by Timothy Zahn
She found herself in a small room, no more than twice as wide as the tile-walled tunnel that extended into the hills from its rear wall, with a small Slipter landspeeder parked along the side. In the distance, she could see the reflected glow from the other landspeeder's lights receding rapidly down the tunnel.
Using her inciter, she started up the Slipter, hoping the sound of the pirates' own vehicle would cover up the extra noise. Swinging it around, leaving the lights off, she headed off in pursuit.
* * *
"Report from Security Team Eight, sir," the young trooper at the comm monitor said, his voice academy crisp. "Three possibles have been spotted in a landspeeder outside the Timaris Building. Security Team Two reporting two possibles have just entered a jewelry store on the fourteenth block of Bleaker Street."
"I've got data feeds from both teams," the trooper at one of the computer displays added.
"Running facial matches now."
"He'll be running them against the complete Fleet record system over at Ompersan, Your Excellency," the lieutenant standing beside Disra explained. "If they've ever crossed paths with the Empire, their faces will be in there."
"Very good, Lieutenant," Disra said, looking around the darkened palace situation room with a mixture of satisfaction and envy. Satisfaction, because the command team he'd installed here a year ago was working with the kind of speed and efficiency that had once been the proud hallmark of the Imperial military. Envy, because it wasn't him they were performing for. "Any suggestions, Admiral?" Standing behind the main comm monitor station, Thrawn lifted his eyebrows politely. In the dim lighting his glowing red eyes looked even brighter than usual. "I suggest, Your Excellency," he said, the word "suggest" carrying just the barest emphasis, "that we first allow the analysis staff to do their work. There's nothing to be gained by showing our hand until we're sure who the spies are."
"Maybe they all are," Disra countered, suddenly tired of the polite condescension. In character or not—dangerous or not—it was high time he took the con man down a stroke or two. "Coruscant has been trying to learn Bastion's current location for a good two years now. I doubt they would waste that hard-fought knowledge just to drop one or two spies on us."
He could feel Tierce's eyes on him, and the heat of the Guardsman's disapproval of his verbal challenge. But Thrawn's blue-black eyebrows merely lifted politely. "What do you suggest, then, Your Excellency? That a saboteur team has been sent in to bring down our planetary shields in preparation for a major attack?"
Disra stared at him, the sudden jolt momentarily sidetracking his irritation. That was precisely the scheme they themselves were working against the Bothan homeworld of Bothawui. What in the Empire was Flim doing talking openly about such a thing here?
He was saved from his sudden confusion by the trooper at the computer console. "Report from Ompersan, Admiral," the other announced. "Suspected possibles have been cleared. All are listed as Imperial citizens."
"Very good," Thrawn acknowledged. "Continue the search. Your Excellency, I presume you have not forgotten your appointment."
Disra looked at his chrono, suppressing a scowl. Yes, Pellaeon would be arriving at the palace any minute now. And between that time crunch and the confusion his barbed remark about saboteurs had caused, the con man had managed to blunt the Moff's verbal attack without saying anything that could be construed as insubordination.
Just the sort of thing the real Thrawn might have done. Disra supposed he ought to be pleased.
"Thank you for the reminder, Admiral," he said. "Carry on here. And let me know the minute—the minute—you find anything."
* * *
They had been back at work for half an hour when Lobot's fingers abruptly came to a halt. "What is it?" Han asked, the smell of the miasra sauce on his breath wafting by Lando's ear as Han leaned over his shoulder. "Are we in?"
"I don't know," Lando said, frowning at Lobot. The other's face had changed subtly, too, at about the same time his fingers had stopped typing. More importantly, the pattern of tiny lights on the frequency readout of his cyborg implant had changed. "Something's interrupted his contact with Moegid."
"Uh-oh," Han muttered under his breath. "You think they're on to us?"
"I don't know," Lando said again, studying Lobot's profile and wondering if he should try talking to him. Lobot's eyes seemed almost glazed over, as if he were in a trance or deep in thought. "I've never seen that comm pattern before."
