by Timothy Zahn
She twisted back and sprinted for the four shed, pulling her blaster from its forearm sheath as she ran. The lock on the room inexplicably refused to open; she tried it twice and then blasted it.
Skywalker was gone.
She swore, viciously, and ran out into the compound. The Skipray had shifted to forward motion now, disappearing behind the trees to the west. Jamming her blaster back into its sheath, she grabbed the comlink off her belt-
And swore again. The Imperials could be here at any minute, and any mention of Skywalker's presence would land them all in very deep trouble indeed.
Which left her with exactly one option.
She reached the second Skipray at a dead run and had it in the air within two minutes. Skywalker would not-would not-get away now.
Kicking the drive to full power, she screamed off in pursuit.
Chapter 23
They showed up almost simultaneously on the scopes: the other of Karrde's fighter ships pursuing him from behind, and the Imperial Star Destroyer in orbit far overhead. "I think," Luke called back to Artoo, "that we're in trouble."
The droid's reply was almost swallowed up in the roar as Luke gingerly eased the drive up as high as he dared. The strange fighter's handling wasn't even remotely like anything he'd ever flown before; slightly reminiscent of the snowspeeders the Alliance had used on Hoth, but with the kind of sluggish response time that implied a great deal of armor and engine mass. With time, he was pretty sure he'd be able to master it.
But time was something he was rapidly running out of.
He risked a glance at the aft-vision display. The other fighter was coming up fast, with no more than a minute or two now separating the two ships. Obviously, the pilot had far more experience with the craft than Luke had. That, or else such a fierce determination to recapture Luke that it completely overrode normal common-sense caution.
Either way, it meant Mara Jade.
The fighter dipped a little too deep, scraping its ventral tail fin against the tops of the trees and drawing a sharp squeal of protest from Artoo. "Sorry," Luke called back, feeling a fresh surge of perspiration break out on his forehead as he again carefully eased the drive up a notch. Speaking of overriding common sense . . . But at the moment, sticking to the treetops was about the only option he had. The forest below, for some unknown reason, seemed to have a scattering or scrambling effect on sensor scans, both detection and navigational. Staying low forced his pursuer to stay low, too, lest she lose visual contact with him against the mottled forest backdrop, and also at least partially hid him from the orbiting Star Destroyer.
The Star Destroyer. Luke glanced at the image on his overhead scope, feeling his stomach tighten. At least he knew now who the company was Mara had mentioned. It looked like he'd gotten out just in the nick of time.
On the other hand, perhaps the move to that storage shed implied that Karrde had decided not to sell him to the Imperials after all. It might be worth asking Karrde about someday. Preferably from a great distance.
Behind him, Artoo suddenly trilled a warning. Luke jerked in his seat, eyes flickering across the scopes as he searched for the source of the trouble-
And jerked again. There, directly above his dorsal tail fin and less than a ship's length away, was the other fighter.
"Hang on!" Luke shouted at Artoo, clenching his teeth tightly together. His one chance now was to pull a drop-kick Koiogran turn, killing his forward momentum and loop-rolling into another direction. Twisting the control stick with one hand, he jammed the throttle forward with the other-
And abruptly, the cockpit canopy exploded into a slapping tangle of tree branches, and he was thrown hard against his restraints as the fighter spun and twisted and rolled out of control.
The last thing he heard before the darkness took him was Artoo's shrill electronic scream.
The three shuttles came to a perfectly synchronized landing as, overhead, the TIE fighter escort shot by in equally perfect formation. "The Empire's parade-ground expertise hasn't eroded, anyway," Aves murmured.
"Quiet," Karrde murmured back, watching the shuttle ramps lower to the ground. The center one, almost certainly, would be Thrawn's.
Marching with blaster rifles held ceremonially across their chests, a line of stormtroopers filed down each of the three ramps. Behind them, emerging not from the center but from the rightmost of the shuttles, came a handful of midranking officers. Following them came a short, wiry being of unknown race with dark gray skin, bulging eyes, a protruding jaw, and the look of a bodyguard. Following him came Grand Admiral Thrawn.
So much, Karrde thought, for him doing things the obvious way. It would be something to make a note of for future reference.
With his small reception committee beside him, he walked toward the approaching group of Imperials, trying to ignore the stares of the stormtroopers. "Grand Admiral Thrawn," he nodded in greeting. "Welcome to our little corner of Myrkr. I'm Talon Karrde."
"Pleased to meet you, Captain," Thrawn said, inclining his head slightly. Those glowing eyes, Karrde decided, were even more impressive in person than they were on a comm display. And considerably more intimidating.
"I apologize for our somewhat less than formal greeting," Karrde continued, waving a hand at his group. "We don't often entertain people of your status here."
