Star Wars: Shadow Games Read Online Free Page A

engaged right now. And Unko needs someone who can leave immediately.”
    “Well, then he’s right. Talking to me’s a waste of time.I’m going nowhere.” He sketched a salute at the table and turned to continue his promenade, stewing over the implications of Gher’s words. If a Toydarian was paying someone to help
find
him a pilot
and
a ship, the pickings must be vanishingly slim.
    His stroll netted him exactly nothing. Everyone was either engaged, reluctant to go to the Hutt home system, or demanding too many credits.
Far
too many credits. He reached the back of the room and turned to look at the bar, feeling a bit down. The fact that Eaden hadn’t commed him meant the Nautolan was having no better luck.
    Might as well go for a drink, then … if he could thread his way through the screen of old racer pilots who ringed the central bar trading stories about their glory days.
    Kill me if I’m ever so used up that the most exciting thing I can do is drone on and on about past exploits
, Dash thought.
    He managed to force his way to the bar and was surprised to see that Chal himself was tending today. The Wookiee usually spent his “working” hours behind the scenes in his office while his staff tended bar and waited tables. But he had a fondness for Podracing and Podracers, and the bar was full of the latter. He was listening to a pair of the codgers argue some rule or other, and seemed as happy as Dash had ever seen him.
    “Hey, Chal, can I get a drink, or do I have to get me one of those astral badges?”
    The Wookiee looked up and, with a bleat of pleasure, reached across the bar to give Dash an affectionate pat on his shoulder that almost dislocated it. “
Whiiinu dasalla
?” Chal moaned in his native tongue. What would you like?
    “Corellian ale. And by the way—you know anyone with an empty cargo bay who might be looking for a quick score?” Dash’s gaze was still roaming the crowded room.Chal, setting Dash’s ale before him, harned and moaned to the effect that he just might at that. It was a good thing, Dash reflected, that over the years he had picked up enough of the big furry bipeds’ language to gather the gist of their statements—mostly, anyway. He could still get tripped up by the inflection. Shyriiwook was a tonal language, which meant intonation contour was vitally important. Depending on the phonology, the same phrase could mean either “You honor me with your presence” or “You smell like a dead dewback.”
    He understood the Wookiee’s statement well enough, accompanied as it was with the jerk of a shaggy head toward the nether regions of the cantina. “Really?” He brightened. “Where?”
    In answer Chalmun pointed to a small cubicle on the other side of the bandstand and closest to the rear exit. There was but one table in it and he could see nothing of the individual sitting in it, save for a hand gripping a mug. Several empties already cluttered the tabletop.
    “Thanks, Chal.” He lifted his ale and, sipping it, headed for the corner booth. He could’ve sworn he heard a smothered chuckle from behind him, but when he peered back over his shoulder the big guy was busily serving drinks.
    Just shy of the doorway he bumped into a Kubaz who was nattering at the band to set up faster and begin playing immediately, if not sooner. Dash staggered back a few steps, amazingly spilling none of his ale. Hence the smile he showed his potential mark when he slipped into the cubicle was genuine.
    Genuine or not, it faded just inside the doorway. “Sith spit!
You.
”
    Han Solo looked up from his drink, his eyes coming into relatively quick focus on Dash’s face. “Oh,
nice
. Is that any way to greet an old friend, old friend?”
    “Old
friend
? You’re kidding me, right? I’ve heard allthe trash you’ve been talking about me and my ship up and down the space lanes. I seem to recall that the last time we met, you took a swing at my head.”
    “Hey, I was a little drunk.