Star Wars_ The New Rebellion - Kristine Kathryn Rusch [67]
Not even Skywalker.
Could he?
Brakiss whirled. He snapped his fingers and a protocol droid strode in. This droid, C-9PO, was a newer model that Brakiss had modified for his own needs. The final memory wipe, done two months ago, combined with the language augmentation, made this droid useful in ways that went beyond language.
Skywalker might never learn that.
Then again, he might.
“See-Ninepio,” Brakiss said, “we have a guest.”
“I know, sir.” The droid stood the requisite two meters in front of him, its golden eyes radiant with inner light.
“Bring him to the assembly room, and have him wait for me.”
“But sir, guests do not go to the assembly room.”
He glared at See-Ninepio. See-Ninepio continued to give him an implacable stare. Some things remained the same in protocol droids no matter how many memory wipes they had.
“This one is not a buyer.”
“Then what is he, sir, that I may learn who goes to the assembly room?”
What is he? Brakiss smiled, but the smile had no amusement behind it. Skywalker was impossible to fit into a category that the protocol droid would understand.
“He is a Jedi Master, Ninepio. He is not here on factory business.”
“Ah,” See-Ninepio said. “Then it is personal. I understand.” He turned and minced out of the room. The small feet on the C-9’s were not an improvement over the normal-sized feet of the C-1’s through C-8’s. Not an improvement at all.
He would have to remember that.
But even focusing on the droids was not enough for him. It usually cleared his mind, and it did no longer. Skywalker’s presence surrounded him.
The sooner he got Skywalker off Telti, the better.
They took the Millennium Falcon to Skip 5. Seluss wanted to take one of the Skippers, but Han reminded him that Han was in charge of making the plans.
Han wasn’t going to go ten meters without the Falcon.
He had decided that he needed to see this outrageous operation for himself. Something felt wrong. Smugglers always moved valuable products. Now they were getting paid ten times more than usual for junk—junk any resourceful crime lord could find on dozens of worlds.
The Empire, or what was left of it, was no longer making equipment. The New Republic had seen to that by shutting down each factory it could find. The prototypes and designs were taken and destroyed. If any factories remained, then this crime lord had to be paying them, too, in order to get modern Imperial equipment.
Or was there something about the old stuff? Something different?
Han felt that if he looked at the stuff the smugglers were selling, he might discover it. For the first time in a long time, he missed having Threepio at his side. The Professor could tell him about the differences in Imperial equipment, and if Threepio didn’t know, Artoo did.
It felt odd to travel without his resources.
When Han had been a regular at the Run, Skip 5 had been abandoned. The caves of Skip 5, while huge, were lined with sunstone, and the ambient temperature inside was about forty degrees Celsius, unbearable for humans most of the time, deadly for many of the larger species that inhabited the Run. A decade before Han arrived, a gang of human smugglers had lived in the caverns for months. They ended up killing each other in a fight some said was sparked by the heat.
Han had never been to Skip 5. He had only heard about it.
He was unprepared for its size, and for its level of development.
The landing pad in the caverns at the edge of Skip 5 was large enough for six luxury liners to rest comfortably. Han hadn’t seen a landing pad that big outside of Coruscant in years. The Falcon looked small next to the dozens of freighters that waited, their cargo doors open, for the binary load lifters to finish placing boxes inside. Some of the boxes were as large as the Falcon’s cockpit.
Han glanced at Chewie, who moaned in astonishment. Seluss, who had been sitting behind them, chittered excitedly.
“Boxes could carry anything, Seluss,” Han said. “I want to see what’s inside.”
Seluss chittered again.
Han ignored him. He knew