23: New Rides

CLOUD CITY

APPROACHING THE WAYFARER’S HOTEL

The area was made up of sparkling hotels and glittering apartment complexes, all of them built like orange orbs, dotted with rows upon rows of transparisteel windows that looked out onto the sky traffic. Generic housing for all the big-time mining bosses, for when they came to visit and oversee their business interests. Seen from above, these giant orbs looked like welts. The clouds had thinned out enough, frayed like cotton, and a few milky shafts of light from Bespin’s two moons came down to illuminate the rooftops. “I’ll bet the rooftops here are kept rounded to prevent people walking across them like they did back near Potnuf Square,” Kevv said. “Keeps the ‘general rabble’ from protesting near the rich people.”

Ageless only nodded. His thoughts were on the streets that wound serpentine around the base of each building, some of them were plankways that rose high above the ground, with transparisteel domes allowing pedestrians a good look up at the night sky as they made their way home. He noticed every pedestrian in this sector was dressed in fine clothes, and accompanied by droid attendants. Definitely the wealthier half, he thought.

“That’s the Wayfarer’s Hotel,” he said. Ageless had been looking at his datapad, keeping track of which districts they flew through. The Wayfarer’s Hotel was just another bulbous growth, only a few of its floors were walled by transparisteel, and so anyone flying by those levels could see inside to the many galas that were going on. On a flyby, they were able to see hundreds of people from dozens of different species all enjoying fine dining and music.

Over comms, one of the Rebel agents reported in. “I’ve got a ride in an air-taxi,” he said. “I was able to get to the hotel ahead of you. Sorry to say, I spotted Zumter already heading inside.”

“Great,” Namyr said from the back seat. “Just great.”

“That’s it, then, right?” Kevv said. “I mean, the target is out of play. Isn’t that how you spy-types say it?”

Ageless was only half listening. His eyes narrowed as he scanned for a proper landing spot. But his eyes actually zeroed in on something else. Another possible target. Abutted to the Wayfarer’s Hotel, a huge garage loomed, with a transparisteel dome that allowed passersby to look in enviously at the array of high-end airspeeders and shuttles parked there.

He turned to look into the back seat. “See that garage?”

Namyr peered out her window, and nodded. “What about it?”

“If Zumter is catching a ride from Carjukk the Hutt, you can bet his ride is already parked there. Think if we get down to the roof of the garage we can find the main net-box, slice into its system, and pick up the frequency-lender? That could give us a record of every speeder and shuttle in there, and who owns it.”

Namyr nodded eagerly. “Yeah. Yeah, that could work. Kevv?”

“Already looking for a way to set you guys down. But if you guys are thinking of slicing into that net-box, you can be sure the cameras will catch you.”

“That’s why you always bring an astromech when you’re going to break in somewhere,” Ageless said, and tapped the switch on his commlink. “R-3PO, you there?”

“We are here, zzzir,” came the reply. The protocol droid and his counterpart had both found rides via air-taxi, but they were lagging a bit behind.

“I need Arfour on ground level. Find the closest public terminal to the Wayfarer’s Hotel, have him jack in and access the cameras for the whole block. All I need is interference.”

“We can be there in ten minutezzz,” R-3PO said.

“Make it five,” Ageless said, and signed off, if only to make the urgency clear. “Kevv?”

“Making our final approach…” the Duros said distractedly.

Ageless had to admit, though he had been trained in vehicle dynamics and vehicular evasion, the airspeeder was a dream in Kevv’s hands. Even busted as its systems were, the Duros maneuvered them smoothly through lanes of traffic, despite the warnings they got from air-traffic control. In big cities like Cloud City, and especially in mega-cities like Coruscant, the traffic in the skies had to be monitored precisely to avoid midair collisions. Lanes of traffic were assigned by elevation, or levels, and a driver could move up or down those lanes only with the permission of air-traffic control. Unless, of course, it was an emergency—but it was up to the speeder’s pilot to tap the emergency button to alert air-traffic control that this was, in fact, an emergency. Other vectors were left open for large freighters coming down from orbit, and daredevil pilots could pick these out and use them to get out of a midair traffic jam. Just don’t let the authorities catch you doing it, or it could mean jail time. These invisible lanes of sky traffic were sacred, and their integrity had to be upheld at all times, or people would just dip around any old building or swoop too close to street levels, and collide with other vehicles.