"Um." Han reached out and experimentally touched Lobot's shoulder. There was no response.
"Backup frequency, maybe?"
"Could be," Lando agreed. "I didn't know they'd set up a second biocomm frequency, but that would make sense. I just wish—"
Abruptly, the pattern of tiny lights changed again. "Beware," Lobot croaked out, his voice an eerie parody of a Verpine's insectine speech. "Security frequencies very active."
"Moegid's talking through him," Lando said, a tight sensation in the pit of his stomach. As far he could remember, Lobot and Moegid had never done that before, either. "Moegid, can you hear me?" There was a long pause, as if some kind of awkward two-way translation was taking place. "I hear," Lobot said at last. "Beware. Security frequencies very active."
"They're on to us," Han said decisively, standing up. "Come on, let's get out of here."
"You think that's a good idea?" Lando asked, looking at the slightly blurred scene outside their privacy field. "At least here they'll have to come right up to us to get a good look at our faces."
"Only if they can't find a display unit to plug that droid out there into," Han said tartly. "Come on, give me a hand with Lobot—he might not be able to steer himself right now. Moegid, is there anyone snooping around the ship?"
They had made it halfway to the door, each of them gripping one of Lobot's upper arms, before Moegid's answer came back. "No one," Lobot assured them in the same Verpine croak.
"Instructions."
"Stay put," Han told him. "We'll be there as soon as we can. Better cut off your transmissions to Lobot, too."
"And don't touch anything," Lando added. "You start up the engines and they'll have you targeted in half a minute."
"They might anyway," Han warned as they continued toward the exit. "Two will get you the hand pot they figured out the record Leia and I gave Carib wasn't taken at Pakrik Minor. All they have to do is run the records for any ships that arrived after that drone probe did."
"Unless Moegid got into the spaceport computer and changed our arrival date," Lando grunted.
"Was he going to do that?"
"He was going to try. I don't know if he managed it or not."
The lights on Lobot's implant changed again; and suddenly, like a sleepwalker suddenly coming awake, he straightened up in their grasp, his tread becoming steady and firm. "We'll just have to get back as fast as we can," Lando said, letting go of Lobot's arm and reaching beneath his cloak to loosen the small, undetectable slugthrower hidden there. Theoretically undetectable, anyway. "And hope we get there before they do."
* * *
Ahead, the lights from the pirates' landspeeder stopped bouncing. Karoly took the cue and brought her own vehicle to a quick halt, shutting down the repulsorlifts as soon as it was safe to do so. Just in time. Even as the whine from her own repulsorlifts faded into silence she could hear the last echoes of sound as the vehicle ahead also powered down.
The lights were still pointed forward, away from her. Hopping out of her landspeeder, she headed that direction in a deceptively awkward-looking walk that struck a balance between speed and silence.
Not that the silent part was all that necessary. Zothip, in particular, didn't seem at all worried about noise. "Typical Imp rat-run, all right," his gruff voice boomed, unnaturally loud in the confines of the tunnel. "Where does this turbolift go?"
"Up into the palace, I presume," Control replied. He seemed to be at least making an effort to keep his volume down. "I've never actually—"
"Then where does this other part of the tunnel go?" someone else cut in.
"I don't know," Control said patiently. "As I started to say, I've never actually been in here." Karoly was close enough to see them now, framed at the edge of the landspeeder's lights. "We'd better find out," Zothip grunted. "Grinner, call the turbolift and stay here with it when it gets here. The rest of you, let's go for a walk."
The five of them strode off through the illumination of the landspeeder's lights, Zothip in the middle with the four guards forming a protective box around him. The remaining pirate, Grinner, punched the turbolift call once, then turned back to watch his departing comrades.
Karoly had reached the rear of the landspeeder by the time the turbolift car arrived. She dropped down behind the rear quarter, freezing in place with blaster ready, as Grinner turned back around to where he'd be able to see her.
