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Star Wars - Han Solo's Revenge Page 9
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"It's a bit public for threats of aggravated assault, isn't it, Solo?" Fiolla asked.
"You keep out of this! For all I know; you two work to-gether. "
"Bullying will do you no good, Captain," Spray plowed on insistently in his squeaky voice. "Either remittance ar-rangements must be made this very moment or I shall be forced to go to the portmaster and the Security Police: "
Han had his mouth open, uncertain whether he would try to lie or simply instruct Chewbacca to render the skip-tracer unconscious. He heard Fiolla say: "I'll pay for him."
Han's mouth stayed open as he turned on her. "Better close it," Fiolla cautioned, "before your tongue gets sun-burned. Look, this problem of mine is a lot more compli-cated than I'd thought. It will take more investigation before I'm ready to go to the Board of Directors. I need a way to get around fast, and I'm not particularly anxious to go by public transportation. And the last thing I want is to take an Authority pool ship. Solo, you ought to be eager to leave, too, before the Espos start asking about missing rental scoot-ers and several swoop riders smeared out on the landscape. If you'll chart out to me, I'll cover your debt. Besides, you want your ten thousand, don't you? Your best chance of find-ing it is to stick with me."
She turned to Spray. "How about it?"
The Tynnan nervously scratched up tufts of fur on his skull, blinking and wriggling his nose back and forth in con-sternation. "Cash?" he asked at last.
"An Authority Cash Voucher," Fiolla replied. "Half now, half when we're done. They're as good as money in a vault." "Interstellar Collections Limited does prefer repayment
to repo procedures," the skip-tracer admitted. "But I'm afraid I couldn't let you out of my sight until restitution is made. "
"Just a second," Han snapped at Fiolla. "I'm not carting that little bloodsucker along anywhere. "
Spray remained unexpectedly firm. "Captain Solo, her proposal is absolutely the only alternative to having your ship attached. " ,
"There's always the famous Disappearing Ship-Tracer Trick," suggested Han darkly.
"Be civilized," Fiolla chided. "This won't take long, Solo. And if you don't help me, maybe I'll have to drag your name into my report. But if you take me to check out this shipping. agent on Ammuud, the one you mentioned, I'll forget about you completely."
Han hoped it would be mutual. He poured down half of what remained of his Flameout. It felt corrosive but didn't help much otherwise. He looked to his first mate, who was looking back, no help at all, willing to go with whatever decision Han made.
He put his chin on his fist. "Chewie, you take Bollux and paddlefoot, here, back to the ship. I'll go with our new em-ployer and pick up her assistant. Get liftoff clearance and punch up a jump to Ammuud."
Fiolla scribbled quickly on a pad of forms and pressed her thumbprint against the authorization square. She presented the voucher to Spray, whereupon Han realized that she was carrying an open expense account and that her position with the Authority must be an important one indeed.
The Wookiee had risen and moved near Spray as a general precaution, with Bollux close behind. But the Tynnan only made a polite parting bow to Fiolla. "Thank you for re-maining reasonable about this entire incident, " he said.
He started for the door. Chewbacca growled a farewell to Han, then to Fiolla. She returned it, not getting the vocal sounds right but contorting her face around into a very close approximation of the Wookiee's, even to getting both corners of her upper lip up high and baring her lower teeth along with the uppers in true Wookiee fashion. Chewbacca was startled, but yipped laughter. Then he went quickly, Bollux at his side, to catch up with the departing Spray.
"You're a pretty good mimic, " Han commented, remem-bering her imitation of the four-armed manager in the ter-minal lounge.
"I told you, I'm from Lorrd, " she reminded him, and he understood. The Lorrdians had, for many generations, been a subject race during the Kanz Disorders. Their masters had forbidden them to speak, sing, or otherwise communicate as they worked at their slave labors. The Lorrdians had evolved a complicated language of extremely subtle hand and facial movements and body signals and become masters of kinesic communication. Although it had been generations since their servitude had been ended by the Jedi Knights and the forces of the Old Republic, the Lorrdians remained among the gal-axy's very best mimes and mimics.
"So that's how you knew Chewie and I were watching table 131 today?"
"I read you like a pair of message tapes; you tipped it every time someone went near the table."
And, thought Han, Fiolla's Lorrdian background gave her an added interest in ending the slavery ring. Still, it was unusual to find a Lorrdian working this far from home, and especially for the Corporate Sector Authority.
About to down the last of his. Flameout, Han pointed to the open voucher pad. "There are plenty of times when you can get "more with a blaster than with one of those, but if I had one I'd buy myself a nice little planet and retire: "
"Which is why you'll never have one," she assured him, rising and following him from the table. "This slavery busi-ness is going to be my big break; nothing's keeping me out of a Board chair. "
The Sljee waiter returned, its olfactory stalks tilting and waving when it took cognizance of the empty table. Then it noticed Han and Fiolla and approached them tentatively, the check extended before it on a metal salver.
"Ah, I believe this is your check,. humans," ventured the Sljee.
