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Once, its main military complex had housed Imperial biological development facilities, the type governments generally didn’t want the public to know too much about. Later, it had been the jumping-off point for the New Republic’s successful efforts to capture Coruscant and drive off the government that had gained control of the Empire after Palpatine’s death. Later still, when the Yuuzhan Vong invasion had reached Coruscant and the New Republic government itself had fled, Borleias had been the site of a holdout force, a target for the Yuuzhan Vong, its continued resistance giving the New Republic leaders time to escape and regroup. Most recently, it and Bilbringi had been traded to the Imperial Remnant by Jacen Solo in return for military aid. After Solo’s death, the government of Admiral Daala, unwilling to have such a valuable waypoint belong to a foreign power, conducted an aggressive negotiation with the Empire, resulting in Bilbringi remaining Imperial and Borleias staying with the Galactic Alliance.

But for all that, it was really just a place where old military careers went to die. Here were officers and personnel who needed a last chance to demonstrate basic competence but were not really expected to do so successfully, or who needed a place to serve out the remaining years of undistinguished careers. The outpost, one combined-forces military base, was noted for good communications and sensor gear, for self-destruction capabilities, but not for might.

There were, however, some opportunities for the smart fellow. Sergeant Dolo Karenzi, de facto night-shift quartermaster for the outpost, knew he was a smart fellow. Now he tried to keep the excitement off his face as he realized the opportunity he was being handed on a datapad. A spacer’s son who had made the military his home because no one else would have him, he was always alert to opportunity—just not always good at covering up his tracks.

The woman facing him, young, redheaded, and graceful, gave him another maddening I’m-way-out-of-your-league smile and offered the datapad again. “I don’t care. It’s paid for, the manifest is correct, you can sign for it and we can off-load, or you can refuse it and we take it away and try to figure out who fouled up.”

Dolo took the datapad and ran the situation through his mind one more time. The transport Dust Dancer was in orbit carrying a load of consumable luxury items with a listed destination of the Borleias outpost. The manifest included expensive wines, exotic foods, fresh sabacc decks, entertainment datapads, candies, pastries … all of it in high demand.

It was a mistake, of course. The quartermasters of this base had not been notified of any such delivery, and given its specialized nature, they ordinarily would have been. So something had happened in the ordering process, delivery locations had been scrambled or swapped, and a shipment designated for some deep-space hotel or rich individual’s estate had been diverted here.

All he had to do was sign for it—as illegibly as possible—and take possession. He could warehouse it in some little-trafficked storage pod, wait to see if anyone came looking for it, and, if not, arrange for it to be sold for a small fortune.

He scribbled his name across the datapad’s touch screen and handed it back to the young woman.

She dimpled another smile at him and handed him a datachip. “Your copy of the manifest. If you’ll give us landing authorization, we’ll bring the Dancer down and off-load.”

He smiled back, no longer caring that she was out of his league. “Consider it done.”

His good mood lasted barely half an hour.

The Dust Dancer, eighty meters of Kuat Drive Yards mechanical efficiency, had a ball for the command center at one end, a mass of engines at the other, and a connecting spar thickly clustered with cargo pods and shuttle attachment points dominating the middle. He had seen numberless ships like it before. It came in for a smooth landing at the dirt-topped