Heir to the Jedi (21 page)

“Don’t tell your dad.”

She laughed. “I won’t.”

“I’m going to go check on Drusil.”

“Okay, I’ll yell if we’re pulled into realspace again.”

Entering the quarters, I wrapped my arms around Artoo and told him he was the best droid in the galaxy, but he couldn’t tell Threepio I said that or I’d have to deal with passive-aggressive complaints for the next ten years. “Thanks for the save.”

R2-D2 burbled happily, and I turned to Drusil and inquired after her health.

Her spine looked even more rigid than normal as she sat, and her voice was thicker, more muffled. “I am recovering from glandular excitement, thank you for asking.”

“Well, I … I beg your pardon? Is this a bad time?”

“I am told it is a biological phenomenon not unlike the aftereffects of adrenaline in humans.”

“Oh,
that
kind of excitement! Good. No, I mean—I’m sorry I worried you. Er. We’re safe for the moment, anyway, en route to Kupoh.”

“We should have perished. Mathematically we had almost no chance of survival once we attacked. How did you accomplish this?”

I shrugged. “Artoo got us out of there.”

“The droid did his job adequately,” the Givin said, a dismissive summation to which Artoo belched an electronic burst of outrage, “but I speak of the piloting prior to that. Are you a Jedi in fact, Luke Skywalker?”

“No,” I snorted. “Not even close.”

“You refuse the title yet dress yourself in the trappings. You carry a lightsaber. And you used the Force to aid in the piloting of the ship, correct?”

“Yes,” I admitted, wondering where this would lead.

“Astounding. I have never thought of it before, having had no occasion to do so, but the Force must be a fulcrum variable. Yes, I must give this more thought.”

“Sorry—a fulcrum variable?”

“A variable around which improbabilities can be turned to probabilities, or vice versa. The impossible becomes possible—at which point one might as well not even do the math. But of course I can’t help myself in that regard.”

I was relieved that her line of questioning only looped her back into another math trip, but I couldn’t resist asking about the path ahead. I still had my doubts about Drusil’s value to the Alliance, and her questioning about my connections to the Jedi was disconcerting, but she might prove useful to us in the short term while her interests and ours coincided.

“Listen, since you appear to enjoy it, could you maybe think about the likelihood of us making it to the surface of Kupoh
without running into any more Interdictors—or other Imperial contact? If you think it’s improbable, we should abort now and see if we can reach somewhere else, because we can’t make another escape like that with an engine gone and nothing to shoot but laser cannons.”

Drusil’s mouth widened in what I supposed must be joy. She grabbed her datapad and woke it from its sleep. “A task! Excellent! You have my thanks. I will report soon.” Her face turned down and I realized that I had just been dismissed.

THE KUPOH SYSTEM WAS BEAUTIFUL
in that it was free of any Imperial fleet ships. “This is good. We’re going to have to land and make repairs,” I said. “The
Jewel
couldn’t outrun a bantha right now.”

“Do you have someplace in particular in mind?” Nakari asked.

“I will in a minute. Remember that list of Kupohans that Sakhet gave us back on Denon? She probably didn’t expect us to wind up on her home planet, but maybe there’s a name there we can contact.”

“Oh, right! The file we’re supposed to decrypt using
Rancor Sauce
. Hang on.”

She left the cockpit to retrieve her datapad, and I set a course for a smaller city on the opposite side of the globe from the capital. I’d adjust as necessary—and thanks to the peculiarities of
the planet, I was looking forward to the challenges of any adjustments.

Kupoh had achieved a somewhat legendary status among pilots. It was supposed to be constantly buffeted by howling winds—seriously loud, dangerous winds, not gentle breezes—that not only made piloting difficult but also interfered with hearing. So much white noise whipped around on the surface that most offworld beings had to communicate via helmet intercom—either that, or shout. Or use sign language. The Kupohans had evolved their frequency filter organs to screen out all the noise and detect voices, and of course it helped them hunt as well. There was an entire ecosystem of creatures that lived in the wind, animals that rarely if ever landed, spending their entire existence in the air. Pilots had to go in with their shields up or risk taking damage from the larger beasts. And then hope the winds didn’t toss them into the ground like poorly flown kites.

