Heir To The Empire (36 page)

“I wonder how he got it open.” Han glanced back at the removed power plate. “I’m going to take a look next door,” he told Lando, stepping back to the entrance and tapping the release.

The door didn’t open. “Uh-oh,” he muttered, trying again.

“Wait a second-I see the problem,” Lando said, fiddling with something behind the plate. “There’s a power supply been half spliced into the works . . .”

Abruptly, the door slid open. “Back in a second,” Han told him, and slipped outside.

The shed’s right-hand room wasn’t much different from the other one. Except for one thing: in the center, in a space that had very obviously been cleared for the purpose, lay an open droid restraint collar.

Han frowned down at it. The collar hadn’t been properly put away, or even closed again-hardly the way someone in an organization like Karrde’s would be expected to take care of company equipment. Roughly in the center of the collar’s open jaws were three faint marks on the floor. Skid marks, he decided, formed by the restrained droid’s attempts to move or get free.

Behind him, the door whispered open. Han spun around, blaster in hand-

“You seem to have gotten lost,” Karrde said calmly. His eyes flicked around the room. “And to have lost General Calrissian along the way.”

Han lowered the blaster. “You need to tell your people to put their toys away when they’re done,” he said, nodding his head at the abandoned restraint collar. “You were holding a droid prisoner, too?”

Karrde smiled thinly. “I see Ghent was talking out of turn again. Amazing, isn’t it, how so many expert slicers know everything about computers and droids and yet don’t know when to keep their mouths shut.”

“It’s also amazing how so many expert smugglers don’t know when to leave a messy deal alone,” Han shot back. “So what’s your Grand Admiral got you doing? Formal slaving, or just random kidnappings?”

Karrde’s eyes flashed. “I don’t deal in slaves, Solo. Slaves or kidnapping. Never.”

“What was this one, then? An accident?”

“I didn’t ask for him to come into my life,” Karrde countered. “Nor did I especially want him there.”

Han snorted. “You’re stretching, Karrde. What’d he do, drop in out of the sky on top of you?”

“As a matter of fact, that’s very nearly the way it happened,” Karrde said stiffly.

“Oh, well, that’s a good reason to lock someone up,” Han said sardonically. “Who was he?”

“That information’s not for sale.”

“Maybe we don’t need to buy it,” Lando said from behind him.

Karrde turned. “Ah,” he said as Lando stepped past him into the room. “There you are. Exploring the other half of the shed, were you?”

“Yeah, we don’t stay lost very long,” Han assured him. “What’d you find, Lando?”

“This.” Lando held up a tiny red cylinder with a pair of wires coming out of each end. “It’s a micrel power supply-the kind used for low-draw applications. Our prisoner wired it into the door lock control after the power lines had been burned away-that’s how he got out.” He moved it a little closer. “The manufacturer’s logo is small, but readable. Recognize it?”

Han squinted at it. The script was alien, but it seemed vaguely familiar. “I’ve seen it before, but I don’t remember where.”

“You saw it during the war,” Lando told him, his gaze steady on Karrde. “It’s the logo of the Sibha Habadeet.”

Han stared at the tiny cylinder, a strange chill running through him. The Sibha Habadeet had been one of the Alliance’s major suppliers of micrel equipment. And their specialty had been- “That’s a bioelectronic power supply?”

“That’s right,” Lando said grimly. “Just like the kind that would have been put in, say, an artificial hand.”

Slowly, the muzzle of Han’s blaster came up again to point at Karrde’s stomach. “There was a droid in here,” he told Lando. “The skid marks on the floor look just about right for an R2 unit.” He raised his eyebrows. “Feel free to join the conversation anytime, Karrde.”

Karrde sighed, his face a mixture of annoyance and resignation. “What do you want me to say?-that Luke Skywalker was a prisoner here? All right-consider it said.”

Han felt his jaw tighten. And he and Lando had been right here. Blissfully unaware . . . “Where is he now?” he demanded.

“I thought Ghent would have told you,” Karrde said darkly. “He escaped in one of my Skipray blastboats.” His lips twisted. “Crashing it in the process.”

“He what?”

“He’s all right,” Karrde assured him. “Or at least he was a couple of hours ago. The stormtroopers who went to investigate said that both wrecks were deserted.” His eyes seemed to flatten, just for a minute. “I hope that means they’re working together to make their way out.”

“You don’t sound sure of that,” Han prompted.

