"I doubt that my contacts are quite that extensive, Admiral," Karrde told him, trying hard to read that not-quite-human face. Did he know? Or was the question merely an exquisitely dangerous coincidence? "I don't think we'll be able to help you."
Thrawn's expression didn't change . . . but abruptly there was an edge of menace to his smile. "You'll try anyway. And then there's the matter of your refusal to help in our search for Luke Skywalker."
Some of the tightness in Karrde's chest eased. This was safer territory. "I'm sorry we were also unable to help there, Admiral. As I explained before to your representative, we were under several tight scheduling deadlines at the time. We simply couldn't spare the ships."
Thrawn's eyebrows lifted slightly. "At the time, you say? But the search is still going on, Captain."
Silently, Karrde cursed himself for the slip. "Still going on?" he echoed, frowning. "But your representative said Skywalker was flying an Incom X-wing starfighter. If you haven't found him by now, his life support will surely have given out."
"Ah," Thrawn said, nodding. "I see the misunderstanding. Normally, yes, you'd be correct. But Skywalker is a Jedi; and among a Jedi's bag of tricks is the ability to go into a sort of comatose state." He paused, and the image on the screen flickered momentarily. "So there's still plenty of time for you to join in the hunt."
"I see," Karrde said. "Interesting. I suppose that's just one of the many things the average person never knew about Jedi."
"Perhaps we'll have time to discuss such things when I arrive on Myrkr," Thrawn said.
Karrde froze, a horrible realization shooting through him like an electric shock. That brief flickering of Thrawn's image-
A glance at the auxiliary sensor display confirmed it: three Lambda-class shuttles and a full TIE fighter escort had left the Chimaera, heading toward the surface. "I'm afraid we don't have much to entertain you with," he said between suddenly stiff lips. Certainly not on such short notice."
"No need for entertainment," Thrawn assured him. "As I said, I'm simply coming for a talk. A brief talk, of course; I know how busy you are."
"I appreciate your consideration," Karrde said. "If you'll excuse me, Admiral, I need to begin the preparations to receive you."
"I look forward to our meeting," Thrawn said. His face vanished, and the display returned to its distant view of the Chimaera.
For a long moment Karrde just sat there, the possibilities and potential disasters flipping through his mind at top speed. "Get on the comlink to Chin," he told Mara. "Tell him we have Imperial guests coming, and he's to begin preparations to receive them properly. Then go to pad eight and have Aves move the Millennium Falcon farther back under cover. Go there in person-the Chimaera and its shuttles might be able to tap into our comlink transmissions."
"What about Solo and Calrissian?"
Karrde pursed his lips. "We'll have to get them out, of course. Move them into the forest, perhaps at or near their ship. I'd better deal with that myself."
"Why not turn them over to Thrawn?"
He looked up at her. At those burning eyes and that rigid, tightly controlled face . . . "With no offer of a bounty?" he asked. "Relying on the Grand Admiral's generosity after the fact?"
"I don't find that a compelling reason," Mara said bluntly.
"Neither do I," he countered coldly. "What I do find compelling is that they're our guests. They've sat at our table and eaten our food . . . and like it or not, that means they're under our protection."
Mara's lip twitched. "And do these rules of hospitality apply to Skywalker, too?" she asked sardonically.
"You know they don't," he said. "But now is not the time or the place to turn him over to the Empire, even if that's the way the decision ultimately goes. Do you understand?"
"No," she growled. "I don't."
Karrde eyed her, strongly tempted to tell her that she didn't need to understand, only to obey. "It's a matter of relative strength," he told her instead. "Here on the ground, with an Imperial Star Destroyer orbiting overhead, we have no bargaining position at all. I wouldn't do business under such circumstances even if Thrawn was the most trustworthy client in the galaxy. Which he's not. Now do you understand?"
She took a deep breath, let it out. "I don't agree," she gritted. "But I'll accept your decision."
"Thank you. Perhaps after the Imperials leave, you can ask General Calrissian about the perils of making bargains while stormtroopers are strolling around your territory." Karrde looked back at the display. "So. Falcon moved; Solo and Calrissian moved. Skywalker and the droid should be all right where they are-the four shed has enough shielding to keep out anything but a fairly determined probe."
"And if Thrawn is determined?"
"Then we may have trouble," Karrde agreed calmly. "On the other hand, I doubt that Thrawn would be coming down himself if he thought there was the possibility of a firefight. The upper military ranks don't achieve that status by risking their own lives unnecessarily." He nodded at the door. "Enough talk. You have your job; I have mine. Let's get to them."
