Deceived Read online

  “Daddy, I want the green ’ice!” Arra said.

  Seeing the feeding pellets, Zeerid visibly relaxed, though not entirely. “Of course,” he said. “Sorry, pal.”

  “Is that your daughter?” Vrath asked, nodding at Arra.

  “Yes,” Zeerid answered, and the hint of a smile curled his lips.

  “She seems very happy,” Vrath said. “Have a great day, sir.”

  Vrath walked past Zeerid and fell in with the runners, bikers, and other sentients using the park. As he did, he chided himself for taking his eyes off Zeerid. The man clearly had a nose for trouble.

  ZEERID TURNED TO WATCH the man walk away. Something about him felt off, but Zeerid could not quite put his finger on it. He’d seemed overly interested in Arra and Nat, and he’d had a coldness to his eyes, despite the stupid grin.

  “Daddy! It’s melting!”

  Arra steered the chair over to him and he handed over the sweet ice, wiping his hands clean on his jacket.

  “Thank you,” she said and took a bite. “Mmm. Deeeeeeelicious!”

  He smiled at her, and when he looked back, he could not spot the man anywhere.

  “Who was that?” Nat asked when she walked over.

  Zeerid absently offered Nat the other sweet ice, still looking in the direction the man had walked. “I don’t know. Nobody.”

  Nat must have picked up on Zeerid’s concerns. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” he said, and forced a smile. “I’m sure.”

  Only he wasn’t.

  “I think I’ll walk you both home, okay?”

  “Hooray!” Arra said.

  “What is it?” Nat asked. She still had not taken the sweet ice.

  “Nothing,” he said, not wanting to alarm her. “Can’t I walk my girls to their door?”

  “I’m not walking,” Arra said, grinning. “I’m flying.”

  ARYN’S RAVEN CAME OUT of hyperspace. She’d left her robes and her regrets back on Alderaan.

  “Straight on to Vulta, Tee-six.”

  The astromech took over the flying and the Raven knifed through space. Vulta appeared through the canopy, a lone planet circling its star. The sun’s light glinted off the many artificial satellites in orbit and the space traffic moving to and from the planet.

  “Ping planetary control with our official Republic credentials,” she said to T6. “Request a pad at the Yinta Lake spaceport.”

  The droid whistled an affirmative.

  Aryn would soon know if her absence had been noted. If so, her credentials would probably be no good.

  T6 gave a satisfied series of beeps as landing instructions scrolled across Aryn’s HUD.

  “Take us down, Tee-six. And also link into the planetary directory and find me an address for Zeerid Korr.”

  She had not seen Zeerid in years. He could be dead. Or he might be unwilling to help her. They’d been good friends: Aryn had been the only person Zeerid had told about his wife’s death before he’d mustered out. Aryn had helped him come through the initial shock. And she could still feel the intense grief, the despair he’d endured upon hearing the news. It was similar to what she’d felt when Master Zallow had died. Zeerid had been grateful for her sympathetic ear, she knew. But she was going to be asking him for a lot.

  T6 beeped a negative. No Zeerid Korr in the directory.

  Aryn clenched a fist as the planet grew larger.

  “His wife had a sister. Natala … something. Natala … Yooms. Try her, Tee-six.”

  In moments T6 had an address. She lived near the lakeshore in Yinta Lake and had legal guardianship over a nine-year-old girl named Arra Yooms.

  “Arra?”

  Aryn knew Arra was the name of Zeerid’s daughter. If Natala had custody of the girl, then Zeerid could very well be dead. Her plan began to crumble. She had no one else to whom she could turn. If Zeerid was dead, then so, too, was her opportunity to avenge Master Zallow.

  She had no choice but to try. She did not know how she could get through the Imperial blockade at Coruscant without help.

  The Raven descended through the atmosphere in a shroud of heat and flame. When she emerged into the blue sky of Vulta’s stratosphere, she could see below them the large blue oval of Lake Yinta and the ring of urbanism that surrounded it.

  T6 put them into the flow of the sky traffic, and they headed for their landing pad in Yinta Lake. From there, she’d find Natala.

