by Timothy Zahn
"The security teams are searching the area of that turbolift alert," the other said, his tone implying that anything a stormtrooper commander said must by, definition be important. "So far there's been no contact."
Thrawn turned from the two communications officers who had been relaying messages for him to and from the hangar bays. "How was the waste chute grating cut open?" he asked.
"I have no information on that," the commander said.
"Get it," Thrawn said, his tone icy. "Also inform your search parties that two maintenance techs have reported seeing a man in a TIE fighter flight suit in the vicinity of that waste collector. Warn your guards in the aft hangar bays, as well."
"Yes, sir," the commander said.
Pellaeon looked at Thrawn. "I don't see how it matters right now how they got Karrde out, sir," he said. "Wouldn't our resources be better spent in finding them?"
"Are you suggesting that we send all our soldiers and stormtroopers converging on the hangar bays?" Thrawn asked mildly. "That we thereby assume our quarry won't seek to cause damage elsewhere before attempting their escape?"
"No, sir," Pellaeon said, feeling his face warming. "I realize we need to protect the entire ship. It just seems to me to be a low-priority line of inquiry.
"Indulge me, Captain," Thrawn said quietly. "It's only a hunch, but-
"Admiral," the stormtrooper commander interrupted. "Report from search team 207, on deck 98 nexus 326-KK." Pellaeon's fingers automatically started for his keyboard; came up short as he remembered that there was no computer mapping available to pinpoint the location for him. "They've found team 102, all dead," the commander continued. "Two were killed by blaster fire; the other two :" He hesitated. "There seems to be some confusion about the other two."
"No confusion, Commander," Thrawn put in, his voice suddenly deadly. "Instruct them to look for near microscopic cuts across the bodies with partial cauterization."
Pellaeon stared at him. There was a cold fire in the Grand Admiral's eyes that hadn't been there before. "Partial cauterization?" he repeated stupidly.
"And then inform them," Thrawn continued, "that one of the intruders is the Jedi Luke Skywalker."
Pellaeon felt his mouth drop open. "Skywalker?" he gasped. "That's impossible. He's on Jomark with C'baoth."
"Was, Captain," Thrawn corrected icily. "He's here now." He took a deep, controlled breath; and as he let it out, the momentary anger seemed to fade away. "Obviously, our vaunted Jedi Master failed to keep him there, as he claimed he'd be able to. And I'd say that we now have our proof that Skywalker's escape from Myrkr wasn't a spur-of-the-moment decision."
"You think Karrde and the Rebellion have been working together all along?" Pellaeon asked.
"We'll find out soon enough," Thrawn told him, turning to look over his shoulder. "Rukh?"
The silent gray figure moved to Thrawn's side. "Yes, my lord?
"Get a squad of noncombat personnel together," Thrawn ordered. "Have them collect all the ysalamiri from Engineering and Systems Control and move them down to the hangar bays. There aren't nearly enough to cover the whole area, so use your hunter's instincts on their placement. The more we can hamper Skywalker's Jedi tricks, the less trouble we'll have taking him."
The Noghri nodded and headed for the bridge exit. "We could also use the ysalamiri from the bridge-" Pellaeon began.
"Quiet a moment, Captain," Thrawn cut him off, his glowing eyes gazing unseeing through the side viewport and the edge of the planet turning beneath them. "I need to think. Yes. They'll try to travel in concealment whenever possible, I think. For now, that means the turbolift tunnels." He gestured to the two communications officers still standing beside his chair. "Order turbolift control to put the system back into normal service except for the 326-KK nexus between deck 98 and the aft hangar bays," he instructed them. "All cars in that area are to be moved to the nearest cluster point and remain locked there until further notice."
One of the officers nodded and began relaying the order into his comlink. "You trying to herd them toward the hangar bays?" Pellaeon hazarded.
"I'm trying to herd them in from a specific direction, yes," Thrawn nodded. His forehead was creased with thought, his eyes still gazing at nothing in particular. "The question is what they'll do once they realize that. Presumably try to break out of the nexus; but in which direction?"
"I doubt they'll be foolish enough to return to the supply ship," Pellaeon suggested. "My guess is that they'll bypass the aft hangar bays entirely and try for one of the assault shuttles in the forward bays."
"Perhaps," Thrawn agreed slowly. "If Skywalker is directing the escape, I'd say that was likely. But if Karrde is giving the orders :" He fell silent, again deep in thought.
It was somewhere to start, anyway. "Have extra guards placed around the assault shuttles," Pellaeon ordered the stormtrooper commander. "Better put some men inside the ships, too, in case the intruders make it that far."
