[Dark Nest] - 3(25)

“You’re sure?” Leia asked. “Even about how they-“

“We heard!” Grees said. He turned toward the same corridor from which Emala’s son Krafte had emerged. On cue, a small female with silky black fur appeared. “Now we really are very busy. Seneki will see you out.”

“That’s all the time you have for your friends?” Han turned toward the black female and shooed her back toward the corridor. “I’m hurt!”

Seneki froze halfway into the salon and looked to

Emala

for instruction.

“Time is money,” Emala said, waving Seneki forward. “You understand.”

“Not really,” Leia said. She held her hand out to Seneki-presumably Emala’s daughter-and used the Force to hold her back, drawing a gasp of surprise from the young Squib. “But I’m beginning to think we really should talk about your employees. You could take a lesson from them in politeness.”

The three Squibs sighed and looked at each other, then Emala shook her head and said, “You know how valuable our time is, and our schedule is very tight today. You’ll just have to buy another-“

“Maybe we can make it worth your while,” Leia interrupted.

“I doubt that,” Sligh said. “If you’ll just leave-“

“We’re not leaving,” Han growled. He turned back to Leia. “You were saying, Syrule?”

Leia smiled and propped her hand on her hip. “Well, I’m sure the Colony wouldn’t want our magcannon to end up in the hands of the Chiss or the Galactic Alliance.”

Lizil clacked its mandibles in a very definite “No!”

“Then maybe we should sell it to our old friends,” Leia said. “I’m sure they could find a safe buyer for it-and that way, we would be free to run a load of cargo to Tenupe.”

“Tenupe is in a war zone,” Sligh said. “The Colony only allows insect crews to run supplies into war zones.”

“So talk to them for us,” Han said. “It looks like you’ve got plenty of pull around here.”

“Ruruuruur bub?” the Killik asked.

“Lizil wants to know why you’re so interested in Tenupe,” Emala translated.

“We’re not,” Han answered. “It’s the StealthXs we want to see.”

The Squibs, who had almost certainly figured out that Han and Leia wanted to see Jaina and Zekk, rolled their eyes.

But Lizil asked, “Bub?”

“We have a client who could benefit from the technology,” Leia answered. She smiled conspiratorially. “And I’m sure it would only help the Colony’s war effort if the Galactic Alliance suddenly had to divert even more resources to chasing pirates in stealth ships.”

Lizil’s antennae tipped forward in interest; then the insect turned to Grees. “Uubbuu ruub buur?”

Grees sighed, then said, “Sure, we’ll vouch for ‘em.” His sagging red eyes glared blaster bolts at Leia. “And if they disappoint you, we’ll make sure they take their secrets to the grave with them.”





SEVEN


Luke usually sensed when the outer door to his office suite in the Jedi Temple was about to open. Today, however, he was so engrossed in Ghent’s work that he did not realize he had a visitor until someone stopped at the entrance to the inner office and politely cleared his throat.

The micrograbber in Ghent’s hand jerked ever so slightly, and a tiny tick sounded somewhere deep inside R2-D2’s casing. The slicer uttered a colorful smuggler’s oath-something about Twi’lek Hutt-slime wrestlers, which he had no doubt learned during his stint in Talon Karrde’s smuggling syndicate. Then he slowly, steadily backed the micrograbber out of R2-D2’s deep-reserve data compartment.

“That didn’t sound good,” Luke said. Without turning around, he motioned whoever was at the door to wait there. “How bad is it?”

Ghent turned his tattooed face toward Luke, his pale eyes appearing huge and bug-like through his magnispecs. With his unkempt blue hair and tattered jumpsuit, the scrawny man looked more like a jolt-head from the underbelly of Talos City than the Alliance’s best slicer.

“How bad is what?”

“Whatever it is you’re swearing about,” Mara said. She was kneeling beside Ghent, holding a handful of ancient circuits they had taken from the R2 prototype Aryn Thul had given them. “It sounded like you dropped the omnigate.”

“I heard it hit inside Artoo,” Luke said helpfully.

Ghent nodded. “Me, too,” he said, as though it were an everyday occurrence.

He retrieved a penglow from his tool kit and shined it down into R2-D2’s casing, slowly playing the beam over the internal circuitry without answering the original question. Luke accepted the neglect as the price of genius and reluctantly turned toward the entrance to his office, where his nephew Jacen was waiting in his customary garb of boots, jumpsuit, and sleeveless cloak. Now that he had shaved off the beard he had grown during his five-year absence, he looked more than ever like his parents, with Leia’s big brown eyes and Han’s lopsided smirk.