by Timothy Zahn
Han grabbed his shoulder. "Too late," he said. "Listen."
Lando frowned, straining his ears. Over the quiet hum of ship's noises, he could make out the rapid-fire spitting of stormtrooper laser rifles in the distance. "They're aboard," he murmured.
"Yeah," Han nodded. The deck vibrated briefly beneath their feet, and abruptly the laser fire slackened off. "Subsonic grenade," he identified it. "That's it. Come on."
"Come on where?" Lando asked as Han set off down the cross corridor.
"Aft to the escape pod racks, the other said. "We're getting out of here."
Lando felt his mouth drop open. But he looked at his friend, and his objections died unsaid. Han's face was set into tight lines, his eyes smoldering with anger and frustration. He knew what this meant, all right. Probably better than Lando did.
The escape pod bobbed on the surface of the sea, surrounded by a hundred other pods and floating bits of reef. Through the tiny porthole Han watched as, in the distance, the last of the Imperial assault shuttles lifted from the Coral Vanda and headed back to space. "That's it, then?" Lando ventured from the seat behind him.
"That's it," Han said, hearing the bitterness in his voice. "They'll probably start picking up the pods soon."
"We did all we could, Han," Lando pointed out quietly. "And it could have been worse. They could have blown the Coral Vanda out of the water-it might have been days before anyone came to get us then."
Which would have given the Empire that much more of a head start. "Oh, yeah, great," Han said sourly. "We're really on top of things."
"What else could we have done?" Lando persisted. "Scuttled the ship to keep them from getting him-never mind that we'd have killed several hundred people in the process? Or maybe just gotten ourselves killed fighting three assault shuttles' worth of stormtroopers? At least this way Coruscant has a chance to get ready before ships from the Dark Force start showing up in battle."
Lando was trying-you had to give him that. But Han wasn't ready to be cheered up yet. "How do you get ready to get hit by two hundred Dreadnaughts?" he growled. "We're stretched to the limit as it is."
"Come on, Han," Lando said, his voice starting to sound a little irritated. "Even if the ships are in mint condition and ready to fly, they're still going to need two thousand crewers apiece to man them. It'll be years before the Imperials can scrape that many recruits together and teach them how to fly the things."
"Except that the Empire already had a call out for new ships," Han reminded him. "Means they already have a bunch of recruits ready to go."
"I doubt they have four hundred thousand of them," Lando countered. "Come on, try looking on the bright side for once.
"There's not much bright side here to look at." Han shook his head.
"Sure there is," Lando insisted. "Thanks to your quick action, the New Republic still has a fighting chance."
Han frowned at him. "What do you mean?"
"You saved my life, remember? Shot those goons of Ferrier's off my back."
"Yeah, I remember. What does that have to do with the New Republic's chances?"
"Han!" Lando said, looking scandalized. "You know perfectly well how fast the New Republic would fall apart without me around."
Han tried real hard, but he couldn't quite strangle off a smile on that one. He compromised, letting it come out twisted. "All right, I give up," he sighed. "If I stop grousing, will you shut up?"
"Deal," Lando nodded.
Han turned back to the porthole, the smile fading away. Lando could talk all he wanted; but the loss of the Katana fleet would be a first magnitude disaster, and they both knew it. Somehow, they had to stop the Empire from getting to those ships.
Somehow.
Chapter 26
Mon Mothma shook her head in wonderment. "The Katana fleet," she breathed. "After all these years. It's incredible."
"Some might even put it more strongly than that," Fey'lya added coolly, his fur rippling as he gazed hard at Karrde's impassive face. He'd been doing a lot of that throughout the hastily called meeting, Leia had noticed: gazing hard at Karrde, at Luke, at Leia herself. Even Mon Mothma hadn't been left out. "Some might, in fact, have severe doubts that what you're telling us is true at all."
Beside Karrde, Luke shifted in his seat, and Leia could sense his efforts to control his annoyance with the Bothan. But Karrde merely cocked an eyebrow. "Are you suggesting that I'm lying to you?"
"What, a smuggler lie?" Fey'lya countered. "What a thought."
"He's not lying," Han insisted, an edge to his voice. "The fleet's been found. I saw some of the ships."
"Perhaps," Fey'lya said, dropping his eyes to the polished surface of the table. Of all those at the meeting, Han had so far been the only one to escape Fey'lya's posturing and his glare. For some reason, the Bothan seemed reluctant to even look at him. "Perhaps not. There are more Dreadnaught cruisers in the galaxy than just the Katana fleet."
"I don't believe this," Luke spoke up at last, looking back and forth between Fey'lya and Mon Mothma. "The Katana fleet's been found, the Empire's going after it, and we're sitting here arguing about it?"
