Shadows of the Empire (14 page)

“Don’t worry, I don’t gamble.”

Lando grinned.

“Something funny?”

“Princess, you’re the biggest gambler I’ve ever met. But you don’t risk money, you risk your neck.”

Leia also had to grin a little at that. He had a point.

Threepio waited at the entrance, and he did not seem happy to be there. He did seem relieved to see them return. “I hope your meeting went well,” he said.

“Yeah, it did,” Lando answered. “Though I think we might take you to translate for us next time. Avaro has a slight problem with Basic.”

“Happy to be of service,” Threepio said. “I’d much rather stay with you than out here alone. Some of the patrons seem quite unsavory.”

Leia smiled again. There was an understatement.

“We’d better get checked in,” Lando said. “Then we can come down and see just how honest this operation is.”

I
t was nearly a standard week after his meeting with the Emperor, and Darth Vader now stood on the bridge
of his
Super-class
Star Destroyer, about to leave hyperspace. They had entered the Baji Sector and would soon be in the Lybeya System. In formation with him were two
Victory
-class and one
Imperial
-class Star Destroyers, more than sufficient firepower to destroy a single shipyard.

Better too much than too little, the Emperor had said.

Vader took no particular joy in this kind of mission, it was so impersonal; but it was a necessary part of the war. The enemy could not fight without equipment, and depriving him of it was much better in the long run than waiting to meet in battle, no matter what Vader’s personal preferences might be.

“We are dropping to sublight, Lord Vader.”

He turned and saw a junior officer standing there. He had heard that the officers drew lots when it came time to deliver messages to him, and the loser had to go. It was good that they feared him. Fear was a better weapon than a blaster or a lightsaber.

Vader was silent, allowing the man to worry for a moment. “Very well,” he finally said. “Set a course for the Vergesso Asteroids, using the coordinates for the shipyard. I will be in my chambers. Call me when we get there.”

“Yes, Lord Vader.”

After the frightened officer hurried away, Vader stood there staring after the man. He would much rather be hunting Luke Skywalker than playing figurehead on a mission any line officer with half a working brain could manage. True, he had his agents in the field—some volunteers, some conscripted—many of whom were quite adept, but it was not the same as doing it himself.

He blew out a particularly labored breath. Unfortunately, he had not been given a choice. The Emperor did not ask for opinions when he issued a command.

The best Vader could do was to hurry and finish as quickly as possible.

He headed toward his chambers.

L
ando sat at a table with five other cardplayers, engaged in a game Leia didn’t recognize. Each player was given seven thin electronic rectangles by the dealer droid, allowed to discard up to four of them, then to draw replacements. The game seemed to involve sorting these card plates into colors and numbers, then betting that the resulting combinations would either total more points than the other players’ or come closer to some ideal. Leia wasn’t quite sure about that part yet. Apparently each player was given the same number of points on a counter to begin with, and the winner was the one with the highest total when the session ended.

Lando seemed to be doing well at the game. The electronic counter in front of him showed a positive balance higher than all but one of the others.

“The bet is fifteen,” the droid said. “The sum is minimum and the color is open.”

“Match,” the bald man next to the dealer said. “In green.”

“Match, in blue,” a young Rodian female next to him said.

“Double,” Lando said. “In red.”

The other players groaned.

Lando smiled.

Threepio stood nearby, watching, as did Chewie. Threepio kept his voice quiet and said, “I don’t understand how he keeps winning. He isn’t playing correctly. The odds on the match he just offered are eight hundred and six to one. It would be very difficult to achieve that combination.”

“He’s bluffing,” Leia whispered.

Threepio turned to look at her. “That doesn’t seem very wise.”

Three of the players tossed their cards into the retrieval tray.

“Sure it is,” Leia said. “He’s winning and they are intimidated. Rather than risk losing more, they prefer to drop out.”

“But what if one of the other players has a superior hand and doesn’t drop out?”

“Watch,” she whispered.

Now just Lando, the bald man, and the Rodian female were left in the round.

“Match,” the bald man said.

“Plus a tenth,” the Rodian said.

