Shadows of the Empire (18 page)

“Okay,” she said, “Tell you what. If somebody doesn’t show up here in the next week, we’ll try elsewhere.”

Avaro shrugged. “Thuit yowahthelf.”

Little chance of that, Leia thought. It would suit her to be moving, to be doing something, to find out who was after Luke and why. It seemed awfully clumsy of Vader to have engineered that attempt by the crew chief so that it could be traced back to the Dark Lord
of the Sith so easily. She didn’t have any other ideas as to who might be gunning for Luke, but sometimes when a thing looked too easy, it was.

Other times, it wasn’t.

She stood and left Avaro’s office. She didn’t have a lot of choice here. She’d wait, but she wouldn’t like it.

G
uri was about to leave for Rodia when Xizor stopped her. “Before you go there, I have another errand for you. There is a secret document in my personal files under the heading ‘Route.’ You know what it is.”

“Yes.”

“Download it and see that it gets into the hands of our Bothan double agent on Bothawui. Make certain he knows that we are responsible for its delivery.”

Guri said nothing, but he could feel her reluctance. He said, “You disapprove.”

“It does not seem to be in your best interests to do this,” she said.

“Ah, but it is. Having Black Sun put this tidbit into the Rebels’ hands gratis will make them much more apt to trust us. In the unlikely event the Empire should lose this war, the Alliance will remember us as friends and not enemies.”

Guri nodded. She understood, whether she agreed or not. “Highness.”

She left.

Xizor considered Guri’s worry as he went over the plan again. The new information was in addition to intelligence he had already caused to be discovered by the Bothans. There was some slight risk, but not much, given that which was to be gained. The Empire was strong, and he did not really think that the Alliance would triumph, but it was a stupid man who never considered remote possibilities. Stranger things had happened. People were struck by lightning; meteorites
hit them out of a clear sky; the beating of a moth’s wings on the north coast could be the breeze that helped spin a tornado on the south coast. A prudent player took no unnecessary risks, but there were times when a calculated leap had to be made over a deep abyss. This was one of those times, and as usual, it was a double-edged blade. Swung with care, it would cut both ways.

Just as it was supposed to cut.

R
eaching Bothawui wasn’t so hard, though it got a little tricky when they dropped back into realspace. An Imperial patrol buzzed the planet. Luke and Dash had to do some fancy flying to avoid them.

There didn’t seem to be any quarantine, and they made it to the surface of the world. Caught a pubtrans flitter from the port into the city.

Luke had never been on Bothawui, and he was interested in how clean and well maintained it was compared to his homeworld. It was a sunny spring day locally. There was a token force of Imperial stormtroopers hanging around in small groups, but it seemed as if the Bothans had control of the port itself. The streets were wide, many of the tall buildings were glittery with some kind of natural stone. Most of the people he saw were, of course, Bothans, but there were a fair number of other aliens out and about. Very cosmopolitan, given the war and all. He said as much to Dash.

“Yeah, well, a lot of spying goes on,” Dash said. “And Bothawui is one of the more active hubs for operatives from around the galaxy. The Empire has its own spies here; so does the Alliance, and they’ve all pretty much decided to let the place be neutral territory.”

They made it to the Intergalactic Trade Mission, paid the fare, and got out.

Getting inside to see Koth Melan was a little harder.

The Bothan guard wanted to see a pass, and they didn’t have one. Luke wasn’t particularly interested in telling the guard who he was, given that he was a wanted man.

Maybe he should try to use the Force on the Bothan? He’d done Ben’s trick a couple of times, and it had worked for him. Plus he could impress Dash a little.

But before Luke could gather the Force to sway the guard, Dash pulled the Bothan aside, spoke a few words, and pressed something into his hand.

The guard smiled and waved them into the building.

“What’d you say to him?” Luke asked.

“Not much. But that hundred-credit coin I gave him said, ‘Hey, these are good guys—what say you just let them in?’ ”

“You
bribed
him?”

“You don’t get out much, do you? That’s how things work out here in the real galaxy. Money is the lube that makes all things move. We’re inside, so we’re happy. The guard can buy his spouse or his femfriend a nice gift, so he’s happy. Nobody got hurt. If we get caught, the guard never saw us before. It’s the cost of doing business.”

