Vision of the future swhot-2

by Timothy Zahn

  Which left her with the question of what exactly she should be wasting her time doing. There weren't all that many options, actually. For the past three days, she'd followed Solo and the others to what the SE2 on desk duty had identified as an Imperial Library. The first two days she'd sneaked in behind them to watch; yesterday, tired of staring through a privacy field watching them punch computer keys all day, she'd left them inside and scouted around the building and neighborhood.

  Now, having sneaked back aboard the ship last night, she had tested the theory that Shada might actually be meeting with the Verpine while Solo and the others were out. But that one had fallen through, too... and as far as Karoly could see, she was out of options. For all the evidence to date, Shada might not be coming here at all.

  And that was an immensely irritating thought. It would mean she had completely misinterpreted that conversation she'd eavesdropped between Solo and Calrissian, and had come out here on a total wild tresher hunt.

  Wherever "here" actually was. It was Imperial space—that much had been obvious from the all-human populace even before she'd spotted her first Imperial Security uniform. But where in the Empire it actually was, she didn't know.

  Not that it mattered all that much, except for the fact that if Solo and Calrissian managed to give her the slip it might mean trouble getting back home. Unlikely, though—from the way they'd been talking this morning, whatever their objective was they were still a long way from achieving it. Still, Karrde had been mentioned in that conversation, so maybe he was just being cagey. Another quick scout around the library's neighborhood, she decided, then tag Solo again when they took their usual early-afternoon meal break.

  And maybe this time they would actually say something worth listening to. Easing down the corridor, alert for any sounds, she headed for the hatchway.

  * * *

  "Another report from your new Empire, Your Excellency," Tierce said, laying a pair of datacards on Disra's desk. "The Ruurian governments have forwarded a copy of the fully executed treaty between their systems and the Empire."

  "Systems?" Disra asked, picking up the datacard and frowning at it. "I thought our treaty was only with their home system."

  "It was," Tierce said smugly. "Apparently, our little demonstration against those Diamalan Marauders convinced three of their independent colonies that they wanted to be on the winning side, too."

  "Did it, now," Disra said, looking at the datacard with new interest. The Ruurian independent colonies were joint efforts with a half-dozen other species. "Did the other co-owners of those worlds agree?"

  "Apparently so," Tierce said. "The treaties speak of the colony systems in their entireties, with no mention of specific regions or districts." He smiled. "Of course, the Ruurians are quite good at persuasion."

  "They're not the only ones," Disra said, looking across the room to where Flim was hunched over in a chair, staring moodily out a window. "Congratulations, Admiral. You've picked up three more systems."

  Flim didn't answer, and Disra felt his lip twist with contempt. Apparently, the con man was still sulking.

  "Don't worry," Tierce said, following Disra's glare. "He'll get over it soon enough."

  "Or else he'll soon find himself impaled on a sharp pole somewhere out in Unknown Space," Flim growled without turning around. "Right next to the two of you." Disra looked up at Tierce. "What's his problem?"

  "Nothing serious," Tierce said, dismissing the con man with a wave of his hand. "He's worried about that alien ship, that's all."

  "Ah," Disra said, smiling tightly. Yes—the mysterious alien ship which that sleeper cell pilot had spotted and made a recording of off Pakrik Minor. "What's the status on that, anyway?"

  "The analysts should be finished anytime," Tierce assured him. "I have a feeling this may be it, Your Excellency."

  Disra felt a shiver ripple up his back. "You really think that was the Hand of Thrawn in that ship?"

  "You saw the design," Tierce pointed out. "Part TIE fighter, part something else. Yes, I think that's the Hand, or else his agent, or else someone from Captain Parck. Whichever, I think we may finally have lured our target into the open."

  Flim made a rumbling noise in the back of his throat. "Like you might lure out a Death Star," he muttered.

  "You're overdoing the melodrama just a bit, Admiral," Tierce said, his patience starting to sound a little strained. "Whoever they are, there are a dozen ways we can keep them from getting close enough to figure out you're a fraud."

  "And what if they want to say hello?" Flim countered. "What are you going to say then? That I've got laryngitis? That I just stepped out for a week?"

