Star Wars_ Coruscant Nights II Streets of Shadows - Michael Reaves [90]
And besides, he planned on sending the young Jedi a gift that, if things didn’t go well, would at least see Pavan somewhat more prepared to face a Sith Lord. It was tempting to give in to the irony inherent in using it himself, but he knew he had to maximize his chances of success.
Vader wanted the renegade Jedi Jax Pavan—so much so that he had sent the infamous bounty hunter Aurra Sing after him. Too bad, then, for Aurra Sing, because Typho had found him first. He smiled grimly. How could an unknown minor planetary official possibly gain an audience with the Emperor’s wrist-hawk? By offering him something he desperately wanted.
Unbeknownst to him, Jax Pavan was Typho’s ticket to a meeting with the Dark Lord. The last meeting Vader would ever take.
There were ways of arranging such things. Ways of making contact, even with the Emperor himself, if one knew how to work the proper bureaucratic channels. Typho’s status helped, of course. It was not as if the peculiar roundabout communiqué was coming from some addled citizen off the street with an exaggerated sense of his own importance. As Typho tracked it, he saw that his message was making steady progress toward its designated recipient. He had little doubt what the reaction would be when it got there.
Vader would contact him directly. He wouldn’t go through an intermediary for something that was evidently important enough to hire a bounty hunter of Sing’s caliber. And Typho would respond of course, but not without taking proper precautions. It was said that the Dark Lord could read a sentient’s true intentions at a great distance. That might be nothing but bilterscoot—but as a security professional, the captain would take no chances. Thus his preparations, in additon to ascertaining Pavan’s whereabouts, included paying a visit to a certain apothecary with a less-than-salutary reputation. Between the two, he should be ready.
The place was located on a dark street in an especially poorly lit section of Underlevel 20. This was not because it was a particularly bad neighborhood—quite the contrary, actually. It was simply that the nonhumans who inhabited the area tended to be members of species who preferred dim light.
Even so, the Kubaz still wore the diffusion goggles favored by her people when dwelling on planets with brighter suns than that of their homeworld. The black bristles on her head twitched and her long snout flexed upward in the equivalent of an unctuous smile as she greeted the new customer with a flourish of hand gestures.
“Krsft. How I be’s of service, sor?” Beneath the barely adequate overhead light, the chemist’s green-black skin appeared almost devoid of color.
“I want to buy a taozin skin nodule.”
Delicate fingers were already tracing relevant notations in the holoproj that hung in the air between them. “Dzzt. A rare curiosity. Expensive.”
“Cost doesn’t matter,” Typho said. “Do you have one?”
“Hmm-ezz. Possibly.” Drawing images and symbols in the air, the Kubaz checked her inventory.
“Got one inna stock.” She calculated the cost. “It gonna be … mfft-zza … nine hunnert creds total.”
Expensive indeed, Typho thought, then shrugged. There was no help for it; the taozin, also known as a Force dragon, was an extremely rare giant transparent invertebrate native to the jungle moon of Va’art. Some were also rumored to live in the abyssal caverns far beneath the lowest subsurface levels of Coruscant. What made the creature of interest to Typho was its invisiblity to