Thrawn cocked a blue-black eyebrow. "Really. I'd have thought a man in your position would be used to dealing with the elite. Particularly high planetary officials whose cooperation, shall we say, you find you require?"
Karrde smiled easily. "We deal with the elite from time to time. But not here. This is-was, I should say," he added, glancing significantly at the stormtroopers, "-our private operations base."
"Of course," Thrawn said. "Interesting drama a few minutes ago out there to the west. Tell me about it."
With an effort, Karrde hid a grimace. He'd hoped the sensor-scrambling effect of Myrkr's trees would have hidden the Skipray chase from Thrawn's view. Obviously, it hadn't. "Merely a small internal problem," he assured the Grand Admiral. "A former and somewhat disgruntled employee broke into one of our storage sheds, stole some merchandise, and made off with one of our ships. Another of our people is in pursuit."
"Was in pursuit, Captain," Thrawn corrected lazily, those eyes seeming to burn into Karrde's face. "Or didn't you know they both went down?"
Karrde stared at him, a thin needle of ice running through him. "I didn't know that, no," he said. "Our sensors-the metallic content of the trees fouls them up badly."
"We had a higher observation angle," Thrawn said. "It looked as if the first ship hit the trees, with the pursuer getting caught in the slipstream." He regarded Karrde thoughtfully. "I take it the pursuer was someone special?"
Karrde let his face harden a bit. "All my associates are special," he said, pulling out his comlink. "Please excuse me a moment; I have to get a rescue team organized."
Thrawn took a long step forward, reaching two pale blue fingers to cover the top of the comlink. "Permit me," he said smoothly. "Troop commander?"
One of the stormtroopers stepped forward. "Sir?"
"Take a detail out to the crash site," Thrawn ordered, his eyes still on Karrde. "Examine the wreckage, and bring back any survivors. And anything that looks like it wouldn't normally belong in a Skipray blastboat."
"Yes, sir." The other gestured, and one of the columns of stormtroopers turned and retraced their steps up the ramp of the left-most shuttle.
"I appreciate your assistance, Admiral," Karrde said, his mouth suddenly a little dry. "But it really isn't necessary."
"On the contrary, Captain," Thrawn said softly. "Your assistance with the ysalamiri has left us in your debt. How better for us to repay you?"
"How better, indeed?" Karrde murmured. The ramp lifted into place, and with the hum of repulsorlifts, the shuttle rose into the air. The cards were dealt, and there was nothing he could do now to alter them. He could only hope that Mara somehow had things under contr
ol.
With anyone else, he wouldn't have bet on it. With Mara . . . there was a chance.
"And now," Thrawn said, "I believe you were going to show me around?"
"Yes," Karrde nodded. "If you'll come this way, please?"
"Looks like the stormtroopers are leaving," Han said quietly, pressing the macrobinoculars a little harder against his forehead. "Some of them, anyway. Filing back into one of the shuttles."
"Let me see," Lando muttered from the other side of the tree.
Keeping his movements slow and careful, Han handed the macrobinoculars over. There was no telling what kind of equipment they had on those shuttles and TIE fighters, and he didn't especially trust all this talk about how good the trees were at sensor shielding.
"Yes, it seems to be just the one shuttle that's going," Lando agreed.
Han half turned, the serrated, grasslike plants they were lying on top of digging into his shirt with the movement. "You get Imperial visitors here often?" he demanded.
"Not here," Ghent shook his head nervously, his teeth almost chattering with tension. "They've been to the forest once or twice to pick up some ysalamiri, but they've never come to the base. At least, not while I was here."
"Ysalamiri?" Lando frowned. "What are those?"
"Little furry snakes with legs," Ghent said. "I don't know what they're good for. Look, couldn't we get back to the ship now? Karrde told me I was supposed to keep you there, where you'd be safe."
Han ignored him. "What do you think?" he asked Lando.
The other shrugged. "Got to have something to do with that Skipray that went burning out of here just as Karrde was herding us out."
"There was some kind of prisoner," Ghent offered. "Karrde and Jade had him stashed away-maybe he got out. Now, can we please get back to-"
"A prisoner?" Lando repeated, frowning back at the kid. "When did Karrde start dealing with prisoners?"
"Maybe when he started dealing with kidnappers," Han growled before Ghent could answer.
"We don't deal with kidnappers," Ghent protested.
"Well, you're dealing with one now," Han told him, nodding toward the group of Imperials. "That little gray guy in there?-that's one of the aliens who tried to kidnap Leia and me."
"What?" Lando peered through the macrobinoculars again. "Are you sure?"
