She stared into his face, those open green eyes. He saw more pain in them than he’d ever seen before. “You’re right. I’m sorry, Zeerid. I didn’t mean—”

“I’m not proud of it, Aryn.”

“I know.”

She would know. She would sense his guilt, his ambivalence.

“We do what we do,” she said.

“We do what we must.”

“Right,” she said. “What we must.”

They switched walks, took an autostair up a floor. He continued to watch the two men behind them. They made no move to close the distance between them.

“What are they waiting for?” Aryn asked.

Zeerid had wondered the same thing but realization soon dawned. “They don’t know whether I know where the spice is.”

Ahead, he saw the landing pad where Fatman as Red Dwarf was docked. A long cargo tram rolled past. A platoon of maintenance droids trudged near it. A man and woman before it waved to each other, smiled, embraced, and moved on.

Another two men near it drew his attention. One sat on a chair near the door that led out to the landing pad. A portcomp sat open on his lap, but he paid it no heed. The second faced the transparisteel window, ostensibly looking out on the landing pad. Zeerid imagined him watching them approach in its reflection.

“Do you know where it is?” Aryn asked.

“It’s on my ship,” he said. “The Exchange uses jacked maintenance droids to sneak illicit cargo onto their mules.”

VRATH WALKED BESIDE a Twi’lek women carrying a small travel bag. He stayed close to her and let his body language suggest that they were together. When he heard Zeerid’s words via his audial implant, he cursed himself for missing the obvious—the maintenance droid had been hijacked with stealth programming to load the engspice.

Vrath did not have the firepower on hand to destroy Zeerid’s ship, so he’d have to do things the hard way.

“The cargo is on the target’s ship and the target is not to get aboard,” he said, his words loud enough that the Twi’lek looked at him askance and moved away.

“Keene,” he said to the driver of the speeder he had stationed outside. “Be ready with an evac off the target’s landing pad.”

Vrath drew his blaster and pushed through the crowd.

“Everybody down!”

THE MAN FACING the transparisteel window turned while the man on the bench set aside his portacomp and stood.

“Here they come,” Zeerid said.

Aryn let her hand fall to the hilt of her lightsaber. “I see them.”

Zeerid glanced back and saw the two men who had trailed them out of the casino moving at a jog, then a run, through the crowd. Both reached behind their backs for weapons.