Smiling tightly to herself, Mara leveled her blaster and opened fire.
She had two of them down before the others even woke to the fact that she was there. A third fell as he spun around, trying in vain to bring his blaster to bear on her. The fourth was nearly to firing position when a shot from inside the room sent him spinning to the floor.
Five seconds later, it was all over.
There was one survivor. Barely.
"We think it's the group's leader," Bel Iblis told Han as the two of them strode down the corridor toward the medical wing. "Tentatively identified as a Major Himron. Though we won't know for certain until he's conscious again. If then."
Han nodded, throwing a quick glance at yet another pair of alert-looking guards as they passed. If nothing else, this little fiasco had sure gotten Security stirred up. About time, too. "Any idea how they got in?"
"That's going to be one of my first questions," Bel Iblis said. "He's in intensive care—this way."
Lando was waiting at the door with one of the medics when Han and Bel Iblis arrived. "Is everyone okay?" Lando asked, eyes flicking up and down his friend. "I sent Chewie up, but they told me I should stay here with the prisoner."
"Everyone's fine," Han assured him as Bel Iblis stepped past Lando and pulled the medic aside. "Chewie was up there before I left, and he's helping Leia and Winter set up in another suite. By the way, thanks for coming up after us."
"No charge," Lando grunted. "Especially since all we got to do was watch. What, you couldn't have held off your little fireworks display for two more minutes?"
"Don't look at me, pal," Han countered. "It was Mara's timing, not mine."
A shadow seemed to cross Lando's face. "Right. Mara."
Han frowned at him. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"I don't know," Lando said, shaking his head. "There's still something about her that bothers me. Remember back at Karrde's base on Myrkr, just before Thrawn dropped in and we had to go hide in the forest?"
"You said you thought you knew her from somewhere," Han said. It was a comment that had been stuck in the back of his mind all these months, too. "You ever figure out where?"
"Not yet," Lando growled. "But I'm getting close. I know it."
Han looked at Bel Iblis and the medic, thinking back to what Luke had said a couple of days later on their way off of Myrkr. That Mara had told Luke flat out that she wanted to kill him. "Wherever you saw her, she seems to be on our side now."
"Yeah," Lando said darkly. "Maybe."
Bel Iblis beckoned them over. "We're going to try to wake him up," he said. "Come on."
They went inside. Surrounding the ICU bed were half a dozen medics and Emdee droids, plus three of Ackbar's top security officers. At Bel Iblis's nod one of the medics did something to the treatment wrap around the Imperial's upper arm; and as Han and Lando found places at the side of the bed, he coughed suddenly and his eyes fluttered open. "Major Himron?" one of the security officers asked. "Can you hear me, Major?"
"Yes," the Imperial breathed, blinking a couple of times. His eyes drifted between the people standing around him . . . and it seemed to Han that he suddenly became more alert. "Yes," he repeated, stronger this time.
"Your attack has failed," the officer told him. "Your men are all dead, and we're not sure yet whether you're going to live."
Himron sighed and closed his eyes. But that alertness was still in his face. "Fortunes of war," he said.
Bel Iblis leaned forward. "How did you get into the Palace, Major?"
"Guess it can't. . . hurt now," Himron murmured. His breathing was becoming labored. "Back door. Put in . . . same time . . . private passage system. Locked from inside. She let us in."
"Someone let you in?" Bel Iblis said. "Who?"
Himron opened his eyes. "Our contact here. Name . . . Jade."
Bel Iblis threw Han a startled glance. "Mara Jade?"
"Yes." Himron closed his eyes again, let out a deep breath. "Special agent of . . . Empire. Once called . . . Emperor's Hand."
He fell silent, and seemed to sink a little deeper into the bed. "That's all I can permit right now, General Bel Iblis," the chief medic said. "He needs rest, and we need to get him stabilized. In a day or two, perhaps, he'll be strong enough to answer more questions."
"That's all right," one of the security officers said, heading for the door. "He's given us enough to start with."
"Wait a minute," Han called, starting after him. "Where are you going?"
"Where do you think?" the officer retorted. "I'm going to have Mara Jade put under arrest."
"On what, the word of an Imperial officer?"
"He has no choice, Solo," Bel Iblis said quietly, laying a hand on Han's shoulder. "A precautionary detention is required after an accusation this serious. Don't worry—we'll get it straightened out."
"We'd better," Han warned. "Imperial agent, my eye—she took out at least three of them up there—"
He broke off at the look on Lando's face. "Lando?"
Slowly, the other focused on him. "That's it," he said quietly. "That's where I saw her before. She was one of the new dancers at Jabba the Hutt's place on Tatooine when we were setting up your rescue."
