The communicator hit the floor before Darren managed to catch it.
He reached down from the bunk, dragging the blanket after his hand.
Somewhere outside Second Chance, a pneumatic tool hammered against metal.
The borrowed timepiece said five nineteen.
Halden’s name filled the communicator display.
“If this is about the dinner bill—”
“Meridian closed.”
Darren sat up.
His shoulder struck the wall, and the pain finished waking him.
“The intermediary?”
“Registration suspended, administrator resigned. Closure filed at four forty-six. They’re withdrawing the remaining records.”
Darren put his feet on the deck.
“When did that start?”
“Two fifty-five. Thirty-seven minutes after my last detailed query.”
“You went back after dinner.”
“Yes.”
For a moment he listened to the tool outside.
They had known the afternoon’s request would leave a record.
Halden had chosen to continue, and somebody might have noticed.
Might.
Companies closed without knowing Darren Vale existed.
“Where are you?”
“My office.”
“Have you saved what you found?”
“Locally.”
“Then stop asking that terminal for anything else until we know who can see you.”
Halden drew breath to answer.
Darren went on before he could turn it into the argument they had already had.
“I’m coming. Keep the records. I need to know whether anyone has approached you.”
“Nobody. Nira Senn is on her way. She works in Risk Records. She found something the closure doesn’t account for.”
“Let her in. Nobody else until we get there.”
He heard a connection being shut down, then Halden said, “Bring Marr if she’s available.”
Tessa was fastening a replacement cover over the auxiliary panel.
She glanced at the clock when he appeared, and he told her about Meridian before she could ask why he was dressed.
“How late did he keep working?”
“Past two.”
She pressed the cover once to make sure it held.
“Of course he did.”
“I need a ride.”
Tessa considered him, then reached for her jacket.
She called the dock foreman while Darren fetched her toolbox, told him the loading would have to wait and rejected his first proposed surcharge without slowing down.
At the bottom of the ramp she took the box from Darren’s sore arm.
“I’ll settle the berth,” she told him.
“You find out what Halden has done.”
It was more useful than being told everything would be fine.
Corellia was changing shifts.
Gray light lay across unfinished hulls, and queues formed beneath stalls selling hot drinks.
Tessa took the speeder past a stopped freight lane, turned before the diversion sign and descended into a service route Darren would have mistaken for an entrance to a building.
He kept track of the turns until they passed beneath a construction platform and the road divided around a suspended engine block.
“Can you get us back this way?” he asked.
“If they haven’t moved that by then.”
He stopped trying to remember the road as something permanent and began watching where the workers were being sent.
Tessa followed their flow through the next junction.
By the time they reached Halden’s district, he understood one more way to get lost.
Nira Senn stood beside the auditor, her badge wallet open on his desk.
Fine gray-brown fur covered her face, and her ears moved when Darren shut the door.
She looked at his holster, then at Tessa.
“Are these the people who brought you the extracts?”
“Yes,” Halden said.
“Vale and Marr.”
“Then you should hear this too.”
She brought up three file references.
Their seals appeared beside them, bright against the dark screen.
“Meridian deposited physical validations with the Sector Twelve depot. The insurers require them. Closing the company doesn’t erase the obligations they record.”
“But someone wants it to,” Darren said.
“Someone authorized early destruction. I’ve challenged it.”
Halden showed him the response: review pending.
Nira had requested a hold, but the destruction instruction remained active while her request waited for a supervisor.
“When?” Darren asked.
“Six.”
The office clock showed five forty-three.
“How far?”
“Fifteen minutes in ordinary traffic,” Tessa said.
She was already putting her jacket back on.
Nira closed the display.
“The transport case is seven seven one nine. Three sealed files inside it. I can get us through the doors. I can’t promise the machine will listen to my badge.”
“Stay here,” Darren told Halden.
“Send us the references.”
Halden picked up his bag.
“I’m the auditor attached to the challenge. She may need my signature.”
Darren looked at Nira.
She nodded once.
“Then between us. If I tell you to stop, stop first and argue afterward.”
“That arrangement expires when nobody is shooting,” Halden said.
“Let’s aim for permanent expiry.”
They reached the depot at five fifty-seven.
Tessa left the speeder in a loading recess, and Nira led them past an older Devaronian guard who had just lifted a cup to his mouth.
“Priority preservation,” she said, holding out her badge.
He checked the four of them against the names she entered, then frowned at the result.
“Your hold hasn’t cleared.”
“That’s why we’re here. Log our entry.”
He did.
