Exile Page 9

  They waited for nightfall and the covering darkness it would bring, as slight as that might be in the heart of the city, and reviewed recent news broadcasts.

  One that was often cycled showed Wedge Antilles at his retirement announcement.

  “He’d never retire at a time like this,” Leia said, “so he’s being forced out.”

  Lando smoothed his false beard. “But is he being forced out because he didn’t approve of the attack on Tenel Ka, or because it was his plan and it failed?”

  Han snorted. “He put his career on the line to retake Tralus with a minimum of casualties. That whole mess at Hapes couldn’t have been his plan. It didn’t work the way he thinks.”

  “But he’ll know who was responsible,” Lando said. “I think we should ask him.”

  Han and Leia exchanged a glance. “It may not be as easy as that,” Leia said. “We’ve already tried to reach him by comlink. All we got was a recorded message saying that he and his family were celebrating his retirement by going on vacation. Not where, not for how long, no information on how to reach him.”

  “Who would know?”

  “Their best friends are on the other side,” Leia said. “Tycho and Winter Celchu.”

  Han frowned. “He’s leaving Corellia.”

  Leia and Lando both looked at him. Lando looked confused, as if Han had been using stepping-stones to cross a stream and Lando couldn’t spot the stones to follow him. “How do you figure that?” Lando asked. “His home is here.”

  Han irritably waved that notion away. “His home is the military. For him, Corellia’s just a good place to retire. He didn’t even grow up onplanet. He grew up on a refueling station that doesn’t exist anymore. No, he’s got to get offworld. He’s in disgrace with his former bosses, bosses who assassinate, and he’s not going to leave his family vulnerable to them.” He considered for a moment. “He’ll be in hiding now. What we’d have to do is figure out how he’s going to get offworld—assuming he hasn’t already—and meet up with him. And that would be a lot of work.”

  Leia nodded. “We may want to forget about him and go straight for Dur Gejjen or Denjax Teppler instead.”

  As it had on previous cycles, the Coronet news feed reached the Jedi assassins story: “In related events, mystery surrounds the savage street attack by Galactic Alliance Jedi on unnamed Coronet citizens shortly after Admiral Antilles’s retirement announcement.” The holocam view switched to show a tall, strongly built young man, dressed in sweat-stained agricultural coveralls, a big, panicky grin partially concealing his bantha-in-searchlights look. “First rodder just shot first Jedi,” he said, his voice marked by the distinctive twang of agrarian townships surrounding Coronet. “Second rodder kicked second Jedi, put him right out. Whole thing took two seconds.” The grin suddenly went from nervous to genuinely pleased. “Jedi aren’t so tough. Later, bunch of us are gonna go on a Jedi hunt.”

  Leia grimaced. “Fake Jedi? Or is the whole story fake?”

  “Not our problem,” Han said. “Dur Gejjen is a reptile, and I don’t intend to walk into his nest. Denjax Teppler may have no power, but he’s been friendly before and may know something. Let’s see if we can get to him.”

  CORONET, CORELLIA

  In the quietest hours of the morning, the three of them huddled around a small table in the most private sort of cantina.

  The privacy didn’t come from remoteness. Situated on a major thoroughfare near the city’s main spaceport, it was well trafficked during daylight and evening hours. Because it catered so much to offworlders and business traffic, its clientele was not chiefly made up of local regulars. Strangers elicited no curiosity. Bartenders with access to a modified spray-pattern blaster discouraged trouble and the official attention trouble might bring, while a commercially minded bar owner who paid all the correct under-the-table bills discouraged other official or criminal inspection.

  The table Han, Leia, and Lando sat at was toward the back of the main room, where the thousand colorful rays of light from above-the-bar decorations and along-the-wall glow rods fell only dimly. They had a good angle on the door, and looked up every time someone entered the cantina.

  And this time they didn’t instantly dismiss the new customer as a prospect; the glow rods above the door showed him to be wrapped in a cloak, its hood casting his face into deep shadow. He stood there as the door swung shut behind him and scanned the bar’s interior.