"Us?" Han, who was broke, cried indignantly. "We just arrived, and for your information we've been waiting to be seated for quite a while now. And you're trying to stick us with somebody else's check when we haven't even had a drink yet? Where's the manager?"
The Sljee was spinning around and back, tangling its ten-tacles in total consternation. Its sensory equipment was re-ally quite excellent at fine distinctions and subtle perceptions concerning other Sljee, but it found humanoid species dread-fully anonymous.
"Are you certain?" the Sljee moaned abjectly. "I'm sorry; I, I suppose I had you confused with two others." It studied the vacant table, wringing its tentacles in distress. "You didn't happen to see them leave, did you? If I'm stiffed again it will cost me my job. "
Unable to endure any more, Fiolla drew a generous hand-ful of cash from her thigh pouch and tossed it on the salver. "Solo, you're impossible."
The Sljee withdrew, showering her with its gratitude. Fiolla headed for the door.
"It's every life form for himself," opined Han Solo.
Part 6
FIOLLA'S hotel was, predictably, the finest lodging place at the spaceport, the Imperial. Han tried his best not to look uncouth and out of place as he followed her through a lobby of soaring gem-set columns, vaulted ceilings, resilient plush carpeting, delicate glow-orb lighting, expensive furnishings, and lush shrubbery.
Fiolla, on the other hand, was a picture of cool, noncha-lant poise, aristocratic even in coveralls. She led the way to the lift shaft and punched for the seventieth level.
Her suite was luxurious without being overdone. Han sus-pected that, though Fiolla could have afforded something far showier, she would have deemed it vulgar.
But the second she palmed her door open, he knew some-thing was wrong. Things were in disorder. Conform-lounge furniture had been pushed and shoved out of place, suspen-sion cushions and floater pads ripped or overturned. Storage panels were hanging open and the data plaques and tapes with which Fiolla worked were strewn all over the floor.
As Han pulled Fiolla out of the doorway, he suddenly remembered that he was unarmed. "Do you have another gun?" he whispered to her. She shook her head, her eyes very wide. "Then give me the special; it's better than noth-ing. "
She passed the inoperative weapon to him. He listened closely but heard no sound to indicate that whoever had ran-sacked her room was still there. He moved cautiously into the suite, listening at each doorway before he went through.
He found signs of search everywhere on his wary sweep, but s
atisfied himself that no one remained in the rooms.
He engaged her door's security mode at FULL ISOLATION. "Where's Magg's room?"
She pointed. "There's a connecting door behind that hanging; we usually take adjoining quarters. An audit can demand very long hours."
Sliding Magg's door open slowly, ear cocked for any warning, he heard none. Magg's suite was in the same state at Fiolla's.
"You sent him back here to pack?" Han asked. Fiolla nodded, gazing around the ransacked place in some shock. "Well, somebody forwarded him for you. Grab whatever you can put in your pockets; we're getting out of here right now. "
"But what about Magg? We have to report this outrage to the Espos." Her voice trailed away as she returned to her own suite. He began feeding instructions into the program-ming panel for the servant-drones that took care of domestic chores, then went back to Fiolla's suite.
"We don't go to any Espos," he called to her. "They may be part of it, isn't that what you told me? Then don't go cutting the charter short: "
He began inserting orders into the programming panel for her rooms, too. Fiolla returned, her various coverall pockets and pouches bulging and a slim day-tote slung over one shoulder. "I don't like it, but you're correct about the Es-pos," she admitted. "What are you doing?"
He turned from the panel. "Well, what do you know, a female who can travel light. What I did was issue instructions for your stuff and Magg's to be put into storage. You can come back for it later"-1 hope, he thought to himself. "Are the rooms already paid for? Good, let's jet."
He peeked into the corridor before easing out into it. Han felt as tense as a wound spring as they rode down the drop shaft, but they encountered no trouble there or in the foyer. A robo-hack dropped them at one of the spaceport's side gates, a freighthauler's entrance near the Falcon that Han's shipmaster's credentials allowed him to use.
But when they reached the side of the approach opposite from the apron on which the Falcon was parked, Han sud-denly yanked Fiolla back behind the shelter of a small orbital skiff and directed her attention to several loiterers in the area. "Recognize any of them?"
She frowned at them in the hazy sun. "Oh, you mean those goldskins? Aren't they the other swoop riders from this afternoon? But what are they doing here?"
He made an elaborate face at her. "They came to ask us to join their aerobatics club, what else?"
"What now?" Fiolla wanted to know.
Han took his macrobinoculars from their case at his side. Through them he could see Chewbacca moving around the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon, running a pre-flight check of the ship.
"At least Chewie's onboard," he told her, lowering the macros. "Spray and Bollux, too, I guess. Our friends are probably waiting for you and me to show up before they spring whatever they've got planned." Shooting their way out wouldn't work, he knew. Even if he and Fiolla could reach the Falcon under cover of her belly guns; their chances of evading the patrol network and picket ships overhead and making hyperspace would be almost nonexistent.