To swoop down to the garage’s roof, Kevv used a series of level drops, using the emergency button only once, and then, once or twice, maneuvering carefully into those freighter-only lanes. A warning flashed on the trouble-board. It came from air-traffic control, warning him that he was pushing it. But when he alighted on the rooftop, Kevv gave them all a blank look, and said, “Smooth as shadowsilk, right?”

Ageless and Namyr said nothing, and Kevv appeared disappointed.

“R-3PO?” Ageless called. “How we doing?”

“Arfour is jacked in, zzzir. He sayzzz it will be a few minutes.” But it was only thirty seconds later when R-3PO reported, “Done. Arfour says the camerazzz are offline, though he wants it clear that it will likely be less than six minutezz before an administrator is able to reset them.”

Ageless and Namyr raced across the rooftop to where the large net-box sat. Net-boxes controlled the signals from HoloNet and subspace transmissions, and usually they were invisible, unless they were as large as this one. Luxury cruisers and upscale housing districts often had these monstrous antennae, allowing the entire district to have near-instantaneous connection to the rest of the sector without delay.

“Let’s make this quick,” Ageless said, whipping out his slicer’s rig. Namyr did the same. Both of their rigs extended their small plasma torches, allowing them to cut away at the paneling and housing.

The work went fast because there were two of them, and their rigs could communicate with one another. It took less than a minute. Using his rig, Ageless was able to utilize a random-access tool, then enacted a peer-to-peer protocol attack. He passed this down to Namyr who used the opening to insert an obstruction code.

“And just like that,” she whispered as she pulled up a menu on her rig’s screen. The menu was for all of the vehicles inside the garage, and showed which speeder belonged to which wealthy guest of the Wayfarer’s Hotel. “So here we have three vehicles belonging to Carjukk—a pair of IX-12 airspeeders, and a YT freighter called the Jero Vul. And we also have…huh. Interesting.”

“What?” said Ageless.

“We’ve actually got much deeper access, all the way down to door controls and locks. Didn’t expect that. The Wayfarer’s security admins must have decided to loop it all in together for simplicity’s sake. Stupid move. But now that I’m looking at it…” She looked up at him, a smile forming on her face. “Would you like to get a new ride, sir?”

Ageless chuckled. “Zumter will have already clocked Kevv’s speeder, so…yeah, makes sense. Let’s steal us a couple of rides.”

Namyr accessed the roof door, unlocked it, and they raced down a set of stairs, and, in no time, they were jogging through the most ostentatious display of wealth Ageless had ever seen. Lane after lane of gleaming airspeeders and bulky, garish shuttles. All of the shuttles came with equally garish names: the Wild Fortune, the Supreme Luck, the Self-Made Man, et cetera.

“Which one?” Namyr said.

But Ageless had already started working on another plan. “Why take just one? Whichever one Zumter takes, we’ll need to follow him. He knows all about countersurveillance, he’ll be looking for coverage, so we’ll need to do bounding overwatches, feints, a floating box.”

“So, each of us takes one?”

He nodded. “Pick one. Whichever one is easiest for you to hotwire. I’ve already got my eyes on that XJ over there.”

“Copy,” she said, peeling away from him. “I see a T-79 with my name on it.”

The XJ-6 was a fast and luxurious model from Narglatch AirTech, and Ageless was very familiar with it. He and a friend had taken out his uncle’s XJ for a ride without his knowledge back in his school days. Its features included oversized twin turbojet engines, located at the vehicle’s fore. It had a nice set of KK-87 thrust ducts that fed enormous amounts of pressurized air through the speeder, helping it push through atmospheres. Fast, nimble, but also sort of generic. Lots of “newly rich” people bought the XJ as their first pronouncement of having ascended to the upper crust of society.

It was also convenient that the XJs were usually kept topless, and so he only had to hop over the door and into the driver’s seat. The housing around the ignition switch was also very spare—hence, why he and his friend were able to hotwire his uncle’s back in the day. He pulled out the wiring harness connector, and pulled away the battery, ignition, and starter wire bundle. He used his fingernails to peel away the insulation, then touched the battery wires, twisted them, and heard the XJ’s engine roar to life.

Just as he was pulling out of the garage, he noticed Namyr was already exiting ahead of him in her sleek gray T-79 one-seater.

“Pulling out of the garage now,” Ageless said to Kevv and the others. He flipped the switch that would drop the top over his head, and he rolled the windows up. “Heads up, we’ve got new rides.”