  "Hold it, both of you," Disra cut them off as the comm light on his desk began to blink. "This may be it."

  He keyed the comm. "Moff Disra," he said.

  The man on the display was middle-aged, with the slightly nearsighted look of someone who has spent long years staring at a computer display. "Colonel Uday, Your Excellency: Imperial Intelligence Analysis. I have the final report on that record you sent me."

  "Excellent," Disra said. "Send it immediately."

  "Yes, sir," Uday said, glancing down and working keys off-camera. Another light on Disra's display winked on and then off again, marking the transfer. "I'm afraid there wasn't much we could get on the ship itself," Uday continued. "But what there was is in there."

  "Thank you," Disra said, trying not to sound too impatient. The sooner he could cut off this garrulous fool, the sooner he and Tierce could start going over the report line by line. "You'll be receiving a commendation for your quick work."

  "Two points, first, if I may, Your Excellency," Uday said, holding up two fingers.

  "I'm sure it's all in your report," Disra said, reaching for the off switch. "Thank you—"

  "According to the note that accompanied the file, the sighting was made by a TIE fighter off Pakrik Minor," Uday said. "That turns out not to be the case." Disra froze, finger poised over the switch. "Explain."

  "The file is actually a compilation of two separate sightings," Uday said. "One was made in the Kauron system, we think, the other either in the Nosken or Drompani systems. Neither was made by a TIE fighter, either."

  Disra threw a hard look at Tierce. The Royal Guardsman's face had turned to stone. "How do you know?" he demanded.

  "That they didn't come from TIE fighters?" Uday asked. "The sensor profiles are all wrong. I'd guess an X-wing or A-wing for the first one, some kind of well-equipped warship for the second. Not a New Republic ship—the verification signature is wrong for that." The colonel shrugged. "As to where they were made, that's easily pulled from the background star patterns." Disra took a careful breath. "Thank you, Colonel," he said. "You've been most helpful. As I said, a commendation will be forthcoming."

  "Thank you, Your Excellency," Uday said.

  Disra stabbed the comm switch, and the colonel's face vanished. "Well," the Moff said, looking at Tierce again. "It seems we've been lied to."

  "It does indeed," Tierce said, his voice soft, his expression gone suddenly deadly. "I think, Your Excellency, that we have been betrayed."

  Disra swore viciously. "That kriffing clone. That kriffing clone. We should never have trusted them. Thrawn should never have started this kriffing project in the first place."

  "Calm down," Tierce said, his tone suddenly sharp. "Thrawn knew what he was doing. And don't forget that a good many of those clones died fighting for the Empire."

  "They're still an abomination," Disra snarled. He'd spoken with clones; had ordered them into battle; had even sold them to the Cavrilhu Pirates in exchange for Zothip's precious Preybird starfighters. They still made his skin crawl. "And you can't trust any of them."

  "Can we get off Carib Devist and clone treachery for a minute?" Flim put in tautly. "Seems to me the question ought to be why he sent us a faked record in the first place. What did he have to gain?" Tierce took a deep breath, clearly forcing calmness into himself. "That is indeed th
e question. Disra, how did the record come in?"

  "Aboard a drone probe from the Ubiqtorate contact station at Parshoone," Disra told him. "Sent by the agent in charge—"

  "Sent directly here?" Tierce cut him off. "No handoffs or course changes?"

  "No," Disra said, one hand curling into a fist as it suddenly and belatedly struck him. "They wanted Bastion's location."

  "And they got it," Tierce said darkly, his comlink already in his hand. "Major Tierce to Capital Security: full background alert. Possible spies in the city; locate and put under surveillance. Do not—repeat, do not—detain at present. Confirmation from Moff Disra will be forthcoming." He got an acknowledgment and keyed off. "You need to send them a confirmation, Your Excellency," he said.

  "I know," Disra said, frowning at him. "Excuse me if I seem unusually dense today; but you don't want them detained? Spies or saboteurs in my city, and you don't want them detained?"

  "I don't think they're saboteurs," Tierce said. "After all, they've been here at least a couple of days and nothing has blown up."

