Star Wars: Shadow Games (25 page)

“No, I’m sure it won’t. You’re too hardheaded. But you’re wrong about me. I haven’t let her get under my skin. I just want her to keep hers. And right now the best way to do that is to get her back with her tour.”

“Liar. I’ve been paying attention. I figured part of the reason she hired me was so she could get
away
from her tour. Didn’t you say there might be a mole in her entourage? You want to get back with her tour like a rancor wants to be vegetarian. No, Dash. You think you can save her, but you can’t. Trust me on this one.” Han put a hand on Dash’s shoulder. “I’m warning you, buddy. You’re in this over your head. Whatever she’s into, it’s dangerous, and bigger than we can grasp, I promise you. You should get out—and, as a matter of fact, so should we all.”

Han continued on to the cockpit, leaving Dash to marshal his chaotic thoughts before he returned to the passenger lounge. Eaden was on his way out. The Nautolan stopped him.

“Do not think you have left Edge behind. If he lives, he will not give up. He will know her itinerary. You will most certainly meet him again on Bannistar Station.”

Dash held the enigmatic maroon gaze for several breaths before he finally looked away. “I’ll bear that in mind,” he mumbled and reentered the lounge.

Only Javul was there, still sitting at the table where he’d left her.

“Eaden said—” he began.

“I heard.”

He sat down opposite her at the little table and took her hands in his. “Javul, I’m gonna make you an offer I hope you won’t refuse. Quit whatever it is you’re doing.
Change your name again. Come with me. We’ll take
Outrider
and go where even Edge won’t be able to find you.”

Javul gave him the saddest smile he thought he’d ever seen and shook her head. “You have no idea how tempting that is, Dash—but I can’t.”

He looked down at their clasped hands, took a deep breath, and let it out. “You picked up something in that shrine and I suspect that it’s got something to do with why you’re being followed and harassed and sabotaged and targeted for murder. You’ve gone into business for yourself, haven’t you? That’s why Black Sun is after you, isn’t it?”

“You … could say that.”

Wrong. That answer was too cautious. He’d shot wide of the truth again. He knew it as surely as he knew that Edge was going to catch up with them eventually. He raised his eyes to hers again, capturing her gaze. “Edge was an Imperial assassin when he killed Eaden’s mentor. He still is an Imperial assassin, isn’t he?”

She didn’t answer, and he could see the thoughts turning in her head as she weighed them.

“Come on, Javul. The whole truth this time. If I’m going to help you—protect you—I need to know what I’m up against.
Really
. Otherwise, I’m too likely to make the wrong assumptions, suspect the wrong people, and be looking the wrong way the next time we get blindsided by one of your fanboys.”

“Tell him.”

Dash jumped and spun, reaching for his blaster.

Yanus Melikan stood in the compartment doorway, arms crossed over his chest, his pale gaze on Javul.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“No. Not at all. In fact, I think it’s a huge risk. But Dash has a point. As long as he’s here, he can’t protect you if he doesn’t know what to protect you from.”

Dash felt a nervous itch between his shoulder blades.
“Tell you what, Mel—why don’t you have a seat?” He pointed at the seat next to Javul.

Mel smiled crookedly. “You mean where you can see me?” He crossed to the table and sat down, giving Javul a wry look.

She squared her shoulders and met Dash’s eyes. “Okay, Dash—here it is. The unvarnished truth. I’m not in business for myself and I’m not moving illicit goods under the cover of my tours. I’m moving something a good deal more important than that. I … 
we
 …”—she nodded at Mel—“are moving cargo and information critical to the success of the Rebel Alliance.”

Dash felt as if he’d just been shoved out an air lock.

“And Hitch Kris …”

“My relationship with Hitch—and the career he jumpstarted—was a cover for our activities. It gave us a certain level of protection and the means of moving information—and resources—with impunity. It also gave us an immense information network—an eye on developments within Black Sun and the Empire. There are Rebellion operatives and informants on every world, and my tours give us access to them.”

A few more pieces fell into place in Dash’s head. “Your little ‘excursions’?”

Javul nodded. “When Hitch was using my entourage for smuggling his own goods and operatives, he put our whole network in danger. As soon as I realized it, I had no choice but to part company with him.”

“He almost found us out,” said Mel quietly. “And I think he suspects what Javul is really engaged in and is at a loss to know what to do about it. Black Sun has an uneasy relationship with the Empire.”