Out of necessity the Kupohans had built tall baffles to help pilots land on the surface rather than crash. They had dozens of recommended atmospheric entry points where the wind patterns were merely annoying rather than terrifying, and you had to ride them out until you could drop down behind a mountain range or one of their baffles and settle down. Even then you’d have to worry about rogue gusts and eddies, but they had the approach routes to most places worked out to at least a modicum of safety.

Nakari returned, datapad in hand. “There’s a contact here listed in the city of Tonekh on the eastern continent. Name is Azzur Nessin. Hold on a second, let me see if we can bring up some more information.” Switching from her datapad to the ship’s computer, which could access Kupoh’s infonet maintained by satellites and orbital platforms, she typed in a query and growled at a mistake that forced her to delete it and redo, punching the keys and showing that word who was boss.

There was a lag in processing due to the distances involved, but the net worked well and an information dump appeared soon enough. Nakari summarized: “Azzur Nessin is founder and head of Nessin Courier and Cargo. He has facilities scattered about the planet, but its headquarters matches the location that Sakhet provided in her files.”

“All right, we’ll head there. Good business to be in for a spy, eh?”

“Yeah. Gives him a legitimate reason to go anywhere.”

“And if he has his own fleet, that means he could have his own repair facility.” I changed course in accordance with the recommended atmospheric entry point for Tonekh and asked Artoo to attempt to reach Nessin via comm using the number Sakhet had provided. Meanwhile, several different ships in orbit and entities on the ground were trying to reach us, all of them asking for our names and business.

“Inquisitive lot, aren’t they?” Nakari remarked after the third time she told someone we were “tourists, here to enjoy Kupoh’s windsurfing.”

Though the Empire strictly controlled the interstellar HoloNet, the Kupohans had a local system infonet set up almost of necessity to exchange weather information and help ships land safely. We received a call from Azzur Nessin within minutes of Artoo’s comm request. He popped up on our holodisplay, a stocky individual wearing a vest, his arms folded across his chest. At some point he’d lost a bite-sized chunk of his left basal ear and had never had it surgically improved. The fur hanging down underneath his jaw was long, braided, and beaded, which struck me as unusual for a Kupohan because it would make distracting noises when he moved. I didn’t know if it meant he belonged to a secret society, or if it was a fashion he had chosen to offend society as a whole.

“Yes? What news?” he asked.

“Hello, Azzur,” I replied, perhaps taking liberties by using his
first name when we were strangers, but strangers were almost certainly listening in, so we couldn’t tell him we were Alliance operatives desperate for help.

“We just came from Denon and tried Sakhet’s noodles like you suggested. But you didn’t tell me how good her nerf nuggets were! I’d say they’re the best in the galaxy.”

Azzur Nessin cocked his head to the side; the movement made his mutilated ear more noticeable, and I wondered if he did that on purpose. “Nerf nuggets, eh? I don’t suppose you brought me any?”

Sakhet hadn’t told us how to respond to additional questions; if it was a test or a code of some kind I didn’t know the answer. Maybe it was a roundabout way of asking if our mission had been successful. Deciding to go with that, I said, “Of course! Sakhet made a batch especially for you.”

The Kupohan righted his head and showed his teeth in a broad grin. The movement made the braids of his beard sway like vines in a gentle breeze. “Cannot wait. My place of residence has changed since we saw each other last. New coordinates at the end of transmission. See you soon.”

His image winked out, replaced by a series of numbers that I asked Artoo to input and execute into the autopilot. They were only slightly different from the course I had already set.

“Oh, and Artoo, since we’re going to be limping in there with only one engine, can you give me an estimate of our arrival time?”