  Not sure whether this was Teppler’s intermediary, Han straightened, made a look-at-me motion, and caught the new customer’s attention. The man walked over and, without invitation, sat on the table’s fourth chair. He didn’t lower his hood, but at this distance Han recognized Denjax Teppler. His were handsome, if bland, features, the sort that belonged to a drinking buddy employed as a statistician or sales manager.

  Han cocked an eyebrow at him. “Isn’t it risky for you to travel alone? I thought for sure you’d send a Rodian with a scar and a limp to escort us to a secret hideaway.”

  Teppler snorted. “All my hideaways are being monitored. As I am. But awhile back I hired a look-alike, and my surveillance follows him home. Meaning I can sometimes walk around freely.”

  “With no bodyguards,” Leia said.

  Teppler nodded. “Yeah.” He looked up as a waiter droid, a cylinder on wheels with eight arms, rolled up. “Whiskey and water,” he said, making his voice hoarse. “Prewar.”

  The droid rolled away, and Teppler returned his attention to the others, particularly Lando. “I don’t know you.”

  Lando extended his hand. “Lando Calrissian.”

  Teppler shook it. “Nice to meet you. Though I think you picked a bad time to come out of retirement.”

  “Just as you picked a bad time to go into politics.”

  “True.” Teppler turned back to Han and Leia. “So why am I here?”

  “The attack on Queen Mother Tenel Ka,” Leia said.

  “Ah.”

  “First,” Han said, “did you have anything to do with it?”

  Teppler shook his head.

  “Or know anything about it?”

  “Not until it was under way.”

  “Han and I were at the site of the assassination attempt,” Leia said. “Because of that and for some other reasons, the GA suspects us of being involved, and because we transmitted a warning to Tenel Ka, the Corellians blame us for spoiling the plan. So we’re interested in clearing our names.”

  “And in beating the responsible parties until they’re skin sacks full of stew,” Han added.

  Leia glanced at her husband, her that-wasn’t-entirely-helpful look. She returned her attention to Teppler. “Now, I know that doing what we ask puts you in a quandary. If you accept, technically you’re betraying the secrecy acts of your government, a treasonable offense. But I also know you’re opposed to a lot of what goes on. Thrackan Sal-Solo is dead, but his spirit lives on in portions of the new government. And whoever ordered the attack on Tenel Ka has become our enemy. Our enemies don’t tend to fare very well, and we will do whatever we can to bring him or her down. So I put it to you that if you don’t tell us who ordered that mission, it’s only because it was someone you want to remain in power.”

  Teppler was silent a long moment, not looking at any of them. The waiter rolled up during his pause and set down his drink. Teppler handed the droid a pair of credcoins, then sipped at the whiskey until the droid was out of earshot.

  Finally, he said, “There’s no such thing as treason anymore, you know that?”

  Han and Leia exchanged a confused glance. “How do you figure that, kid?” Han asked.

  “Everything you do helps someone. Everything you do hurts someone. Everything you do violates a law while supporting an ethic, or vice versa. The only differentiation is whether you do things out of selfishness or altruism—and altruism just means, I’m doing this to create a better world, as I define better. And if there’s no such thing as treason anymore, there’s also no such thing as loyalty. You know w
hat I mean?” He raised his glass again, and when he put it down it was empty.

  Looking at him, Han felt a little pang of sympathy. Teppler’s eyes seemed devoid of life. “I think,” Han said, “when we leave Corellia, you ought to come with us.”

  Teppler laughed. “I can’t leave.”

  “We can get you offworld, no problem,” Han said. “We have a good transport.”

  “I know. It’s at the Elmas port, correct?”

  Han’s hand fell automatically onto the butt of his holstered blaster. He took a quick look around, but no one other than the waiter droid seemed to be paying them any attention. He kept his voice low, under control. “How did you know?”

  “Where else would you be? You’re smugglers. Organized crime—of the syndicate kind, I mean—controls Port Pevaria, and Galactic Alliance Intelligence has its tentacles all through that place. If you were more upright GA citizens, you’d have had contacts there to berth with. And it’s there that CorSec is doing most of its looking for that mystery transport that made landfall earlier today. But smugglers, of the old-fashioned, freelance kind, they have most of their contacts over at Elmas, as they have for generations. If CorSec had any idea that it was Han Solo who made landfall, that’s where they’d be right now, in force.”

