Aftermath: Empire's End (Star Wars: Aftermath #3)(93)

“You skag,” he hisses. His face, scratched from her attack in Niima’s temple by her head spurs, looms over her own. Behind him, Dengar lazes. Embo is at the other end of the shuttle’s hold, sitting up straight and regarding the proceedings with all the interest and emotion of a coatrack.

From the cockpit, the Rodian yells: “Swift. It’s too dangerous. It’s everywhere. Empire. The Republic. Nowhere to go.”

The disappointment on Swift’s face is palpable. “Fine. Set us down somewhere in the canyon.”

Jas rolls over. Every part of her feels like it’s been stretched out so far it won’t go back to its original shape. Being electrocuted a handful of times is good at making you feel that way, as it turns out. She gasps and manages to squeak out the words, “So, what’s…your plan, Swift?”

“Shut. Up.”

“No, really.” She groans. “What’s the score? Clearance codes won’t keep you safe in the middle of a war zone. Somebody will take a shot at us.”

“I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

“No,” Dengar interjects, “but you might wanna explain it to us. You know, your crew? You got a plan here, boss?”

The way the barrel-chested Corellian says that last word, boss, she can tell it’s not a term of great endearment. Interesting.

Swift heels on the old bounty hunter, like he’s about to lay into him. But he seems to cool down a little. “We’ll park it for a while. Look for an opportunity to hit orbit and take our quarry back to Boss Gyuti on Nar Shaddaa. We just need to be patient.”

“He’ll screw you all over,” Jas says.

Swift turns fast and drops a fist into her gut. She curls up into herself like a bug. “Be quiet. Nothing’s stopping me from taking you to Gyuti in five different sacks.”

“He’s just mad ’cuz you ruined his pretty looks,” Dengar says.

“Shut it, Dengar.”

“Don’t you…” Jas winces as she sits up, her voice a keening wheeze. “Want to know what I’m doing here on Jakku? I could cut you in—”

Bzzt. Another jam of the shock baton, this time against the side of her neck. Her skull is a nest of stinging insects. She tries not to scream but the scream comes anyway, a living thing that will not be contained. Then it’s gone. Jas topples over, whimpering.

“I wanna hear what she has to say,” Dengar notes.

“I said, shut it, Dengar.”

Jas blinks, and in the time it takes to do that, she hears the clatter-clack of a blaster being cocked. When her vision returns, she sees Dengar has his rifle up over his knee and pointed right at Swift’s middle.

“I don’t feel like shuttin’ it, you smug git. I got a right to talk to the girl. Me and her auntie knew each other. I owe her a convo. Go on, Jazzy.”

“I—nggh. I’m hunting someone here.”

“Whozat, now?”

“Rae Sloane.”

“She’s nobody,” Swift says. “Sloane was the top of the food chain but that day is over. Now she’s nothing.”

Jas offers a halfhearted shrug. “Not to the…New Republic. They want her bad, and they’re willing to pay for her served up to them on a plate. She knows things. She’s the key. Or so they believe. I don’t even care if they’re right—what I care is what they’re paying me, and it’s a lot.”

All that is a lie. But despite the glib saying, the truth will most certainly not set her free.

“How much are they paying?”

That question, asked by Embo. Spoken in the Kyuzo tongue.

She hates to lie to him. Really, she does.

But she does it anyway. “A million.”

Eyes go big as battle stations. Dengar whistles. “Lot of money for one girl. Still, working for the New Republic ain’t exactly cozy-making, izzit?”

“It is when they offer you full pardons.”

And that is the statement that vacuums the air from the cabin. They’re all left in shock by that offer. A pardon has meaning. They each have a list of criminal sins longer than a Hutt-slug’s tail. And with the galaxy shifting as it is toward the New Republic—the day will come sooner than later when bounty hunters are forced to flee to the fringes if they don’t want to get swept up and locked away. The tension in the ship rises. Jas seizes it.

She goes on: “You work with me, I cut you in. You all get full pardons. Embo, Dengar. You both worked with Sugi. Maybe there’s something to be said for a little tradition, isn’t there?”

“They won’t leave me,” Swift protests with a vulpine stare. “They know their place. Won’t do them any good to betray Gyuti and make enemies of Black Sun. They’ll stay with me.”

“You forgot one part,” Dengar says.

Mercurial raises an eyebrow. “What?”

“We don’t really like you.”

The old bounty hunter clubs Swift in the side of the head with his blaster. The pretty boy collapses next to her, but he’s not content to go down quietly, oh, no—Swift moves fast, getting behind her and pulling his forearm against her windpipe. With the back of his heel, he kicks out and opens the side of the shuttle—the wall lifts, the ramp descends, and the brightness of the Jakku sun fills the cabin, nearly blinding them all.