Star Wars_ Shadows Of The Empire Part 5

"Where is he now?"

"Who knows? He took his X-wing offplanet only a short time ago."

Xizor leaned back. "Hmm. It probably means nothing, but perhaps these things will be of use to me. If any of these people return to Tatooine, I would greatly appreciate knowing it."

"Certainly, Prince Xizor."

Xizor nodded. He was essentially done, but he continued to carry on a conversation with the Hutt, pretended that Jabba's opinion was worthwhile and that he needed to hear it. He let it run for another ten minutes, asked a few questions about Imperial troop movements and naval deployment so that Jabba would think that was the reason he'd been summoned. When he had done what he thought was enough of it, Xizor smiled. "Old friend, this information is most confidential," he said. "It must remain between us. Your cooperation will be suitably... appreciated."

The Hutt mirrored Xizor's smile. Sometimes the' touch of a soft word was more powerful than the impact of a hard staff. Jabba was not stupid, and he knew what happened to anyone who crossed the Dark Prince. But-let Jabba think instead he was privy to some vital bit of business, some twisted plot, that he was a trusted confidant. It would do the Hutt's reputation no harm if his underlings and enemies thought he had the ear of the leader of Black Sun. Fear was good; fear and greed were better.

Xizor nodded and took his leave.

His spies had learned that Darth Vader had turned Solo, a small-time smuggler and sometime Alliance pilot, over to the notorious bounty hunter Boba Fett on Bespin. Sooner or later, Fett would show up on Tatooine to deliver Solo and collect his credits. But Xizor's spies indicated that Fett's s.h.i.+p, Slave I, was not on Tatooine. And so far those spies had not been able to locate the bounty hunter.

Well. It was a large galaxy, and such searches took time.

But he was willing to bet that Skywalker knew about the bounty on his friend and had returned to Tatooine to wait for Fett to show up. That he had left could indicate a lot of things. Perhaps he had gotten tired of waiting, though Xizor did not think that likely. Or perhaps he had pressing business unconnected to Solo. Or perhaps he had, through the Alliance, discov-ered where his friend was. That was possible, given that the Alliance's contacts were fairly extensive and included much of the famed Bothan spynet.

Well. There was nothing to be done about it, if that was the case. But he could increase his agents' chances of finding Skywalker.

He reached his sanctum and called Guri. She glided in silently.

"Put out the information that those seeking to claim the reward for Skywalker would be advised to locate the bounty hunter Boba Fett. Sooner or later, Skywalker will likely do so, and appropriate plans can be made for that instance."

Guri nodded, not speaking.

Xizor smiled.

Leia sat in the Millennium Falcon's lounge, watching Chewie and Threepio play on the hologame board. Lando was in the galley making something that smelled awful for their dinner. Luke sat next to Leia, cleaning the lenses on Artoo's electrophoto receptors. Luke's X-wing was locked onto the Falcon's hull-the trip was possible in the fighter, but it was also a long jump to make without sleeping or eating or using the 'fresher. The Falcon hummed along through hypers.p.a.ce on autopilot, running much better than it had any right to, looking as it did. The first time Leia had seen the Corellian freighter she'd almost laughed. The s.h.i.+p appeared to have been rescued from a sc.r.a.p pile. But while it had a few glitches, it was obvious the craft had been heavily modified to fly faster and shoot harder than the Corellian designers had ever intended. Lando had owned the s.h.i.+p once, until he lost it to Han in a sabacc game, Han-No, don't think about him now. Chewie said something that sounded angry and impolite.

Threepio said, "Well, I'm sorry, but it was a fair move. It's not my fault you didn't see it."

Chewie said something else.

"No. I'm not going to take it back. And don't threaten me. If you pull my arm off, I won't play with you anymore."

Chewie muttered something, then leaned back on his seat and looked at the game board.

Leia smiled. Like a couple of small children, the Wookiee and the protocol droid.

She turned and watched Luke as he cleared the micrometeor dust from Artoo. Luke wanted to rescue Han as much as she did. Which was interesting, given that she'd felt the compet.i.tion from them for her attention. A lesser man than Luke might take advantage of a rival's absence, but so far he had not. That was the thing about Luke. He wanted to win, but he wanted to win fairly.

Lando came into the lounge bearing a tray with several steaming plates and bowls upon it. "Dinner is served," Lando said. He smiled. "Giju stew." They all glanced at him, then went back to what they were doing.

"Don't everybody rush in at once," Lando said. His smile faded.

To Leia, the stuff on the tray looked like a cross between melted boot plastic and fertilizer, with a sprinkling of pond sc.u.m over it. Stank like she imagined that combination would smell, too.

"Come on, I spent an hour in the galley fixing this. Everybody dig in!"

Chewie said something that didn't sound particularly complimentary.

"Hey, pal, you don't like it, you cook next time."