  ZEERID FELT LIKE A FATHER as he walked Nat and Arra back to their apartment near the lake. He felt like a failure when he saw what a hole it was. They lived in one of the mansions converted to subsidized housing by the planetary authority. Rust, broken glass, chipped stone, addicts, and drunks seemed omnipresent.

  “It looks worse than it is,” Nat said to him, softly enough that Arra could not hear.

  Zeerid nodded.

  “Did you hear what happened on Coruscant?” Nat said, apparently wanting to change the subject. “It’s all over the ’Net.”

  “I heard.”

  “How do you think it will turn out?”

  He shrugged.

  As they walked, he kept his eyes open for anyone suspicious but saw no one. Still, he could not shed the feeling that something had gone awry. The man in the park just smelled wrong.

  They took a rickety lift up several floors. Zeerid did not enter the apartment and Nat did not invite him in. Arra turned her hoverchair, maneuvering in the small space like a pro.

  “You are a pilot’s daughter,” he said.

  She beamed. “I love you, Daddy.”

  “And I love you.”

  He lifted her out of the chair and squeezed her so hard she squealed. He felt the absence of her legs like a hole in his heart. He didn’t want to let her go but knew he must.

  He could see a bit of the tiny two-room flat over Nat’s shoulder. One window, a galley kitchen.

  “Will you come back soon, Daddy?” Arra asked as he lowered her back into the chair.

  “Yes,” he said, as unequivocal as a blaster shot. “Soon.” He stole her nose and she giggled. “I’ll give this back to you when I return.”

  Nat, standing beside her, stroked her hair. “Time for homework, Arra. Then bedtime.”

  “All right, Aunt Nat. Bye, Daddy,” she said, her eyes watering. She was trying to be strong.

  Zeerid knelt. “I will be back soon. Within days. All right?”

  She nodded and he mussed her hair. She turned the hoverchair and headed for her room.

  He filed the image of her face in the file cabinet of his memory.

  “She loves that chair,” Nat said. “You did good, Zeerid.”

  “I’m going to get you both out of here,” he said, determined to make it so. “After this next job—”

  Nat held up a hand and shook her head. “I don’t want to hear about the job. I just want you to promise that you won’t take unnecessary chances.”

  “I promise,” he said.

  “We’ll see you when you come back. We’re fine here, Zeerid. It doesn’t look like much, but we’re fine.”

  He reached into his jacket and took out the bearer card. “There are over thirteen thousand credits on this. Take it. Buy something nice for you and Arra.”

  She eyed the card as if it might bite her. “Thirteen thousand …” She looked him in the face. “How’d you come by this amount of money?”

  He ignored the question and held up the card until she took it.

  “Thank you, Nat. For everything.” He hugged her, the gesture as awkward as always. She felt too thin, as threadbare as an old sweater. He vowed to himself then and there that he was getting both of them out of the slum. He’d do whatever he had to do.

  “Take care of yourself, Z-man,” Nat said.

  “I will. And I’ll be back soon.”

  To that, she said nothing.

  The moment the door closed and the locks clicked into place, he flipped the switch in his brain. Zeerid the father fled before Z-man the soldier and smuggler.

/>   The man at the park had been all wrong, from his hair, to his clothes, to the coldness in his eyes. He could have been nobody. Or he could have been somebody.

  Zeerid decided that he would linger in the apartment building for a while, out of sight, just to be sure Nat and Arra were safe.

  He took station on their floor and settled in. He hadn’t done sentry duty since he was a new recruit. Felt good, though.

  VRATH SAT in the aircar taxi on the street outside the decrepit apartment building. The smell of rotten fish and dirty lake filled the air. He watched for a long time, monitoring Zeerid’s movements with the tracker. Zeerid had stopped moving. Perhaps he shared an apartment there with Nat and Arra.

  He gave it a while longer, then decided to take a look. He paid the droid driver, hopped out of the aircar, dodged the few ramshackle speeders and the public speeder bus that flew low through the street, and headed across to the apartment building.

