Star Wars: Shadow Games (29 page)

“No, no. As part of a business deal. As it happens, Captain Solo was transporting some goods for a couple of your regulars here—Captain Kyobuk and her buddy, Sars Tarquhar.”

“Ah, I see.”

Dash sincerely hoped the commander did
not
see. “Yeah. So we’re just gonna take the
Falcon
on over to their storage facility and unload the goods.”

D’Vox seemed not to care, and Dash didn’t think it was an act. Even if the commander had been warned by
the Imperials to keep an eye on them or stop them from doing whatever it was they were doing, he’d surely try to cut a deal—demanding something from them in order to be persuaded to look the other way. That he hadn’t was a good sign.

As the huge modules rotated into position for the performance, the
Millennium Falcon
left her dock at the main hub module and moved down to Module 4B, compartment 19. The storage unit had already been opened by Captain Kyobuk, who met them at the air lock.

They made a big deal out of unloading the rather large container of goods Han had sold the Wookiee merchant. Han and Leebo moved it to the front of the bay, toward the inner portal. Dash was relieved in the extreme when the good captain insisted that she and her associate open the crate then and there to inspect the contents. With the Wookiee and the Advozse focused entirely on Han’s floor show and demo, Dash, Eaden, and Leebo set about locating their target container.

They found it in a recess near the external hatch, easily accessible and completely inoffensive in appearance. It was as tall as Dash and twice as wide and deep—large enough, he thought, to hold two people. Three, if they were Sullustan. As they moved it quietly onto the ship, Dash wondered if the “cargo” was live.

“Blasted thing’s heavy,” Dash complained as they settled it into one of the secret compartments beneath the
Falcon
’s decking. “What’s it got in it?”

“You’re asking me?” Leebo replied. “Do I have X-ray vision now? Huh. I should pay more attention. When did you install that mod?”

“It was a rhetorical question. You two get this buttoned up. I’m going to check on Han’s progress.”

Han was just bumping foreheads with Sars Tarquhar—the traditional seal of a gentleman’s agreement among the Advozse—when Dash emerged from the ship. Tarquhar,
evidently well pleased with their purchase, gave Han a particularly enthusiastic head-butt.

Deal done, Han accompanied Dash back onto the
Falcon
, checking the credit balance on his account card. His forehead, Dash noted, was red and showing the beginnings of a bruise. Dash grinned. Han, being human, didn’t possess the Advozse sagittal horn. He was going to have one heck of a headache.

They waited in the ship, watching the conclusion of the dance of the titans as the control module and her three ponderous sister units were locked safely together. Then they returned to their original docking port beneath Module 1A.

Dash breathed a sigh of relief. Another obstacle out of the way. He wondered if he could convince Javul to forget the performance and leave now. He wondered if they were under surveillance. He wondered if D’Vox knew the Empire wanted them. He wondered a huge amount of things, none of them particularly happy. He finally decided to stop wondering and help Mel with the setup.

The newly linked tank modules formed a square. Each had its tanks rotated toward the outside of the formation to allow people in the towers a clear view of the performance area. Additional platforms had been run out within the massive new cluster’s hollow core to provide outdoor space for those who wanted an unobstructed view. In the towers, galleries of seats had been set up in conference rooms, recreational facilities, and restaurants, while enterprising entrepreneurs whose private quarters had the luxury of windows converted these into intimate viewing salons. And, of course, there was a holocom feed that would pipe the entertainment to inner rooms.

Mel and Nik oversaw the positioning of holo-emitters and flying set pieces while Oto and his team of droids
carried out their placement and calibration. Hoping to help speed things up, Dash brought Leebo over to assist.

“You are rated to handle these calibrations?” the Otoga unit asked Leebo blandly.

“Hey, you tin pot,” Leebo responded, “I can calibrate anything you can give me the specs for.”

Oto considered the statement. “You are also a tin pot, LE-BO2D9.”

Leebo made a queer rattling sound, prompting Dash to step in. “Just give him the specs for the next emitter, Oto. You can fix it if he messes it up.”

“Messes it up?” repeated Leebo. “Highly unlikely.”

