Star Wars - Thrawn Trilogy - The Last Command 03

by Timothy Zahn

  The door unlocked and swung open . . . but it wasn't Luke Skywalker who stood there, "Hello, Mara," Leia Organa Solo nodded to her. "Am I interrupting anything?"

  "Not at all," Mara said politely, suppressing a grimace. The last thing she wanted right now was company, particularly company that was in any way associated with Skywalker. But as long as she and Ghent were still stuck here it wouldn't be smart to deliberately alienate someone of Organa Solo's influence. "I was just reading some of the news reports from the battle regions. Please come in."

  "Thank you," Organa Solo said, stepping past her into the suite. "I was looking over those same reports a little while ago. Grand Admiral Thrawn is certainly justifying the late Emperor's confidence in his ability."

  Mara threw her a sharp look, wondering what Skywalker had told her. But Organa Solo's eyes were turned toward the window and the lights of the Imperial City below. And what little Mara could discern of the other woman's sense didn't seem to be taunting. "Yes, Thrawn was one of the best," she said. "Brilliant and innovative, with an almost compulsive thirst for victory."

  "Perhaps he needed to prove he was the equal of the other Grand Admirals," Organa Solo suggested. "Particularly given his mixed heritage and the Emperor's feelings toward nonhumans."

  "I'm sure that was part of it," Mara said.

  Organa Solo took another step toward the window, her back still turned to Mara. "Did you know the Grand Admiral well?" she asked.

  "Not really," Mara said cautiously. "He communicated with Karrde a few times when I was there and visited our Myrkr base once. He had a big business going in Myrkr ysalamiri for a while—Karrde once figured they'd hauled five or six thousand of them out of there—"

  "I meant, did you know him during the war," Organa Solo said, turning finally to face her.

  Mara returned her gaze steadily. If Skywalker had told her . . . but if he'd told her, why wasn't Mara in a detention cell somewhere? No; Organa Solo had to be on a fishing expedition. "Why should I have known Thrawn during the war?" she countered.

  Organa Solo shrugged fractionally. "There's been a suggestion made that you might once have served with the Empire."

  "And you wanted to make sure before you locked me up?"

  "I wanted to see if you might have knowledge about the Grand Admiral we could use against him," Organa Solo corrected.

  Mara snorted. "There isn't anything," she said. "Not with Thrawn. He has no patterns; no favorite strategies; no discernible weaknesses. He studies his enemies and tailors his attacks against psychological blind spots. He doesn't overcommit his forces, and he's not too proud to back off when it's clear he's losing. Which doesn't happen very often. As you're finding out." She cocked an eyebrow. "Any of that help you?" she added sarcastically.

  "Actually, it does," Organa Solo said. "If we can identify the weaknesses he's planning to exploit, we might be able to anticipate the thrust of his attack."

  "That's not going to be easy," Mara warned.

  Organa Solo smiled faintly. "No, but it gives us a place to start. Thank you for your help."

  "You're welcome," Mara said, the words coming out automatically. "Was there anything else?"

  "No, I don't think so," Organa Solo said, stepping away from the window and heading for the door. "I need to get back and get some sleep before the twins wake up again. And you'll probably want to be going to bed soon, too."

  "And I'm still free to move around the Palace?"

  Organa Solo smiled again. "Of course. Whatever you did in the past, it's clear you're not serving with the Empire now. Good night." She turned to the door, reached for the handle—

  "I'm going to kill your brother," Mara told her. "Did he tell you that?"

  Organa Solo stiffened, just noticeably, and Mara could sense the ripple of shock run through that Jedi-trained calmness. Her hand, on the door handle, dropped back to her side. "No, he didn't," she said, her back still to Mara. "May I ask why?"

  "He destroyed my life," Mara told her, feeling the old ache deep in her throat and wondering why she was even telling Organa Solo this. "You're wrong; I didn't just serve with the Empire. I was a personal agent of the Emperor himself. He brought me here to Coruscant and the Imperial Palace and trained me to be an extension of his will across the galaxy. I could hear his voice from anywhere in the Empire, and knew how to give his orders to anyone from a stormtrooper brigade all the way up to a Grand Moff. I had authority and power and a purpose in life. They knew me as the Emperor's Hand, and they respected me the same way they did him. Your brother took all that away from me."

  Organa Solo turned back to face her. "I'm sorry," she said. "But there was no other choice. The lives and freedom of billions of beings—"

  "I'm not going to debate the issue with you," Mara cut her off. "You couldn't possibly understand what I've been through."

  A shadow of distant pain crossed Organa Solo's face. "You're wrong," she said quietly. "I understand very well."

  Mara glared at her; but it was a glare without any real force of hatred behind it. Leia Organa Solo of Alderaan, who'd been forced to watch as the first Death Star obliterated her entire world . . . "At least you had a life to go to afterward," she growled at last. "You had the whole Rebellion—more friends and allies than you could even count. I had no one."