"It's one of the species, anyway. We didn't stop at the time to get names." Han looked back at Ghent. "This prisoner-who was he?"
"I don't know," Ghent shook his head. "They brought him back on the Wild Karrde a few days ago and put him in the shortterm barracks. I think they'd just moved him over to one of the storage sheds when we got the word that the Imperials were coming down for a visit."
"What did he look like?"
"I don't know!" Ghent hissed, what little was left of his composure going fast. Skulking around forests and spying on armed stormtroopers was clearly not the sort of thing an expert slicer was supposed to have to put up with. "None of us was supposed to go near him or ask any questions about him."
Lando caught Han's eye. "Could be someone they don't want the Imperials to get hold of. A defector, maybe, trying to get to the New Republic?"
Han felt his lip twist. "I'm more worried right now about them having moved him out of the barracks. That could mean the stormtroopers are planning to move in for a while."
"Karrde didn't say anything about that," Ghent objected.
"Karrde may not know it yet," Lando said dryly. "Trust me-I was on the short end of a stormtrooper bargain once." He handed the macrobinoculars back to Han. "Looks like they're going inside."
They were, indeed. Han watched as the procession set off: Karrde and the blue-skinned Imperial officer in front, their respective entourages following, the twin columns of stormtroopers flanking the whole parade. "Any idea who that guy with the red eyes is?" he asked Ghent.
"I think he's a Grand Admiral or something," the other said. "Took over Imperial operations a while back. I don't know his name."
Han looked at Lando, found the other sending the same look right back at him. "A Grand Admiral?" Lando repeated carefully.
"Yeah. Look, they're going-there's nothing else to see. Can we please-?"
"Let's get back to the Falcon," Han muttered, stowing the macrobinoculars in their belt pouch and starting a backwards elbows-and-knees crawl from their covering tree. A Grand Admiral. No wonder the New Republic had been getting the sky cut out from under them lately.
"I don't suppose you have any records on Imperial Grand Admirals back on the Falcon," Lando murmured, backing up alongside him.
"No," Han told him. "But they've got 'em on Coruscant."
"Great," Lando said, the words almost lost in the hissing of the sharp-bladed grass as they elbowed their way through it. "Let's hope we live long enough to get this tidbit back there."
"We will," Han assured him grimly. "We'll stick around long enough to find out what kind of game Karrde's playing, but then we're gone. Even if we have to blow out of here with that camo net still hanging off the ship."
The strangest thing about waking up this time, Luke decided dimly, was that he didn't actually hurt anywhere.
And he should have. From what he remembered of those last few seconds-and from the view of splintered trees outside the fighter's twisted canopy-he would have counted himself lucky even to be alive, let alone undamaged. Clearly, the restraints and crash balloons had been augmented by something more sophisticated-an emergency acceleration compensator, perhaps.
A shaky sort of gurgle came from behind him. "You okay, Artoo?" he called, levering himself out of his seat and climbing awkwardly across the canted floor. "Hang on, I'm coming."
The droid's information retrieval jack had been snapped off in the crash, but apart from that and a couple of minor dents, he didn't seem to have been damaged. "We'd better get moving," Luke told him, untangling him from his restraints. "That other ship could be back with a ground party any time."
With an effort, he got Artoo aft. The hatchway door popped open without serious complaint; hopping down, he looked around.
The second fighter would not be returning with any ground parties. It was right here. In worse shape, if possible, than Luke's.
From the hatchway, Artoo whistled in squeamish-sounding awe. Luke glanced up at him, looked back at the ruined craft. Given the fighters' safety equipment, it was unlikely that Mara was seriously injured. A backup flight was inevitable-she would probably be able to hold out until then.
But then again, she might not.
"Wait here, Artoo," he told the droid. "I'm going to take a quick look."
Even though the exterior of the fighter was in worse shape than Luke's, the interior actually seemed to be a little better off. Crunching his way across the bits of debris in the weapons/tech area, he stepped into the cockpit doorway.
Only the top of the pilot's head showed over the seat back, but that shimmering red-gold hair was all he needed to see to know that his earlier guess had been correct. It was indeed Mara Jade who'd been chasing him.
For a pair of heartbeats he stayed where he was, torn between the need for haste and the need to satisfy his internal sense of ethics. He and Artoo had to get out of here with all possible speed; that much was obvious. But if he turned his back on Mara now, without even pausing to check her condition . . .
His mind flashed back to Coruscant, to the night Ben Kenobi had said his final farewells. In other words, he'd told Threepio later up on the roof, a Jedi can't get so caught up in matters of galactic importance that it interferes with his concern for individual people. And it would, after all, only take a minute. Stepping into the room, he looked around the seat back.