“We can ask that person where we are,” he said, motioning toward what looked like a bar and the bouncer guarding the door.
I hesitated. “Is it safe?”
“I dunno. They look nice though,” he added, and waved to the bouncer. I shadowed him, tugging anxiously on my braid.
The bouncer, an incredibly big Houk, eyed Sian. He crossed his massive arms across his barrel-like chest, surveying us with beady eyes set deep in a thick skull decorated with bone ridges. “Man-tah. Speak.”
Sian perked up.“Ah’chu apenkee!”he said with a wave of his hand. Huttese. So hewasfrom Wild Space—or at least the Outer Rim. He said something else fast and thick in the language and motioned behind them.
The Houk bouncer narrowed his eyes. Then he said in Basic, “Catch an air taxi at the end of the street.”
“Jupa uba.Thank you,” Sian replied, and tilted his head down the way.
As we followed the bouncer’s directions, he touchedhis cheek, wincing with a hiss. It was still red, and slightly swollen.
“You have a mean slap, you know,” he said. Noola purred again, and he wagged his finger at her. “That’s not nice. And you’re being dramatic.”
Such an odd pair they were.
Luckily, the bouncer had steered us right. There was a taxi call box at the end of the street. Sian dug into his pockets—he had a lot more of them than I would have thought—but when he came up empty, he took a pocketknife from his boot and crouched down to pop open the money collection bin.
“What are you doing?” I asked in alarm. “You can’t juststealthat!”
He rolled his eyes. “Don’t think too hard. I’m just recycling.” He pried the door open and took out more than the fare amount, then closed it back up. “How much do you need? Where are you going?”
“A hangar on level five-one-two-seven.”
He whistled. “Guess you’re a spacer then?”
“My family runs a tour company,” I replied. “We embark from there later today—oh, stars,” I gasped, realizing, and checked the time on my wrist chrono. “I was supposed to be back almost an hour ago. Dad’s going to kill me.”
Something over my shoulder caught his eye, but he tried to ignore it. “A tour company—like the Chandrila Star Line or whatever? The really fancy ships?”
I wrinkled my nose. Iwishedwe had that kind of money. “We’re not so fancy.”
His attention flicked again to whatever was behind me. “Ah.”
“We’re affordable, actually. And we orchestrate visits to historical locations, like battlefields, ancient ruins, and disasters.”
“So dark tourism then.”
“Just historically significant—what are you looking at?” I added, turning to glance over my shoulder, but he caught my chin to keep me from looking and rubbed a smear of grime off my cheek.
“Keep your eyes on me,” he said softly, his voice barely more than a rumble, “and stay calm. There are four people coming toward us with blasters.”
My entire body stilled and went cold. “First Order?”
“I don’t know. They don’t look it. We could have a bounty on us.”
Noola chirped to tell us that a taxi hovered over the landing pad, lowering toward us.
Sian said, “We’re just going to get in, quickly, and hopefully they won’t make a fuss.”
“And if they do?”
“You’ll be fine. Just do as I say, okay?”
I thought I could hear their footsteps—heavy and urgent—against the movement of the crowd, or that might have just been my imagination.
