Heir to the Jedi by Kevin Hearne Page B

ship.”
    “Absolutely, you do that,” she replied, and plopped herselfinto a chair resting against the wall. She didn’t look entirely lucid, so I programmed the autodoc to begin its work on the man before I left him.
    The remaining cabins were empty and the bridge was pristine. I wasn’t attacked at any point, so I thumbed the shipwide comm and said, “Nakari, the ship is clear, at least without scanning. I will start up the engines and run preflight, then come back through with a scanner to make doubly sure.” She acknowledged, and then the work began. The
Harvester
was okay on fuel and all systems were nominal, except for the profound lack of a crew at the moment. I dragged all the victims into the holding area between the galley and the bathroom, where their unused armor was, then returned briefly to the
Desert Jewel
to fetch a small life-form scanner to scan the
Harvester
thoroughly. It was truly clear, so I asked Nakari what she’d like to do next. “How are we getting this ship out of here?”
    “Link it to the
Desert Jewel
’s nav, and you fly us all back to Pasher. I’ll stay on board in case this guy wakes up and try to clean up some of this mess.”
    “Sounds like a plan.”
    “Yeah. We better get paid
really
well for this.”

FAYET KELEN WAITED for us on our assigned landing pad when we arrived on Pasher—waited on Nakari and the
Harvester
, anyway, along with a small throng of his employees. Artoo and I joined them once we’d secured the
Desert Jewel
.
    Nakari had evidently given her father a quick summary of events, because as I stepped up to join them, he boomed, “Pilot! Well met and welcome. I am told you distinguished yourself on Fex.” That might have been stretching the account a bit far since I had accomplished little beyond my own survival, but his eyes dropped to Artoo and he continued before I could reply. “Your droid has erased all the data provided earlier?”
    “Artoo, please delete the files Mr. Kelen gave us.” The droid beeped an acknowledgment and Kelen chuckled.
    “Good, good. But forgive me if I would like some stronger assurance that my interests are protected.” His sausage fingers fished a datachip out of his tunic pocket, and he handed it tome. “I had this prepared for your arrival. It will confirm the erasure of all files I gave you in your droid’s memory and erase any that accidentally remain, nothing more.”
    Refusing to run the chip would only invite suspicion when I had already promised to erase everything, so I inserted it and Artoo ran the program, spitting it back out in a few seconds. Nakari winked at me, however, indicating that perhaps she had her own backup of the Fexian coordinates stored somewhere.
    “Excellent,” Kelen said. His hand danced about on his personal datapad and he said, “I am depositing a goodly sum into an escrow account, which your droid may access and distribute to you both, and I thank you for returning my ship, my crew both living and deceased, and alien life that will delight my scientists.”
    Sensing that he was about to turn his attention elsewhere and dismiss us, Nakari said, “Daddy. Don’t send anyone else there until you read my full report. Those things could be sentient. And even if you ignore that, you have to upgrade the armor’s mobility.”
    He placed a hand on her shoulder. “I will digest all you have written before acting further. My primary concern now is that you see a surgeon about that hand. See where my minions come? Go with them.”
    “What?” An ambulance coasted to a stop near the ship and two earnest medics hopped out, asking Fayet Kelen who was hurt.
    “Take my daughter to the finest surgeon posthaste and bill it to me. Go!”
    “Daddy, wait! What about Luke?”
    “Fear not, your pilot will be allowed to rest in comfort until you are ready to depart.”
    “Don’t leave without me, Luke!” she called over her shoulder as the paramedics led her to the ambulance.
    “I won’t,” I said,