Star Wars the Truce at Bakura - Kathy Tyers [65]
Captain Manchisco lounged against the cantina’s corrugated wall. “Heading out, Commander?” She must’ve cleaned up for shore leave, but gray spaceport dust had smudged her cream-colored shipsuit during the fracas. Three black braids still dangled jauntily on each side of her head, dusted with leaf fragments and twigs.
On board the Falcon, she’d declared that she (sensibly) offered her Duro navigator triple overtime to stay shipboard. Luke wished the Mon Calamari captain had thought of that. Credit-poor the Alliance might be, but its leadership would rather pay triple overtime than provoke incidents that cost Bakuran lives. “Say, how’s the Flurry?” he asked.
Manchisco frowned. “Small problem with her starboard shield. It’s fixed, but I had to let an Imperial maintenance team on board. All her specs are probably on Thanas’s computer now.” She thrust her hand into a deep pocket.
“Did they do good work, though?”
“Looks all right.” She shrugged. “I don’t know if I told you it’s been a pleasure making your acquaintance.”
“I like working with you, too. And I’m sure we’re not finished here.”
Her battle-hard face lost a few smug lines. “You’re the one who knows about these things, but I’ve got this odd feeling we won’t meet again.”
Another warning. Or had Manchisco experienced a premonition of her own? “I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “The future is always in motion.”
She waggled her left hand. “Doesn’t matter. We do what we can, for as long as we can. Eh, Commander?”
“Exactly.” A two-seat speeder cruised through the gate to Pad 12, overloaded with four Alliance crewers. Just what he needed. Spaceport Authority had reclaimed the speeder he arrived in.
“Hot night downside,” Manchisco observed. “Let’s hope there wasn’t any more trouble.”
The crewers looked bleary-eyed but nonviolent. “I think they’re all right. Force be with you, Captain.” Luke commandeered the speeder and drove it out the perimeter road.
Five minutes later, he parked atop a residential tower. He found Senior Senator Belden’s apartment near the drop shaft, ran a hand over his hair and straightened his gray shipsuit, then touched the alarm panel.
While he waited for an answer, he glanced up the hall in both directions. This musty corridor, with plating peeled off several door frames, was a far cry from the Captison mansion. Perhaps the Belden family owned a finer home elsewhere, or maybe Governor Nereus made sure that the dissidents’ credit balances stayed slim.
The door slid aside. He stepped back. Gaeriel, here too? “I—” he stammered, “uh, hello. I was hoping to speak with Senator Belden.”
“He’s out.” She was sliding through the doorway into the hall when a cracked voice behind her called, “Let him in, Gaeri. Let him in.”
“That’s Madam Belden,” Gaeri whispered, “and she’s not well.” She touched her forehead. “Come in for a moment. Clis—her caregiver—had a family crisis, so I’m having tea this morning.”
“I’ll just say hello,” he murmured. “I didn’t mean to bother you.”
A wizened woman sat propped up on cushions in a brocade chair with wing-shaped armrests. She wore yellow-orange, almost the color of namana candy, and she’d dyed her sparse hair auburn. “You’re back, Roviden. Why did you stay away so long?”
Luke shot Gaeri a puzzled glance. “She thinks you’re their son,” Gaeri whispered against his ear. “He was killed in the purges, three years ago. She thinks every young man is their son. Don’t argue. It’s better.”
Was there an escape route? Luke saw spindly wooden furniture that was probably antique, a gray box that was probably electronic, and Gaeriel’s bare feet beneath her space-blue skirt and vest … but no way of gracefully evading a filial masquerade. Hesitantly he took Madam Belden’s hand. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “So much work to do. For the Rebellion, you know,” he added on a gamble: Son killed in the purges.
She squeezed his hand. “I knew you were working undercover somewhere, Roviden. They told me—oh, but it doesn’t matter. Gaeriel’s