Star Wars - Credit Denied - Unpublished Read Free Page A

from somewhere behind her ship, and she glanced over the Nimbanel’s shoulder to see an espionage droid hover into view, its ocular scanners whirring as they took in every square inch of the vessel. That task now complete, it turned toward Rendra and its owner to capture data on their verbal transaction. She’d had to use such precautions on several of her own jobs before, sometimes for legal reasons, sometimes because her benefactor wanted to watch his target squirm.
    “Oh yes,” the Nimbanel said, stealing her attention away from the droid. “My informants placed you on Eryso in the Hedya system thirty-two hours ago. Let’s see, you met with several beings from a ship called Chasa Riv , BoSS registry 52462474-245. You left twenty-three standard minutes later carrying a datapad you didn’t have when you arrived, and then, according to vector calculations based on your ship’s maximum hyperdrive speed, you immediately jumped here.”
    She had to admit: the Nimbanel was thorough. But as he was wasting time reading off the log of her recent activities, a plan had begun to take shape in her mind. She just needed a few more pieces of information to make sure it would have at least a chance of working.
    “You’ve been keeping track of me,” she said, maneuvering slowly into a conversation. “I’m surprised you didn’t pick me up twenty minutes ago while security was doing that background check.” She did her best to hide that fact the her statement was an outright fabrication.
    He regarded her with a forced smile. “Yes, well. It doesn’t seem to matter now, does it?”
    Perfect, she decided. He must not have any informants here on the station or he would have known she was lying—which means he doesn’t know about my newly acquired mercenaries.
    “So,” he continued as he pocketed the datapad, “I’ll take the scandocs and the pass-keys to your ship. Now.” He punctuated the request with an almost imperceptible heft of his blaster carbine.
    Her eyes tracked down to her own blaster—
    “Do I have to take the keys from your dead body? That’s not in my contract—although I don’t really have anything against it, other than having to fill out those tedious security reports.”
    “Look, uh…” she said, fishing for his name. When he didn’t offer, she continued. “Let’s work out a deal. You and me. I’m going to earn a lot more than I need right now. I’ll cut you in if you’ll just give me three days to—”
    She saw him flick a switch on the carbine—she didn’t know exactly what it did, but it couldn’t be good—and she knew she’d run out of time.
    She turned and leaped for the door controls as a blaster bolt zinged over her head, blowing a fist-sized chunk of duracrete out of the wall. From her prone position she reached up and clicked the release mechanism.
    And nothing happened.
    Another blaster bolt exploded from his carbine, this time striking the floor and spewing a cascade of debris across her back. She rolled several turns to her right as the Nimbanel continued to take shots at her.
    Finally, she pushed herself to her feet and snapped the blaster from her holster. Before he could fire another shot, she had loosed a pair of laser bolts straight for his chest.
    The first slammed into an invisible barrier that showed itself by flaring a pattern of visible-light static, as if the molecules in the air in front of him had momentarily erupted into a chaotic frenzy and then returned to normal. The second bolt met the same fate, leaving the Nimbanel completely unharmed. Rendra had always wanted her own personal shield, but she’d found the prices exorbitant. Apparently this bounty hunter was good at what he did if he could afford such a device.
    Her mind raced as the Nimbanel smiled and took aim at her once more, moving slowly as if to signal his confidence of his inevitable success. Why hadn’t Nopul and the others charged in once they’d heard the exchange of blaster fire? She