At nine seventeen in the morning, Halden opened Darren’s departure documents and stopped at the temporary field-security registration.
“We should have closed this days ago.”
Darren paused with one arm inside his jacket.
“Closed what?”
Halden turned the screen.
The forty-eight-hour authorization had expired during the investigation.
Darren read the dates twice.
Lena, the storage office, Pree, the ship, the laboratory: he could put a morning against each of them.
The document had allowed for two days.
They had used more.
“You said forty-eight hours.”
“I did.”
“I was busy.”
“So was I.” Halden opened the contractor declaration beside it.
“My name is on this too.”
Darren finished pulling on the jacket.
“Can you renew it?”
Halden lifted his caf instead of answering.
“Can’t?”
“Won’t.”
Halden set down the cup.
“Vey Freight Audit Services was queried through an Asteron-linked commercial gateway. You were registered through my company because that was defensible after Corellia; registering you again immediately after someone checked my credentials would create another connection.”
Darren glanced at the saved credential query beside the authorization.
Renewal would give whoever had asked a fresh record of their association.
“All right.”
Halden waited.
“There was an argument,” Darren said.
“Internally. You won.”
“I should document this.”
“You already have enough documents.”
His communicator vibrated with Tessa’s name.
He looked at Halden and said, “Speaking of people I like under protest,” then accepted the call.
Tessa appeared above his palm with a Brentaal cargo bay behind her.
Something enormous crossed the background—a loader, probably, though the scale of the machinery made Darren briefly entertain the possibility that Brentaal had domesticated buildings.
“You alive?” Tessa asked.
“Legally questionable.”
“That was not the question. Client wants an answer in twenty minutes.”
Darren reached for his bag.
“Somebody wants to give me money?”
Tessa caught sight of Halden beyond his shoulder.
“Still following the accountant?”
“Auditor,” Halden said.
“He keeps generating paperwork,” Darren said.
“That is how they reproduce.”
Tessa checked something below the projection.
“Rethane Commercial Transit. Brentaal operation. Industrial components.”
“Specific.”
“You’re security.”
“I still prefer knowing what I’m being shot over.”
“Precision bearings, optical relays, coolant assemblies, machine-control units.”
Darren waited for memory to make the components mean something else.
They remained machine parts.
“Route?”
“First declared delivery is Commenor. Bonded transfer after that.”
“Final destination?”
“Not your job.”
“That is what people say before it becomes my job.”
“Can you try, for one contract, not to discover a conspiracy?”
“I do not know. That sounds limiting.”
“Try recreationally.”
Halden hid a smile in his caf.
Darren asked about money, and the answer—four hundred twenty credits, ninety advanced for travel and three hundred thirty after delivery—qualified as real enough to make him pay attention.
“Four days if nothing breaks,” she added.
“Tessa.”
“Five. My ship is fine.”
“Your ship contains handwritten warnings against touching switches.”
“Because idiots touch switches.”
Halden nodded into his caf.
Darren turned the communicator away from him.
Koro Dess would lead security.
She had worked with him twice and described a man who had once prevented six cargo thieves from taking half a hold without firing a shot.
“I already like him,” Darren said.
“You won’t.”
“Even better.”
Tessa stopped smiling.
“The man who asked about you. He didn’t come like a bounty hunter. No picture, no bounty code. He wanted to know whether you still traveled with the Second Chance, where you got off, whether you followed a regular route.”
Darren shifted the communicator so Halden could hear.
“Describe him.”
“Human. Forties, maybe. Core accent; I couldn’t place it. Good clothes, nothing that stood out. No visible weapon.”
“Hands? Rings?”
She took a moment.
“Clean hands. No insignia I noticed. Before you ask, I didn’t inspect his fingerprints.”
“Disappointing.”
“Fuck you.”
“Did he offer money first?”
Tessa frowned.
“Why does that matter?”
“How did he approach?”
“He asked whether I was Captain Marr, said he had heard I transported independent contractors from Corellia, then asked about you maybe thirty seconds later.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That clients were confidential.”
“And then?”
“He offered money.”
“How much?”
“Five hundred.”
Darren stopped moving, and Halden lowered his cup.
Five hundred credits was not casual curiosity, though it remained a long way from proving who the stranger represented.