But with the lights blazing practically in his face, he didn't have a hope of spotting her back there in the shadows. He glanced once into the car, apparently confirming it was empty, and reached in to push the hold button. Then, satisfied that he'd carried out his orders, he turned back around to watch for Zothip's return.
There were, Karoly realized, not a lot of choices open to her at this point, and the ones she had weren't all that palatable. She could settle the Mistryl's score with Zothip right here and now, counting on surprise and her Mistryl training to make up for her numerical disadvantage. But from what she'd overheard, it seemed there was something very interesting going on between Zothip and someone in the palace above them. A planned assassination, perhaps? Or even a coup?
Not that she particularly cared what happened to Imperial governors. Or soldiers or Moffs, for that matter. The whole lot of them could crash and burn as far as the Mistryl were concerned. But pirates sneaking into a governor's palace on an Imperial world was just odd enough to have piqued her curiosity. Rising from her crouch, she eased silently up behind Grinner. With his attention down the tunnel, and his mind who knew where, he never heard a thing. Sidling around behind him, watching to make sure she wasn't coming into his peripheral vision, she slipped into the turbolift car.
It was, as she'd guessed from the glimpse she'd gotten of its interior, a transplanted military turbolift car, probably scavenged from an old Dreadnaught. And as was the case with all such turbolifts, the door she'd just entered by was mirrored by another one on the opposite side of the car. It hadn't been used recently; a single glance told her that much. But by the same token, it also looked like it hadn't been sealed.
There was only one way to find out for sure... and the time for that test was now. In the distance she could hear echoing footsteps, and as she looked back at the doorway she saw Grinner disappear in that direction as he took a few steps down the tunnel toward the returning pirates. It was the work of five seconds to pull her climbing claws from her hip pouch, open them, fasten them securely to her hands, and ease their points into the crack between the closed doors. Setting her teeth, she began to pull them apart.
For a moment nothing happened. She pulled harder, putting Mistryl-honed muscle behind it; and with a suddenness that startled her they came apart, sliding smoothly and almost noiselessly into the walls of the car.
Unlike the car itself, the turbolift shaft behind the doors hadn't been transplanted from anywhere. It had been carved out of solid rock, with only a light gridwork frame installed to support the repulsorlift and tractor equipment that powered the system.
The clearance between the gridwork and the car was minimal, but adequate. Stepping through the door, turning again to face into the car, she found a toehold on the doorframe lip and got a grip on the doors.
She had them pulled back down to a slight crack when Zothip rounded the corner and stomped into the car.
She froze, abandoning the rest of her effort, her eyes searching the outside of the car now. If Grinner noticed the doors were cracked more than they had been earlier there was going to be trouble. But Grinner hadn't struck her as the observant type, and there was nothing she could do about it now anyway. More important was the fact that if she didn't find a way to hang on, she was going to be left behind.
There were no convenient handholds that she could get to, which meant she was going to have to make some. Timing it to the exact moment when one of the pirates stomped into the car, she jabbed her climbing hooks into the grillwork behind two of the glow panels. She'd barely gotten them set when there was the vibration of the main doors closing, and they were off.
"So what was at the other end of the tunnel?" she heard Grinner's voice ask through the crack between the doors.
She'd expected the response to come from Zothip, but it was Control's voice that answered.
"Looked like some sort of apartment," he said. "Rather nicely appointed."
"Anyone in it?" Grinner asked.
"Not at the moment," Control said. "But whoever was living there liked having his own personal Star Destroyer captain's chair."
"His own what?" Grinner growled. "What in Vader's face would anyone want with something like that?"
"Very good," Control said archly. "You've got the question. Now if we had the answer, we'd have a complete set."
"I don't like this," Zothip rumbled. "I don't like any of it. He's playing something real close to the chest, and I don't like it."
"Whatever it is, we'll find out soon enough," Control assured him. "We might want to go in a little quieter than you'd planned, though."
