Star Wars: Shadow Games (24 page)

He stared at the ceiling of the lift, taking a series of deep, lung-filling breaths. Beside him, Javul also seemed to be gathering herself.

“As soon as that droid comes out of the lift up there—” Dash started to say.

“Yeah, I know.”

The door of the lift slid open and the two bolted out into the corridor, their boots making the durasteel flooring ring with each step. Bay 6 was third on the right-hand side of the terminal—a distance of over one hundred meters. Dash had to believe they could cover that before their Anomid friend realized he’d been deked. It would take only a glance at the lift control panels for him to see that a second lift had gone up to Level 19.

They pelted down the terminal as if a pack of rabid boarwolves were after them. Dash suspected that the Anomid assassin was much, much deadlier. As they approached Bay 4, Dash saw Eaden and Han step out into the corridor from Bay 6 about fifty meters ahead of them. The two took up flanking positions on each side of the corridor and began moving toward the head of the terminal.

Mel appeared in the lee of the docking port, a blaster rifle in his hands. Dash knew an instant of cold panic at the thought that Yanus Melikan might be their saboteur—might be working
with
whoever it was that was no doubt pursuing them. But Mel simply took up a defensive position in the alcove, his rifle ready.

Han was waving his arm, gesturing for them to hurry. His gaze was focused on the turbolifts now many meters
behind. Then suddenly he was running toward them, his blaster raised, eyes focused on something—or some
one
—behind them.

Dash felt a riptide of cold, nasty adrenaline wash down his back.

“Fire!”
Han yelled. He dropped to one knee and loosed a barrage of blaster bolts past the fleeing couple.

On the opposite side of the corridor, Eaden followed suit.

Dash heard the bolts sizzle past his ears, and could whiff the sharp scent of oxygen atoms being torn apart into reactive ozone. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Javul glance back over her shoulder. She immediately began to struggle out of her billowing robe.
What was she doing?
He reached over and tried to pull the robe from her hands, but she resisted.

“Just run!” she urged.

He felt rather than saw something whiz between them—something flat, about the size of his head. Only when it flipped over in the air several meters in front of them and began a return trip did he realize that it was the throwing razor he’d last seen on the assassin’s belt. The weapon—which he’d thought only Rodian bounty hunters used—had a jagged triangular blade and a homing beacon that gave it a decidedly nasty boomerang effect. It could get you coming or going … or both.

Dash put on the brakes, skidding on the durasteel surface beneath his boots. He raised his blaster, fired at the razor … and missed. The thing was flying toward him, aimed right at his chest. He flung himself to one side, knowing he was too late. Javul shrieked and a ripple of gold passed before Dash’s face. He felt a solid weight connect with his rib cage. He hit the floor, momentarily winded.

He regained his feet to see the gold robe Javul had been
wearing seemingly flee back down the corridor toward the lifts under its own power. As he watched, Javul—running backward—fired her blaster at it. Tangled in the flow of fabric, the razor flipped several times, then hit the deck with a clatter and lay still. Javul turned and bolted toward Bay 6, now only meters away.

A hand gripped Dash’s shoulder. “Run or shoot, take your pick.” As if to illustrate, Han raised his heavy blaster and fired a series of shots down the corridor.

Dash looked up, seeking his target. The assassin had just left the shelter of the Bay 2 docking port and was making his way toward them along the wall. One hand was extended in front of him, palm out. The other was reaching for another of the weapons on his belt. Neither the particle beam from Han’s blaster nor the energy bolts from Eaden’s seemed to have much effect on the Anomid, save to slow him down. As Dash watched, he saw another energy bolt, fired by either Eaden or Mel, hit an invisible
something
a few centimeters in front of the Anomid’s outstretched palm.

“Personal shield!” shouted Dash over the sound of blaster volleys.

“No, really?” Han glanced over at Eaden. “Gimme more cover.”

The Nautolan nodded.

“What’re you going to do?” Dash asked as Eaden increased the frequency of his shots.

Han grinned. “Watch and learn … but cover me while you’re doing it.”

Dash obliged, fanning his shots as Han dropped to his belly, aiming his blaster along the floor. He could see that the Anomid had a new weapon mounted on the back of his right hand. A flex-tube ran from it down his index finger. It was a dart spitter.

Han fired.

