“In power or not?”
“Does it matter? I want him dead.”
Well, that was a complication he didn’t fancy. Beviin enjoyed arresting people, and if arresting meant dead, then he was comfortable with that, too. He didn’t like subverting elected governments, though, nor as long as they hadn’t done anything to him or to Mandatorians in general. That was work for spies. He had his limits.
But his farm back on Mandalore was having a tough year. A subsistence, hand-to-mouth, zero-profit year.
“What’s he done?”
“He takes bribes.”
“No, I mean what’s he done that all the others haven’t?”
“He hasn’t delivered on his promises.” Udelen moved his hand to the opening of his jacket with slow deliberation, obviously having learned his lesson, and pulled out a datachip. He slid it across the table toward Beviin, smearing some drops of liquid that might have been condensation from a previously frosted glass. “Here’s who I’d like dealt with. I’d like him to cease functioning as a politician before next month’s elec-tions.
Bcvnn slid the chip into the port on his forearm plate, and the data fed straight through to his HUD. The display rolled. Data-numbers, letters, simple icons in one or two colors-merged easily with his field of vision, but a full-color holoimage was intensely distracting. There was a lot of derail demanding attention, and-here was the really hard bit-it was hard to look clean through a face and keep the view beyond under scrutiny when his human brain was wired to concentrate on features. He found himself staring into the eyes of a man who looked straight at him but would never see him.
“Osik …” No, he hadn’t been expecting that face at all. This was no ordinary target, no party drone doing dodgy deals in smoke-filled tapcafs. “This is their opposition leader. Tholote B’Leph? Okay, he was known for his unnatural generosity in awarding government contracts when he was in power, but killing him will start riots across the planet. Wouldn’t you prefer me to break his fingers or something.’ It usually works.”
Udelen’s grim face cracked slightly. “The aftermath is Ter Abbes’s problem.” He held out his palm for the darachip. “A hundred thousand credits. Usual deal-half in advance when you accept, half on completion, which must be a few days before the election.”
Timing like that meant it wasn’t about wasted bribes. But a hundred thousand was a lot of credits. It was enough to stop him worrying about crops and where the next bounty was coming from for the next few
It was also a lot of potential trouble, and maybe more than he could handle alone. His finely-tuned sense of self-preservation grappled with his need to
“I might need to recruit backup. How long have I got?”
“Until the end of our hosts shift,” said Udelen. “Dawn-I’ll be here until then.”
“I’ll be back before then.”
The Verd’goten celebration was still in full swing when Beviin left, and he kept an eye on the tattooed red-armored woman in his visors 360-degree sensor. She seemed to be keeping an eye on him, too.
He should have stopped by and wished her kid well. If they were still whooping it up after he’d finished talking to the Mand’alor, he’d do just that.
Yes, this job needed to be run past Boba Fett.
Nom Anor: daily report.
Nearly eighteen years; I’ve been away from my own people for too long. But we make home wherever we are, because we have no bomeworld now. I hear the Mandalorians have been wanderers, too, and that they were conquerors like us, and their god was war itself. And now-now they are not, and their worship of war itself has vanished because one of their leaders wanted things to be more civilized. They fight other nations’ wars for money, if they fight at all.
When I saw the tattoos on that females band, I thought for a moment that there might be a vestige of the true warrior left in the Mandatorians and that they might be like us in valuing their own pain and death. But no-this is vanity, dec-ration, nothing more. They have no castes, no order, no aspiration to improve the universe or save it. They care only about surviving day to day. Their culture’s borrowed, and they no longer impose it on others. They can have no faith in it, then.
What you value and respect, you must make others respect, too. But no matter. They’ll still be useful.
Nar Shaddaa: Gladiator assault ship Beroya, air speeder parking lot.
“Losing your nerve?” Fett asked.
The Mandalore, ruler of the clans, was .1 shimmering blue holoimage floating above the console of Beviin’s assault tighter, cleaning his blaster.
“It’s not my usual contract, killing an opposition politico,” Beviin said.