Star Wars_ Young Jedi Knights 14_ Crisis at Crystal Reef - Kevin J. Anderson [11]
Han Solo had stopped Lilmit's ship, using the Millennium Falcon to intimidate him. Together, Anja and the young Jedi Knights had boarded the Rude Awakening, discovered the weapons cache, and destroyed all the deadly items in an explosion in space. It was one of the few good things Han Solo had ever done, as far as Anja was concerned.
And now she had caught Lilmit here on Kessel, no doubt causing more problems.
Before she could stop herself, Anja sprinted across the enclosed cargo bay, her long legs carrying her rapidly in the low gravity. Lilmit looked up from tinkering in his open engine compartments. He saw her coming and either recognized her or instinctively drew back from the blazing fire in her large eyes. He raised his webbed hands and backed against the hull of his ship in surrender.
Anja was there, glaring down at him. "What are you doing here, little man? Procuring more weapons?"
"No, no!" the diminutive smuggler said, flapping his fingers.
"There's nothing in my cargo that would interest you. It has nothing to do with you-and Czethros would be very angry if you sabotaged me again."
Czethros? Anja drew back. "What are you talking about?"
Lilmit misinterpreted her question. "Don't think I've forgotten you.
Your name is Anja Gallandro, and I found out that you work for Czethros, too. You were with Han Solo, and you helped him destroy my entire cargo on its way to Anobis. Czethros really didn't seem surprised when I told him. Oh, he was displeased to hear that you cost him most of his business on Anobis, but he was most displeased with me.
He said your assignment was your business, and my assignment was my responsibility. I had to pay Czethros back for that loss out of my personal accounts. I barely kept my family from being sold into slavery.
Now that I'm almost back on my feet, I won't let you destroy my work again.
I can't afford it."
"Czethros... you're sure you work for him?" Anja said, thinking of how Czethros had pretended to be her friend, taken her under his wing, trained her on Ord Mantell. How could he be involved in such terrible things? Of course, he had ordered his henchmen to kill the young Jedi Knights....
"Yes!" Lilmit insisted. "Just as you do! But after that disaster of losing all the weapons, Czethros assigned somebody else to those duties and transferred me to the spice run instead. Please-don't ruin this for me." His voice carried a whining tone.
"I wouldn't do that to you," she said masking her confusion with a smooth reply. "We're colleagues, right?" She fell silent, hoping he would blunder through more of an explanation. But already Lilmit's words echoed like thunder through her head. Czethros himself had been involved in the gunrunning to Anobis!
She couldn't believe it. He had lied to her! And not just about the addictive properties of spice. He'd known all along how much she despised the endless conflict on her war-torn world. He had pretended to understand what Anja had been through. Czethros had consoled her, offered her a new chance at life, given her a job working for him. And all the while he had secretly been selling weapons so that the people on her world could destroy themselves!
He was a liar and a traitor.
Czethros had played her for a fool. He'd kept his true activities secret.
He'd used her. In fact, Anja suddenly found it easy to accept that, in all likelihood, the man had purposely addicted her to spice just to keep her under his thumb.
It made complete sense now. Czethros was not a generous or benevolent man. He had managed to trap Anja in a prison of her own anger and need, and now that she needed the andris more than anything else... he had run.
He'd disappeared, gone into hiding to protect his own skin.
He didn't care about her at all.
Her face hardened into a grim scowl. "And just where