Luke shook his head. But maybe Dash had a point. Was giving the credits any worse than clouding his mind with the Force? Yeah, it was for a good cause and it would have been justified, but wasn’t a few credits also justified?

He’d have to think about that a little more.

Dash, meanwhile, walked up to an information droid parked in the lobby of the building. “Where might we find Koth Melan?” he asked it.

The droid had a deep, sonorous voice. “Level sixteen, number seven,” it said.

“Thanks.”

They moved toward the turbolifts.

A
nother droid, this one a protocol model much like Threepio, staffed the desk in the anteroom of the office to which Luke and Dash had been directed. The droid’s metal skin was polished to a gleaming gold.

“Good morning. How may I assist you?” he asked them.

“Princess Leia is supposed to see Koth Melan,” Luke said.

“
You
are Princess Leia?”

Luke frowned, “No, no,
I’m
not Princess Leia. I’m her … representative. Luke Skywalker. We don’t exactly have an appointment. But he wants to see her, so he’ll want to see us.”

The droid said, “I don’t believe that is a logical assumption.”

“Look, just tell him we’re here, okay?”

“I’m afraid I cannot admit you without an appointment. Master Melan is a very busy Bothan. Nor can I bother him with every little thing. Perhaps I can arrange for you to see him in, oh, perhaps a standard week? Your names?”

Luke frowned. How could they convince this droid to let them in? Couldn’t bribe him, the Force wouldn’t work—

Dash grinned and pulled his blaster. Pointed it at the droid. “Okay, Goldie. My name is Man with a Blaster About to Cook You. Either you open the door or your busy Bothan is going to have to get himself a new receptionist.”

“Oh, dear,” the droid said.

“And no security alarms, either,” Dash said. “I’m watching you real carefully. Up, and do the door manually.”

The protocol droid said, “Very well, Man with a Blaster About to Cook You.”

Luke and Dash exchanged wry looks. Droids could be too literal at times.

The droid tapped a code into the keypad next to the inner door. It slid open.

“Inside,” Dash ordered.

The droid preceded them into a large office. Sitting behind a desk in front of a clear wall of transparisteel was the Bothan who’d sent the message to Leia.

Well, at least Luke thought it was the same one. They all looked pretty much alike to him.

“Master Melan, I’m sorry to interrupt, but—”

“It’s all right, R-Zero-Four. Go back to your desk. I’ll see these gentlemen.”

“Hardly gentle, sir,” the droid called R0-4 said. “They said to me they were Princess Leia. They threatened me with bodily harm!”

“Never mind, R-Zero-Four.” To Dash, the Bothan said, “Put away the hardware, Rendar. You don’t need it.”

Dash blinked, surprised, but holstered his weapon.

The droid left, closing the door behind him.

Luke stepped forward. “Excuse the way we came in, but we had to see you.”

Melan smiled. “I know. You’re Luke Skywalker, and you are Dash Rendar. I’ve been expecting you. Please, take a seat.”

Luke and Dash exchanged quick glances.

“Perhaps I should explain,” Melan said. “I discovered that Princess Organa was no longer on Tatooine a short time ago, too late to recall the messenger droid I sent. Because you are here, I assume you knew the password she and I agreed upon.”

He looked at Luke. “I know your reputation and your work for the Alliance.”

He glanced over at Dash. “I also know your reputation, M. Rendar, though I’m surprised to see you working for the Alliance.”

Dash shrugged. “I’m not. I’m working for the princess.”

“Ah, well. No matter. You’re here and now we can get to the business at hand.”

“You took kind of a risk letting us barge in here with a blaster that way,” Dash said. “We could have been Imperial assassins in disguise.”

Melan treated them to another smile. “Not really. I’ve known you were here since you landed at the port. You were scanned first at the doorway to the building by the guard you ‘bribed,’ then on the turbolift, and positively identified. If you had been assassins in disguise, you would have arrived on a level with a dozen armed guards pointing their weapons at you when the lift doors opened.”

Luke and Dash glanced at each other.

“I have many enemies,” Melan continued. “I have learned to be cautious.”

Luke moved to one of the chairs and sat. Dash did the same.

