Jadak swiveled his chair, gazing around at the instruments. "No idea."

"You didn't think to ask?"

"Why would 1?"

Reeze didn't respond immediately. "You know, we could just keep going. Repair the ship at Nar Shaddaa and light out for the Outer Rim."

"We could. Rut we're not going to."

Reeze snorted. "Mission always has to come first. Even when it involves surrendering the ship."

"The Senators are playing their part, we're playing ours. With any luck, it's all going to come out right in the end."

"But this thing's about over anyway, isn't it? With Count Dooku dead. You heard what they said. They might not even need us anymore."

Jadak mulled it over. "I'll tell you what, Reeze. If it does end by the time we reach Toprawa, I'll think hard about doing what you say."

Reeze sat up straight in the chair. "So you are mad at them-for giving the ship away, I mean."

Jadak finally looked at him. "Let's leave it at disappointment."

Reeze grinned. "Disappointment's good."

"You're ready to celebrate, huh?"

"Why not? It's been a lot of years, Tobb."

"It has. But don't go getting your hopes up."

"How could I with you around?"

Jadak smiled without showing his teeth. "So, Nar Shaddaa. Your old stomping ground."

"Ha! You mean the ground where I frequently got stomped."

The Rubicon navicomputer toned, and Jadak swung the chair around.

"Reversion coming up."

They fell into an uneasy silence while the ship emerged into real-s.p.a.ce, stars and starfields taking shape after a moment of wake rota-lion, the Envoy shuddering and groaning, running on pure momentum now.

"That wasn't too bad," Jadak started to say-when the ship suddenly died.

Reeze began to toggle switches in the blackness. "No power of any sort. No lights, communications. No response from the emergency systems."

Jadak watched Nar Shaddaa grow larger in the viewport. "That blast must have rattled the power core."

"Any way to bleed velocity manually?"

"There might be if we had time. As it stands, we're going to go wherever Nar Shaddaa dictates we go."

Back to toggling switches, Reeze cursed. "Any chance of inserting into orbit?"

"Hard to say." Jadak unstrapped from the seat and stood, leaning toward the viewport. "At this speed and vector ... we could end up slingshot back into s.p.a.ce. I'm more worried about traffic coming up the well."

"You should be," Reeze said. He had a pair of macrobinoculars pressed to his eyes. "I've got a visual on a ship." He fell silent, then said: "Oh, brother ..."

Jadak peered at the enlarging ship. "What is it?"

Reeze lowered the binoculars. "Corellian bulk freighter-one of the big Action jobs. Large enough for a payload of Hutts with room enough for a herd of banthas."

Jadak grabbed the binoculars and raised them to his eyes. A rounded rectangle with a gargantuan V-shaped undercarriage, the freighter was driven by a trio of cylindrical engines. "She's climbing right into our path. Accruing speed for a jump. Their instruments will warn them."

"Warn them?" Reeze looked at Jadak in disbelief. "This is Nar Shaddaa. Who bigger, who better. We're like a mote in her eye. She won't yield."

Jadak watched the huge ship rise from the planet's envelope.

"Your call, Tobb," Reeze said after a long moment of silence.

Jadak gave the power toggles a final flick and blew out his breath. "Okay. We're outta here."

They hurried aft to one of the escape pods, which fired from the freighter's ventral surface, well below the hyperdrive and sublight engines. Reeze climbed in first and popped the cover that sealed the manual release switch. Jadak squeezed through the circular hatch and sealed it behind him. Reeze had just pulled the override lever when the Envoy gave a sudden start and the inside of the pod was bathed in red light.

"She's back online!"

Jadak's eyes were wide. "Now you wake up? Now?"

A whoosh issued from the sublight engine and the YT veered abruptly, as if to avoid a collision, sending Jadak and Reeze slamming into the pod's curved wall.

An instant later they were spiraling through s.p.a.ce.

Chapter five.

NAR SHADDAA.

18 YEARS BEFORE THE BATTLE OF YAVIN.

Viss and Heet came through the door to the waiting room V and walked directly over to where Bammy was sitting.

"All right, mechanic. He'll see you now."

Bammy Decree knew Viss from school, before Viss had been expelled and taken a job as one of Rej Taunt's bodyguards. Bammy knew Heet, too. After his short stint at tech school, he'd worked on some of Heet's skimmers and sloops.

Bammy started for the door the two bodyguards had come through, but Viss stuck an arm out to hold him back and Heet threw him a bathrobe.

"He's taking a ma.s.sage and a steam," Viss explained while Bammy was staring blankly at the robe. He motioned with his chin to a small refresher off to one side of the waiting room. "You can change in there."

Bammy was a head shorter than Viss and Heet and fifty kilos lighter, and because most of the beings who came to visit Rej Taunt were closer to the size of the bodyguards, the robe fell off Bammy's narrow shoulders and trailed on the floor when he emerged from the 'fresher. He cinched it around his frame the best he could while two Klatooinians seated in the waiting room tried to keep from laughing.

Viss pointed to Bammy's balled-up clothing. "Leave those in the 'fresher and follow us."

Beyond the door, Rej Taunt's villa was even tackier than the waiting room, crammed with bric-a-brac of the sort that filled Nar Shaddaa junk emporiums. But while only ten years older than Bammy, Taunt was an up-and-coming crime boss with a taste for the finer things. Bammy didn't doubt that Taunt would one day be living as lavishly as a Hutt.

