SEVENTEEN

Moving with cocky assurance, Reck Desh, black-haired, streamlined, and newly tattooed, stepped into the Nebula Orchid and took in the room at a glance. Patrons in the popular Kuat City eatery included the usual boisterous mix of human and nonhuman technicians, engineers, and shipfitters, many on surface leave from Kuat Drive Yards’ orbital starship construction facilities, along with a dozen or so civilians. Among the latter were three veiled telbuns in heavy purple-and-red robes and tall cylindrical hats—mates-in-training for the spoiled daughters of the Kuati elite. Flesh-and-blood and droid waiters dashed about, taking orders and delivering overpriced platters of artistically styled meals.

“Where are you supposed to wait?” the larger of Reck’s two cohorts asked.

Reck nodded his lantern jaw toward the booths that lined the back of the room. “Number six.”

The big man counted the booths out loud, head bobbing as he moved left to right from tall windows that overlooked the street. “Six is empty.”

“Then we’re off to a good start,” Reck remarked. “You and Ven grab seats where you can keep an eye on me. But stay put. Don’t do anything unless I give a sign.”

“Got it,” Wotson said as he and his partner headed for an unoccupied table in the center of the room.

Reck hitched up baggy trousers, crossed the room, and folded himself into booth six. Booth five was also empty, but in seven sat a lone telbun whose facial veil covered all but his eyes. Reck settled back against the padded seat to wait for his mystery contact to turn up. He was about to hail a waiter when the telbun sitting back-to-back with him spoke up.

“Don’t turn around, Reck,” the Kuati ordered in the neutered tone typical of a high-priced voice scrambler.

Reck barely managed to sit still. In his mind’s eye he replayed his brief look at the telbun, and he reassessed the conclusions he’d naturally drawn. The rich robes and tall hat could conceal a being of any of a wide variety of species, and the voice scrambler made it impossible to know if the speaker was male or female.

“You the genuine article, or are you just on your way to a masquerade?” he asked after a moment.

The stranger ignored the sarcasm. “Signal your associates that everything is in order, Reck.”

Reck leaned his head back, almost touching the telbun’s. “What’s to stop me from calling them over here and ripping that veil off your face?”

“Not a thing. But you’d be a fool to think I’d come here without backup.”

Reck’s hazel eyes leapt about, searching for likely candidates. Bluff or no bluff, there was little harm in hearing the telbun out. He turned partway in the booth and waved an okay to Ven and Wotson.

“Nicely done,” the telbun said. “As I mentioned when we spoke by comlink, I have some information for you.”

“Good for you,” Reck said. “But first I want to know how you knew where to reach me.”

“The simple explanation is that the activities and current whereabouts of the Peace Brigade are known to more people than you might imagine.”

Reck blew his breath out sharply and gave his head a mournful shake. “That either means we’re working for the same people or you have access to sensitive data. And since I doubt we’re on the same team, you’re either military security or New Republic Intelligence.”

“You don’t need to know that just now.”

“Maybe yes, maybe no, but I came all the way from Nar Shaddaa for this meeting.”

“And I’m sure you’re already homesick for the Hutts.”

“All I’m saying is that you’d better have something worthwhile.”

The telbun took a moment to respond. “You run with the Peace Brigade, but you answer to Yuuzhan Vong operatives.”

Reck took a moment, as well. “You already know that or you wouldn’t have asked me to come here.”

“Correct response. I’m something of a stickler for honesty.”

“Get to the point,” Reck hissed. “What information do you have?”

“I know a way to put you in good stead with your bosses.”

“Yeah, so you said when you made contact. But what makes you think I’m not in good standing?”

“You showed up here. I wasn’t sure where you stood when I comlinked you, but I know now. You’re ambitious and you’re intrigued.”

Reck snorted again. “I’ll let you know when I hear the rest of what you have to say.”

