She’s good, Han thought. He knew he’d betrayed his shock, but fortunately Shild wasn’t looking at him. Han hastily pulled himself back together, composing his features into a polite, neutral mask.
Shild gestured at Bria. “Master Jobekk Jonn of Nal Hutta, my …
niece … Bria.”
Only Han’s years of playing sabacc saved him. As Bria composedly held out her hand with a throaty, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Master Jonn,” Han was able to take it and bow over it with a suave smile.
“The pleasure is all mine,” he said. “Shild, you are a very lucky man, to have such a lovely … niece.”
He saw a faint wave of color brighten her cheeks at his gibe. “You look familiar, sir,” she said. “Haven’t I seen you before?” Her voice was cool and disinterested.
Han knew she was baiting him. “Perhaps on wanted posters,” Han murmured, so quietly Shild couldn’t hear.
Then bowing coldly over her hand once more, he let go of her—though all he wanted to do was grab her and bring her with him!—and bowed formally to Shild.
“Thank you for your time, Your Excellency.”
Then, turning away, Han strode resolutely from the room.
Later that same night, much later, Bria Tharen lay in her small bunk aboard the Moff’s yacht, muffling her sobs in her pillow. Every time she recalled the look in Han’s eyes, she wanted to wail aloud.
It was only too obvious that he’d thought the worst—that she was Shild’s concubine. Sobs shook her. That was what he was supposed to think, after all. That was what Sarn Shild wanted everyone to think.
In truth, the Moff’s sexual preferences did not run to human females.
Bria traveled with him as a lovely show object, to be displayed to Imperial officials, just as Shild would display any trophy.
She kept his home running smoothly, listened to him when he wanted someone to talk to, oversaw his household staff and office, and generally kept Moff Sam Shild’s life running smoothly.
But she had never shared his bed, which was the only thing that made this current assignment bearable. And now … now Han had seen her, and thought the worst. Even all the information Bria had been able to funnel to the rebel movement back on Corellia couldn’t ease the grief and shame she felt.
Her pillow was wet. Bria turned it over, and then lay there, staring into the darkness, as the Moff’s yacht streaked through hyperspace.
“Han…” she whispered brokenly. “Han …”
10
The Admiral’s Orders On the way back to Nar Shaddaa, Chewbacca flew the Hutt courier ship Quicksilver competently, but his mind was not completely on his work. The Wookiee glanced over at his partner, the human to whom he’d sworn a life debt, and his blue eyes crinkled with concern. Han was slumped in the copilot’s seat, scowling blackly at the starlined void of hyperspace.
He’d been like this for days now, ever since he’d boarded Quicksilver following his mission to the Moff’s residence on Coruscant. He rarely spoke, and when he did, all he did was complain and make sarcastic comments.
And he complained about everything—the food, the speed of the little courier ship, Chewie’s piloting, the tedium of space travel, the greed of the Hutts … any subject the Wookiee had tried to introduce, Han had had a great many negative things to say about it.
For the first time since he’d met the Corellian, Chewbacca actually wondered whether there might be circumstances under which renouncing a life debt was the honorable thing to do. More honorable, say, than murdering the person to whom one owed the life debt …
“This thing moves like a thousand-year-old Hutt,” Han grumbled. “You’d think with the size of the engines, she’d be able to make some speed .
. .
think you could get her to go a little faster if I got out and pushed?”
Chewbacca restrained himself and commented that it wouldn’t be too long now before they were back on Nar Shaddaa.
“Yeah, and it can’t be too soon for me,” Han said bitterly. He got up and paced nervously around the cramped cabin. When he turned abruptly, he whacked his head on a low stanchion and began cursing a blue streak.
When he finally began to repeat himself, Han growled, then threw himself back into the copilot’s seat. “After we return the Hutts’ little bucket of bolts to them, I guess we’ll have to head for Smuggler’s Run. If the Br—” he seemed to choke on the word, then amended, “if that blasted ship of ours will make it through the asteroid field.”
Chewbacca asked why they’d be heading for Smuggler’s Run. Wynni, he pointed out, would likely be at Smuggler’s Run, and she was the last person he wanted to see. The Wookiee wasn’t sure he could take much more of the way she was so free with her paws.