather than good manners; slightly boisterous, though with the restraint that came of the need to keep a low profile; and decorated in dilapidated scruffiness, with no apologies offered or expected.

  It was, in short, the perfect place for a trap.

  A meter away on the other half of the booth’s wraparound seat, Chewbacca growled unhappily.

  “No kidding,” Han growled back, tapping his fingertips restlessly against the mug of Corellian spiced ale that he still hadn’t touched. “But if there’s even a chance this is legit, we have to take it.”

  Chewbacca rumbled a suggestion.

  “No,” Han said flatly. “They’re running a rebellion, remember? They haven’t got anything extra to spare.”

  Chewbacca growled again.

  “Sure we’re worth it,” Han agreed. “Shooting those TIEs off Luke alone should have doubled the reward. But you saw the look on Dodonna’s face—he wasn’t all that happy about giving us the first batch. If Her Royal Highness hadn’t been standing right there saying good-bye, I’m pretty sure he would have tried to talk us down.”

  He glared into his mug. Besides, he didn’t add, asking P
rincess Leia for a replacement reward would mean he’d have to tell her how he’d lost the first stack. Not in gambling or bad investments or even drinking, but to a kriffing pirate.

  And then she would give him one of those looks.

  There were, he decided, worse things than being on Jabba’s hit list.

  On the other hand, if this offer of a job he’d picked up at the Ord Mantell drop was for real, there was a good chance Leia would never have to know.

  “Hello there, Solo.” The raspy voice came from Han’s right. “Eyes front, hands flat on the table. You, too, Wookiee.”

  Han set his teeth firmly together as he let go of his mug and laid his hands palms-down on the table. So much for the job offer being legit. “That you Falsta?”

  “Hey—good memory,” Falsta said approvingly as he sidled around into Han’s view and sat down on the chair across the table. He was just as Han remembered him: short and scrawny, wearing a four-day stubble and his usual wraparound leather jacket over yet another from his collection of flame-bird shirts. His blaster was even uglier than his shirt: a heavily modified Clone Wars–era DT-57.

  Falsta liked to claim the weapon had once been owned by General Grievous himself. Han didn’t believe that any more than anyone else did.

  “I hear Jabba’s mad at you,” Falsta continued, resting his elbow on the table and leveling the barrel of his blaster squarely at Han’s face. “Again.”

  “I hear you’ve branched out into assassinations,” Han countered, eyeing the blaster and carefully repositioning his leg underneath the table. He would have just one shot at this.

  Falsta shrugged. “Hey, if that’s what the customer wants, that’s what the customer gets. I can tell you this much: Black Sun pays a whole lot better for a kill than Jabba does for a grab.” He wiggled the barrel of his blaster a little. “Not that I don’t mind picking up a little free money. As long as I just happen to be here anyway.”

  “Sure, why not?” Han agreed, frowning. That was a strange comment. Was Falsta saying that he wasn’t the one who’d sent Han that message?

  No—ridiculous. The galaxy was a huge place. There was no possible way that a bounty hunter could have just happened to drop in on a random cantina in a random city on a random world at the same time Han was there. No, Falsta was just being cute.

  That was fine. Han could be cute, too. “So you’re saying that if I gave you double what Jabba’s offering, you’d get up and walk away?” he asked.

  Falsta smiled evilly. “You got it on you?”

  Han inclined his head toward Chewbacca. “Third power pack down from the shoulder.”

  Falsta’s eyes flicked to Chewbacca’s bandoleer—

  And in a single contorted motion Han banged his knee up, slamming the table into Falsta’s elbow and knocking his blaster out of line, as he grabbed his mug and hurled the Corellian spiced ale into Falsta’s eyes. There was a brief flash of heat as the bounty hunter’s reflexive shot sizzled past Han’s left ear.

  One shot was all Falsta got. An instant later his blaster was pointed harmlessly at the ceiling, frozen in place by Chewbacca’s iron grip around both the weapon and the hand holding it.

  That should have been the end of it. Falsta should have conceded defeat, surrendered his blaster, and walked out of the cantina, a little humiliated but still alive.

  But Falsta had never been the type to concede anything. Even as he blinked furiously at the ale still running down into his eyes, his left hand jabbed like a knife inside his jacket and emerged with a small hold-out blaster.

  He was in the process of lining up the weapon when Han shot him under the table. Falsta fell forward, his right arm still raised in Chewbacca’s grip, his hold-out blaster clattering across the tabletop before it came to a halt. Chewbacca held that pose another moment, then lowered Falsta’s arm to the table, deftly removing the blaster from the dead man’s hand as he did so.

  For a half-dozen seconds Han didn’t move, gripping his blaster under the table, his eyes darting around the cantina. The place had gone quiet, with practically every eye now focused on him. As far as he could tell, no one had drawn a weapon, but most of the patrons at the nearest tables had their hands on or near their holsters.

