Sacrifice

In daylight, it looked even worse than it had when she'd last visited. A peppering of blaster burns had left blisters in the paint on the doors, and the masonry was pocked with holes from ballistic rounds that hadn't been there last time—as far as she could tell. A trail of blood drops from the door ended in a larger pool, dried to a dull tarry blackness.

Street cleaning wasn't frequent here.

A sign above the door said welcome to the paradise cantina. It also said no helmets.

"I'm offended that they don't respect cultural diversity," Fett muttered.

"That's how I know what the clone in gray looked like. He took his helmet off."

"Fine." A couple of low-life males—a human and a Rodian—ambled to within ten meters of the speeder and stared at it. Then they seemed to notice Fett, and then his blaster and rocket-loaded backpack, and suddenly they appeared to remember pressing business elsewhere. Fett locked the speeder and set the anti-theft device with a thermal detonator. The two males broke into a run in the opposite direction and vanished. "They don't seem to know me here, anyway. Fame's fleeting."

Mirta took off her helmet. Fett ignored the request above the doors. The bar smelled as bad as it ever had, a mix of vomit, stale ale, and oil that could have been from machines or very old fried food. The clientele matched their environment, possibly because they'd spent their disposable income on state-of-the-art weaponry. The Kuati barkeeper was filling small dishes on the countertop with pickles that bore an unappetizing resemblance to eyeballs, so they stood at the bar trying to look normal —normal for the Paradise, anyway.

The barkeep caught sight of Mirta first. She must have been staring at the pickles too carefully.

"You got to buy a drink," he said. "No snacks without—" Then his gaze