Star Wars_ MedStar 01_ Battle Surgeons - Michael Reaves [28]
"So, the deal is, you up your production and ship-ments. We set up a big transport outside sensor range - we got a Damorian Nine Thousand, carry half the planet, forget about that milking YT-Thirteen-hundred-f they’ve been using-you ferry the stuff up, fill the hold, we pay you and space. Everybody makes massive creds, everybody gets happy."
Bleyd wanted to laugh. Right. And my face goes on every criminal-wanted holocast from here to Corus-cant, while you remain anonymous. There’s a deal.
Even if Black Sun let him live after the transaction - and he wasn’t belting his yithrael on that-even if he came out of it with a fortune, it wouldn’t be enough to make life on the run worth it. Always looking over your shoulder for Republic peace officers? Never able to re-lax, never able to watch moonrise on Saki again? No, thank you. Bleyd knew that the only way to be a suc-cessful criminal was to commit a crime that nobody knew about. It didn’t have to be perfect-simply one that couldn’t be traced to your door. Buy an unregis-tered blaster, zap someone with whom you had no dis-cernible connection on some starless night, run far and fast, and chances were excellent that they’d never attach you to the murder. But hijack a freighterload of high-profile contraband like bota? Might as well start get-ting used to prison food now.
But to Mathal, he said, "All right. It might take a lit-tle while to arrange it."
The man smiled, showing his puny teeth. "We can have a transport here in, say, a local half month. Should be plenty of time, don’t you think?"
Bleyd smiled in return. Observe my fangs, human. "Why, yes, that should work fine."
Of course, it doesn’t matter what I say, since it isn’t going to happen-and you aren’t going to carry the tale back to your masters.
"Then I guess our business is done," Mathal said. "Except for your, ah... helper. Is the slug still in-volved in this?"
"Filba is a loyal and trusted employee," Bleyd said, offering the lie up easily. The truth was that he trusted Filba as far as he could throw him one-handed in spit-ting distance of an event horizon.
"Excellent. I’ll get back to my vigo and we’ll set up the operation."
Wrong again, my friend, Bleyd thought. The "operation"-in which I take out your viscera-begins right now.
Aloud, he said, "Yes, yes. Oh, one other thing-I have a small, but particularly good batch of bota cast in car-bonite, extremely high-grade product. I would like to send it to your vigo as a gesture of goodwill."
"High grade, eh? How much?"
"Not much." Bleyd shrugged self-deprecatingly. "Five kilos or so."
"Excellent," the human said. "My vigo will be pleased."
"And I am pleased to hear it." Bleyd stood. "I’ve had to hide it, of course. Would you care to accompany me? It’s on the quarantine deck."
Mathal looked uncertain. "Quarantine? As in conta-gious disease?"
"No, no, nothing like that. Anything that comes up from the planet has to be sterilized-irradiated-purely as a safety precaution. Drongar, as I’m sure you know, is a positive sump of exotic pathogens. The deck is clean now, and I’m keeping it off-limits to make sure nobody happens across some items I don’t want noticed-such as the one I have for you."
Mathal nodded. "Smart. You know, when this war is over, you might consider coming to work for Black Sun, Admiral. A being like you could do all right there."
"You are too kind." Bleyd politely gestured for the other to precede him. "Shall we go and collect your vigo’s gift?"
"I’m game," Mathal said.
This time Bleyd really had to fight to contain his smile.
Den Dhur waved at the tender, got his attention, pointed at the nearly empty glasses on the table, and held up two fingers. The tender, a different one than the taciturn Ortolan, nodded.
Den turned back to the being across from him, a stubby Ugnaught med-mechano specialist named Ro-rand Zuzz who was a head under his own height.
"Fascinating," Den said. "Tell me more."
Zuzz