"Perhaps the problem is that you believe too much, or too easily," Fey'lya retorted, turning his gaze on Luke. "Solo tells us the Empire is holding someone who can lead them to these alleged ships. And yet Karrde has said only he knows their location."
"And as I've mentioned at least once today," Karrde said tartly, "the assumption that no one else knew what we'd found was just that: an assumption. Captain Hoffner was a very astute man in his way, and I have no trouble believing that he might have pulled a copy of the coordinates for himself before I erased them."
"I'm glad you have such faith in your former associate," Fey'lya said. "For myself I find it easier to believe that it is Captain Solo who is wrong." His fur rippled. "Or has been deliberately deceived."
Beside her, Leia felt Han's mood darken. "You want to explain that, Councilor?" he demanded.
"I think you were lied to," Fey'lya said bluntly, his eyes still not meeting Han's. "I think this contact of yours-who I notice you've been remarkably reluctant to identify-told you a story and dressed it up with false evidence. That piece of machinery you say Calrissian examined could have come from anywhere. And you yourself admitted that you were never actually aboard any of the ships."
"What about that Imperial raid on the Coral Vanda?" Han demanded. "They thought there was someone there worth grabbing."
Fey'lya smiled thinly. "Or else they wanted us to believe that they did. Which they very well might : if your unnamed contact is in fact working for them."
Leia looked at Han. There was something there, beneath the surface. Some swirl of emotion she couldn't identify. "Han?" she asked quietly.
"No," he said, his eyes still on Fey'lya. "He's not working for the Imperials."
"So you say," Fey'lya sniffed. "You offer little proof of that."
"All right, then," Karrde put in. "Let's assume for the moment that all of this is in fact a giant soap bubble. What would the Grand Admiral stand to gain from it?"
Fey'lya's fur shifted in a gesture Leia decided was probably annoyance. Between her and Karrde they'd pretty well burst the Bothan's theory that Thrawn was not, in fact, an Imperial Grand Admiral; and Fey'lya wasn't taking even that minor defeat well. "I should think that was obvious," he told Karrde stiffly. "How many systems would we have to leave undefended, do you suppose, in order to reassign enough trained personnel to reactivate and transport two hundred Dreadnaughts? No, the Empire has a great deal to gain by hasty action on our part."
"They also have a great deal to gain by our total lack of action," Karrde said, his voice icy cold. "I worked with Hoffner for over two years; and I can tell you right now that it won't take the Imperials a great deal of time to obtain the fleet's location from him. If you don't move quickly, you stand to lose everything."
"If there's anything out there to lose," Fey'lya said.
Leia put a warning
hand on Han's arm. "That should be easy enough to check," she jumped in before Karrde could respond. "We can send a ship and tech crew out to take a look. If the fleet is there and seems operational, we can start a full-scale salvage effort."
From the look on Karrde's' face she could tell that he thought even that was moving too slowly. But he nodded. "I suppose that's reasonable enough," he said.
Leia looked at Mon Mothma. "Mon Mothma?"
"I agree," the other said. "Councilor Fey'lya, you'll speak to Admiral Drayson at once about assigning an Escort Frigate and two X-wing squadrons to this mission. Preferably a ship already here at Coruscant; we don't want anyone outside the system to get even a hint of what we're doing."
Fey'lya inclined his head slightly. "As you wish. Will tomorrow morning be sufficiently early?"
"Yes." Mon Mothma looked at Karrde. "We'll need the fleet's coordinates."
"Of course," Karrde agreed. "I'll supply them tomorrow morning."
Fey'lya snorted. "Let me remind you, Captain Karrde-"
"Unless, of course, Councilor," Karrde continued smoothly, "you'd prefer I leave Coruscant tonight and offer the location to the highest bidder."
Fey'lya glared at him, his fur flattening. But there was nothing he could do about it, and he knew it. "In the morning, then," he growled.
"Good," Karrde nodded. "If that's all, then, I believe I'll return to my quarters and rest awhile before dinner."
He looked across at Leia : and suddenly, there was something different in his face or his sense. She nodded fractionally, and his gaze slid unconcernedly away from her as he stood up. "Mon Mothma; Councilor Fey'lya," he said, nodding to each in turn. "It's been interesting."
"We'll see you in the morning," Fey'lya said darkly.
A faintly sardonic smile touched Karrde's lips. "Of course.
"Then I declare this meeting adjourned," Mon Mothma said, making it official.
"Let's go," Leia murmured to Han as the others began collecting their data cards together.
"What's going on?" he murmured back.
"I think Karrde wants to talk," she told him. "Come on-I don't want to get bogged down here talking to Mon Mothma."
"Yeah, well, you go on," Han said, his voice oddly preoccupied.
She frowned at him. "You sure?"
