by Steve Perry
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 scum. 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 snatched up one of the bowls and dipped a spoon 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 face went 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 her friends, Leia decided.
A lot worse places.
6
When the Millennium Falcon broke from hyperspace 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 ships 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 ship 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 ships 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 port side.
“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 building Rogue Squadron had set up as a base. It was basically four 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 ship 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 holstered 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 one-winged 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 shipment of food stores when the shield 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 ship was supposed to be docked. If they could believe this Dash Rendar. He was pretty good at shining his own light, that was for sure, and yeah, 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’s judgment, 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 nobody 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 s
ix 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 ship. 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 assassin to pass, 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.
Xizor was tempted to hire a dozen assassins, not tell them who their target was, and loose them on Vader. The killers would fail, of course, be squashed like insects by Vader with less effort than Xizor had expended on the man in the walkway. Vader could kill with a wave of his hand, though he enjoyed a chance to use his lightsaber from time to time.
But—no. That might foul Xizor’s plans to appear to be Vader’s friend—or at least, not his enemy. If Xizor could figure out who had been party to the pathetic attempt on his life without any evidence save his feeling, Vader could also determine who might be brave enough to send shooters after him.
Certainly he would be quick to at least consider that it was a retaliation in kind for the attack on Xizor.
No. Satisfying as it might be to worry Vader with an attack, it would not be prudent, given the larger plan.
But it was good to know that Vader disliked him enough to want to see him dead.
Leia laughed. “That’s your plan?”
Luke looked indignant. “What’s wrong with it?” His breath made fog-vapor in the cold room.
“You and Rogue Squadron will attack the Imperial Enclave, keep a hundred and some-odd TIE fighters and two Star Destroyers busy while Dash leads the Millennium Falcon to where Boba Fett’s ship is docked? We’ll just land, rescue Han, and fly away? Why, nothing is wrong with that plan. What could I possibly be thinking was wrong? It’s perfect.” She shook her head.
“Okay, so it’s simple—” Luke began.
“Simpleminded,” Leia said.
He set his jaw. Uh-oh. She’d insulted his manhood. She knew that look.
“If you have a better idea …?” Luke said, his voice tight.
Leia sighed. That was the problem. She didn’t have a better idea. Luke’s plan was straightforward, and while it might be foolhardy enough to get them all cooked by Imperial turbolasers, it might also be just crazy enough to work. If she were the local commander, she’d never expect anybody to do anything so stupid. “Well …” she began.
“That’s what I thought,” Luke said. There was a small note of triumph in his voice when he said it, too.
“Not to put a governor on your drive or anything,” Dash said, “but if we’re going to sneak in the back way, it’ll take some pretty fancy flying. Treetop-level stuff to avoid local sensors. Might have to drop into the Grand Trench canyons.” He looked at Lando. “Even if that piece of Corellian junk you’re in doesn’t fall apart, you think you can manage it?”
Lando said, “You flew it? I can fly it.”
“Yeah, well, I was in the Outrider when I did it.”
“The Millennium Falcon has had a few modifications since I owned her,” Lando said.
Chewie said something.
“That right?” Dash said. “Where’d you get sublight engines that fast?”
Chewie said something else, waved his left arm.
Dash grinned. “Yeah, I guess Solo would be dumb enough to do something like that.” He nodded at Luke and Wedge. “Okay. If you can keep the TIE fighters and the Destroyers busy, I can get Lando to where Boba Fett’s ship is.”
Chewie said something. Leia figured she knew what it meant. He was offering to go along.
“You don’t have to, pal,” Lando said.
Chewie spoke again.
“Thanks, I appreciate it.”
“Count me in, too,” Leia said.
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea—”
Leia interrupted him. “You don’t think the Imperial commander is going to send all his TIEs out to deal with a dozen X-wings, do you? He’s bound to have somebody on the planet. If they start shooting at the Falcon, you’ll need somebody to shoot back. If Chewie is in the dorsal turret, who is going to cover your belly?”
Lando and Luke looked at each other. Luke shrugged. “She’s right. And she’s a good shot.”
“Thank you,” Leia said.
“Okay, I guess that’s it,” Wedge said. “The boys’ll be glad to fly under your command for this mission, Luke.”
“Thanks, Wedge.”
Dash said, “Want to see something, kid?”
Luke looked at him.
“Through that door there.”
Luke walked toward the door. Curious, Leia followed them.
Dash opened the door, into another large, hangarlike room.
“Wow,” Luke said.
Leia looked through the doorway.
A ship sat perched on the cheap plastic flooring. It had smooth lines, heavy cannon mounted above and below, and it shined with a dark gleam, like chrome. It was almost the size of the Millennium Falcon and had an offset cockpit module, but that was as close as it got. This ship was a top-of-the-line, state-of-the-art craft; Leia had seen enough ships to recognize that it was something special.
A droid stood next to it, a stripped-down skeletal model with a tool bag slung over one shoulder.
“The Outrider,” Dash said. “And my droid, an LE-BO2D9 —he answers to ‘Leebo,’ when he bothers to answer at all. He thinks he’s funny.”
“How’d you afford a ship like that?” Luke said.
“Well, it wasn’t clean l
iving. You like it?”
Luke nodded. Leia could see he itched to inspect the vessel, to climb into it, to see what it would do with him at the controls.
Like boys with an expensive toy, she thought. She hoped the mercenary who owned it could fly half as well as he claimed. This didn’t sound as if it was going to be an easy trip.
Leia stared at the Outrider. She was about to risk her life again, and that wasn’t something you got used to doing, even when it was necessary. That she was going to risk it to rescue Han somehow made it worse. That she would be that … vulnerable, to want something—no, someone—so badly was scarier still. She could justify putting herself at risk for the Alliance; that was of galactic importance. But to do it for the love of a man …?
She’d never thought it would happen. Her dedication to the Alliance, to defeating the Empire, had never allowed for much of a personal life. Oh, sure, there had been friends, even some with whom she’d been close, but she had always thought that her life would be spent fighting against the Emperor and his evil. She’d never seen herself falling in love, settling down, having a home or children. Probably that wouldn’t happen anyway, given all that could get in the way, but at least it was a possibility now. Assuming they could find and free Han. Assuming they could escape and not get killed in the process.
Assuming Han had any real interest in her. He hadn’t said the words. She’d believed he felt the same thing, but he hadn’t said it.
Big assumptions, those.
Well. They’d just have to see. One thing at a time.
One thing at a time.
7
Darth Vader held his lightsaber firmly, wrists locked, and watched the killer droid circle to its left. The droid was a new model, one of a dozen identical units constructed to his personal specifications. Like Vader, it also held a lightsaber. It was tall, spindly, looked something like the general-purpose Asps to be found all over the Empire, but with a number of special modifications. The unit was faster than an ordinary man, stronger, programmed with the knowledge of a hundred sword masters and a dozen different fighting styles. Against a normal person, the droid would be unbeatable and deadly—