  "Oh, that's comforting," Disra said icily. "Why don't you want them detained?"

  "As Thrawn often said, within every problem lies an opportunity." Tierce shifted his gaze to the side. "It occurs to me we have an extremely interesting opportunity here." Frowning, Disra followed his gaze...

  "You'd better not be thinking what I think you're thinking," Flim warned, his eyes flicking uneasily back and forth between Tierce and Disra.

  "Of course we are," Tierce assured him. "A Rebel spy team, being confronted personally by Grand Admiral Thrawn? It would be the perfect cap to your performance."

  "The perfect slab under my funeral pyre, you mean," Flim shot back. "Are you crazy, Tierce?

  They get one glimpse of me, and you're going to have a martyred Grand Admiral on your hands."

  "Which might not be such a bad idea," Disra growled, keying confirmation of Tierce's security alert into his board. "Tierce is right—this is a perfect chance to demonstrate your omniscience."

  "I can hardly wait," Flim said sourly, crossing his arms.

  "Calm down, Admiral," Tierce said, nudging Disra aside and keying the display for a search grid overview. "We'll have them spotted in fifteen minutes, and the whole thing will be over in thirty." There was a beep from the display. "Your Excellency?"

  Muttering a curse, Disra keyed the comm switch. "Yes, what is it?" A young, earnest-looking man appeared on the display. "Major Kerf, Your Excellency: spaceport control," he identified himself. "I thought you'd like to know that his shuttle has just landed." Disra shot a look over the display at Tierce, got a shrug in response. "Whose shuttle has just landed?"

  "I thought you knew, sir," Kerf said, looking a little bewildered. "He said he was on his way to the palace to see you, and I just assumed—"

  "Never mind your assumptions, Major," Disra snapped. "Who is it?"

  "Why, the admiral, sir," Kerf stammered. "You know—Admiral Pellaeon."

  * * *

  The waiter at the open-air tapcafe set the plate of mesh-cooked trimpian slices down on the table, accepted payment with a not-quite sneer, and strolled his way back toward the overhang where the bar was located. "He's a real gem, isn't he," Lando grumbled, glaring after him.

  "Probably figures M'challa scholars wouldn't know good service if it fell over them, so why bother," Han said, picking up one of the slices and dipping it into the yellow-swirled miasra sauce, being careful not to let the sleeve of his robe drag into it. Despite the fact they again had no progress to show for their morning's work, he was actually feeling better than he had earlier. Lando, on the other hand, seemed to have caught his bad mood. "So what, that means our money's no good?" he growled. "I tell you, Han, they're getting cocky again."

  "Yeah, I know," Han said, taking a bite as he looked out at the people hurrying along the streets bordering the tapcafe. Hurrying about their business, with a light step and an optimism they probably hadn't had in years. And it didn't take a genius to figure out why.

  Grand Admiral Thrawn had returned.

  "They have to realize they're still completely overmatched," he pointed out around his mouthful.

  "They've got, what, a thousand systems left?"

  "It's not a lot," Lando agreed, snagging a piece of the trimpian for himself and dabbing it delicately into the miasra sauce. Lobot, Han noted, without the distraction of conversation or moodiness to slow him down, was already on his second slice. "But you sure wouldn't know it by looking at them."

  "Yeah," Han said, looking around some more. Happy people, cheerful people, confident that the universe was about to open up and rain wonders down on them again. It was enough to turn a bad mood really rotten...

  He paused, the tangy bite of trimpian between his teeth suddenly forgotten. Beyond the pedestrians, the vehicular traffic had come to a momentary halt as a speeder truck halfway down the block maneuvered toward a loading ramp. And in one of the landspeeders a few meters back from the tapcafe—

  "Lando—over there," he hissed, nodding toward the landspeeder. "That dark green open-top landspeeder. The guy with the thick blond beard?"

  Lando pulled back the side of his hood for better visibility. "I'll be a scruffy nerfherder," he breathed. "That's not Zothip, is it?"