“He used my name before the offer?”
“Darren Vale. Yes.”
Halden put his cup down and opened a blank record.
Darren gave him the description, then waited while Tessa corrected the wording of the first question.
Regular route, she repeated.
Not his next destination alone.
“Who do you think sent him?” she asked.
Asteron came first because Darren had been looking at its name for days.
That did not put the stranger on its payroll.
There were people on Corellia and Nar Shaddaa who knew Darren Vale too.
“I don’t know.”
“He is asking about you.”
“I heard. Don’t go looking for him.”
Tessa stared into the projection.
“I have a ship to run, Vale.”
“Do you want the job?” Tessa asked.
“Yes.”
“I’ll send the travel authorization. Jara needs your acceptance now; I got you forty minutes for the forms.”
“I need an hour.”
“You have forty minutes.”
Darren tried a smile.
“I knew there was a reason I kept you.”
Tessa’s face went completely neutral.
“You do not keep me.”
The joke died before Darren could defend it.
“No. I do not.”
A fraction of tension left her face.
“Forty minutes.”
The projection vanished.
Halden turned the pad with the travel forms toward Darren.
“Call Ralo, then pack.”
“I own one bag.”
“Then your logistics are improving.”
Darren signed the acceptance before either of them could add anything to it.
Ralo did not come to say goodbye, and Darren liked him for it.
The detective answered on a voice-only channel while Darren and Halden walked toward the transit station.
Coruscant traffic moved beyond the barriers in hundreds of disciplined streams, each vehicle following rules Darren could not see from the platform.
Ralo skipped the greeting and went directly to the fact that mattered.
“You’re leaving.”
“Apparently illegally.”
“Did you kill anyone?”
“Not this time.”
“Then immigration will probably recover.”
Darren adjusted the bag on his shoulder and gave him the new facts: Asteron had queried Halden’s company, and on Brentaal an unknown human had offered Tessa five hundred credits for information about Darren Vale’s movements.
Ralo’s voice lost its fatigue as soon as the stranger entered the conversation.
“What did they want exactly?”
“Where I disembarked, whether I followed a regular route, whether I still traveled with Tessa.”
“Description?”
Darren gave it, and Ralo—usefully—made no immediate claim.
“Can you search?” Darren asked.
“I can. A name would help.”
“Hold off. If he is connected to Voss, a police query may tell him we noticed. If he isn’t, we’ve drawn the line for him ourselves.”
Ralo was silent long enough for a transit announcement to fill the channel.
“I’ll keep the description. No search for now.”
Ralo asked where Darren was going, and when he heard Brentaal his tone sharpened.
“That is where the man approached Tessa.”
“Yes.”
“You see the problem.”
“Yes.”
“And you are going anyway.”
“Work.”
Ralo grunted.
“How long?”
“Four. Maybe five.”
“Archive stays as agreed,” Ralo said.
“Yes.”
“And if you stop answering, I check what happened. I don’t release Lena’s statement because you forgot to charge your communicator.”
“You enjoyed saying that.”
“A little.” Ralo paused.
“You did useful work here.”
Darren looked up through the station glass.
“We didn’t stop anything.”
“We have Voss’s records where someone can find them. We didn’t have that when you arrived.”
The call ended before Darren could find a joke.
He put the communicator away and followed Halden toward the Westport connection.
At Westport, Halden kept the archive case while Darren joined the departure queue.
The departure clerk examined Darren’s expired authorization, then looked at Darren as if trying to determine whether he had become illegal through malice or poor calendar management.
“You have an expired professional registration.”
“So I have been told.”
“The dates are on the screen,” she added when Darren leaned closer.
“I care now.”
She did not look impressed.
Halden placed the original contractor declaration on the counter and explained that Darren had been attached to Vey Freight Audit Services for temporary field security and that the contract was now closed.
The clerk moved to the next field without comment.
“Reason for departure?”
“Contract complete.”
“Destination?”
“Brentaal.”
“New employer?”
Darren produced Tessa’s authorization, and the employer field populated with a name that, for once, was entirely real. Get faster updates on g.com.
RETHANE COMMERCIAL TRANSIT.
The clerk read it, then returned to the problem she clearly preferred.
