Chapter 51

Fair Trade

Ahsoka stared into the cell where she'd put one of the pirates. Now that she was safely inside the Whipclaw, she'd decided to remove her armored mask. Maybe what she was about to do was something more suited to Riella Masso, her bounty hunter alter ego. But using the Force to convince the weak-minded to give up secrets worked a lot better if there was eye contact.

"What do you want?" the pirate snarled at her. The ray shield between them blocked all sound, but the cells came with a built in intercom.

"What I wanted was to trade you back to Hondo for information. But it looks like my information is out of date. It looks like your little base on Florrum has been abandoned. It looks like I'm going to have to get the information out of you somehow." She looked him right in the eye, emphasizing the beginning of every sentence, hoping the repetition would make him realize how serious she was. "Do you know what kind of devices Koros L'Larr put inside the cells in his ship? He was a pretty nasty bounty hunter, the kind who wouldn't hesitate to do terrible things to get answers."

The pirate sneered, "Go away, Jedi. I know your type, you're not allowed to do anything to hurt me. You got a code to follow."

"Oh, you didn't hear about me?" she said, trying to connect to him through the Force. She hoped he was feeling a faint aura of menace from her, but she was unfamiliar with the feel of a Weequay mind, so she wasn't sure how much was getting through to him. "I got kicked out of the order. Conduct unbecoming a Jedi. There was a trial and everything. You don't watch the holovids? I'm hurt. After that time I spent as Hondo's guest, and you don't care enough to follow my career?"

"Bugger off," he said as he sat down on the narrow bunk and looked away from her.

"You're right though. I'm not going to do anything to you. I'm just going to have fun examining this unmarked button panel next to the door. I know it doesn't open the cell, that's what the big button over here does. I wonder what sort of things Koros put into the ship?"

She pressed a button, knowing full well what it did. A small window in the back of the cell opened, letting in a stream of sunlight and a wafting of Florrum's dust.

Ahsoka, feigning surprise and innocence, said, "Oh wow, it's a good thing we weren't in orbit yet. Explosive decompression is kinda gross, and I'd hate to clean out the cells."

The pirate scrambled back in surprise. "Are you crazy? I'm no good to you dead!"

"And you're no good to me if I don't know where Hondo is. If I can't trade you in, then my options are either to feed you forever and let you take up room in my cells, sell you for bounty, or space you. And the first one isn't likely, food costs money and I already had to double up one of my cells to fit your buddies in there."

"Whatever you do to me, Hondo will probably do worse if I sell him out!"

Ahsoka sighed and rolled her eyes. "Look, I'm not planning on hunting Hondo down to hurt him. I just need some information. You don't even have to tell me where he is, just give me a com channel, a holonet address, something. Ooh, I just thought of a fourth option. Since you attacked a vessel owned and operated by citizens of Mon Calamari, I could turn you over to them. I'm good friends with King Lee-Char, I'm pretty sure they'd find you guilty. They wouldn't even have to do anything fancy for a public execution, they could just turn off the air force fields in your cell. It wouldn't be as messy as explosive decompression."

The Weequay stared at her mutely. She looked him right in the eye and reached out with the Force. "You want to tell me how to find Hondo."

"That was kinda nasty," Nat said.

"I know, it wasn't fun. But it had to be done. Maybe if Master It'kla was here, he could have talked the information out of him. But we have to work with what we have." Ahsoka shook her head. "I've been on his side of the cell a few times. And the people who captured me weren't afraid to do the things I was threatening to do. The galaxy isn't always a pretty place, little guy. I just hope the information's worth it."

She punched a combination into the holonet console. A few seconds later, the familiar helmet bust of Hondo Ohnaka appeared in translucent blue above the console. "What is it? I am very... oh, it's you." It was hard to tell, but it looked like the small hologram was glaring at her.

"Hondo, I need something from you."

"You've got a lot of nerve, girly. First, you cost me half of my profits for my latest venture. Again! And then you force me to leave behind four of my best... well, most mediocre men. Do you know how hard it is to find mediocre help these days?" Ahsoka thought it was best to let him rant, so she didn't interrupt him. He rambled, "Actually, it's not that hard. The best and brightest enlisted in the war. So did the worst and dumbest. Most of what I have left is in the middle. Still, you have cost me greatly! And now you ask for a favor? The nerve of you Jedi..."