“I see that,” Kevv said. “Nice work.”

“So, everyone, keep a lookout for a YT called the Jero Vul, or else IX-12 airspeeders. They all belong to Carjukk. Odds are, if Zumter leaves soon, he’s going to be in one of those.”

“Copy that,” came the reply of the three nameless Rebel operators, all of whom reported having either gotten an air-taxi, or “commandeered” a vehicle—which meant they hotwired someone else’s airspeeder.

“How many of you have conducted vehicle surveillance before?” Ageless asked.

“I have,” Namyr said.

“Uh, not me,” Kevv said. “I’m from the fly-behind-the-enemy-and-shoot-them-to-death school of flying.”

“Got it. Well, here’s how it works.”

Ageless laid it out for them. In vehicular surveillance, the most common method for following someone is to create the “floating box,” meaning four or more vehicles keeping track of the target vehicle from all angles. One vehicle is the leading vehicle, the trailing vehicle is behind, and then there are two outriders that remain roughly on the left and right of the target. It worked best if each vehicle had two people each, with one person concentrated solely on driving, and the passenger focusing on navigation. The Rebs decided to team up with the droids. Ageless, Namyr, and Kevv remained solo in their own vehicles.

There were six vehicles in all, so they had plenty of coverage. Ageless assigned all of them a call sign: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Theta, and Omega.

He further explained to them that they needed to stay in constant communication. “Zumter will be looking around for coverage, so whichever of us ends up following him, if Zumter turns left or right, or changes elevation, do not pursue him. Tell the others his direction and we’ll pick him up,” he stressed. “We’ll hand off the target to each other regularly, so that we can always stay far away from him.” He also warned them of the kind of countersurveillance trick Zumter might try. “He may alternate speeds, especially slowing down, to see if you slow down when you’re behind him. If he does that, just go around him like a driver normally would, and tell the rest of us his direction so we can pick up on his trail.”

Air-traffic lanes, sometimes called skylanes, varied in length, elevation, and shape—some were straight, some were circular roundabouts, others ran from a high elevation to a low elevation. All of them were invisible. Ageless had his team check the HoloNet to familiarize themselves with the local skylanes, as well as the buildings that would allow Zumter to break line-of-sight.

While Ageless did all this, Kevv kept circling the Wayfarer’s Hotel’s garage, looking for either the Jero Vul or the IX-12 airspeeders to lift off. When the call finally came, Kevv’s voice was tense, “Here we go, guys! It’s an IX-12, coming out now. Heading…” They all waited for the call. And all the while, Ageless kept thinking of his hands around Zumter’s neck. He remembered the betrayal, the hit from the blaster bolt, the freezing cold of Hoth—

“He’s heading east towards the Ferinhal’a District,” Kevv said. “Delta, you got him?”

“We got him,” said one of the Rebel teams. “Entering Skylane Seven now.”

Ageless took a deep breath, and adjusted his altitude slightly as he rose up from behind a tibanna-gas refinery. Such refineries dotted the huge city, and would provide good cover if needed. “All right, Theta, Omega, you two stay here around the Wayfarer’s Hotel. In case this is only a decoy, I want someone here to see the other vehicles leave.”

“Copy that, Alpha,” came the response from the Rebel teams.

“The rest of you, keep it tight. But don’t all bunch up around him. Give him enough space so he thinks he’s safe. Remember, he knows someone’s after him. He’s looking for us.” Ageless had to fight the urge to send full power to thrust and chase the scumbag down himself. You won’t get away, Zumter. And it was hard to believe he was thinking this about his friend, his ally, his mentor in this way. You have to pay what you owe.

* * *

ABOARD THE VICTORY-CLASS STAR DESTROYER IMPALER

LOCATION: IN ORBIT ABOVE BESPIN

Admiral Kollen stood looking out the forward window of the bridge. Ahead of him was the huge gas giant. But between his ship and Bespin was the Star Destroyer Regulator, its starboard drive flaring blue, then white-hot, before going dim. Mark that as item 198 on today’s glitch list, he thought spitefully. There was no telling what had done it, whether sabotage or a careless lapse in maintenance, but the drive’s failure had come just as they started their patrol out-system, bringing them back prematurely. Kollen was worried. Not just about how this would look once Lord Vader arrived—and he had gotten word that Vader was on his way, though no one quite knew why—but also he was worried that this was indicative of something more. A pattern? This sort of sabotage has happened too much lately.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Something had started to nag at the back of his mind these last few weeks, some image, not even a premonition, just…a notion. A fantasy. He had pondered, for the first time ever, what a Rebel victory might actually look like. How would it look if it was possible? That is, if it was at all within the realm of possibility, then what conditions would have to be met in order for the Rebel Alliance to win this war?