Luke looked up from his work on Artoo, made an oh-yuck face. "Giju stew?"

he said. "It looks like old boot plastic and fertilizer drenched in pond sc.u.m. Smells like it, too-"

Leia chuckled.

"Fine, fine!" Lando said. He put the tray down in the middle of the hologame board. The tiny game figures suddenly seemed to be buried to their hips or chests in the steaming goo. "Don't eat it, that'll just mean more for me."

Lando s.n.a.t.c.hed up one of the bowls and dipped aspoon into it, shoved the spoon into his mouth. "See?" he said around the mouthful of stew. "It tastes great, it-" He stopped talking. The expression on his facewent from irritated to amazed, slid to horror, then right into disgust.

He forced himself to swallow. Then he blew a quick breath and shook his head. "Oh, man. Maybe I did use a little too much Boontaspice," he offered. "Maybe I'll just open a couple of packets of beans for dinner."

Luke and Leia laughed at the same instant. Looked at each other. There were worse places she could be than with herfriends, Leia decided. A lot worse places.

6.

When the Millennium Falcon broke from hypers.p.a.ce in the vicinity of the gas giant Zhar, Luke used one of the vacuum suits to transfer to his X-wing for the rest of the trip. Lando and Leia would have preferred that they all stay together, but if any trouble showed up, better there were two armed s.h.i.+ps to meet it than one, Luke argued. They saw his point.

After he and Artoo were in the fighter, Luke felt a lot better. Yeah, Lando was a good pilot, but Luke trusted his own skills more. Not that he was necessarily a better flier-though he was pretty sure he was-but at least he didn't have to sit and watch. The vac-suit made things a little tight, though.

He kept the little s.h.i.+p close to the Falcon as they entered the system.

What was Boba Fett doing this far out on the Rim? It didn't seem to be on the way to anywhere.

He saw the blips on his scope about the time he got the call over his comm.

"Hey, Luke! Welcome to the end of the galaxy."

"Hey, Wedge! How's it going, buddy?"

"So-so. Another day, another credit-before taxes, of course."

Luke smiled. Wedge Antilles had been one of the Alliance pilots who survived the attack on the Death Star.He could fly, and he was braver than he had any right to be. Good old Wedge.

Here they came. A dozen s.h.i.+ps like his own.

"Good to see you again, Luke. I hope you've got something interesting cooked up for us; things have been a little slow lately."

"Well, if you want to talk about bad cooking, you'll need to speak to Lando-"

"I heard that," Lando said over the comm.

Luke grinned at the Falcon where it flew on his portside.

"Just a joke, Lando."

"Hey, Calrissian, long time. I figured you'd be in jail by now."

"Not yet, Antilles, not yet."

"Follow us, Luke," Wedge said, "we've got camp set up on a little moon called Kile in the planet shadow opposite Gall. We've fixed it up real nice, got air, gravity, water, all the comforts of home."

"Lead on," Luke said. "We're right behind you."

"You call this 'real nice'?" Leia said as she looked around at the interior of the cast-plast prefab buildingRogue Squadron had set up as a base. It was basicallyfour walls and a roof and looked like a cross between a warehouse and a hangar, with exposed plastic beams and not much else. It was cold, and it smelled like burned rock. "I'd hate to see a place you thought was not real nice."

Wedge smiled. "Well, you know the Rogues. All we need is a s.h.i.+p and rock to land it on."

"You got that second part right."

Wedge led them to a corner of the chilly building where a table and a holoproj unit had been set up. A man sat sprawled in one of the one-piece cast-plast chairs, looking as if he were asleep.

He didn't really look anything like Han-he had red hair and pale skin-but something about the way he sat...

He might have been asleep, but his eyes flicked open fast and he looked awake by the time they got there.

He was tall, lean, had green eyes. He wore freighter togs, a gray coverall, and a bolstered blaster slung low on his hip. He looked to be about Han's age, Leia figured, and he had that same lazy, insolent look about him. He came to his feet and made a low, sweeping, theatrical bow.

"Princess Leia," he said. "How delightful of you to visit us here in our humble castle, Your Highness." He waved at the big empty room and grinned.

Leia shook her head. Could Han have a long-lost brother? Did these guys take lessons in how to speak smartmouth?

Lando said, "This is Dash Rendar, thief, card cheat, smuggler, and an okay pilot."

Dash's grin increased. "What do you mean, 'okay pilot,' Calrissian? I can fly rings around you in a onewinged hopper with a plugged jet."

"And modest, too," Leia said. Dash bowed low. "I see that the princess has a keen eye to go with her stunning beauty." Oh, brother, Leia thought. This guy was going to lead them to Boba Fett? "Bottle the serpent oil, Dash," Lando said. "Let's take care of business."

