The Essential Novels

by James Luceno

  “And count the cards still in the deck,” the Reverend spoke up.

  Kampl spun to face him. “For the last time—”

  “Because if all we have here are the requisite seventy-six cards,” the Reverend cut him off, his voice heavy with suspicion, “perhaps what we’re really looking at is a fixed deck.”

  Kampl jerked as if he’d been stung. “We don’t fix decks in here,” he insisted.

  “No?” the Reverend glared. “Not even when special people are sitting in on the game? People who might know to look for a special card when it comes up?”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Kampl snarled, taking a step toward him. “The LoBue is a respectable and perfectly legal establishment. None of these players has any connection with—”

  “Hey!” the pudgy dealer said suddenly. “The guy who was sitting next to me—where’d he go?”

  The Reverend snorted. “So. None of them has any connection with you, do they?”

  Someone swore violently and started pushing his way through the crowd—one of the three planetary security types who’d been watching the table. Kampl watched him go, took a deep breath, and turned to glare at Han. “You want to tell me your partner’s name?”

  “He wasn’t my partner,” Han said. “And I was not cheating. You want to make a formal accusation, take me down to the station and do it there. If you don’t”—he got to his feet, scooping up his remaining chips in the process—“then I’m leaving.”

  For a long moment he thought Kampl was going to call his bluff. But the other had no real evidence, and he knew it; and apparently he had better things to do than indulge in what would be really nothing more than petty harassment. “Sure—get out of here,” the other snarled. “Don’t ever come back.”

  “Don’t worry,” Han told him.

  The crowd was starting to dissolve, and he had no trouble making his way back to his table. Lando, not surprisingly, was long gone. What was surprising was that he’d settled the bill before he had left.

  “That was quick,” Lando greeted him from the top of the Falcon’s entry ramp. “I wasn’t expecting them to turn you loose for at least an hour.”

  “They didn’t have much of a case,” Han said, climbing up the ramp and slapping the hatch button. “I hope Torve didn’t give you the slip.”

  Lando shook his head. “He’s waiting in the lounge.” He raised his eyebrows. “And considers himself in our debt.”

  “That could be useful,” Han agreed, heading down the curved corridor.

  Torve was seated at the lounge holo board, three small datapads spread out in front of him. “Good to see you again, Torve,” Han said as he stepped in.

  “You, too, Solo,” the other said gravely, getting to his feet and offering Han his hand. “I’ve thanked Calrissian already, but I wanted to thank you, too. Both for the warning and for helping me get out of there. I’m in your debt.”

  “No problem,” Han waved the thanks away. “I take it that is your ship in pit sixty-three?”

  “My employer’s ship, yes,” Torve said, grimacing. “Fortunately, there’s nothing contraband in it at the moment—I’ve already off-loaded. They obviously suspect me, though.”

  “What kind of contraband were you running?” Lando asked, coming up behind Han. “If it’s not a secret, that is?”

  Torve cocked an eyebrow. “No secret, but you’re not going to believe it. I was running food.”

  “You’re right,” Lando said. “I don’t believe it.”

  Torve nodded vaguely off to one side. “I didn’t either, at first. Seems there’s a clan of people living off in the southern hills who don’t find much about the new government to appreciate.”

  “Rebels?”

  “No, and that’s what’s strange about it,” Torve said. “They’re not rebelling or making trouble or even sitting on vital resources. They’re simple people, and all they want is to be left alone to continue living that way. The government’s apparently decided to make an example of them, and among other things has cut off all food and medical supplies going that way until they agree to fall into step like everyone else.”

  “That sounds like this government,” Lando agreed heavily. “Not much into regional autonomy of any kind.”

  “Hence, we smuggle in food,”9 Torve concluded. “Crazy business. Anyway, it’s nice to see you two again. Nice to see you’re still working together, too. So many teams have broken up over the past few years, especially since Jabba bought the really heavy end of the hammer.”