Before now, the notion of a Rebel victory had seemed so far outside the realm of possibility that Admiral Kollen had not even entertained it as a fancy, not even as a joke. For one, it was rumored Lord Vader could actually read the thoughts of others, so it was best not to even consider such a notion in his presence, and to practice such discipline even when he wasn’t around. However, the thought did come to Kollen, and that in itself was unsettling. Like contemplating the failure of gravity, or the destruction of a sun.

How can it be?

And what spurred this mode of thinking? Was it simply the series of suspicious glitches? Was the bizarre defeat of the Star Destroyers at Hoth by the monstrous Mon Calamari and his Bothan allies a fluke? Doubt was creeping into his heart. His, and everyone else’s. He could smell it on them. They reek of shame. The embarrassment that the Empire was unable to stop the Rebels at Hoth. And if I’m imagining what our defeat might look like, so must they. He looked at the faces assembled in the pits all around him. Does their spirit wither?

The Battle of Yavin had shaken all of them. Never had they imagined the Death Star could be destroyed. And yet it had. Fanciful notions were fast becoming a reality—

“Admiral Kollen, sir?” a voice said.

Kollen was jolted out of his reverie, but a lifetime of Imperial service had taught him to suppress his emotions, and so he turned to face his executive officer calmly. “Yes?”

“This report, Admiral,” he said, handing over a datapad. “It just came in. Sorry about the quality, but Bespin is experiencing one of its radiation spikes in the atmo—”

“Of course, fine, fine, fine,” Kollen said, waving it all away. He looked down at the datapad and read the partial transcript of a call one of their spies down in Cloud City had reported as soon as the Impaler and the Regulator returned to the system. His brow furrowed as he discerned it all. “Do we have confirmation on this?”

The executive officer looked a bit uncomfortable. “No confirmation, sir, but our man says a number of different sources found it legitimate.”

“Well, then, it looks as though Zumter has been captured. The only question is, which bounty hunter got to him first?” Kollen said, having no idea he was thinking exactly what the Rebel psy-op had been designed to make him think.

Kollen chortled, remembering Zumter’s foolish arrogance on their last meeting. It would give Kollen no mean pleasure to see the traitor done up in binders and tossed into a spice mine on Kessel. “Send word down to our spies. Have all our assets in Cloud City converge at the spaceport to, eh, assist these bounty hunters.”

The executive officer smiled eagerly. “Of course, sir.” He snapped off a salute and turned to obey.

Kollen looked back out at the work crews that were now orbiting the Regulator’s troublesome exhaust ports. Then he looked beyond her, at the reddish-pinkish planet. He would be fain shot of this place, once this war was finally over and the Rebels defeated. He laughed at his previous fantasies of a Rebel victory. What an absurd thought that had been. To think that they could ever—

“Sir?”

“What is it?” Kollen said irritably.

His executive officer was standing there again, this time his face looked tense, his whole body rigid. “Admiral, I just thought you should know, the Executor is en route. We just received a message on a clandestine subspace channel. She ought to be here in twenty minutes.”

“The Executor?” Lord Vader. Here already? Suddenly all the stories Kollen had heard about Vader’s displeasure with Imperial officers came rushing at him, replacing fantasies of loss with other, grimmer fantasies.

“Yes, sir. And there’s more. Apparently, a bounty hunter named Boba Fett has identified a fugitive Rebel ship in the area. He tried to apprehend the Rebels on his own, but apparently hit a snag, and now he’s informed Lord Vader that he knows Rebels are here, but he’s now requesting that the Empire put pressure on Lando Calrissian and others to flush them out. Lord Vader is coming personally to see the job done.”

Kollen saw his XO’s body stiffen, and he knew there was more. “What else?”

“Well, sir…it appears that this is the primary reason we’ve been sitting on this planet so long. The message from Executor says that Lord Vader has suspected that the Rebel ship would be somewhere in the Anoat system for some time, so—”

“So, this whole time we were just insurance. Vader suspected the fugitives were in this sector, and this bounty hunter just confirmed which planet.”