“Your Brentaal employment begins after arrival. Your Coruscant authorization expired before departure.”
“Yes.”
“You remained on-planet.”
Darren gestured vaguely at the terminal around them.
“I found it difficult to leave retroactively.”
Halden closed his eyes with the patience of a man refusing to become part of the defense.
The clerk did not smile, and Darren respected her for nearly three seconds.
“Administrative overstay. Twenty-two credits.”
Darren’s brief respect for the clerk declined in proportion to the fee.
“For leaving?”
“For remaining after the authorization expired. You may contest the penalty.”
She opened another form.
Halden put one hand on Darren’s arm.
“Pay.”
Darren looked at the departure time on his travel authorization and paid.
The fine left eighty-four credits in his personal balance.
The clerk finalized the record, then informed Halden that Vey Freight Audit Services would receive a minor compliance mark for maintaining an expired registered worker.
Halden accepted the compliance mark.
“That affects you?”
“Minor mark.”
“You did not mention that.”
“You were busy insulting the government.”
“I multitask.”
Halden put away the documents, but Darren stayed at the counter until the clerk called the next passenger.
“Can I cover whatever that costs you?”
“It is a compliance mark, not another bill. We both confirmed the dates.”
Darren looked at the closed declaration.
“I still let it run.”
Halden gave him a level look.
“You prevented me from walking into an armed retrieval on Corellia without security. I can survive an administrative note.”
“You saved me from believing accounting was boring.”
“That debt is significantly larger.”
The answer pulled a smile out of Darren despite himself.
“Keep the archive safe.”
“That is the plan.”
“And if Asteron—”
“Go to Brentaal.”
Darren held out his hand.
Halden shifted the case to his other side before taking it.
For a moment neither of them moved toward the gates.
“Try not to create a war,” Halden said.
“Statistically, that appears to be someone else’s project.”
The joke landed too close to history for either of them to laugh very much.
Westport punished Darren one more time before allowing him to leave.
“Wrong door.”
A worker pointed down the corridor.
“Freight transfers. Blue signs.”
“They are all blue.”
“Dark blue.”
Darren stared at the wall until he discovered that there were, in fact, two blues.
“Puta que pariu.”
“What?”
“Thank you.”
He changed direction.
The ninety-credit travel advance went directly into a jumpseat and port fees aboard a commercial packet ship whose name he forgot almost immediately.
It did not rescue the eighty-four credits in his personal balance, but it got him off Coruscant.
Everything about the vessel had been designed to make passengers understand they were secondary to cargo, and Darren appreciated a transport system willing to admit it.
He strapped in beside a viewport with no Tessa next to him, no familiar voice commenting on engine noise, and no reason to pretend he understood anything happening on the flight deck.
When the stars stretched, he still watched.
Not with the stunned intensity of the first jump, but enough that a child across the compartment noticed.
She was perhaps nine, human, leaning toward the viewport until her restraint caught one shoulder.
Her father had fallen asleep before the ship even entered the lane.
The girl looked back at Darren with the immediate suspicion children developed when adults appeared interested in the same thing.
Darren nodded toward the impossible light outside instead of asking anything personal.
“First time?”
The girl shook her head with the dignity of someone correcting an amateur.
“Fifth.”
“Expert.”
She considered the promotion seriously before returning the question.
“You?”
Darren had to think.
“Second time without somebody telling me what I am doing wrong.”
A few minutes later her mother called her back, leaving Darren alone with the blue-white corridor outside the ship.
Darren left the communicator in his pocket.
When the girl came back to point out a change in the light, he had already seen it.
Brentaal looked wealthy from orbit rather than beautiful, and the distinction announced itself before Darren knew enough about the planet to justify it.
Coruscant displayed power by covering a planet in civilization; Brentaal displayed it by making the galaxy queue.
Freighters, liners and tankers converged through layers of approach markers.
The packet pilot drank from a cup while Darren watched a bulk hauler cross half the viewport.
Below them, ochre land gave way to freight yards so wide he first mistook their edges for city limits.
At ground level, loader frames carried containers past customs lanes while workers in company colors argued over transfer slots.
Brentaal did not feel like a place cargo arrived.