"Actually, I'm asking for a fair trade. Maybe more than fair. I need to know everything you know about the man you were working with."

"You ask me to betray a business partner? Young Ahsoka, my word is my bond. Here in the fringe, we do not needlessly betray people who have our trust. It is just not how things are done." He sounded hurt, or at least he sounded like he wanted Ahsoka to think that he was hurt by her accusations of potential betrayal.

"Yes, just like he had your trust. I fought him, I can tell you that he's strong in the Force. But he didn't feel the need to warn you how risky things would be, did he? We Jedi have the ability to sense danger before it happens. But he didn't care, did he? He got what he wanted, and he left. Your men, they are loyal. They wouldn't talk much. All I got was the name Waylander. That's why I had to come to you."

"My men... what have you done to them?"

"Nothing. Well, one of them has a broken collarbone. But that happened in the fight. Nothing a little bacta won't fix. And that's where we come to my deal. When I couldn't find you on Florrum, I dropped them off at a bounty office somewhere in the Sertar sector. You give me the information I want, and I send you their release papers. You get your men back, good as new. I get what I want. We go our separate ways, each one of us with the profit we were looking for. Sounds good?"

The little hologram smiled at her. "Ah, you know me too well, child. I suppose I cannot be angry at my men for losing a battle to a Jedi so wise beyond her years. Yes, I will take them back, and I will show this Waylander that Hondo Ohnaka is not to be toyed with!"

"I'm glad to hear it. I'll send you the decryption code for the release papers now, as a sign of good faith." She hit a button on the console, and heard a chime from Hondo's transmission.

"Code recieved. I will tell you everything I know. Unfortunately, it is not much. I am afraid I will be getting the better end of this bargain. Retraining four pirates is not easy work! The Waylander has been operating in this sector for the last few months. No one knows where he came from, what is true name is, or where he lives. He simply appears to the right person, offers a deal from which that person will profit greatly, and walks away with one small part of the loot."

"I already knew all of that. Anything else?"

"Yes. Something he has not given away. I alone have discovered where he came from. Never let it be said that Hondo Ohnaka does not do his research! He is arrogant, and broadcasts what he thinks no one else knows. I will send you the coordinates now." He leaned partway out of the frame, half of his head disconcertingly disappearing from the hologram, the edges fuzzy and distorted as the small console projector reached the limit of its display field. The pirate came back into full view and said, "The coordinates are sent."

Ahsoka looked at the newly received message and typed the coordinates into the navicomputer. "According to the navicomputer, there's nothing there other than a gravity anomaly to be avoided."

"Once, a long time ago, there was a human colony ship that found a habitable world. The world was already inhabited by two other species, so they had not intended to stay there. They named it Wayland, since it was to be a waypoint before the next leg of their journey. But their colony ship broke down, and they were forced to stay. From what I discovered, they trusted a shady dealer and got second rate supplies. Eventually, all of their technology failed, and at the time the Republic was embroiled with a war against the Sith Empire. The colony was forgotten, and eventually it disappeared from maps. The star was marked as a navigation hazard, nothing more."

"A nice story, but how do you know that's where he's from?"

"Ah, Ahsoka. You mistrust me. I am hurt. I would not spin a story for you unless it had an ending. I sent a small scout ship to investigate this lost system, and do you know what I found? A world, seemingly devoid of all modern technology. Except, of course, for the grouping of communication satellites in geosynchronous orbit above a rather large mountain, one large enough to hide any stray electronic signals. Two of these satellites were registered to a company called Arkanian Microtechnologies, the other three were unregistered, but appeared to be of Republic origin."

"All right, that's more information than I expected I'd get. Way more. Here's the release papers. Set a course for Ermi, that's where I left them. Just in case they charge you for food and medical care for your men, I left a hundred credit chit in locker 77 Besh at the spaceport. The combination is 1842."

The tiny hologram of Hondo gave Ahsoka a mock salute. "You are thoughtful as always, my dear. I cannot honestly say that I look forward to doing business with you again, but you always find some way to surprise me."