Lehesu had gone in search of civilization.
Unfortunately for the Oswaft and the subsequent security of his people, he had done his searching in a region patrolled by the Navy, whose sensors, acquired at the unwilling expense of quadrillions of taxpayers, were more sophisticated than those of the Falcon. They'd ferreted out the truth about the strange being upon first spotting him, noticing an ability Lando and Vuffi Raa had missed: not only to soar through space in a linear fashion, but to “skip” vast distances when it suited him, as hyperdrive starships do. They'd tracked him back to the ThonBoka when he'd returned with joyous news of his discoveries.
The navy, of course, had recognized a threat when they saw one: a race of beings at home in space, capable of faster-than-light travel - a terrible thing to contemplate. Their scouts, estimate of the number of Oswaft was even more terrifying. It was like encountering a previously unknown superpower with millions of fully operational starships.
There was only one thing to do.
The ThonBoka was an open system. It had to be, or exhaust its resources rapidly. The idea was to starve the Oswaft to death, denying them the chemicals drifting in on the galactic tide. Once the vacuum-breathers were sufficiently weakened, they could be finished off neatly, their threat erased forever.
But the Navy didn't know that Vuffi Raa's canister handiwork had included a radio relay and transducer - he had truly meant to stay in touch - through which Lehesu had shouted a cry for help across the parsecs. Lando, seeing in the creature's problems a solution to problems of his own, had loaded his ship and come arunning. Now he was having second thoughts.
Less than a hundred kilometers away, point-blank range as distances in space are reckoned, a battle cruiser waited impatiently for an answer. The Falcon was fast, but not fast enough to evade the vessel's tractor beams or destructive weaponry. As freighters go, she was well armed and heavily shielded against impecunious pirates and the usual run of free-lance riffraff one was likely to encounter in interstellar space. But her quad-guns and other weaponry were no match for the armament sprouting from what seemed like every square meter of the warship that confronted them. And worse, at that range, the Falcon's shields would buy her only seconds of extended life.
Lando considered running - not away from the nebula, but toward it - until he realized that a simple message from the picket vessel would have a hundred more just like it primed and ready by the time the Falcon got to the StarCave's mouth. He evaluated very carefully a slim number of other alternatives, compared them with his original plan, and shook his head. No two ways about it: the idea had been lousy to begin with, was still lousy, but it was the only one he had.
“Vuffi Raa,” he said at last, closing his eyes as if that could shut out the images of disaster forming in his mind, “shut down all weapons systems as we discussed. Also power down the shields and make sure they can see what we've done over there on their scopes, will you?” He flipped a fifty-credit coin and caught it in the air.
Beside him, the robot sounded dubious. “But Master, that will leave us completely helpless.” His tentacles fidgeted on the control panels.
Lando grinned. “A long time ago, a machine of my acquaintance pointed out that a person who believes that violence is the first or only alternative is morally bankrupt.” Up went the coin again, down into the gambler's palm, and up again.
Vuffi Raa stood silent. He had been the machine, and the occasion, of Lando's learning that the little droid was programmed against causing harm to any intelligent being.
“Right now, old can-opener,” the gambler continued, “our mechanical defenses are a liability, the appearance of helplessness an asset. Long before I became a starship captain, I was a grafter and a hornswoggler. I guess it's time to see if I retain the skills.” Lando walked the coin across the backs of his knuckles, and put it away.
The sound of chromium-plated metal tapping on plastic was loud as Vuffi Raa began the process of rendering the ship harmless. Lando sat, deep in thought, weighing his next words carefully.
At last: “All right, raise that cruiser out there; get them on the line. And cheer up - I know what I'm doing. I think.”
The robot was incapable of facial expression, but his voice was ripe with worried skepticism. “What should I say, Master?”
Lando chuckled. “Don't call me master. Tell them we received their earlier messages, and that it's they who should be prepared to take on boarders!”
V
LANDO CALRISSIAN HAD never particularly liked spacesuits.