  Chewbacca rumbled a warning. “You all saw it,” Han called, though he doubted more than a few of them actually had. “He shot first.”

  There was another moment of silence. Then, almost casually, hands lifted from blasters, heads turned away, and the low conversation resumed.

  Maybe this sort of thing happened all the time in Reggilio’s. Or maybe they all knew Falsta well enough that no one was going to miss him.

  Still, it was definitely time to move on. “Come on,” Han muttered, holstering his blaster and sliding around the side of the table. They would go back to the spaceport area, he decided, poke around the cantinas there and see if they could snag a pick-up cargo. It almost certainly wouldn’t net them enough to pay off Jabba, but it would at least get them off Wukkar. He stood up, giving the cantina one final check—

  “Excuse me?”

  Han spun around, reflexively dropping his hand back to the grip of his blaster. But it was just an ordinary human man hurrying toward him.

  Or rather, most of a man. Much of the other’s face was covered in a flesh-colored medseal that had been stretched across the skin and hair, with a prosthetic eye bobbing along at the spot where his right eye would normally be.

  It wasn’t just any eye, either. It was something alien-designed, glittering like a smaller version of an Arconian multifaceted eye. Even in the cantina’s dim light the effect was striking, unsettling, and strangely hypnotic.

  With a jolt, Han realized he’d been staring and forced his gaze away. Not only was it rude, but a visual grab like that was exactly the sort of trick a clever assassin might use to draw his victim’s attention at a critical moment.

  But the man’s hands were empty, with no blaster or blade in sight. In fact, his right hand wouldn’t have been of any use anyway. Twisted and misshapen, it was wrapped tightly in the same medseal as the man’s face. Either it had been seriously damaged or else there was a prosthetic under there that had come from the same aliens who’d supplied him with that eye. “You might want to see about getting a different eye,” Han suggested, relaxing a bit.

  “I need to see about a great many things,” the man said, stopping a couple of meters back. His remaining eye flicked to Han’s blaster, then rose with an effort back to his face. “Allow me to introduce myself,” he continued. “My name is Eanjer—well, my surname isn’t important. What is important is that I’ve been robbed of a great deal of money.”

  “Sorry to hear it,” Han said, backing toward the door. “You need to talk to Iltarr City Security.”

  “They can’t help me,” Eanjer said, taking one step forward with each backward one Han took. “I want my money back, and I need someone who can handle himself and doesn’t mind working outside law or custom. That’s why I’m here. I was hoping I could find someone who fit both those criteria.” His eye flicked to Falsta’s body. “Having seen you in action, it’s clear that you’re exactly the type of person I’m looking for.”

  “It was self-defense,” Han countered, picking up his pace. The man’s problem was probably some petty gambling debt, and he had no intention of getting tangled up in something like that.

  But whatever else Eanjer might be, the man was determined. He picked up his pace to match Han’s, staying right with him. “I don’t want you to do it for free,” he said. “I can pay. I can pay very, very well.”

  Han slowed to a reluctant halt. It was probably still something petty, and hearing the man out would be a complete waste of time. But sitting around a spaceport cantina probably would be, too.

  And if he didn’t listen, there was a fair chance the pest would follow him all the way to the spaceport. “How much are we talking about?” he asked.

  “At a minimum, all your expenses,” Eanjer said. “At a maximum—�
� He glanced around and lowered his voice to a whisper. “The criminals stole over a hundred and sixty-three million credits. If you get it back, I’ll split it with you and whoever else you call in to help you.”

  Han felt his throat tighten. This could still be nothing. Eanjer might just be spinning cobwebs.

  But if he was telling the truth ...

  “Fine,” Han said. “Let’s talk. But not here.”

  Eanjer looked back at Falsta’s body, a shiver running through him. “No,” he agreed softly. “Any place but here.”

  “The thief’s name is Avrak Villachor,” Eanjer said, his single eye darting around the diner Han had chosen, a more upscale place than the cantina and a prudent three blocks away. “More precisely, he’s the leader of the particular group involved. I understand he’s also affiliated with some large criminal organization—I don’t know which one.”

  Han looked across the table at Chewbacca and raised his eyebrows. The Wookiee gave a little shrug and shook his head. Apparently, he’d never heard of Villachor, either. “Yeah, there are lots to choose from,” he told Eanjer.

  “Indeed.” Eanjer looked down at his drink as if noticing it for the first time, then continued his nervous scanning of the room. “My father is—was—a very successful goods importer. Three weeks ago, Villachor came to our home with a group of thugs and demanded he sign over his business to Villachor’s organization. When he refused—” A barely perceptible shudder ran through his body. “They killed him,” he said, his voice almost too low to hear. “They just ... they didn’t even use blasters. It was some kind of fragmentation grenade. It just tore him ...” He trailed off.