Star Wars_ X-Wing 02_ Wedge's Gamble - Michael A. Stackpole [94]
“No one will believe I hid.”
Loor looked over at one of the stormtroopers. “He’s right. Before you leave him inflict a nonfatal abdominal wound—one he could survive and one that won’t hamper him too much.”
“You don’t need to do that.”
Loor smiled. “Oh, but I think we do. Verisimilitude. If you can’t believe you would have been hiding, no one else will. People are suspicious, especially people like Corran Horn.”
“Then this will be another thing I owe him for. If it weren’t for him, I’d not be in your custody.”
“Indeed,” Loor nodded confidently. “And just to show you that I’m not a monster, I’ll give you a gift. If you find a convenient time to kill Corran Horn, do so. I consider him a threat to you and your operation. His elimination, therefore, will please me no end.”
29
Corran hated waiting. It seemed that since he’d left the rest of the Rogues with the Ithorian he’d done little but wait. After departing from the Ithorian’s jungle—which was just one apartment within a whole complex filled with such apartments so the Ithorians could live together, as was their wont—he had used a public comm station and had called a number Rima had given him. The recording at the other end asked him to punch in a personal code, which he did, then he was given instructions on where to go.
Being careful to see he was not followed, he went to the location indicated. He found himself at a biopod hotel run by a Selonian. The tall, slender creature showed Corran to a small pod midway up on a wall of pods. As Corran climbed in he estimated the cockpit of his X-wing was larger. He dialed the external opaquing for his door up to full, then lay down in a pod that measured two meters in length, a meter in height, and a meter in width.
He immediately adjusted the temperature up—it was set low enough that he figured a Sullustan had been the last occupant—and opened a channel on the comlink to let music fill the pod. The datapad display unit above his face flashed through a series of instructions concerning fire exits, the location of refresher facilities, and the locations of nearby culinary establishments. He watched that until one advertisement showed a Gamorrean digging a paw into a bowl of something pink that pulsed, at which point the need for locating food became moot.
He remained at that location for two days before Rima came for him and took him to another place that was better suited to his needs, though it was in need of a great deal of repair. Plasteel sheets covered one of the apartment’s walls. The furnishings, while hardly worn at all, were tattered and torn. The carpet had some blood in it and transparisteel occasionally crunched underfoot. The interior wall opposite the plasteel wall had been heavily dented by an oblong, vaguely cylindrical object.
Corran looked at her. “Is this the place where a speeder bike came crashing through the wall?”
Rima stared at him, somewhat stunned. “How do you know about that?”
“I was driving the bike that sent it into the window.” Corran ran his hand over the impression in the wall. “The others wouldn’t have told you about that. The Rogues didn’t know and the Black Sun people aren’t much for talking about their defeats. I’d imagine they have turned the story into something about rescuing the aliens from the Imps, right?”
“I do not know.” Rima shrugged easily. “My primary concern has been seeing to it that you and Erisi are taken care of. I apologize for quarantining you two, but I don’t know how much has been relayed to Imperial Intelligence.”
“I don’t know either, but I made some basic arrangements before I headed out and called the emergency number you gave me. Inyri Forge was going back to the Headquarters. That is one place Fliry Vorru can be found. It was my bad luck that Zekka Thyne was there the night I visited. That’s what initiated the chase that ended with my running