realization soon dawned. “They don’t know whether I know where the spice is.”
Ahead, he saw the landing pad where Fatman as Red Dwarf was docked. A long cargo tram rolled past. A platoon of maintenance droids trudged near it. A man and woman before it waved to each other, smiled, embraced, and moved on.
Another two men near it drew his attention. One sat on a chair near the door that led out to the landing pad. A portcomp sat open on his lap, but he paid it no heed. The second faced the transparisteel window, ostensibly looking out on the landing pad. Zeerid imagined him watching them approach in its reflection.
“Do you know where it is?” Aryn asked.
“It’s on my ship,” he said. “The Exchange uses jacked maintenance droids to sneak illicit cargo onto their mules.”
VRATH WALKED BESIDE a Twi’lek women carrying a small travel bag. He stayed close to her and let his body language suggest that they were together. When he heard Zeerid’s words via his audial implant, he cursed himself for missing the obvious—the maintenance droid had been hijacked with stealth programming to load the engspice.
Vrath did not have the firepower on hand to destroy Zeerid’s ship, so he’d have to do things the hard way.
“The cargo is on the target’s ship and the target is not to get aboard,” he said, his words loud enough that the Twi’lek looked at him askance and moved away.
“Keene,” he said to the driver of the speeder he had stationed outside. “Be ready with an evac off the target’s landing pad.”
Vrath drew his blaster and pushed through the crowd.
“Everybody down!”
THE MAN FACING the transparisteel window turned while the man on the bench set aside his portacomp and stood.
“Here they come,” Zeerid said.
Aryn let her hand fall to the hilt of her lightsaber. “I see them.”
Zeerid glanced back and saw the two men who had trailed them out of the casino moving at a jog, then a run, through the crowd. Both reached behind their backs for weapons.
A third man Zeerid had not noticed before, but who looked vaguely familiar to him, shouted for everyone to get down and fired a blaster shot into the high ceiling.
Panic gripped the crowd. Screams erupted from all around and people dived to the ground or ducked behind benches and chairs. The dozens of droids in the vicinity stopped in their work and glanced about in confusion, their programming leaving them slow to respond to the unexpected.
The two men between Aryn and Zeerid and the ship had blasters in hand, firing as they approached. Aryn’s lightsaber hummed to life, spun a rapid arc before them, and deflected the shots into the ceiling and floor.
More screams. The acrid stink of discharged blasters.
Zeerid pulled his blaster from under his armpit and put two shots into one of the two men. The impact blew the man from his feet and left a charred shirt and two black holes in his chest.
Zeerid grabbed Aryn and pulled her down behind the box-shaped body of a stationary maintenance droid while the surviving man in front of them returned fire and the three men closing from behind opened up. A shot grazed the sole of Zeerid’s boot and left it smoking and black. The droid they sheltered behind vibrated under the impact of multiple shots.
“Do not move, droid,” Zeerid said.
But it could not have moved had it wished to. Smoke rose from the holes in its body, and sparks shot out.
“We have to get to my ship,” Zeerid said.
“The authorities will be coming …”
Zeerid shook his head. “Too many questions, Aryn. I’ve got engspice aboard. They’ll seize the ship and arrest us both. We have to go. Now.”
The men from behind were closing, using benches, chairs, and the bodies of passersby and droids for cover as they closed the distance. The screams and shouts of the civvies made it hard to think.
“I just want the cargo,” one of the men, the leader apparently, shouted above the tumult.
For answer, Zeerid popped up from behind the droid and fired three quick shots. He hit no one but he drove all three of the men behind them to the ground. He whirled on the man before them just in time to see the red muzzle flare of the blaster shot that slammed into his chest and sent him sliding three meters along the floor. The impact blew the breath from his lungs and left him gasping. Black smoke spiraled up from the hole ablated in