  "It must have been hard."

  "I survived it," Mara said briefly. "So now are you going to have me hauled off to detention?"

  Those Alderaanian-cultured eyebrows lifted slightly. "You keep suggesting that I should have you locked up. Is that what you want?"

  "I already told you what I want. I want to kill your brother."

  "Do you?" Organa Solo asked. "Do you really?"

  Mara smiled thinly. "Bring him here and I'll prove it."

  Organa Solo studied her face, and Mara could feel the tenuous touch of her rudimentary Jedi senses as well. "From what Luke's told me, it sounds like you've already had several chances to kill him," Organa Solo pointed out. "You didn't take them."

  "It wasn't from lack of intent," Mara said. But it was a thought that had been gnawing at her as well. "I just keep getting into situations where I need him alive. But that'll change."

  "Perhaps," Organa Solo said, her eyes still moving across Mara's face. "Or perhaps it's not really you who wants him dead."

  Mara frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"

  Organa Solo's gaze drifted away from Mara to the window, and Mara could feel a tightening of the other woman's sense. "I was at Endor a couple of months ago," she said.

  An icy sensation crawled up Mara's spine. She'd been at Endor, too, taken there to face Grand Admiral Thrawn . . . and she remembered what the space around the world of the Emperor's death had felt like. "And?" she prompted. Even to herself, her voice sounded strained.

  Organa Solo heard it, too. "You know what I'm talking about, don't you?" she asked, her eyes still on the lights of the Imperial City. "There's some shadow of the Emperor's presence still there. Some of that final surge of hatred and anger. Like a—I don't know what."

  "Like an emotional bloodstain," Mara said quietly, the image springing spontaneously and vividly into her mind. "Marking the spot where he died."

  She looked at Organa Solo, to find the other woman's eyes on her. "Yes," Organa Solo said. "That's exactly what it was like."

  Mara took a deep breath, forcing the black chill from her mind. "So what does that have to do with me?"

  Organa Solo studied her. "I think you know."

  YOU WILL KILL LUKE SKYWALKER. "No," Mara said, her mouth suddenly dry. "You're wrong."

  "Am I?" Organa Solo asked softly. "You said you could hear the Emperor's voice from anywhere in the galaxy."

  "I could hear his voice," Mara snapped. "Nothing more."

  Organa Solo shrugged slightly. "You know best, of course. It might still be worth thinking about."

  "I'll do that," Mara said stiffly. "If that's all, you can go."

  Organa Solo nodded, her sense sho
wing no irritation at being dismissed like some minor underling. "Thank you for your assistance," she said. "I'll talk with you later."

  With a final smile, she pulled the door open and left. "Don't count on it," Mara muttered after her, turning back to the desk and dropping into the chair. This had gone far enough. If Karrde was too preoccupied with business to get in touch with his contact man, then the contact man himself was going to get her and Ghent out of here. Pulling up her code file, she keyed for long-range comm access.

  The response was prompt. UNABLE TO ACCESS, the words scrolled across her display. LONG-RANGE COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM TEMPORARILY DOWN.

  "Terrific," she growled under her breath. "How soon till it's back up?"

  UNABLE TO DETERMINE. REPEATING, LONG-RANGE COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM TEMPORARILY DOWN.

  With a curse, she shut the terminal off. The whole universe seemed to be against her tonight. She picked up the data pad she'd been reading earlier, put it down again, and stood back up. It was late, she'd already fallen asleep once at her desk, and if she had any sense she would just give it up and go to bed.

  Stepping across to the window, she leaned against the carved wooden frame and gazed out at the city lights stretching halfway to infinity. And tried to think.

  No. It was impossible. Impossible, absurd, and unthinkable. Organa Solo could waste as much breath as she wanted spinning these clever speculations of hers. After five years of living with this thing, Mara ought to know her own thoughts and feelings. Ought to know what was real, and what wasn't.

  And yet . . .

  The image of the dream rose up before her. The Emperor, gazing at her with bitter intensity as Vader and Skywalker closed in on him. The unspoken but tangible accusation in those yellow eyes: that it was her failure to take care of Skywalker at Jabba the Hutt's hideout that had caused this. That flood of powerless rage as the two lightsabers were lifted over him. That final cry, ringing forever through her head—

  YOU WILL KILL LUKE SKYWALKER.

  "Stop it!" she snarled, slapping the side of her head hard against the window jamb. The image and words exploded into a flash of pain and a shower of sparks and vanished.

  For a long time she just stood there, listening to the rapid thudding of her heartbeat in her ears, the conflicting thoughts chasing each other around her mind. Certainly the Emperor would have wanted Skywalker dead . . . but Organa Solo was still wrong. She had to be. It was Mara herself who wanted to kill Luke Skywalker, not some ghost from the past.