  "Sure looks like him," Han agreed grimly, fighting the impulse to pull his own hood a little tighter around his face. Captain Zothip, head of the Cavrilhu Pirates, and one of the nastier forms of semi-intelligent rotscum he'd ever had the misfortune to cross paths with. Considering the bounty on Zothip's head, there shouldn't have been a civilized planet anywhere in the galaxy where he should have been able to show his ugly face.

  And yet there he was, crammed into a landspeeder with five equally ugly bodyguards in the middle of the Imperial capital, shouting obscenities at the speeder truck as if he owned the whole town. "I'd say we've found the pirate-Empire link Luke and me have been looking for," he muttered.

  "Clones and all."

  "I'd say you're right," Lando said, his robe twitching as he shivered. "I sure hope you're not going to suggest we follow him and confirm it."

  Han shook his head. "Not a chance, pal. I tangled with him once a long time ago. I haven't the slightest interest in trying it again."

  "Me, neither." Lando exhaled audibly. "You know something, Han? We're getting old."

  "Yeah, tell me about it," Han said. "Come on, let's eat up and get back to the library." He glanced up at the brilliant sunlight and blue, cloudless sky. "Suddenly this town seems a lot less friendly than it did five minutes ago."

  * * *

  The speeder truck finished its maneuvering, the traffic began to move again, and Solo and the others went back to their meal.

  And setting a high-denomination coin down beside her own half-finished snack, Karoly left the tapcafe and slipped out into the stream of pedestrians. Suddenly, there was something more interesting than Solo and Calrissian and their library research to attract her attention. Something far more interesting.

  The dark green Kakkran landspeeder hadn't made it more than a street away when she found what she was looking for: an old, beat-up Ubrikkian 9000, untended, parked at the side of the street. Palming her Mistryl-issue inciter, she hopped into the driver's seat, taking the control stick with one hand and sliding the inciter beneath the readout panel with the other. The motor coughed reluctantly to life, and with a glance over her shoulder she pulled out into a gap in the vehicular stream. A casual observer would have seen nothing unusual; she could only hope that the owner wouldn't miss his vehicle until she was finished with it.

  She wove in and out of traffic until she had trimmed enough off Zothip's lead to be able to catch frequent glimpses of the dark green Kakkran. The more official-looking buildings, including what was obviously the local governor's palace, were situated on the higher ground at the northern edge of the city off to their left. If the Imperial connection Solo had mentioned was real, the pirates should be turning of
f anytime now.

  But to her growing surprise, they didn't. Instead, the Kakkran continued east, angling northward only after the palace was far behind them. They reached the outskirts of the city and headed out into the wooded hills that bordered the area to the north, and Karoly found herself dropping farther and farther back as the traffic thinned out.

  The pirates changed roads twice more, curving farther and farther north, and Karoly began to regret she'd never gotten around to picking up a map of the area. The road they were on seemed to be taking them in a circle around the city, which made no sense to her at all unless they were trying to come up on the palace from behind.

  She was still toying with that thought when the Kakkran suddenly pulled to the side of the road and disappeared into the trees.

  She pulled off, too, slipping out of her Ubrikkian and heading into the woods on foot. She'd gone only a little ways when the sound of the repulsorlifts ahead of her cut off.

  "You sure this is it?" a rough voice drifted back toward her through the trees. "Doesn't look like any escape route I've ever seen."

  "Trust me, Captain," a more cultured voice assured him. "I scoped the place out thoroughly the last time we were here." Karoly got a glimpse of movement through the trees, headed for the cover of a squat bush—

  "Here it is," the cultured man said; and as Karoly dropped into a crouching position behind the bush she saw one of the six pirates reach out an arm and swing away some hanging branches from a tree growing out of the rocky cliff face. "Your typical Imperial rat-run." Zothip grunted, ducking down to peer inside. "Couple of landspeeders stashed away in there. The tunnel wide enough for 'em, Control?"

  "I presume we'll find out," the cultured man said. "Grinner, get it started." The pirates disappeared beneath the hanging branches, and a minute later there was the sound of a repulsorlift powering up. The sound revved, then faded away into the distance. Karoly gave them a count of ten, then eased to the tree and ducked under the branches.