“Yes, sir.”

Admiral Kollen knew why his XO had been so stiff when delivering this news. It meant that they had been stuck out here, dealing with union bosses and opportunists like Calrissian, only so they could give these fugitives few places to hide. And what made him fume was that it was over a single Rebel ship. What sort of fugitives could these be? he wondered. He snorted. “I assume this Fett wanted to secure the bounty himself, fearful that he would not get paid at all. But now time is running out, and every hour is a chance for the fugitives to give him the slip.” He shook his head ruefully. “What are our orders?”

“The message says that Lord Vader formally commands both Impaler and Regulator to retreat towards the farthest moon, and stay hidden behind it until Vader can make contact with Cloud City’s leaders and make some sort of deal.”

All for a single ship? Why would Darth Vader come all the way out here for a single ship? Hasn’t he got more important things to do, since he allowed the Death Star to be destroyed and abandoned Tarkin to die?

Kollen checked himself. It was thinking just like that that could get him killed once Vader arrived. “Send a reply. Tell Executor that both Impaler and Regulator receives and obeys. Then prepare to pull back to the farthest moon.”

“Yes, Admiral.”

Kollen looked back at the gas giant, and he wondered just what in nine hells was going on down there. What sort of drama was unfolding that would lure Darth Vader himself to a world like this?

* * *

CLOUD CITY

ABOVE THE FINANCIAL DISTRICT

Cloud City’s Financial District comprised the offices and headquarters of all the planet’s major financial institutions and gas-mining juggernauts, including Tibanna Gas Exchange, the Imperial Reserve Bank, and the Anoat Stock Exchange. And each of those places were encased in a giant building that looked like yet another orange bulb. The area was metonymously known as “The District,” as though no others mattered. Perhaps they don’t, in the grand scheme of things, Namyr thought absently as she sped across the sky, jockeying for position in each skylane that the local air-traffic controllers assigned her.

Here and there, a few of the spires of tech businesses loomed like monoliths, casting shadows that fell over half the district. All of Cloud City existed because of this district and the councilpeople that worked it. It was patrolled, according to the city’s HoloNet visitor’s site, by the 1st Precinct of the Cloud City Constable’s Office. She saw multiple of their vehicles buzzing about.

Namyr had to thread carefully through traffic. She was now at the rear of the chase, tailing a hundred meters behind Zumter’s airspeeder. Above Zumter about fifty meters was “Delta,” or R-3PO and R4, who were traveling in a L1-9 airspeeder rented by credits lent by one of the other Rebel agents. If Zumter made a sudden turn, Namyr would keep going straight, so as not to raise his suspicions, and Delta would swoop down to replace her.

Leading this chase was Ageless, who, after Zumter’s last turn northward, had ascended from a skylane below. Namyr kept everyone up-to-the-minute on Zumter’s speed, elevation, and the overall flow of traffic around him. Things were going smoothly until a chime went off, alerting her to a shift in the skylanes ahead. Some cities’ air-traffic control dealt with sudden influxes of vehicles and “rush hours” by adding new invisible lanes, called rushlanes, which appeared on each driver’s screen. These new lanes were temporary, sometimes existing for only ten minutes at a time, and so Namyr suspected their quarry would utilize it while he could. In fact, she could see on her screen that he had already been accepted into the traffic queue, where she had not.

“Heads up,” she called to the rest of the team. “Zumter’s speeder is hopping onto the new rushlane. It’s a hundred feet below me. Air-traffic control didn’t accept me into the queue, so I can’t drop down behind him without showing up as a violator on everyone’s screens.” Being a violator did not mean police vehicles would immediately descend upon her, but it did mean that all pilots would see her airspeeder flagged, and that would be all Zumter needed to know he was being followed.

“I see it,” Kevv said. “Can someone take over outrider position from me? If so, I can be right on him, I was accepted into the queue.”

“Go for it,” Ageless called out. “I got you covered.”

“I’ll stay in this lane and advance ahead of him,” Namyr said. “Delta, can you take rear?”

“Of courzzze, ma’am,” said R-3PO.

In less than thirty seconds, Kevv and Ageless had switched places, and Kevv dropped down behind Zumter and followed, while Namyr remained above him, then throttled up her thrusters and zoomed ahead. Then Zumter turned left at the Stock Market Exchange, then rose a level, flying at an altitude just at the tips of the tallest buildings’ spires, then turned east and joined a skylane flooded with airspeeders and performed two circles around a huge building that housed suites for visiting delegates and trade officials.

