Star Wars_ Death Star - Michael Reaves [30]
They had to be dealt with, and they would be. This Death Star of Tarkin’s could be effective to a degree, but one need not use a proton torpedo to swat a fire gnat.
Vader turned and left his chambers. The dark side would tell him who the miscreants were—tell him, and deal with them as well.
12
THE SOFT HEART CANTINA, SOUTHERN UNDERGROUND, GRID 19, IMPERIAL CITY
Memah Roothes frowned at the delivery droid. Local weather systems were acting up, and the air was hot, too moist, and cloying, not to mention smelling of lube and a hint of rotting garbage drifting through from the alley behind her cantina. She had been up late and arisen early, she already felt lousy, and she certainly didn’t need this latest piece of bad news.
“Excuse me? I don’t think I heard you correctly. Please repeat that.”
The droid, a standard loader/unloader utility model, said again, “Your liquor shipment has been delayed. Our dispatcher tenders apologies for the mistake.”
“And what are my customers supposed to drink in the meanwhile? Water?”
The droid’s basic intelligence was sufficient for making liquor deliveries; it wasn’t up to sarcasm. “Water is drinkable by all sentient carbon-based beings.”
“Yes, and even here it is free from any Imperial tap.”
The droid did not respond to that. Memah shook her head in disgust; a human mannerism she’d picked up. It was pointless to argue with a droid; might as well argue with the ferment dispensers under the bar. “All right. When may I expect the shipment?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Well, I guess I’ll just have to make do somehow, won’t I?”
That question was evidently also beyond the droid’s comprehension. Sighing, Memah waved it away.
Rodo, who had been in the front repairing a broken hinge caused by the impact of a combative patron, came back to the delivery portal. “Problem?”
“Yes. Today’s delivery—there isn’t one.”
“Hmm …”
Memah turned to look at him. “Do I detect some kind of meaning in that monosyllable?”
“It’s probably nothing,” Rodo replied. “But I saw the food staples airtruck fan past Kenloo’s Market this morning without stopping. They get their deliveries same days we do.”
The market was two buildings down, on the other side of a vacant shop that had once housed exotic offworld pets. Some kind of exobiotic plague had run through the animal stock seven months back, and half of them had died. The Empire had quarantined the place, had the remaining creatures put down, and that was the end of that. The building had sat empty ever since.
She pulled herself back to Rodo’s comment. “What are you getting at?”
The big man shrugged. “Just seems odd that two businesses right next to each other, with service from different delivery companies, would both get bypassed on the same day.”
“A coincidence,” she said.
“When I was with the Strikebirds, we had a saying: Coincidence can get you killed.” Rodo yawned and stretched his arms over his head, displaying muscles that would make a Whiphid look scrawny. “Maybe I’ll check around,” he said, “see if Chunte’s and Ligabow’s are also having delivery problems.”
“And if they are?”
He shrugged. “Then it means something.”
She couldn’t help the exasperated tone that crept into her voice. “Like what?”
Rodo shrugged again. “Dunno. Could be a lot of things. Maybe just problems with dispatcher programs. Maybe the start of somebody trying to depress real estate values so he can buy up the block. Hard to say. Could be nothing at all.”
Memah nodded slowly,