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By Root 629 0

of his star witness, he had asked for and been granted a stay of one local day. But he doubted that even a local year would have been sufficient to locate the witness. Not if his suspicions were accurate, and the Galactic Alliance itself had been responsible for the holoscreen image of the hueche and the subsequent disappearance of the Colicoid witness. Chief of State Daala's anti-Colicoid stance was a matter of public record, and it must have become clear to her that the ruling of the Holess court was going to favor the insectoids. While the justices accepted that an act of subterfuge had been perpetrated, Oxic was compelled to make his appeal before a criminal court. But Holess's prosecutors were already grumbling about the absence of evidence of Galactic Alliance involvement.

Nothing to do but take the criminal complaint to Coruscant, he told himself.

Across the face of Holess, bells were tolling the decision to dismiss and spectators were exiting the courtroom as if a bomb threat had been announced. The judges, members of the jury, and the trio of lawyers representing the Galactic Alliance were preparing to meet the media. Ignored by all but his assistant litigators and aides, Oxic was locking the last of the document cases when he spied Koi Quire moving against the tide in an effort to reach him. Rarely ruffled, she seemed agitated as she maneuvered between the rows of seats. Perhaps she feared she would be held accountable for the Colicoid's abduction, when in fact she had only been an escort.

“Am I right?” Oxic said when she was still a few meters away.

She shook her head. “Dead wrong.”

Oxic locked the final case.

“The pilots of the speeder truck were captured and identified as associates of Rej Taunt.”

Oxic knew the name well. Convicted of mass murder sixty or so years earlier, Taunt was serving a life sentence on Carcel. But Taunt's criminal past was of little interest. What mattered was that the former crime boss was a noted collector of Republicana and had outbid Oxic on several occasions for noteworthy pieces. The Bith agent at the recent auction on Epica was now known to have been in Taunt's employ.

“What does Taunt have to gain by sabotaging my case?”

“We're working on it,” Quire said with a note of impatience.

“Is there any word on the witness?”

“A ship launched soon after the abduction. We have evidence that links it to Taunt. We're trying to determine where it was headed when it jumped to hyperspace.”

“Can't we—”

“Stop for moment,” Quire said, holding up a hand, then pulling a holoimage from her satchel and showing it to Oxic. “Recognize him?”

“I don't think much of the outfit, but of course I do.” He cut his eyes to her. “You found him?”

“You might say that he found us. The image was captured yesterday—on Holess.”

Oxic looked as if she were speaking an unknown language.

She laughed. “It's not often I get to see you speechless.”

“How …,” Oxic stuttered.

“Jadak and Poste—the kid he partnered with on Nar Shaddaa— were the two that infiltrated the media platform and put the hueche image onscreen. There's every reason to believe that they also had something to do with transporting the Colicoid to the spaceport. And perhaps worse for you, I suspect that Jadak may have recognized me.”

Oxic felt behind him for a seat and dropped into it. “Jadak is in league with Rej Taunt? How would they even know each other?” He looked numb. “Didn't you tell me that Jadak was busy searching for his old ship?”

“I continue to believe that,” Quire said.

Oxic waited.

“Suppose for a moment that Taunt knows where the Stellar Envoy can be found.”

Oxic frowned. “If we're going to deal in theories, then suppose for a moment that Taunt is trying to send me the message that he knows the location of the treasure.” The veins in Oxic's temples bulged. “If he beats me to the prize after all these years—”

“We've managed to reach out to someone inside Carcel,” Quire said. “Taunt practically runs the show, but our man has promised to keep an eye out for Jadak and Poste.”

Oxic shook his head in disbelief. “We're looking