She nodded and turned to the door; and as she did so, a sudden thought struck him. "Where did you put Skywalker's lightsaber?" he asked.
"It's in my room," she said, turning back. "Why?"
"Better get it and put it somewhere else. Lightsabers aren't supposed to be highly detectable, but there's no point in taking chances. Put it in with the resonator cavities in three shed; they ought to provide adequate shielding from stray sensor probes."
"Right." She regarded him thoughtfully. "What was all that business about capital starships?"
"You heard everything that was said."
"I know. I was talking about your reaction to it."
He grimaced to himself. "I'd hoped it wasn't that obvious."
"It wasn't." She waited expectantly.
He pursed his lips. "Ask me again later. Right now, we have work to do."
For another second she studied him. Then, without a word, she nodded and left.
Taking a deep breath, Karrde got to his feet. First thing to do would be to get back to the dining room and inform his guests of the sudden change in plans. And after that, to prepare himself for a face-to-face confrontation with the most dangerous man in the Empire. With Skywalker and spare warships as two of the topics of conversation.
It was going to be a most interesting afternoon.
"Okay, Artoo," Luke called as he made the last of the connections. "I think we're ready to try it. Cross your fingers."
From the next room came a complicated series of electronic jabbers. Probably, Luke decided, the droid reminding him that he didn't have any fingers to cross.
Fingers. For a moment Luke looked down at his right hand, flexing his fingers and feeling the unpleasant pins-and-needles tingling/numbness there. It had been five years since he'd really thought of the hand as being a machine attached to his arm. Now, suddenly, it was impossible to think of it as anything but that.
Artoo beeped impatiently. "Right," Luke agreed, forcing his attention away from his hand as best he could and moving the end of the wire toward what he hoped was the proper contact point. It could have been worse, he realized: the hand could have been designed with only a single power supply, in which case he wouldn't have even this much use of it. "Here goes," he said, and touched the wire.
And with no fuss or dramatics whatsoever, the door slid quietly open.
"Got it," Luke hissed. Carefully, trying not to lose the contact point, he leaned over and peered outside.
The sun was starting to sink behind the trees, throwing long shadows across the compound. From his position Luke could see only a little of the grounds, but what he could see seemed to be deserted. Setting his feet, he let go of the wire and dived for the doorway.
With the contact broken, the door slid shut again, nearly catching his left ankle as he hit the ground and rolled awkwardly into a crouch. He froze, waiting to see if the noise would spark any reaction. But the silence co
ntinued; and after a few seconds, he got to his feet and ran to the shed's other door.
Artoo had been right: there was indeed no lock on this half of the shed. Luke hit the release, threw one last glance around, and slipped inside.
The droid beeped an enthusiastic greeting, bobbing back and forth awkwardly in the restraint collar, a torus-shaped device that fit snugly around his legs and wheels. "Quiet, Artoo," Luke warned the other, kneeling down to examine the collar. "And hold still."
He'd been worried that the collar would be locked or intertwined into Artoo's wheel system in some way, requiring special tools to disengage. But the device was much simpler than that-it merely held enough of the droid's weight off the floor so that he couldn't get any real traction. Luke released a pair of clasps and pushed the hinged halves apart, and Artoo was free. "Come on," he told the droid, and headed back to the door.
As far as he could see, the compound was still deserted. "The ship's around that way," he whispered, pointing toward the central building. "Looks like the best approach would be to circle to the left, keeping inside the trees as much as we can. Can you handle the terrain?"
Artoo raised his scanner, beeped a cautious affirmative. "Okay. Keep an eye out for anyone coming out of the buildings."
They'd made it into the woods, and were perhaps a quarter of the way around the circle, when Artoo gave a warning chirp. "Freeze," Luke whispered, stopping dead beside a large tree trunk and hoping they were enough in the shadows. His own black outfit should blend adequately into the darkening forest background, but Artoo's white and blue were another matter entirely.
Fortunately, the three men who came out of the central building never looked in their direction, but headed straight toward the edge of the forest.
Headed there at a fast, determined trot . . . and just before they disappeared into the trees, all three drew their blasters.
Artoo moaned softly. "I don't like it, either," Luke told him. "Let's hope it doesn't have anything to do with us. All clear?"
The droid beeped affirmation, and they started off again. Luke kept half an eye on the forest behind them, remembering Mara's veiled hints about large predators. It could have been a lie, of course, designed to discourage him from trying to escape. For that matter, he'd never spotted any real evidence that the window of his previous room had had an alarm on it.