“He’s circling to try and see who follows him,” Ageless reported. “Let’s widen our floating box. But don’t give him too much headway, people. Just enough for him to get cozy.”

They did so. Ageless moved behind Zumter, while Namyr and Kevv assumed the left and right outrider positions, respectively. The droids were utility—filling in gaps in the floating box wherever they popped up.

They leapfrogged like this for almost an hour, with Zumter occasionally slowing down to see if any other vehicles did the same. Twice, he came to a landing platform and sat there for several minutes, obviously waiting to see if any pursuers revealed themselves. For this, Ageless had them widen their floating box, keeping Kevv at the highest possible elevation and using his speeder’s belly cam to keep an eye on their target. Each time Zumter got under way again, he did so slowly, tentatively. His erratic movements almost had Namyr stumbling and revealing herself a couple of times, and her stomach had twisted into many knots before, finally, Zumter’s airspeeder alighted on a landing platform that extended from a tall, gray building, which then retracted and a blast door sealed him inside.

“Anybody know what that place is?” Ageless called out. “What’s inside that building?”

R-3PO responded, “Arfour has done a search of the HoloNet, and he sayzzz that it is a zzztorage warehouse belonging to a company called Kert’agot & Ogi. There is a single landing platform for shipping and delivery, apparently.”

Namyr pulled up her datapad, and, after connecting to the local grid, searched for more info on the company. She snorted out a laugh when she saw the company letterhead had the sigil of Besadii kajidic emblazoned across the top, interwoven with the icon of a hand delivering a message. She sent the image to all the others. “It’s owned by the Besadii. Looks like Carjukk sent him here as one last favor. Who wants to bet Zumter is getting smuggled off-world in their next delivery shuttle?”

There was a rueful chuckle from Kevv.

Ageless, however, made a curious sound. “Hmmm…”

“What’s up, Alpha?” she said. Looking out her left window, she could see Ageless’s XJ-6 in the distance, coming around the warehouse in a wide parabola.

Ageless sighed. “Looking at Kert’agot & Ogi’s services, it looks like they don’t do much more than ship tibanna gas in its frozen state. Just giant, solid slabs of the stuff, stacked to the ceiling, no room for anyone to move around in the cargo holds.”

“And?”

“And, I once traveled incognito on one of those haulers. There isn’t much room to smuggle anyone, much less carry the extra food needed for them to survive for long. Those haulers are stacked and packed tight, with barely enough room for a pilot and copilot, and oftentimes the copilot is a droid. So, life-support systems are minimal.”

“You don’t think he’s getting out in the gas hauler, then?”

“I think someone wants us to think that he’s—”

For a moment, Namyr thought he had been cut off, either because something had gone wrong or because of Bespin’s natural radiation spikes. “Alpha?” she said. “You there?”

“You’ve…gotta be kidding me.” Ageless’s tone was one of wonderment.

“What? What is it?”

“It’s here. Fett wasn’t wrong. It’s actually here. Now, isn’t that funny? Of all the places in the galaxy…” He trailed off. And then it sounded like he was laughing.

“You okay there, partner?” Kevv said.

“Alpha?” Namyr said. “What is it? What do you see?”

“The start of all my woes,” he said. “The Millennium Falcon is here. Right below me on a landing platform, right out in the open. I’m looking right at it.”

* * *

YT-1300s were popular among smugglers for their modular design—it was easy to modify them in a myriad of ways, to have them carry all sorts of hidden surprises. The Imperial Intelligence Service had done a workup months ago on the Millennium Falcon, and its history showed it had changed hands once or twice before Han Solo ever got hold of it, and that the original owner had been a businessman of some ill repute, a smuggler, cardplayer and all-around scoundrel. And now, months after hearing that intel, Ageless Void suddenly recalled a small morsel, something he had never even once considered until now, for it had not mattered at all before.

Some businessman working on Bespin, known to be a past acquaintance of Solo’s. What was his name?

Ageless wracked his brain for that little detail. He felt it swimming around at the back of his mind, slippery as a Cordivaxian trout in his hands. Someone Solo had a falling out with. Someone the Empire looked into thoroughly a year ago, but was found to be no longer a contact of the Rebel captain. What was his name…?

