Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 05_ Allies - Christie Golden [37]
“Who are you?” Kit turned to see the strange weapon pointed directly at her and felt the blood drain from her face.
“I-I’m Kit,” she said. “I knew Tohrm. I’m a slave.”
His eyes narrowed. “Prove it.”
She turned around and slipped her shirt low enough to show the little pucker of skin where the transmitter had been inserted.
“Ah,” the Bothan said. “I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have done that. You could have been injured, or even killed. I knew he was following me.”
Kit turned back around and tugged her sleeve back into place. “Could have fooled me,” she sniffed.
“I fooled him, didn’t I?” the Bothan replied. Their eyes met and they exchanged a grin. He knelt beside the corpse and searched it. Kit noticed he had gloves on.
“Who was he?”
“No way to tell for sure. Probably a member of some criminal organization that deals in flesh. They’ve started to get wind of some of the Flight’s activities.”
Kit’s grin faded as he spoke, and she recalled the nature of her errand tonight. “I uh … was sent to spy on you. Don’t worry, I’ll tell my master some kind of story. You’re the last person I would want to get in trouble. Well,” she amended, “you and Ackmena.”
He nodded, his fur rippling. “Thanks, kid. I hate to ask anything more of you, but … can you talk to Ackmena? Let her know we’re going to have to delay the shipment until I can send a replacement?”
She nodded energetically. “Sure, I can do that.”
“Thank you. I wish I could do something for you.”
Kit looked up at him, her pinched face serious. “You are doing something for me,” she said quietly, then added the motto of the Flight, “We will be free.”
The Bothan stepped forward and squeezed her shoulder gently. “Yes,” he said. “You will.”
He gathered his dark cloak about his slender feline form, looked about one last time, then turned and slipped into the shadows.
Kit realized she never learned his name.
No, no, no, no, no.
All gone. All taken. Dyon didn’t know how he knew, but he did. Fake fake fake. No one was real, no one was who he pretended to be, they all wore masks, didn’t they, imposters all, and he was the only one who was who he said he was.
Why had they come here, to Klatooine? Why were they bothering to impersonate fruit vendors? And what did they want with him? He wasn’t even a Jedi, just a dabbler who had ended up taking people around Dathomir for credits …
“Sixty credits,” the Nikto merchant said. He peered expectantly at Dyon with small, beady, black eyes.
They could read minds. They knew he was thinking about credits. Sweat popped out on his brow, beneath his arms. He wanted to run, to scream, to upend tables and flee, a cornered beast about to be captured—or killed. Or copied.
He fought to steady himself. Something that had just danced across his mind would help. What was it—a beast, he was an animal they wanted to capture.
No, he wasn’t. He was a man, they were the monsters, the animals, and he knew how to track them, how to hunt them. The Nikto—
—no, he wasn’t a Nikto, he was some alien species that Dyon didn’t even know about yet, wasn’t he, some imposter who’d stolen away everyone on this whole kriffing world; the scope was enormous, just enormous, the mind couldn’t even grasp it, not really—
—started to frown at him. Since their normal expression was somewhat dour, this made him look furious. “You good for the money or no, human?”
He was pointing it out. Rubbing it in. That he, Dyon Stad, was the only human left. That meant—
Dyon turned to look for Ben and Vestara. They were gone. Of course. Blast! They were in on this. They were part of it. They weren’t who they were pretending to be. Or maybe Vestara was; she was a Sith after all, and everyone knew you couldn’t trust a Sith. He would have to let Luke know at once so he could—
And then the realization struck him like a blow to the gut. Luke had to be in on this, too, or, rather, the thing that had killed or captured the real Grand Master Luke Skywalker and wore his face and body like a costume.
He licked dry