As they moved through the barrier, Nira told him to call the floor supervisor.
Darren heard the guard begin the call behind them.
The storage hall was cold.
Carriers moved above the aisles with little boxed loads hanging beneath them.
Nira stopped at a terminal, entered the case number and waited through a delay that made Halden lean over her shoulder.
“Don’t,” she said.
He stepped back.
The record appeared.
TRANSFERRED: THERMAL PROCESSING.
Nira turned toward the far end of the hall.
Darren stayed beside Halden as they hurried after her; running pulled sharply beneath his ribs, but he could still breathe.
Tessa reached the door first, waited for Nira to unlock it and held it for the others.
An alarm began as the door opened.
Nira glanced at the panel.
“Hold rejected.”
“By whom?” Halden asked.
“Client authorization. They haven’t even referred it to the insurer.”
She kept moving.
Darren followed the anger in her voice into a room full of machinery.
A gray case was travelling along an enclosed rail toward a thermal chamber.
Behind its transparent barrier, a yellow line marked the point at which the rail entered the housing.
The digits on the case matched Nira’s number.
She hit the stop control.
A red response appeared.
Halden pushed his authorization into the reader beside hers.
The case kept moving.
Tessa went to the side of the enclosure, looked along the rail and pulled at an access handle.
Locked.
Darren put his hands against the barrier; it gave him no room to reach through, and breaking it would leave the moving case on the other side of a floor covered in shards.
“Supervisor override,” Halden read aloud.
“Where’s the supervisor?”
Tessa drew her blaster.
She pointed to an exposed bracket supporting the enclosure beneath the approach rail.
“If that drops, the case drops here.”
“Do it,” Nira said.
Darren pulled Halden clear of the line.
Tessa fired once.
The bracket failed in a shower of sparks, and the rail sagged.
The case slid sideways, struck the bottom of the enclosure and stopped short of the chamber.
Something inside the machine ground against its own housing before the drive cut out.
A second alarm drowned the first.
The access lock released.
Tessa opened the panel and reached in.
Darren caught the other handle when she dragged the case clear; together they lowered it onto the floor.
His shoulder protested, but the case was out.
Nira knelt beside it and checked the outer latch.
She did not try to thank anyone over the noise.
She recorded the number and damaged housing, then looked up at Tessa.
“I’ll put the order in my report.”
“Put the rejected hold in first.”
“It will be.”
Halden took the case in both hands.
Nira led them toward the storage hall, speaking to the guard through her communicator.
She was asking for an escort when Darren saw two men enter at the far end of the passage.
Light gray armor, closed helmets, no depot markings.
Their weapons were held close to the chest.
The rear man stopped at an angle from which he could cover the first without firing past his shoulder.
Darren touched Tessa’s elbow.
She stopped, and Halden nearly walked into her.
“Leave the case,” the nearer man said.
Nira lowered her communicator without ending the call.
“Show your authorization.”
“Set it down. Walk away.”
Darren shifted enough to see the side passage behind Nira.
A column broke the line between it and the rear gunman; beyond the column stood a storage module and a recessed door.
He could move Halden that far if the men kept talking.
“What happens to her report?” he asked.
The nearer helmet turned toward Nira.
The rear man stepped sideways to regain his angle.
Darren pushed Halden behind the column as the weapon came up.
A bolt struck the wall where the auditor’s chest had been.
Tessa fired from the opposite side, forcing the nearer attacker back through the doorway.
“Armed attack,” Nira said into the open call.
Her voice shook on the second word.
“Processing passage. Two men.”
Darren drew and fired at the rear gunman as he moved across the opening.
The bolt struck the edge of the doorway beside his arm.
He withdrew, then fired from lower down.
“Nira. That door.” Darren pointed without looking away.
“Can you open it?”
“Service loading. Yes.”
“Take Halden.”
They moved behind the storage module.
Nira reached the reader while Halden crouched beside her with the case pressed against his knees.
The door did not open at once.
Darren could hear her swearing at it between the shots.
The attackers advanced in turns.
One covered the passage while the other crossed to the next recess.
Tessa fired again, and a bolt from the rear man struck above her head, throwing fragments from the wall.
Darren had a momentary line on the nearer attacker.
He began to settle the muzzle, then saw the second man turn toward the service door.
He changed targets and fired.
The shot caught the second man’s shoulder plate and drove him back into cover.
Darren did not wait to find out whether the armor had held.
“Go!”
The service door opened.
Halden crossed with Nira beside him.