The beam skirted the lower range of the palm shield,
connected with the assassin’s left shin guard just above the ankle, and punched his leg out from under him. He hit the floor—yet even as he did, he was pointing his right finger at them and unleashing a barrage of death.

Dash became one with the deck, willing himself to be flat enough to avoid the darts. When they stopped coming, he hauled Han to his feet and ran. Eaden was already in motion, scuttling sideways down the corridor. And now Mel and Javul—who’d reached the relative safety of the docking port—laid down a barrage of fire that might have an effect.

As Dash rounded the corner into the docking ring, he glanced back up the terminal at the fallen Anomid. He’d been hit several more times, and the armor along his back was smoking in places. Blood the color of sunset’s last gasp oozed from the shin guard Han’s careful shot had pierced.

The momentary sense of victory and safety Dash felt was crushed by his last sight of the assassin. He’d raised his pale lavender head from the floor and, just for a second, Dash felt the venom of his gaze. The message conveyed was clear:

This is not over
.

D
ASH HAD NOT QUITE GOTTEN HIS OWN INNER TURMOIL
put to rest before he became aware that his perpetually calm and rational associate was extremely agitated. Maybe it was the quivering of his tresses or the rapid blinking of the nictitating membrane over his dark eyes. Whatever it was, it set off Dash’s alarms. When they were safely in hyperspace and all had collapsed in the passenger lounge to debrief, he watched his partner with care.

Han had left Leebo in the cockpit to keep an eye on the autopilot and had come back to join the others. On Mel’s orders, Nik had gone up to the cockpit as well, with a vague suggestion that he “learn piloting.”

Han opened their consultations with a reasonable question: “What the hell was
that
all about?”

When nobody answered, he turned to Dash. “Come on, Dash. Did you have any idea something like this was gonna happen? I mean, how badly does this Hitch guy want her dead?” He jerked a thumb at Javul.

“I don’t know,” Dash said. “After I’d met him, I didn’t think Hitch wanted her dead at all. This was … a big surprise.”

“You got that right,” said Han. “I mean, Anomids have a pretty pacifistic culture. I don’t think I’ve ever even heard of an Anomid assassin or mercenary. Maybe he’s some sort of bounty hunter.” He slanted a glance at Javul. “You been out breaking the law while you’ve been breaking hearts?”

“I’m not a criminal,” she replied. “As far I know, there’s no bounty on my head. As far as I know,” she repeated, and turned an appealing gaze to Dash.

How much of that was true and how much a lie? She’d been telling half-truths since he’d met her. On the other hand, what could be worse than disrupting a Black Sun trade corridor?

He shrugged. “Y’got me. I don’t know who or what—”

“Edge.” The single word came from Eaden Vrill, who stood with his back to one corner of the cramped compartment.

“Beg pardon?” said Spike, who had taken possession of Javul’s hand when she’d first sat down and hadn’t let go of it.

Several of Eaden’s tresses did an enigmatic little dance. “The assassin is called Edge. He has a preference for bladed weaponry and likes to wound his targets, then move in and finish them at close quarters. He … also likes to take trophies.”

“And you know this how?” asked Dash.

“I have met Edge before. He … he assassinated the head of my order.”

Suddenly all eyes were on the Nautolan, a situation that he obviously found disturbing.

“Your teräs käsi order?” asked Dash.

Eaden nodded. “I am … was … a member of a religious order called Sälãi Käsi: Hidden Hand. All were at least minimally Force-sensitive. Some time ago—when the Empire implemented Order 66, wiping out the Jedi—the Hidden Hand was targeted as well because of our potential to wield the Force. They systematically hunted us down and exterminated us, one by one, until only three initiates and our master, Neaed Fisto, remained.”

“Fisto?” repeated Dash. “Any relation to
General
Fisto?”

Kit Fisto, Jedi Master, was famous (or infamous,
depending on your point of view) for his marshaling of Republic forces during the Clone Wars. He’d later served on the Jedi Council until its destruction by the Emperor. Who knew he’d had relatives back on the Nautolan homeworld?

Eaden nodded. “A brother of his mother. An uncle, I believe you would say. The Force was, perhaps, as strong in my master as it was in Kit Fisto. Neaed was an impressive being and so much a mentor to my family that my mother chose to name me after him.”

