Star Wars - Thrawn Trilogy - The Last Command 03

by Timothy Zahn

  But it didn't really help. The Empire simply could not have infiltrated an espionage droid into the Palace without the collaboration of one or more of the beings here. Security invariably did a complete screening of every droid that came into the Palace, whether on a permanent or temporary basis, and they knew exactly what to look for. Hidden secondary espionage programming would show up like a burst of pale red against the subtle background pattern on that ch'hala tree—

  Leia frowned, staring at the tree, as her chain of thought jolted to a halt. Another small burst of red appeared on the slender trunk as she watched, sending a pale red ring rippling outward and around the trunk until it faded into the quiet purple background turmoil. Another flicker followed, and another, and another, chasing each other around the trunk like ripples from a dripping water line. All of them more or less the same size; all of them originating from the same place on the trunk.

  And each of them exactly in time with one of the clucking noises from the MN-2E droid.

  And suddenly then it hit her, like a violent wave of icy water. Fumbling at her belt with suddenly trembling fingers, she keyed for the central operator. "This is Councilor Organa Solo," she identified herself. "Get me Colonel Bremen in Security.

  "Tell him I've found Delta Source."

  They had to dig nearly eight meters down before they found it: a long, fat, age-tarnished tube half buried in the side of the ch'hala tree's taproot with a thousand slender sampling leads feeding into one end and a direct-transmission fiber snaking out the other. Even then, it took another hour and the preliminary report before Bremen himself was finally convinced.

  "The techs say it's like nothing they've ever seen before," the security chief told Leia, Bel Iblis, and Mon Mothma as they stood on the scattered dirt around the uprooted ch'hala tree. "But apparently it's reasonably straightforward. Any pressure on the ch'hala tree's trunk—including the pressure created by sound waves—sets off small chemical changes in the inner layers of bark."

  "Which is what creates the shifting colors and patterns?" Mon Mothma asked.

  "Right," Bremen nodded, wincing slightly. "Obvious in hindsight, really—the pattern changes are far too fast to be anything but biochemical in origin. Anyway, those implanted tubes running up into the trunk continuously sample the chemicals and shunt the information back down to the module on the taproot. The module takes the chemical data, turns it back into pressure data, and from there back into speech. Some other module—maybe farther down the taproot—sorts out the conversations and gets the whole thing ready for encrypting and transmission. That's all there is to it."

  "An organic microphone," Bel Iblis nodded. "With no electronics anywhere in sight for a counterintelligence sweep to pick up."

  "A whole series of organic microphones," Bremen corrected, glancing significantly at the twin rows of trees lining the Grand Corridor. "We'll get rid of them right away."

  "Such a brilliant plan," Mon Mothma mused. "And so very like the Emperor. I'd always wondered how he obtained some of the information he used against us in the Senate." She shook her head. "Even after his death, it seems, his hand can move against us."

  "Well, this part's about to be stilled, anyway," Bel Iblis said. "Let's get a team up here, Colonel, and dig up some trees."

  Chapter 18

  In the distance, far across the scarred plain, there was a glimmer of reflected light. "Mazzic's coming," Karrde commented.

  Gillespee turned his attention from the refreshments table and squinted out past the crumbling fortress wall. "Someone's coming, anyway," he agreed, putting down his cup and the cold bruallki he'd been munching on and wiping his hands on his tunic. Pulling out his macrobinoculars, he peered through them. "Yeah, it's him," he confirmed. "Funny—he's got two other ships with him."

  Karrde frowned at the approaching spot. "Two other ships?"

  "Take a look," Gillespee said, handing over the macrobinoculars.

  Karrde held them up to his eyes. There were three incoming, all right: a sleek space yacht and two slender, highly vicious-looking ships of an unfamiliar design. "You suppose he's brought some guests?" Gillespee asked.

  "He didn't say anything about guests when he checked in with Aves a few minutes ago," Karrde said. Even as he watched, the two flanking ships left the formation, dropping to the plain below and vanishing into one of the deep ravines crisscrossing it.

  "Maybe you'd better check."

  "Maybe I'd better," Karrde agreed, handing back the macrobinoculars and pulling out his comlink. "Aves? You have some ID on our incoming?"

  "Sure do," Aves's voice came back. "Gimmicked IDs on all of them, but we read them as the Distant Rainbow, the Skyclaw, and the Raptor."

  Karrde grimaced. The designs might not be familiar, but the names certainly were. Mazzic's personal transport and two of his favorite customized fighters. "Thank you," he said, and shut down the comlink.

  "Well?" Gillespee asked.

  Karrde returned the comlink to his belt. "It's just Mazzic," he said.

  "What's that about Mazzic?" Niles Ferrier's voice put in.

