Mazzic stared at him. "I don't understand."
"It's very simple, Captain." Thrawn gestured, and one of Mazzic's escort began removing his restraints. "Your attack on Bilbringi was in revenge for a similar attack against a smugglers' meeting you attended on Trogan. All well and good; except that neither I nor any senior Imperial officer authorized that attack. In fact, the garrison commander had explicit orders to leave your meeting alone."
Mazzic snorted. "You expect me to believe that?"
Thrawn's eyes glittered. "Would you rather believe I was so incompetent that I allowed an inadequate field force to be sent on a mission?" he bit out.
Mazzic eyed him, still hostile but starting to look a little thoughtful, as well. "I always thought we got away too easily," he muttered.
"Then we understand each other," Thrawn said, his voice calm again. "And the matter is settled. The shuttle has orders to take you back to your base." He smiled faintly. "Or, rather, to the backup base your ship and crew will have fled to by now on Lelmra. Again, my apologies for the inconvenience."
Mazzic's eyes darted around the hangar bay, his expression halfway between suspicion that this was a trick and an almost painfully eager hope that it wasn't. "And I'm just supposed to believe you?" he demanded.
"You're welcome to believe anything you wish," Thrawn said. "But remember that I had you in my hand . . . and that I let you go. Good day, Captain."
He started to turn away. "So who were they?" Mazzic called after him. "If they weren't Imperial troops, I mean?"
Thrawn turned back to face him. "They were indeed Imperial troops," he said. "Our inquiries are still incomplete, but at the moment it appears that Lieutenant Kosk and his men were attempting to make a little extra money on the side."
Mazzic stared. "Someone hired them to hit us? Imperial troops?"
"Even Imperial troops are not always immune to the lure of bribery," Thrawn said, his voice dark with an excellent imitation of bitter contempt. "In this case, they paid for their treason with their lives. Be assured that the person or persons responsible will pay a similar price."
"You know who it was?" Mazzic demanded.
"I believe I know," Thrawn said. "As yet, I have no proof."
"Give me a hint."
Thrawn smiled sardonically. "Form your own hints, Captain. Good day."
He turned and strode back toward the archway leading to the service and prep areas. Pellaeon waited long enough to watch Mazzic and his escort turn and start back up into the shuttle, then hurried to join him. "Do you think you gave him enough, Admiral?" he asked quietly.
"It won't matter, Captain," Thrawn assured him. "We've given him all that's necessary; and if Mazzic himself isn't clever enough to finger Karrde, one of the other smuggler chiefs will be. In any case, it's always better to offer too little rather than too much. Some people automatically distrust free information."
Behind them, the shuttle lifted from the deck and swung back around into space . . . and from the archway ahead a grinning figure emerged. "Nicely done, Admiral," Niles Ferrier said, shifting his cigarra to the other side of his mouth. "You got him all squirmy and then tossed him back. He'll be thinking about that for a long time."
"Thank you, Ferrier," Thrawn said dryly. "Your approval means so very much to me."
For a second the ship thief's grin seemed to slip. Then, apparently, he decided to take the comment at face value. "Okay," he said. "So what's our next move?"
Thrawn's eyes flashed at the our, but he let it go. "Karrde sent out a series of transmissions last night, one of which we intercepted," he said. "We're still decrypting it, but it can only be a call for another meeting. Once we have the location and time, they'll be provided to you."
"And I'll go and help Mazzic finger Karrde," Ferrier nodded.
"You'll do nothing of the sort," Thrawn said sharply. "You will sit in a corner and keep your mouth shut."
Ferrier seemed to shrink back. "Okay. Sure."
Thrawn held his gaze another moment. "What you will do," he continued at last, "is to make certain that a certain data card is placed into Karrde's possession. Preferably in the office aboard his ship—that will be where Mazzic will probably look first."
He motioned, and an officer stepped forward and handed Ferrier a data card. "Ah," Ferrier said slyly as he took it. "Yeah, I get it. The record of Karrde's deal with this Lieutenant Kosk, huh?"
"Correct," Thrawn said. "That, plus the supporting evidence we've already inserted into Kosk's own personal records should leave no doubt that Karrde has been manipulating the other smugglers. I expect that to be more than adequate."