Artoo beeped again. Luke twisted his attention back to the compound . . . and froze.
Mara had stepped out of the central building.
For what seemed like a long time she just stood there on the doorstep, looking distractedly up into the sky. Luke watched her, not daring even to look down to see how well concealed Artoo might be. If she turned in their direction-or if she went to the shed to see how he was doing . . .
Abruptly, she looked down again, a determined expression on her face. She turned toward the second barracks building and headed off at a brisk walk.
Luke let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. They were far from being out of danger-all Mara had to do was turn her head 90 degrees to her left and she'd be looking directly at them. But something about her posture seemed to indicate that her attention and thoughts were turned inward.
As if she'd suddenly made a hard decision . . .
She went into the barracks, and Luke made a quick decision of his own. "Come on, Artoo," he murmured. "It's getting too crowded out here. We're going to cut farther into the forest, come up on the ships from behind."
It was, fortunately, a short distance to the maintenance hangar and the group of ships parked alongside it. They arrived after only a few minutes-to discover their X-wing gone.
"No, I don't know where they've moved it to," Luke gritted, looking around as best he could while still staying under cover. "Can your sensors pick it up?"
Artoo beeped a negative, adding a chirping explanation Luke couldn't even begin to follow. "Well, it doesn't matter," he reassured the droid. "We'd have had to put down somewhere else on the planet and find something with a working hyperdrive, anyway. We'll just skip that step and take one of these."
He glanced around, hoping to find a Z-95 or Y-wing or something else he was at least marginally familiar with. But the only ships he recognized were a Corellian Corvette and what looked like a downsized bulk freighter. "Got any suggestions?" he asked Artoo.
The droid beeped a prompt affirmative, his little sensor dish settling on a pair of long, lean ships about twice the length or Luke's X-wing. Fighters, obviously, but not like anything the Alliance had ever used. "One of those?" he asked doubtfully.
Artoo beeped again, a distinct note of impatience to the sound. "Right; we're a little pressed for time," Luke agreed.
They made it across to one of the fighters without incident. Unlike the X-wing design, the entrance was a hinged hatchway door in the side-possibly one reason Artoo had chosen it, Luke decided as he manhandled the droid inside. The pilot's cockpit wasn't much roomier than an X-wing's, but directly behind it was a three-seat tech/weapons area. The seats weren't designed for astromech droids, of course, but with a little ingenuity on Luke's part and some stretch on the restraints', he managed to get Artoo wedged between two of the seats and firmly strapped in place. "Looks like everything's already on standby," he commented, glancing at the flickering lights on the control boards. "There's an outlet right there-give everything a quick check while I strap in. With a little luck, maybe we can be out of here before anyone even knows we're gone."
She had delivered the open comlink message to Chin, and the quieter ones to Aves and the others at the Millennium Falcon; and as she stalked her way glowering across the compound toward the number three shed, Mara decided once more that she hated the universe.
She'd been the one who'd found Skywalker. She, by herself, alone. There was no question about that; no argument even possible. It should be she, not Karrde, who had the final say on his fate.
I should have left him out there, she told herself bitterly as she stomped across the beaten ground. Should have just let him die in the cold of space. She'd considered that, too, at the time. But if he'd died out there, all alone, she might never have known for sure that he was, in fact, dead.
And she certainly wouldn't have had the satisfaction of killing him herself.
She looked down at the lightsaber clenched in her hand, watching the afternoon sunlight glint from the silvery metal as she hefted its weight. She could do it now, she knew. Could go in there to check on him and claim he had tried to jump her. Without the Force to call on, he would be an easy target, even for someone like her who hadn't picked up a lightsaber more than a handful of times in her life. It would be easy, clean, and very fast.
And she didn't owe Karrde anything, no matter how well his organization might have treated her. Not about something like this.
And yet . . .
She was coming up on four shed, still undecided, when she heard the faint whine of a repulsorlift.
She peered up into the sky, shading her eyes with her free hand as she tried to spot the incoming ship. But nothing was visible . . . and as the whine grew louder, she realized abruptly that it was the sound of one of their own vehicles. She spun around and looked over toward the maintenance hangar-
Just in time to see one of their two Skipray blastboats rise above the treetops.
For a pair of heartbeats she stared at the ship, wondering what in the Empire Karrde thought he was doing. Sending an escort or pilot ship for the Imperials, perhaps?
And then, abruptly, it clicked.