  Karrde turned. The ship thief was standing behind them at the refreshments table, a generous helping of charred pirki nuts cupped in one hand. "I said Mazzic was coming," he repeated.

  "Good," Ferrier nodded, popping one of the nuts into his mouth and cracking it loudly between his teeth. "About time. Finally get this meeting going."

  He sauntered off, crunching as he went, nodding at Dravis and Clyngunn as he passed. "I thought you didn't want him here," Gillespee muttered.

  Karrde shook his head. "I didn't. Apparently, the feeling wasn't universal."

  Gillespee frowned. "You mean someone else invited him? Who?"

  "I don't know," Karrde admitted, watching as Ferrier wandered over to the corner where Ellor and his group had gathered. "I haven't found a way to ask around without looking either petty, suspicious, or overbearing. Anyway, it's probably quite innocent. Someone assuming that all those at the original Trogan meeting should continue to be involved."

  "The lack of an invitation notwithstanding?"

  Karrde shrugged. "Perhaps that was assumed to be an oversight. At any rate, calling attention to it at this point would only create friction. Some of the others already seem resentful that I've apparently taken over management of the operation."

  Gillespee tossed the last bit of bruallki into his mouth. "Yeah, maybe it's innocent," he said darkly. "But maybe it's not."

  "We're keeping a good watch on the likely approaches," Karrde reminded him. "If Ferrier's made a deal with the Empire, we'll see them coming in plenty of time."

  "I hope so," Gillespee grunted, surveying the refreshments table for his next target. "I hate running on a full stomach."

  Karrde smiled; and he was starting to turn away when his comlink beeped. He pulled it out and flicked it on, eyes automatically turning to the sky. "Karrde," he said into it.

  "This is Torve," the other identified himself . . . and from the tone Karrde knew something was wrong. "Could you step downstairs a minute?"

  "Certainly," Karrde said, his other hand dropping to his side and the blaster holstered there. "Should I bring anyone?"

  "No need—we're not having a party or anything here."

  Translation: reinforcements were already on their way. "Understood," Karrde said. "I'll be right there."

  He shut off the comlink and returned it to his belt. "Trouble?" Gillespee asked, eyeing Karrde over his glass.

  "We've got an intruder," Karrde said, glancing around the courtyard. None of the other smugglers or their entourages seemed to be looking his direction. "Do me a favor and keep an eye on things here."

  "Sure. Anyone in particular I should watch?"

  Karrde looked at Ferrier, who had now left Ellor and was heading toward Par'tah and her fellow Ho'Din. "Make sure Ferrier doesn't leave."

  The main part of the base had been set up three levels below the top remaining floors of the ruined fortress, in what had
probably been the kitchens and ancillary prep areas for a huge high-ceilinged room that had probably been a banquet area. The Wild Karrde was berthed in the banquet chamber itself—a moderately tight fit for a ship its size, but offering the twin advantages of reasonable concealment plus the possibility for a quick exit should that become necessary. Karrde arrived at the high double doors to find Fynn Torve and five of the crewers from the Starry Ice waiting with drawn blasters. "Report," he said.

  "We think someone's in there," Torve told him grimly. "Chin was taking the vornskrs for a walk around the ship and saw something moving in the shadows along the south wall."

  The wall closest to the Wild Karrde's lowered entrance ramp. "Anyone currently aboard the ship?"

  "Lachton was working on the secondary command console," Torve said. "Aves told him to sit tight on the bridge with his blaster pointed at the door until we got someone else there. Chin grabbed some of the Etherway people who were hanging around and started searching through the south-end rooms; Dankin is doing the same with the north-end ones."

  Karrde nodded. "That leaves the ship for us, then. You two"—he pointed to two of the Starry Ice crewers—"will stay here and guard the doors. Nice and easy; let's go."

  They pulled open one of the double doors and slipped inside. Directly ahead, the Wild Karrde's stern rose up darkly in front of them; 150 meters beyond it, glimpses of the blue Hijarna sky could be seen through the broken fortress wall. "I wish we had better lighting in here," Torve muttered as he looked around.

  "It looks easier to hide in than it really is," Karrde assured him, pulling out his comlink. "Dankin, Chin, this is Karrde. Report."

  "Nothing so far in the north-end rooms," Dankin's voice came promptly. "I sent Corvis for some portable sensor equipment, but he's not back yet."

  "Nothing here either, Capt'," Chin added.

  "All right," Karrde said. "We're coming in around the starboard side of the ship and heading for the entryway. Be ready to give us cover fire if we need it."

  "We're ready, Capt'."

  Karrde slid the comlink back in his belt. Taking a deep breath, he headed out.

  They searched the ship, the banquet chamber, and all the offices and storerooms on the periphery. And in the end, they found no one.

