5.02

"Curious," the young woman in the Kuati port inspector's uniform said with a frown, checking her datapad once more. "Here it says 'Corellian light freighter' but all I'm seeing is guns. Dual AG-2G quad cannons on port, starboard, top and bottom hardpoints, single AG-2G quad cannons on all four bow hardpoints, two XI7 turbolasers in spinal configuration, and thirty-two anti-air rotary cannons evenly spaced around the hull."

"They are legal defensive ordnance for light freighters," I informed her as Aurra impatiently waited behind me. There had been no change to her stance or expression in the half-hour since the dock master had insisted on calling a special inspector but from this close her emotions were clear enough in the Force. That she wasn't bothering to conceal said impatience, or the over three hundred scenarios she'd gone through mentally where said dock master had perished in increasingly gruesome ways was telling. "Piracy in the Rim is getting worse, you know."

"Dunno. There might be a light freighter here or there might not. It's hard to tell under all those cannons." She shrugged and checked something else on her datapad. "Say, aren't you the rogue Andrim heiress? Shouldn't you be traveling the galaxy in a Trade Federation battleship and blowing up alien fleets instead of..." she eyed the modified YT-1000 freighter we'd arrived on Kuat with "...the bastard offspring of a personal yacht and a cruiser?"

"That's it!" I'd been dealing with alien slavers, crazy Jedi, stupid visions, with not a single quiet day for months; I was not going to deal with any more bullshit. The churning maelstrom of energy following in my wake ever since C'baoth's premature yet well-deserved death all but leaped in response to my call as I glared at the half-dozen port security guards. "This inspection is over. Go bother somebody else."

"This inspection... is... over," the closest of them, a surprisingly fat Rodian, muttered in rote. "We'll go... bother... somebody else." In a mechanical, almost droid-like manner they all turned around in unison and walked away.

"Huh, that's one way to cut through red tape," the young Kuati said as the three of us were left alone in the small docking bay. She started going through another checklist on her datapad, entirely ignoring my glares. "Hope they don't wake up in a half-hour, realize what happened and raise an alarm. That would require way too much paperwork." Seeing her prattle on I'd come to a realization; ponytails were evil. Especially merrily bobbing ones as their owner blithely went on with an administrative charade. And ill-fitting dark grey uniforms with black gloves and boots? The very seed of evil in the galaxy that would soon spread through the echelons of the Empire, killing fashion and comfort in the name of space Nazism. And it all started here on Kuat with the idiocy of its port authority.

"Give me that!" The datapad flew out of the maybe-eighteen-years-old woman's hands and into my own. Turning it around I found not some administrative checklist but a Pazaak table, this galaxy's equivalent to Solitaire. With the grinding crack of plastic and metal and the sizzling of electronics, the datapad was crushed into a misshapen lump the size of an egg. "Jestra, if you don't drop the act right now I swear to Bogan, I'll hang you upside-down so your brain gets enough blood to finally function."

"Gee, Cousin, is that how you greet all family members?" my closest relation from the other branch of House Andrim retorted in an unimpressed tone. "Seriously though, do we need to vanish before those guards report what happened?"

"Their minds were too used to following orders," I explained as my anger deflated as quickly as it had come. "It's more likely they'll rationalize away any discrepancies but even if they don't we have time. A half-hour wouldn't do it. A day or two wouldn't either. Maybe if we went through a ship inspection given the efficiency of this dock..."

"That's because Kuat of Kuat doesn't want you doing business here," she reminded me, pulling out a smaller, slicker-looking datapad and tapping commands into it so fast her fingers blurred. "I sneaked in as an inspector as soon as our people noticed your arrival; things have grown worse in the inter-House front since your last visit."

"What, they're going to bombard this whole part of the orbital ring with the Home Fleet and call it an exercise?"

"No," Jestra said, for once dead serious. "Kuat is trying to use the authority granted to them through the Inheritance Exemption to basically subjugate all rival Houses."

xxxx xxxx

​

The Inheritance Exemption was a document signed by the Ten merchant families that controlled the Kuat Drive Yards. Its purpose was to resolve internal conflicts between the families, thus allowing them to concentrate on their business affairs. Drafted over ten thousand years before, it granted House Kuat control of the overall policy of the shipyards in perpetuity, but guaranteed the rights of the other nine Houses to their individual property. Essentially, a member of House Kuat in each generation would be the CEO, but all ten original Houses had people in the Board of Directors. Kuat trying to exceed their authority based on the Inheritance Exemption alone was not going to work. Unfortunately, they had other options.

"Onara is meeting representatives of Houses Depon and Purkis in the Tekshar Falls Casino as we speak," Jestra said as we looked at the five-hundred-meter artificial waterfall from one of the surrounding resorts. "If she gets their cooperation, she'll have the capital and manpower to run the shipyards without contribution from the other Houses and enough political influence to silence her opponents."

"Namely us," I added, not really paying attention. The writing on the wall had been obvious as soon as those two Houses had been mentioned. While fully half of the Ten preferred to stay out of politics, House Knylenn was a long-time enemy of Kuat but Depon and Purkis had always been House Andrim's economic rivals. It was only due to their opposition that we weren't as rich as Kuat, opposition that went far beyond legal means or even the usual industrial espionage. Kuat's assassination attempts against me were, sadly, nothing unusual in the cutthroat politics of the greatest shipbuilding power in the Galaxy. "Anything we can do about it?"

"Mother is quietly preparing the evacuation and has already moved the House's liquid assets off-world," Jestra said glumly. "She believes that abrupt liquidation of our remaining holdings would be enough to crash the market for a year or two as well."

"Why not disrupt the meeting?" I asked, genuinely curious. Jestra sounded as if the House was admitting defeat already, and engaging into desperation measures. "Even a failed assassination attempt is going to delay the old hag's plans a bit. Perhaps even remind her and her allies that other people can play hardball too."

"You've never been to Tekshar Falls before, have you?" Jestra asked sourly, pouting prettily. "The casino is built inside the waterfall, held in place with artificial gravity and a watertight forcefield. It has its own power generators and a closed environmental system. The only entrance is a sealed footbridge through the base of the waterfall, one too narrow for vehicles and so full of sensor nodes you can't hide a single datastick. There are no sight lines to the interior, no maintenance tunnels, no air vents, no way to covertly approach from the outside without either the waterfall washing you away or the security picking up your vehicle from twenty clicks away." That last bit was said in a low growl, her cute pout shifting into a snarl. "All Kuat had to do was reserve the casino for the weekend and move in before we could respond. I lost a dozen good men and women trying to infiltrate the place; it's impossible."

"Is it now?" I asked, my own datapad beeping as a reply to a recent query had arrived. "Aurra, ring up Ratty. We got a new trade deal from House Knylenn and I need a couple of things from the Sprinkle."

"Are you even listening to me?" my cousin demanded, hands on hips. "This might be the end of House Andrim on Kuat after a thousand generations; it is no time for whatever deals you can close with a freighter that fits in my pocket!"

"It is always a good time to buy outrageously expensive centuries-old wines, Cousin," I countered with a small smile.

"Oh and Aurra? Tell Ratty we're going with Project Telephone."