"No, they won't make for the shuttles if Karrde's in command," Thrawn murmured. "He's more apt to try something less obvious. Perhaps TIE fighters; or perhaps he'll return to the supply shuttles after all, assuming we won't expect that. Or else-"
Abruptly, his head snapped around to look at Pellaeon. "The Millennium Falcon," he demanded. "Where is it?"
"Ah-" Again, Pellaeon's hand reached uselessly for his command board. "I ordered it sent to deep storage, sir. I don't know whether or not the order's been carried out."
Thrawn jabbed a finger at the stormtrooper commander. "You-get someone on the hangar bay computer and find that ship. Then get a squad there."
The Grand Admiral looked at Pellaeon : and for the first time since ordering the intruder alert, he smiled. "We have them, Captain."
Karrde pulled away the section of cable duct that Luke had cut and carefully looked through the opening. "No one seems to be around," he murmured over his shoulder, his voice almost inaudible over the background rumble of machinery coming through from the room beyond. "I think we've beaten them here."
"If they're coming at all," Luke said.
"They're coming," Mara growled. "Bet on it. If there was one thing Thrawn had over all the other Grand Admirals, it was a knack for predicting his enemies' strategy."
"There are a half dozen ships out there," Karrde continued. "Unmarked Intelligence ships, from the look of them. Any would probably do."
"Any idea where we are?" Luke asked, trying to see past him through the cable duct. There was a fair amount of empty space out there surrounding the ships, plus a gaping light-rimmed opening in the deck that was presumably the shaft of a heavy vehicle lift. Unlike the one he remembered from the Death Star's hangar bay, though, this shaft had a corresponding hole in the ceiling above it to allow ships to be moved farther up toward the Star Destroyer's core.
"We're near the bottom of the deep storage section, I think," Karrde told him. "A deck or two above the aft hangar bays. The chief difficulty will be if the lift itself is a deck down, blocking us from access to the bay and entry port."
"Well, let's get in there and find out," Mara said, fingering her blaster rifle restlessly. "Waiting here won't gain us anything."
"Agreed." Karrde cocked his head to the side. "I think I hear the lift coming now. They're slow, though, and there's enough cover by the ships. Skywalker?"
Luke ignited his lightsaber again and quickly cut them a hole large enough to get through. Karrde went first, followed by Luke, with Mara bringing up the rear. "The hangar bay computer link is over there," Mara said, pointing to a freestanding console to their right as they crouched beside a battered-looking light freighter. "As soon as the lift passes I'll see if I can get us into it."
"All right, but don't take too long at it," Karrde warned. "A faked transfer order won't gain us enough surprise to be worth any further delay."
The top of a ship was becoming visible now as it was lifted from the hangar bays below. A ship that seemed remarkably familiar :
Luke fe
lt his mouth drop open in surprise. "That's-no. No, it can't be."
"It is," Mara said. "I'd forgotten-the Grand Admiral mentioned they were taking it aboard when I talked to him at Endor."
Luke stared, a cold lump forming in his throat as the Millennium Falcon rose steadily up through the opening. Leia and Chewbacca had been aboard that ship : "Did he say anything about prisoners?"
"Not to me," Mara said. "I got the impression he'd found the ship deserted."
Which meant that wherever Leia and Chewbacca had gone, they were now stranded there. But there was no time to worry about that now. "We're taking it back," he told the others, stuffing his lightsaber into his flight suit tunic. "Cover me."
"Skywalker-" Mara hissed; but Luke was already jogging toward the shaft. The lift plate itself came into view, revealing two men riding alongside the Falcon: a naval trooper and a tech with what looked like a combined data pad/control unit. They caught sight of Luke-
"Hey!" Luke called, waving as he hurried toward them. "Hold on!"
The tech did something with his data pad and the lift stopped, and Luke could sense the sudden suspicion in the trooper's mind. "Got new orders on that one," he said as he trotted up to them. "The Grand Admiral wants it moved back down. Something about using it as bait."
The tech frowned down at his data pad. He was young, Luke saw, probably not out of his teens. "There's nothing about new orders here," he objected.
"I haven't heard anything about it, either," the trooper growled, drawing his blaster and pointing it vaguely in Luke's direction as he threw a quick look around the storage room.
"It just came through a minute ago," Luke said, nodding back toward the computer console. "Stuffs not transferring very fast today, for some reason."
"Makes a good story, anyway," the trooper retorted. His blaster was now very definitely pointed at Luke. "Let's see some ID, huh?"
Luke shrugged; and, reaching out through the Force, he yanked the blaster out of the trooper's hand.
The man didn't even pause to gape at the unexpected loss of his weapon. He threw himself forward, hands stretching toward Luke's neck -
The blaster, heading straight toward Luke, suddenly reversed direction. The trooper caught the butt end full in the stomach, coughed once in strangled agony, and fell unmoving to the deck.