  ZEERID’S EYES ADJUSTED to the dim lights that flickered intermittently in the hallway. The door to Nat and Arra’s flat was about halfway down the corridor. There was no other way in or out of the apartment. All he needed to do was take a boresighting down the hall.

  The far end of the hallway ended in a cracked glass window. The near side ended in the lift and a door to the stairs. Other than scaling the building from the outside, the lift and the stairs were the only way onto the fourth floor. He could cover both.

  He thought about just lingering in the hallway and putting the muzzle of his blaster into the belly of anyone who looked at him sideways. But that wouldn’t do. He did not want to draw too much attention to himself and he did not want to cause a scene unnecessarily. He finally decided to take station on the emergency stairwell to the side of the lift. He propped the door open so he could see the lift, the hall, and the stairs.

  A good field of fire, he decided.

  He took the E-9 blaster pistol—small, compact, but with decent power—held it in his front jacket pocket, and waited.

  Minutes passed, turned to half an hour, to an hour, and he began to think his paranoia had ill served him. The building did not see a lot of foot traffic. A near-obsolete utility droid came up the creaky lift and vacuumed the floor, ignoring Zeerid altogether. When it completed its sweep, it retired to a utility closet next to the lift.

  Zeerid sat alone with only uncomfortable thoughts for company in a stairwell that smelled of urine and vomit. He had let his daughter down. To try and give her a better life, he had turned himself into the kind of man he once would have regarded with contempt. And what did she have to show for it? A decrepit apartment and an absentee father who could die on his next run.

  And a hoverchair, he reminded himself. But still …

  He had to get out of the life. But there was no walking away until he’d cleared his debt with The Exchange. So he’d make a last run to Coruscant—

  The door to the stairwell on the ground floor opened with an angry squeal. At almost the same moment, he heard the rumble of the lift coming up the shaft.

  Alert and tense, he went to the railing at the edge of the stairwell and peered down. Light from the fluorescent fixture attached to the ceiling two floors above him did little to illuminate the stairwell. Shadows coated the lower floors but Zeerid thought he saw a form there, humanoid, and watched it start up the stairs.

  Meanwhile, the chime of the lift announced its arrival on the fourth floor.

  Cupping his blaster in his hand, Zeerid flattened himself against the wall near the doorway of the stairwell. The footsteps coming from below continued their slow ascent. They stopped from time to time, as if the person was unsure of his or her destination, or was stopping to listen.

  The lift doors opened and Zeerid heard the soft susurrus of quiet movement. The lift doors closed.

  The footsteps on the steps started again, stopped.

  Zeerid waited a three-count and poked his head around the doorway to give him a view of the hallway.

  A cloaked figure stole down the corridor, about the size of the man he’d met in the park. He was checking the doors for apartment numbers. Zeerid could not see the figure’s hands. He shot a look back at the stairwell, heard nothing, and stole out into the hallway.

  The figure stopped before Nat’s apartment and consulted a palm-sized portcomp, as if confirming an address.

  Zeerid had seen all he needed to see. He brandished the E-9.

  “You! Move away from that door.”

  The figure turned toward him, reached for something at waist level. Zeerid did not hesitate. He pulled the trigger, and the muffled whump of the E-9 sounded like a polite cough.

  In near-perfect time with Zeerid pulling the trigger, the motion so fast that it was blurry, the figure whipped free a silver cylinder that grew a glowing green line and deflected the E-9’s bolt into the floor.

  Before Zeerid squeezed off another shot, the figured cocked its head and deactivated the lightsaber.

  “Zeerid?”

  A woman.

  Zeerid did not lower his weapon or his temperature. He could not make sense of the lightsaber. A Jedi?

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  The figure threw back her hood to reveal long sandy hair and the warm green eyes that Zeerid had never forgotten. The heat and tension went out of him in a rush.

  “Aryn? Aryn Leneer? What are you doing here?”

  “Looking for you,” she said. She motioned at the door to Nat’s apartment. “I thought I would try your sister-in-law’s—”

  “Are you alone? Did someone follow you?”