It felt like a place cargo passed through while everyone collected a percentage.
Tessa waited outside customs with grease on one forearm and the old burn scar visible where she had rolled up her sleeve.
Her dark hair was shaved on one side exactly as Darren remembered, and the simple fact that she looked unchanged felt more reassuring than he wanted to examine.
“You made it.”
“Barely.”
“You get lost?”
“Eleven minutes. Dark blue signs are a design crime.”
Tessa stepped forward and caught the front of his jacket.
He thought she might pull him closer; instead she turned him enough to inspect both sides.
“You could ask whether anybody shot me.”
“You lie.”
“Fair.”
She released the jacket, smoothing a fold her hand had made.
Darren left it alone.
“Your mysterious man?”
“Have not seen him again.”
Darren looked across the customs exit.
He had a description now, and dozens of strangers who might fit it.
None seemed interested in him.
“Tell me if he comes back.”
“You too.”
They started through the terminal, louder than Corellia’s docks and cleaner than Nar Shaddaa.
A customs droid drifted past them toward an inspection lane.
“How is the Second Chance?”
“Port stabilizer needs replacement.”
“I thought your ship was fine.”
“It is.”
“You just said—”
“A ship can be fine and require replacement parts.”
“Humans call that injured.”
“Ships are not humans.”
“You talk to yours.”
“That is different.”
“Obviously.”
“That is why I took this contract.” Tessa checked a mechanic’s estimate on her pad, then closed it hard.
“How much?” Darren asked.
“For the replacement? How much do you have?”
“Eighty-four.”
“Then you cannot afford the discussion.”
Tessa continued toward the cargo lift.
“You are not paying for my stabilizer.”
“I was not offering.”
“Good.”
“I was considering pretending to offer so I could look generous.”
“That is more believable.”
At the lift she keyed access.
“Client is upstairs.”
“You trust them?”
“Enough to work.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No.”
The lift started upward.
Jara Noll did not look like someone who needed mercenaries, which Darren had learned meant almost nothing.
She was human, late forties, with dark hair beginning to gray and Brentaal commercial clothing that looked deliberately plain until he noticed the tailoring.
Her office overlooked six loading platforms, and she did not offer refreshments.
Darren remained standing until Jara indicated a chair.
“Tessa says you are useful.”
Tessa leaned against the wall and corrected the recommendation before it became praise.
“I said he is observant.”
“Less flattering.”
“More accurate.”
Jara transferred her attention to Darren with the efficiency of an interviewer moving through required fields.
“Military?”
“Previously.”
“Republic?”
“No.”
“Planetary?”
“Earth.”
The answer escaped before he could stop it and left a small silence behind.
Darren felt the mistake before Jara frowned.
Fuck.
“Where?”
Darren felt Tessa’s attention shift toward him.
“Hutt Space registry translation.”
Jara checked his identichip while Darren kept his hands still on his knees.
“Terra.”
“Yes.”
“Never heard of it.”
“Very exclusive.”
Tessa’s expression promised a later conversation.
Jara moved on.
Tessa stayed against the wall, watching him instead of the manifest.
“This is not armed escort in the traditional sense,” Jara said, bringing up a manifest.
“Good.”
“You do not know what the job is.”
“I know traditional armed escort usually means somebody mispriced risk.”
Jara glanced toward Tessa for a second opinion.
“He does this?”
“Constantly.”
Twenty-eight container units filled the display: industrial bearings, precision optical assemblies, coolant pumps and factory-control processors.
Nothing secret, romantic or recognizable from another universe.
Jara moved the interview toward the business problem.
“We have lost cargo on three of eleven runs.”
“Small, high-value components,” Jara continued.
“Not whole crates. The packaging is resealed.”
Darren leaned closer because resealing changed the theft from force to access.
“Original seal?”
“Replacement made from copied authentication data.”
Darren stopped looking at the declared value and opened the handling record.
“Where?”
“We do not know.”
A voice from the doorway answered before Jara did.
“To make sure the ship is not where it happens.”
Darren turned toward the voice and found a Herglic enormous even by the standards Darren had learned to distrust.
Smooth charcoal-gray skin, broad heavy frame, hands large enough to make most tools look undersized.
