Star Wars_ Millennium Falcon - James Luceno [19]
Taunt was so eager to try out the ship that he had accepted a job from a Black Sun Vigo he might otherwise have turned down. If only it hadn't involved dealing with bugs … But Taunt had long had his eye on furthering his reputation as an earner with the Black Sun leadership, and the chance to do that had offset some of his initial revulsion.
And fear.
Black Sun was finally recovering from an attack thirteen years earlier by an assassin who had executed the cartel's head honchos, including the flamboyant Alexi Garyn. During the war, several Vigos had attempted to assume leadership, but plans to align with the Hutts in controlling the flow of the specious healing agent bota had backfired and left Black Sun in shambles. Lately, though, there were signs of reorganization under the guidance of Dal Perhi and a Falleen crime lord named Xizor.
It was one of Perhi's lieutenants who had approached Taunt with the job and put him in contact with a Koorivar named Masel, who had recommended using Lu San as an intermediary with the Colicoids. Masel was one of a new breed of information brokers born out of the ashes of the war and the birth of the Empire. One day soon Palpatine's navy of Star Destroyers commanded by flesh-and-blood officers disgorged from the Imperial Academies would rule all space. But until then there were credits to be made by taking advantage of what the war had left in its wake. Many would miss the Jedi Order, but no one Taunt knew. The Empire was already better armed than Black Sun and other enterprises, but at the very least, Palpatine's proxies could be dealt with turbolaser for turbolaser rather than turbolaser against the force.
The Second Chance carried no major weapons, but the cargo holds were packed with what Taunt hoped would prove even more effective in dealing with the insectoid Colicoids: fifty metric tons of flash-frozen eopie meat.
The chitinous, carnivorous hive-minded designer-manufacturers of the tri-fighter, destroyer, and sabotage droids that the Separatist conspirators had purchased in mass quantities to hurl against the Republic had decamped from their native Colla IV at the end of the war and immigrated to worlds in the Tion Cluster, among other places. Most of their deadly inventions had been deactivated, but many of their self-modeled droidekas had been acquired by security companies operating in the Corporate Sector, and some of their other innovations had found their way onto the burgeoning black market. Among them were containerfuls of the melon-sized Pistoeka disassemblers known as buzz droids, which Black Sun had decided were perfectly suited for work in Nar Shaddaa's vehicle and vessel chop shops.
Taunt hadn't had personal dealings with the Colicoids, but he knew fellow criminals who had, back when the insectoids had attempted to assume control of Kessel's spice trade and had sought to take over a spice factory on Nar Shaddaa, only to learn the hard way that a former slaver would prove to be more deadly than they were.
“It's something about their posture,” Taunt said, his anxiety triumphing over his pride in the Second Chance. “I can stomach Ruurians, Kamarians, even a Geonosian or two, but there's just something about their … concavity that makes them seem more aggressive.” A shudder passed through him. “I'd feel safer sleeping with an Anzati.”
“They are more aggressive,” the Gossam said. “And your … how should I put it? Your healthy corpulence is bound to excite them to hunger.”
Taunt's eyes widened. “Don't tell me that.”
Lu San smiled pleasantly. “That's why the quadruped meat must be off-loaded before we make an appearance. Beyond its purpose as