Fair Prey - Star Wars Gamer #1 Read online

  "Fair Prey"

  Daniel Wallace

  Star Wars Gamer #1

  "Six meters of muscle, teeth, and venom." Tyro Viveca, the galaxy's wealthiest Krish, raised his glass and took a long sip of dun brandy. "Hyperfast reflexes and a vicious streak as wide as the Cron Drift. I'd say you're looking at the most efficient predator in history." He loosed a razor-edged smile at his visitor. "My taxidermist just stuffed it this morning."

  The alien's guest politely stepped forward and leaned in to examine the specimen: a gray-green tube of flesh, looking like the repulsive offspring of a serpent and an eel, coiled on a polished wooden base. Its head, frozen in mid-strike, was a mass of glistening white spikes.

  "Impressive," the man said, raising his eyebrows quizzically as he turned back toward his beaming host. "Aren't Florn lamproids sentient?"

  "Unquestionably. Though they lack the culture and art you and I take for granted, they have the brains to solve fiendishly complex puzzles. That's what makes them such a smashing hunt." Viveca strolled to the side table and removed the crystal stopper from a heavy cut-glass decanter. "More brandy?"

  The visitor shook him off with a wave of his hand and settled back into an armchair with a squeak of leather and a sigh of cushioning. His bright eyes scanned his surroundings for the dozenth time. The room was an enclosed octagon with pillars at the corners, dark walls trimmed with gold. A pair of holographic lamps provided dim illumination, but he could clearly make out the severed heads of a hundred sundry creatures, each mounted on a varnished plaque bearing the unlucky beast's species, weight, planet

  of origin, and date of death. Seven niches held full-sized predators arrayed in fearsome poses; the eighth held Viveca's rarest firearms and his collection of antique water pipes. The entire room stank of tabac and desiccated hides.

  "That's the male, you know." Viveca held his half-filled glass on the balls of his scaled fingers, swirling the liquid lazily. His guest looked up questioningly.

  "The lamproid," Viveca explained. "I killed and mounted the male. I sedated and captured his mate, and have her locked on the grounds for a later hunt. Perhaps you'd care to join me."

  "Perhaps," the visitor answered, resting both booted feet on a bantha-Ieg ottoman. "But I believe we have business to take care of first."

  "Indeed," remarked the paunchy Krish. "I seldom receive uninvited callers, because most beings realize my time is of immense value. You claim to have something to show me. It had better be worth it."

  "Don't worry," assured conman Cecil Noone, sliding a ribbed metalbox out from beside his chair and flashing the most charming grin in his arsenal. "You won't be disappointed."

  The skies of Kabal opened up for the third time that morning.

  Kels Turkhorn snarled and resisted the urge to sprint for the awning of the nearest merchant tent. The locals took the sudden cloudbursts in stride and Kels didn't want to give off an outsider's vibe. Fat raindrops splashed on her nose, matted her whitish hair, and trickled down the back of her neck.

  The busy marketplace carried the hot scent of sweat and the salty tang of the coastal breeze. Mindful of the unfamiliar bodies in close proximity, Kels clutched her supply bag with both hands. Even a professional pickpocket could sometimes get taken to the cleaners.

  The drenched bazaar was one of the few public attractions in Palisade, a small coastal community on Kabal's largest equatorial island. Less than a year ago the planet had been disciplined by a wing of Imperial TIE bombers for declaring its neutrality in the Galactic Civil War. But the damage had been confined to Kabal's capital city, half a hemisphere away. The residents of Palisade continued to lead quiet, industrious lives centered on fishing and a modest tourist trade.

  A burst of loud, mocking laughter caught Kels' attention. Farther down the boulevard sat another trader's stall, this one with a dirty gray awning instead of the striped pink and white ones that draped the bazaar in incongruous gaiety. Starship parts, dead appliances, plastic sandals, and other miscellaneous junk lay piled on the stall's front display table. The proprietor, a female Squib with grease-stained fur and one clipped ear, was leaning out of the booth and shaking her fist menacingly.

  "This new wire, you say?" screeched the Squib. "Not likely, I say! This junk!" She tossed a small coil of golden wire back to her customer and crossed her arms in smug satisfaction. "You barter with that? You crazy!"