  She looked taken aback by the rapid-fire questions. “I … yes. No.”

  “How did you find me?”

  “Luck. I remembered your sister-in-law’s name. I hoped she could help me find you.”

  “Stay there,” he said, and hurried back down the hall to the stairwell. He looked down and saw nothing and no one. Whoever had been on the stairs was gone.

  He told himself that it was probably just a resident coming home.

  He turned to find himself staring into Aryn’s concerned face. She looked much as she had when she’d held him while he cried over Val’s death.

  “What is wrong?” she asked.

  No doubt she could feel his apprehension.

  “Probably nothing. I’m overreacting, I think.”

  She smiled her smile but he saw something new in her eyes—a hardness. He did not need to be a Force-user to know that something was different.

  “What happened to you?” he asked. “I just saw you on the ’Net. I thought you were on Alderaan.”

  A veil fell over her eyes and closed her off. He’d never seen it before, not from her, though he imagined his own expression looked much the same when he was working.

  “I was. That’s part of what I want to talk about. I need your help. Can we go somewhere and talk?”

  “This really is not a good time, Aryn.”

  “It’s important.”

  He had a flash of fear, thinking the Jedi had caught wind of the engspice delivery, had learned that he was to deliver it, and were intent on stopping him. But she said nothing about engspice.

  “It’s a personal issue, Z-man. Not something for the Order.”

  He breathed easier, even smiled at how silly his name sounded when she said it. Maybe it sounded that silly all the time. He shot a glance back down the hall at Nat’s apartment.

  Closed and secure, like all the other doors in the hall. A blaster shot and an activated lightsaber had not even merited an open door.

  He had to get them both out of there. It was no place for a child.

  Aryn touched his arm. “Are you all right?”

  He let out a long breath and tried to shed some stress. He was overreacting. Since arriving on planet, he had taken all of the precautions he usually took. No one he didn’t want to know knew of his relationship to Arra or Nat, much less where they lived. Aryn had stumbled on him only because they were friends from way back and she kne
w Nat’s name. The man in the park had probably been nobody, just a random passerby.

  “No, I’m all right. I do know a place we can talk. For old times’ sake. But I may have to cut it short. I’m expecting a call.”

  Zeerid could get the ping from Oren at any time.

  They walked out to the street and waited with a small crowd for a public speeder bus to arrive. They boarded and it pulled away. Zeerid watched Nat and Arra’s building vanish below them. He tried to fill the pit in his stomach by telling himself that they would be fine.

  VRATH LINGERED OUTSIDE the stairwell entrance to Zeerid’s apartment. His tracker had shown him Zeerid’s location before he’d gotten halfway up the stairs.

  An ambush or just extreme cautiousness?

  Leaning against the crumbling brick wall, he eyed the tracker. It showed Zeerid moving away on the speeder bus. Vrath had seen the woman who had accompanied him. It wasn’t Nat.

  He activated his comlink and raised the rest of his team, all of whom were stationed at or near the Yinta Lake spaceport.

  “He’s mobile, on a speeder bus, heading in your direction. I’m en route.”

  ZEERID AND ARYN RODE THE AIRBUS in silence to a stop near the hulking, rusty geometry of the spaceport. From there, they walked the busy street to a casino Zeerid knew, the Spiral Galaxy, where Nat worked. An overpowering sea of smoke, shouts, flashing lights, and music greeted them. No one would overhear them there.

  Zeerid led Aryn to the bar area, found a corner table that allowed him a view of the rest of the room, and sat. He waved off the server before the young man ever reached their table. Aryn glanced around the casino, tiny furrows lining her brow. She looked to have aged ten years since he’d last seen her. He imagined he looked much the same to her, if not worse. He was surprised she had recognized him. But then, maybe she hadn’t recognized him by sight so much as by feel.

  He leaned back in the chair and spoke loud enough to be heard over the ambient sound. “You said you needed my help?”

  She nodded, leaned forward to put her elbows on the table. She looked past him as she spoke, and he had the impression she was reciting something she had rehearsed. “I need to get to Coruscant as soon as possible.”