Heir to the Jedi Read Free Page A

scrambled visit from a squadron of TIE fighters. Following a route painted by Artoo, I dropped down on the coast of Betu, a continent away from the Chattza clan, the Grand Protector, and the bulk of Imperial activity. The Chekkoo clan lived there, and while they weren’t in open rebellion, lacking the resources to follow their hearts, simple geography gave them the opportunity to exercise some passive resistance and keep a few secrets.
    Set upon a high rocky cliffside with ocean waves pounding the base, the Chekkoo Enclave sported a single gray tower thrust out of a series of stone walls draped around it like skirts, each one bristling with weapons emplacements. A thriving city nestled in between the walls, but the spaceport waited outside them and we touched down there. Beyond that, the jungle awaited,humid and humming with the drone of insects and the occasional screech of something wanting to eat or something else dismayed at being eaten.
    I wasn’t prepared for the smell; a diplomatic person would say it was
pungent
. I couldn’t muster any words, diplomatic or otherwise; it was all I could do not to gag openly as the ramp opened and the odor of bad cheese and fungal feet wafted in, hot and cloying and fat in my nostrils, much too big for the space, like a Hutt squeezed into an armchair.
    A single Rodian waited for me at the bottom of the ramp and pretended not to notice my expression of disgust. She was dressed in a long blue tunic edged in gold and matching pants tucked into buckled brown boots. She had a spray of golden spines sticking up between her antennae and falling in a line down the back of her head.
    “Welcome, Luke Skywalker,” she said. “I am Laneet Chekkoo. I’ll be your guide while you visit Rodia.”
    “Pleasure to meet you,” I managed. “Are you only a guide, or will I be negotiating with you, as well?”
    “Only a guide. I am primarily concerned with keeping your presence here unobserved by other clans. If you will follow me, we will depart for Toopil.”
    “Toopil? Aren’t we going to the enclave?”
    Laneet twitched her head once to the left, which I believe signaled negative among Rodians. “Too many Imperial spies there and even more from other clans. At the enclave we are meek and subservient to the Grand Protector and display very little in the way of our true wealth and power. Toopil is a different place entirely. You will see. This way, please.”
    I followed Laneet out of the relatively quiet spaceport and into a teeming open-air market with labyrinthine passages and a shifting crowd of shoppers unconscious of personal space. A whole new spectrum of smells hammered my nose. Some of itwas supposed to be appetizing, I think, since I spied food vendors, but it wasn’t making me hungry at all. Artoo’s dome swiveled about as he trailed behind, taking it all in, but he kept silent.
    We made several turns before ducking into an electronics vendor boasting of aftermarket jamming systems and other fine accessories for the discriminating bounty hunter. The vendor’s stall turned out not to be a stall at all but its own maze of a structure with multiple levels and merchandise grouped in small rooms, each with its own resident merchant and with multiple exits to other showrooms. When we rounded a corner into a room displaying racks of neural disruptors and occupied only by a giant Ithorian, Laneet signaled with her right hand and the Ithorian lumbered forward to block the narrow passage behind us with its bulk. No one would be able to squeeze past it until it reemerged, and we took the opportunity this afforded to slip into a hallway concealed behind a wall panel filled with weapons that might have been designed to melt internal organs. Once the panel closed behind Artoo, Laneet paused in the dimly lit passage and looked back at us.
    “We just want to make sure we are not followed. Our transport awaits ahead, but please move silently. We are still moving through the market, and the walls