  Kels saw the target of the Squib's abuse and closed her eyes in resigned pain. "Dawson," she muttered, and moved quickly through the crowed to her compatriot's rescue.

  Dawson stood barely a head taller than the diminutive Squib. A Tynnan, his aquatic mammalian ancestry was evident in his webbed paws and sleek brown pelt. Dawson tried to say something but was cut off with a fresh gush of invective.

  "That junk!" the Squib chittered. "You junk! You ugly face! You teeth look like two big deckplates!" Two tall, red-maned aliens who were lingering nearby to watch the exchange roared with laughter and looked at the Tynnan to see if the taunts would spark a reaction.

  Kels came alongside Dawson and placed one hand on his shoulder. He peered up at her through the lenses of his ocular enhancer. "Kels!" he cried in welcome. "Just handling a delicate bit of negotiating."

  "Right," she said dubiously, eyeing the twenty-centimeter white plastic sphere balanced in Dawson's right palm. "What kind of equipment is that?"

  "You ever hear of a Quay?" he asked. "It's a novelty item. A 'preprogrammed prognosticator.' You ask it a question, and it spits out one of several stored answers." Dawson was animated, visibly excited about his discovery. Raindrops tumbled from his quivering whiskers. "I've counted three already."

  "It's a toy?" Kels snickered, disgusted. "You're haggling for that little thing?"

  "Little, yeah!" cackled the Squib. "Size of you brain!" The two tall aliens laughed again, shaking their shaggy manes and dousing the vicinity with spray.

  Kels turned to the Squib, annoyed. "You always treat your customers this way?" she snapped.

  "Customer? Hah! News to me. You no buyin', you no customer." The Squib grinned up at her onlookers who responded with appreciative guffaws.

  "Let me see that," Kels told Dawson. She took the sphere from the Tynnan's paws and shook it.

  "THE SPIRITS SAY YES," boomed the Quay.

  Kels took two steps backward as if frightened, bringing her to the far end of the display table.

  "It's stupid," whined Kels petulantly, gripping the Quay in both hands and thrusting it away from her body as if it were a poison-ous snake. "I don't want it." She suddenly threw the Quay up in the air, a steep, high arc. The others' eyes looked skyward to follow its path. As Kels brought her arms down, she closed each hand around a power coupling and lifted them from a stack on the table. By the time the toy landed in the Squib's paws, the couplings were tucked away in Kels' waistband sash.

  "You done it now!" yelled the Squib, as Kels spun on her heel and walked away. "Broke for sure! You clumsy!" The Squib glared at Dawson, baring her teeth threateningly, then looked down at the Quay. "You broke?" she asked, shaking the toy.

  "MY REPLY IS NO."

  The Squib, pleased with her joke, looked up at the tall aliens who threw back their heads and howled as if they'd just witnessed the funniest thing in the galaxy. Dawson excused himself and trotted after Kels.

  "Wait up!" he shouted, struggling to catch her on his squat legs. She looked back and slowed her pace. Dawson came alongside, splashing through a puddle and ejecting a spray of mud flecks. Kels looked away from the misty coastline toward a distant green swelling of land at the island's interior. "Wonder if Noone's having any luck?"

  Recently, Noone, Kels, Dawson, and the Sluissi cyborg Sonax h
ad finally scored in their career as thieves, nabbing a priceless Hapan Gun of Command. In the process, they'd double-crossed their former Hutt employer, killed a Bimm crimelord, and added insult to injury by stealing the late Bimm's private luxury yacht. Noone, their leader, had urged his employees to be patient. Once the sale of the gun netted them a fortune, they'd never again have to worry about crime bosses with burning vendettas. But weeks later they were still waiting, and patience was in short supply.

  The meeting with the Rebel Alliance had been a joke. Despite the Rebels' rumored victory at an Outer Rim bolthole called Yavin, the self-righteous flagwavers didn't have two scrip coins to rub together. The fresh-faced Alliance agent had offered less than a tenth of Noone's asking price.

  The Empire was even worse. Sonax despised the Imperials from personal experience, so the others had had to assure her they were merely arranging a rendezvous with a local criminal syndicate. Meanwhile, Noone slipped out to negotiate with the Imperial consul-general of Kothlis. But Consul-General Halsek had tried a double-cross of his own, and they'd blasted out of port just ahead of 24 stormtroopers and a legion of planetary militia.

