Star Wars: Shadow Games Read Free Page B

calculations. With the Imperials patrolling the well-used smuggling corridors, trying to make Nal Hutta on ion power alone was chancy. It severely limited their ability to escape another trap.
    “What’ll it take to get to Tatooine?”
    “Roughly thirty-six hours. Why Tatooine?”
    Why, indeed. Tatooine was the lint-stuffed belly button of the universe, but—
    “Because that’s where Kerlew is. And Kerlew knows these drives inside out. He’s the only mech-tech I trust to mess with
Outrider
’s innards.”
    “Humans,” observed Eaden, “are so sentimental.”
    “They’re soft in the head, is what they are,” observed Leebo dryly from his post in engineering. “You realize, of course, that the cargo will have to be shipped on to Nal Hutta on a different freighter, which means we’ll have to share the take with another space jockey. I mean, who knows if we’re going to have any creds left after that to even get this bucket fi—?”
    Dash killed the feed from Leebo’s comlink, cutting him off mid-rant. “Well, what are you waiting for?” he asked Eaden. “Set course for Tatooine.”

FOUR
    T HE BAD NEWS WAS THAT THE
O UTRIDER
WAS GOING TO be in spacedock for a while. The worse news was that it was going to cost them. And since they were now going to have to farm out the cargo delivery to another spacer, it might eat up all their profits. Then, of course, there was the difficulty of finding someone in Mos Eisley who was (a) trustworthy, (b) in need of quick credits, and (c) willing to take freight to Nal Hutta in the middle of a particularly nasty bit of business between the Jiliac and Besadii clans—mostly orchestrated by the ever-scheming Jabba.
    To that end, Dash and Eaden left the ship berthed in Docking Bay 92 behind Spacers’ Row and made their way to Chalmun’s Cantina, just off Kerner Plaza. Few actually called the place Chalmun’s Cantina. It was simply the Cantina or the Mos Eisley Cantina, with emphasis on
the
. There were other cantinas in Mos Eisley, but of them all, Chalmun’s was the largest and the easiest to lose oneself in. This, when one was doing business that was less than legitimate, was a plus. Chalmun’s possessed a warren of booths and small back rooms for private conferences. And, of course, a back door and a cellar retreat that led to yet another escape route.
    Dash was not in a good mood when he and Eaden stepped down from the cantina’s foyer into the noisy main room, but he plastered a false smile on his face and gave the room a once-over, scanning for familiar faces.He saw quite a few, but only a handful were pilots he’d trust with their cargo. Most of the patrons, in fact, were aging Podracers, recognizable for the most part by their various honorary badges. Which, among other things, entitled them to free drinks.
    “Must be a convention in town,” Dash muttered. “Eaden, how about you take the left side of the room. I’ll take the right. We’ll shmooze a little bit—see if anyone’s looking for a quick turnaround.”
    The Nautolan fixed him with an eloquent maroon stare. “I do not … what was that word? ‘Shmooze.’ ”
    In the many months he’d been working with the Nautolan, Dash had yet to arrive at a definitive list of all the things Eaden considered beneath his dignity. “How do you know you don’t do it? Do you even know what it means?”
    “Whatever it means, I don’t do it. I will ask likely candidates if they are in need of a cargo and are willing to take it to Nal Hutta. That’s all.”
    Dash raked his fingers through his thick hair and sighed.
Probably not a good idea to tell him that’s a textbook definition of
shmooze. “Okay, look. Let’s at least make sure we’re in the same starlane when it comes to what we’re looking for.”
    His partner gave him another impenetrable look. “Free of current commitments and desperate for credits?”
    “And trustworthy. Don’t forget trustworthy. It’s bad enough we’re losing the full