Star Wars - Shadows of the Empire

by Shadows Of The Empire (by Steve Perry)

  Luke recognized the man.

  Dash Rendar! Oh, man. Here he was saving Luke again. Luke hated this.

  "Howdy, boys. Having a little trouble?" He spun his blaster on his forefinger and blew across the end of the barrel. It made a slight hooting noise.

  Luke came up, saw Lando and Chewie do the same.

  He started to speak, but Lando beat him to it.

  "Rendar! What are you doing here?" "Saving your butts, looks like. Seems to be my spe- cialty. Better come on, we can talk as we move. Follow me." Luke shook his head. He really didn't like this, but there wasn't much he could say about it. Rendar was, unfortunately, right.

  In a conference room in his castle, Darth Vader stared at the small man who stood in front of him.

  "You are certain of this?" "Yes, my lord, I am certain." Vader felt a flash of triumph. It was not enough, not by itself, but it went a long way toward the proof he needed. "And you have the tape and documentation." "Already in your files, Lord Vader." The little man smiled.

  "You have served me well. I will not forget this.

  Continue your search." The little man bowed and left.

  So. There existed a recording of a freelance agent speaking to an Alliance crew chief, telling her she would be made rich if she could but kill Luke Skywalker.

  Of course, no direct connection to Xizor had been discovered, but Vader's agents would find it, did it ex- ist. The briber had talked to the crew chief, someone had talked to him. Vader's agents would backwalk ev- ery moment of the briber's life until they found out who had sent him. And who had sent the being who had sent him. And so on.

  It was one more addition to the growing collection of circumstantial evidence his agents had gathered and were continuing to gather.

  By itself a grain of sand was nothing, but with enough grains, one could cover a city. It would not do to tip his hand too early. As of now, he had enough sand to begin. A bit more and he'd be able to bury Xizor...

  He must be removed, once and for all, and the day was coming when it would happen.

  Soon.

  It would be soon.

  Dash showed the way. Chewie took the point and led them into a warren of twisted corridors and tunnels that should lose any pursuers, given how fast Luke lost his own bearings.

  "So how did you get here again?" Lando asked Dash.

  "The usual way. Sneaked in under the belly of a freighter in the sensor shadow. A trick I learned as a boy at the Academy. A good pilot can do it in his sleep.

  How about you?" Lando's smile seemed a little sickly to Luke. He shrugged. "Yeah, we did that, too. Piece of cake. Could have done it on autopilot, it was so easy." "Yeah, but how did you manage to get here?" Luke asked. He pointed at the ground.

  "The Ho'Din's? Oh, everybody knows about Spero, don't they, Lando?" "I guess they do," Lando said. "Okay, that's how, but-why?" Dash sighed. "Something to prove, I guess. I felt pretty bad after that disaster Luke and I went through.

  Not something I'm used to, making mistakes. But I fig- ure, you crash your ship, you better climb into the next one you see and get it back in the air. Too much time goes by and you don't, you get afraid to fly. I screwed up, and I'm still not over that, but you can only sit and bubble in your own juices for so long. I work for money, but I figure I owe the Empire a little something.

  When Chewie called, I decided it was time to pay the Empire back." Luke nodded. "I understand how you feel." "I have a few contacts here," Dash said.

  "You must breakfast with me," Xizor said.

  Leia looked at him. He had come to her room early, but she had already dressed, and her costume was once again that of the bounty hunter she'd affected earlier, sans the helmet. She didn't want to wear the clothes this scum provided.

  "I'm not hungry," she said.

  "I insist." Even now that she knew he had tried to kill Luke, she could feel the ghost of that attraction to him. For- tunately, she was able to resist it. Anger made a good antidote.

  She decided to see if Xizor would reveal anything to her. Said, "Will Chewbacca be joining us?" "Alas, no. Your Wookiee friend has... taken his leave of us." "Got away and you can't find him, huh?" Xizor gave her a thin smile totally without humor.

  "You think he escaped on his own? Really, Leia. I al- lowed him to break free." "Come on.".

  "I want Skywalker. Skywalker wants you. I have you. Surely I don't need to draw you a diagram?" She felt her belly twist and go cold. He was toying with them. The whole reason to have her come here was as bait for Luke. Oh, no.

  She'd been hungry, but breakfast no longer held any appeal. This creature was evil. Twisted, brilliant, and evil.

  Where are we going?" Luke asked.

  Dash said, "I know a place we can hide. We can figure out what to do from there." Luke felt a sudden rush of something in him. A kind of powerful knowledge that filled him, made him grin.

  Of a second, he had become one with the Force-and he hadn't even tried to do it. It just happened.

  "What?" Lando said, noticing.

  "We'll go to this place and make plans to rescue Leia," Luke said.

  He wasn't sure what he expected, maybe that Lando or Dash or even Chewie would stare and shake his head, ask who had abdicated and left Luke in charge, something. But the other three exchanged glances, looked back at Luke, and when they did, it was appar- ent that something had changed.