  Which is why they'd ended up here, in Palisade. The modest island was dominated by the sprawling estate of Tyro Viveca, a hulking Krish business baron with a legendary reputation for eccentricities. More importantly, he had a passion for sport hunting, and in the past had dropped obscene sums for rare, antique, or cutting-edge weaponry. Now that they'd arrived, Kels wondered why they hadn't tried this avenue before. If you really want to jack up the price on something, she thought with a cruel grin, market it as a 'collectible.'

  They entered the saltfish plaza, its stone floor slick with scales and guts. A boom of thunder rolled in from over the sea. The rain increased its staccato tempo, popping noisily against the awnings of the fishmonger tents. Kels wiped the rain away from her eyes with the heel of her hand, but Dawson seemed to be enjoying the shower.

  "Hey, Kels?" queried Dawson. "This is the way to the landing pads. You said we needed power couplings."

  Kels patted her waist. "Got 'em." When Dawson still looked puzzled, she pulled back the cloth to partially reveal one. "Ufted them from the Squib."

  Dawson's face lit up. "Do you have the Quay?"

  "What?" frowned Kels.

  "The Quay. Did you palm it?"

  "Are you insane? Of course not. You were there. Besides, why would I?"

  Dawson's shoulders slumped with sudden gloom and Kels rolled her eyes. Dawson had a childish tendency to fixate on trivialities, then abandon them without warning. He looked back through the haze of rain in the direction of the traders' marketplace, a pathetic lost-cub expression on .his face.

  Kels laughed and shook her head. "Don't even think about it."

  "A Gun of Command," Tyro Viveca breathed with wonder. "An actual working Hapan brain-scrambler."

  "I see you're a man who knows his weapons," Noone remarked. "But in most eyewitness accounts Guns of Command are hand pistols. This, as you can see, is a full-sized rifle."

  "Yesss..." said Viveca, hefting the firearm and taking a bead down the length of the barrel. He twisted his upper body, sighted on the stuffed head of a Bothan krak'jya, and tensed his index finger, stopping short of depressing the trigger fully. "Boom," he whispered, and giggled. He abruptly raised his head and regained his professional composure. "Why is that?"

  Noone was taken aback by the Krish's odd display, but didn't show it. "My associates have determined that the rifle is a one-of-a-kind prototype from the Charubah Armaments Guild, packing twice the persuasive potency of their original product." That was only slightly less than a total lie. The prototype angle had been Kels' best guess, and without a Hapan pistol to compare the rifle with, the double-strength claim was a brazen con. "You're welcome to field-test it, of course."

  "Thank you. I will. Rutt!" In response to his master's bark, Viveca's Houk servant trundled sluggishly through the doorway. He stood ready at the far wall, piggish eyes downcast, beefy hands folded over his stomach. Viveca blew an amused snort through his flat nostrils. "Hold still, Rutt. This won't hurt a bit."

  The room exploded in an inferno of crackling blue sparks. Tendrils of electricity crawled across the Houk's body and dissipated in pulsing waves from his hands and feet. Rutt spasmed once, twice, then assumed a vacant, dead-eyed stance, limbs dangling limply at his sides. If he hadn't remained upright, Noone would have sworn he was dead.

  Viveca's eyes narrowed in pleasure. "Rutt - kneel!"

  The Houk dropped to both knees with a resounding thunk. "Rutt - lay!"

  The Houk pitched forward and impacted the wooden floor with his face. Noone winced.

  "Rutt - howl!"

  The Houk drew both arms under his body, threw his head back, and bayed louder than a pack of Corellian canoids. Noone wrinkled his nose with distaste and swallowed a deep draught of dun brandy.

  Viveca laughed uproariously and lowered the Gun of Command. "Splendid! How long does the trance last?"

  Noone struggled to make himself heard over the servant's strangled braying. "On him? No longer than forty minutes. A human will stay under for at least an hour, an Ugnaught for two or three." This, at least, was entirely true. During their first week of ownership, they'd tested the rifle on a wide variety of unsuspecting marks with impressive results.

  Viveca grunted with satisfaction. "Rutt - cease!" The Houk halted in mid cry, though the afterecho continued to reverberate along the wine-colored walls. "Let's get down to business, you and I. How much are you asking?"