Drusil Bephorin replied instantly over the intercom. “Three hours and forty-three minutes, twelve seconds, give or take a few minutes depending on the point that you take manual control and other variables.”

“Thanks, Drusil,” I said, then added, “We’re going to try to resupply while we’re here. Is there anything you want or need to add to the list?”

“My basic needs are being met. I would not want to request anything else that might delay our eventual departure. My primary desire is to be reunited with my family.”

“Okay, we’ll do our best.”

Almost four hours to planetfall would give the Empire time to catch up to us if they knew where to look. It would also give all the spies in the system a nice long look at us, and maybe they’d pause to wonder why we were currently diving toward the planet more like a dead bird than the rich windsurfing tourists in a custom yacht we were pretending to be.

“I’ll tell you what I want,” I said to Nakari.

“You mean besides another engine?”

“Yeah, besides that. Before the Empire interrupted, I was back in the galley trying to make caf. I could really use it now.”

Her eyes flicked down to my tunic. “That first cup looks great on you, Luke. That’s some seriously forward-thinking fashion you’re wearing.”

“Oh, come on—”

“Not everyone can make their spills look like art. Did you use the Force to get that pattern right there?”

“Guess I’ll go change while I’m at it.”

As I stood, Nakari dropped her teasing manner and said, “Luke? We used up almost all our money getting those upgrades.”

“Good thing, too. They did the job for us.”

“I know. But how are we going to pay for a new sublight engine? We have some credits to take care of food and such but not nearly enough to finance these repairs. I can’t imagine the Alliance is suddenly flush now, even if we could get hold of Admiral Ackbar from here.”

“Maybe we could trade a future favor or do a job of some kind for this Azzur Nessin. Not all transactions need to be in cash.”

“I don’t know. He looked like he was a cash-money kind of operator.”

“What makes you say that? The beads in his beard?”

“I thought they might be a clue, yeah. I know you can’t see colors well on my cheap holoprojector, but they seemed to me like they might be gold.”

“I bet they clack together when he’s chewing food. Probably makes all kinds of racket.”

She gave a short courtesy laugh and then said, “Be serious.”

“All right,” I said, leaning against the cockpit hatch and folding my arms in a futile attempt to cover my stained tunic. Nakari turned in her chair to look at me as I spoke. “I think we’re in trouble. We can’t trust this Azzur Nessin not to sell us out the moment someone from the Empire offers to buy him some more beard beads. And it’s not just him we can’t trust: It’s this whole system. Information is currency, and right now the Empire is offering plenty of credits for information on our whereabouts. You can bet all those people asking us questions have noted that we have three life-forms aboard, and that labels us as an interesting contact already. They’ll pry closer for sure. And we can’t be a hundred percent sure whose side anybody’s on, regardless of what they say”—here I jerked a thumb at the living quarters and rolled my eyes to indicate Drusil, who could still hear me through the open intercom—“but we have no choice but to attempt to complete the mission. Can’t go back to the fleet until we do.”

“Do you have any ideas about how to convince him to help us?”

“I’m hoping to come up with something before then.”

I couldn’t think of anything, though. I knew plenty of Alliance secrets, but those weren’t for sale. The
Desert Jewel
herself might make us a fair bit of money, enough to trade for another ship, but I couldn’t imagine breaking even on any kind of deal like that, much less coming out ahead. We’d never get a ship that
could manage the same speed, and I wouldn’t dream of suggesting it out loud to Nakari.

After I’d cleaned up and changed, I visited Drusil and Artoo in the living quarters. The Givin was sitting up straight in a meditative position on the top bunk, her long tunic flowing down from her shoulders like draperies. Her datapad lay on top of her crossed legs, but she wasn’t using it when I entered. She was staring at the ceiling for some reason—or maybe her eyes were closed, I don’t know. Her chin was tilted up, and I got the idea that she was praying or meditating rather than searching for defects in the ship’s construction.