Star Wars: Heir to the Empire Read online

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “But then, how—?”

  “Someone called to me, Leia, during the battle this afternoon. In my mind. The way another Jedi would.”

  For a long moment they just looked at each other. “I don’t believe it,” Leia said. “I just don’t. Where could someone with C’baoth’s power and history have hidden for so long? And why?”

  “The why I don’t know,” Luke admitted. “As to the where—” He nodded toward the display. “That’s what I’ve been looking for. Someplace where a Dark Jedi might once have died.” He looked at Leia again. “Do the rumors say where C’baoth is supposed to be?”

  “It could be an Imperial trap,” Leia warned, her voice abruptly harsh. “The person who called to you could just as easily be a Dark Jedi like Vader, with this C’baoth rumor dangled in front of us to lure you in. Don’t forget that Yoda wasn’t counting them—both Vader and the Emperor were still alive when he said you were the last Jedi.”

  “That’s a possibility,” he conceded. “It could also be just a garbled rumor. But if it’s not . . .”

  He let the sentence hang, unfinished, in the air between them. There were deep uncertainties in Leia’s face and mind, he could see, woven through by equally deep fears for his safety. But even as he watched her he could sense her gain control over both emotions. In those aspects of her training, she was making good progress. “He’s on Jomark,” she said at last, her voice quiet. “At least according to the rumor Wedge quoted for us.”

  Luke turned to the display, called up the data on Jomark. There wasn’t much there. “Not very populated,” he said, glancing over the stats and the limited selection of maps. “Less than three million people, all told. Or at least back when this was compiled,” he amended, searching for the publication date. “Doesn’t look like anyone’s taken official notice of the planet in fifteen years.” He looked back at Leia. “Just the sort of place a Jedi might choose to hide from the Empire.”

  “You’ll be leaving right away?”

  He looked at her, swallowing the quick and obvious answer. “No, I’ll wait until you and Chewie are ready to go,” he said. “That way I can fly out with your shieldship. Give you that much protection, at least.”

  “Thanks.” Taking a deep breath, she stood up. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “So do I,” he said frankly. “But whether I do or not, it’s something I have to try. That much I know for sure.”

  Leia’s lip twitched. “I suppose that’s one of the things I’m going to have to get used to. Letting the Force move me around.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Luke advised her, getting to his feet and switching off the display. “It doesn’t happen all at once—you get to ease into it. Come on; let’s go see how they’re coming with Threepio.”

  “At last!” Threepio cried, waving his arms in desperate relief as Luke and Leia stepped into the room. “Master Luke! Please, please tell General Calrissian that what he intends is a serious violation of my primary programming.”

  “It’ll be okay, Threepio,” Luke soothed, stepping over to him. From the front the droid seemed to be just sitting there; it was only as Luke got closer that he could see the maze of wires snaking from both headpiece and dorsal junction box into the computer console behind him. “Lando and his people will be careful that nothing happens to you.” He glanced at Lando, got a confirming nod in return.

  “But Master Luke—”

  “Actually, Threepio,” Lando put in, “you could think of this as really just fulfilling your primary programming in a more complete way. I mean, isn’t a translation droid supposed to speak for the person he’s translating for?”

  “I am primarily a protocol droid,” Threepio corrected in as frosty a tone as he could probably manage. “And I say again that this is not the sort of thing covered by any possible stretch of protocol.”

  The borg looked up from the panel, nodded. “We’re ready,” Lando announced, touching a switch. “Give it a second . . . all right. Say something, Threepio.”

  “Oh, dear,” the droid said—

  In a perfect imitation of Leia’s voice.

  Artoo, standing across the room, trilled softly. “That’s it,” Lando said, looking decidedly pleased with himself. “The perfect decoy—” he inclined his head to Leia “—for the perfect lady.”

  “This feels decidedly strange,” Threepio continued—Leia’s voice, this time, in a thoughtful mood.

  “Sounds good,” Han said, looking around at the others. “We ready to go, then?”

  “Give me an hour to log some last-minute instructions,” Lando said, starting toward the door. “It’ll take our shieldship that long to get here, anyway.”