  Han exchanged glances with Lando. “Well, it’s actually more like we’re back together,” he corrected Torve. “We sort of wound up on the same side during the war. Up till then …”

  “Up till then I wanted to kill him,” Lando explained helpfully. “No big deal, really.”

  “Sure,” Torve said guardedly, looking back and forth between them. “Let me guess: the Falcon, right? I remember hearing rumors that you stole it.”

  Han looked at Lando, eyebrows raised. “Stole it?”

  “Like I said, I was mad.” Lando shrugged. “It wasn’t an out-and-out theft, actually, though it came pretty close. I had a little semilegit clearinghouse for used ships at the time, and I ran short of money in a sabacc game Han and I were playing. I offered him his pick of any of my ships if he won.” He threw Han a mock glare. “He was supposed to go for one of the flashy chrome-plate yachts that had been collecting dust on the front row, not the freighter I’d been quietly upgrading on the side for myself.”

  “You did a good job, too,” Han said. “Though Chewie and I wound up pulling a lot of the stuff out and redoing it ourselves.”

  “Nice,” Lando growled. “Another crack like that and I may just take it back.”

  “Chewie would probably take great exception to that,” Han said. He fixed Torve with a hard look. “Of course, you knew all this already, didn’t you.”

  Torve grinned. “No offense, Solo. I like to feel out my customers before we do business—get an idea of whether I can expect ’em to play straight with me. People who lie about their history usually lie about the job, too.”

  “I trust we passed?”

  “Like babes in the tall grass.” Torve nodded, still grinning. “So. What can Talon Karrde do for you?”

  Han took a careful breath. Finally. Now all he had to worry about was fouling this up. “I want to offer Karrde a deal: the chance to work directly with the New Republic.”

  Torve nodded. “I’d heard that you were going around trying to push that scheme with other smuggling groups. The general feeling is that you’re trying to set them up for Ackbar to take down.”

  “I’m not,” Han assured him. “Ackbar’s not exactly thrilled at the idea, but he’s accepted it. We need to get more shipping capacity from somewhere, and smugglers are the logical supply to tap.”

  Torve pursed his lips. “From what I’ve heard it sounds like an interesting offer. ’Course, I’m not the one who makes decisions like that.”

  “So take us to Karrde,” Lando suggested. “Let Han talk to him directly.”

  “Sorry, but he’s at the main base at the moment,” Torve said, shaking his head. “I can’t take you there.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because we don’t let strangers just flit in and out,” Torve said patiently. “We don’t have anything like the kind of massive, overbearing security Jabba had on Tatooine, for starters.”

  “We’re not exactly—” Lando began.

  Han cut him off with a gesture. “All right, then,” he said to Torve. “How are you going to get back there?”

  Torve opened his mouth, then closed it again. “I guess I’ll have to figure out a way to get my ship out of impoundment, won’t I?”

  “That’ll take time,” Han pointed out. “Besides which, you’re known here. On the other hand, someone who showed up with the proper credentials could probably pry it loose before anyone knew what had happened.”

  Torve cocked an eyebrow. “You,
for instance?”

  Han shrugged. “I might be able to. After that thing at the LoBue I probably should lie low, too. But I’m sure I could set it up.”

  “I’m sure,” Torve said, heavily sardonic. “And the catch …?”

  “No catch,” Han told him. “All I want in return is for you to let us give you a lift back to your base, and then have fifteen minutes to talk with Karrde.”

  Torve gazed at him, his mouth tight. “I’ll get in trouble if I do this. You know that.”

  “We’re not exactly random strangers,” Lando reminded him. “Karrde met me once, and both Han and I kept major military secrets for the Alliance for years. We’ve got a good record of people being able to trust us.”

  Torve looked at Lando. Looked again at Han. “I’ll get in trouble,” he repeated with a sigh. “But I guess I really do owe you. One condition, though: I do all the navigation on the way in, and set it up in a coded, erasable module. Whether you have to do the same thing on the way out will be up to Karrde.”

  “Good enough,” Han agreed. Paranoia was a common enough ailment among smugglers. Anyway, he had no particular interest in knowing where Karrde had set up shop. “When can we leave?”

