Star Wars_ Legacy of the Force 04_ Exile - Aaron Allston [6]
She had not quite materialized beside him—he had felt her walk up—but her approach had been silent. Perhaps she would also prove adept at stealth work.
The question annoyed Jacen; his mind was occupied by details of the capture of the smuggler fleet, and he needed to begin thinking about his upcoming meeting with the Corellian representative. “Why would I want to speak with her? And please don’t call her our agent. She betrayed her comrades for money. She is our temporary hireling. She is their traitor. She is nobody’s agent but her own.”
Ebbak paused, then evidently decided not to address those last few comments. “She didn’t say what she wanted. But since she’s already proven that she had one piece of information useful to us—”
“Yes, yes.” Jacen nodded. “Where is she?”
“Your office.”
Jacen followed her back through the bulkhead doors aft of the Command Salon. Once in the main corridor beyond, they moved through a port-side door into the office that served as Jacen’s retreat aboard the Anakin Solo.
Waiting there were two people—a large man, dressed in the uniform of ship’s security, standing, and a woman, seated…though she rose as Jacen and Ebbak entered.
Jacen looked into the weathered face of Captain Uran Lavint. “Yes?”
Lavint paused, apparently put off by his distant, brusque manner. “I simply wanted to find out if you had any requests or, more to the point, assignments for me before I left.”
Jacen repressed a sigh. “First, I’d never prolong a business relationship with someone who sells out her fellows. Second, you’re lying.”
Lavint flushed, but her expression did not change. “All right. I mostly just wanted to meet you.”
“Ah.” Jacen paused, and carefully considered his next words. “Lavint, you now have all the time in the galaxy available to you. In betraying thirty-odd fellow smugglers, you have earned enough credits to pay off all your debts and start over, whether as a smuggler or something legitimate. You can cruise, you can frolic, you can relax. I, on the other hand, don’t have time to spare. And you have now wasted some of it. I don’t appreciate that.” He turned to the security officer. “Take her down to Delta Hangar, put her on her ship, and get her off my ship.”
Lavint cleared her throat. “Breathe My Jets is on Gamma Hangar. And the engines won’t be repaired for a couple of standard days at least.”
“That’s right. I’m claiming Breathe My Jets for the current military crisis.” Jacen pulled his datapad from a pocket and consulted it. “Your ship is now the Duracrud.”
“Duracrud?” Lavint practically spat the name. “That’s a stock why-vee six-six-six older than I am. It’s a brick with wings and a hull that leaks gases like a flatulent Hutt. It’s a fraction the size of Breathe My Jets.”
“And exactly the sort of vessel needed by a smuggler starting a new career.”
“Our agreement—”
“Our agreement was that you would receive a sum of credits—Ebbak, you showed her the transfer proof and gave her the data to claim it from the Bespin account? Yes—and that you would be allowed to depart on your ship, minus her cargo. The agreement did not specify which was to be your ship.” He fixed Lavint with an impassive stare. “Now would you care to waste any more of my time?”
The glare she turned on him was murderous. He understood why. He’d just taken her ship, her beloved business and home, and given her a hovel in its place. His father, Han Solo, would have felt the same way.
But Uran Lavint was no Han Solo, and Jacen didn’t worry that she might someday return to cause him grief. Her record made it clear that she had no goals, no drives other than the acquisition of credits. She was nothing.
Lavint turned away, her body language stiff, and marched to the door, her security man behind her. Then, as the doors slid open, she