Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 09_ Edge of Victory 02_ Rebirth - J. Gregory Keyes [57]
“No!” the captain said. “No captives. It’s as you said. Weapons for the Peace Brigade. Not my idea! I have an employer. I need this job. Please don’t kill me and my crew.”
“Quit your whining. I’m not killing anybody, this time. I’m setting you adrift in one of your shuttles.”
“Thank you. Thank you!”
“Here’s how you thank me,” Han said. “You tell anyone who’ll listen that we’re out here. Any ship delivering to a Yuuzhan Vong–occupied system is mine. And next time, I may not take prisoners. You get me?”
“I get you,” Swori Mdimu said.
“Great. My, ah, buddy here is going to put you all in stun cuffs now. I’m going to have a look at your cargo. If there are any surprises waiting for me, better tell me now.”
“There—there are two Yuuzhan Vong guards. They will be alerted.”
“No kidding?” Han said. “Okay, so we’re cuffing you and locking you up. Then the two of us will take care of these guards.”
“Two of you?” the Etti said incredulously. “Against Yuuzhan Vong?”
“Hey, don’t worry. You want us to lose, right? But if we don’t, I’ll be back, and we need to have a little talk about who exactly your employer is.”
Once the prisoners were secure, Han started off down a corridor.
“Da—ah, Captain?” Jacen said. “Cargo hold’s the other way.”
“That’s right,” Han told him.
“What’re you …?”
“Just stay here. If the Yuuzhan Vong come up, give a yell. I’ll be on the bridge.”
Han returned from the bridge a little later, and the two of them went to the cargo access axis. At the first set of locks, they found two Yuuzhan Vong guards, collapsed near the door. Their faces were masses of purple—not from their own scarification, but from the capillaries that had burst beneath their skin.
“You killed them,” Jacen said dully, hardly believing it. “You sealed off the compartment and let the air out.”
Han glanced at his son. “Right on all but one count. They aren’t dead.”
Jacen frowned and knelt to search for some sign of life, since with the Yuuzhan Vong the Force could not help him. One of the two stirred at his touch, and he jumped back.
“See?” Han said, a sure note of satisfaction tinting his voice. “I just dropped the pressure until they did. There are surveillance cams in here.”
“Oh.”
“Better cuff ’em, unless you want to fight ’em. I thought things would go smoother this way.”
“Dad, what if there had been captives in here?”
“Then I would have seen them on the surveillance. Jacen, give the old man some credit.”
“Permission to speak freely, Captain.”
Han sighed. “Go ahead, son.”
“Dad, I don’t like this. Maybe you think being a pirate is okay, but—”
“Privateer,” Han corrected.
“You really think there’s a moral difference?”
“If there’s ever a moral difference in being on one side instead of the other in a war, yes. Doesn’t your all-knowing Force tell you that?”
“I don’t know what the Force wants. That’s exactly the problem.”
“Yeah?” Han said sarcastically. “You knew what to do when you found your mother with her legs half cut off. Fortunately. Or do you think it was wrong to save her life?”
Jacen reddened. “That’s not fair.”
“Fair?” Han threw his hands up. “Kids these days. Fair.”
“Dad, I know the Yuuzhan Vong are a darkness that must be fought. But aggression—that’s not my way. Setting up Uncle Luke’s great river, that I know I can do. This …”
“And you thought we were going to be able to carry out Luke’s grand scheme without ever getting our hands dirty? You heard them back at the Maw—we need ships, we need supplies and weapons, we need money.” Han tapped up the ship’s manifest on the captain’s datapad and whistled. “And now we have all three. Three E-wings, right out of dry dock. Lommite, about two hundred kilos. Enough rations to feed a small army.” He glanced back up at Jacen. “Not to mention that the Peace Brigade doesn’t get any of this stuff. C’mere. I want to see something.”
They