Star Wars - Credit Denied - Unpublished Read online

  Rendra stepped through the massive archway where at one time equally massive doors had kept out unwanted visitors. The interior of the temple was shrouded in musty darkness, and she had to pause a moment to allow both her eyes and her lungs to adjust to the new environment.

  Shapes slowly coalesced in the black void before her—stairs leading downward… rows of seats running in concentric circles around the chamber… a domed ceiling of opaque plasteel tiles stretching overhead. And in the very center of it all, at the lowest level of the temple, a triangular dais covered by the decaying remains of a once-great altar.

  A cold gust of wind swirled the dust at her feet, and she pulled her waist-length flight jacket more tightly about her to ward off the chill. “Can’t meet in a nice, warm space station, no,” she said, her words echoing around the chamber as if caught in a whirlwind.

  She headed down the worn stairs toward the dais, scanning the seats for signs of her contact. It seemed he was late—not necessarily a good way to begin a business relationship as far as she was concerned. She chuckled to herself as she realized her father’s wisdom was still lurking in her mind no matter how hard she tried to rid herself of it. She had no intention of winding up like he did, and if he had lived his life by the same tenets he had taught her, she wanted no part of them.

  But still, showing up late could cost you a deal—she couldn’t really refute the logic of that axiom. So it seemed she was following that adage, at least until she could figure out some way to disprove it. For now, though, she’d have to let it ride.

  As she reached the bottom of the stairs, she glanced up and around. Standing on the low ground made her somewhat anxious, but the archways that led outside were still clear, and she’d seen no indication of trouble thus far.

  She ripped the blaster from the holster at her hip so quickly and with such ferocity that she almost tore the straps holding the holster against her leg. She let her eyes pass along the top row of seats, and then slid the pistol back into its resting place.

  Yeah, still the fastest draw in the galaxy, she thought as she turned her attention to the dais. Three stairs led up each side of the triangular platform, but they were covered with so much debris that they seemed impassable at the moment. All that remained of the altar was a ragged hulk of rotting wood—even with the moonlight spilling in from a shaft directly overhead, she couldn’t make out any of the symbols running across the sides. Whatever god this temple had once venerated had been long-forgotten or his people long-conquered, the thought of which gave Rendra the creeps, as if she were standing in the middle of an ancient crypt swelling with angry souls looking for some mortal to take the blame for whatever evil had befallen them.

  Why do I do this to myself? she wondered as she eased back from the dais. The first row of seats halted her progress, and she whipped around, just in case someone or something had managed to sneak up on her.

  But she found only decomposing wood and fabric—not much of a threat as far as she could tell.

  “Maex,” called a voice. Her name spiraled around the chamber as if possessed of its own life.

  She snatched her blaster from her holster and pointed it in various directions as she sought out the voice’s owner.

  “There’s no need for that,” said the voice. This time she was able to catch its point of origin—a group of three, maybe four, figures moving through the same archway she’d entered a few moments before.

  “You’ve got interesting taste in meeting places,” she said, lowering her blaster. “If I knew you better, I’d suggest looking into psychological testing.”

  “I’m sure you could do with a bit of that yourself,” the being said dryly, apparently far from amused. He reached the bottom of the stairs and stopped about five meters away from her. In the minimal moonlight seeping into the temple she could see that he and his companions were definitely humanoid—but for all the detail she could make out they could be humans, Bith, Nikto, Duro, or any one of a thousand other humanoid species.

  Whatever he was, he was staring at her, apparently waiting for something. She gave a shrug to indicate her confusion, and he responded with a gesture toward her blaster.

  She could see that his comrades had blaster rifles or carbines slung over their shoulders, but at this point they seemed to be fairly at ease. She didn’t feel there was any harm in holstering her own weapon for the moment—besides, she could outdraw a long firearm any day.

  “I suggest we get straight to the business at hand,” the leader said finally as he slipped a hand into an interior coat pocket and extracted a datapad. With a flick of his wrist he sent it spinning through the air toward Rendra.

  The slap of her palm against the plasteel stuttered through the temple, dying to nothingness as she read over the text. Slowly, a reverent silence filled the chamber as if whatever spirits remained here had been awakened by the commotion and were now anxiously watching and waiting.

  Rendra found herself reading the document over and over again. The words simply didn’t seem to make sense in her mind. But she soon realized that they accurately and precisely conveyed the intention of their author.

  She looked up. “Are you serious?”

  “Quite,” he said without any particular inflection. “And for that sort of money, I would think you would not take the matter so lightly.”

  She glanced back to the datapad, and nodded. “Yeah, that’s a lot of credits… but I don’t know—”

  “lt is far too late for a change of heart, my dear mercenary. You will carry out the duties described there or you will… let us just say that your life will become even less pleasant.”

  She shifted the datapad into her left hand, leaving her right free to grab her blaster when the moment came. “I don’t remember agreeing to any of this.”

  “Come, Rendra. We both know you need those credits desperately. Do not pretend that such a sum would not save you from years of difficulty. You are required to accomplish a relatively simple and straightforward task. My sources say that you can handle this in your sleep.”

