'Lope wants to know what he should do with the inspection team,' he said to Rella.
She answered while continuing to study the instruments.
'Tell him to secure them in the aft hold of the freighter.' She eased into the pilot's chair and adjusted it to her liking. Drab Eriadu filled the forward viewport. Rella switched on the communications array and swiveled to face the chief.
'Send a message that you're bringing a load of confiscated cargo down the well. Say that you want the cargo transferred to the customs building for immediate inspection, and to have hoversleds standing by to meet you.' The woman smirked. 'That's against procedure. They won't do it.' Rella smiled.
'Thanks for the warning. But they will do it this time, because the people in the customs building are on my team.' She gave it a moment to register.
'Glare at me all you want, chief, but you're going to do it eventually.'
The woman bent toward the audio pickup, clearly hoping that Rella would be proved wrong. But after listening to the transmission, the voice on the other end replied, 'We'll have the hoversleds waiting.' The chief continued to glower at Rella. 'You think no one knows we boarded your ship?' 'I'm aware of that,' Rella said. 'But we don't need all day to accomplish what we came here to do.' She fastened the chief's seat harness in such a way that the woman could scarcely move. Then she accepted an adhesive strip from Boiny and plastered it over the chief's mouth.
'You sit tight for a while,' Rella said, squatting to eye level with the woman. 'We won't be long.' She and Boiny went aft to the picket's small rear compartment. Cohl and the mercenaries were already there, pressed in among a half-dozen two-meter-tall cargo tubes that had been conveyed from the freighter.
All of them were wearing rebreathers and extravehicular suits, with armorply vests beneath.
'Is this necessary?' one of the humans was asking Cohl, gesturing to the upright cargo tubes.
'I suppose you'd rather blast your way through customs, is that it?' 'No, Captain,' the man answered sullenly.
'It's just that I don't like tight spots.' Cohl laughed ruefully. 'Get used to it. It's going to be nothing but tight spots from this point on.
Now, in you go.' Reluctantly the man opened the cargo tube's narrow hatch and squeezed inside. 'It's like a coffin in here!' 'Then just be happy you're still alive,' Cohl said, securing the door from the outside.
With similar aversion, the others began to secrete themselves.
'You, too, Cohl,' Rella said.
'Wish I could be joining you, Captain,' Boiny said with a smile.
Cohl scowled. 'You're lucky there was a Rodian on the inspection team, or I'd have you sharing a canister with Lope.' He turned to Rella. 'I don't know exactly how we would have pulled this off without your help.' She narrowed her eyes at him. 'Save it, Cohl. I just want to get us out of it in one piece.' He stepped into the canister. 'Seriously. I don't deserve you.' 'That's the first true thing you've said. But that's just who I am.' She reached into the canister to fasten the collar of Cohl's space suit. 'We can't have you catching a chill.' Cohl grinned at her.
She sealed the cargo tube and looked at Boiny.
'Ready the ship to leave orbit.' As promised, a half-dozen hoversleds were on hand to meet the customs ship when it touched down at Eriadu's overtaxed spaceport.
Now fettered only by stun cuffs, the chief was the first to step from the picket's hatch. She took one look at the humanoid and alien operators of the hoversleds and inhaled sharply.
'Who are you people?' She asked in utter dismay.
'You don't really want to know that,' Rella said from just behind her.
She nodded to Boiny, who placed a small styrette to the chief's neck and injected her with a measure of clear fluid. Instantly, the woman slumped back into Boiny's arms.
'Stow her in one of the empty cargo canisters,' Rella said. 'We'll take her with us for safekeeping.' She hopped down onto one of the hoversleds. 'We have to work fast,' she cautioned Havac's downside contingent of terrorists.
'It won't be long before the freighter is discovered and searched.' Rella rode one of the repulsorlift flatbeds to the picket's aft hatch, which was already open. There, she leapt into the rear compartment and rapped her knuckles against the matte surface of Cohl's container.
'Not much longer,' she said quietly.
When the coffinlike canisters had been loaded, the flotilla of hoversleds moved across the spaceport's duracrete apron to the customs warehouse, where more of Havac's terrorists were guarding the roll-away doors.
To all sides, ships were arriving and launching.
Closer to the spaceport terminals, passengers were disembarking from the shuttles that had carried them from transports anchored in orbit. PK and protocol droids were everywhere, as were teams of security agents, waiting to hustle diplomats and dignitaries through immigration. Massed along the spaceport's stun-fenced perimeter, mobs of demonstrators were declaring their discontent, with chanted slogans and crudely lettered signs.
The hoversleds streamed into the warehouse in single file, the roll-away doors closing behind them. At once, the humanoid and alien pilots began to unseal the canisters, which opened with a hiss of escaping atmosphere.
Cohl climbed from his coffin, pulled off his rebreather, and jumped to the sawdust-covered floor, gazing around expectantly. The place smelled of spacecraft exhaust and hydrocarbons.
'Punctual, as ever, Captain,' Havac said, as he and a group of his cohorts emerged from behind a palisade of stacked cargo bins. Sporting a colorful headcloth and scarf that left only his eyes exposed, the Nebula Front
