Star Wars_ Coruscant Nights II Streets of Shadows - Michael Reaves [86]
The police contingent was led by the sector prefect himself. Jax could see that he didn’t look happy to see them, but then he doubted that Pol Haus ever looked happy to see anyone in his line of work.
“So we meet again.” He paused, singling out Jax and I-Five. “Just what are you two up to now?”
“We’re just out for an evening’s entertainment,” Jax said, and smiled.
“Right,” the prefect responded. “And why does the kind of entertainment you favor always seem to involve breaking the law? I see the Zeltron’s not with you,” he continued, without waiting for a reply. “Interestingly, however, we just received a complaint from a local arcade, describing two female humanoids who did a considerable amount of destruction there in the last hour.” He looked appraisingly at Laranth, who met his gaze squarely. “One of them, it seems, was a Twi’lek.”
“I apologize for my species,” she said. “We can be rambunctious at times.”
“There’s also,” Haus continued, “a complaint on file from a well-respected art dealer named Shulf’aa, asserting that a certain Sullustan …”
Den did his best to shrink behind Jax’s legs.
“… claimed to be a police officer in an effort to extract information from said art dealer, under pain of shutting down his business.”
“A misunderstanding,” a small voice said from the vicinity of the Jedi’s thighs. “Easily explained, I’m sure.”
“No doubt,” Haus murmured. “Not so easy is the allegation from another broker, a Lonjair who calls himself Spa Fon, that you two”—he looked at Jax and Den—“entered his business premises under false pretenses, whereupon you intentionally and with malice threatened his person while delivering a merciless beating to one of his helpless and entirely innocent former employees, who—”
“Hold on,” Jax interrupted. “First of all, that Lonjair ‘broker’ is a professional thief. Second, the ‘helpless and entirely innocent former employee’ was a subspecies of Cathar who probably massed a quarter metric ton of pure meanness and who threw the first punch, and third—”
“Never mind.” The prefect sighed as he waved off Jax’s indignation. “I’m not really interested. But when your locator rings showed up near this latest disturbance, I figured it would be appropriate to check in, just for old times’ sake.” His tone grew stern. “I don’t know exactly what’s going on here, Pavan, beyond your amateur attempts to aid Fem Duare in her hope of identifying her partner’s killer, but I do know that you’re becoming an irritation. I have enough daily irritations in my position without having a semi-permanent one latch on to me. I say semi-permanent because it’s not going to persist. It’s not going to persist because if anything like this comes to my attention again, you”—he pointed to Jax—“and the rest of you as well, are going to find yourselves exploring the many and varied cultural delights of the sector jail. Do I make myself clear, at every end of the spectrum?”
“Perfectly,” Jax assured him.
The prefect scowled again and, accompanied by his squad, moved off into the crowd.
Den stepped tentatively out from behind Jax. “Spa Fon, Pol Haus, and now the infamous Aurra Sing. Whose list will we make next, Jax? Darth Vader’s?” The Sullustan snapped his fingers in mock realization. “Oh, wait, I forgot—we’re already there.”
Silently, Jax regarded his friends. He was proud of them all, proud of how they had come together as a team. Proud of how they had handled every danger and problem that had been thrown at them since they’d been with him. Did he have the right to ask them to endure more, to chance possibly greater risks? What would Master Piell have done?
Laranth would stay dirtside no matter what, he knew—the resistance movement was all she had to give her life meaning. But did he have the right to ask Den and I-Five, as well as Rhinann, to put their lives on the line every day for him?
He took a deep breath. “All right. I’ll