Star Wars_ The Approaching Storm - Alan Dean Foster [34]
Kyakhta followed, once more rubbing his fingers over the raised place. “The explosive is still there.” Cleansed mind or not, he was still understandably uneasy at its presence.
Barriss studied the street outside. From everything she could see, traffic appeared normal. “I could cut them out, but I’d rather have it done neatly, and I don’t have the tools with me. So I just deactivated them. They’re harmless now. But we’d do well to move fast. Possibly the process of my deactivating them will result in notification of whoever is monitoring you for your bossban that something has gone wrong. I assume a rapid response will be forthcoming.”
“Let’s go, then.” Pushing past her, Bulgan opened the door and stepped unflinchingly out onto the street. Kyakhta and their former prisoner followed.
“Central square, I think. The shop where you found me.” Barriss followed Kyakhta’s lead. “In looking for me, my companions will split up and begin their search from there.” She fondled the closed-band comlink on her belt. “As soon as we’re a safe distance away from here, I’ll notify them of our destination, course, and that I’m okay.” She smiled. “And of your change of heart, as well.”
“Better to say change of mind.” Everything that was previously familiar to him, Bulgan was now seeing out of new eyes. Harmless it might now be, having been rendered so by the Padawan, but the lethal packet embedded in his neck still itched. “Get rid of this as soon as possible.”
“We will,” Barriss assured him as they turned a corner onto a much busier thoroughfare. The presence of so many sentients around them eased her tension. “Until then, we’ll simply tell anyone we meet to be careful what they say to you, because you happen to have an explosive personality.”
Prior to her discerning ministrations, Bulgan would have simply gaped dumbly at this remark. Now, both he and his friend Kyakhta had the pleasure of laughing at the joke.
It was the kind of pleasure that had been all too long denied them.
Sooner or later, a distraught Ogomoor felt, Bossban Soergg was going to grow tired of listening to his majordomo deliver bad news. When that happened, Ogomoor knew he had better be ready to run—or at least be standing well out of range of the Hutt’s massive, powerful tail.
“Gone.” Soergg lay on the resting divan in his sleeping quarters. He had been in the midst of his afternoon nap when Ogomoor, driven by urgency, had felt duty-bound to wake him. “Vanished. And those two morons with her.”
“We do not know that they are with her, Great One. Only that she is missing, and so are they. The guard says he was attacked from behind, in all likelihood by one of them. Why would they suddenly decide to go with her?”
“Who knows?” The Hutt grunted as he slouched his sagging corpus off the divan and onto the floor. Immediately, a pair of tiny geril servants commenced the odious task of grooming the sluglike shape. Soergg ignored them as he scowled down at his subordinate. “I smell the stink of Jedi wiles behind this misfortune.”
“The devices that were supposed to ensure the loyalty of the two abductors?…” Ogomoor left the question hanging.
“Pagh! I activated those as soon as you told me what had happened. Either those imbeciles are now headless, or else more Jedi sleight of hand is at work in this.” As the gerils clung to his massive body, continuing their grooming without interruption, Soergg lumbered forward. Exhibiting courage he did not feel, Ogomoor held his ground. His own head, he knew, remained attached to his shoulders only because of his continuing value to the Hutt.
“Put out the word to every lowlife, criminal, lawbreaker, and felon in Cuipernam. A thousand Republic credits to anyone who brings the accursed Padawan back to me alive, or the head of a dead Jedi. Hurry! We may still have a chance if she can be intercepted before she can rejoin her companions.”
“I hear and obey, Bossban.” Too relieved at the dismissal to fear a shot in the back, Ogomoor whirled and fled unceremoniously from the bedroom, his comlink already