He wore dark shipboard security clothing without decorative armor and carried a compact blaster low on the belt.
Jara introduced him without ceremony.
“Koro Dess. Security chief.”
Koro looked at the handling record Darren had opened.
“You know shipboard security?”
“No. Small-unit combat, some boarding on surface vessels. Pressure hulls like yours, no.”
“Compartment fire? Zero-gravity?”
“Some fire. Not enough zero-gravity training to advertise.”
“Blaster ricochet?”
“No.”
Koro pulled the manifest toward himself.
“Then I know what to check before departure.”
Tessa moved her boots out of his way as he came around the desk.
Jara brought up one of the affected containers.
“Chief Dess believes the theft occurs during legitimate transfers.”
Koro selected a reconstruction and let the simulated theft begin before he explained it.
“People imagine cargo theft as masks and guns. Guns are expensive. Bodies create investigations. This is easier.”
On the display, a seal opened, four processors disappeared, a replacement authentication closed the package, and the container continued moving until somebody at destination discovered the difference.
“Who can duplicate authentication?” Darren asked.
“Crew, dock staff, client staff, customs, software provider. We haven’t narrowed it to one of them.”
Darren looked at Jara.
“You have a trust problem.”
“I have an insurance problem. Three claims in eleven runs. The next loss costs more than what disappears.”
Koro stopped the reconstruction with the container resealed.
“You are not here to catch anyone.”
“What am I here to do?”
“Observe. Watch people, watch process, record deviations. You accuse nobody without me.”
Darren glanced at the resealed container on the screen.
He would not open cargo without authorization, interrogate crew, alter routes or create bait packages.
When Koro reached the last rule, Darren managed to look personally attacked by the prohibition against bait cargo.
“Tessa told me about you,” Koro said.
“Defamation.”
“She told me you contaminated stolen data to trap an information broker.”
Jara looked at Darren with new suspicion that was, unfortunately, deserved.
“That was you?”
Darren turned toward Tessa.
“You definitely talk too much.”
“It got you hired.”
Koro allowed the joke to die without assistance.
“You do none of that unless I approve it.”
Darren looked from the reconstruction to the man who would have to explain another loss.
“Understood.”
Koro gave the smallest possible nod.
Jara opened the contract.
The terms were exactly what Tessa had quoted: four hundred twenty credits, ninety advanced, three hundred thirty on completion, food and berth aboard, medical coverage limited to injuries directly related to the contract.
Darren read the contract twice because experience had made small medical clauses look more dangerous than large numbers.
Koro tapped a liability clause.
Darren went back over it; the wording protected the company without changing his fee.
“You do contracts too?”
“I enjoy being paid.”
Darren checked the medical provision once more, then signed.
The Second Chance smelled like hot metal, hydraulic fluid and something Tessa had cooked badly.
Home was too strong a word for the Second Chance, but familiar was not.
Darren carried his bag into the cargo bay and felt some part of his shoulders lower before he could decide whether the reaction embarrassed him.
Tessa noticed and, mercifully, said nothing.
His temporary berth was the same one he had used before.
He set down the bag and checked its contents by habit: blaster, knife, medkit, clothes, Earth pistol, nineteen rounds.
Tessa appeared in the doorway before he finished repacking, wearing the expression of someone who had postponed a question only until privacy existed.
“You said Earth.”
Darren closed the bag.
“Yes.”
“Jara asked where you were from and you said Earth.”
“Yes.”
“Then told her it was a translation.”
“Yes.”
“That was shit.”
“Yes.”
Tessa crossed her arms and waited.
“You are not going to explain.”
“No.”
“Cannot or will not?”
Darren thought about the ruined temple, the woman, the bargain and the prohibition that had survived the transition better than he had.
“Cannot.”
Tessa studied him.
“Fine.”
Darren looked up.
“Fine?”
“No.”
She pushed away from the frame.
“But I know what a real cannot sounds like.”
Darren said nothing, and Tessa left without asking for more.
During the first dry drill, Darren stopped with the training weapon lowered.
Behind the target, a narrow service housing crossed the bulkhead.
“What’s in that?”
“Coolant manifold,” Koro said.
Darren shifted to find another angle.
Koro touched a second panel.
“Hydraulic line.”
