"No you don't," he murmured at last, voice still holding genuine menace but contained now; restrained. "Not really. You tell yourself you can trust- you think you're safe because for some reason you believe you can control it... but I can't, so I'm damn sure that you can't. You're not nearly as safe as you think."
It was an incredible admission, not least because he so clearly believed it.
"You're saying that you're capable of hurting me?" she'd asked, glancing to him, shaking her head decisively, "I don't believe you."
He took a long step ahead of Mara, dismissive now, the moment and his temper mastered again. But before he left, he issued one last caution; "I'm saying if you reach out to a wolf you shouldn't be surprised when it bites."
.
Mara hunkered down in the cramped corridor now, considering his words. It had been a warning, she knew; and it had been genuine.
Did she trust him?
She wanted to say yes... but then what was she doing here?
And then again, bearing her present actions in mind... should he trust her?
Her consideration was abruptly halted as the docking bay below her dropped its shields momentarily to allow a large shuttle to enter. Mara shimmied upright in the close space, frowning; there was nothing due to come in on the Bridge logs- and even if it were, this was hardly a recognised port of entry.
The Skipray - an Intel 420; fast and tough and loved by local enforcement and smugglers alike - settled to a smooth stop in the centre of the bay, a small group of 701st Stormtroopers coming to a halt before it.
Mara watched two men walk casually down the ramp, cursing the fact that she hadn't chosen a lens that could zoom; who'd have thought she'd see anyone but troopers?
The younger man, slim and slight with a flash of electric blue to the front of bleached-white hair, halted at the ship's ramp while they conversed a moment, then the second - obviously in charge, tall and athletic with dark hair and a thick, heavy handlebar moustache - set forward with the troops, though his body-language inferred that he was anything but intimidated.
They disappeared from the lens's wide field of view and Mara scrabbled up, abandoning her screen where it lay, intending to go and try to pick them up in the corridor two levels down near the bay.
When she got down to the point where the restricted corridors joined more public ones, there was no-one to be seen. Mara briefly considered contacting Security to check where they had gone, but hesitated; either they had come in under the sensors somehow, or they were allowed in by someone in Security, in which case alerting them to the fact that she knew someone was aboard wasn't exactly a bright idea; clearly this wasn't intended to be common knowledge. And if the anonymous visitor had been smuggled onboard, they would probably be moving him around the ship the same way.
She frowned, walking slowly down the empty corridor; either way, she had a pretty good idea where their mystery guest had gone...
.
.
"I seem to be a ship or two short." Karrde announced, neither irritated nor absolving, "I counted them. Twice."
The Heir smiled easily, in good humour tonight, and Karrde wondered again at his true age; at times, when he was tired and serious and volatile, he seemed very close to Karrde's own age, but in casual moments like this when he was at ease, genuinely smiling, the smuggler could swear he was only in his twenties- early twenties at that.
Like everyone else with any kind of vested interest, Karrde had expended serious amounts of currency trying to unearth some concrete evidence as to who The Heir really was... and like everyone else, he'd come up blank.
The man himself flashed that genial smile which pulled at the deep scar running through his lips as he spoke in a perfectly-modulated Coruscanti accent - too perfect, to Karrde's mind.
"You have too many anyway. Think of the maintenance I've saved you."
"Yes; and all that revenue which I will now have to turn down was becoming rather a drag."
"I'll sort something out for you." The Heir allowed casually, walking back from the console table with two glasses of brandy in his hand and offering one to Karrde. "I'll leave them at Bilbringi and make sure you have their operating codes. Which would you like, Brigs or a Xebecs?"
"I'll have Xebecs." Karrde said, satisfied with the exchange; although the ships would have no upgrades and need their military past disguising, they would be newer, more reliable and considerably bigger than the freighters he'd lost. It was a fair exchange, generous in fact, and the man who offered it did so without conditions, he knew that. "Will they come with papers of ownership?"
"No, but then I doubt you had those for the ones I lost. They won't show up on any Imperial registry as missing." Luke assured, "And I think someone once told me you knew a man who could forge documents and call signs... but I could be wrong."
Karrde raised his thick eyebrows at the good-natured dig, but didn't answer, the matter settled as far as he was concerned.
His own transport, the heavily modified freighter Wild Karrde, remained in orbit about the nearby planet of Giju, a popular smuggler's safe-spot on the edge of the Tapani Sector, leading Karrde to believe the rumours that the Peerless, the Dominant and the Zephyr were in the process of making Abregado-Rae's Ruling Council very uncomfortable at the moment. A fact that seemed to put The Heir in particularly good spirits.
But then, it always seemed to Karrde that the man's mood lifted in direct proportion to the amount of time he had been away from Coruscant. He wondered briefly whether he should point this out but decided against it; observations of his personal life were never welcome, whatever his mood, and anyway the conversation had moved on, The Heir's demeanour tightening somewhat as he turned to more important business.
"Do you have access to a chemist? A reliable one."
"What kind?" Karrde asked easily, curious now.
"I need a DNA decoder - someone capable of disassembling the constituents of a tailor-made drug and synthesising at the very least an antidote and preferably an immunisation."
Karrde frowned; that kind of specialist was hardly routine. The type who could mix up recreational drugs or break them down to be shipped in their constituent parts so they wouldn't be recognised was commonplace, but decoding complex tailor-made drugs was three steps beyond anyone Karrde could think of offhand.
"I'll see what I can track, but we don't use one ourselves. What you're talking about would necessitate an extensive lab and considerable specialist equipment. The..." he almost said it; almost said 'The Empire keep tabs on that kind of thing', but caught himself in time.
"I can provide funds to set the right individual up in the Rim System and make sure they have any equipment they need." Luke assured, knowing what Karrde was thinking, aware of what he was asking, "But they have to be very reliable and discrete."
"What would they be required to do?"
"Break down a sample of a drug I supply." Luke still didn't have a sample of the drug Palpatine used against him but, wary of giving Karrde too much information, he covered his trail a little, implying that this was for a third party. "I don't have the sample yet and I've not been given an exact date as to when it will arrive, but as soon as it does, I can turn it over."
"Species?" Karrde prompted; that kind of specialisation would probably narrow the field considerably.
"Human, as far as I know." Luke replied, taking the opportunity to further distance himself from the drug.
Karrde couldn't resist raising an eyebrow just slightly, "Playing the good samaritan or making a deal?"
"Certain concessions have been promised," Luke offered vaguely, unwilling to have a lie tied down to specifics that he may have to remember at a later date; Karrde was too sharp to let any mistake pass him by. "This is simply a gesture of good faith."