"I'll take that," Luke told the tech, waving Karrde and Mara to join him. The tech, his face a rather motley gray, handed the data pad to him without a word.
"Good job," Karrde said as he came up beside Luke. "Relax, we're not going to hurt you," he added to the tech, squatting down and relieving the gasping trooper of his comlink. "Not if you behave, anyway. Take your friend to that electrical closet over there and lock yourselves in."
The tech glanced at him, looked again at Luke, and gave a quick nod. Hoisting the trooper under the armpits, he dragged him off. "Make sure they get settled all right, and then join me in the ship," Karrde told Luke. "I'm going to get the preflight started. Are there any security codes I need to know about?"
"I don't think so." Luke glanced around the room, spotted Mara already busy with the computer console. "The Falcon's hard enough to keep functional as it is."
"All right. Remind Mara not to waste too much time fiddling with that computer."
He ducked under the ship and disappeared up the ramp. Luke waited until the tech had locked himself and the trooper into the electrical closet as ordered, and then followed.
"It has a remarkably fast start-up sequence," Karrde remarked as Luke joined him in the cockpit. "Two minutes, maybe three, and we'll be ready to fly. You still have that controller?"
"Right here," Luke said, handing it to him. "I'll go get Mara." He glanced out the cockpit window-
Just as a wide door across the room slid open, to reveal a full squad of stormtroopers.
"Uh-oh," Karrde murmured as the eight white-armored Imperials marched purposefully toward the Falcon. "Do they know we're here?"
Luke stretched out his senses, trying to gauge the stormtroopers' mental state. "I don't think so," he murmured back. "They seem to be thinking more like guards than soldiers."
"Probably too noisy in here for them to hear the engines in start-up mode," Karrde said, ducking down in his seat out of their direct view. "Mara was right about the Grand Admiral; but we seem to be a step ahead of him."
A sudden thought struck hike, and he threw a look through the side of the canopy. Mara was crouching beside the computer console, temporarily hidden from the stormtroopers view.
But she wouldn't remain concealed for long : and knowing Mara, she wouldn't just sit and wait for the Imperials to notice her. If there were only some way he could warn her not to fire on them yet :
Perhaps there was. Mara, he sent silently, trying to picture her in his mind. Wait until I give the word before you attack.
There was no reply?; but he saw her throw a quick look at the Falcon in response and ease farther back into her limited cover. "I'm going back to the hatchway," he told Karrde. "I'll try to catch them in a cross fire with Mara. Stay out of sight up here."
"Right."
Keeping down, Luke hurried back down the short cockpit corridor. Barely in time; even as he came to the hatchway he could feel the vibration of battle-armored boots on the entry ramp. Four of them were coming in, he could sense, with the other four fanning out beneath the ship to watch the approaches. Another second and they would see him-a second after that and someone would notice Mara-Mara; now.
There was a flash of blaster fire from Mara's position, coming quickly enough on the tail of his command that Luke got the distinct impression Mara had planned to attack at that time whether she'd had his permission or not. Ignighting his lightsaber, Luke leaped around the corner onto the ramp, catching the stormtroopers just as they were starting to turn toward the threat behind them. His first sweep took off the barrel of the lead stormtrooper's blaster rifle; reaching out with the Force, he gave the man a hard shove, pushing him into his companions and sending the whole bunch of them tumbling helplessly down to the lift plate. Jumping off the ramp to the side, he deflected a shot from another stormtrooper and sliced the lightsaber blade across him; caught a half dozen more shots before Mara's blaster fire took the next one out. A quick look showed that she'd already dealt with the other two.
A surge in the Force spun him around, to find that the group he'd sent rolling to the bottom of the ramp had untangled themselves. With a shout he charged them, lightsaber swinging in large circles as he waited for Mara to take advantage of his distraction to fire on them. But she didn't; and with the blaster bolts beginning to flash in at him there weren't many alternatives left. The lightsaber slashed four times and it was over.
Breathing hard, he closed down the lightsaber : and with a shock discovered why Mara hadn't been firing there at the end. The lift carrying the Falcon was dropping steadily down toward the deck below, well past the point where the stormtroopers would be out of Mara's line of fire. "Mara!" he called, looking up.
"Yeah, what?" she shouted back, coming into view at the rim of the lift, already five meters above him. "What's Karrde doing?"
"I guess we're leaving," Luke said. "Jump-I'll catch you.
An expression of annoyance flickered across Mara's face; but the Falcon was receding fast and she obeyed without hesitation. Reaching out with the Force, Luke caught her in an invisible grip, slowing her descent and landing her on the Falcon's ramp. She hit the ramp running, and was inside in three steps.
She was seated beside Karrde in the cockpit by the time Luke got the hatchway sealed and made it up there himself. "Better strap in," she called over her shoulder.