  “As soon as you’re ready.” Torve nodded at the sabacc chips cupped in Han’s hand. “Unless you want to go back to the LoBue and play those,” he added.

  Han had forgotten he was still holding the chips. “Forget it,” he growled, dropping the stack onto the holo board. “I try not to play sabacc when there are fanatics breathing down my neck.”

  “Yes, the Reverend put on a good show, didn’t he?” Torve agreed. “Don’t know what we would have done without him.”

  “Wait a minute,” Lando put in. “You know him?”

  “Sure.” Torve grinned. “He’s my contact with the hill clan. He couldn’t have made nearly so much fuss without a stranger like you there for him to pick on, though.”

  “Why, that rotten—” Han clamped his teeth together. “I suppose that was his skifter, huh?”

  “Sure was.” Torve looked innocently at Han. “What are you complaining about? You got what you wanted—I’m taking you to see Karrde. Right?”

  Han thought about it. Torve was right, of course. But still … “Right,” he conceded. “So much for heroics, I guess.”

  Torve snorted gently. “Tell me about it. Come on, let’s get into your computer and start coding up a nav module.”

  C H A P T E R 21

  Mara stepped up to the comm room door, wondering uneasily what this sudden summons was all about. Karrde hadn’t said, but there had been something in his voice that had set her old survival instincts tingling. Checking the tiny blaster hanging upside down in its sleeve sheath, she slapped at the door release.

  She’d expected to find at least two people already in the room: Karrde plus the comm room duty man plus whoever else had been called in on this. To her mild surprise, Karrde was alone. “Come in, Mara,” he invited, looking up from his datapad. “Close the door behind you.”

  She did so. “Trouble?” she asked.

  “A minor problem only,” he assured her. “A bit of an awkward one, though. Fynn Torve just called to say he was on his way in … and he has guests. Former New Republic generals Lando Calrissian and Han Solo.”

  Mara felt her stomach tighten. “What do they want?”

  Karrde shrugged fractionally. “Apparently, just to talk to me.”

  For a second, Mara’s thoughts flicked to Skywalker, still locked away in his barracks room across the compound. But, no—there was no way anyone in the New Republic could possibly know he was here. Most of Karrde’s own people didn’t know it, including the majority of those right here on Myrkr. “Did they bring their own ship?” she asked.

  “Theirs is the only one coming in, actually,” Karrde nodded. “Torve’s riding with them.”

  Mara’s eyes flicked to the comm equipment behind him. “A hostage?”

  Karrde shook his head. “I don’t think so. He gave all the proper all-clear passwords. The Etherway’s still on Abregado—been impounded by the local authorities or some such. Apparently, Calrissian and Solo helped Torve avoid a similar fate.”

  “Then thank them, have them put Torve down, and tell them to get off the planet,” she said. “You didn’t invite them here.”

  “True,” Karrde agreed, watching her closely. “On the other hand, Torve seems to think he’s under a certain obligation to them.”

  “Then let him pay it back on his own time.”

  The skin around Karrde’s eyes seemed to harden. “Torve is one of my associates,” he said, his voice cold. “His debts are the organization’s. You should know that by now.”

  Mara’s throat tightened as a sudden, horrible thought occurred to her. “You’re not going to give Skywalker to them, are you?” she demanded.

  “Alive, you mean?” Karrde countered.

  For a long moment Mara just stared at him; at that small smile and those slightly heavy eyelids and the rest of that carefully constructed expression of complete disinterest in the matter. But it was all an act, and she knew it. He wanted to know why she hated Skywalker, all right—wanted it with as close to genuine passion as the man ever got.

  And as far as she was concerned, he could go right on wanting it. “I don’t suppose it’s occurred to you,” she bit out, “that Solo and Calrissian might have engineered this whole thing, including the Etherway’s impoundment, as a way of finding this base.”

  “It’s occurred to me, yes,” Karrde said. “I dismissed it as somewhat far fetched.”

