[Republic Commando] - 02(60)

Qibbu’s third eyelid flicked across his reptilian eye like a windscreen wiper. “Your pretty shiny boys die anyway, sooner or later.”

That was it. Skirata jerked the Hutt’s head down and brought his knee up in Qibbu’s face as hard as he could with a wet thwack. He didn’t need this thing to remind him of that and mock their sacrifice. Qibbu spluttered ammonia-scented saliva, moaning.

“Are we going to get good service at your establishment?” Skirata said, ignoring the pain in his kneecap. “Or would you prefer to pay me half a million creds plus nine years’ interest right now?”

“Tagwa, lorda.”

“That’s more like it.” He loosened his choke hold a little. “A bit of customer focus is good for business.”

Qibbu balked visibly. “I lose profit.”

“You’ll lose a lot more than that if you mess around with me. I’ve always wanted to see if Hutts really can regenerate body parts.” Skirata tightened the chain again. “Ke nu jurIcadir sha Mando ‘ade .”

Don’t mess with Mandalorians. It wasn’t bad advice.

Qibbu was no linguist but Skirata knew tone could convey a great deal even to an animal, and maybe even to a Hutt. He hoped the lack of circulation in Qibbu’s neck was translating for him.

“Tagwa … Sergeant,” Qibbu said, and let out a long wet gasp as Skirata released the chain.

Sev and Scorch emerged from the turbolift again and gave Skirata the thumbs-up.

“Ideal for a relaxing break, Sarge,” Scorch said. “Lovely clear views, platform to park a speeder or six, and lots of room to stretch our legs. A whole floor of rooms at the top, in fact.”

Good defensive visibility, easy access and escape, and the right layout for moving around and storing kit and ordnance. Excellent.

“If it’s good enough for my colleagues, it’ll be good enough for me,” Skirata said. “You want to take a look just to make sure, Ordo?”

Ordo shook his head, still seeming wary of the Twi’lek female. “I’ll go with the majority.”

“So, long-stay rates?” Skirata asked.

“As … discussed,” Qibbu said.

Skirata slid off the stool and wiped the chain clean of Qibbu’s slime before coiling it and putting it in his pocket again. He was concerned about the Twi’lek, though. Civilians were hardly his prime concern on this operation, but it didn’t cost anything to be courteous.

He walked over to her. She was still cowering. He squatted down almost instinctively: he saw six scared little boys waiting to be reconditioned. “I’m Kal, ma’am,” he said. “What’s your name?”

She didn’t meet his eyes. She had that way of looking off slightly to one side that he thought he’d seen too many times before. “Laseema.”

“Well, Laseema, if your boss isn’t treating you well, you let me know. And I’ll have a word with him.” He smiled as best he could. “And none of my boys will give you any problems, either, okay?”

“Okay,” she said shakily. Her lekku were moving slightly, but Skirata couldn’t understand the unspoken language they conveyed. She might just have been twitching out of fear. “Okay.”

Skirata gave her as reassuring a smile as he could manage and moved to the doors. “We’ll be back tomorrow to move some stuff in. Have the top floor ready for us, will you? Nice and clean.”

“And fresh flowers,” Scorch said.

They ambled back to the speeder and set off for Arca Barracks, settling into an automated skylane and merging into the stream of glittering taillights. Coruscant was lovely at night, just as Fi said. Skirata had never thought about it much before.

He nudged Sev. “Good operational house, then.”

“Tailor-made. It’ll take us a day to move the kit in discreet amounts, but we can access via the landing platform when it’s dark again.”

“Does our host get nervous about storing ordnance?” Ordo said.

“He’s a Hutt,” said Skirata. “He’s stored a lot worse. And what he doesn’t know won’t keep him awake at night.”

Scorch seemed impressed. “You really were a bit of a bad boy in your past, weren’t you, Sarge?”

“What d’you mean, past?” Sev said.

And they laughed. They were perfect special forces troops, very bad boys in their own right, but they had never dealt with the criminal underworld-and crime was an inevitable partner of terrorism. It was one reason why Skirata didn’t feel one scrap of misgiving about going bandit himself.

Fierfek, he’d impressed them. The Delta boys were emerging from their closed, tight-knit exclusivity and settling into the larger team. That was one problem solved.