A/N: The next few chapters shift focus away from the Jedi and start setting up the scene for not telling. hah.. Those of you who have read Timothy Zahn's SW books will already know all about Karrde, and if you haven't, I highly recommend them. They're excellent. And by the way, Emily, I have every right to call your chapters short. This one may not be very long, but its still longer than yours was.
The sun was just setting over the water world of Varn. Advertised as 'Varn-World of Water' in travelogues, scenes such as the majestic sunset that Talon Karrde was now looking at had helped make it a popular vacation spot.
But there were places that tourists typically didn't go-namely, anywhere that there wasn't a tour guide to hold their hand and guide them all the way through-and those areas made effective rendezvous points for meetings that people would prefer to keep discreet.
Karrde worked for a man named Jorj Car'das. Considered a smuggler by many, which he technically was, Car'das dealt mainly with information. He had an extensive library which included almost every scrap of information that a person could want-from the name of the person who discovered Kessel to the Emperor's sex life.
Which was thriving, Karrde new. He had personally seen the blueprints for the Imperial Palace, and a large section of the building had been set aside for Palpatine's concubines.
As an intermediate member of Car'das' organization, not quite junior, not quite senior, he was responsible for making deal payoffs.
Which was exactly why he was out here, he reminded himself, scanning the horizon for his contact.
There, coming directly out of the sunset, like the end of some cowboy movie in reverse, was a man riding a wave skimmer. Whether that man was Karrde's contact or an Imperial coming to arrest him was unknown to Karrde.
The man pulled up alongside Karrde. He wasn't dressed in stormtrooper armor, and Karrde figured that that was a good sign.
After the usual "You got the money?" "Yeah, you got the stuff?" exchange, Karrde passed the man a datacard, which the man immediately stuffed into his datapad. He checked to make sure that the information was on the card, then reached into his pocket for the credits-
And pulled out a blaster, which he pointed at Karrde. He smiled sadistically.
"You didn't really think that the Empire would just let you give away this information, did you Talon?"