“A being without a homeworld,” Tarkin said. “As your species was once without a planet.”
“I’m telling you the truth.”
“You’re lying,” Vader countered. “Admit that you swore allegiance to the Separatist Alliance, and that you and your current allies are the ones seeking retribution.”
The Koorivar squeezed his eyes closed, anticipating pain Vader opted not to deliver.
“Tell me about the broker who provides you with leads,” Tarkin said.
“Knotts. A human who works out of Lantillies. Contact him. He’ll verify everything I’ve been telling you.”
“He helped you procure the Reticent?”
“He loaned us the credits, yes.”
“And you’ve been in his employ for three years.”
“Not in his employ. We’re freelance. He provides jobs to several crews, and we accept jobs from several brokers.”
“How did you originally find your way to a human broker on Lantillies?”
“An advert of some sort. I don’t recall precisely.”
“This time he instructed you to travel from Taris to Thustra?”
“Yes.”
“A rush job,” Tarkin surmised.
“The medcenter relies on its Sephi flyers for medical evacuations.”
“So, in and out,” Tarkin said. “No interaction with anyone other than the provider.”
“No interaction. Exactly as you say.”
“And no ship-to-ship interaction.”
“There was no need. The supplies were groundside on Thustra.”
Tarkin circled the Koorivar. “In your recent travels, have you seen holovids of attacks launched against Imperial facilities?”
“We try to ignore the media.”
“Clueless, as well as homeless,” Tarkin said, “is that it?”
The captain sneered at him. “Guilty as charged.”
Tarkin traded glances with Vader. “An interesting turn of phrase, Captain,” Tarkin said.
Vader loosed a sound that approximated a growl. “We’re not in some Coruscant courtroom, Governor. Questions of this sort are useless.”
“You’d prefer to break him with pain.”
“If need be. Unless, of course, you object.”
Vader’s menacing tone rolled off Tarkin. “I suspect that our captain will go insane long before he breaks. But I also agree that we’re wasting our time. The longer we spend here, the greater the chance that the Carrion Spike will elude us entirely.” He watched the Koorivar peripherally as he said it.
Vader looked directly at the captain. “Yes, this one is stronger than he looks, and he is not innocent. I want more time with him. For all we know the dissidents abandoned your ship at Thustra and transferred to the YT freighter. He may be one of them.”
“Then someone else must have the Carrion Spike, as there was no sign of her there.” Tarkin glanced at the captain a final time and forced an exhalation. “I’ll leave you to your work, Lord Vader.”
The Koorivar’s anguished screams accompanied him down the long corridor that led to the detention center’s turbolifts.
Teller found Anora in the corvette’s darkened cockpit, swiveling absently in one of the chairs, her bare feet crossed atop the instrument console. Salikk and the others were resting, as was the Carrion Spike, a slave to sundry deep-space gravities.
“We’re almost done,” he said, sinking into an adjacent chair.
Her face fell. “There has to be a more comforting way of saying that.”
He frowned at her. “You’re the writer.”
“Yes, but you’re talking, not writing.”
His frown only deepened. “You know what I mean. One more jump and on to the serious business.”
Her eyes searched his face. “And then?”
All he could do was shrug. “With luck, live to fight another day.”
She closed her eyes and shook her head. “With luck … There you go again, qualifying every answer.”
He didn’t know how else to put it; how not to qualify his remarks. In thinking about it, he recalled having made almost the same comment when the Reticent had jumped for Obroa-skai. With any luck, Tarkin and Vader will dismiss the ship’s arrival as coincidental, and the crew will simply be questioned and released. But that wasn’t what happened. The Imperials had seen through the ruse, the ship had been impounded, and the crew had been arrested. Word was that neither Tarkin nor Vader had been able to glean much information from them, but Teller doubted that Tarkin would leave it at that. Tarkin wouldn’t rest until he rooted out connections, and once he did … Well, by then it would be too late.
With any luck.
The update on the situation at Obroa-skai had also included a piece of good news. The corvette’s crew had been given a target to attack, which had saved him the trouble of having to choose one from among increasingly bad options. The objective was another Imperial facility rather than some more significant objective, but Teller could live with that. No one aboard the Carrion Spike nursed any delusions about winning a war against the Empire single-handedly. They were merely contributing to what Teller hoped would one day grow into a cause. That, and avenging themselves for what each of them had had to bear; payback for atrocities the Empire had committed, which had inspired them to come together as a group.
“Nice of you to give Cala the privilege of destroying the homing beacon,” Anora said.
“He earned it.”
Anora put her feet on the cool deck, yawned, and stretched her thin, dark arms over her head. “When do we go?”
Teller glanced at the console’s chron display. “We’ve still got a couple of hours.”
“Do you trust your contact entirely?”
Teller rocked his head. “I’d say, up to a point. He’s convinced that he has as much to gain as we do.”
Anora grinned faintly. “I was expecting you to add, or lose.”
“It was implied.”
“Any compassion for our stand-ins at Obroa-skai?”
Teller exhaled in disappointment. “Not you, too.”
“I’m only asking.”
“They knew the risks,” Teller said, straight-faced.
Anora took a long moment to respond. “I know I sound like Hask, but maybe I’m just not cut out for this, Teller.” She eyed him askance. “It was never an ambition of mine to be a revolutionary.”
He snorted. “I don’t buy it. You were fighting the good fight in your own way long before I met you. With words, anyway.”
She smiled without showing her teeth. “Not quite the same as firing laser cannons at other beings or letting strangers take the fall for you.”
He studied her. “You know, I’m actually surprised to hear you talk like this. You practically jumped at the chance to get involved.”
She nodded. “I won’t deny it. But since we’re being honest with each other, I may have been thinking of it more as a career move.”
“Fame and fortune.”
“I guess. And like our stand-ins, I knew the risk. But I underestimated COMPNOR and the Emperor.”
“His reach.”
“Not just his reach.” Her face grew serious. “His power. His barbarity.”
“You’re not the only one who underestimated him.”
Anora glanced toward the command center hatch and lowered her voice. “I still feel bad about dragging Hask into this.”
Teller shrugged. “We could always drop her off somewhere.”
Anora’s eyes searched his face. “Really?”
“Sure, if that’s what she wants.”