"Yeah, they're a pretty nasty bunch, all right." Ferrier turned the data card over in his hand, chewing on his cigarra. "Okay. So all I gotta do is get aboard the Wild Karrde—"
He broke off at the look on Thrawn's face. "No," the Grand Admiral said quietly. "On the contrary, you'll stay as far away from his ship and private ground facilities as possible. In fact, you will never allow yourself to be alone while you're at his base."
Ferrier blinked in surprise. "Yeah, but. . ." Helplessly, he held up the data card.
Beside him, Pellaeon felt Thrawn's sigh of strained patience. "Your Defel will be the one to plant the data card aboard the Wild Karrde."
Ferrier's face cleared. "Oh, yeah. Yeah. He can probably slip in and out without anyone even noticing."
"He had better," Thrawn warned; and suddenly his voice was icy cold. "Because I haven't forgotten your role in the deaths of Lieutenant Kosk and his men. You owe the Empire, Ferrier. And that debt will be paid."
Behind his beard, Ferrier's face had gone a little pale. "I got it, Admiral."
"Good," Thrawn said. "You'll remain on your ship until Decrypt obtains the location of Karrde's meeting for you. After that, you'll be on your own."
"Sure," Ferrier said, stuffing the data card into his tunic. "So. After they take care of Karrde, what do I do?"
"You'll be free to go about your business," Thrawn said. "When I want you again, I'll let you know."
Ferrier's lip twitched. "Sure," he repeated.
And on his face, Pellaeon saw that he was slowly starting to realize just how deep his debt to the Empire really was.
Chapter 16
The planet was green and blue and mottled white, pretty much like all the other planets Han had dropped in on over the years. With the minor exception that this one didn't have a name.
Or spaceports. Or orbit facilities. Or cities, power plants, or other ships. Or much of anything else.
"That's it, huh?" he asked Mara.
She didn't answer. Han looked over and found her staring at the planet hanging out there in front of them. "Well, is it or isn't it?" he prompted.
"It is," she said, her voice strangely hollow. "We're here."
"Good," Han said, still frowning at her. "Great. You going to tell us where this mountain is? Or are we just going to fly around and see where we draw fire from?"
Mara seemed to shake herself. "It's about halfway between the equator and the north pole," she said. "Near the eastern edge of the main continent. A single mountain, rising out of forest and grassland."
"Okay," Han said, feeding in the information and hoping the sensors wouldn't loop out and fail on him. Mara had made enough snide comments about the Falcon as it was.
Behind him, the cockpit door slid open, and Lando and Chewbacca came in. "How about it?" Lando asked. "We there?"
"We're there," Mara said before Han could answer.
Chewbacca rumbled a question. "No, seems to be a real low-tech place," Han shook his head. "No power sources or transmissions anywhere."
"Military bases?" Lando asked.
"If they're there, I can't find 'em," Han said.
"Interesting," Lando murmured, peering over Mara's shoulder. "I wouldn't have pegged the Grand Admiral as being the trusting sort."
"The place was designed to be a private storehouse," Mara reminded him tartly. "Not a display ad f
or Imperial hardware. There weren't any garrisons or command centers scattered around for Thrawn to have moved into."
"So whatever he's got will be stashed inside the mountain?" Han asked.
"Plus probably a few ground patrols just outside," Mara said. "But they won't have any fighter squadrons or heavy weaponry to throw at us."
"That'll be a nice change," Lando said wryly.
"Unless Thrawn decided to put up a couple of garrisons on his own," Han pointed out. "You and Chewie'd better charge up the quads, just in case."
"Right."
The two of them left. Han shifted into a general approach vector, then keyed for a sensor search. "Trouble?" Mara asked.
"Probably not," Han assured her, watching the displays. But there was nothing showing anywhere around them. "A couple of times on the way in I thought I spotted something hanging around back there."
"Calrissian thought he saw something when we changed course at Obroa-skai, too," Mara said, peering down at the display. "Could be something with a really good sensor stealth mode."
"Or just a glitch," Han said. "The Fabritech's been giving us trouble lately."
Mara craned her neck to look out to starboard. "Could someone have followed us here from Coruscant?"
"Who knew we were coming?" Han countered. No, there was nothing there. Must have been his imagination. "How much of this private storehouse did you see?"
Slowly, Mara turned back to face forward, not looking all that convinced. "Not much more than the route between the entrance and the throne room at the top," she said. "But I know where the Spaarti cylinder chamber is."
"How about the power generators?"
"I never actually saw them," she said. "But I remember hearing that the cooling system pulls in water from a river flowing down the northeastern slope of the mountain. They're probably somewhere on that side."