Tessa backed toward them while Darren covered the opening, and a shot hit the edge of his column.
Heat struck his forearm through the sleeve.
He jerked it away.
No loss of grip.
He could move.
Nira kept the door open until Tessa reached it.
Darren followed, bent low, and Nira slapped the control as soon as he cleared the threshold.
The door closed between them and the next shot.
“Which way?” he asked.
Tessa pointed toward the loading recess.
This time she led.
They reached the speeder with the depot alarm following them into the morning air.
Halden put the case on the rear floor and wedged his legs around it.
Nira hesitated at the door, staring toward the guard station.
“I have to stay for security.”
“They’ve heard you,” Darren said.
“Tell them where to reach us. Get inside.”
She looked at the passage they had come through, then climbed in and made the call herself.
Darren took the seat beside Tessa.
He had only just found the restraint when she accelerated out of the recess.
A dark speeder emerged from the parking deck behind them.
“One vehicle,” he said.
“Can’t see the occupants.”
Tessa joined the lower lane.
The other speeder followed through the same gap, declining an opportunity to pull alongside.
Darren watched it settle behind them where the road opened into a straight run.
“Coming up on our line.”
Tessa turned before he finished.
The shot struck the rear corner, and a warning lit her panel.
Halden bent over the case.
Nira kept talking, giving the responding security officer their direction and a description of the pursuing vehicle.
She did not promise to stop where she could be shot again.
Tessa left the main route at a service junction.
Darren recognized the construction platform from their journey to Halden’s office.
The suspended engine block had moved; a maintenance hauler now occupied the lane beneath it.
“Hauler ahead.”
“I see it.”
She reduced speed just enough to let it cross, then took the narrow turn behind its rear platform.
The pursuer tried to follow and had to brake.
No collision, no fireball.
Just a few seconds in which it could no longer see which branch she took.
Tessa used them.
Two turns, a descent beneath a loading deck, then a return to the commercial lanes among larger vehicles.
Darren watched the rear view while she drove.
“Lost?”
“Not confirmed.”
She kept moving.
Nira gave them an address while she still had the security officer on the line: an administration annex with a staffed vehicle entrance.
Tessa refused the direct route and approached it from the other side.
This time the barrier closed behind them before she stopped.
The annex duty officer separated them for statements.
Darren watched Halden disappear through a door with the case and had to stop himself following.
Nira went with him.
She was still its custodian; taking that away from her because he had carried a gun would not make the documents safer.
His entry pass remained valid, but the report now carried his name.
When asked why he had fired, he described the first shot at Halden and the attempt to reach the service exit.
He did not offer a theory about who had hired the men.
In the washroom he ran cool water over his forearm.
The skin was reddened, unbroken.
His abdomen hurt from the running and his shoulder from the case, familiar injuries made less forgiving by the morning.
He put the sleeve back down carefully.
Tessa waited outside.
Her statement had taken longer.
“Nira signed the machine damage,” she said.
“That won’t stop them asking me about it.”
“And the speeder?”
“Still flies.”
“That wasn’t what I meant.”
“I know.” She looked at the wet edge of his sleeve.
“I’m sending the repair estimate to the insurer.”
Darren had thirty-five credits.
He could not make a useful offer and did not insult her with one.
Instead he asked what she needed for the claim, and she told him to send his account of the pursuit while he could still remember the turns.
He did it before joining Halden.
Nira had found them a review room with a door an annex guard could see.
The transport case stood open on the table.
Inside lay three sealed packets, one pressed against a bent corner of the padding.
All three seals were intact.
Halden checked each against the depot record while Nira photographed the numbers.
She recorded the opening of each packet before he removed the documents.
Darren stayed beside the door.
Through its narrow window he could see Tessa asleep in a waiting-area chair, her jacket folded behind her neck.
The work took most of the morning.
There were calls to the insurer, disputed access permissions and long intervals when Halden refused to speak while comparing a signature.
Nira remained until the preservation instruction had a supervisor’s approval.
Then she put her badge back in its case.
“My director wants to know why I authorized a civilian to shoot a disposal line.”
“What will you tell him?” Darren asked.
“That it was carrying records it had no business destroying.” She glanced at the dented case.
“After that, he’ll ask why I took so long to report it.”
Halden offered to come with her.
“Finish this. I didn’t spend my morning buying you time so you could waste it looking sorry.”
She left them her direct number and went to face her director.
When Halden finally called Darren to the table, he had three documents laid out: a commercial declaration, an insurance certificate and a liability validation.
“The categories match the extracts,” he said.