  Far across the city, a multicolored light rippled gently against the surrounding buildings and clouds overhead, jolting her out of her musings. The clock at the ancient Central Gathering Hall, marking the hour as it had for the past three centuries. The light changed texture and rippled again, then winked out.

  Half an hour past midnight. Lost in her thoughts, Mara hadn't realized it had gotten that late. And all of this wasn't accomplishing anything, anyway. She might as well go to bed and try to put the whole thing out of her mind long enough to get some sleep. With a sigh, she pushed away from the window—

  And froze. Deep in the back of her mind, the quiet alarm bell had just gone off.

  Somewhere nearby, there was danger.

  She slid her tiny blaster out of its forearm holster, listening hard. Nothing. Glancing back once at the window, wondering briefly if anyone was watching her through the privacy laminate, she moved silently to the door. Putting her ear against it, she listened again.

  For a moment there was nothing. Then, almost inaudible through the thick wood, she heard the sound of approaching footsteps. Footsteps with the kind of quiet but purposeful stride that she had always associated with combat professionals. She tensed; but the footsteps passed her door without pausing, fading away toward the far end of the hallway.

  She waited a count often to let them get a good lead on her. Then, carefully, she opened her door and looked outside.

  There were four of them, dressed in the uniforms of Palace security, walking in a bent diamond formation. They reached the hallway and slowed as the point man eased a quick look around it. His hand curved slightly, and all four continued around the corner and disappeared. Heading toward the stairway that led down to the central sections of the palace below or up to the Tower and the permanent residential suites above.

  Mara stared after them, her fatigue gone in a surge of adrenaline. The bent diamond formation, the obvious caution, the hand signal, and her own premonition of danger—they all pointed to the same conclusion.

  Imperial Intelligence had penetrated the Palace.

  She turned back toward her desk, stopped short with a quiet curse. One of the first tasks the team would have carried out would have been to get into the Palace's computer and comm systems. Any attempt to sound the alarm would probably be intercepted, and would certainly tip them off.

  Which meant that if they were going to be stopped, she was going to have to do it herself. Gripping her blaster tightly, she slipped out of her room and headed after them.

  She'd made it to the corner and was just easing forward for a careful look when she heard the quiet click of a blaster safety behind her. "All right, Jade," a voice murmured in her ear. "Nice and easy. It's all over."

  Chapter 9

  Admiral Drayson leaned back in his seat and shook his head. "I'm sorry, Calrissian, General Bel Iblis," he said for probably the tenth time since the session had begun. "We just can't risk it."

  Lando took a deep breath, trying to scrape together a few last shards of patience. This was his sweat and work that Drayson was casually throwing away. "Admiral—"

  "It's not that much of a risk, Admiral," Bel Iblis cut in smoothly and with far more courtesy than Lando had left at his disposal. "I've shown you at least eight places we could draw an Assault Frigate from which would have it out of service less than ten days."

  Drayson snorted. "At the rate he's going, Grand Admiral Thrawn could take three more sectors in ten days. You want to give him a shot at four?"

  "Admiral, we're talking a single Assault Frigate here," Lando said. "Not a dozen Star Cruisers or an orbital battle station. What could Thrawn possibly have up his sleeve where one Assault Frigate could make or break the attack?"

  "What could he do against a heavily defended shipyard with a single rigged freighter?" Drayson retorted. "Face it, gentlemen: when you go up against someone like Thrawn, all the usual rules get tossed out the lock. He could spin a net out of this so transparent that we'd never even see it until it was too late. He's done it before."

  Lando grimaced; but it was hardly a frame of mind he could really blame Drayson for. A couple of months back, when he and Han had first been brought to Bel Iblis's hidden military base, he'd been three-quarters convinced himself that the whole thing was some gigantic and convoluted scheme that Thrawn had created for their benefit. It had taken him until after the Katana battle to finally be convinced otherwise, and it had taught him a valuable lesson. "Admiral, we all agree that Thrawn is a brilliant tactician," he said, choosing his words carefully. "But we can't assume that everything that happens in the galaxy is part of some grand, all-encompassing scheme that he's dreamed up. He got my metal stockpiles and put Nomad City out of commission. Odds are that's all he wanted."

  Drayson shook his head. "I'm afraid 'odds are' isn't good enough, Calrissian. You find me proof that the Empire won't take advantage of a missing Assault Frigate and I'll consider loaning you one."

  "Oh, come on, Admiral—"

  "And if I were you," Drayson added, starting to gather his data cards together, "I'd play down my connection with the whole Nkllon mining project. A lot of us still remember that it was your mole miners Thrawn used in his attack on the Sluis Van shipyards."