  "Right," Lando said. "Of course." Chewie moaned his assent.

  "What else?" Dash said.

  It was simply the right thing to do, and it felt as natural as breathing. That's what the Force was, he re- alized. A natural phenomenon. He had struggled so hard to attain it, and all that it required was that he relax and allow it, instead of trying to create it. Simple.

  Too bad "simple" and "easy" didn't mean the same things.

  Never mind. Because a thing was difficult did not mean it could not be done. With the Force, many things were possible. He still had much to learn, more than he'd ever thought before. He smiled. What was it Master Yoda had said? Recognizing your ignorance is the first step to wisdom?

  Yes.

  Guri stood in front of Xizor as he stripped from his breakfast outfit and began to dress for his appoint- ments. She took no notice of his lack of clothing.

  "Our agents say that a Corellian freighter answering the description of the Millennium Falcon is hidden somewhere in the Hasamadhi warehouse district near the South Pole." Xizor selected a tunic and matching pants from the closet and examined them under the artificial sunlight.

  "So? There are hundreds of Corellian freighters that look like that, are there not?" "Not hidden in the Hasamadhi warehouse district." "Are you saying you think Skywalker and the gam- bler have come here? Have eluded the Imperial picket line and landed on the planet as bold as you please?" "Any halfwit pilot who knows the freighter trick can manage it. Our own smugglers do it all the time."

  Xizor rejected the outfit. Tossed it onto the floor and picked another suit of a darker hue and more conserva- tive cut.

  "All right. Check it out. If it is Skywalker's ship, have it watched. When he shows up, have our people kill him. Circumspectly, of course." She nodded. Turned and left.

  Xizor considered his image in the mirror after he dressed. Very impressive. He also considered what Guri had just told him. He didn't really expect Skywalker to arrive here so soon, but it was possible. If it was him, so much the better.

  Vader would be made to look a fool by having Skywalker killed under his very nose.

  And there was Leia, a problem he would eventually unknot to his satisfaction. He had plenty of time to play with her.

  Things could hardly be moving along any smoother, could they?

  Business had to go on, however, and Xizor could delegate only so much of it. Certain matters required his attention. He finished his inspection and headed for his receiving sanctum.

  Once there, Xizor said, "All right. Who is my first appointment?" "General Sendo, Prince Xizor." Well. The device
had been repaired enough to get his name right.

  "Send him in." General Sendo entered, bowed low.

  "Do sit down, General," Xizor said.

  "Your highness." The man obeyed.

  There was the obligatory chitchat. Then Xizor gave him a plastex envelope containing ten thousand in worn, used credit notes, his monthly stipend for keep- ing Black Sun abreast of things Black Sun might wish to know about. Sendo was a do-nothing officer in the Imperial Intelligence's Destab Branch who had never seen battle but who could access all kinds of informa- tion from where he worked keeping a chair warm.

  Xizor put the envelope into the man's hand and waved him away. There was no chance of any betrayal here-every supplicant who arrived was scanned and body-searched for recorders or holocams, and any who happened to have such things upon his or her person was summarily executed once he stepped inside. The rules were simple, and everybody who entered Xizor's castle had those rules made known to them each visit.

  And if the courier decided to try to tell what he saw without proof, he would be wasting his time. Not to mention that the high-ranking officers of the local po- lice, the local Army garrison, and Imperial Navy Intelli- gence were also on retainer to Black Sun, and any such reports concerning Xizor would find their way to his desk within moments of being given. Such reporters would simply... disappear, courtesy of Black Sun's secret employees in the appropriate agency.

  Mayli Weng arrived with a petition from the Exotic Entertainers' Union asking for general pay increases and better working conditions for the twenty thousand workers who were members. Xizor was disposed to grant her request: Happy entertainers made for happier customers. Black Sun's percentage of the profits-do- nated by the owners of the businesses in which the en- tertainers were employed-would thus increase. Weng always asked and never demanded. He'd never even had to use his pheromones on her, she was so polite.

  Of course, he could not actually make the change him- self; that would still be up to the Owners' League; but they had yet to refuse a recommendation from Black Sun, and he thought it unlikely they would do so now.

  "I'll see what I can do," Xizor said.

  Weng nodded, bowed, thanked him profusely for his generosity, and left.

  Bentu Pall Tarlen, the head of the Imperial Center Construction Contracts Division, arrived to hand- deliver the latest bids on major building projects on- planet. With these numbers, Xizor could have his favored companies bid at lower prices and win the jobs. Once construction was started there would, of course, be cost overruns and delays to bring the monies involved up to profitable levels. Black Sun's percentage of such deals was not inconsiderable.

  Through a dummy consortium that hired "consul- tants," Xizor arranged a transfer into Tarlen's account.

  The man left, pleased.