Dash nodded. “Okay … so his little sabotage efforts were aimed at getting you to stop?”

“At first, I think they were just aimed at getting me to come back under his influence,” Javul said. “But when
he came backstage on Christophsis … I’m pretty sure he’d figured out that I wasn’t just being stubborn. And he realized someone else was in the game.”

“Someone who wants your show permanently shut down.”

She nodded.

“The Emperor.”

“Possibly. Or possibly someone else who suspects what we’re doing and doesn’t like it. Xizor maybe.”

Dash shook his head. “Xizor is no friend to the Empire.”

“He’s less of a friend to me. In fact, he’s supposed to believe I’m an Imperial informant against Black Sun.”

“So, when you ratted out Hitch and Xizor, it was to make the Imperials think you were a good little citizen?”

“Exactly. Plus, it shut down Black Sun smuggling in the same trade corridor we were using. Nor did it hurt to have Xizor suspect I had high-level Imperial connections.”

“Then,” said Dash, “we may have an Imperial spy among us.”

“Or did have,” said Mel. “I’m not sure that we didn’t leave them behind on Tatooine. The cargo bay problem, as Leebo pointed out, could’ve been set up while we were docked and triggered automatically.”

“I guess that attack on the
Nova’s Heart
was a lucky break, then, huh?”

Dash caught the look that passed between Mel and Javul.

“Not exactly luck,” said Mel.

Dash leaned back in his seat. “You’re kidding me. You
staged
that?”

“We staged it,” Javul agreed. “I arranged for it our last night on Rodia, in fact. You remember Rancor’s Wrath, I’m sure.” There was a spark of wry humor in her eyes. “We needed to get back to Tatooine and get a different
ship. We needed to be able to leave the crew with the
Heart
because, frankly, I didn’t know who I couldn’t trust. I only knew who I
could
trust.” She glanced aside at Mel.

“Not to be a party-killer or anything,” said Dash, “but are you sure about this guy?”

Javul’s smile was brief and bright. “Captain Dash Rendar, meet Commander Yanus Melikan, Rebel Alliance, Corellian Guard.”

Well, that turned a bunch of Dash’s pet theories on their heads. “Oh. Commander, huh?”

Mel inclined his head.

“Okay. Great. I’m up to my eyeballs in a Rebel plot. I really,
really
don’t want to be up to
any
part of my anatomy in a Rebel plot. I just want to earn enough credits to fix up my ship and mind my own business and …”

He caught himself in the lie. He wanted more than that. His brush with Edge had made him realize, in some place beneath conscious thought, that he wanted to right the wrong that had been done to his family—and to all the other innocent people who’d gotten caught in the crossfire between the Black Sun underlord and the Empire. It galled him that Xizor had used his brother to extract his pound of flesh from the Empire, and had used the Empire to wrest control of RenTrans from his family. It galled him further that Eaden, too, had lost a large part of his life to the Palpatine’s lust for power.

He let none of this show in his face. He put none of it into words. Instead he said, “But I guess I’m in too deep not to see this through. Fine, then. What is it we’re protecting or moving or whatever it is we’re doing?”

Javul flicked a glance at the doorway. Mel rose and went to check the passage for eavesdroppers. He shook his head, but remained standing in the access.

Javul leaned close to Dash across the table and lowered her voice. “At this moment, there is a set of plans
on the move that can seriously undermine the Empire’s military strategy. We don’t know where they are or who’s actually handling them. They could be in my hands right now … or they could be someplace halfway across the galaxy. None of us knows. Which means that the Empire doesn’t know, either.”

“You’re a decoy.”

“I don’t know. I might not be the decoy. I might be the real deal.”

Dash nodded, noting—as if from a distance—that his sense of self-preservation seemed to have curled up and gone to sleep. Or perhaps it was merely stunned into silence.

“What’s the mission?” he asked.

“We’re to pick up a container on Bannistar Station. Presumably it contains replacement parts for my holographic rig. We don’t know what’s really in it. We’re to deliver it to our liaison on Alderaan.”

“What about the data wafer?”

“Identification codes for the compartment containing the cargo, and new orders.”

“After Bannistar Station,” said Mel, “we can’t continue with our scheduled itinerary. It’s too dangerous. We’re to pick up the package and go straight to Alderaan.”