“The New Republic has a Yuuzhan Vong defector in custody. She’s an elite—a priestess of some sort. She jettisoned from an enemy ship destroyed in the Meridian sector. The Yuuzhan Vong have already made an attempt at retrieving her, and after what just happened at Ord Mantell I suspect they’ll double their efforts.”

Reck’s brows knitted. “What happened at Ord Mantell?”

“Based on intelligence provided by the defector, a New Republic task force thwarted a Yuuzhan Vong attack.”

Reck loosed a surprised whistle. “So this priestess is now a hot property.”

“She’s traveling with a mascot. The two are being transferred from the Mid Rim to Coruscant for safekeeping. I know the route they’re taking.”

Reck checked an impulse to turn around. “I’m not sure I follow you.”

“Think about it. Whoever returns the defector to the fold will be doing the Yuuzhan Vong a tremendous favor.”

“Now I get it. I make everyone happy, and maybe earn myself a reward. But what’s your payoff in this? You want a piece of the action, right?”

“Wrong. In exchange, you keep me apprised of the Peace Brigade’s future dealings with the Yuuzhan Vong.”

“And if I refuse to keep my side of the bargain?”

“I’ll bring everyone down on you—military and New Republic Intelligence. After the stunts you’ve pulled, you’ll be lucky to get a life sentence on Fodurant.”

“Cards on the table, huh? So why do you want to see this defector returned?”

The telbun laughed shortly. “Did you throw in with the enemy only for the credits, Reck?”

“Credits scammed are twice as sweet as credits earned.”

“That’s cute, but I don’t accept it. Doubtless, credits figured into your decision, but you know as well as I that there are larger issues at stake.”

“What larger issues?”

“The New Republic is going to lose this war, and there’s nothing to be gained by being on the losing side. Play this right, Reck, and both of us will come out winners.”

“I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a tempting offer,” Reck said tentatively. “But since you had no trouble getting to me, that must mean that NRI already has the Peace Brigade under surveillance.”

“You leave that to me.”

“To you … And when do I get to know who you are?”

“When the time’s right—and I make that decision.”

Reck took a slow breath. “All right,” he said at last. “I’m willing to give this a shot.”

“You won’t be sorry.” The telbun paused briefly. “The defector and her companion are being relocated to Bilbringi aboard an old starliner called Queen of Empire. I’ll furnish you with their travel plans and keep you updated on additional details as I learn them. But I suggest you grab them before they reach Bilbringi.”

“You leave that to me,” Reck said, glad for the chance to even the score.

“One more thing: you keep quiet about where you received this information—even with your Yuuzhan Vong controllers. For the time being, this is strictly between you and me, and your two cronies.”

“I can do that—on a trial basis anyway.”

“I know you won’t disappoint me, Reck.”

A hand touched Reck’s shoulder. Then, with a rustling of fabric, the telbun stood.

“I’ll be in touch. Don’t attempt to follow me.”

Reck stayed put but his eyes swept the room for signs of the telbun’s accomplices. When no one rose to follow the robed figure out the restaurant’s back entrance, he swung to Ven and Wotson.

“Quick—after him!”

Reck was one step beyond the pair as they plowed through the rear doors, only to confront a sunken courtyard filled wall to wall with identically attired telbuns.

Warbling sirens signaled an all-clear as C-3PO hurried past the open-air launch pads of Ord Mantell’s primary spaceport. Defense shields had protected the city from aerial bombardment, but to the north—in the direction of the planet’s renowned junkyards—thick columns of oily black smoke climbed into a smudged sky.

“Thank the maker,” C-3PO muttered as he walked. “Thank the maker.”

Secreted with her vigilant Noghri bodyguard, Mistress Leia had tasked C-3PO with assuring that their spacecraft hadn’t suffered damage during the Yuuzhan Vong attack, and indeed that had proved to be the case. But several ships had been caught unawares, and the sight of their scorched and punctured hulls had given C-3PO an unshakable flutter.

He shuddered to think what might have been his fate had the New Republic task force failed to foil the enemy attack. Why, he might well have ended up in a scrap heap or, worse yet, at the bottom of a pit filled with incinerated droids, such as he had witnessed on Rhommamool, after a brief but disquieting encounter with the late Nom Anor.