  Wendell Wright-Sims dropped by to deliver ten kilos of the highest-grade spice. Xizor didn't indulge in such things himself, but sometimes he had guests who might wish to do so, and he wished to be hospitable as a host.

  He thanked Wright-Sims and sent him on his way.

  There was no question of payment; the man did it to maintain favor. It was cheap insurance for him, even though that much spice was probably worth a couple of million credits on the streets.

  The head of Black Sun could have had these transac- tions handled by others, but he preferred to see his most valuable tools face-to-face now and then. It was part of the job, necessary to remind those in the know just who ran the system-and who would come look- ing for them if they ran afoul of Black Sun.

  The work might have been called tedious by some, but Xizor had not been bored in years. There were too many things to think about, too many angles to con- sider in even the most humdrum situation. Boredom was for those who lacked imagination. Xizor could sit alone in a room for days staring at a wall and be as busy mentally as most men working a complex and de- manding job.

  The representative from the Jewelers' Guild ar- rived..... me place Dash led them to was a pit, dirty, smelly, and more of a cave than anything, bounded by raw sewage and rat-eaten power cables. At least that was what it looked like on the outside.

  Once they moved past a guard and a gate as thick as Chewie, the inside was a considerable improvement. It might have been a second-rate hotel in any one of a dozen ports Luke had visited. Except that the prices for staying here would have bought them new houses on Tatooine. Each.

  Or so Dash told them.

  "Now, if we can come up with an idea of how to proceed, I can reach out to my contacts," Dash said.

  "Do we have any ideas?" "Yes," Luke said. "I have one.".

  32 Luke took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and sought to clear his mind. Now that they had the time and space, he wanted to try again to reach Leia.

  He had removed the stolen uniform and discarded the blaster, and now he sat in the kneeling posture Master Yoda had taught him for meditation. The new clothes Dash had gotten for him felt appropriate: a coarsely woven, dark gray hooded cape and cowl, a plain shirt and a simple vest, pants and jacket, knee boots, all in black, without any insignia. Maybe it was not quite the uniform of a Jedi Knight, but it was close enough.

  Relax. Let go.

  He concentrated, focused, said the name aloud: "Leia..." Waited a moment. Then, "Leia, I'm here. I'm com- ing for you." She was using the computer, trying to find a floor plan for Xizor's castle. He wasn't so foolish as to leave one where she could access it; too bad- Leia...

  It was not telepathy so much as empathy, and since it had happened before, on Bespin, she recognized the sensation quickly.

  Luke.

  She took a deep breath and let part of it out, held her silence. She was being watched; she must give no sign of the connection with Luke. She pretended to look at whatever the computer image was, but she was seeing through it, into the distance beyond it, beyond the walls.

  Leia, I'm here. I'm coming for you.

  That's what Luke was saying, if she could have put it into words. But it wasn't expressed in words; it was a feeling, and she felt the truth of it.

  Luke was here, on Coruscant, not far away. He was coming for her.

  There was a calmness about Luke she hadn't felt be- fore. He had grown stronger; his control of the Force was better. She was afraid for him and at the same time heartened at the connection. The sense of his confi- dence was very powerful. Before when she'd felt him touch her this way, it had been when he'd been injured, when Vader was on the brink of destroying him, but now, now he felt strong, in control, potent. Maybe he could rescue her. Maybe they would survive all this somehow. i Leia...

  She smiled. Luke, I'm here.

  Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight, smiled.

  In his chamber, Darth Vader felt the ripple in the Force. It was elusive, but he recognized it this time.

  Luke.

  He was here. On Imperial Center.

  The knowledge sent a chill through his body.

  Vader reached out, tried to touch his son: Luke...

  He frowned. The way was... blocked. It was not only as if Luke's power had increased; it seemed also to be in two separate places.

  Impossible. He was interpreting the energies wrong.

  There could be no other as strong as Luke in the Force; the Jedi were all dead. The Emperor was gone, light- years away.

  What could be causing that echo effect? Surely that was all it was, an echo, some reverberation in the Force.

  Of a moment the ripple passed and Vader was alone again.

  He waved his hand, raised the lid of his chamber.

  Stood and moved for his armor. Luke was here, and he was going to find the boy. Find him- -and bring him to the dark side..

  33

  Xizor sat alone in his private dining room deep in his castle and lunched on thin slices of moonglow, a deli- cate, rare-and expensive-pearlike fruit from more than a hundred light-years away. As he ate, he frowned. It wasn't the fruit, which was crisp and deli- cious; no, that was outstanding, was exquisite as al
- ways.

  But something was wrong.

  What it was he could not say, but he had not got- ten to the top of an organization where you were either quick and clever or you were dead and gone by ignor- ing any input, be it logical or intuitive. In the complex- ity that was Black Sun there were always problems- but there were no indications of any more problems than usual. No reports of treachery, no upstart rivals trespassing on forbidden territory, no idealistic and overzealous police officers snooping where they'd been paid to leave off. The machine seemed to be running fine.