"Yeah," he said. His eyes flicked over her shoulder, and she glanced around in time to see Fey'lya stride from the room. "Go on. I'll catch up with you."
"All right," she said, frowning at him.
"It's okay," he assured her, reaching down to squeeze her hand. "I just need to talk to Fey'lya for a minute."
"What about?"
"Personal stuff." He tried one of those lopsided smiles she usually found so endearing. It didn't look nearly so innocent this time as it normally did. "Hey-it's okay," he repeated. "I'm just going to talk to him. Trust me.
"I've heard that before," Leia sighed. But Luke had already left the room, and Karrde was on his way out : and Mon Mothma had that look about her that signified that she was about to come over and ask Leia for a favor. "Just try to be diplomatic, all right?"
His eyes flicked over her shoulder again. "Sure," he said. "Trust me.
Fey'lya was heading down the Grand Corridor toward the Assemblage chamber when Han caught sight of him, walking with that peculiar gait of someone who's in a terrific hurry but doesn't want anyone else to know it. "Hey!" Han called. "Councilor Fey'lya!"
The only response was a brief flush of pale red across the nearest of the line of ch'hala trees. Glowering at the back of Fey'lya's head, Han lengthened his stride, and within a dozen quick paces had caught up with the other. "I'd like a word with you, Councilor," he said.
Fey'lya didn't look at him. "We have nothing to discuss," he said.
"Oh, I think we do," Han said, falling into step beside him. "Like maybe trying to find a way out of the jam you're in here."
"I thought your female was the diplomat of the family," Fey'lya sniffed, throwing a sideways look at Han's shirtfront.
"We take turns," Han told him, trying real hard not to dislike the other. "See, what got you into trouble here was trying to play politics by Bothan rules. That bank thing made Ackbar look bad, so like any good Bothan, you jumped on him. Trouble is, no one else jumped with you, so you were left there all alone with your neck stuck way out and your political reputation on the line. You don t know how to back out gracefully, and you figure the only way to salvage your prestige is to make sure Ackbar goes down."
"Indeed?" Fey'lya said acidly. "Did it ever occur to you that I might have stuck my neck out, as you put it, because I truly believed Ackbar was guilty of treason?"
"Not really, no," Han told him. "But a lot of other people think that, and that's what's got your reputation on the line. They can't imagine anyone making such a fuss without some proof."
"What makes you think I haven't any proof?"
"For starters, the fact that you haven't shown it," Han said bluntly. "Then there's the fact that you sent Breil'lya scrambling out to New Cov to try and make some sort of high-prestige deal with Senator Bel Iblis. That is what Breil'lya was doing out there, isn't it?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," Fey'lya muttered.
"Right. And that's the third thing: the fact that five minutes ago you were ready to throw Bel Iblis to the cravers if it would buy you enough time to bring in the Katana fleet."
Abruptly, Fey'lya stopped. "Let me speak frankly with you, Captain Solo," he said, still not looking directly at Han's face. "Whether you understand my motivations or not, I certainly understand yours. You hope to bring the Katana fleet to Coruscant yourself; and with that leverage to force my downfall and Ackbar's reinstatement."
"No," Han said tiredly, shaking his head. "That's the whole point, Councilor. Leia and the others don't play by Bothan rules. They make decisions based on evidence, not prestige. If Ackbar is guilty, he gets punished; if he's innocent, he gets released. It's that simple."
Fey'lya smiled bitterly. "Take my advice, Captain Solo, and stick with smuggling and fighting and other things you understand. The private rules of politics are far beyond you."
"You're making a mistake, Councilor," Han said, trying one last time. "You can back out now without losing anything-you really can. But if you keep going, you risk bringing the whole New Republic down with you."
Fey'lya drew himself up to his full height. "I do not intend to fall, Captain Solo. My supporters among the New Republic military will see to that. Ackbar will fall, and I will rise in his place. Excuse me, now; I must speak with Admiral Drayson."
He turned and stalked off. Han watched him go, the sour taste of defeat in his mouth. Couldn't Fey'lya see what he was doing? That he was risking everything on a single long-shot bet?
Maybe he couldn't. Maybe it took an experienced gambler to see how the odds were stacked here.
Or a politician who wasn't so set in his own system that he couldn't change.
Fey'lya reached the end of the Grand Corridor and headed to the left toward the Admiralty center. Shaking his head, Han turned and headed back toward Karrde's guest quarters. First the Coral Vanda, and now this. He hoped it wasn't the start of a trend.
Mara stood at the window of her room, staring out at the Manarai Mountains in the distance, feeling the oppressive weight of black memories gathering around her mind. The Imperial Palace. After five years, she was back in the Imperial Palace. Scene of important governmental meetings, glittering social functions, dark and private intrigues. The place where her life had effectively begun.