Han frowned. "At Jabba's?"
"Yes. And I'm not sure . . . but in all that confusion before we left for the Great Pit of Carkoon, I seem to remember hearing her asking Jabba to let her come along on the Sail Barge. No, not asking—begging was more like it."
Han looked down at the unconscious Major Himron. The Emperor's Hand? And Luke had said she wanted to kill him. . . .
He shook off the thought. "I don't care where she was," he said. "She still shot those Imperials off our backs up there. Come on—let's go help Leia get the twins settled. And then figure out what's going on around here."
Chapter 10
The Whistler's Whirlpool tapcafe on Trogan was one of the best examples Karrde had ever seen of a good idea ruined by the failure of its designers to think their whole plan through. Situated on the coast of Trogan's most densely populated continent, the Whirlpool had been built around a natural formation called the Drinking Cup, a bowl-shaped rock pit open to the sea at its base. Six times a day, Trogan's massive tidal shifts sent the water level inside the bowl either up or down, turning it into a violent white-water maelstrom in the process. With the tapcafe's tables arranged in concentric circles around the bowl, it made for a nice balance between luxury and spectacular natural drama—a perfect drawing card for the billions of humans and aliens enamored of that combination.
Or so the designers and their backers had thought. Unfortunately, they'd rather overlooked three points: first, that such a place was almost by definition a tourist attraction, dependent on the vagaries of that market; second, that once the charm of the Whirlpool itself wore off, the centralized design pretty well precluded remodeling the place for any other type of entertainment; and, third, that even if such remodeling had occurred, the racket from the miniature breakers in the Drinking Cup would probably have drowned it out anyway.
The people of the Calius saj Leeloo on Berchest had turned their fizzled tourist attraction into a trade center. The people of Trogan had simply abandoned the Whistler's Whirlpool.
"I keep expecting someone to buy this place and refurbish it," Karrde commented, looking around at the empty seats and tables as he and Aves walked down one of the aisles toward the Drinking Cup and the figure waiting there for them. The years of neglect showed, certainly, but the place wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been.
"I always liked it myself," Aves agreed. "Kind of noisy, but you get that almost everywhere you go these days."
"Certainly made eavesdropping between tables difficult," Karrde said. "That alone made the place worthwhile. Hello, Gillespee."
"Karrde." Gillespee nodded in greeting, getting up from his table and offering his hand. "I was starting to wonder if you were really going to show."
"The meeting's not for another two hours," Aves
reminded him.
"Oh, come on," Gillespee said with a sly grin. "Since when does Talon Karrde ever arrive anywhere on time? Though you could have saved yourself the trouble—my people have already checked things out."
"I appreciate the effort," Karrde said. Which was not to say, of course, that he was going to pull his own people off that same job. With the Empire breathing down his neck and an Imperial garrison only twenty kilometers away, a little extra security wouldn't hurt. "You have the guest list?"
"Right here," Gillespee said, picking up a data pad and handing it over. "Afraid it's not as long as I'd hoped."
"That's all right," Karrde assured him, running his eyes down the list. Small, certainly, but highly select, with some of the biggest names in smuggling coming personally. Brasck, Par'tah, Ellor, Dravis—that would be Billey's group; Billey himself didn't get around too much anymore—Mazzic, Clyngunn the ZeHethbra, Ferrier—
He looked up sharply. "Ferrier?" he asked. "Niles Ferrier, the spaceship thief?"
"Yeah, that's him," Gillespee nodded, frowning. "He does smuggling, too."
"He also works for the Empire," Karrde countered.
"So do we," Gillespee shrugged. "Last I heard, so did you."
"I'm not talking about smuggling merchandise to or from Imperial worlds," Karrde said. "I'm talking about working directly for Grand Admiral Thrawn. Doing such minor jobs as snatching the man who located the Katana fleet for him."
Gillespee's face tightened, just noticeably. Remembering, perhaps, his mad scramble off Ukio one step ahead of the Imperial invasion force in those same Katana-fleet ships. "Ferrier did that?"
"And seemed to enjoy doing it," Karrde told him, pulling out his comlink and thumbing it on. "Lachton?"
"Right here," Lachton's voice came promptly from the comlink.
"How do things look at the garrison?"
"Like a morgue on its day off," Lachton said wryly. "There hasn't been any movement in or out of the place for at least three hours."
Karrde cocked an eyebrow. "Indeed. That's very interesting. How about flights in or out? Or activity within the garrison grounds themselves?"