Not only were they bulky and uncomfortable, they lacked elegance. His was maintained in the best condition possible, but the color combinations were egregious, the line was execrable, and it clashed with every formal and semiformal shipsuit he owned. And wrinkled them, as well.
Nevertheless, he was suited up and waiting by the topside lock as the Falcon, under Vuffi Raa's deft maneuvering, backed and filled to a designated place under the belly of the cruiser Respectable. Beside him on the deckplates was a large soft-sided carrying case loaded with supplies and samples he'd purchased for just the occasion. It was one of those times when thorough preparation and a detailed plan instilled no confidence whatever.
“Locking on, Master,” came the doubly electronic voice from the cockpit.
“All right, Vuffi Raa, don't wait up for me.”
Lando gave the wheel above his head a full turn, another half turn, and cringed, as he always did, when it popped heavily out of its threads. He swung it to one side, reached down for his case, and made his clumsy way up the metal rungs of the ladder, through the Falcon's hull, and into the receiving area aboard the Respectable.
To discover he was staring straight into the muzzles of half a dozen high-powered blasters.
Gulping - and happy that it was concealed by his helmet - Lando keyed his suit radio as he swung the heavy bag onto the deck of the cruiser, lifted himself up, and straightened.
“Good afternoon, gentlebeings. Lando Calrissian, interstellar trader at your service. What can I do you for?” He laughed heartily at his lame joke.
He'd climbed into a hangar bay. Lando thought it a little stupid that they hadn't been invited inside, freighter and all - the Navy certainly had the room for it. The ceiling was invisible far above, drowned out by the harsh lights glaring down onto the deck. The chamber was at least two hundred meters from its broad, curving, and presently tightly shut doors to the complicated-looking rear wall where half a hundred windows lit in various colors showed control and maintenance areas behind a pressure bulkhead.
The squad of security guards didn't relax a millimeter. Their leader, identifiable by the insignia on his battle armor, crackled forward, slapped the weapon he was carrying across his chest.
“Quiet, civilian! You are ordered to report, under arrest, to the sector security chief. Your baggage will be taken for inspection and decontamination!”
“Decontamination?” Lando feigned dismay. “You want to decontaminate a dozen cartons of fine Dilelexan cigars, Oseoni cigarettes, Trammistan chocolates-”
“Cigars?” the head goon asked in a rather different tone of voice than before. He looked right and left, slapped a pair of switches on his arm panel, grabbed Lando's arm, and similarly rendered the gambler's suit radio inoperative. He touched his opaque-visored helmet to Lando's bubble.
“Cigars, you say? Do you know how long the Ship's Exchange has been out of cigars? We've been on picket at this Core-forsaken nebula since - ahem!” The man seemed to regain control of himself momentarily.
“Report, with this escort, to the sector chief. I'll take custody of your sample case and make certain that its contents are undamaged.”
“Although they may be somewhat depleted when I get them back?” Lando grinned and winked through two layers of plastic at the invisible face next to his. “Just keep in mind, Sergeant, that there's a lot more where this came from if we establish an amenable relationship, all right?”
The sergeant sn
apped to attention after switching on both radios again.
“Message received and understood, trader! I trust you'll enjoy your stay aboard the Respectable.”
“Oh,” Lando said, “I'm sure I will. Shall we be moving along?”
The sector chief was a grizzled, overweight warrant officer with hash marks on his uniform sleeves which threatened to dribble off his cuffs and onto the metal deckplates of his office.
He scratched a crew-cut head and then shifted his hand to rub a bulbous, well-veined nose. “Well, I ain't never heard of nothing like this before - a civilian merchant plyin' his wares to vessels on blockade duty. And friend, if I ain't heard of it before, you've got a problem, cause This Man's Navy operates on precedent.”
Lando, having been examined, searched, scrutinized, peered at and into by human eyes and hands and the sensory ends of countless pieces of nastily suspicious equipment, leaned back in the chair across from the warrant officer's desk and nodded pleasantly. He was glad he'd selected his plainest, least colorful shipsuit to wear beneath his pressure outfit, which was hanging neatly in a locker near the hangar, and even gladder he'd left his tiny five-shot stingbeam aboard the Falcon. It was the only personal weapon he ordinarily allowed himself, but at the moment it would have been as conspicuous and counterproductive as his freighter's quad-guns.