“Redouble,” Lando said. “In red, maximum count.”

“He can’t possibly achieve that,” Threepio whispered.

Chewie growled at him.

“How rude. I was merely stating the truth—”

“Be quiet,” Leia said. She was interested in seeing how the others reacted to Lando’s gambit.

The bald man shook his head and tendered his cards. “Too steep for me.”

The Rodian looked at her cards, held in such a way that Leia could not see them, then glanced at Lando.

Lando smiled at her. The expression was at once warm and mocking. He looked self-satisfied, confident, even smug.

Oh, he was good.

The Rodian muttered something Leia didn’t catch, though she guessed it was probably a curse of some kind. She shoved her cards into the collector.

“Round to player number three,” the droid said.

Lando tossed his cards into the collector and turned to grin at Leia.

Threepio said, “I can’t believe it.”

Leia said, “Sometimes the appearance of strength can be as effective as strength itself. Think about the Bulano serpent, which has no teeth or claws or poison but which can blow itself up to five times its normal
size, making itself look fiercer and more dangerous. It might not really matter whether you can beat an opponent if
he
believes you can.”

“I suppose you have a point,” Threepio said. But he did not sound convinced.

Leia hoped Lando was having fun; she wasn’t. They’d been here for three days, and since she didn’t care to wager on the games of chance in this pit, it wasn’t interesting for her. She’d practiced with a Rodian electrodictionary and learned a few words and phrases. She’d gone outside a couple of times, Chewie staying with her like a shadow, but that wasn’t much fun, either. Like Mos Eisley this time of year, it was hot. Unlike that wretched place, there was an ocean not too far away from the gambling complex, so the humidity was much higher. It was thus hot
and
sticky, hardly an improvement.

She could, she supposed, go to that body of water and sit on a beach or something. Avaro had made it known that many tourists did that, swam or motosurfed while their friends or relatives spent time in the casinos. Of course, sitting on a beach and enjoying the breeze and a cold drink might be fun, but probably not as much fun with a grumbling Wookiee complaining about the sand in his fur.

Besides, if something came up, she wanted to be right here.

There was a row of holoboard games set up in one corner of the casino, with players betting on their skills there, and Chewie seemed interested, the way he kept looking in that direction.

She shook her head. “Come on,” she said to Chewie. “You want to play, play. I’ll watch and Threepio can stand behind you and offer bad advice.”

The Wookiee raised his eyebrows.

The three of them left Lando and headed toward the board games. Amazing how fast a path cleared for them. Leia didn’t know if that was because of their
connection to Avaro, who deigned to pass through the smelly room from time to time, or because Chewie led the way. There was a “no shooting inside” policy, they’d been told, but almost everybody seemed to be sporting a weapon of some kind, and Chewbacca’s bowcaster looked particularly lethal.

She was surprised there didn’t seem to be any Imperial presence. No stormtroopers, no off-duty officers, nothing. Maybe it was because Black Sun had some interest in the complex.

She sighed. Somehow when she’d signed on to help the Alliance, she’d never pictured herself in a ninth-rate, bug-chewed casino waiting to be contacted by a representative of the galaxy’s largest criminal organization. If somebody had told her that even a few months ago, she would have laughed and told them to see a medic.

Trying to guess your own future turned out wrong almost all the time.

Life was strange that way.

A
rtoo fired a crackling beam of electricity at Luke. Tatooine’s desert morning air sizzled with a spark that arced a full two meters long.

Luke, in the grip of the Force, had already snapped the lightsaber over to block the artificial lightning bolt. The charge cascaded harmlessly from the blade.

“Too easy,” he said.

Artoo whistled.

“I know, I know, it’s not your fault you’re no Darth Vader.”

Luke relaxed a hair. It took a few seconds for the capacitor that ran Artoo’s electroprod to build up enough of an electrical overload for another discharge. With the Force, the blue flash was easy to deflect; without the Force, it would zap him pretty good, since there was no way he could dodge the bolt.

Not that there was any danger. The electrostatic charge would make his hair stand on end and tickle some, but even with almost two hundred thousand
volts, the amperage was so low that it couldn’t do much more than that, unless he was standing in a puddle of water.