The eyes flattened a little more. “Mara Jade was the one who went after him. She has a certain-well, why mince words. In point of fact, she wants very much to kill him.”

Han threw a startled glance at Lando. “Why?”

Karrde shook his head. “I don’t know.”

For a moment the room was silent. “How did he get here?” Lando asked.

“As I said, purely by accident,” Karrde said. “No-I take that back. It wasn’t an accident for Mara-she led us directly to his crippled starfighter.”

“How?”

“Again, I don’t know.” He fixed Han with a hard look. “And before you ask, we had nothing to do with the damage to his ship. He’d burned out both hyperdrive motivators tangling with one of the Empire’s Star Destroyers. If we hadn’t picked him up, he’d almost certainly be dead by now.”

“Instead of roaming a forest with someone who still wants him that way,” Han countered. “Yeah, you’re a real hero.”

The hard look hardened even further. “The Imperials want Skywalker, Solo. They want him very badly. If you look carefully, you’ll notice that I didn’t give him to them.”

“Because he escaped first.”

“He escaped because he was in this shed,” Karrde retorted. “And he was in this shed because I didn’t want the Imperials stumbling over him during their unannounced visit.”

He paused. “You’ll also notice,” he added quietly, “that I didn’t turn the two of you over to them, either.”

Slowly, Han lowered the blaster. Anything said at the point of a gun was of course suspect; but the fact that Karrde had indeed not betrayed them to the Imperials was a strong argument in his favor.

Or rather, he hadn’t betrayed them yet. That could always change. “I want to see Luke’s X-wing,” he told Karrde.

“Certainly,” Karrde said. “I’d recommend not going there until tomorrow morning, though. We moved it somewhat farther into the forest than your ship; and there will be predators roaming around it in the darkness.”

Han hesitated, then nodded. If Karrde had something subtle going here, he almost certainly would have already erased or altered the X-wing’s computer log. A few more hours wouldn’t make any difference. “All right. So what are we going to do about Luke?”

Karrde shook his head, his gaze not quite focused on Han. “There’s nothing we can do for them tonight. Not with vornskrs roaming the forest and the Grand Admiral still in orbit. Tomorrow . . . We’ll have to discuss it, see what we can come up with.” His focus came back, and with it a slightly ironic smile. “In the meantime, dinner should be ready by now. If you’ll follow me . . . ?”

The dimly lit holographic art gallery had changed again, this time to a collection of remarkably similar flame-shaped works that seemed to pulsate and alter in form as Pellaeon moved carefully between the pedestals. He studied them as he walked, wondering where this batch had come from. “Have you found them, Captain?” Thrawn asked as Pellaeon reached the double display circle.

He braced himself. “I’m afraid not, sir. We’d hoped that with the arrival of local nightfall we’d be able to get some results from the infrared sensors. But they don’t seem able to penetrate the tree canopy, either.”

Thrawn nodded. “What about that pulse transmission we picked up just after sundown?”

“We were able to confirm that it originated from the approximate location of the crash site,” Pellaeon told him. “But it was too brief for a precise location check. The encrypt on it is a very strange one-Decrypt thinks it might be a type of counterpart coding. They’re still working on it.”

“They’ve tried all the known Rebellion encrypts, I presume.”

“Yes, sir, as per your orders.”

Thrawn nodded thoughtfully. “It looks like we’re at something of a stalemate, then, Captain. At least as long as they’re in the forest. Have you calculated their likely emergence points?”

“There’s really only one practical choice,” Pellaeon said, wondering why they were making so much of a fuss over this. “A town called Hyllyard City, on the edge of the forest and almost directly along their path. It’s the only population center anywhere for more than a hundred kilometers. With only the one survival pack between them, they almost have to come out there.”

“Excellent,” Thrawn nodded. “I want you to detail three squads of stormtroopers to set up an observation post there. They’re to assemble and depart ship immediately.”

Pellaeon blinked. “Stormtroopers, sir?”

“Stormtroopers,” Thrawn repeated, turning his gaze to one of the flame sculptures. “Better add half a biker scout unit, too, and three Chariot light assault vehicles.”

“Yes, sir,” Pellaeon said cautiously. Stormtroopers were in critically short supply these days. To waste them like this, on something so utterly unimportant as a smuggler squabble . . .

“Karrde lied to us, you see,” Thrawn continued, as if reading Pellaeon’s mind. “Whatever that little drama was this afternoon, it was not the common pursuit of a common thief. I’d like to know what, in fact, it was.”

