He frowned at it for a moment. Why would it have her address on it? Then he knew. She’d had it delivered. And if she’d been getting it delivered here, she might be getting it delivered someplace else. Han smiled and tapped his fingertip against the words.
“I ordered a number twenty-nine,” the scruffy lieutenant said, slapping the back of his hand into his palm. “It was supposed to be delivered. And now I have to come all the way down here.”
Kayi leaned against the counter. She’d hardly been here two hours, and her feet already hurt. The man scowled at her. His black uniform looked like it had been slept in, and he had a day’s worth of stubble on his chin. She comforted herself with the idea that his superior officer would be chewing him out before lunchtime.
The breakfast rush was in full swing, aliens of half a dozen different species pushing and jockeying for a place to stand. None of the sharp-lined, high-official types were here. All of them had the tired expressions of workingbeings facing down another long day. The air was thick with aromatic grease and the voices of the three Twi’lek men, her husband and brothers, shouting obscenities from the kitchen.
“When did you order it?” Kayi asked.
“This morning,” the man said, waving his hand vaguely.
“A particular time this morning?” she asked, the two lekku that hung from the back of her head twitching in annoyance.
“Long enough,” he said. “Plenty long enough.”
“Let me check,” she said, with the best smile she could manage. She leaned back toward the kitchen and shouted in her own language, “Tai’mer! This nerf’s behind out here says he ordered a twenty-nine sent out.”
“It’s almost done,” her brother said.
“Why isn’t it out yet?”
Her brother leaned out of the kitchen, holding up the wrapping. “I printed up the order fifteen minutes ago, and we’re in the middle of the rush. That’s why not.”
A bronze-and-blue delivery droid zoomed past him, two Sannos Plates in its spiderlike silver arms, and flew out over the heads of the crowd. Kayi sighed and turned back to the lieutenant.
“The order must have been delayed, sir,” she said in Basic. “It’s almost done now. I’m very sorry for the inconvenience.”
“It’s all right,” the man said. His smile was gentler now. He was almost good looking. “Just wrap it up when it’s ready, and I’ll take it.”
“Of course, sir.”
“I mean, I don’t want to be a nerf’s behind about the whole thing.”
Kayi blushed, but the man’s smile was so warm, his eyes so merry, she found herself smiling, too.
There were two beds in Scarlet Hark’s hired rooms. One, she’d slept in. The other had her equipment laid out in neat rows and columns. The magnetic grapnel. Three blasters, each from a different kind of material that could pass Imperial scanners. The false ID array. Her security countermeasure pack, each black-steel tool in place like the legs of a centipede. The data disks with the schedule and internal layout of the intelligence command offices, and the offices above and below them as well. Everything she needed was in place, except for one thing.
The door chimed. When she opened it, a man was standing there, her breakfast in his hand. He looked both exhausted and smug.
“Scarlet Hark,” he said, bowing ironically and presenting her meal like he’d done something clever. Her spine went stiff. An Imperial officer … only no.
“Aren’t you a little old for a delivery boy?”
“Depends what you want delivered,” he said. “Leia said you’d called for pickup.”
She accepted the wrapped package with a smile. “You’re late.”
IN PERSON, SCARLET HARK looked sharper than the stills in her profile. Sitting cross-legged on the unmade bed, she unwrapped her meal with an economy of motion that gave the slant of her eyebrows and the half smile on her lips a sense of purpose and professionalism. The smell of spiced egg filled the room, reminding Han that he was still hungry. Ignoring the feeling, he stepped over to take another look at the equipment arrayed on the spare bed. Some of the items laid out there he didn’t recognize, but he was pretty sure that if a real Imperial security officer had stepped into the room, it would have meant a firing squad for everyone in a half-kilometer radius, just for the sake of completeness.
Scarlet Hark sighed. Her finger was on the take-out wrapper where her address was listed.
“I should have thought of that,” she said. “I’ve been in the field too long. Getting sloppy.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything,” Han said.
A secretary droid with a blue metal casing stepped out of the closet.
“CZ, this is my ride out of here. Ride out of here, this is CZ-Thirty-Three.”
“The pleasure is mine,” the droid said in a deep, rolling voice.
“Certainly is,” Han said, and then turned his attention back to Scarlet. “The name’s Solo. Han Solo. Might have heard of me.”
“Might have,” Scarlet said, the corners of her lips pulling out another millimeter. “In my line of work, that’s not necessarily a good thing.”
“Well, the sooner we get you out of here, the sooner that stops being a problem. Why don’t you pack up your toy box here, and we can get to the dock. Chewie should be ready for us.”
Scarlet sighed and leaned back against her pillows. “There’s a problem with that. There’s something we need to do first.”
Han shook his head. “No, there isn’t. You called us for a ship out of here. Ship’s here. It’s time to go.”
“True enough,” she said around a mouthful of eggs. “But that means it’s time to do the work I couldn’t do when I didn’t have a way out. Do you want some of this? You keep looking at it.”
“Since you’re offering,” Han said.
Scarlet Hark ripped the take-out package in two and put a portion of the meal on one half, talking as she did.
“Have you ever heard of Essio Galassian?”
“No. Why? Is he important?”
Scarlet nodded to the droid. “CZ? Do the honors?”
A holoprojector emerged from the droid’s left eye, and tiny figures appeared above the bed. One was a man with an athlete’s build and flowing shoulder-length hair. He was screaming at an older man who was cowering before him. As Han watched, two floating droids the size of two balled human fists followed the long-haired man’s sweeping gestures, slamming into the older man’s ribs and the side of his head. The older man went down, face and knees slack.