“Caralho.”
“What?”
“Educational vocabulary.”
Koro moved the target half a meter.
“Again. Identify the backstop before you draw.”
The principle was familiar.
The ship was not.
Darren knew how to keep a line of fire clear; he did not know which ordinary-looking panel held coolant, controls or a hatch actuator.
Koro made him work through three compartments, changing the targets until Darren had to choose between moving, waiting and taking the shot.
He was slower where the labels meant nothing to him.
On the last run he recognized a control bundle before Koro pointed to it and waited for the target to clear.
At the end, Koro said, “You are adequate.”
Darren smiled despite knowing Koro had selected the word with care.
“High praise.”
“No.”
“Still taking it.”
Departure was scheduled for nineteen forty.
Darren spent the final hour beneath the Second Chance’s port landing strut while Tessa argued with a Brentaalan mechanic over the stabilizer estimate.
He understood perhaps half the terminology and all of the price; Tessa’s profanity confirmed the rest.
He opened his communicator.
Sira’s code was still there, but after a moment Darren closed the contact and selected Pell instead.
He started with a name, then stopped before writing it.
Pell did not need to know who the inquiry was for before he had even found a contact.
Darren wrote:
Looking for a reliable local contact on Tatooine.
Mos Espa preferred.
Periodic checks of public changes involving people or businesses.
No intervention.
Discretion matters more than speed.
What would an introduction cost?
He read it once for the information it exposed.
Tatooine was there; so was Mos Espa.
Without a region, Pell could sell him a contact anywhere in Hutt Space and have fulfilled the request.
Darren left the location and kept Shmi Skywalker’s name out.
He sent the message.
No acknowledgment appeared.
Above him, Tessa shouted, “That actuator is not worth twelve hundred credits!”
The mechanic shouted something back.
Darren smiled beneath the landing strut.
He could not afford the discussion either.
At nineteen thirty-one, Koro found Darren in the cargo bay and asked whether anything looked unusual.
Darren glanced around the cargo bay before offering the only anomaly he could prove.
“Your mechanic is attempting to rob Tessa.”
“Normal.”
“Then nothing.”
Koro nodded and started to leave before Darren stopped him.
“Chief. The person who asked about me.”
“I heard.”
“Would you tell the client?”
“I already did.”
“What did Jara say?”
“She put the description in the security log. If someone asks about you on this contract, I want the exact words.”
“You’re not searching for him?”
“Not from a description that fits half the terminal. Are you?”
Darren looked toward the open cargo hatch.
On the platform, two men in expensive coats waited for a loader.
One turned at Tessa’s raised voice, then went back to his conversation.
“No.”
Koro handed him the cargo-station checklist and went to inspect the hatch.
Darren took the first camera feed, then the second, and checked the access points against the deck.
The Second Chance lifted from Brentaal at nineteen forty-six, six minutes late.
Tessa blamed traffic control, traffic control blamed Tessa, and Darren had no opinion because Koro had assigned him to cargo monitoring during departure.
He watched twenty-eight cargo units through two cameras and three access points.
Behind him, the deck vibrated as Tessa brought the Second Chance clear of the port.
When the ship cleared atmosphere, Tessa’s voice came over the internal comm.
“Vale.”
Darren answered without looking away from the display.
“What?”
“You can come up if you want to see the jump.”
Koro looked toward him.
“Your station?”
Darren’s attention moved briefly to the cockpit access.
The first time he had entered hyperspace, he had forgotten to breathe, and part of him wanted the spectacle again badly enough to resent the choice.
Then he looked back at the cargo he had agreed to protect.
“Cargo bay.”
Koro turned back to his display.
Darren keyed the comm.
“Cannot.”
A brief pause followed.
Tessa said, “Look at you being employed.”
“Temporary condition.”
“Five seconds.”
The jump arrived as a pressure change, a vibration through the deck and a slight shift in engine tone.
Darren saw no stars stretch and no blue tunnel open.
He smiled anyway.
His communicator still showed one outgoing message awaiting acknowledgment.
Pell.
Tatooine.
The unanswered message could wait, so Darren left it on the display and returned to the seals.
Twenty-eight containers were now his responsibility, and for the next four days that was enough.