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“Remind me never to make you angry.”

She raised his hand to her lips and kissed it. “You’ll never do that, love … at least not more than once.”

Corran and Mirax slid from the seats and followed the rest of the passengers out of the shuttle. It brought in crews from a half-dozen tankers parked in orbit around the planet, most of which were returning from runs they completed after the Rogues had hijacked their convoy. Of main concern for most of the crews was whether or not they’d be docked pay by their employers for making unauthorized runs. The majority opinion seemed to be that they would be because the Thyferrans never lost sight of the bottom line and were willing to cut costs anywhere and everywhere.

The five infiltrators did not appear to be that different from the rest of the crews going dirtdown. While Thyferrans owned and ran the shipping companies, they hired laborers from throughout the galaxy to actually do the work. On Thyferra these foreign workers were restricted to certain areas around the spaceport, but none of them seemed to find these restrictions that tough to bear. Most of the crews found the Thyferrans arrogant—the word Imperial was used to punctuate this point several times on the trip down—and preferred to keep with other spacers.

Once outside the shuttle, Corran picked up his luggage satchel. He opened it and pulled out the heavy tool belt and looped it over his left shoulder. A big hydrospanner hung at his left hip. He picked the bag up with his left hand, leaving his right hand free to deal with his identity card.

Or the lightsaber. To disguise the weapon, he’d grafted the working end of a hydrospanner onto the butt of the lightsaber. One quick, smooth draw and he had a working weapon in hand. Elscol had pronounced his work useless and suggested he would do better being able to produce a blaster in a pinch. He’d replied that a blaster and hydrospanner don’t look a lot alike.

A tall, slender Thyferran man with blond hair looked down his long, skinny nose at Corran. “State your name and the nature of your business.”

Corran hesitated for a second and immediately felt heat flush up from within his jumpsuit. “Eamon Yzalli. I am here to wait for my ship to be refilled and head out again.”

The Thyferran snatched the identity card from Corran’s hand and ran it through a datapad’s card slot. “Ship’s mechanic?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you always bring your tools with you when you come to a planet?”

“Well, sir, not always, sir, but I have a friend who might get me a berth on another ship so …”

The Customs official’s eyes darkened. “You would not think of overstaying your welcome here and trying to go into business for yourself doing repairs, would you?”

Unless it’s fixing your attitude, nope. “No, sir, never my intention, sir.”

“Very well.” He hit two buttons on the datapad, then swiped the card back through the slot. “Your provisional visa is good for a week. Remain longer than that and face criminal charges.”

Corran looked down as he accepted the card back, refusing to meet the man’s eyes. “Yes, sir. I understand, sir. You have been most kind, sir.”

“Yes, well, be gone. Next.”

Corran shuffled on past and into the spaceport’s main building. Its long, low shape, with softened edges and decorative elements clustered in groups of six suggested to him that the insectoid Vratix had designed and created the rectangular spaceport. The whole structure looked as if it had been worked around and between existing trees, with the roof being open to let some of them grow up through it. While clearly artificial, the two-story building showcased the natural beauty of what had been there before it had been created instead of trying to supplant and surpass the beauty of the native plants.

Inside the spaceport itself, Corran rejoined Mirax. Ahead he saw Elscol and Sixtus, off to the left he saw Iella. Their Ashern contact was supposed to meet them in the spaceport building, but no one appeared to be paying any of them any attention. There were backup contingencies in case contact could not be made for some reason,