Star Wars: Shadow Games (39 page)

“I did not,” Leebo objected. “And I’ll thank you to stop saying that I did. Last thing I want is to get a reputation as a rogue droid. I simply missed my target. It was a glitch in my software, which I have fixed. I was merely trying to disable him or slow him down so you could deal with him.”

“There, you see? Even Leebo says he didn’t do it,” argued Han. “He can’t spend the bounty anyway. He’s just a machine.”

Leebo’s head swiveled toward Dash. “See what I mean?”

“Oh, can it, tin pot,” growled Han. “Look, Dash, d’you feel a fifty-fifty split is unfair?”

Dash shook his head. They’d had this argument all the way back from Alderaan. Dash maintained that since he’d nearly been killed by the assassin three times and his droid had “neutralized” him he might be entitled to 60 percent. Han argued that since
he
had rescued Dash from the first attempted assassination and helped Javul Charn complete her mission
and
the kill had taken place aboard the
Millennium Falcon
, he’d easily earned a full half—if not more. Dash had agreed to the fifty-fifty split mostly because he was tired of listening to Han go on about it.

“It’s fine. Really. I’ve got enough to bail
Outrider
out
of Kerlew’s dock. In fact, I think Leebo and I will just drop over there right now and pay him off.”

“You sure? I was gonna suggest we pop in to Chalmun’s for a glass of ale. My treat. Supposed to meet Chewie there today. I hope he’s got something lined up—that bounty money’ll just about cover most of my existing debts.”

They’d reached the turning at Kerner Plaza from which they could see the façade of the cantina. Dash gazed up the street. “Tempting, but no. I really want to get back to
Outrider
. Been away too long. I miss her. And besides,” he added frowning, “there’s too many stormtroopers around today. Makes me nervous.”

There were indeed a number of the white-armored soldiers roaming about, some congregated right in front of Chalmun’s.

Han shrugged. “Have it your way. See you later, then?”

“Maybe. Say hello to Chewie for me.”

“Will do.” Han held out his hand, and the two men clasped forearms in a gesture of friendly solidarity.

“It wasn’t a bad adventure,” Han said. “Lucrative, anyway. Sorry about your girlfriend turning out to be a Rebel and all that. I know … that’s gotta sting.”

Dash met Han’s eyes. They were uncharacteristically solemn. “Yeah, well. I’ll get over it. Smooth spacing.”

“Same to you.” Han turned on his heel and whistled as he strode toward Chalmun’s.

Dash and Leebo started across the plaza, Dash noticing once again, somewhat uneasily, the large numbers of stormtroopers. They continued on to Spacers’ Row and the docking facility. Dash was relieved to note that his passcode still activated the security lock on the street access for Docking Bay 92. That meant Javul had been as good as her word and had paid all the repair and docking fees. Otherwise, Kerlew would have most likely changed the code.

“It’ll be real good to get back aboard the old girl,” he told Leebo as they entered the bay. “I missed having my own command.”

The lights came on as the motion sensors picked up their presence and Dash stared blankly at what they revealed—an empty bay. The
Outrider
was gone.

“Huh,” said Leebo. “Looks like you’ll have to miss it a bit longer.”

“I
COMPLETED THE REPAIRS ABOUT FIVE DAYS AFTER
you and Han lifted off,” Kerlew told Dash as they sat in his preternaturally neat office-cum-workshop. “Would’ve been done a day earlier but we had to recable the auxiliary power bus to the port hyperdrive.”

Dash sat forward in his formchair. “Ker, where’s my ship?”

“I’m getting to that. About ten days later, I got a message from Charn’s road manager telling me they were going to need to move the ship for security reasons. About a week ago, a pilot and crew came and paid off all the repairs and docking fees and added a fat bonus to lie to anyone other than you who asked after her whereabouts. They took her.”

Dash felt a chill glide down his spine. “
Did
anyone else ask after her whereabouts?”

