[Legacy Of The Force] - 02(20)

Coruscant’s CSX-its domestic stock index-had taken a sudden dip since he’d last checked the markets on his inbound journey. The little red line was still edging down against the Top Million ISE index. Something must have spooked the traders: it didn’t take much. A bantha could belch and wipe billions off stock prices if the market was nervous enough.

Fett stretched out a gloved finger and touched the index that read BIOTECH. A cascade of subindices tumbled out in a table and he ignored SELECT COMPANY to choose VOLUME SHARE MOVEMENT. That brought up the ranked list of companies where most shares had been traded over any given period. He chose ONE STANDARD MONTH.

Three companies topped the list: SanTech, Arkanian Micro, and AruMed. Arkanian Micro share prices hadn’t shifted more than 10 percent, though, and they were always among the top-priced shares. It was AruMed that caught his eye; the green icon beside the name told him it was small and relatively new. But someone had bought a 25 percent block of its dirt-cheap shares in the last week.

Let’s see what looked so appealing to them, then.

Fett checked the database that fed through to his helmet’s internal display but found nothing remarkable at all about the company’s activities. AruMed had been trading for a year and specialized in genetically tailored pharmaceuticals, and no dramatic new product seemed to be on the horizon to warrant speculative share buying.

Unless this is insider trading.

Unless someone knew the company had taken on a Kaminoan scientist recently, the shares wouldn’t have been very appealing at all.

Fett noted the assistant watching him with discreet concern. He probably didn’t get too many customers with jet packs and flamethrowers in the store.

The database located AruMed’s headquarters on Roonadan. It seemed unusual for a small biotech company to be based in the Corporate Sector under the nose of the aggressively acquisitive Chiewab laboratories, so Fett recorded the details and went back to the holodisplay to browse general pharmaceutical companies. Only two more showed unusual share-dealing activity in the period since Taun We had gone on the run-and one of those was Rothana-based Con-Care, which seemed to focus on drugs for older citizens.

Like me.

Kaminoans really didn’t like being far from home. Rothana was within stone-throwing distance of Kamino in galactic terms. He made a special note to check that one out after AruMed.

“Care to invest, sir?” said the assistant.

Fett always did his share deals through his accountant, Puth, a Nimbanel who could launder and erase an audit trail almost as well as Fett himself. There was no point having an accountant who was smarter than you were, after all. But even a bounty hunter could be prone to impulse buys.

He took out a credit chip. “I’ll take fifty thousand shares in SteriPac.”

“They make battlefield dressings,” said the assistant. His fixed stare told Fett he rarely sold a hundred thousand credits’ worth of shares in one deal, and his hand folded around the chip as if he thought it would escape. “Expecting a war?”

“Always. And I’m never disappointed.”

Fett made his way to the sparsely furnished apartment he’d bought a year before that would not, for once in his life, become an asset that made a quick profit. Tanis wasn’t a fast-moving property market, but it was worth paying for the relative privacy.

So someone sent Ko Sai home a piece at a time.

His helmet sensors told him a human was walking behind him, maintaining a constant distance.

Kaminoans could easily have done a little forensics work on that and figured out where the packages came from.

It was a young woman-eighteen, maybe-with dark curly hair cut close to her head. He could see the image in the HUD of his helmet, relayed from the range finder’s rear view. And while she had a blaster holstered on one hip-who didn’t go around armed these days?-she looked neither local nor hostile. She was wearing gray body armor, basic chest and back plates like a Mandalorian, but without colors or markings.

But she’s following me. I know it.

So … if the Kaminoans knew who had grabbed Ko Sai, they had a very good reason for not going after them. And her research had never resurfaced.

Fett was troubled when he couldn’t spot motives. Everyone had a motive.

Tomorrow, he’d set off for Roonadan and give Puth a call. He needed to get his fortune in order in case he lost his race against time.

What am I going to do with it?

He always thought he’d know one day, until that one day was overtaken by bad news. Behind him, the girl quickened her pace and caught up with him, close enough now to reach out, take two quick steps, and touch him.

He turned before she could do it, and stood blocking her path, irritated. She didn’t seem startled. She stared into his visor much as Beviin had, which was unusual in itself.