Star Wars_ Planet of Twilight - Barbara Hambly [115]
“I owe you,” he whispered excitedly, fishing in his pocket and producing a magnetic bolt extractor and a pair of wire snips. “Brothers, I owe you plenty. This whole ship stinks! The Big Green Fish only knows who paid that captain how much to put me out the airlock. Maybe she thought the order was on the up-and-up.”
“It could be,” surmised Threepio, as the Chadra-Fan popped the restraining bolt from his golden chest. “Artoo here claims there is a traitor, or at least a major information leak, on the Galactic Council.”
“And the Rebels have taken Coruscant,” muttered Yarbolk, going to work on Artoo. “Tell me something I don’t know. You went and blabbed that Ashgad had kidnapped Lady O-S. Is that true?”
Threepio hesitated, belated visions of galaxywide coverage cascading into his deductive logic circuits.
“Because if it is, you better keep damn quiet about it, my tinny friend, if you don’t want her getting what I nearly got. And as for a traitor on the Council—Fish, I figured that one out weeks ago! Loronar buys and sells Senators and governors in the Republic and out of it. All it takes is a few strategic contributions to good causes. Hold that door, would you, Threesie? It’s gonna close again once I get Artie unhooked … ah. Thanks.”
He looped up the wires and coax cables into the interface box on Artoo’s side and replaced the strip of silver space tape that had held its hatch closed. “All those Senators have blind spots. Pet causes. Like ‘order in the galaxy’ or ‘the rights of all sentient species’ or ‘the rights of one obviously superior sentient species to put all other sentient species straight whether they want to be put straight or not.’ And it’s Loronar’s business to know what those blind spots are.”
He was hurrying down the corridor as he spoke, furry feet making no sound, wide nostrils snuffing softly. Once he halted, pushing the two droids back into the niche of a bay door. Two Sullustan guards walked by, weapons slung casually over their shoulders, bodies slumped with fatigue. “Thank your lucky nuts and bolts the whole ship’s understaffed and occupied with those Aqualish smugglers up in the holding area. Which one of these bays is their ship in, Artie?”
Artoo cornered determinedly and made his way down a short passage to a landing bay whose doors, surprisingly, stood open. They passed inside, Yarbolk pausing to crank the doors shut manually from within. The bay was tiny and almost completely filled by the lumpy ovoid of the Aqualish smugglers’ vessel. Beyond the dark, silvery green egg of the ship, the magnetic field glimmered faintly around the oval shape of the entry port. Yarbolk hooked Artoo’s coax links into the access hatch beside the bay door: “Figure five minutes should do us?”
Artoo tweeped.
“You can get that baby started in that short a time?”
Artoo tweeped again, indignantly.
“Okay, okay. Once you get it to turn over those things are candy to fly. I doubt she’s got the juice in her to make it to Cybloc, but I know a fellow on Budpok who’ll buy her, no questions asked, cargo and all. The proceeds should get me back to the Core, and you to Cybloc no problem.”
“Not again,” groaned Threepio, as he, Artoo, and Yarbolk hastened across the decking to the Aqualish ship. “I do hope we can arrive at a more convincing disguise this time. I must say that I am quite frankly becoming very tired of being treated as the potential personal property of every sentient being we meet.”
“Not to worry.” Yarbolk pulled the hatch shut behind them and twirled the locking rings—for a space-going civilization, the Aqualish had some surprisingly primitive features on their ships. He toddled ahead of the two droids to the bridge, where he hooked Artoo into the computer core again and perched on the stool before the console, his furry little feet dangling.
“I have