  “We’ll meet you at the ship,” Han called after him, stepping over to Leia and taking her arm. “Come on—we’d better get back to the Falcon.”

  She put her hand on his, smiling reassuringly up at him. “It’ll be all right, Han. Chewie and the other Wookiees will take good care of me.”

  “They’d better,” Han growled, glancing to where the borg was undoing the last of the cables connecting Threepio to the console. “Let’s go, Threepio. I can hardly wait to hear what Chewie thinks of your new voice.”

  “Oh, dear,” the droid murmured again. “Oh, dear.”

  Leia shook her head in wonder as they headed for the door. “Do I really,” she asked, “sound like that?”

  CHAPTER

  15

  Han had fully expected that they would be attacked during the long shieldship journey out from Nkllon. For once, thankfully, his hunch was wrong. The three ships reached the shieldship depot without incident and made a short hyperspace jump together to the outer fringes of the Athega system. There, Chewbacca and Leia replaced Lando aboard his yacht-style ship, the Lady Luck, and started off toward Kashyyyk. Luke waited until they were safely away before securing his X-wing back from defense posture and heading off on some mysterious errand of his own.

  Leaving Han alone on the Falcon with Lando and Threepio.

  “She’ll be fine,” Lando assured him, punching at the nav computer from the copilot’s seat. “She’s as safe now as she’s ever likely to be. Don’t worry.”

  With an effort, Han turned from the viewport to face him. There was nothing to see out there, anyway—the Lady Luck was long gone. “You know, that’s almost exactly the same thing you said back on Boordii,” he reminded Lando sourly. “That botched dolfrimia run—remember? You said, ‘It’ll be fine; don’t worry about it.’ ”

  Lando chuckled. “Yes, but this time I mean it.”

  “That’s nice to know. So, what do you have planned for entertainment?”

  “Well, the first thing we ought to do is have Threepio send off a message to Coruscant,” Lando said. “Give the impression that Leia’s aboard to any Imperials who might be listening. After that, we could move a couple of systems over and send another message. And after that—” he threw Han a sideways glance “—I thought we might like to do a little sightseeing.”

  “Sightseeing?” Han echoed suspiciously. Lando was practically glowing with innocence, a look he almost never used except when he was trying to sucker someone into something. “You mean as in flying all over the galaxy looking for replacement mole miners?”

  “Han!” Lando protested, looking hurt now. “Are you suggesting I’d stoop so low as to try and con you into helping me run my business?”

  “Forgive me,” Han said, trying not to sound too sarcastic. “I forgot—you’re respectable now. So what sights are we going to see?”

  “Well . . .” Casually, Lando leaned back and laced his fingers together behind his head. “You mentioned earlier that you hadn’t been able to get in touch with Talon Karrde. I thought we might take another crack at it.”

  Han frowned at him. “You serious?”

  “Why not? You want cargo ships, and you want a good slicer. Karrde can supply both.”

  “I don’t need a sl
icer anymore,” Han said. “Leia’s as safe now as she’s ever likely to be. Remember?”

  “Sure—until someone leaks the news that she’s there,” Lando countered. “I don’t think the Wookiees would, but there are non-Wookiee traders flying in and out of Kashyyyk all the time. All it takes is one person spotting her, and you’ll be right back where you were when you first got here.” He cocked an eyebrow. “And Karrde might also have something on this mysterious Imperial commander who’s been running you in circles lately.”

  The commander who was almost certainly also the man behind the attacks on Leia . . . “You know how to make contact with Karrde?”

  “Not directly, but I know how to get to his people. And I thought that as long as we had Threepio and his umpteen million languages aboard anyway, we’d just go ahead and cut a new contact path.”

  “That’ll take time.”

  “Not as much as you might think,” Lando assured him. “Besides, a new path will cover our trail better—yours and mine both.”

  Han grimaced, but Lando was right. And with Leia safely hidden away, at least for now, they could afford to play it cautious. “All right,” he said. “Assuming we don’t wind up playing tag with a Star Destroyer or two.”

  “Right,” Lando agreed soberly. “The last thing we want is to draw the Imperials onto Karrde’s tail. We’ve got enough enemies out there as it is.” He tapped the ship’s intercom switch. “Threepio? You there?”