  “Of course,” Mara said sardonically. “The great and noble Han Solo would never do something so devious, would he? You never answered my question.”

  “About Skywalker? I thought I’d made it clear, Mara, that he stays here until I know why Grand Admiral Thrawn is so interested in acquiring him. At the very least, we need to know what he’s worth, and to whom, before we can set a fair market price for him. I have some feelers out; with luck, we should know in a few more days.”

  “And meanwhile, his allies will be here in a few more minutes.”

  “Yes,” Karrde agreed, his lips puckering slightly. “Skywalker will have to be moved somewhere a bit more out of the way—we obviously can’t risk Solo and Calrissian stumbling over him. I want you to move him to the number four storage shed.”

  “That’s where we’re keeping that droid of his,” Mara reminded him.

  “The shed’s got two rooms; put him in the other one.” Karrde waved toward her waist. “And do remember to lose that before our guests arrive. I doubt they’d fail to recognize it.”

  Mara glanced down at Skywalker’s lightsaber hanging from her belt. “Don’t worry. If it’s all the same to you, I’d just as soon not have much to do with them.”

  “I wasn’t planning for you to,” Karrde assured her. “I’d like you here when I greet them, and possibly to join us for dinner, as well. Other than that, you’re excused from all social activities.”

  “So they’re staying the day?”

  “And possibly the night, as well.” He eyed her. “Requirements of a proper host aside, can you think of a better way for us to prove to the Republic, should the need arise, that Skywalker was never here?”

  It made sense. But that didn’t mean she had to like it. “Are you warning the rest of the Wild Karrde’s crew to keep quiet?”

  “I’m doing better than that,” Karrde said, nodding back toward the comm equipment. “I’ve sent everyone who knows about Skywalker off to get the Starry Ice prepped. Which reminds me—after you move Skywalker, I want you to run his X-wing farther back under the trees. No more than half a kilometer—I don’t want you to go through any more of the forest alone than you have to. Can you fly an X-wing?”

  “I can fly anything.”

  “Good,” he said, smiling slightly. “You’d better be off, then. The Millennium Falcon will be landing in less than twenty minutes.”

  Mara took a
deep breath. “All right,” she said. Turning, she left the room.

  The compound was empty as she walked across it to the barracks building. By Karrde’s design, undoubtedly; he must have shifted people around to inside duties to give her a clear path for taking Skywalker to the storage shed. Reaching his room, she keyed off the lock and slid open the door.

  He was standing by the window, dressed in that same black tunic, pants, and high boots that he’d worn that day at Jabba’s palace.

  That day she’d stood silently by and watched … and let him destroy her life.

  “Get your case and let’s go,” she growled, gesturing with the blaster. “It’s moving day.”

  His eyes stayed on her as he stepped over to the bed. Not on the blaster in her hand, but on her face. “Karrde’s made a decision?” he asked calmly as he picked up the case.

  For a long moment she was tempted to tell him that, no, this was on her own initiative, just to see if the implications would crack that maddening Jedi serenity. But even a Jedi would probably fight if he thought he was going to his death, and they were on a tight enough schedule as it was. “You’re moving to one of the storage sheds,” she told him. “We’ve got company coming, and we don’t have any formal wear your size. Come on, move.”

  She walked him past the central building to the number four shed, a two-room structure tucked conveniently back out of the compound’s major traffic patterns. The room on the left, normally used for sensitive or dangerous equipment, was also the only one of the storage areas with a lock, undoubtedly the reason Karrde had chosen it to serve the role of impromptu prison. Keeping one eye on Skywalker, she keyed open the lock, wondering as she did so whether Karrde had had time to disable the inside mechanism. A quick look as the door slid open showed that he hadn’t.

  Well, that could easily be corrected. “In here,” she ordered, flicking on the inside light and gesturing for him to enter.

  He complied. “Looks cozy,” he said, glancing around the windowless room and the piled shipping boxes that took up perhaps half the floor space to the right. “Probably quiet, too.”