“The values don’t fit the ordinary equipment cover the broker was describing.”
Millions, divided among contracts.
Darren could read that much without help.
“Military loss?” he asked.
“Explicitly covered here. It means they priced the possibility. It doesn’t tell us which military, or why.”
“And Meridian?”
“An intermediary. The authorizations lead through Asteron. Money into Kuat-linked accounts, then allocated to these contracts.”
Darren looked at the seals beneath the figures.
He had something stronger than the scraps Pell had received, and someone had been willing to shoot Halden before he could read it.
Neither fact supplied the destination missing from yesterday’s notes.
“Can you follow the contracts farther?”
“Not with my access from here. Asteron holds the administration records. We’d need to go to Coruscant.”
“Yesterday we agreed not to ask them directly.”
“Yesterday nobody tried to burn the insurer’s validations.” Halden turned another page toward him.
“Their representative is taking custody. He has authority to request acknowledgment from Asteron.”
“Which could be handing the case to the people who wanted it gone.”
“Could. It could also be taking it to people whose authority somebody used without telling them.”
Darren looked toward the waiting area.
Tessa had woken and was watching them through the glass.
“What survives if the originals disappear there?” he asked.
Halden showed him the certified record Nira had made.
Copies would remain with Risk Records and the insurer, with the seals and receipt trail.
The original packets would travel together under a new custody order, resealed with the insurer’s numbered seals after the copying was complete.
It did not make Asteron safe.
It meant the case was no longer the only thing somebody would have to destroy.
Sel Karda arrived after midday, narrow-faced and angry enough to read every line before signing for the case.
He asked Halden to accompany the delivery.
Then he looked at Darren’s statement.
“The security reference is temporary.”
“So am I,” Darren said.
“What do you need?”
“Escort aboard Peregrine Venture. Departure tomorrow morning. Stay with us through receipt at Asteron. Passage, meals, two hundred and fifty on completed delivery.”
Darren read the proposed contract.
No advance.
Declared duty included carrying his blaster; the employer would file the travel reference.
He would arrive with Halden and Sel, not an open-ended license to work anywhere on Coruscant.
“The men who attacked us may follow the case,” he said.
Sel tapped the incident report.
“That’s why I’m hiring security.”
“One man isn’t a guarantee.”
“I asked for an escort, not a guarantee.”
Halden had recommended him because he had kept the group moving, Sel said.
Darren glanced at the auditor, who met his eyes without turning it into praise.
He could keep the bunk on Second Chance until Tessa left for Brentaal.
After that, thirty-five credits and an expiring pass would decide a great deal for him.
This offer gave him work and a way toward the names in the documents.
It also put him beside the case when the next person came for it.
He asked Sel to identify where the escort duty ended.
The man marked the delivery acknowledgment.
Darren read the amended line and signed.
They returned to Second Chance that evening after the duty officer had finished with them and Sel had arranged secure storage for the case.
Tessa drove more slowly.
The damaged rear panel rattled when she turned into the dock.
On board, Darren checked his bag: clothes, knife, nearly empty medical pouch, identichip.
The Earth pistol remained in its case with nineteen cartridges.
He left it there.
The local blaster needed attention after the morning, and he checked its charge before laying it beside the clothes he would wear to the courier.
Tessa came to the bunk doorway with his copy of the repair statement.
“Read it before you agree to anything else.”
He did.
She had given his name as a witness, not a debtor.
“Tomorrow?” she asked.
“Coruscant.”
“I’ll be loading for Brentaal while you board. Find me before you go; don’t leave the ramp open.”
He nodded, then looked up.
“You stayed today because Halden asked.”
“Halden is my friend.”
“And the rest?”
She leaned against the frame.
“Nira was trying to save records somebody wanted burned. You were trying to get everybody out. I wasn’t going to sit in the speeder and see who made it.”
He had been about to thank her for saving him.
She had answered a larger question than the one he knew how to ask.
“If they come looking after we’ve left—”
“I have the incident number and Nira’s contact. Tell me what you learn before I have to hear it from an investigator.”
“I will.”
She wished him luck in a tone that suggested she did not expect it to substitute for judgment, then went back to the cargo bay.
Darren put the contract beside his identichip.
In the morning it would get him onto a ship bound for Coruscant.
He had no proof of the army he remembered, no name for the men in the depot.
But there were copies now, people who had signed for them and a delivery he had agreed to keep alive.
He set the borrowed timepiece early enough to return it to Tessa before boarding, then left it where he would see it when he woke.