of double dealing, or just didn’t believe his story, a word from the man would turn Arra into an orphan.
“Convenient? Let me tell you what’s convenient, Oren. Word is that lots of deals have been going sour because The Exchange won’t play nice with the other syndicates, including the Hutts. And nothing explains lots of deals going sour except a leak. That tells me The Exchange is venting Oh-two.”
Oren did not miss a beat. Zeerid almost admired him. “If one of my fliers thought there might be a leak, he might also think it an ideal time to make a play for some goods himself. Especially if he had heavy debts. Make it look like an ambush of, say, eight men. After all, there’s a ready excuse at hand—this strife with the other syndicates you mentioned.”
“He might,” Zeerid said. “But only if he was stupid. And stupid I am not. Listen, you gave me the drop coordinates on Ord Mantell. Send someone there, a surveillance droid. You’ll see what I left there. But do it quick. Someone is going to clean up that mess before long, I’d wager.”
“So … how did you manage to kill eight men?”
The discussion was about to take a turn for the worse. “They were too close to one of the shipping containers full of grenades when it blew up.”
Oren paused. “One of our shipping containers blew up?”
Zeerid swallowed hard. “I lost it in the escape. The rest of the cargo is intact.”
A long silence followed, an abyss of quiet. Zeerid imagined Oren flipping through the file cabinet of his mind, cross-referencing Zeerid’s story with whatever other pertinent facts Oren already knew or thought he knew.
“This wasn’t my fault,” Zeerid said. “You find your leak, you’ll find who’s at fault.”
“You lost cargo.”
“I saved cargo. If I hadn’t sussed this out, the whole shipment would have been lost to pirates.”
“It would have been recovered. It is difficult to recover exploded grenades. Do you agree?”
“I would have been dead.”
“You are replaceable. I ask again: Do you agree?”
Zeerid could not bring himself to respond.
“I choose to interpret your silence as agreement, Z-man.”
Zeerid glared at the speaker while Oren continued: “At best, you will get paid only half for the job. The amount of the lost cargo will be set against that and added to your marker. It was already in excess of two million credits, if I remember correctly. The note on the ship and some loans against your gambling.”
Oren always remembered correctly. The job would net negative for Zeerid. He wanted to punch something, someone, but there was no one in the cockpit but him.
“This makes me look bad, Z-man,” Oren said. “And I very much dislike looking bad. You will make this up to me.”
Zeerid did not like the sound of that. “How?”
A pause, then, “By doing a spicerun.”
Zeerid shook his head. “I don’t run spice. That was our understanding—”
Oren’s voice never lost its calm, but the edge on it could have gouged armor. “The understanding has changed, contingent, as it was, on your successful completion of assignments. You owe us a large sum of credits and you owe me a large sum of face. You will make up both with a few spiceruns. That’s where the credits are. So that’s where you will be.”
Zeerid said nothing, could say nothing.
“Are we clear, Z-man?”
Zeerid scowled but said, “Clear.”
“Return to Vulta. I will be in touch soon. I have something in mind already.”
I’ll bet you do, Zeerid thought but didn’t say.
The channel closed and Zeerid let fly with a sleet storm of expletives. When he had finally vented, he cleared Ord Mantell’s gravity well and its moons, set a course for Vulta, and engaged the hyperdrive.
“I’m a spicerunner, now,” he said, as the black of space turned to the blue of hyperspace.
The treadmill under his feet had just picked up speed.
ARYN FELT DIZZY. A rush of emotion flooded her. She could not name it, categorize it. It was just a wash of inchoate, raw feeling. She was swimming in it, sinking.
“Something is happening, Syo,” she said, her voice tight. “I don’t know what it is, but it is not good.”
MASTER ZALLOW and the six Jedi Knights near Malgus leapt back and up, flipping at the top of the arc of their leaps, and landed in a crouch twenty meters away.
“May the Force be with you all,” Zallow shouted to his fellow Jedi, and lit his blade.
Dozens more Jedi poured out of the hallway behind him and flowed down the