“Easy, Goran,” he whispered into the HUD comlink. Fierfek, I’ve never used his first name, ever. “Time for that later.”
Fett couldn’t begin to imagine the pain. He knew now that he despised the Yuuzhan Vong, not for their apparent asceticism and brutality, but for their greedy indulgence of a perversion. It was as weak in its way as drunkenness and glitterstim addiction. He also despised Nom Anor for crude theatrics designed to show him what would be in store for Mandalore if he didn’t comply.
Your threats will only motivate me more.
Nom Anor considered Fett’s price with visible slowness. “The Mandalore sector will not be touched,” he said.
Liar. You’ll swarm across the galaxy and when it suits you, you’ll come back for us. You lived aamong us for eighteen years, so one more lie iust rolls off that tongue of yours…
Fett swallowed his revulsion. “Then based on that, we have a deal.”
And I’m a liar too, because we don’t.
No, Fett was keeping his word. It mattered to him to phrase his acceptance carefully so he could thwart these monsters every step of the way and retain his sense of honor. My word is my bond, and you lied to me. Beviin reached down and picked up a fragment of the living coral that had broken off from the dead prisoner, casual as a man gathering firewood.
“Your next task is to secure a landing zone for us at Birgis,” said Nom Anor. He handed Fett a datachip, and that must have rankled: filthy technology. “Here’s the reconnaissance data we’ve just received, in a format that you can use. We could simply destroy the surface from orbit, because the planet will be reshaped and reengineered to our requirements anyway, but we wish to take the inhabitants alive to work for us.”
“When?” Fett asked.
“Five days’ time.”
“We’d better get moving, then.”
It was hard not to break into a jog down that gullet of a corridor. Beviin strode alongside him, one hand on his belt pouches as if protecting their contents. They split up in the docking bay area and went to their respective vessels, watched by silent Yuuzhan Vong warriors, a forest of grotesque thorn-trees with snakes clinging to them, the cold black future of the galaxy, and suddenly everything he detested.
Beviin powered up the Gladiator’s ion drive. Armored warriors stepped back; one stood his ground and watched, arms folded across his chest. Fett tapped Slave I’s console, and the Firespray came alive with a rising whine that settled into a steady note. The Gladiator lifted a few meters clear of the deck and hung back. Beviin was waiting for him to maneuver.
“You first,” said Fett. “We’ve got some planning to do.”
“You can’t believe they’re serious about the deal.” Beviin was loyal to his Mandalore, ever the traditional Mando’ad, but that also meant he reserved the right to tell the Mandalore to go stuff himself if he’d made a visibly suicidal choice. “Not after what we saw.”
Fett took Slave I on manual toward the irregular opening that passed tor the main hatch. “No. And neither am I, and let’s assume he knows it.”
“If he knows anything about Mandos, he has to realize we’re polar opposites to the crab-boys.” Beviin cleared the bay, the drives flaring faintly violet as he picked up speed. The Gladiator looked like a flattened oval until it climbed steeply, suddenly becoming the characteristic shape of a saber thrust through a shield. “Slaves, caste systems, crazy gods-the shabuir said you were either Yuuzhan Vong or you were dead.”
“I like my armor the way it is. Cold metal.”
Beviin sounded like he was struggling to sound disenchanted rather than consumed by loathing. “Credits don’t matter anymore. Nothing worth buying in a vong’yc galaxy anyway.”
“I know that. So we’re going to spoil their grand plan.”
No Mandalorian would have taken the Yuuzhan Vong credits if they’d known them for what they were. But Fett had done the deal, and now he had to choose: turn on them and fight, as the rest of the galaxy would, or use the precarious inside track they now occupied to do as much damage to the invaders as possible.
“What do you have in mind? It’ll take time to mobilize a whole army on Mandalore.”
“And we’ll take massive casualties if we make a move before we know exactly what we’re dealing with here. This is technology we’ve never seen before.”
“Sit and wait? You must be-“
“They fooled us. Now we fool them. We play nice and look like we’re on their side while we gather Intel until we have enough to hit them hard. We pretend to be in it for the money.”