Star Wars: Legacy of the Force V: Sacrifice by Karen Traviss

Author:Karen Traviss
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780345510525
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2008-04-28T23:00:00+00:00

chapter eleven

Breaking news…we’re just getting reports that Corellian Prime Minister Dur Gejjen has been shot dead at a spaceport on Vulpter, Deep Core, by a Corellian terrorist. Early reports indicate that an armed siege followed the shooting, but that appears to have ended when the assassin blew himself up in his ship on the landing strip. We’ll have more on this story later.

—HNE newsflash

SLAVE I, LAID UP OUTSIDE KELDABE, MANDALORE

It was a very interesting news day.

Fett had his cockpit monitor tuned to the news channel, watching the wheels come off the rest of the galaxy. He’d seen that happen often enough to spot the signs of greater chaos to come.

Usually, it meant a time of good fees and rich pickings for bounty hunters. Now his priorities had to be a little different, and he waited for a call from the office of Sass Sikili, the Verpine whose job was to communicate with outsiders on behalf of Roche. The Verpine were getting anxious. How any species that churned out that many high-quality ornaments could get anxious Fett didn’t understand, but that was the Verpine for you. Insectoids could get jumpy, and when one got jumpy—the hive-mind made them all jittery.

Fett pondered the assassination while he waited. He couldn’t say he was sorry to see the passing of Dur Gejjen, but at least the barve paid promptly. Fett had been betting on him staying in office for more than a few short months before getting the inevitable shot in the head, though. It was indecently premature even by the standards of Corellian politics. Who had really killed him? Not some Corellian hick waving the flag, that was for sure. Gejjen had a line of would-be killers that would have stretched from here to the Core.

“Mandalore Fett…,” said a voice on the comm. It was high-pitched, a little above tenor, and buzzed with a faint resonance. “We noted your return with delight.”

“Need someone dragged screaming to your hive, Sikili?”

“Not today, thank you. But we have a business proposition for you.”

“I’m all ears.”

“Ah…we hear exciting things about iron deposits, which we assume to be true—”

“They are.”

“—and many highly desirable things can be made with Mandalorian iron. We would like to acquire some.”

“Happy to sell, when we have a surplus for export.”

“We note the unstable nature of the galaxy these past months, which will be exacerbated, we expect, by the passing of Prime Minister Gejjen.”

“Yeah. Good times for the arms trade.”

“Indeed. But also anxious times for us, when Murkhana challenges our markets, and now Kem Stor Ai talks of war with Murkhana, which is too close for the hives’ taste.”

“You pack enough hardware to make Murkhana and Kem Stor Ai into their own asteroid field, Sikili. Half their kit comes from Roche. Spit it out.”

“We are a literal people, Fett.”

“I’m literal, too. Let’s all be literal together.”

Sikili went quiet for a moment. Fett could hear the faint clicking of his mouthparts. “Now that you have abundant beskar, you’ll rearm. Roche may be outside of your

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