"Oh, we'll go in quiet, all right," Zothip promised darkly. "Don't worry about that. He'll never hear a thing."
CHAPTER
21
They had made it five blocks—which was four blocks farther than Han had thought they would get—when the whole thing started to unravel.
"Han?" Lando murmured as the three of them hurried across a busy street with a crowd of other pedestrians. "That security landspeeder there to the left just slowed down."
"I know," Han said grimly, peering around the edge of his scholar's hood. Near as he could tell through the curved windows, there were two men in the vehicle. Alert young men, by the looks of them, undoubtedly armed to the teeth. "That's, what, the third one that's taken an interest in us?"
"About that," Lando sighed. "Where's Luke and his Jedi tricks when you need them?"
"Luke or Leia," Han added, wishing mightily now that he hadn't argued so successfully against her coming on this trip. They might well have been spotted a lot sooner; but at least when they were they would have had a Jedi here on their side. "He's turning back around—they're on us, all right."
"Well, don't give up just yet," Lando said, glancing around. "You still have official standing with the New Republic—we may be able to talk our way out of it. Especially if they know how Leia reacts when one of her family gets in trouble."
"You mean like when one of the kids gets kidnapped or her husband gets beaten to a pulp or something?" Han growled, feeling his face warm.
"I didn't mean it that way," Lando protested.
"Thanks anyway," Han said, looking around for inspiration. His gaze fell on a tapcafe across the street with a large sign reading SABACC TOURNAMENT TODAY prominently displayed in the privacy-glazed window... "Over there." He nudged Lando in the tapcafe's direction. "You have your slugthrower, right?"
"Uh... yes," Lando said cautiously. "What exactly have you got in mind?"
"What's the one thing security types can't ever resist?" Han asked. "Especially young, cocky ones?"
"I don't know," Lando said humorlessly. "Working prisoners over?" Han shook his head. "A good commotion," he said, nodding toward the tapcafe. "You take Lobot into the middle of the place and clear it out. I'll handle the rest."
"Right. Good luck."
They made it across the traffic in one piece and went into the tapcafe. Inside, it was just as Han had hoped: large, well lit, and crowded to the gills with sabacc players hunched over tables and kibitzers standing behind them gazing over their shoulders. Br
eaking to the right just inside the door, he sidled around behind a wall of observers as Lando and Lobot worked their way in toward the curved bar bulging out into the room from the center of the left-hand wall. By the time they reached it Han had managed to work his way out of his scholar's robe. Kicking it back out of the way against the wall, he rubbed the sweat off his palms and waited for Lando to make his move. He didn't have to wait very long. "All right, that's it!" Lando abruptly bellowed, his voice cutting through the low murmur of background conversation like a lightsaber through a block of ice. All heads turned toward the bar—
And jerked back in shock and fright as the slugthrower blew a gaping hole in the ceiling.
"We'll settle this right here and now, you mangy kowk brain," Lando shouted over the echoing thundercrack and a handful of gasping shrieks. "Everybody else— out!" It was as unclear to Han as it was to everyone else just who the mangy kowk brain was that Lando was referring to. But if the sudden panicked exodus from the room was any indication, no one seemed eager to accept the title. Drinks, cards, and dignity completely forgotten, the whole crowd made a concerted dash for the door.
Han let about half of them get past him. Then, shoving his way into the stream, he squeezed through the door and out into the street.
He'd been right about the two security men. Their quiet surveillance totally abandoned, they were pushing their way upstream against the crowd toward the sound of the slugthrower shots, their blasters drawn and ready. Elbowing his way crosswise against the flow, Han angled toward them. Concentrating on the tapcafe, the first one shoved past Han without a single glance. Han waited until the second was just passing him; then, grabbing the kid's gun hand, he swiveled on one heel and drove his elbow hard into the other's stomach. The air went out of him in a loud, agonized whoosh that clearly announced he was out of the fight.