Straight to Alderaan. Great. All they had to do was avoid being assassinated by Edge, stopped by a Black Sun saboteur, or simply blown out of the skies by an Imperial cruiser.

None of that concerned Dash Rendar so much, though, as how they were going to convince Han Solo to take them to Alderaan.

“Rebel Alliance?
Rebel Alliance
?” Han rocked back in his cockpit chair and stared at Dash, who sat in the copilot’s seat. He looked almost ill. “You’re kidding me. What is this—the cause of the day?”

“It’s not like that and you know it. She’s completely committed to this mission.”

“Mission.” Han shook his head. “
Never
trust a woman who’s committed to a mission.” He sat forward, put his elbows on the console and his head in his hands. After a couple of moments he looked up. “Okay, here’s what we’ll do. We’ll drop this bunch on Bannistar Station and head back to Tatooine.”

“You don’t understand. I don’t want us
out
, Han, I want you
in
. We need to get Javul to Bannistar. While they’re getting the show set up, we can get the package from storage and get it aboard the
Falcon
—”

Han raised both hands to stem the flow of words. “Whoa, whoa! You’re saying you want
me
to help you get this thing aboard my ship? You want me to smuggle Rebellion stuff under the Emperor’s nose?”

“You’re a smuggler, Han. It’s what you do.”

“Yeah, but not for the Rebel Alliance. That’s crazy, and I ain’t crazy … yet. Do you have any idea what would happen if we got caught doing this?”

“Yeah, I do, as a matter of fact. That’s why I suggested you could just stay behind on Bannistar.”

“The
Falcon
doesn’t go anywhere I don’t. That clear?”

“So you’ll do it?”

Han stood up suddenly, banging his head on the cowling over the flight console. “Ow!
No
, I won’t do it! Are you nuts? This is suicide! You may be willing to put your life on the line for this girl, but I’m not.”

Dash rose, too, meeting Han nose-to-nose. “This isn’t about the girl. Can’t you wrap your fat head around that?”

“Oh, really?” Han sat back down. “Then tell me what it
is
about?”

That stopped Dash in his tracks. What
was
it about? He realized he hadn’t articulated that fully, even to himself. He clawed ideas out of the air and tried to clothe them in words.

“It’s about … having your life run by forces outside your control.”

“What?”

“Look at me, at Eaden, at Javul—look at
you.
”

“What’s wrong with me?”

“Not
you
exactly, but what your life is. You’re pushed around by forces you can’t control—Jabba, the Empire—”

“Hey,
nobody
pushes Han Solo around—”

“Oh, shut up! Why were you in a position to take my cargo to Nar Shaddaa?”

Han blinked. “Well, I …”

“You were scrounging for work because Jabba’s soured on you. He’s caught up in stuff that’s bigger than he is, too. Clan politics, Imperial politics, whatever. I’m where I am—living on the fringes—because a Black Sun Vigo effectively wiped out my family. And he did that, in part, because the Empire wiped out
his
family. Javul’s where she is because the Empire is running all our lives, whether we like it or not. We have to watch who we associate with, where we go, what we say, and who we say it to. And now I just found out that Eaden’s had
his
life jerked around by the same forces. So maybe I am, y’know, a little impressed with the woman, but mostly I think I just want to feel like I’m not playing dead. Like I’m not just keeping my head down and whistling in the dark and pretending that everything’s stellar when it’s
not
. Javul has found a way to push—no, to
fight
back. I think that’s worth my time and effort.”

Han was nodding, almost as if he’d been listening. “Yeah, but is it worth your life? ’Cause, with all due respect, that’s exactly what your Rebel girlfriend is asking you to put on the line.”

Dash considered that. “Yeah. I think maybe it is.”

Han snorted. “C’mon … whatever this thing is that Javul might be transporting—how can it possibly make
a difference? So they get information or something. Big deal. So what’s new?”

“Cascade effect,” said Dash. “Someone does something. And that proves to someone else that something can be done. So
they
do something and that proves to a few more people that something can be done, and
they
do something. Up until now, the Empire has had the cascade effect on their side: they take out the Jedi, and Eaden’s order gets cascaded out of existence; they take out Xizor’s family and that cascades into
my
family. Maybe if we help Javul, we can turn the cascade the other way.”