Fiolla held her lower lip between her teeth, pondering. "There are regular passenger connections between here and Ammuud; we could leave now, while they're watching your ship, and meet Chewbacca there. But how to let him know?"
Han. looked up and down the rows of spacecraft on their side of the approach. ".There's what we need," he said and, taking her head, led her back through several rows of grounded vessels.
They came to the one Han had spotted, a large cargo lifter connected to a refueler, its outer access panels open. Han crawled up through an access panel and twenty seconds later threw open the small cockpit hatch.
"Nobody home," he told her as he gave her a hand up. Together they squeezed into the cramped cockpit. Han trained the macrobinoculars on his first mate across the way, and when the Wookiee chanced to look in his general direction, flashed the cargo lifter's running lights. Chewbacca took no notice.
It took four more tries to get the Wookiee's attention. Han saw his first mate's long, shaggy arm go to the console and the Falcon's running lights blinked twice in acknowledg-ment.
Fiolla kept an eye on those individuals watching the Falcon to ensure that they hadn't noticed what was going on. In so doing she spotted at least four more idlers mounting an in-conspicuous guard on the freighter. Chewbacca pretended to be running a warmup while Han sent him a series of longs and shorts explaining their predicament and what the revised plan was. Throughout the process, Han was very aware of Fiolla. pressed up against him in the confining cockpit; her perfume, he found, had a tendency to distract him.
When Han was finished, the Falcon's lights blinked twice again. As he helped Fiolla down from the cargo lifter's cock-pit hatch, a tech came up. "What were you people doing up there?"
Fiolla turned a scathing, imperious glare on the tech. "Is it now required that Port Safety overseers answer to ground crew? Well? Who's your supervisor?"
The tech murmured something apologetic, shuffling her feet and saying that she'd only been asking. Fiolla gave her one more haughty glare and departed with Han at her elbow. "And now we book passage out?" she asked once they had passed out of the tech's earshot.
"Yeah, I'll teach you all about getting offworld under a phony name. Chewie's going to stay put till we're clear, then lift off. They won't be expecting him to leave without us, so he shouldn't have any trouble. We will meet him on Ammuud. "
"We're in luck," Fiolla said as she and Han stood study-ing the soaring bolos that listed departures in the main pas-senger terminal. "There's a ship that goes straight to Ammuud, leaving this evening."
Han shook his head. "No, there's the one we want, de-parture 714, the shuttle. "
Her brow furrowed. "But it's not even leaving this solar system: "
"Which is why no one will be covering it," he countered. "They're likely to have watchers on the through-ships. We can change ships and book passage for Ammuud at the first stop, it says in the index. Besides, the shuttle's leaving now, which appeals to me a whole lot more. We'll have to hurry."
They tried not to appear too anxious as they bought tickets and barely made it to the departure gate in time. Since the ship was only an inter-system shuttle, it offered no sleeping accommodations beyond big, comfortable acceleration chairs. Han buckled himself in and let his chair back, sighing and preparing to drop off to sleep.
Fiolla had grabbed the window seat with no objections from Han. "Why did you make me pay for the tickets in cash? "
He opened one eye and studied her. "You want to go around passing out Authority cash vouchers from an open expense account? Good, go ahead; you might as well hang a sign around you neck: AUTHORITY EXEC-WON'T SOME-BODY PLEASE SHOOT ME?"
Her voice suddenly held a tremor. "Do, do you think that's what's happened to Magg?"
He shut his eye again, lips tightening. "Absolutely not; they'll hang on to him as a bargaining piece. All I meant was that we don't want to leave a trail. Don't pay any attention to me; sometimes I talk too much."
He could hear attempted cheer in her tone. "Or you don't talk enough, Solo. I haven't decided which. " She settled herself to watch their liftoff. Han, who had seen more of them than he'd ever be able to count, was asleep before they left the troposphere.
At their destination, Roonadan, fifth planet out from the same sun that warmed Bonadan, they discovered they had missed their starship connection. The shuttle had been slightly delayed en route by injector problems, but of course starships on interstellar jump schedules are never held for mere interplanetary traffic. They run on precise timetables for which hyperspace transitions are meticulously calculated in advance by both onboard and ground-based computers. Straying from the strict timing of the jump schedules was something the passenger lines hated to do.
"But they don't mind leaving people stranded on some rock," fumed Han, who had been known to calculate a hy-perspace jump with one hand while dodging the law with a hold full of Kessel spice with the other.
"Stop compl
aining. There's nothing we can do about it," Fiolla reasoned. "There's another ship that can get us to Ammuud, see? Departure 332. "
He checked. the holo listings. "Are you crazy? That's an M-class ship, probably a tour. Look at that, they're going to stop at two, no, three other planets. And they're not exactly going to be burning up hyperspace either. "
"It's the quickest way to Ammuud, " Fiolla said sensibly. "Or would you rather go back and try to make peace with the people who were chasing us all over Bonadan? Or wait for them to trace us here?"
Han was painfully aware that Chewbacca and the Millen-nium Falcon would be waiting on Ammuud. "Uh, I don't suppose you have enough cash to charter a ship of our own without using a voucher?"