“Yes, it seems to be just the one shuttle that’s going,” Lando agreed.
Han half turned, the serrated, grasslike plants they were lying on top of digging into his shirt with the movement. “You get Imperial visitors here often?” he demanded.
“Not here,” Ghent shook his head nervously, his teeth almost chattering with tension. “They’ve been to the forest once or twice to pick up some ysalamiri, but they’ve never come to the base. At least, not while I was here.”
“Ysalamiri?” Lando frowned. “What are those?”
“Little furry snakes with legs,” Ghent said. “I don’t know what they’re good for. Look, couldn’t we get back to the ship now? Karrde told me I was supposed to keep you there, where you’d be safe.”
Han ignored him. “What do you think?” he asked Lando.
The other shrugged. “Got to have something to do with that Skipray that went burning out of here just as Karrde was herding us out.”
“There was some kind of prisoner,” Ghent offered. “Karrde and Jade had him stashed away-maybe he got out. Now, can we please get back to-”
“A prisoner?” Lando repeated, frowning back at the kid. “When did Karrde start dealing with prisoners?”
“Maybe when he started dealing with kidnappers,” Han growled before Ghent could answer.
“We don’t deal with kidnappers,” Ghent protested.
“Well, you’re dealing with one now,” Han told him, nodding toward the group of Imperials. “That little gray guy in there?-that’s one of the aliens who tried to kidnap Leia and me.”
“What?” Lando peered through the macrobinoculars again. “Are you sure?”
“It’s one of the species, anyway. We didn’t stop at the time to get names.” Han looked back at Ghent. “This prisoner-who was he?”
“I don’t know,” Ghent shook his head. “They brought him back on the Wild Karrde a few days ago and put him in the shortterm barracks. I think they’d just moved him over to one of the storage sheds when we got the word that the Imperials were coming down for a visit.”
“What did he look like?”
“I don’t know!” Ghent hissed, what little was left of his composure going fast. Skulking around forests and spying on armed stormtroopers was clearly not the sort of thing an expert slicer was supposed to have to put up with. “None of us was supposed to go near him or ask any questions about him.”
Lando caught Han’s eye. “Could be someone they don’t want the Imperials to get hold of. A defector, maybe, trying to get to the New Republic?”
Han felt his lip twist. “I’m more worried right now about them having moved him out of the barracks. That could mean the stormtroopers are planning to move in for a while.”
“Karrde didn’t say anything about that,” Ghent objected.
“Karrde may not know it yet,” Lando said dryly. “Trust me-I was on the short end of a stormtrooper bargain once.” He handed the macrobinoculars back to Han. “Looks like they’re going inside.”
They were, indeed. Han watched as the procession set off: Karrde and the blue-skinned Imperial officer in front, their respective entourages following, the twin columns of stormtroopers flanking the whole parade. “Any idea who that guy with the red eyes is?” he asked Ghent.
“I think he’s a Grand Admiral or something,” the other said. “Took over Imperial operations a while back. I don’t know his name.”
Han looked at Lando, found the other sending the same look right back at him. “A Grand Admiral?” Lando repeated carefully.
“Yeah. Look, they’re going-there’s nothing else to see. Can we please-?”
“Let’s get back to the Falcon,” Han muttered, stowing the macrobinoculars in their belt pouch and starting a backwards elbows-and-knees crawl from their covering tree. A Grand Admiral. No wonder the New Republic had been getting the sky cut out from under them lately.
“I don’t suppose you have any records on Imperial Grand Admirals back on the Falcon,” Lando murmured, backing up alongside him.
“No,” Han told him. “But they’ve got ‘em on Coruscant.”
“Great,” Lando said, the words almost lost in the hissing of the sharp-bladed grass as they elbowed their way through it. “Let’s hope we live long enough to get this tidbit back there.”
“We will,” Han assured him grimly. “We’ll stick around long enough to find out what kind of game Karrde’s playing, but then we’re gone. Even if we have to blow out of here with that camo net still hanging off the ship.”
The strangest thing about waking up this time, Luke decided dimly, was that he didn’t actually hurt anywhere.