Kerlew nodded, looking grimmer than Dash had ever seen him. “Imperials. An Imperial colonel and a six-pack of stormtroopers. Dash, what the hell were you
doing
?”

“He was saving the galaxy,” said Leebo drily.

Dash glared at him. “I was guarding a celebrity with stalker problems. They just turned out to be bigger problems than I was led to believe.”

“Imperial stalkers?” Ker shook his head. “That’s pretty big.”

“You have no idea.” Dash tried to relax, to lean back
in his chair and look unflustered. “Okay. So, where did they take her?”

“I don’t know. They didn’t say. They only left this.”
This
was a data wafer, which Kerlew extracted from his vest pocket and handed over to Dash. “It’s passcoded,” he added.

Dash glanced up from the wafer. “What’s the code?”

“Two ships. They said you’d understand.”

He didn’t understand at first, but it came to him pretty quickly. So after they’d checked their credit balance and gotten a comfortable room in a hotel somewhat less upscale than the Dowager Queen, he slid the data wafer into the computer terminal in their room and entered the phrase
Nova’s Heart Deep Core
. That didn’t work. Frustrated, he tried a few more permutations on the theme and finally cracked the lock with
Nova’s Deep Core Heart
.

The message was simple. It was an address. In Tatooine’s planetary capital, Bestine. And another passcode. The passcode was followed by a phrase of three words:
Buy new clothes
.

Dash was puzzled. Why in the world would Javul send him to the seat of Imperial power on Tatooine? He knew a moment of apprehension that maybe, just maybe, she was setting him up. Getting rid of him by sending him where he’d be arrested.

But no, that made no sense. What made sense was that she was leading him precisely where no one would look for him. He could only hope that the
Outrider
was at the end of this wild chase.

“Your girlfriend has a quirky sense of humor,” Leebo told him, sounding enough like Han to be irritating.

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Dash said testily.

“You only wish she was, I guess … yeah, yeah, I know: shut up, tin man.”

Dash did as Javul suggested. He bought new clothes—nice clothes, clothes that made him look more like a successful merchant than a scruffy smuggler. He shaved. He bought a high-end travel bag to keep his new and old clothes in and even made sure Leebo was transformed into a well-oiled, shiny droid.

They took the regular shuttle to Bestine first thing in the morning, debarking at the central terminus and stepping out into the gleaming streets of the capital city. Bestine was the most cosmopolitan and largest settlement on Tatooine, a city of sculpted, graceful stone buildings the same color as the desert and ruddy mountains that ringed it.

They took a speeder cab to the address they’d been given. The route took them past the capitol building, a beautiful, domed structure—the tallest in Bestine. It was now guarded by Imperial stormtroopers, who looked incongruously out of place there. Their white body armor was blinding in the light of Tatooine’s two suns.

The address turned out to be an inn. The data wafer directed them to the “Bright Sun” suite, and the second passcode admitted them to a suite of rooms that was, without any exaggeration, the most luxurious residence Dash had been in since he was a boy. He hadn’t even imagined a place like this existed on Tatooine, but of course, it must. The wealthy, the celebrated, and the diplomatically important must be lodged somewhere. He was none of those things, and felt conspicuous because of it. But oddly, none of the staff or residents of the inn seemed to find him of the least interest. He was just one more well-heeled resident.

In the suite’s opulent study was a HoloNet terminal to which Dash went immediately upon their arrival. Behind him in the living room, Leebo uttered a metallic sigh and dropped the travel bag. His heart rate rising, Dash
activated the terminal and saw that there was a message on it.

“Play message,” he told it.

“Voice recognition necessary,” said the terminal in a prissy female voice. “Please repeat this phrase:
Bantha flop.
”

“What?”

“Inappropriate response. Please repeat:
Bantha flop.
”

“
Bantha flop.
” Leebo was right—his girlfriend did have a quirky sense of humor.

And of course, it was Javul. She shimmered into existence, looking achingly lovely and equally unattainable. She was dressed in traditional Alderaanian style—a floor-length gown of deep blue with a sash of woven gold and silver that matched her hair, which was done up in elaborate braids. He thought her smile was wistful. Or maybe he only hoped it was.

