Star Wars: Scoundrels Read Online Free PDF Page B

two-week countdown to the Festival that Eanjer was looking at.
    And there were a couple who were unavailable themselves but had people they could recommend. Mazzic, in particular, had already grabbed the initiative and informed Rachele that he would be sending two new recruits who matched the skills of the ones Han had asked about.
    Chewbacca wasn’t at all sure he liked that. “Yeah, me neither,” Han agreed, frowning at the note Rachele had sent. Still, Han had known Mazzic for a number of years, and he and Chewbacca had occasionally run cargoes for him and his small smuggling organization. Mazzic had shown himself both trustworthy and competent.
    More to the point, he was notorious for not trusting anyone himself until he’d thoroughly checked out the candidate. If he was okay with these recruits, they were probably safe enough.
    Unless he was trying to get back at Han for something. But that was unlikely. Han hadn’t done anything to Mazzic, not that he could remember. Certainly not lately.
    Chewbacca grunted a question.
    “I guess we go hunting,” Han told him, levering himself to his feet. “Go fire up the Falcon . I’ll see about getting us a liftoff slot.”

T he rooftop defenses were intriguing.
    The long slide down the syntherope was exhilarating.
    The window security was a joke.
    Bink Kitik shook her head as she focused the medical laser beam through the transparisteel onto the alarm connector. Most amateur thieves who got this far, she knew, would use the laser to slice all the way through the link, successfully disconnecting the primary alarm but at the same time activating the impedance circuit that would trigger the secondary. Bink’s more subtle approach, burning the connector just enough to melt the wires into a short circuit, would leave all the warning bells intact but quickly and smoothly drain the alarm’s power cell and render it useless.
    She finished her cut and put away the laser, checking the time as she did so. Twenty seconds, no more, and the alarm should be deactivated.
    “Sitch?” Her sister’s strained voice came over the comlink clip on her shoulder.
    Bink smiled fondly. Tavia hated Bink’s work—hated every single minute, every single aspect, every single job. But even with all that, she was still far and away the best groundliner Bink had ever worked with.
    Tavia also worried like a mother hen—this was her fourth situation check since Bink had emerged onto the roof. “Sitch go,” Bink assured her. “Twenty to pen.”
    She gave it thirty seconds, just to be on the safe side. Then, activating her vibroscalp, she began cutting gently through the transparisteel, wondering idly whether the people who designed such wonderful medical instruments ever realized how useful they would be to a resourceful ghost burglar. Probably not.
    She finished her cut and exchanged the vibroscalp for a probe, easing it in through the new opening and tapping the window release. It slid open, nearly but not quite catching the probe as she hastily withdrew it, and she was in. She pulled herself up on the sill, making sure not to tangle her harness—
    “Whoa! What the—?”
    Reflexively, Bink grabbed for her hold-out blaster. “Tav?” she whispered urgently.
    “It’s okay,” Tavia said, the startlement mostly gone from her voice. Mostly. “I was just—it’s okay,” she repeated. “Everything’s crankapacky. Just keep going.”
    Bink frowned. Crankapacky was the correct private code word for no problem . But what in the galaxy could have made her normally cool if overly judgmental sister jump like that without being a problem? “Should I bail?”
    “No, it’s crankapacky,” Tavia repeated. “Just hurry it up.”
    The safe was harder to crack than the window, but not seriously so. Bink had it open in two minutes flat, clucking disapprovingly under her breath the whole time. Some people just didn’t deserve to be rich.
    The plan had been to take a few minutes to size up the safe’s