And he should have. From what he remembered of those last few seconds-and from the view of splintered trees outside the fighter’s twisted canopy-he would have counted himself lucky even to be alive, let alone undamaged. Clearly, the restraints and crash balloons had been augmented by something more sophisticated-an emergency acceleration compensator, perhaps.
A shaky sort of gurgle came from behind him. “You okay, Artoo?” he called, levering himself out of his seat and climbing awkwardly across the canted floor. “Hang on, I’m coming.”
The droid’s information retrieval jack had been snapped off in the crash, but apart from that and a couple of minor dents, he didn’t seem to have been damaged. “We’d better get moving,” Luke told him, untangling him from his restraints. “That other ship could be back with a ground party any time.”
With an effort, he got Artoo aft. The hatchway door popped open without serious complaint; hopping down, he looked around.
The second fighter would not be returning with any ground parties. It was right here. In worse shape, if possible, than Luke’s.
From the hatchway, Artoo whistled in squeamish-sounding awe. Luke glanced up at him, looked back at the ruined craft. Given the fighters’ safety equipment, it was unlikely that Mara was seriously injured. A backup flight was inevitable-she would probably be able to hold out until then.
But then again, she might not.
“Wait here, Artoo,” he told the droid. “I’m going to take a quick look.”
Even though the exterior of the fighter was in worse shape than Luke’s, the interior actually seemed to be a little better off. Crunching his way across the bits of debris in the weapons/tech area, he stepped into the cockpit doorway.
Only the top of the pilot’s head showed over the seat back, but that shimmering red-gold hair was all he needed to see to know that his earlier guess had been correct. It was indeed Mara Jade who’d been chasing him.
For a pair of heartbeats he stayed where he was, torn between the need for haste and the need to satisfy his internal sense of ethics. He and Artoo had to get out of here with all possible speed; that much was obvious. But if he turned his back on Mara now, without even pausing to check her condition . . .
His mind flashed back to Coruscant, to the night Ben Kenobi had said his final farewells. In other words, he’d told Threepio later up on the roof, a Jedi can’t get so caught up in matters of galactic importance that it interferes with his concern for individual people. And it would, after all, only take a minute. Stepping into the room, he looked around the seat back.
Directly into a pair of wide-open, perfectly conscious green eyes. Green eyes that stared at him over the barrel of a tiny blaster.
“I figured you’d come,” she said, her voice grimly satisfied. “Back up. Now.”
He did as ordered. “Are you hurt at all?” he asked.
“None of your business,” she retorted. She climbed out of the seat, pulling a small flat case from under the chair with her free hand as she stood up. Another glitter caught his eye: she was again wearing his lightsaber on her belt. “There’s a case in that compartment just over the exit hatch,” she told him. “Get it.”
He found the release and got the compartment open. Inside was an unfamiliarly labeled metal case with the very familiar look of a survival kit to it. “I hope we’re not going to have to walk the whole way back,” he commented, pulling the bag out and dropping out the hatchway.
“I won’t,” she countered. She seemed to hesitate, just a little, before following him down to the ground. “Whether you make the trip back at all is another question.”
He locked gazes with her. “Finishing what you started with this?” he asked, nodding at his wrecked ship. She snorted. “Listen, buddy boy, it was you who took us down, not me. My only mistake was being stupid enough to be sitting too close to your tail when you hit the trees. Put the bag down and get that droid out of there.”
Luke did as he was told. By the time Artoo was down beside him she had the survival kit’s lid open and was fiddling one-handed with something inside. “Just stay right there,” she told him. “And keep your hands where I can see them.”
She paused, cocking her head slightly to the side as if listening. A moment later, in the distance, Luke could hear the faint sound of an approaching ship. “Sounds like our ride back is already on the way,” Mara said. “I want you and the droid-” She stopped in midsentence, her eyes going strangely unfocused, her throat tight with concentration. Luke frowned, eyes and ears searching for the problem . . .
Abruptly, she slammed the survival kit lid shut and scooped it up. “Move!” she snapped, gesturing away from the wrecked fighters. With her blaster hand she picked up the flat box she’d been carrying and wedged it under her left arm. “Into the trees-both of you. I said move!”
There was something in her voice-command, or urgency, or both-that stifled argument or even question. Within a handful of seconds Luke and Artoo were under cover of the nearest trees. “Farther in,” she ordered. “Come on, move it.”
