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Who
happens
to be a teräs käsi master.” He watched for the reaction from the two women and was gratified by the response. They apparently knew something of the sort of threat the masters of the “steel hand” discipline represented.
    “We can definitely use someone with those talents,” said the turbaned woman. “And it doesn’t hurt that he’s Nautolan. There are rumors that a high percentage of them are a little Force-sensitive.”
    “Well, Eaden claims to be able to read emotions even out of the water, but I think he’s just showing off. I also have a droid.”
    “Of course you do,” said Spike. “Every pilot I’ve ever known has a droid. You’d all be dirt-fliers without ’em.”
    Matching her aggressive, elbows-on-the-table stance, Dash leaned into her across the table. “I beg your pardon, but I’ll have you know that I’ve successfully completed any number of missions without a droid’s assistance. And I’ve gotta say that Leebo’s not much of a space-monkey, but he’s good company, so I keep him around.”
    “Really.”
    “Yeah. He tells jokes. Not very good ones,” Dash admitted, “but still—the amazing thing is not that he tells them badly, but that he tells them at all.”
    The spiky woman snorted. Very unbecoming in a female, Dash decided. At least in a human female. A Zabrak might think it was sexy, though.
    “What do you think, JC?” she asked her boss.
    “What’s your name?” her boss asked him.
    “What’s yours … JC?” he asked in return.
    Turban Girl blinked her lenses off and looked out at him through eyes of pale, luminous silver. He almost swallowed his tongue. With an expression that was suddenly deadly serious, she lowered her voice and said, “Javul Charn.”
    He sat back in his seat, feeling as if a bantha had just sat on his chest. That name he knew, just as he knew those silver eyes. They’d gazed out at him from so many holoposters and performance vids, he’d lost count. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, suddenly in complete sympathy with the overzealous fan.
    “I’m, uh, I’m Dash. Dash Rendar. I’m a pilot.”
    “Yeah,” said Spike. “So you said.”
    Eaden Vrill was not entirely pleased with their new job. At least Dash didn’t
think
he was. It was hard to tell with teräs käsi adepts—they were so
disciplined
. And aNautolan’s huge, dark eyes were hard to read anyway. Standing in the docking bay, he and Leebo listened to Dash’s glowing description of the job in complete silence.
    Eaden was stone-still for a full ten seconds, then said, “What will it pay?”
    He nodded when Dash named the figure, then turned on his heel and went up into the ship to pack his kit.
    Dash turned to Leebo and said, “Well? You gonna say something? Crack a joke? Take a shot at me?”
    “Defensive, aren’t we? We needed credits. You got us credits. So you get the credit for getting us the credits.” The droid added an uncannily accurate reproduction of a percussive three-note trap skin riff. Dash rolled his eyes. It wasn’t the first time he’d heard Leebo accentuate jokes in such a manner, nor the hundredth.
But add a few more zeros and we’ll be getting close
, he thought.
    Leebo then raised one metal arm, servos whining delicately. “Question.”
    “What?”
    “We’re going to be working on this woman’s yacht?”
    “Yeah.”
    “What’s her name?”
    “Her name? I told you her name. Javul Charn. You know—Javul Charn, the holostar?”
    Leebo made a sound somewhere between a snort and a clatter. “Not the fem. What would I care about a
girl
? The
ship
, protein-brains. What’s the
ship’s
name?”
    Dash laughed. “I keep forgetting your taste in females is toward the hard and ion-powered. She’s the
Nova’s Heart
—a SoroSuub PLY-3500.”
    “Ooh,” said Leebo, managing to sound rhapsodic, “I’m in love.” He turned and tilted his head toward the
Outrider
, sitting forlornly in the center of the bay. “Don’t worry, old