“I . . . don’t think I follow, sir.”

“It’s very simple, Captain,” Thrawn said, in that tone of voice he always seemed to use when explaining the obvious. “The pilot of the chase vehicle never reported in during the pursuit. Nor did anyone from Karrde’s base communicate with him. We know that-we’d have intercepted any such transmissions. No progress reports; no assistance requests; nothing but complete radio silence.” He looked back at Pellaeon. “Speculation, Captain?”

“Whatever it was,” Pellaeon said slowly, “it was something they didn’t want us knowing about. Beyond that . . .” He shook his head. “I don’t know, sir. There could be any number of things they wouldn’t want outsiders to know about. They are smugglers, after all.”

“Agreed.” Thrawn’s eyes seemed to glitter. “But now consider the additional fact that Karrde refused our invitation to join in the search for Skywalker . . . and the fact that this afternoon he implied the search was over.” He raised an eyebrow. “What does that suggest to you, Captain?”

Pellaeon felt his jaw drop. “You mean . . . that was Skywalker in that Skipray?”

“An interesting speculation, isn’t it?” Thrawn agreed. “Unlikely, I’ll admit. But likely enough to be worth following up on.”

“Yes, sir.” Pellaeon glanced at the chrono, did a quick calculation. “Though if we stay here more than another day or two, we may have to move back the Sluis Van attack.”

“We’re not moving Sluis Van,” Thrawn said emphatically. “Our entire victory campaign against the Rebellion begins there, and I’ll not have so complex and far-reaching a schedule altered. Not for Skywalker; not for anyone else.” He nodded at the flame statues surrounding them. “Sluissi art clearly indicates a biannual cyclic pattern, and I want to hit them at their most sluggish point. We’ll leave for our rendezvous with the Inexorable and the cloaking shield test as soon as the troops and vehicles have been dropped. Three squads of stormtroopers should be adequate to handle Skywalker, if he is indeed here.”

His eyes bored into Pellaeon’s face. “And to handle Karrde,” he added softly, “if he turns out to be a traitor.”

The last bits of dark blue had faded from the tiny gaps in the canopy overhead, leaving nothing but blackness above them. Turning the survival kit’s worklight to its lowest setting, Mara set it down and sank gratefully to the ground against a large tree bole. Her right ankle, twisted somehow in the Skipray crash, had started to ache again, and it felt good to get the weight off it.

Skywalker was already stretched out a couple of meters on the other side of the worklight, his head pillowed on his tunic, his loyal droid standing at his side. She wondered if he’d guessed about the ankle, dismissed the question as irrelevant. She’d had worse injuries without being slowed down by them.

“Reminds me of Endor,” Skywalker said quietly as Mara arranged her glow rod and blaster in her lap where they’d be accessible. “A forest always sounds so busy at night.”

“Oh, it’s busy, all right,” Mara grunted. “A lot of the animals here are nocturnal. Including the vornskrs.”

“Strange,” he murmured. “Karrde’s pet vornskrs seemed wide enough awake in late afternoon.”

She looked across at him, mildly surprised he’d noticed that. “Actually, even in the wild they take small naps around the clock,” she said. “I call them nocturnal because they do most of their hunting at night.”

Skywalker mulled that over for a moment. “Maybe we ought to travel at night, then,” he suggested. “They’ll be hunting us either way-at least then we’d be awake and alert while they were on the prowl.”

Mara shook her head. “It’d be more trouble than it’s worth. We need to be able to see the terrain as far ahead of us as possible if we’re going to avoid running into dead ends. Besides, this whole forest is dotted with small clearings.”

“Through which a glow rod beam would show very clearly to an orbiting ship,” he conceded. “Point. You seem to know a lot about this place.”

“It wouldn’t take more than an observant pilot flying over the forest to see that,” she growled. But he was right, she knew, as she eased back against the rough bark. Know your territory was the first rule that had been drilled into her . . . and the first thing she’d done after establishing herself in Karrde’s organization had been to do precisely that. She’d studied the aerial maps of the forest and surrounding territory; had taken long walks, in both daylight and at night, to familiarize herself with the sights and sounds; had sought out and killed several vornskrs and other predators to learn the fastest ways of taking them down; had even talked one of Karrde’s people into running bio tests on a crateload of native plants to find out which were edible and which weren’t. Outside the forest, she knew something about the settlers, understood the local politics, and had stashed a small but adequate part of her earnings out where she could get hold of it.