Han chewed at his lip. "And the main entrance is on the southwest side."
"The only entrance," she corrected. "There's just the one way in or out."
"I've heard that before."
"This time it's true," she retorted.
Han shrugged. "Okay," he said. There was no point in arguing about it. Not until they'd looked the place over, anyway.
The cockpit door slid open, and he glanced over his shoulder to see Luke come in. "We're here, kid," he said.
"I know," Luke said, moving forward to stand behind Mara. "Mara told me."
Han threw a look at Mara. Near as he could tell, she'd spent the whole trip avoiding Luke, which wasn't all that easy on a ship the size of the Falcon. Luke had returned the favor by staying out of her way, which wasn't much easier. "She did, huh?"
"It's all right," Luke assured him, gazing out at the planet ahead. "So that's Wayland."
"That's Wayland," Mara said shortly, unstrapping and brushing past Luke. "I'll be in back," she said over her shoulder, and left.
"You two work so well together," Han commented as the cockpit door slid shut behind her.
"Actually, we do," Luke said, sliding into the copilot's seat Mara had just vacated. "You should have seen us aboard the Chimaera when we went in to rescue Karrde. She's a good person to have at your side."
Han threw him a sideways look. "Except when she wants to slide a knife in it."
"I'm willing to take my chances." Luke smiled. "Must be one of those crazy Jedi things."
"This isn't funny, Luke," Han growled. "She hasn't given up on killing you, you know. She told Leia that back on Coruscant."
"Which tells me that she really doesn't want to do it," Luke countered. "People don't usually go around announcing murder plans in advance. Especially not to the victim's family."
"You willing to bet your life on that?"
Luke shrugged fractionally. "I already have."
The Falcon was skimming along the outer atmosphere now, and the computer had finally identified a probable location for Mount Tantiss. "Well, if you ask me, this isn't a good time to be running short odds," he told Luke, giving the sensor map a quick study. A straight-in southern approach, he decided—that would give them forest cover for both the landing and the overland trip.
"You have any suggestions?" Luke asked.
"Yeah, I've got one," Han said, changing course toward the distant mountain. "We leave her with the Falcon at the landing site."
"Alive?"
At other times in his life, Han reflected, it wouldn't necessarily have been a ridiculous question. "Of course alive," he said stiffly. "There are a lot of ways to keep her from getting into trouble."
"You really think she'd agree to stay behind?"
"No one said we had to ask her."
Luke shook his head. "We can't do that, Han. She needs to see this through."
"Which part of it?" Han growled. "Hitting the clone factory, or trying to kill you?"
"I don't know," Luke said quietly. "Maybe both."
Han had never liked forests very much before joining the Rebel Alliance. Which wasn't to say he'd disliked them, either. Forests were simply not something the average smuggler thought about very much. Most of the time you picked up and delivered in grimy little spaceports like Mos Eisley or Abregado-rae; and on the rare occasion where you met in a forest, you let the customer watch the forest while you watched the customer. As a result, Han had wound up with a vague sort of assumption that one forest was pretty much like another.
His stint with the Alliance had changed all that. What with Endor, Corstris, Fedje, and a dozen more, he'd learned the hard way that each forest was different, with its own array of plants, animal life, and general all-around headaches for the casual visitor. Just one of many subjects the Alliance had taught him more about than he'd really wanted to know.
Wayland's forest fit the pattern perfectly; and the first headache proved to be how to get the Falcon down through the dense upper leaf canopy without leaving a hole any wandering Imperial TIE pilot would have to be asleep to miss. They'd first had to find a gap—in this case made by a fallen tree—and then he'd had to basically run the ship in on its side, a lot trickier maneuver in a planetary gravity well than it was out in an asteroid field. The secondary canopy, which he didn't find out about until he was most of the way through the first, was the second headache, and he tore the tops off a line of those shorter trees before he got the Falcon stabilized and down, crunching a lot of underbrush in the process.
"Nice landing," Lando commented dryly, rubbing his shoulder beneath the restraint strap as Han shut down the repulsorlifts.
"At least the sensor dish is still there," Han said pointedly.
Lando winced. "You're never going to let that go, are you?"
Han shrugged, keying in the life-form algorithms. Time to find out what was out there. "You said you wouldn't get a scratch on her," he reminded the other.
"Fine," Lando grumped. "Next time, I'll destroy the energy field generator and you can fly her down the Death Star's throat."