  “It’s not a matter of what I can and can’t do—it’s a matter of whether I want to.”

  The being laughed. “I admire your… scruples. But you speak as if you have a choice, when you do not.”

  In a blur, she whipped her blaster out and had it trained on a spot she believed was the middle of his forehead before the sibilance from his last statement had faded away. “This gives me a choice.”

  “First of all, I don’t care how good you might think you are with that thing, but you can’t kill all three of us before you die. And second, you miss the point: I’ve already alerted GalactiCore to your presence here. If you can’t pay them, they will impound your ship and you will be completely without resources.”

  She maintained her stance as she considered his words. He was right: without her ship she’d have no livelihood whatsoever, making her far worse off than she was now. She looked to the amount listed on the datapad. The price was more than fair, and it was a onetime deal…

  “All right,” she said quickly, before she could change her mind. At the same time she lowered her blaster. “When do I get my money?”

  He reached into his coat again and threw her a credit stick. “That’s half. You get the rest when you complete the assignment.”

  “That’s not enough to pay off GalactiCore.”

  “I know.”

  You sneaky little—

  She took several long strides toward him before his companions raised their blaster rifles, stopping her in her tracks. She heard nothing, but she could see that he had started laughing by the flickering of moonlight across a crescent-shaped a
mulet hanging from his neck.

  Before she let her frustration get the best of her, she shoved her blaster back into its holster and charged up the stairs and out into the cool night air. As she pulled her comllnk from her belt she looked up to the starlit sky. “Okay, Nopul,” she said into the link. “Let’s get out of here.”

  She put the comlink away and watched a tiny speck of light descend from the sky.

  “Sounds like a bad idea to me,” Nopul Etrefa said, his husky, Kerestian voice accenting his pronunciation. The breathing holes set beneath his eyes expanded as he breathed out—what in human physiology would definitely be considered a sigh.

  Rendra glanced off into the cantina’s eclectic crowd—a collection of aliens from across the sector and beyond: some off-duty security officers drinking themselves silly a few booths away, an intense game of dejarik festering off in the corner. Standard patronage for a space station bar in the Periphery.

  She finally looked back to Nopul, who was staring at her, apparently still expecting her to comment on his remark. “We owe GalactiCore more credits than some planets earn in a year. And if we don’t pay them, we’ll be stranded—and I don’t want to go through that ordeal again. I don’t think I could handle it.”

  Nopul said nothing, just continued to fiddle with the hololocket he kept on a chain around his neck. She wasn’t sure exactly what he might be thinking, but she knew she didn’t like it.

  “What, you think I want to do this?” she said. “I would think you’d know me better than that.”

  He looked into her eyes, his face set in an accusatory expression, but still he remained silent.

  “Look, if you’ve got a better solution, let’s hear it.”

  He breathed deeply and shook his head. “No, no. Your synopsis of our situation is accurate, and I don’t have an alternative. I just wanted to make sure this job didn’t at least bother you a little.”

  Rendra stared at her companion for a few heartbeats, and then couldn’t help but smile. “You know, you’re a better friend than I deserve.” She grabbed her drink from the table. “Just don’t let it go to your head,” she said and then swallowed the remainder of the Corellian whiskey in a single swig.

  “So, when are these mercenaries supposed to show up?” he asked, scanning the latest group of arrivals.

  “Not sure. Dania said we should just—”

  “Whoa—you let Starcrosser put this deal together?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  Nopul looked at her as if an arm had suddenly grown out of her face. “Gelgelar? Fiery conflagration? Loss of all cargo? Any of this sound familiar?”

  Rendra felt her defense mechanism kicking in. “That wasn’t Dania’s fault—”

  He shook his head, and his eyes squinted in that annoying Kerestian expression of shocked disbelief. “You’d better cut down on that whiskey, it’s starting to affect your memory.”

  “Okay, okay, we’ve had our problems with Dania in the past, but right now we don’t have time to establish a new contact in this sector or travel out into the Rim to hook up with Keleni. If we don’t take care of this job immediately, we’re out of luck and out of credits. And then we’re out of a ship.”

  Nopul’s expression slowly shifted from incredulity to understanding and then finally to reluctant acceptance. “Fine, point taken. But I’m still not happy about it—about any of it, for that matter.” His eyes shifted to survey the crowd again. “I can’t wait to get this over with.”

  “You and me both,” she said as she gestured to the waitress at the bar for another whiskey. “Just keep an eye out for anyone wearing a red sash or scarf or something. That’s the sign.”

  “Well, so far I don’t—”

  The sound of shattering glass interrupted his statement, and their attention was immediately drawn to the dejarik table in the back corner. Two aliens were standing on either side of the game board shouting at each other in languages that the other didn’t seem to understand.

  “You catch any of that?” Rendra asked.

  Nopul continued to listen for another second. “Apparently the one on the left, the Nikto, thought they were playing the Bespin Variant, and the one on the right, the Dresselian, thought they were playing the Smuggler’s Option.” He paused to absorb more of the argument. “And it sounds like they both take the game pretty seriously.”