“Believe me, Chief, I understand tradition. My family tree is full of it. But there ought to be room for a little enterprise and innovation, shouldn't there? As long as it doesn't jeopardize the mission, and is conducted through the proper channels?”
“Errhem!” The sector chief cleared his throat, inhaled from one of Lando's expensive cigars. The gambler's case lay on the floor beside his chair, as thoroughly inspected for weapons and instruments of sabotage as himself, and considerably lighter in weight than when he'd brought it aboard the cruiser. At each level of inspection, from the guard sergeant to the warrant officer, it had become slightly more empty, in proportion to the rank of the emptier.
“My precise sentiments, Chief. Now, about our arrangements. I suggest we route our marketing around the Ship's Exchange. In the first place, my overhead won't allow me to offer what I have at wholesale. In the second, I suspect buying from an itinerant peddler such as myself might provide an agreeable diversion for your troops. In the third - well, do you think there might be any interest aboard in games of chance?”
The warrant officer blinked. He fancied himself a sharp gambler and regarded all civilians everywhere as easy pickings, having spent decades taking things from them at large-bore gunpoint. He wasn't able to distinguish between this and situations where civilians had an even chance; could not, in fact, conceive of such circumstances.
“Games of chance? Such as... ?”
“Such as sabacc.” Lando smiled. “I'm something of an enthusiast, and it would offer you and yours a small opportunity to get your money back for whatever you happen to buy, 'you' being a figurative expression in this instance, on account of your commission.”
“Commission?” The sector chief looked confusedly at the stripes on his sleeve, then suddenly at the cigar he was smoking. “Oh, commission! I get it! Actually, it's a warrant. But no matter! Very funny!”
Lando hadn't intended it to be, but he laughed heartily along until the creature subsided. Then the sector chief adopted an expression that he imagined was shrewd, having practiced it before a mirror since he was a rating.
“I'm sure a few games might be arranged, for a suitable commission!” He broke into guffaws again, and Lando stifled a self-destructive urge to strangle the uniformed baboon with his own hash marks.
“Very well. Now there's one more thing I'd like to ask about. I hesitate, because I have some idea of the importance of your mission here-”
“You do?” The chief surged forward, leaning avidly across his desk. Only the artificial gravity of the floor-plates kept him planted on his swivel chair.
A wave of alarm swept through the gambler's body. He'd said the wrong thing. This mission was supposed to be top secret, and, furthermore, was an unusually shameful one, even for the current government. His mind raced, trying to find a way to salvage something from the mess his careless tongue had created.
“Tell me,” the chief said before Lando could speak. “It's the ranks that always know the least, and the folks back home who have a better picture of what's going on.” He peered about the room, rose, slid a picture of the fleet Commodore aside, seized a small plastic bulb hanging from a wire behind the picture, and closed his hand around it, covering it completely.
“Bugs,” the chief said. “We can speak freely now. What is so important about this mission?”
Lando almost wept with relief. Then he had to do some fast thinking. “I've heard they have more pirate ships bottled up inside the nebula than have ever been seen in one place before. Apparently Intelligence tricked them into some kind of rendezvous, and you're keeping them trapped until they can be destroyed.”
The chief nodded sagely. “That makes some sense of the scuttlebutt I've heard. Any idea when we're going in?”
Lando shook his head. “You know the Navy: 'hurry up and wait.’”
Again the knowing, comradely nod. Lando had a friend, now; he revised his prices upward 20 percent. “Sounds like you were maybe a Navy man yourself,” the chief suggested.
Lando returned the nod. “Just a swabbie, when I was a kid,” he lied. “Never made it big, like you, Chief.”
“Well, we all have our place in the scheme of things, son. They also serve who only-”
“Sell cigars? And while we're speaking of cigars, why don't you have half a dozen of these for later, Chief. A man only gets so many luxuries, out here on the front line.”