  “Oh.” Han sat back and forced himself to relax … a little. “But that supports my point. We can get you offworld.”

  “I’m no good with a blaster,” Teppler said.

  Lando frowned. “You know, you’re more than commonly confusing to talk to, even for a politician.”

  “I’m not a hand-to-hand combatant,” Teppler went on, “and I’m an indifferent pilot. I don’t have an affinity for technical gear. But listening to people, sorting out truth from lies, guessing at motivations, manipulating people, encouraging them, maneuvering them—that’s where I’m strong. You know, politics.”

  “I still don’t get it,” Han said.

  Leia spoke up. “He’s saying that politics is his battlefield, and you’re encouraging him to run away from the battle.”

  “Oh.” Han thought about it. “Yeah, I am.”

  Teppler turned a sad but scornful expression onto him. “Do you also encourage all your friends to run away from their fights?”

  Han shook his head. “Not for a long time. Not since I got to know them and realized that they had a chance to win. You, kid, don’t have that chance. If you stay here, you’re going to die.”

  “Yeah, probably.” Teppler stared into the depths of his whiskey tumbler. “My ex-wife went on her last diplomatic mission knowing she might die. And she did. Am I so much less than she is?”

  The others looked among themselves, for once at a loss for words, but Teppler was the first to speak. “Dur Gejjen,” he said.

  “Complete sentences, please,” Lando said.

  “Dur Gejjen was the chief planner for, and signed off on, the mission to kill the Queen Mother, Tenel Ka.”

  Leia nodded. “And it was an assassination mission? Not a kidnapping attempt?”

  “If they had grabbed her, they would have killed her.”

  Leia pressed on. “Wedge Antilles?”

  “He didn’t know about it. He was ordered to step down because he didn’t support waging a war that dirty.” Teppler held up his glass, a signal to the waiter droid to refill it.

  Leia felt a little trickle of alarm, but it seemed remote, not directed at her. Closing her eyes, she extended her awareness through the Force to areas beyond her immediate surroundings—through the ceiling and floors, walls on all sides …

  Outside the front door and wall, she found outrage. Someone wanting to come in, but being prevented. More than one someone. A gradual massing of bodies …

  She opened her eyes. The waiter droid was just rolling up. She asked the droid, “What’s immediately beneath us?”

  “That would be the storage and distillery rooms, my lady,” the waiter said, its voice cultured like C-3PO’s but not as singsong. “We no longer do tours of our microdistillery, but the floor is available for rent for private parties, holodrama recordings—”

  “Quiet,” Leia said. “Han, Lando, door.”

  The front door slammed open and two CorSec agents, in battle armor, carrying blaster rifles, were the first ones through it.

  Han’s blaster cleared its holster and Lando tipped the table over toward the intruders, providing cover.

  Han shot the first intruder in his chest armor. The blast didn’t penetrate, but the impact knocked the man backward into a new wave of CorSec enforcers trying to get through the door.

  Teppler dived behind the table, switching his tumbler to his left hand, drawing his own hold-out blaster with his right. He fired over the table edge. His shot hit the glowing STREET sign over the door, incinerating it, raining sparks down on the intruders jammed there.

  Leia ignited her lightsaber. She spun to crouch behind the table, then plunged the glowing blade into the floor. She began to drag it around in a wide circle.

  The second intruder fired at the only upright figure in the vicinity. His blaster rifle shot hit the waiter droid at about knee level and neatly severed the cylinder there. With a somewhat inconvenienced-sounding cry of “I say,” the droid toppled sideways; the tray of drinks and empty glasses it had been carrying crashed to the floor. A wave of shattered glass, half-melted ice, and unbreakable transparisteel containers washed across table, chair, and patron legs.

