Han drew his blaster. The R3 droid squeaked in alarm and extruded a small electrical lead that sparked and crackled. Chewbacca bared his teeth and stepped forward. The droid and the rat-bird both moved back, but Hunter Maas curled his lips disdainfully.
“Your Wookiee may kill Hunter Maas,” he said, “if you wish to see the Empire win. It will not matter to Hunter Maas. He will be dead! Is that what you want? To see the Empire win?”
“Does it mean pulling your arms off?” Han asked. “Because then maybe.”
“Let him go,” Leia said.
No one moved except the rat-bird, and it crawled under Hunter Maas’s red-and-gold cape and blinked out at them malevolently. Scarlet’s eyes were narrow. Chewbacca growled deep in his throat.
“I said let him go,” Leia said. “Put your weapons down and let the man go to his meetings.”
Han clenched his jaw, but he put the blaster back in its holster. Chewbacca roared and pounded the table with his fist, leaving a dent. The Wookiee paced back to the corner to glower. Hunter Maas rose, stretched, and bowed to Leia.
“You are as gracious to Hunter Maas as you are lovely, royal lady. Do not think I will forget you, oh no. Hunter Maas knows when a debt of honor is due. When I have the bids of the others, I will give you the opportunity to beat them.”
“Thank you so much,” Leia said. Her sarcasm would have left blisters on a more sensitive man.
“In truth, Hunter Maas would have been disappointed if you had not tried to intimidate him.”
The little man blew Scarlet a kiss, flourished his cape, and swaggered from the room, the rat-bird hunched on his shoulder and the R3 rolling at his heels as if it was afraid of being left behind. For a long moment, the only sound was the muted music from the cantina.
Leia leaned back in her seat, laced her hands behind her head, and said something obscene.
“So,” Han said, turning to Scarlet. “That was the guy who got the data you were after?”
“He got lucky.”
“Oh, hey, no criticism here. There’s no shame in being beaten by a smooth operator like that. I mean, did you see his boots? They were shiny. No reason to be embarrassed just because you lost a sensitive operation to a shirtless man with shiny boots.”
“You’re enjoying this.”
“Just the part where that guy was better than you,” he said. “The rest of it scares the heck out of me.”
Leia stood up and cocked an eyebrow. “All right. So. If he takes this to the Hutts or Black Sun, they’ll give him whatever he wants. Or the Empire will come rain fire on all our heads. Or they’ll get to this device, wherever it is, and none of this will have mattered at all.”
“What lovely alternatives,” Scarlet said.
“So we steal it from him,” Leia said.
“Give me until morning,” Scarlet said. “I’ll need to find where he’s staying. If it’s in his ship, that will actually be easier. If he’s put himself in the care of the conclave hive … trickier, but possible. They’ve put a lot of thought into keeping people safe and information private.”
“All right,” Leia said. “I’ll be making a series of panicky calls to the Alliance, arguing over how much we can offer him.”
“Why?” Han asked.
“So that he thinks we’re still at the negotiating table,” Leia said. “As long as he believes he’s winning, we’re on the right track.”
“And what do you want us to do?” Han asked, nodding toward Chewbacca.
“Be his bodyguard,” Leia said. “Make sure no one kills him before we get this information.”
Chewbacca’s outraged howl filled the room.
“I don’t like it any better than you do,” Leia said, her chin tilted all the way up to look the Wookiee full in the face. “But I don’t have a choice. Hunter Maas is a terrible, stupid, venal little man who is playing way out of his league. He’s probably going to get himself killed, but he’s got the upper hand right now. If the Empire gets a power like this—or Black Sun does, or the Hutts—it will mean the end of all freedom in the galaxy forever.”
Scarlet nodded, her expression grim.
“So,” Han said, “what’ll it mean if we get it?”
THE CONCLAVE HIVE HAD four different classes of accommodation. For the attendees of the conference with the greatest number of people and the greatest power, there were seven private buildings where the administrators could simply hand over the passkeys and give people control over—and responsibility for—their own security. Down from that were high-security cells, hardly better than prison, with guards and surveillance and a constant patrol of small, flying droids armed with blasters and strict orders about who could and couldn’t walk the hallways. The third were private sleeping rooms available for rent inside the conclave hive itself, convenient to the meeting rooms and bars. And the last were dormitory bunks for groups of soldiers or multi-bodied hive-mind pods that didn’t mind being packed into tight spaces with no privacy.
Han wasn’t at all surprised to see Hunter Maas sauntering toward the third-class rooms. A man who needed a droid and a rat-bird for his entourage wasn’t going to accept the worst rooms, and he couldn’t afford the best. Han slumped under a massive, slick-trunked tree across an open courtyard, cleaning his fingernails and watching through a great glass wall as Hunter Maas negotiated with the droid responsible for portioning out the rooms. Scarlet’s voice came to him, thin and tinny.
“All right,” she said. “I’ve got him. You can step away.”
Han didn’t answer directly, but turned his back to the accommodations suite and walked along the pathway through the hive. A crowd of thin-faced, mean-looking humans scowled at him as he passed a little garden. Han touched his forehead in mock salute and didn’t break stride.
It was nearing midnight in Talastin City, and the foot traffic in the conclave hive had a furtive feel. People moving between one clandestine rendezvous and another, eyeing one another warily. Everyone trying to see who was nearby without themselves being seen. Right now, everything was for sale on Kiamurr. Weapons and drugs and slaves, loyalty and betrayal. And, thanks to Hunter Maas, the future of the galaxy. The bad thing was that it meant shadowing Hunter Maas had been tricky. The good thing was that it had been possible, and with Han and Scarlet working together to trade off observing and protecting their target, they’d managed without being spotted.