“My cousin got the present you sent,” she said brightly. “It was everything she hoped for. We can’t thank you enough—no, really—we can’t. I hope someday I get to thank you in person. But in the meantime, I’ve arranged a little surprise for you. A token of my appreciation and affection. It’s in slip 4134A at the Bestine Port Authority. You can pick it up whenever you like.”

He sagged back into the chair, relief flooding him. The
Outrider
was safe. Safe and repaired and waiting for him a stone’s throw away. He took a deep breath and let it out. Just for the moment, then, he did belong here. He gazed up into Javul’s holographic face.

As if she were reading his mind across time and space, she said: “I hope you’ll stay and enjoy the other part of my gift awhile. At least until things calm down a bit in the outside world. You deserve it. I’ve made sure both your room and board—not to mention bar tab—are open-ended.” She hesitated, and now there was no doubt about
the wistfulness in her eyes and her smile. “I wish I could see you again. It’s not fair, you know, because you can see me anytime you want.”

That much was true, Dash reflected as he reached out his hand to freeze the image. She gazed down at him through those amazing silver eyes, smiling. He could see Javul Charn just about anytime he wanted merely by firing up the HoloNet and watching one of her shows.

He just wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. But it was definitely a true thing.

He reached out again and unfroze the image. An instant after he did so, the holo changed to a wider angle, showing two women side by side. One was Javul—the other was the dark-haired beauty she’d been with back on Alderaan. This time he recognized her. He blinked in astonishment.

Princess Leia Organa?

Javul’s
cousin
?

Couldn’t be …

“Well,” he heard Leebo murmur from behind him, “she
did
say she had friends in high places …”

Dash didn’t respond. He was thinking about what it must be like to have climbed up from rags to not just riches, but royalty … to be able to indulge a friend in one of the classiest hotels in this section of the Rim for an indefinite time … to be able to do all that and yet be willing to sacrifice it all—to risk political prison and very possibly execution—to attempt to free a galaxy.

Javul Charn was quite a woman.

“So,” Leebo said, “y’gonna enlist after all, boss?”

Dash was quiet for some time. Then he grinned and shook his head. “Tell you what,” he said. “When Han Solo joins the revolution—
that’s
when I’ll join.”

“From what I’ve seen of Han Solo,” Leebo said, “and based upon what I hope is an unbiased and unsentimental
view of sentient behavior, I think you’re pretty safe, then. Because Solo would have to be frozen in carbonite before he’d hold still for that.”

“Exactly,” Dash said. “No worries, then.” He stood, stretched, and looked about. “Didn’t I see a carafe of Corellian brandy somewhere around here?”

You saw the movies. You watched the cartoon series, or maybe played some of the video games. But did you know …

In
The Empire Strikes Back
, Princess Leia Organa said to Han Solo, “I love you.” Han said, “I know.” But did you know that they actually got married? And had three Jedi children: the twins, Jacen and Jaina, and a younger son, Anakin?

Luke Skywalker was trained as a Jedi by Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda. But did you know that, years later, he went on to revive the Jedi Order and its commitment to defending the galaxy from evil and injustice?

Obi-Wan said to Luke, “For over a thousand generations, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic. Before the dark times. Before the Empire.” Did you know that over those millennia, legendary Jedi and infamous Sith Lords were adding their names to the annals of Republic history?

Yoda explained that the dreaded Sith tend to come in twos: “Always two, there are. No more, no less. A Master, and an apprentice.” But did you know that the Sith didn’t always exist in pairs? That at one time in the ancient Republic there were as many Sith as Jedi, until a Sith Lord named Darth Bane was the lone survivor of a great Sith war and created the “Rule of Two”?

All this and much, much more is brought to life in the many novels and comics of the
Star Wars
expanded universe. You’ve seen the movies and watched the cartoon. Now venture out into the wider worlds of
Star Wars
!