Nautolans weren’t known for seeking the limelight, Dash knew; in fact, they were, as a culture, so self-conscious that honoring a newborn by directly naming it after a famous or heroic character was considered gauche. The closest they would come was to make an anagram of the famous name, and even that was skirting the boundaries of propriety.

“This Edge character murdered him?” Han asked, dropping onto a small container that had been repurposed as a stool.

“Yes. I was present in the clan house of our order when Edge came for my master. Neaed Fisto sacrificed himself that I and the other initiates might escape.”

Dash could only guess at the depth of feeling behind the simple words. Eaden was unmatched in the art of hiding his emotions when he wanted to.

“But if this guy was trying to wipe out your whole order,” said Han, “then wasn’t he after you, too? I mean, who was he trying to kill just now—you or Javul?”

Eaden’s tresses swayed this way and that. “Until today, I believe Edge thought me to be dead. After Neaed was killed, the three surviving members of the order—myself, my sister Eawen, and my cousin Nautif—determined that we must disappear. So we scattered and took up separate lives. We wait for an opportunity to rebuild the
order and to aid, if possible, in the overthrow of the Empire.”

Han snorted. “Oh, great. That’s what I get for renting out my ship—not one, but
two
people with a price on their heads.” He turned on Dash. “This is why I try to stay away from you, Rendar. You’re always getting yourself into seven different kinds of trouble. Your girlfriend has a crazy ex-boyfriend and your partner’s got an Empire target on his back. There something you want to tell me about that droid I’ve got piloting the
Falcon
? What’s he done that I should know about? He booby-trapped? Rigged to explode?”

“Worse. His jokes are all duds,” Dash said. “Javul, look, I’d swear Hitch Kris was sincerely trying to keep you alive. Am I wrong?”

“No, you’re right about Hitch. I don’t think he’d do this.”

“What about Xizor?”

“If I had to choose between the two,” said Javul slowly, “I’d say Xizor was a much more likely prospect.”

Dash looked up at Eaden, who stood statue-still against the bulkhead. He couldn’t even imagine how the Nautolan must have felt to have such a specter from his past rise up out of the ether. “Wait a minute. You said your order was targeted at the same time Palpatine implemented the order to wipe out the Jedi—are you telling me this assassin works for the
Empire
?”

“I don’t know who he works for now, but I am certain he was an Imperial hireling then.”

“Okay,” said Han, rising from his makeshift stool, “that tears it. I’m dropping you all off at Bannistar Station and going back to Tatooine.”

Javul speared him with her electric gaze. “I’ll double your fee if you take us to Bacrana. We’ll meet the
Nova’s Heart
there and you can leave.”

Han put both fists on the table and glared down into Javul’s lovely face. “Bacrana? I don’t think so, sweetheart. I’m due to rendezvous with Chewie in a Tatooine week. Bacrana is no longer in my flight plan.”

“We have to leave Bannistar on time, Han,” said Javul. “We
have
to. If you leave us in the lurch there, our chances of finding passage to Bacrana aren’t good and you know it.” There was tension in every line of her face.

“Because of your contracts?”

She nodded.

“Which are more important than your lives?”

She said nothing.

“What’s this
really
about, Javul?”

When she didn’t answer, Dash glanced at Mel, who’d been silent as a rock throughout. His face, too, was tense, watchful.

Spike was glowering. “What—a bunch of outraged investors, stockholders, and advertising agencies isn’t enough for you?”

“Maybe.”
And maybe not
.

“We have to keep to our schedule,” Mel said quietly.

“Sorry. That’s not my problem,” Han said, and left the room.

Dash went after him. He caught up with him in the starboard passageway amidships.

“Don’t abandon Javul on Bannistar, Han. Look,
I’ll
pilot the
Falcon
to Bacrana and you can just sit tight on the station and take a little R and R.”

“
You
pilot the
Falcon
? Gimme a break. You’re a good pilot, Dash, but you’re not me.”

“If anything happens to her, you can trust Javul to pay for it. In fact, if anything happens to her, you can have
Outrider.
”

Han had been trying to move around Dash, who had been blocking his attempts. Now he stopped moving and
stared at the other man, openmouthed. “You are seriously deranged. I feel sorry for you, Dash, I really do. Letting a woman get under your skin like that. I’ll tell you one thing—that’s
never
gonna happen to me.”