  “Of course,” Leia’s voice returned.

  “Come on up here,” Lando told the droid. “Time for your debut performance.”

  The command room was filled with sculptures instead of pictures this time: over a hundred of them, lining the walls in holographic niches as well as scattered around the floor on ornate pedestals. The variety, as Pellaeon had come to expect, was astonishing, ranging from human-style chunks of simple stone and wood to others that were more like tethered living creatures than works of art. Each was illuminated by a hazy globe of light, giving sharp contrast to the darkness of the spaces between them. “Admiral?” Pellaeon called uncertainly, trying to see around the artwork and through the gloom.

  “Come in, Captain,” Thrawn’s coolly modulated voice beckoned. Over at the command chair, just above the hazy white of the Grand Admiral’s uniform, two glowing red slits appeared. “You have something?”

  “Yes, sir,” Pellaeon told him, walking to the console ring and handing a data card over it. “One of our probes in the outer Athega system has picked up Skywalker. And his companions.”

  “And his companions,” Thrawn echoed thoughtfully. He took the data card, inserted it, and for a minute watched the replay in silence. “Interesting,” he murmured. “Interesting, indeed. What’s that third ship—the one maneuvering to link with the Millennium Falcon’s dorsal hatch?”

  “We’ve tentatively identified it as the Lady Luck,” Pellaeon said. “Administrator Lando Calrissian’s personal ship. One of the other probes copied a transmission stating that Calrissian was leaving Nkllon on a purchasing trip.”

  “Do we know that Calrissian did, in fact, board the ship at Nkllon?”

  “Ah . . . no, sir, not for certain. We can try to get that information, though.”

  “Unnecessary,” Thrawn said. “Our enemies are clearly past the stage of such childish tricks.” Thrawn pointed to the display, where the Millennium Falcon and the Lady Luck were now joined together. “Observe, Captain, their strategy. Captain Solo and his wife and probably the Wookiee Chewbacca board their ship on Nkllon, while Calrissian similarly boards his. They fly to the outer Athega system . . . and there they make a switch.”

  Pellaeon frowned. “But we’ve—”

  “Shh,” Thrawn cut him off sharply, holding up a finger for silence, his eyes on the display. Pellaeon watched, too, as absolutely nothing happened. After a few minutes the two ships separated, maneuvering carefully away from each other.

  “Excellent,” Thrawn said, freezing the frame. “Four minutes fifty-three seconds. They’re in a hurry, of course, locked together so vulnerably. Which means . . .” His forehead furrowed in concentration, then cleared. “Three people,” he said, a touch of satisfaction in his voice. “Three people transferred, in one direction or the other, between those two ships.”

  “Yes, sir,” Pellaeon nodded, wondering how in the Empire the Grand Admiral had figured that one out. “At any rate, we know that Leia Organa Solo remained aboard the Millennium Falcon.”

  “Do we?” Thrawn asked, lazily polite. “Do we indeed?”

  “I believe we do, sir, yes,” Pellaeon said, quietly insistent. The Grand Admiral hadn’t seen the entire playback, after all. “Right after the Lady Luck and Skywalkers X-wing left, we intercepted a transmission from her that definitely originated from the Millennium Falcon.”

  Thrawn shook his head. “A recording,” he said, his voice leaving no room for argument. “No; they’re cleverer than that. A voiceprint-doctored droid, then—probably Skywalker’s 3PO protocol droid. Leia Organa Solo, you see, was one of the two people who left with the Lady Luck.”

  Pellaeon looked at the display. “I don’t understand.”

  “Consider the possibilities,” Thrawn said, leaning back in his chair and steepling his fingertips in front of him. “Three people start out aboard the Millennium Falcon, one aboard the Lady Luck. Three people then transfer. But neither Solo nor Calrissian is the type to turn his ship over to the dubious command of a computer or droid. So each ship must end up with at least one person aboard. You follow so far?”

  “Yes, sir,” Pellaeon said. “That doesn’t tell us who is where, though.”