Freestanding water was unlikely out here in the Wastes.

Luke heard a distant drone. It was a faint noise but quickly grew louder. He turned and looked into the morning desert—

Bzzzhhtttt!

Luke jumped a meter, came down rubbing at his backside. “Hey, ow!”

Artoo made a noise Luke had come to believe was his version of a laugh.

“That’s not funny!”

Artoo chirped and whistled, punctuated his reply with a bladder squeeze.

“I know I didn’t tell you to quit, but you saw me turn and look away!”

Artoo said something that was probably derogatory.

“Yeah, well, you just remember that next time you need a lube.”

Artoo whistled, sliding up and down the scale.

Master Yoda would be shaking his head. So much for Luke’s control of the Force. One little slip in concentration and
poof!
it was gone.

Luke quickly forgot his irritation at himself and the little droid. Those sounds were getting louder, and he could see the dust trail now, pointing like a comet right at him. Engines.

Somebody was coming to call, and there appeared to be a lot of them.

“Maybe we’d better get out of sight,” Luke said. “Hide inside, Artoo.”

With Artoo safely in Ben’s house, Luke circled around to a sandy hillock and crouched down. He couldn’t be bolting every time some passing dune rat coughed. He had to stay and see what was going on.

The noise of the engines was an echoing racket now, and Luke finally recognized the source: swoops.

Swoops were long, raked repulsor craft with a plowlike scoop on the front. The vehicles were capable of seating two, were fast and maneuverable but hard to control well. They weren’t much more than huge engines with seats and controls, and the combination of big repulsors and hot turbothrusters made for a mean, fast, noisy flier. A speeder bike was a child’s toy compared to a fully dressed-out swoop. Most people associated the small, unprotected craft with gangs, outlaws who did almost anything as long as it wasn’t legal. Some of them were famous, like the Nova Demons and the Dark Star Hellions. They could make their swoops do everything but dance. They ran spice, smuggled weapons, did odd jobs for various factions of the underworld, and generally raised a lot of grief wherever they went.

Of course, not everybody who flew a swoop was a thug.

He’d spent quite a bit of time riding a borrowed swoop himself when he’d been a teen, darting in and out of the canyons and roaring through the streets of Mos Eisley late at night when the traffic patrol was thin.

Question was, what was a swooptroop gang doing out here? He was the only person around for a hundred kilometers. Had they gotten lost?

Not likely, given their time in the seats.

No, if this was what he thought it was, they were coming to see him.

And he didn’t think they were coming out to wish him a nice day. Well, he’d wanted a real test for his lightsaber. Looked as if he might be about to get one.

Luke looked for insignia as the swoops roared in and began to circle Ben’s house. There were eight, nine … a dozen of them, and they all wore protective goggles and shock helmets, but their flight suits weren’t
matched. A couple of them wore blue neocels; a couple wore orange and tan; one was in green puff sleeves; another sported dyed red bantha hide; and about half of them wore freight handler grays.

All had the same insignia on their jackets—Luke couldn’t quite place it, though it looked vaguely familiar somehow.

All carried blasters.

He wasn’t as well hidden as he’d thought. One of them spotted him, jerked his blaster up, and fired. The beam sizzled past him, turned sand into muddy glass. Not even close, but it didn’t look as if they were here to take any prisoners.

Uh-oh
.

He heard one of the bikers yell above the engine racket: “Blow the little runt to Bespin, boys!”

Luke hurried to find better cover. There were a couple of large boulders that would keep most of their fire off him. He ran. His own blaster was in the house; all he had was his lightsaber and—ten-to-one, twelve-to-one odds? That could be a lot better. He’d never outrun them on foot. Not a whole lot of places to hide out here.

Why were they trying to kill him? Who sent them?

He needed to know that. He also needed to stay alive.

The engines rumbled; the vibrations of the repulsors shook the ground; the sound washed over him in hard bass, and the subsonics made his head ache. He could see their mouths working, but he couldn’t hear what they were yelling.