"First good idea you've had in years, Lando," Dash said. Lando made introductions. "So you know who Princess Leia is, and you know Chewie.

This is Luke Skywalker." Luke stepped forward, and the two men nodded at each other.

"Have we met? You look familiar."

"You might have seen me on Hoth," Dash said. "I was delivering a s.h.i.+pment of food stores when the s.h.i.+eld went up. I flew a snowspeeder during the battle while waiting my turn to leave."

Luke nodded. "That's right. You took down one of" the Imperial walkers, I remember now. You were pretty good."

Dash flashed the bright smile again. "Pretty good? I slept through most of that battle, kid. I could have stayed and knocked those walkers over all day without raising my heartbeat, if I hadn't had an appointment to pick up paying cargo elsewhere."

Leia shook her head. What was it with men? It was a wonder they didn't knock themselves down, patting themselves on the back so hard. Did she really need to get involved with another hotshot braggart?

Well, yes. If he could take them to where Han was being held prisoner, she could stand it.

Wedge said, "We've done a little recon work, couple of flybys. Let me show you the layout." He moved to the holoprojector controls.

Luke watched as Wedge began showing them the holographic maps and recorded images of the moon where Boba Fett's s.h.i.+p was supposed to be docked. If they could believe this Dash Rendar. He was prettygood at s.h.i.+ning his own light, that was for sure, andyeah, he had done okay during the fight on Hoth, but Luke wasn't so sure about this guy.

Still, Lando seemed to think they could trust Dash'sjudgment, as long as he was well paid.

Luke had to smile at that. Han had seemed like nothing more than a mercenary smuggler when they'd first met, and pretty quick to let people know what a terrific pilot he was, too. It wasn't until later that Luke realized that was just a public mask, a facade behind which Han hid so n.o.body would know how much he really cared. Maybe there was more to Dash Rendar than met the eye, too.

Wedge said, "... moon has some bad atmospheric conditions, big cyclonic storms that get real mean, mostly in the southern hemisphere. You wouldn't want to try to fly through one of those."

Dash laughed. "Maybe you wouldn't want to, Antilles, but I eat thunderstorms for breakfast."

Or maybe there isn't more to him, Luke thought. Maybe he's just crazy.

Wedge continued the briefing. The Imperial Enclave was home base to two Star Destroyers-turned out the carrier was just a rumor-but that was plenty. Luke knew that a standard Destroyer carried a wing of TIE fighters, each wing made up of six squads, which meant seventy-two TIEs per Destroyer. A hundred and forty-four of them against the twelve in Rogue Squadron.

Well. Thirteen, counting Luke's s.h.i.+p. That made the odds a hair less than twelve to one. Not so bad compared to some battles they'd been in.

He grinned. It was a measure of how lopsided the war between the Empire and the Alliance was when twelve-to-one odds didn't seem so bad.

As Luke listened, he started thinking about a plan. Simpler the better, he figured. Wedge finished his briefing. "That's about it. What do you think, Luke?"

"Piece of cake," Luke said. "I know just how to do it." Leia and Lando both looked at him as if he'd turned into a big spider. He grinned again.

In his sanctum Xizor grinned at the information floating holographically before him. Well, well. The misguided young man who had seen fit to try to kill him-what was his name? Hoff? - had gained access to the protected corridor through an Imperial checkpoint a mere few hundred meters away.

And here was an odd coincidence-the guard who had been on duty at that checkpoint had mysteriously vanished. So whatever subterfuge the dead man had used would never be known, him being dead and the guard having disappeared.

Xizor would bet half his fortune against a bent decicred that the absent guard would never be heard from again, either. Somebody had caused the guard to allow the would-be a.s.sa.s.sin to pa.s.s, and whoever that was, they did not wish their involvement known, Xizor was also sure of that.

He considered it. His enemies were legion, were myriad, at the very least, and many of them would happily see him dead. A single guard would be easy enough to bribe and get rid of; a hundred of his foes here on Coruscant might be in a position to do that.

Who hated him the most? A difficult question, there being so many.

Who was likely to have the nerve to make such an attempt? Here was another matter. Black Sun was nearly invulnerable, and while many would cheerfully lop off its leader's head if they thought they could get away with it, not many would be so certain they could do the deed undetected.

So narrow that down to somebody powerful, somebody who might, should it become known, survive not only Black Sun's wrath, but the possible ire of the Emperor himself.

Well, that narrowed it down a whole lot more.

Xizor leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. This was a little game he sometimes played with himself, pretending that he was using reason and logic to arrive at a conclusion he had already made intuitively. He knew who had caused the attack, just as he knew it had not really been meant to succeed. It was no more than a small thorn set in his path, a tiny sticker upon which he was to step and be irritated, no more.

A small grief offered to his person by a man who feared neither Black Sun nor the Emperor's displeasure. There was only one such man.