  “Patience, Captain,” Thrawn interrupted him. “Patience. As you say, the question now is that of the final makeup of the crews. Fortunately, once we know there were three transfers, there are only two possible combinations. Either Solo and Organa Solo are together aboard the Lady Luck, or else Organa Solo and the Wookiee are there.”

  “Unless one of the transfers was a droid,” Pellaeon pointed out.

  “Unlikely,” Thrawn shook his head. “Historically, Solo has never liked droids, nor allowed them to travel aboard his ship except under highly unusual circumstances. Skywalker’s droid and its astromech counterpart appear to be the sole exceptions; and thanks to your transmission data, we already know that that droid has remained on the Millennium Falcon.”

  “Yes, sir,” Pellaeon said, not entirely convinced but knowing better than to argue the point. “Shall I put out an alert on the Lady Luck, then?”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Thrawn said, and this time the satisfaction came through clearly. “I know exactly where Leia Organa Solo is going.”

  Pellaeon stared at him. “You’re not serious. Sir.”

  “Perfectly serious, Captain,” Thrawn said evenly. “Consider. Solo and Organa Solo have nothing to gain by simply transferring together to the Lady Luck—the Millennium Falcon is faster and far better defended. This exercise only makes sense if Organa Solo and the Wookiee are together.” Thrawn smiled up at Pellaeon. “And given that, there is only one logical place for them to go.”

  Pellaeon looked at the display, feeling slightly sandbagged. But the Grand Admiral’s logic tracked clean. “Kashyyyk?”

  “Kashyyyk,” Thrawn confirmed. “They know they can’t evade our Noghri forever, and so they’ve decided to surround her with Wookiees. For all the good it will do them.”

  Pellaeon felt his lip twitch. He’d been aboard one of the ships that had been sent to Kashyyyk to capture Wookiees for the Empire’s slave trade. “It may not be as easy as it sounds, Admiral,” he cautioned. “Kashyyyk’s ecology can best be described as a layered deathtrap. And the Wookiees themselves are extremely capable fighters.”

  “So are the Noghri,” Thrawn countered coldly. “Now. What of Skywalker?”

  “His vector away from Athega was consistent with a course toward Jomark,” Pellaeon told him. “Of course, he could easily have altered it once he was out of ra
nge of our probes.”

  “He’s going there,” Thrawn said, lip twisting in a tight smile. “Our Jedi Master has said so, hasn’t he?” The Grand Admiral glanced at the chrono on his display board. “We’ll leave for Jomark immediately. How much lead time will we have?”

  “A minimum of four days, assuming that Skywalker’s X-wing hasn’t been overly modified. More than that, depending on how many stopovers he has to make on the way.”

  “He’ll make no stopovers,” Thrawn said. “Jedi use a hibernation state for trips of such length. For our purposes, though, four days will be quite adequate.”

  He straightened in his chair and touched a switch. The command room’s lights came back up, the holographic sculptures fading away. “We’ll need two more ships,” he told Pellaeon. “An Interdictor Cruiser to bring Skywalker out of hyperspace where we want him, and some kind of freighter. An expendable one, preferably.”

  Pellaeon blinked. “Expendable, sir?”

  “Expendable, Captain. We’re going to set up the attack as a pure accident—an opportunity that will seem to have arisen while we were investigating a suspicious freighter for Rebellion munitions.” He cocked an eyebrow. “That way, you see, we retain the option of turning him over to C’baoth if we choose to do so, without even Skywalker realizing he was actually ambushed.”

  “Understood, sir,” Pellaeon said. “With your permission, I’ll get the Chimaera underway.” He turned to go—

  And paused. Halfway across the room, one of the sculptures had not disappeared with the others. Sitting all alone in its globe of light, it slowly writhed on its pedestal like a wave in some bizarre alien ocean. “Yes,” Thrawn said from behind him. “That one is indeed real.”

  “It’s . . . very interesting,” Pellaeon managed. The sculpture was strangely hypnotic.

  “Isn’t it?” Thrawn agreed, his voice sounding almost wistful. “It was my one failure, out on the Fringes. The one time when understanding a race’s art gave me no insight at all into its psyche. At least not at the time. Now, I believe I’m finally beginning to understand them.”