The Otoga 222 reached out a digit to Leebo’s dataport. There was a split second of complete silence from both droids, then Oto said, “Those are the specs for the next two emitters. See if you can set them properly.”

As if respecting Dash’s sense of diplomacy, Leebo didn’t respond with some scathing commentary on the other droid’s genesis. Instead, he just cocked his head curiously and headed for the next emitter in the array.

Dash shook his head and went about his own business—walking the galleries looking for possible dangers. He saw nothing. This did not, however, set his mind at ease.

“You still get pre-show jitters?” Dash asked Javul later that evening as she awaited her cue to go “onstage.”

“Yeah. Now more than ever.”

They stood in a comfortable lounge that D’Vox had set aside as a backstage area. Here gathered the needful members of the stage crew—Dara Farlion and her gofers, the props people, Tereez Dza’lar and her team of under-costumers. They had everything laid out or hung in order of use to either side of the wide doorway that opened onto the private catwalk
-cum
-balcony just outside the lounge where Mel had set up his control console. From there, he could monitor the myriad pieces of the
physical apparatus, from the holo-emitters to the piece scenery.

The centerpiece of that was a gleaming spiral staircase of transparisteel, six stories tall, that was suspended in the center of the quad formed by the tank modules. It was a fantastic thing—gleaming, lacy, and transparent—that looked as if it were made of water and ice crystals. From it, Javul would perform the bulk of her concert—acting, singing, dancing … and flying.

Dash stared at it now and shook his head. “Yeah, that thing alone would give me the vapors.”

“You mean the Helix? That doesn’t make me nervous in the least. It’s … you know. The other thing.”

“The item?”

“Yeah, that. Every second between now and the end of the tour, every kilometer between here and the end of the line—seems an eternity. A forever road.”

Dash sincerely wished she hadn’t said
end of the line
.

“Too late to pack it in and—?”

“Yeah. Way too late.” She turned to look at him, her eyes—outfitted with dazzling lenses that contained a set of state-of-the-art miniaturized holo-emitters—seemed to turn like wheels. “We have to do this thing, Dash. Just like always. Just like normal. I go on, I dance and sing and act out stories, then we pack up and on we go.”

Except that only the
Deep Core
would go to the next venue on Bacrana. The
Millennium Falcon
would go directly to Alderaan. He prayed the Imperials—if they were watching closely—would follow the
Deep Core
. But if there were Imperial agents watching their every move, he still hadn’t seen them. Leebo had found no record of them in the station communications logs—not even in D’Vox’s and Rishyk’s private ones. Which meant exactly nothing, Dash supposed, except that they weren’t in on any Imperial plotting.

Perhaps it was because of all this nonstalking by the
Empire that Dash had made sure Han and the
Falcon
were ready to take off at a moment’s notice. The
Falcon
sat with her docking field on loose-lock, meaning that her magnetic clamps were dialed down. The soft dock would break instantaneously if Han made a run for it. It was an old smuggler’s trick.

At which point they’d learn whether the station had been upgraded with tractor beams …

“Time,” said Spike, arriving behind Dash and Javul and making Dash jump.

Javul turned her most brilliant smile on him. “Wish me smooth spacing.”

He tried to exorcise the bad feeling in his gut, couldn’t, gave up and kissed her instead. “Smooth spacing.”

He watched her go out onto the balcony from which she’d sail to the crystalline Helix in full view of the thousands who had gathered in galleries and on catwalks to watch her perform. He watched as she stood, momentarily silhouetted against the play of colorful lights sweeping up and down the four looming towers.

When he’d kissed her, he’d felt her fear. It trembled on her lips, quivered in her breathing. It wasn’t his manly charms that had made her shake, he knew. Tonight, Javul Charn had more than stage fright.

Dash took a deep breath and looked around for Eaden. The Nautolan was standing at Mel’s shoulder, watching him begin the start-up sequence for the artificial intelligence that ran the performance. Dash moved to stand next to them as Javul stepped off the balcony seemingly into midair, her antigrav harness activating.

In that moment that her feet went from solid metal to thin air, Dash’s gut twisted spasmodically, then relaxed. The harness was good. The harness was fine … for now.