Belatedly, it occurred to Luke that this might all be some macabre joke-that all Mara really wanted was to shoot him in the back and be able to claim afterward that he’d been running away. But she was right behind him, close enough that he could hear her breathing and occasionally feel the tip of her blaster as it brushed his back. They made it perhaps ten meters farther in-Luke leaned down to help Artoo across a particularly wide root-
“Far enough,” Mara hissed in his ear. “Hide the droid and then hit dirt.”
Luke got Artoo over the root and behind a tree . . . and as he dropped down beside Mara, he suddenly understood.
Hanging in midair over the wrecked fighters, rotating slowly like a hovering raptor searching for prey, was an Imperial shuttle.
A small motion caught the corner of his eye, and he turned his head to look directly into the muzzle of Mara’s blaster. “Not a move,” she whispered, her breath warm on his cheek. “Not a sound.”
He nodded understanding and turned back to watch the shuttle. Mara slid her arm over his shoulders, pressed her blaster into the hinge of his jaw, and did the same.
The shuttle finished its circle and settled gingerly to the torn-up ground between the ruined fighters. Even before it was completely down, the ramp dropped and began disgorging stormtroopers.
Luke watched as they split up and headed off to search the two ships, the strangeness of the whole situation adding an unreal tinge to the scene. There, less than twenty meters away, was Mara’s golden opportunity to turn him over to the Imperials . . . and yet, here they both lay, hiding behind a tree root and trying not to breathe too loudly. Had she suddenly changed her mind?
Or was it simply that she didn’t want any witnesses nearby when she killed him?
In which case, Luke realized abruptly, his best chance might actually be to find some way of surrendering to the stormtroopers. Once away from this planet, with the Force as his ally again, he would at least have a fighting chance. If he could just find a way to distract Mara long enough to get rid of her blaster . . .
Lying pressed against his side, her arm slung across his shoulders, she must have sensed the sudden tensing of muscles. “Whatever you’re thinking about trying, don’t,” she breathed in his ear, digging her blaster a little harder into his skin. “I can easily claim you were holding me prisoner out here and that I managed to snatch the blaster away from you.”
Luke swallowed, and settled in to wait.
The wait wasn’t very long. Two groups of stormtroopers disappeared into the fighters, while the rest walked around the edge of the newly created clearing, probing with eyes and portable sensors into the forest. After a few minutes those inside the fighters emerged, and what seemed to be a short meeting was held between them at the base of the shuttle ramp. At an inaudible command the outer ring of searchers came back in to join them, and the whole crowd trooped into their ship. The ramp sealed, and the shuttle disappeared once more into the sky, leaving nothing but the hum of its repulsorlifts behind. A minute later, even that was gone.
Luke got his hands under him, started to get up. “Well-”
He broke off at another jab of the blaster. “Quiet,” Mara muttered. “They’ll have left a sensor behind, just in case someone comes back.”
Luke frowned. “How do you know?”
“Because that’s standard stormtrooper procedure in a case like this,” she growled. “Real quiet, now; we get up and grab some more distance. And keep the droid quiet, too.”
They were completely out of sight of the wrecked fighters, and probably another fifty meters past that, before she called a halt. “What now?” Luke asked.
“We sit down,” she told him.
Luke nodded and eased to the ground. “Thank you for not turning me in to the stormtroopers.”
“Save it,” she said shortly, sitting down carefully herself and laying her blaster on the ground beside her. “Don’t worry, there wasn’t anything altruistic about it. The incoming shuttles must have seen us and sent a group over to investigate. Karrde’s going to have to spin them some sort of sugar story about what happened, and I can’t just walk into their arms until I know what that story is.” She set the small flat box on her lap and opened it.
“You could call him,” Luke reminded her.
“I could also call the Imperials directly and save myself some time,” she retorted. “Unless you don’t think they’ve got the equipment to monitor anything I send. Now shut up; I’ve got work to do.”
For a few minutes she worked at the flat box in silence, fiddling with a tiny keyboard and frowning at something Luke couldn’t see from his angle. At irregular intervals she looked up, apparently to make sure he wasn’t trying anything. Luke waited; and abruptly she grunted in satisfaction. “Three days,” she said aloud, closing the box.