Star Wars_ Tales From Jabba's Palace - Kevin J. Anderson [36]
Sienn was too young and vulnerable for work that made her beauty a commodity. Twi’leks called her kind a “morsel”—one gulp and a client could eat her. Their aging head trainer, who still boasted some beauty, tried hardening Sienn. “Don’t play with that kind of appetite,” she’d warned. “Make them drool, but don’t let them bite.”
Oola sleeked her lekku and shimmied her shoulders infinitesimally. She and Sienn had been trained by the best. Groomed for the best.
Sienn sat in another deceleration chair, wearing a simple hooded coverall—like Oola’s, but pale yellow instead of dark blue—and stroked her freshly tattooed lekku. “Do they still hurt?” Oola murmured.
“They’re fine,” insisted Sienn. “They—”
The cabin door slid aside. Jerris Rudd stepped through, one point seven meters of scum. Rudd was the first human she’d met. Perhaps all humans dressed in baggy, torn clothing. Perhaps they all smelled this foul, with matted fur covering their heads (the worst of Rudd’s stench came from that fur). If so, humans were scum. In keeping with her worldly-wise role, Rudd had given her a tiny dagger. “Help Sienn,” he’d taunted, “if you can.” She’d bristled, but she’d made sure the dagger was sharp, then tucked it into her belt.
“Nice fly, girls?” Rudd rubbed his stained hands. “Pretty good landing, I think. No boom.” He clapped his hands at Sienn’s face.
Sienn shrank into her chair. Evidently Rudd had tried to evaluate Sienn’s training during their hyperspace hop.
Oola could speak only a few hundred words of Basic, but her ear knew the way pidgin limped. It offended her. She could guess-translate most words in context. “It was a good landing,” she said firmly.
“Time to unbuckle”—he pantomimed releasing their harnesses—“and hit dirt. You’ll love Tatooine.”
Sienn touched a control on her seat. Her flight harness withdrew into its side. “What’s it like?” she asked.
“A little like Ryloth. You’ll see. Come on.”
They’d barely climbed down into the docking bay’s heat—and the sandy back lot was like Ryloth’s hot, perpetually uninhabitable bright side—when a metallic voice announced, “Hold it right there. Nobody moves.”
That voice had no music left in it. It grated in her ears like metal on slate. Oola did as it ordered.
The voice came from a human wearing white metal. Oola stared. She’d seen tri-D images of Imperial stormtroopers. Three of them stood between the battered fore pod of Rudd’s small transport and the only gate in the docking bay’s sandstone walls. One whiteskin marched up to Rudd. “Let’s see some identification.”
Oola had no trouble translating that word. Moving slowly and keeping his eye on the stormtroopers’ blast rifles, Rudd dug into his sweat-stained shoulder pouch. A stormtrooper grabbed it. Sienn stood still, trembling.
Eventually the whiteskin returned Rudd’s pouch. His partners lowered their weapons. “This is a very common class of ship,” he explained. “Just what we’d expect someone to use if they were trying to sneak past surveillance.”
“I,” said Rudd, “am a respectable escort. I—”
“Can it,” said the head stormtrooper. “We know your boss. Jabba’s in for a surprise. Real soon.” The whiteskin beside him laughed.
The third stormtrooper kept his weapon up. “I say we search their ship,” he drawled.
“Not necessary,” Rudd insisted. “I’m clean. I’ve got an appointment in just a few minutes.”
Evidently that was the wrong thing to tell a stormtrooper. Oola, Sienn, and Rudd spent the next hour under Imperial guard, crouched in marginal shade while two stormtroopers examined every square glekk of the shuttle. They emerged with officious shrugs. “Move along,” said the head whiteskin. “No charges this time.”
“Thanks so much,” Rudd growled, but he said it softly.