"Nothing of either," Lachton said. "No kidding, Karrde, the place looks completely dead. Must have gotten some new training holos in or something."
Karrde smiled tightly. "Yes, I'm sure that's it. All right, keep on them. Let me know immediately if there's activity of any sort."
"You got it. Out."
Karrde thumbed off the comlink and returned it to his belt. "The Imperials aren't moving from their garrison," he told the others. "Apparently not at all."
"Isn't that the way we want it?" Gillespee asked. "They can't drop a hammer on the party if they're snugged up there in their barracks."
"Agreed," Karrde nodded. "On the other hand, I've never yet heard of an Imperial garrison simply taking a day off."
"Point," Gillespee admitted. "Unless this big campaign of Thrawn's has all these third-rate garrisons undermanned."
"All the more reason for them to be running daily patrols as a visible show of force," Karrde said. "A man like Grand Admiral Thrawn counts on his opponents' perceptions to fill in the gaps in his actual strength."
"Maybe we should cancel the meeting," Aves suggested, looking uneasily back at the entrance. "Could be they're setting us up."
Karrde looked past Gillespee to the churning water sloshing up the walls of the Drinking Cup. In just under two hours, the water would be at its lowest and quietest level, which was why he'd arranged the meeting for then. If he called it off now—admitted to all these big-time smugglers that the Empire had Talon Karrde jumping at shadows . . . "No," he said slowly. "We'll stay. Our guests won't exactly be sitting here helpless, after all. And we should have adequate warning of any official moves against us." He smiled thinly. "Actually, it's almost worth the risk just to see what they have in mind."
Gillespee shrugged. "Maybe they're not planning anything at all. Maybe we chicaned Imperial Intelligence so good that they missed this completely."
"That hardly sounds like the Imperial Intelligence we all know and love," Karrde said, looking around. "Still, we have two hours before the meeting. Let's see what we can arrange, shall we?"
They sat there in silence, each of the individuals and small groups sitting around its own table, while he made his pitch . . . and as he finished and looked around at them, Karrde knew they weren't convinced.
Brasck made it official. "You speak well, Karrde," the Brubb said, his thin tongue flicking out between his lips as he tasted the air. "One might say passionately, if such a word could ever be said to apply to you. But you do not persuade."
"Do I truly not persuade, Brasck?" Karrde countered. "Or do I merely fail to overcome your reluctance to stand up to the Empire?"
Brasck's expression didn't change, but the pitted gray-green skin of his face—about all of him that was visible outside his body armor—turned a little grayer. "The Empire pays well for smuggled goods," he said.
[And for slaves as well?] Par'TAH demanded in the singsong Ho'Din language. Her snakelike head appendages bounced gently as she snapped her mouth in a Ho'Din gesture of contempt. [And for viyctiyms of kiydnap? You are no better than was the Hutt.]
One of Brasck's bodyguards shifted in his seat—a man, Karrde knew, who had escaped with Brasck from Jabba the Hutt's indentured servitude when Luke Skywalker and his allies had chopped off the head of that organization. "No one who knew the Hutt would say that," he growled, jabbing a stiff finger on the table beside him for emphasis.
"We're not here to argue," Karrde said before Par'tah or any of her entourage could respond.
"Why are we here?" Mazzic spoke up, lounging in his seat between a horn-headed Gotal and a decorative but vacant-faced woman with her hair done up in elaborate plaitlets around half a dozen large enameled needles. "You'll forgive me, Karrde, but this sounds very much like a New Republic recruitment speech."
"Yeah, and Han Solo's already pitched that one to us," Dravis agreed, propping his feet up on his table. "Billey's already said he wasn't interested in hauling the New Republic's cargo."
"Too dangerous," Clyngunn put in, shaking his shaggy black-and-white-striped mane. "Far too dangerous."
"Really?" Karrde said, feigning surprise. "Why is it dangerous?"
"You must be joking," the ZeHethbra rumbled, shaking his mane again. "With Imperial harassment of New Republic shipping as it is, you take your life in clawgrip every time you lift off."
"So what you're saying," Karrde suggested, "is that Imperial strength is becoming increasingly dangerous to our business activities?"
"Oh, no you don't, Karrde," Brasck said, waving a large finger toward him. "You're not going to persuade us into going along with this scheme by twisting our words."
"I haven't suggested any schemes, Brasck," Karrde said. "All I've suggested is that we provide the New Republic with any useful information we might happen to come across in the course of our activities."
"And you don't think the Empire would find this activity unacceptable?" Brasck asked.
[Siynce when do we care what the Empiyre thiynks?] Par'tah countered.