“Your existence offends me,” the political troublemaker had told him, with a minatory look that was permanently burned into C-3PO’s memory core.

It was one thing to be shunned by Gotals, whose impressionable sensory organs tended to become overloaded by the energy output of droids, but it was quite another to be singled out for deactivation or annihilation. Of course, there had been cases where a droid was actually responsible for instigating antidroid sentiment, such as when a MerenData EV supervisor droid serving under Lando Calrissian on Bespin had destroyed one-quarter of Cloud City’s droid population. But EV-9D9’s ignominious acts were hardly typical of droid behavior.

More to the point, what could droids, or a single droid, have possibly done to fill Nom Anor with such hatred? In searching for precedents, C-3PO could recall instances of droid enmity coming from humans forced to wear artificial parts. But many humans were perfectly comfortable with harboring nonliving parts. C-3PO couldn’t recall a single instance of Master Luke railing against his replacement hand.

It was all so baffling!

C-3PO had had more than his share of personal brushes with annihilation. An arm torn off by Tusken Raiders, traumatic dismemberment by Imperials on Cloud City and rioters on Bothawui, an eye yanked out by Jabba the Hutt’s Kowakian monkey-lizard … But only to be reassembled after each calamity, defragged and degaussed, bathed in oil—a droid’s bacta tank—and polished back to his auric splendor.

Those periodic resurrections made actual deactivation inconceivable, or at the very least, challenging to contemplate. In effect, ceasing-to-be was shutting down permanently—eternally. But how could that be? And how torturous it must be to suffer forced deactivation at the hands of adversaries!

“We’re all doomed,” C-3PO muttered aloud. “It’s the lot of all sentient beings, metal and otherwise, to suffer.”

But exactly why was deactivation such a frightening prospect to ponder?

Did the fear owe to a desperate desire to remain activated, to sustain awareness indefinitely and at all costs? Or did it owe to an unnatural attachment to existence? An attachment that, if surrendered, would take with it all fears of ceasing-to-be—

The revelation discombobulated him momentarily, and he came to so sudden a halt on the permacrete landing field that a protocol droid not entirely unlike himself rear-ended him.

“E chu ta to you!” C-3PO said, throwing the droid’s rude expletive right back at him.

The nerve, he told himself as he resumed his pace. To disrespect one who had seen so much in his time, who had traveled so widely, who had amassed so much knowledge since his first job of programming binary loadlifters—

Quite unexpectedly his photoreceptors zeroed in on Master Solo. Conversing with a … why, a Ryn, of all species.

As C-3PO hastened toward them he couldn’t help but note that Master Han and the Ryn looked somewhat the worse for wear, as did the shuttle they had obviously exited, accompanied by a mixed lot of woebegone beings and a red-capped R2 unit. And, in fact, Master Solo and the Ryn weren’t so much conversing as arguing.

“See you around,” the Ryn was concluding as C-3PO neared.

“Not if I can help it, partner,” Han said, in a manner that held little sympathy.

“Master Solo!” C-3PO called, waving an arm over his head. “Master Solo!”

Han turned and saw him, then snorted a laugh—not at all as surprised as C-3PO might have expected him to be. But then, he had been made aware of Mistress Leia and C-3PO’s impending visit to Ord Mantell. So perhaps he had come looking for them.

“Master Solo, you’re injured,” C-3PO exclaimed, on seeing dried blood on his hands and face.

“Could’ve been a lot worse,” Han replied with his usual penchant for understatement. “Where’s Leia, Threepio?”

“Why, she’s at the Hotel Grand as we speak, sir.”

Han thought for a minute, eyes narrowing as he glanced at C-3PO. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance of your not mentioning you ran into me?”

C-3PO inclined his head in perplexity.

“No, I suppose not,” Han said, answering for himself. He blew out his breath. “In that case, I guess you’d better lead me to her.”