  Noone locked eyes with the Krish. "One and a half million," he answered coolly. "But to honor your outstanding reputation I'll accept one point three in hard credits."

  To Noone's surprise, Viveca didn't even blink. Instead, his eyes hardened and his voice took on an edge of tempered durasteel. "Now let me make you an offer," he hissed in a threatening whisper. "I will take your Gun. I will give you zero credits, hard or otherwise. And if I am feeling charitable I might even give you a chance at saving your worthless hide."

  The brandy went down the wrong pipe. Noone gagged violently and hammered his chest with his fist. "Excuse me?" he choked out.

  "And you will accept my offer because you are Cecil Noone, leader of an amateurish band of petty thieves who stole this item from a well-connected crimelord. You will accept because Guttu the Hutt and the heirs of Ritinki each have warrants out on your life. You will accept because you have no other choice."

  The blood seemed to be draining from Noone's body and pooling in the soles of his feet. His mouth struggled to generate a rejoinder and failed.

  "Did you really think," Viveca went on, "that you could come skipping into my receiving room under an assumed name and try to sell me the only known prototype of the Hapans' rifle variant? Either you vastly underestimate your own notoriety or you think I have the brains of a gravel-maggot. You're quite famous, Mr. Noone, at least among those who keep tabs on the bit players in organized crime. And fame has its price."

  Noone had regained his wits. "You're right, Viveca," he confessed, "you've got me pegged. The Gun, it's all yours. But you know I'm of far more use to you alive, in more ways than you can count. You lose nothing by -"

  "My offer," the Krish cut him off, "my only offer, is this. L will let you leave my manor with the clothes on your back and the trinkets in your pockets. If you make it to the edge of my hunting grounds, you are free to raise ship and leave Kabal forever. But I am a seasoned tracker and an excellent shot. I seldom lose any quarry - certainly not one as foolish and guileless as yourself."

  Guileless! Noone thought. He certainly knows how to get under my skin. "You can't be serious," he said aloud, his voice rising with real anger. "You're proposing to hunt me down like a twelve-point quivry for the game of it."

  "Oh, but I am serious, Mr. Noone." Viveca looked delighted. "Deadly serious. You will soon learn -"

  "No, Viveca, you didn't catch my meaning. I said you can't be serious. You thi
nk it's a fresh idea? An over-moneyed nutcase sets up a murder and calls it sport. I've seen it played out a hundred times in the flashy halo-thrillers."

  The Krish's lips parted in an angry sneer, revealing interlocking rows of pearlescent daggers. "I hope you were taking notes," he spat. "Rutt!"

  The Houk stirred from his prone position on the floor and moved to stand by his master. Viveca nodded at Noone. "Grab him by the collar."

  Shuffling zombielike over to Noone's position, the towering alien squeezed the neck of Noone's shirt with one oversized meathook. The fabric stretched, the seam ripped, and the concealed emergency comlink was crushed to powder.

  "You will not be calling anyone. You are entirely on your own. At least try to make it an amusing hunt." Viveca leaned back and carefully studied Noone's face. "For verification, Guttu will want your head. Ritinki's heirs will settle for your arms for the fingerprints and pore patterns. Those legs will feed my nashtah. Your torso...well, that will likely be vaporized with the first hit from my Kell Mark II. I'm terribly sorry Mr. Noone, but only the finest specimens are kept intact for my trophy room."

  Time's running out, thought Noone. If I'm going to make a move, it's got to be now.

  "Rutt!" Noone shouted, pointing his finger at Viveca. "Kill him!"

  Still under the influence of the Gun of Command, the Houk manservant lunged at his master with a feral moan-simultaneously, Noone vaulted a divan and dashed toward the wall display of vintage weapons. With a supple grace belying his bulk, Viveca moved one step out of Rutt's path, allowing the slight movement to add momentum to the sudden pivot of his upper body and the piston strength of his long arms. With a grunt, he brought the butt of the Hapan rifle squarely down on the nerve cluster at the base of Rutt's skull. The enormous Houk went down like a wet sack of bantha feed.

  Noone reached the rack, yanked loose something resembling a crossbow, and spun around to take aim at Viveca. He then realized two things: The Krish already had him covered, and the crossbow wasn't loaded.

  "Perhaps this will be enjoyable after all," Viveca smiled. "I suggest you start running."