  Lando extracted his blaster from beneath the folds of his hip cloak. He brought it up parallel with Han’s and fired, catching the faceplate of the intruder who had shot the droid. That man, too, staggered back and down, adding to the congestion at the doorway.

  Leia finished her sweep with the lightsaber and a rough circle of flooring a meter and a half in diameter dropped away into darkness, rattling against a hard surface a moment later. “Let’s go,” she said, making it sound like a suggestion, and dropped through. Her lightsaber lit her new surroundings; she was in a darkened, narrow corridor.

  Lando looked at Han. “You first.” He took another shot at the doorway, catching a CorSec trooper in the second rank right on the kneecap.

  Han gestured for Lando to go. “Age before beauty.”

  “Idiots.” Teppler dropped through, blaster in one hand and tumbler in the other, landing awkwardly behind Leia.

  Rear ranks of invaders shoved the plug of stunned or injured troopers out of the doorway; four spilled into the bar, more jamming up at the door. Han fired again and caught one in his armored gut, sending him spinning to the floor. The others returned fire and Han, braced behind the table-top, stared in alarm as whole chunks of its artificial wood surface were torn away, not impeding the blaster bolts in the least.

  Beside him, Lando slid through the hole. He kept his cane from colliding with anything, but his hip cloak caught on one edge of the hole and was yanked free of his shoulders. He landed gracefully and glared up at his traitorous garment. Then he trotted after Leia.

  Han grabbed one table leg and fell through the hole, hauling the leg with him. All four table legs dropped into the hole, leaving the tabletop flush against the floor. The awkwardness of his descent caused him to hit the corridor floor hard and go to his knees, but he rose unhurt and sprinted after the others, guided by the glow-rod-like qualities of Leia’s lightsaber.

  Han rounded a corner and caught up with the others. This chamber was as large as the taproom above but stacked high with plasteel crates and falsewood kegs.

  Leia stood at the top of a short permacrete ramp. A metal door barred her way. She slashed at the top hinge of three, cutting through it. Teppler stood behind her, calm, blaster and tumbler at the ready. Lando, like a catalog holo of elegant indifference, leaned against the wall, twirling his cane.

  Han gestured toward Teppler’s tumbler. “Get rid of that.”

  “Can’t,” Teppler said. “It has my fingerprints on it.”

  Han grabbed the tumbler from him, tossed it into a corner, and pumped
three blaster shots into it. When the smoke cleared, it was a melted, charred mass of transpari-steel.

  There were more blaster shots from back the way they’d come. Han heard pieces of wood raining down into the corridor.

  Leia finished the second hinge and got to work on the third. Teppler stepped forward and raised his arm to catch the top of the door when it toppled.

  The door fell. Teppler wrenched it out of the way, and it clattered to the permacrete floor. On the other side, the ramp continued up; several meters beyond it, Han could see speeders roaring past what had to be the end of the alley behind the cantina. He, Leia, and Teppler ran toward the escape the street represented. Lando remained behind—to delay pursuit, Han assumed.

  Leia extinguished her lightsaber as they reached the alley mouth. A narrow sidewalk gave them an avenue for escape, and cross-traffic just a few centimeters away roared past, the speeders’ running lights leaving colorful horizontal streaks in the air.

  Han looked at the situation. This was going to turn into either a running blaster battle or a blaster battle performed on stolen speeders. “Ready to go, sweetheart?”

  “Garbage loader,” Leia said.

  “You always know the right thing to say.” Han followed her gaze. Lumbering up the flyway toward them, low toward the ground, was a repulsorlift-based garbage loader, a story and a half tall, wider than a standard traffic lane, with droid arms along its upper rim to seize garbage receptacles, lift them into the air, and dump their contents into the vessel’s payload bay.

  Leia led them from the alley and along the sidewalk in the direction of traffic, but she walked backward, concentrating on the pilot of that garbage loader. “Nice time for a nap,” she whispered. “Good place for a nap.”

  Lando ran from the alley mouth, neither leg apparently causing him distress; he carried his cane tucked under his left arm, military-academy-style. “We have maybe fifteen seconds,” he said. Then he gave Leia a curious look and turned to stare at the object of her interest.