Zeerid looked higher up in the sky, trying to spot any sign of his destroyed ship. He saw nothing. Fatman had served him well and nearly gotten them away from the cruiser.

He smiled, thinking that engspice addicts all over Coruscant would soon go through withdrawal. But after those few days of torture, they’d have freedom, should they choose it.

Zeerid felt a peculiar sense of freedom, too. He had not delivered spice. That pleased him. In a way, the Empire had freed him from his treadmill, had destroyed it in a hail of plasma fire.

Of course, The Exchange would try to kill him. He’d have that to contend with.

“What are you thinking?” Aryn said.

“I’m thinking about Arra,” he answered, as the weight of his situation overburdened the relief he felt at surviving a fall of fifty klicks.

The man who had stood beside the Sith Lord on the bridge of the cruiser had been the same man that Zeerid had seen back at Karson’s Park on Vulta, the same man who had led the ambush on him and Aryn in the spaceport.

Vrath Xizor, Oren had named him.

Vrath knew about Arra and Nat.

And if Vrath decided for some reason to share that information with The Exchange, Oren would order more than just Zeerid’s death. They’d make an example of him and his family.

He sat up with a grunt. “I have to get back to Vulta. Now.”

Aryn sat up beside him. She must have felt the fear in him. “Because of the man on the cruiser?”

Zeerid nodded. “He knows about Arra.”

“I don’t understand why—”

“No one in my … work knows that I have a daughter, Aryn. They’d use her against me if they did. Hurt her. But now he knows. He saw me in the park with her. I talked to him.” He put his face in his hands.

Aryn put a hand on his back. “Zeerid …”

He shook it off and climbed to his feet. “I have to get back.”

“How?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know, but I’m going. I owe you for saving me. I won’t forget that, but—”

She held up a hand. “Wait. Just wait. Think it through, Zeerid. They’re not going to let him leave, this man who knows about your daughter. No one has gotten off Coruscant since the attack. And no one will until the peace negotiations are concluded and the planet’s disposition decided. They’ll keep him on the cruiser or ground him on the planet. He’s not going anywhere.”

Zeerid considered the words. They made sense. His heart continued to pound, but slower.

“He’s here, you think.”

“Possibly. Maybe even likely. But he’s not returning to Vulta, at least not yet.”