He let out a sigh as she began her opening song, a whimsically wistful number about a lonely moisture
farmer. Her bright, clear soprano seemed to come from everywhere at once: “
I’ve got no real life. I live on Tatooine
 …”

The crowd packed onto the external catwalks and balconies recognized the popular song and roared their approval.

Dash put a hand over his stomach, reflecting that of all the experiences he’d had in his life, this was the first one that had made him wonder if he was developing an ulcer. He heard Mel chuckle and looked over to see that the other man was grinning at him wryly. “You, too, huh?” he said, patting his own stomach.

“I guess she just has that effect on everybody.”

“Only everybody who cares about her. So thanks,” Mel added, “for caring about her.”

Dash shrugged. “All in a day’s work. And now, if I’m going to be useful to the diva, Eaden and I had better get out there and keep our eye on things. D’you need Leebo for anything? If not, I’ll put him to work, too.”

“Hey, he’s your droid. You can have him. As a matter of fact, you can have Oto as well. That way you can have a man—or a droid—on each module.”

“We could use more,” Dash observed.

“Sorry, we don’t have more … at least not that we can trust.”

Amid the swirl of light and sound, Dash and Eaden collected the two droids and made their way out through the force shield Rishyk had grumblingly erected around the holostar’s backstage area at D’Vox’s order. Once beyond the barrier, Dash made sure his team had the passcode Rishyk had provided (with equal reluctance) that granted them access to the restricted security walkways running along the fronts of the public platforms. Thus prepared, they ascended via grav-lift to the topmost platform and then split up.

“I’ll take the primary module,” Dash decided. “Eaden, take 2A; Leebo 5C; Oto 3C. We’ll each move from the highest level to the lowest then back up again. Got it?”

“Affirmative,” said Oto.

“Got it, boss,” said Leebo. “I keep an eye out for baleful Anomids. How hard can that be?”

Dash held Eaden back until the two droids had headed off for their respective assignments. “So, is this a good hair day or a bad hair day?” he asked, hoping the Nautolan would tell him he was comfortable in this festival atmosphere. Alas, it was not to be.

“I am not at my best with so many sentients focusing so much attention in such a small area.”

“So your … Force thingamagummie is broken, then.”

“It is not a ‘Force thingamagummie,’ Dash. It is a sensitivity to the Force and to other individual energies—nothing more, nothing less. It is not broken. It is, however, a bit overwhelmed. This makes it more difficult to sort through the input.”

“Well, happy sorting, then. Let me know if you feel any murderous rages from anybody except Rishyk, okay?”

“I doubt that the individuals we’ll be watching are likely to have murderous rages. They’re more the cold and implacable type.”

Dash looked at his friend sharply. Had he just made an offhand comment? The Nautolan’s expression had not changed. It was as impenetrable as always.

“Great, then keep a tentacle out for cold and implacable as well.”

“I shall.” Eaden inclined his head then moved gracefully away down the catwalk to his assigned module.

Dash’s promenade along the audience platforms was slow and methodical. The viewing galleries were about ten meters wide, allowing for quite a few viewers to gather. He wended his way along the foremost edge, using
the narrow security catwalk just below the main platform only to maneuver around knots of tightly clustered celebrants. The security walk allowed access to its semi-enclosed space at regular intervals, fortunately. Unfortunately, when he was forced to use it, someone would inevitably try to squeeze in after him. An apologetic smile and a flash of the ID Javul had furnished him, which proclaimed him officially her security chief, was enough to avoid argument.

He covered the top level and paused to signal Eaden before descending to the next. The Nautolan was fairly easy to spot among Javul’s mesmerized audience. For one thing, he was moving purposefully through the crowd. For another, his height and the distinctive shape of his pale head made him a standout. He reached the lift pad at the extreme end of the platform and paused to make eye contact with Dash across the many meters of space between them.

Eaden gave a slight shake of his head. Dash did likewise. Then he descended to the next level, pulling out his comlink as he went. He checked in with Leebo and Oto, got negative reports from both of them, and started across the broad gallery. He glanced out at the “stage” area as he went. A gigantic Javul looked back at him from the center of the module, singing a mournful song about lost love. The crowd had quieted, hanging on every note. This had distinct benefits for Dash and company as they wended their way through the swarm of sentients.