Vrath did not want Zeerid to sense danger and bolt before Vrath located the cargo. His team had stolen aboard Zeerid’s ship hours earlier and searched it. They’d found nothing and, other than a routine visit from one of the port’s maintenance inspection droids, no one had been aboard since. Two of his team were stationed near the ship, keeping an eye on it.

Vrath watched Zeerid and the woman with his peripheral vision and, using his audial implant, listened to them as best he could over the sounds of the port.

ZEERID STUDIED THE FACES of those around them, looking for anyone else who might be watching them. Faces blurred into one another. He felt as if their pursuers were breathing right down his neck. Unable to stop himself, he turned and shot a glance backward.

Through the sea of faces, he glimpsed the two men Aryn had described in the casino. Both saw him looking at them.

He looked away, cursing himself.

“They know we know,” he said.

Aryn was staring at a wall-mounted vidscreen that showed a news piece about the negotiations on Alderaan.

A BREAKTHROUGH IN NEGOTIATIONS? read the caption.

A human man, his dark hair combed back over a wrinkled face, was speaking. Zeerid did not recognize him. The tag below his image named him LORD BARAS.

“Did you hear what I said, Aryn?”

She pulled her eyes away from the screen with difficulty. “I heard you. What do you think they want?”

Zeerid had made a lot of enemies since signing on with The Exchange, but he figured those pursuing them wanted the engspice.

“They want the cargo we’re taking to Coruscant,” he said.

They hopped on an autowalk that sped them across the port. Through the transparisteel windows along one wall, they could see freighters and other small starships sitting on the port’s landing pads. Crane droids loaded and unloaded cargo.

He used the reflection in the transparisteel to determine if the men were still behind them. They were. But he still could not tell if there were more or just the two.

“They just got on the autowalk behind us,” Zeerid said, as the men followed them onto the belt.

“Tell me what it is, Zeerid. The cargo.”

He did not hesitate, though he did not look at her when he answered. Instead, he stared at his own reflection in the transparisteel. “Engspice.”

She said nothing for a time, and he disliked the import of the silence.

“How did you get into running engspice?” she asked finally.

He disliked even more the accusation he heard in her tone and turned to face her. “How did you fall out with the Order and go off looking to murder? It’s a long story, yes? Well, so is this.”