Then, suddenly, a piece of the puzzle slammed into place. Looking down at the Falcon, parked where it was on the landing platform across from Kert’agot & Ogi’s tibanna-gas warehouse, it clicked. The guy was a tibanna-gas magnate. Ageless quickly checked his datapad, and searched for the owner of that building.

“Lando Calrissian,” he said aloud.

“Who?” Namyr called over comms.

“That’s the name of Solo’s contact on Bespin. That’s what he’s doing here.”

“You can’t be sure—”

“This is where he went after fleeing Hoth. I’d bet my life on it.”

After a thoughtful pause, Namyr sighed and said, “Well, that is all very interesting, but it doesn’t help us out any.”

“Doesn’t it?” he said, circling the Falcon. “We’re going to need a way out eventually. I’ve been thinking about how we were going to do that without the Midra’hara, and carrying a fugitive like Zumter.” He nodded to himself, thinking. “If Solo and the other Rebs are still here, they must’ve slipped in quietly with the help of his old pal Calrissian. And if that’s the case, then maybe they can help us slip out.” He laughed. “Boba Fett is looking for these guys, but he somehow missed that they are parked right out in the open. Well, his loss is our gain.”

“Great,” Kevv said. “But that doesn’t get us any closer to Zumter.”

“Right,” Namyr said. “If he’s inside that warehouse, we can’t grab him until—”

“All teams, all teams,” a voice suddenly shouted over their intercoms. “This is Rebel Team Omega! Heads up, we just saw Carjukk leaving the Wayfarer’s Hotel, and he was talking to a droid of some kind I’ve never seen before! Seemed important! But one of my guys here said they recognized him as a droid called IG-88! It’s a bounty hunter!”

Ageless sat forward in his seat. He had almost forgotten the three Rebels they had left sitting on the hotel.

“Repeat, the droid is a lone bounty hunter operating outside of the Guild! It got into a weird-looking ship and Theta gave pursuit! The droid is coming your way, he’ll be on you in ninety seconds!”

The three Rebel agents had the GPS data on each of the datapads belonging to Ageless, Namyr, and Kevv, and therefore knew exactly where they were. So Ageless trusted their estimation of the incoming bounty hunter.

Namyr said, “Ageless? You thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Hutts don’t make friends, just profits,” he said, quoting the old proverb, which, according to legend, was invented by the Hutts themselves.

“Meaning what?” Kevv said.

“Carjukk took Zumter’s money for protection, but then he sold Zumter’s whereabouts to this bounty hunter. Double the profit. Sithspit! This just keeps just getting better.” He thought for a moment, and while he did, Namyr issued commands to Theta and Omega to abandon their post at the Wayfarer’s Hotel and join Kevv in his monitoring of the tibanna warehouse.

“Mordenta?” Ageless said, still making sure to use her codename lest Imperials be listening. “Any thoughts?”

“Just one,” she said. “Maybe Kevv and I go down, pretend to be businesspeople looking for transport of special goods—my guess is, if they’ll help Zumter get away, then they also probably dabble in transporting illicit goods. We suggest to them we’re spice runners and that our ship is damaged, and we need to get off-world fast before Imperial troops can—”

“Uh, guys?” Kevv interrupted. “Hate to butt in, but it looks like we’re already too late. A single transport ship is taking off from the warehouse’s platform right now.”

Ageless twisted himself around in his seat to look behind him. Sithspit! A YT-2400 was just now lifting off, its blue exhaust already blooming behind as the ship canted upwards and started slowly clawing for orbit. The public traffic screen gave its name as the Hard Leaf. “Theta, what’s the update on that bounty hunter’s ship?”

“It’s moving fast,” came the choppy transmission. “It’s breaking all the rules! It’s going—can’t keep up—going through all skylanes—looks hellbent to nab Zumter before we can!”

“Copy,” he said. Then, to Namyr and the others, “Well, that settles it. Delta, can you two run interference for me?”

“Yezzz, sir,” R-3PO replied.

“Good. I’m going to try and cut that YT off before it can reach escape velocity! Beta, Gamma, you guys with me?”

“Affirmative,” Namyr called.

“Oh yeah!” Kevv shouted.

“But what are we going to do once we get there?” Namyr’s speeder was already speeding past his.

Ageless turned his XJ-6 skyward and throttled up the power to both repulsors and thrusters, redlining almost every system. “I don’t know yet,” he admitted. “One thing at a time.”