“Sabacc!” the excited rating cried, gathering in a pot that wouldn't have paid for one of Lando's cigars. The gambler made a practice of losing loudly on the small bets and raking in the winnings as inconspicuously as possible when the stakes were high. Now he was following a policy of steady losses on nearly every hand, in order to win the larger game that awaited him in the ThonBoka.
It was the fourth cruiser he and Vuffi Raa had visited in as many days, using the original warrant officer's connections. Each transfer, ship-to-ship, with its attendant docking and security procedures growing laxer and more perfunctory, brought the Millennium Falcon and her real cargo closer to the StarCave and its waiting denizens.
The freighter hadn't been immune to searches, but nobody wastes much time - or olfactory sensibilities - on the trash and toilet recyclers, especially when they were genuinely full of substances that everyone heartily regarded as filth. And especially when no one below the rank of admiral seemed to know the reason behind the stupid blockade.
Lando was rapidly coming to love military security procedures.
With inexpert hands made clumsier by petty greed, the rating dealt the cards out. There were seventy-eight of them, divided into five suits: Sabres, Staves, Flasks, and Coins, arrayed from Aces to Masters, and a special suit of face cards with negative values and more profound meanings. The object of the game was simplicity itself: acquire cards until the value of your hand was exactly twenty-three, or as close as you could get without going over. A perfect zero or a minus twenty-three was as bad as a twenty-four, and there were certain special hands, such as that combining a Two of anything, a Three of anything, and an Idiot from the special suit, which ritual decreed were the equivalent of twenty-three.
The game being played in the cruiser Reliable's MessRec area included Lando, two cooks, and a pair of low-ranking gunners. Lando wore his most tattered clothing, pressed with razor creases, for the occasion.
What made sabacc really interesting - and destroyed the nerves of most amateurs who tried to play it - was that each card was an electronic chip, capable of changing face and value at random any moment until the card-chip was lying flat on a gaming table or upon the electronic mat Lando had provided. Thus a winning hand, held too long, could change spontane
ously to garbage, or, more rarely, a mess of meaningless numbers could become a palladium mine.
Lando found the game relaxing and a welcome change from the exigencies of interstellar freight-hauling. He'd always enjoyed it, no matter the stakes, possibly because he found it quite difficult to lose. Even honestly.
The older of the two cooks took the hand and the deal shifted to him accordingly. He'd won perhaps half what the previous winner had and was looking inordinately pleased with himself. Lando inwardly shook his head, remembering times when the ransom for a princess or the price of a starship had rested before him on a table in the most exclusive and luxurious settings imaginable. It was difficult to keep the right perspective, to remember from moment to moment that the real stakes here were the highest he'd ever played for: the survival of an entire race, and whatever he might demand in fabricated precious stones indistinguishable from nature's best.
With pitiable awkwardness, the cook dealt Lando a pair of card-chips from the bottom of the deck, attempting to cheat the others in the process as well. Not only wasn't he good at it, he wasn't any good at it. Lando received a Master of Staves, worth fourteen points, and a Nine of Flasks: a natural two-card twenty-three. The gambler held them back, hoping one or the other would metamorphose into something worthless. He wasn't after the pay of those miserable sailors, but information.
“Well,” he said casually, “I've almost sold my quota here on the Reliable. You swabbies have any suggestions where I might find greener pastures?”
His connections, compliments of the Respectable's sector chief, had about run dry, and he needed not only the name of the next ship closer to the mouth of the ThonBoka, but of someone aboard in a position to do him some good. As bets were placed and extra cards were passed around; Lando asked for one, giving up the Commander. He received an Ace of Coins just as the Nine in his hand transformed itself into an Eight - another pestiferous twenty-three!
All right, then: “Sabacc!” The gambler said for the first time that afternoon. You lose some, you win some; you gotta take the good with the bad. He raked in a few millicredits and promptly engineered a loss again. It was simpler to do when he had control of the cards.
Star Wars - The Adventures of Lando Calrissian 03 - The StarCave of ThonBoka Page 4
