The hunger Ben was feeling was graduating from mild to sharp and painful. “Maybe,” he said, “you could let me have my breakfast, and I’d get Dad to pay you back later today.” To his suggestion he added a sizable push through the Force.
The proprietor laughed. “I could. But after a year of doing that, I’d be out of business. Off with you, son.”
Ben sighed and left the table. He really was hungry now, and perhaps, he reflected, the hunger had kept him from concentrating and being able to affect the man. Or maybe Ben was just too weak because, like his father said, he hadn’t had sufficient Jedi training. Or maybe the proprietor was too strong-willed.
It didn’t matter. Ben resisted the urge to stomp his frustrations away as he left the cafe.
And now his plans needed further revision. Before reconnaissance, he needed food. And he needed to find out what had become of the special account that was supposed to be available to him for this mission.
Banking kiosks turned out to be no help. Twice he inserted his credcard in their slots and tried to access his account, but all he received was a cryptic ACCOUNT NOT FOUND screen. He tried to send a message to the establishment, but even a tiny data query would cost money if sent over a holocomm connection, and he had no money to draw on.
Well, that had to change. He had to, as his mother had put it so many times, acquire resources. And in this situation, that meant … stealing.
He hesitated over that. Stealing was wrong. Sure, everybody in his family had hijacked ships at one time or another, but those were always emergencies. Nobody stole for breakfast credits.
But this wasn’t just breakfast credits. He was on a mission, one he was proud to have been assigned, one that was important and might save the lives of Jedi and Guards … didn’t that make it an emergency?
He decided it did.
He drifted across the street to stand near the doors into the Crossroutes building. Perhaps someone would flash a credcard, Ben would see where he pocketed it, and he could follow the owner
And what? He didn’t have his mother’s skills. He couldn’t pick someone’s pocket clean without that person feeling it. He could follow his target into a lonely corridor or alley, hit him over the head … but Ben’s already upset stomach rebelled at that notion. Suddenly he was a mugger, injuring or possibly killing someone in an effort to obtain pocket credits.
He shook his head. Hitting someone over the head for breakfast credits would be a mistake, and he couldn’t afford to make a mistake right now.
The answer came to him a moment later. A public conveyance airspeeder, striped red and yellow to make it even more conspicuous than the glowdot marquee reading FOR HIRE on the hood, pulled to a landing in front of the building, and its driver hopped out to open a front-end cargo compartment and off-load luggage. The passenger exited and waited on the walkway, a small portfolio of black simulated nerf leather open in his hand. And tucked into many of the numerous little pockets of that portfolio, Ben saw, were credcards. Some were banking institution credcards, the sort that required validation from the institution to access funds, but others were stamped to indicate that they carried their own value in their memory.
Ben knew what he could do. He drifted closer.
When the driver was finished and three pieces of luggage rested on the walkway, the passenger handed him one of the institutional cards. At that moment, Ben flicked a finger and exerted himself through the Force. One of the other cards, the lesser ones, leapt free of the portfolio and fluttered to the street.
Ben edged closer and pinned the card to the ground with his mental exertion. A moment later, the driver handed the other card back to the passenger, entered the driver’s compartment, and accelerated away. The passenger pocketed his portfolio, clumsily picked up the luggage, and moved on into the Crossroutes building.
Ben moved over beside the street, knelt as if to fiddle with his boot, and picked up the card.
And that was it. He was a thief, but he’d only taken a little bit of what the man possessed and had hurt no one. He’d made the wrong as small as he possibly could.
Half an hour later, well fed on caf and kruffy potpie, which turned out to be savory fowl meat, vegetables, and gravy in a thick pastry shell, he felt ready to put his troubles behind him and get the mission under way.
A few minutes with his datapad communicating with a public data terminal gave him some of the information he needed.
Tendrando Arms leased the 212th through 215th floors. That suggested to Ben that the floor he wanted, 215, was where the most important employees had their offices. His mother had told him on numerous occasions that one way people liked to feel important was by sitting on top of their subordinates, and the practical way to do this was to have their offices on upper floors.