Bammy followed his bulky former school acquaintances through several enormous though empty rooms, across a courtyard adorned with foliage imported from Ithor and columns from Coruscant, and down several broad stone stairways to a gaming room piled high with decades-old ovide wheels, sabacc tables, and dance cages. Half a dozen humans and aliens were busy at cleaning tasks. Bammy hadn't seen a droid since he showed himself to the front gate scanner two hours earlier.

Viss rapped his huge hand against the jamb of an old wooden door and someone opened it from the far side, clouds of steam wafting from the room beyond. The supersaturated heat struck Bammy like a ton of permablocks. The steam was so thick he couldn't see his pointed nose in front of him, and in seconds sweat was streaming into his eyes and dripping from his small chin. He was moving his hand in front of his lace as if to part the steam when a deep voice boomed from somewhere in the mist.

"Over here, mechanic."

Bammy followed the sound to where Rej Taunt was lying supine on a table, rolls of water-storing fat avalanching off his naked torso, his thick arms being ma.s.saged by three comely human females. An Askajian, Taunt was the eldest son of a family of tomuon cloth traders. He had come to Nar Shaddaa as a child and never left.

Taunt gestured to the adjacent ma.s.sage table. "You want a rub?"

Bammy started to decline but the crime boss cut him off. "Of course you do. Doff the robe and set your skinny human body on the table. I've already instructed my fems not to make fun of you."

Bammy did as instructed. At twenty standard years old, he was already in poor shape, but he was certain the trio of ma.s.seuses had seen worse in their line of work. If nothing else, his body was absent the blaster scar tissue and elaborate tattoos common to most of Taunt's employees. Flat on his stomach, Bammy discreetly lowered the robe to the floor. The fern's slick hands felt good on his tense shoulders, he had to admit.

"The only reason I agreed to see you," Taunt said, "is because Viss and Heet recommended you. They say you've got talent."

"We were in school together," Bammy said. "For a while, anyway."

Taunt heaved himself over on his ma.s.sive belly. "They mentioned something about a ship."

"Word in the depths is that you're looking for one."

"For once the rumor is correct. What have you found me?"

"An old YT-Thirteen-hundred."

Taunt turned his head so he could look directly at Bammy. "Now what would I want with a freighter?"

"It's not just any freighter. It has a great pedigree."

"What year?"

"A 'twenty-five."

"Before Synch?"

Bammy nodded. "A cla.s.sic."

Taunt did the mental calculations. "Now I've got to ask: what would I want with a freighter forty standard years old?"

"You're looking for something low-profile but powerful, easy to maintain, and fuel-efficient."

"For the moment let's say I am. When could I see it?"

"It, uh, needs some work first." Taunt's silence told him to continue. "It was involved in a collision a month or so back." Taunt's eyes narrowed. "You're not trying to sell me on that YT that slammed into the Jendirian Valley Three?" Bammy swallowed audibly. "I am."

Tamil exhaled hard, steam swirling about. "What I heard, they had to sc.r.a.pe the pilots off the Valley's hull."

"I heard the same. They ejected in a pod, but the YT spun at the last instant and the pod was flattened."

"Ouch."

"'That's probably half what the pilots said."

"And the YT?"

"It was hard hit. But the beauty of those ships is that they're pretty much made to come apart. Best of all, no other salvagers are interested in it. It's just drifting out there with all the other ships that haven't made it downside for one reason or another."

"Maybe that's what's best for it-and for Nar Shaddaa. Our own little asteroid field."

"It would have to be rebuilt bow-to-midships," Bammy went on, "but most of the core is sound. The sublight can be repaired, and the hyperdrive can easily be rebuilt or upgraded."

Taunt thought about it. "A freighter? I don't know. Can it be turned into more of a pa.s.senger ship?"

"Would you be piloting?"

Taunt laughed heartily. "Do I look like a pilot?"

"I was just thinking about seating and such."

Taunt raised himself up on one elbow. "I'd want a couch and bunk suitable to my frame, and others for companions I might choose to bring along. I'd want to keep some areas for freight, but I want comfortable cabin s.p.a.ces and secret compartments for whatever I may wish to conceal from the prying eyes of customs officials. I don't particularly care how the ship presents-it can look beat-up on the outside. In fact, the more dilapidated it looks, the better. But the interior has to be clean and tidy."

Bammy was nodding and grinning. "Again, that's the beauty. It can be configured just about however you want. For instance, if you want weapons..."

Taunt cut him off with a sharp wave of his hand. "Nothing like weapons to draw the attention of pirates. Maybe a couple of small repeaters tucked into the bow for emergencies. But I'll bring support craft if I antic.i.p.ate major trouble." He thought for a moment. "The serial number, drive signature, and registry can be altered?"

"Can do. Of course I'd leave leave name for you to choose. If you want, I can equip it with a transponder that will keep interested parties confused."

"Even those new Imperial ships?"

"Even those. So far we're managing to stay one step ahead of the Emperor's techs."

"How much is all of this going to cost me?"

"I don't have a final figure yet. I have to have it brought down the well. Then there's the parts . . .a.s.suming the power plant and sub-lights are reparable, the biggest cost will be the hyperdrive, if it needs one."

Taunt rolled over on his opposite side. "Get back to me when you have a firm price."