Karoly pursed her lips. “You act as if we’re enemies, Shada. We’re not.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” Shada said, studying the younger woman’s face. It had indeed been a long time since they’d worked together-almost twenty years, in fact, since Tatooine and that near fiasco with the Imperials’ Hammertong project. The memory Shada had brought away from that incident was one of Karoly as young and inexperienced and a bit prone to becoming flustered.
But the memory wasn’t the woman who now stood before her. Sometime in those twenty years Karoly had developed grace and poise, and an air of considerable competence. “How did you know I’d be coming up this side?”
“We didn’t,” Karoly said, shrugging. “The rest of the approaches to the rooftop are also being watched. But I thought I spotted you slipping around the side of the building in that layered blue dress of yours, and I guessed you might try this way.” She gestured to Shada’s elaborately coiled and plaited hair, then at her tight-fitting combat jumpsuit and climbing harness. “I must say, the dress suited that hairstyle better than the fighting gear. What are those things holding it together?”
“They’re lacquered zenji needles,” Shada told her. “Mazzic likes me to look decorative.”
“Useful camouflage for a bodyguard,” Karoly said. “Speaking of camouflage, I’d guess one of the needles must be a disguised signaler or comlink. Just drop it on the roof, all right?”
Shada grimaced. “You don’t miss a trick, do you?” she said, pulling the signaler out from its place behind her right ear and adding it to the pile of climbing hooks. “I’m so glad we’re not enemies. Who is this we’ you mentioned?”
“I have a client with me.” Karoly nodded toward the higher section of roof. “He’s over there.”
Crouched beside the skylight with a sniper’s blaster rifle? “Doing what?”
“Nothing that concerns you,” Karoly said. “As of right now, you’ve been pulled off the job.”
Shada frowned at her. “What are you talking about? I’ve been with Mazzic for over twelve years now. You can’t end that kind of relationship with the snap of a finger.”
“We can, and we are,” Karoly said. “It’s clear now that Mazzic’s group isn’t going to become the galaxy-spanning organization that the Mistryl hoped when they first planted you on him. And with Talon Karrde’s Smugglers’ Alliance all but defunct, the Eleven have decided you’re just being wasted here. It’s time for you to move on.”
“Fine,” Shada said, taking two steps back away from Karoly along the roof edge and craning her neck as if trying to see if she could catch a glimpse of Karoly’s client. “I’ll tell Mazzic tonight that I’m resigning as his bodyguard. We can leave in the morning.”
Karoly shook her head. “I’m sorry. We leave now.”
Shada looked back, leveling a hard stare at Karoly and surreptitiously gauging the distance between them. Three meters; just about right. “Why?” she demanded. “Because your new client wants to murder him?”
Even in the dim light she could see Karoly wince a little. But when the other woman spoke her voice was firm enough. “I suggest you try to remember who we are, Shada,” she said. “We’re Mistryl. We’re given orders and we follow them.”
“I’m also Mazzic’s bodyguard,” Shada said quietly. “And once upon a time the Mistryl were given honor and obeyed duty. Not just orders.”
Karoly snorted under her breath. “Honor. You have been out of touch, haven’t you?”
“Apparently so,” Shada countered. “I’ve always tried to believe that being a Mistryl put me a few steps above the garbage heap of mercenaries and assassins-for-hire. Forgive my naďveté.”
Karoly’s face darkened. “We do what’s necessary to keep our people alive,” she bit out., “If some slimy Huts wants to back-blade some other slimy smuggler, that’s none of our concern.”
“Correction: it’s none of your concern,” Shada said. “It is mine. I have a job to do, Karoly; and you can get out of my way or you can get hurt.” She reached up to her harness and locked her safety line&mdash
Karoly’s hand seemed to twitch, and suddenly there was a small blaster in it. “Freeze it,” she ordered. “Move your hands away from your body. Empty.”
Shada held her arms loosely out from her sides, fingers spread to prove she wasn’t holding or palming anything. “You’ll have to kill me to stop me,” she warned.