There was a round of polite applause, and Leia stepped off the stage toward the Rebel Alliance’s group. The light brightened, and the music grew louder. Han ground his teeth and turned to leave. At the Rebel Alliance’s table, a Phindian with skin the color of old spinach was shouting at Leia. Han couldn’t make out the words of Leia’s reply, but the sneering tone carried. The generals and soldiers of the Alliance looked up at the two in various stages of consternation and embarrassment. The Phindian lifted both hands in fists and gabbled out a plume of invective that could have stunned a krayt dragon.
Han pushed off from the wall and started toward the arguing pair, his palm resting on the butt of his blaster. His fingertip tingled and his chest warmed. After all the frustrations Kiamurr had offered him up to now, a little honest violence was sounding pretty good. Dozens of people had turned to watch the argument, some with curiosity, some with apparent glee. Han felt his joints loosening in anticipation.
He didn’t see Scarlet approach. She was just suddenly at his right side, her arm around his as if he were escorting her. She smiled up at him, her dark eyes glittering. “Why, Captain Solo. And here I was thinking you weren’t going to attend our little shindig.”
Leia crossed her arms, her mouth thin and her chin high. She asked something, and a roll of laughter passed through the first rank of spectators. The Phindian’s face grew darker.
“Careful, sister,” Han said. “That’s my gun arm you’re on.”
“I know, right?” she said, moving half a step in front of him and steering him to their left as if he were a cart animal. “Why don’t you come sit with me, and we’ll talk about things before you get all dashing and impulsive.”
“What are you …”
The Phindian pointed a long finger at Leia and muttered something. Leia waved him away and sat down, ignoring him. The Phindian closed his fist. Scarlet reached a small table with a single curved bench on one side and maneuvered Han into it, her hand still on his arm. They looked less like he was politely escorting her now. Other people sitting that close and touching that much would have meant something more intimate by it.
“Do you want to tell me what’s going on here?” Han asked.
“I’d love to,” Scarlet said. “Thanks for asking. The Phindian is Haverous Mok, and he’s the head of an engineering corporation called Sorintechnic. He’s a major supplier of ship-grade weapons for the Alliance, but not everyone knows that, because he’s tried to keep it off the books. Following that?”
“So why is he yelling at—”
Scarlet nestled in close, looking to anyone walking by as if she were flirting outrageously with him. It let her speak softly and almost directly into his ear.
“Because he thinks she’s going to cancel an order that he’s almost finished with. He’s mistaken, but it took several people a lot of effort to make him mistaken, and we’re all very glad he is.”
“That makes no—”
“If you look about fifteen degrees to port, there’s a man in a blue-gray suit with a little mustache that makes him look like a womp rat. You see him?”
The man was sitting in a group of eight others, human and Yaka. The one Scarlet meant was watching Leia and the Phindian with narrowed, appraising eyes. Han had the feeling that maybe this was the one he should have been looking to shoot all along.
“Syrynys Lamarkin,” Scarlet said. “He’s been putting pressure on the companies that make bacta to increase their prices when they deal with the Rebellion. Don’t scowl at him. He’ll see you. He’s been telling himself and everyone who’ll listen that Leia Organa is so mad with grief over the loss of Alderaan that she’s unstable and on the verge of collapse. As good as insane.”
The Phindian shouted again, and this time Han could make out the words faithless and promise breaker. Leia stepped closer and put her hand on the Phindian’s arm, her expression polite but implacable. At his table, the rat-faced man turned to one of the cyborg Yakas and said something.
“Right now, a dozen different people are watching Leia deal with an irate partner, and they’re seeing that she’s keeping her temper, standing her ground, and controlling the situation. And not being the person Lamarkin said she was. Which was what this whole evening has been about.”
Unless he had stepped in the middle and screwed things up, Scarlet didn’t say. The Phindian gestured accusingly, but there was less force behind the gesture now. Leia nodded and drew him over toward her table, seating him where Scarlet had been. The rat-faced man rose from his seat and walked stiffly toward the side of the room.
“None of this is going to matter when the Imperial fleet comes and shoots all these people,” Han said.
Scarlet let out a peal of laughter that could have passed for sincere and shook her head at him as if he’d said something witty and impudent. Leia looked over at them as if seeing them for the first time and nodded. Han was suddenly very aware of being at a small table with a beautiful woman pressed close to him. He smiled at Leia and leaned in toward Scarlet.
“General Chith has worked out an evacuation plan,” Scarlet said, ignoring them both. “I’m taking it to everyone who needs to know so that we’re ready when they come. And I’ve found two of the people Hunter Maas is scheduled to meet with. They haven’t heard from him, but the first meeting is scheduled for tomorrow night. If you’re not going to shoot anybody, I’m going to go back to doing that now.”
“I’m … You know, someone could have told me about all this.”
“If I’d known you’d be here, I would have,” she said, and her voice had lost its false flirtatiousness. “There are a dozen things going on here, they’re all critical, and they all affect one another. I assumed you’d be in the hangar with Chewbacca.”
Han pulled his arm free of hers and leaned forward, his elbows on the table. He felt embarrassed and resentful and embarrassed for feeling resentful, but he wasn’t going to let any of it show. Leia said something, and the Phindian laughed ruefully. A server droid trundled up to the table, and Scarlet waved it away.
“I’ll get back where I belong, then,” Han said.
“I know the danger’s real,” Scarlet said. “And more than that? She knows it is. I respect that you want to protect us both, but you need to trust me. And her. These are risks we have to take.”