“What is so important that you sent a message droid to Leia?” Luke asked.

“The Empire has embarked on a new military project,” Melan began. “We do not yet know what or where the project is, but we do know it is vast—the Emperor has diverted huge amounts of money, material, and men for this secret enterprise.”

“How did you come by this information?” Luke asked.

“The Bothan spynet is second to none,” Melan said. There seemed to be a touch of pride in his voice. “As you thought you did with the guard on the street, we bribed a high-ranking Imperial officer. With what he gave us, we tried to infiltrate a slicer droid into the main computer complex on Coruscant to locate and copy the plans for this secret venture. Unfortunately, this portion of the plan failed.

“What we have learned as a result of this failure is
that the plans are kept closely guarded in special computers with no outside lines. There is thus no way to obtain this information from a distance by comlink, no access to these systems save by direct hands-on contact.

“From what little else we’ve learned of it, this project does not bode well for the Alliance.”

Luke nodded. “So, what are we supposed to do about it?”

“Our operatives have collected intelligence that indicates one of the secured computers is being sent from Coruscant to Bothawui. We believe the Alliance would be served by obtaining this computer and cracking it open, to see what the Empire is up to.”

Luke nodded again. “That sounds reasonable.”

Dash said, “Excuse me, but why are you so hot to help out the Alliance? I thought the Bothan spynet’s job was to gather and sell information, not get involved with strategy and tactics.”

Melan looked grim. “Twenty years ago the Empire had my father executed for espionage.”

“That’s one of the risks of this business, isn’t it?”

“Yes, and one I take. But all Bothans are not spies, M. Rendar. My father was a teacher. He was guilty of nothing save trying to educate his students about the Empire. You will have noticed my name doesn’t end in the normal ‘y’lya’ honorific. Until the Empire is defeated, I can have no true honor.”

Dash nodded. “That explains that.”

Luke thought about his aunt and uncle, turned into smoldering corpses at the farm on Tatooine. He understood how Melan felt.

“I would think that you might have a grudge against the Empire yourself,” Melan continued, staring at Dash. “After what the Emperor did to you and your family.”

Dash gritted his teeth; Luke saw his jaw muscles flex. “That’s none of your business,” he said.

Luke didn’t say anything, though the question
leaped to the top tier of his mind:
What did they do to you, Dash?

Instead, Luke said, “If the Empire is going to all this trouble, we’d best find out why. How do we get our hands on this computer?”

Melan nodded. “Our operatives have learned that the Empire intends to send the plans incognito, on an unescorted ship posing as a simple freighter carrying fertilizer. They reason that such a ship will not draw the attention of the Alliance the way a heavily armed convoy would.”

“A freighter full of fertilizer?” Dash said. “That is devious. Who’d hijack that?”

“Our operatives inform us that they will be able to obtain the route of the disguised ship shortly. When they do, it will be but a matter of a day or two before the vessel arrives. There are Bothans who have Alliance sympathies willing to help secure the freighter, but they are relatively unskilled at such sorties. It would help if they had a commander with some experience in space battles to lead them.”

Luke smiled. “That’s me.” He turned to Dash. “What about you? You in?”

“Risk my ship and neck? For what?”

“I thought you wanted to keep me alive.”

“You ain’t worth that much.”

“One freighter? Against a squad of Bothans and me in my X-wing? How dangerous can it be? A piece of cake.”

Dash appeared to consider it.

“Besides, if the information in the computer is as valuable as it seems to be, the Alliance might be willing to give you a bonus for helping collect it. Could be worth a few thousand credits, maybe more.”

Dash looked at him. “All right. I got nothing else to do. Why not?”

Luke grinned. This guy did remind him a lot of Han.

T
he Emperor was normally a clever man. He seldom did anything that Darth Vader thought particularly unwise, much less stupid.

Yet as Vader stood before his master in the Emperor’s castle, this latest bit of twisted business fit squarely into the latter category. Stupid—and dangerous.

Not that he would dare say so—to the Emperor’s face or behind his back. But the Emperor was not so powerful as to be able to read thoughts. Just as well, too, because if he could, surely he would destroy Vader here where he stood for his opinion of this foolishness.