Star Wars - Darth Plagueis

still, staring at the falling snow, knowing there’d be another drop after this one, then another, then another, and he’d still owe The Exchange more than he’d ever be able to pay. He was on a treadmill with no idea how to get off.
    Didn’t matter, though. The point was to earn for Arra, maybe get her a hoverchair instead of that wheeled antique. Better yet, prostheses.
    He blew out a breath, stood, and tried to find his calm as he threw on a winter parka and fingerless gloves. In the cargo hold, he had to pick his way though the maze of shipping containers. He avoided looking directly at the thick black lettering on their sides, though he knew it by heart, had seen such crates many times in his military career.
    DANGER—MUNITIONS .
FOR MILITARY USE ONLY .
KEEP AWAY FROM INTENSE HEAT
OR OTHER ENERGY SOURCES .
    In the crates were upward of three hundred million credits’ worth of crew-served laser cannons, MPAPPs, grenades, and enough ammunition to keep even the craziest fire team grinning and sinning for months.
    Near the bay’s landing ramp, he saw that three of the four securing straps had come loose from one of the crates of grenades. He was lucky the crate hadn’t bounced around in transit. Maybe the straps had snapped when he set down on the island. He chose to believe that rather than admit to his own sloppiness.
    He did not bother reattaching the straps. Arigo’s men would have to undo them to unload anyway.
    He loosened his blasters in their holsters and pushed the button to open the bay and lower the ramp. The door descended and snow and cold blew in, the tang of ocean salt. He stepped out into the wind. The light of the setting sun made him squint. He’d been in only artificial light for upward of twelve hours. His boots crunched on the snow-dusted black rock. His exhalations steamed away in the wind.
    Two of the men from Arrigo’s freighter detached themselves from their ship and met him halfway. Both were human and bearded. One had a patched eye and a scar like a lightning stroke down one cheek. Both wore blasters on their hips. Like Zeerid, both had the butt straps undone.
    Recognizing neither of them rekindled Zeerid’s earlier concerns. He had a mind for faces, and both of the men were strangers.
    The drop was starting to taste sour.
    “Where’s Arigo?” Zeerid asked.
    “Doin’ what Arigo does,” Scar said, and gestured vaguely. “Sent us instead. No worries, though, right?”
    No Scar shifted on his feet, antsy, twitchy.
    Zeerid nodded, kept his face expressionless as his heart rate amped up and adrenaline started making him warm. Everything smelled wrong, and he’d learned over the years to trust his sense of smell.
    “You Zeerid?” Scar asked.
    “Z-man.”
    No one called him Zeerid except his sister-in-law.
    And Aryn, once. But Aryn had been long ago.
    “Z-man,” echoed No Scar, shifting on his feet and half giggling.
    “Sound funny to you?” Zeerid asked him.
    Before No Scar could answer, Scar asked, “Where’s the cargo?”
    Zeerid looked past the two men before him to the third, who lingered near the landing ramp of Arigo’s ship. The man’s body language—too focused on the verbal exchange, too coiled—reinforced Zeerid’s worry. He reminded Zeerid of the way rooks looked when facing Imperials for the first time, all attitude and hair trigger.
    Suspicion stacked up into certainty. The drop didn’t just smell bad, it was bad.
    Arigo was dead, and the crew before him worked for some other faction on Ord Mantell, or worked for some organization sideways to The Exchange. Whatever. Didn’t matter to Zeerid. He never bothered to follow who was fighting who, so he just trusted no one.
    But what did matter to him was that the three men standing before him probably had tortured information from Arigo and would kill Zeerid as soon as they confirmed the presence of the cargo.
    And there could be still more men hidden aboard the freighter.
    It seemed he’d descended out of atmospheric blackout and into a crossfire after all.
    What else was new?
    “Why you call that ship Fatman? ” No Scar asked. Arigo must havetold them the name of Zeerid’s ship because Fatman bore no identifying markings. Zeerid used fake ship registries on almost every planet on which he docked.
    “ ’Cause it takes a lot to fill her belly.”
    “Ship’s a she, though. Right? Why not Fatwoman ?”
    “Seemed disrespectful.”
    No Scar frowned. “Huh? To who?”
    Zeerid did not bother to