  As they continued to watch, the Nikto suddenly yanked a handsized spherical object from a compartment in his belt. At the same time, the Dresselian brought a hold-out blaster to bear on the Nikto.

  “Great,” Rendra said, doing her usual best to infuse sarcasm into the word. “This is exactly what we need.”

  “I say we make a quick exit.”

  She turned to Nopul. “Uh, did I mention we’re supposed to meet the mercenaries here—in this bar?”

  “Yeah, but in a few minutes there might not be a bar to meet in.”

  Rendra glanced back to the confrontation. The Nikto had set the thermal detonator’s timer, and the Dresselian still had the blaster pointed at the Nikto’s forehead.

  “Wait here,” Rendra said as she got up from the table.

  “I’ll think I’d rather wait over there, by the door, if you don’t mind.”

  Rendra would have laughed at Nopul’s comment if she weren’t about to walk into the middle of a conflict between two apparently humorless aliens holding deadly weapons.

  By the time she reached the dejarik table, she still hadn’t come up with a specific plan—but then again, that had never stopped her before. “So, is there a problem with the food?”

  The two aliens glanced at her without turning their heads. “Go away,” the Nikto said in mispronounced Basic.

  “Look… friends… we can work this out. There’s no reason to blow yourselves and everyone else here into the next system. Why don’t we just sit down and talk about—”

  The Nikto looked straight at her and clicked the detonator’s timer into the “on” position. From her angle she could see the chrono display: less than thirty seconds and counting.

  The Dresselian started screaming at her in an uninterrupted barrage of gutturals and sibilants, none of which sounded even remotely familiar. Apparently, a calm discussion was out of the question, leaving her with a single choice.

  Before the aliens could even comprehend her movements, she had drawn her blaster, shot the detonator out of the Nikto’s hand and the hold-out blaster out of the Dresselian’s, caught the detonator as it sailed through the air, and was just now clicking off the timer.

  Both aliens twitched as if to come after her, but a wave of her blaster halted them. “Oh, what, you don’t want to play now that you’ve lost your toys?”

  The Nikto seemed more ashamed than angry, while the Dresselian completely ignored the remark.

  “Well, I’ll assume you two have learned your lesson. Now play nice. I don’t want to hear from you for the rest of the…”

  Something had caught her eye. She looked from the Dresselian to the Nikto and then back again…

  Both were wearing red straps around their necks. She’d been too preoccupied with their weapons to notice before.

  “You’re not Vakir’sa’jaina and Oro Memis?” she asked. “Please say you’re not.”

  They looked to one another, then back to her, and nodded. Rendra dropped her head. “Okay, Dania, that was your last chance, and you blew it,” she muttered.

  She regarded her mercenaries. “All right, you two. We’re already late. Let’s get moving.”

  “So, what you’re saying is that you’ve finally lost it,” Nopul said as they passed through the wide archway leading away from the station’s commercial district and into the docking bay complex.

  Rendra glanced at the Dresselian and the Nikto to make sure they hadn’t heard Nopul’s remark. The two were in the midst of some sort of heated discussion, oblivious to anything going on around them. Satisfied, she turned back to her companion. “What am I supposed to do? We don’t have time to fin
d someone else, and even if we did, how do we know they wouldn’t be worse?”

  Nopul looked back to the mercenaries, and then regarded Rendra. “I don’t think that’s possible.”

  She wasn’t sure whether he was just giving her a hard time or was genuinely concerned. Either way, she had no choice. GalactiCore wanted its money—it didn’t care if she was having staff difficulties. She decided to steer the conversation in a different direction. “Did you slice out those Ships and Services codes?”

  If Nopul noticed her tactic, he didn’t show it. “You doubt my abilities? Well, perhaps I should link up with someone who—” “Did you?”

  “Of course I did. Stars, you’re testy. I’m just trying to lighten the mood.”

  Rendra started a rebuke, and then realized that she was the one who was in ill humor. Sometimes Nopul displayed more wisdom than she thought he possessed. Being constantly on edge wasn’t going to help her complete this mission, especially given her current stack of problems. Another of her father’s axiom’s began to play in her mind, but she silenced it as soon as she realized its source. Thanks, Dad, but I’ll handle this on my own.

  “Uh,” she began, trying to recall where the conversation had left off. “So, what’s our status?”

  They turned down a narrower corridor toward the outer edge of the complex, farthest from the rest of the station. Starving for credits definitely had its disadvantages.

  “Well, I swapped our BoSS registry numbers with a trading vessel called the Runaround. The Zoda still has the same transponder code—I just changed the information in BoSS’s computer banks to reflect the new ship information. It’s a lot harder to detect a forged file than a forged transponder.”

  “The Runaround. Sounds appropriate.” She looked at Nopul, and they both broke into laughter, finally relieving several hours’ worth of pent-up tension.

  As they took the next corner into an even narrower hallway, Rendra suddenly came to a halt. Nopul stopped a couple of steps ahead, and the aliens just managed to avoid slamming into both of them.

  The Nikto muttered something behind her. Rendra had picked up enough of his language to know he was wondering what was going on. She turned and put a finger to her lips to silence him and the Dresselian, and then motioned for the three of them to stay put while she checked things out.