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shrapnel wounds, and vacuum ruptures. Four critical, two of those in shock; three moderate; five minor. Species breakdown is six Wookiees, three humans, one Cerean, one Ugnaught, one Gungan.”
    Uli frowned. That was an interesting mix—
six
Wookiees? Working for the Empire? That didn’t seem right.
    “So much for quiet,” he said. “Which way to Emergency Receiving?”
    “You don’t have to jump right in yet,” Hotise said.
    Uli shrugged. “Might as well. It’s what I do.”
    Hotise nodded. “Fourmio will show you.” He nodded at the droid. “Leave your gear here; I’ll have it taken to your quarters.”
    The droid said, “This way, Dr. Divini,” in a pleasing tenor. Its wheel squeaked as it rolled down the hall. Uli followed.

6

SLASHTOWN PRISON COLONY, GRID 4354, SECTOR 547, QUADRANT 3, PLANET DESPAYRE
    A s a Zelosian, Celot Ratua Dil could, if pressed, live on sunlight and water—at least for a while. He didn’t know his species’ origin, but he did know that his people all had green eyes and green blood. While nobody outside the species had ever been curious enough to do full genetic scans, the theory that there had been some unique melding of animal and plant in the dawn of Zelosian history was accepted as fact on his homeworld. Sunlight and a little water, and he could go a month, two months, without eating a bite, though he’d rather not. He’d rather eat a nice meal of bahmat steak and feelo eggs, and, as long as he was rathering, he’d
much
rather be home on Zelos than on a prison world full of nasty criminals.
    Unfortunately, that wasn’t how it was.
    He looked around the inside of the rude hut in which he lived, a ramshackle collection of local wood and cast-off Imperial packing crates lashed together with vines, wire, and bits of twine. Not much, but it was home. He rolled off the pad he used for a bed, essentially a blanket over some evergreen boughs. Fresh and layered right, it was pretty comfortable. The branches were getting dry, though; it had been a couple of standard weeks since he’d changed them. He’d have to do that soon; not only were dry branches uncomfortable, but scorpion slugs would quickly infest them,and one sting from a slug’s tail could cause members of just about any humanoid species agony for weeks—if they were lucky.
    For the thousandth time Ratua mentally railed against the bad luck that had sent him here. Yes, he was a thief, though not much of one. And yes, he’d been a smuggler, though he’d never made any real credits at it. He was a pretty good scrounger, which helped him survive here. And he was not above taking advantage of a poor trader in a spirited transaction now and again. But being scooped up in a Trigalis port pub that just happened to have a pirate gang in it, and being lumped in as one of their crew? That was
wrong
. All he had done was stop in for a mug of ferment. The fact that he had been doing a little haggling with one of the pirates over some meelweekian silk that had “fallen” from a commercial hovervan earlier didn’t mean he was a member of the crew.
    The judges, unfortunately, had not been convinced. Ratua had offered to undergo a truth-scan, but somebody would have to pay for that, as he didn’t have the coin, and the judges weren’t willing to spend taxpayers’ credits when he was so obviously guilty of something, even if it wasn’t this particular crime on this particular world. And so he’d been tossed in with a crowd of hard-bitten types, all of them wedged into a cargo hold not big enough for half their number, and summarily tossed off the planet.
    Being on a prison planet with some seriously bad criminals was not a walk in a quiet park. Even without the exiled thieves, murderers, extortionists, and so on, Despayre wouldn’t be anyone’s first choice to build a winter home. The land was mostly jungle, consisting of one large continent and one considerably larger ocean. The rampant growth was nourished by a gravity