  "I must have imagined it," Chin said morosely as the searchers gathered together at the foot of the Wild Karrde's entrance ramp. "Sorry, Capt'. Truly sorry."

  "Don't worry about it," Karrde said, looking around the banquet chamber. Cleared or not, there was still an uneasy feeling tugging at him. Like someone was watching and laughing . . . "We all misread things sometimes. If this was, in fact, a misreading. Torve, you're certain you and Lachton covered the entire ship?"

  "Every cubic meter of it," Torve said firmly. "If anyone sneaked into the Wild Karrde, he was out long before we got here."

  "What about those vornskr pets of yours, sir?" one of the Starry Ice crewers asked. "Are they any good at tracking?"

  "Only if you're hunting ysalamiri or Jedi," Karrde told him. "Well. Whoever was here seems to be gone now. Still, we may have driven him off before he finished whatever it was he came to do. Torve, I want you to set up a guard detail for the area. Have Aves alert the duty personnel aboard the Starry Ice and Etherway, as well."

  "Right," Torve said, pulling out his comlink. "What about our guests upstairs? Should we warn them, too?"

  "What are we, their mothers?" one of the other crewers snorted. "They're big boys—they can look out for themselves."

  "I'm sure they can," Karrde reproved him mildly. "But they're here at my invitation. As long as they're under our roof, they're under our protection."

  "Does that include whoever sent the intruder Chin spotted?" Lachton asked.

  Karrde looked up at his ship. "That will depend on what the intruder was sent to do," he said. And speaking of his guests, it was time he got back to them. Mazzic would have joined them by now, and Ferrier wasn't the only one impatient for the meeting to begin. "Lachton, as soon as Corvis gets here with those scanners I want the two of you to run a complete check of the ship, starting with the exterior hull. Our visitor may have left us a gift, and I don't want to fly out of here with a homing beacon or timed concussion bomb aboard somewhere. I'll be up in the conference area if you need me."

  He left them to their work, feeling once again Mara Jade's absence from the group. One of these days, he was going to have to make the time to go back to Coruscant and get her and Ghent back.

  Assuming he was allowed to do so. His information sources had picked up a vague and disturbing rumor that an unnamed woman had been caught giving assistance to an Imperial commando force on Coruscant. Given Mara's obvious disdain for Grand Admiral Thrawn, it was unlikely she would actually give his Empire any help. But on the other hand, there were many in the New Republic starting to edge toward a kind of war hysteria . . . and given her shadowy history, Mara was an obvious candidate for that kind of accusation. All the more reason for him to get her off Coruscant.

  He reached the upper courtyard to find that Mazzic had indeed arrived. He was standing with the Ho'Din group, talking earnestly with Par'tah, with the deceptively decorative female bodyguard he'd had at Trogan an aloof half-step back from the conversation, trying to look inconspicuous.

  As were the pair of men just behind her. And the four standing around them a few meters away. And the six scattered elsewhere around the edges of the courtyard.

  Karrde paused in the arched entrance, a quiet warning alarm going off in the back of his head. For Mazzic to bring a pair of fighting ships to protect him en route was one thing. To bring a full squad of enforcers into a friendly meeting was something else entirely. Either the Imperial attack on Trogan had made him uncharacteristically nervous . . . or else he wasn't planning for the meeting to remain quite so friendly.

  "Hey—Karrde," Ferrier called, beckoning him over. "Come on—let's get this meeting out of the bay."

  "Certainly," Karrde said, putting on his best host's smile as be walked into the room. Too late now to bring some of his own people up here for balance. He would just have to hope that Mazzic was merely being cautious. "Good afternoon, Mazzic. Thank you for coming."

  "No problem," Mazzic said, his eyes cool. He didn't smile back.

  "We have more comfortable seats prepared in a room back this way," Karrde said, gesturing to his left. "If you'd all care to follow me—"

  "I have a better idea," Mazzic interrupted. "What do you say we hold this meeting inside the Wild Karrde?"

  Karrde looked at him. Mazzic returned the gaze evenly, his face not giving anything away. Apparently, he was not merely being cautious. "May I ask why?" Karrde asked.

  "Are you suggesting you have something to hide?" Mazzic countered.

  Karrde allowed himself a cool smile. "Of course I have things to hide," he said. "So does Par'tah; so does Ellor; so do you. We're business competitors, after all."

  "So you won't allow us aboard the Wild Karrde?"

  Karrde looked at each of the smuggler chiefs in turn. Gillespee, Dravis, and Clyngunn were frowning, clearly with no idea at all as to what this was all about. Par'tah's Ho'Din face was difficult to read, but there was something about her stance that seemed oddly troubled. Ellor was avoiding his eyes entirely. And Ferrier—