by Timothy Zahn
Unfortunately, the sound also clearly announced trouble to his partner. Even as Han wrenched the blaster from his victim's limp hand the other security man, still enmeshed by the crowd, turned to see what had happened.
The kid was certainly young and agile enough. But he had turned around to his left, which left his blaster out of line for a quick shot behind him. Han, on the other hand, already had his appropriated weapon aimed. With a silent plea for the complete trappings of civilization to be in place here in the Imperial capital, he fired.
His plea was answered. Instead of the killing flash of full-power blaster fire, the weapon in his hand spat the brilliant blue rings of a stun jolt.
The security man dropped like a rock beneath the flow of the crowd, already scattering away from this new threat to their peace and quiet. Brandishing the blaster high, Han leaped over the prone body and dashed back to the tapcafe.
Inside, the place was deserted. Even the bartender had found somewhere to disappear to. "Not like the old days in the Outer Rim," Lando commented almost wistfully, stripping off his own scholar's robe with one hand as he kept his slugthrower ready.
"Lucky for you it isn't," Han reminded him. "On Tatooine or Bengely there'd have been fifteen blasters on you before you got your second shot off. Come on—back door's that way." Nevertheless, he felt a twinge of regret of his own as the three of them headed for the back of the tapcafe. Those had indeed been fine days...
* * *
Bracing himself, Disra lifted his eyes from the datapad. "I don't know what to say, Admiral," he said, careful not to overdo the hurt indignation in his voice and expression. "I categorically deny all of this, of course."
"Of course," Pellaeon echoed, his eyes cool and measuring. "I'm sure it's nothing more than a carefully orchestrated smear campaign against you by your political enemies." Disra bit down on his tongue in annoyance. That had indeed been the line he'd been planning to run with. Vader take the man, anyway. "I wouldn't go quite that far," he said instead. "I have no doubt that at least some of your sources have been sincere. Whatever their motivations or sincerity, though, their information is wrong."
Pellaeon exchanged glances with Commander Dreyf, seated beside him. Patient, knowing glances on both sides. "Really," Pellaeon said, looking back at Disra. "And what do you suggest is the motivation an sincerity of the official trading data Commander Dreyf uncovered on Muunilinst?"
"That's section fifteen on the file," Dreyf offered helpfully. "In case you missed it." Disra ground his teeth, looking back at the datapad. Vader take Pellaeon and Dreyf. "All I can suggest is that someone deliberately planted those numbers," he said. It was an unbelievably weak defense, and everyone in the office undoubtedly knew it. But even as Pellaeon opened his mouth to most likely point that out, there was a diffident tap from across the room and one of the double doors swung ponderously open. Disra looked up, ready to scorch the person who'd had the temerity to intrude on a private conversation—
"Your Excellency?" Tierce said, blinking with nicely underplayed surprise at the sight of the two armed troopers flanking the doorway, guards Pellaeon had had the effrontery to bring in here with him. "Oh, I'm sorry, sir—"
"No, that's all right, Major," Disra said. "What is it?"
"I have an urgent message for you, Your Excellency," Tierce said, hesitantly crossing toward the desk, his eyes on Pellaeon. "From the palace situation room."
"Well, let me see it," Disra growled, waving the other impatiently forward and trying to cover his sudden misgivings. Tierce could just as easily have called down on the comm with news of their spy search; the speaker focus was set so that no one but Disra could hear. To have come down personally implied that something had gone seriously wrong...
Tierce reached the desk and handed Disra his datapad. And something had indeed gone seriously wrong.
Enemy spies identified as former New Republic generals Han Solo and Lando Calrissian plus an unidentified man with cyborg head implant. Subjects were spotted and identified at the corner of Regisine and Corlioon, but have broken surveillance and escaped. Capital Security is currently attempting to reestablish contact.
Disra looked up at Tierce, saw the hard edge to the Royal Guardsman's eyes. "I don't like getting reports like this," he said darkly. "What exactly is the lieutenant doing about it?"
"They're all working on it," Tierce said. "They seem to be doing their best."
"Is there a problem?" Pellaeon spoke up. His question was addressed to Disra, but his eyes—and his attention—were clearly on Tierce. "Perhaps you'd like to see to it personally." Disra ground his teeth again. Yes, he very much wanted to see what was going on up there. But Pellaeon wouldn't have offered to let him squirm off the hook, even temporarily, unless he had some devious plan of his own in mind.
He suppressed a smile as it struck him. Of course—Pellaeon wanted the chance to pull a quick private interrogation on Tierce, and was trying to get the Moff out of the way. And it was now equally clear that the hope of dangling that precise bait in front of him was precisely Tierce's reason for delivering the message personally. "Thank you, Admiral," Disra said, getting to his feet. "I believe I will. Major Tierce, perhaps you'll keep the Admiral and his party company until I return."
"Me, sir?" Tierce asked, giving the visitors a simpleminded, wide-eyed expression. "Why, certainly, sir. If the Admiral doesn't mind."
"Not at all," Pellaeon said softly. "I'd be delighted."
"I'll be back soon," Disra promised. "Enjoy yourselves. Both of you." Thirty seconds later he was back in the situation room. "What in the name of Vader's teeth happened?" he demanded.
"Calm yourself, Your Excellency," Thrawn said, his eyes flashing warningly at Disra. "We've only lost them temporarily."
Disra glared at the other, biting back a blistering retort. If this mess was the con man's fault, he was going to nail him to the wall. "May I inquire how something like this could happen?"
"Solo and Calrissian are combat veterans, highly experienced at survival," Thrawn said calmly.
"The security men they came up against were neither." He shrugged, a subtle movement of shoulders beneath the white uniform. "Actually, it was rather instructive, pointing up as it did some obvious deficiencies in Capital Security's training procedures. We'll have to remedy that."
"I'm sure they'll be delighted to have your input," Disra said, looking over at the status board. An overview of the city was currently displayed, along with the locations of all the Capital Security forces scattered around it. "Wouldn't it make more sense to concentrate our surveillance on the spaceport?
They're probably trying to get back to their ship."
"I'm sure they are," Thrawn agreed. "However, if they arrive to find a ring of stormtroopers blocking their path, they'll simply find an alternative way off Bastion."
"I suppose you're right," Disra said reluctantly. Tierce's argument, undoubtedly. Most likely his exact words, too; Disra could practically hear the Guardsman's characteristic inflections in the con man's voice. "May I ask what you suggest we do, then?"
Thrawn turned his glowing red eyes toward the status board. "The first step in catching a sentient prey is to think as he does," he said. Again, words that sounded straight out of Tierce's mouth. "What was their mission here, and how did they intend to accomplish it?"
"How about sabotage?" Disra gritted. "That sound like a likely mission?"
"No," Thrawn said firmly. "They wouldn't send men like Solo and Calrissian in as saboteurs. Spies, perhaps, but not saboteurs."
"Admiral Thrawn?" one of the troopers spoke up from his station. "I've got a partial backcheck on the targets now. We've got a droid download that shows they've spent the past three days in the Imperial Library."
"Very good," Thrawn said, looking back at Disra. His head tilted fractionally toward an unoccupied corner of the room—
"I'd like to speak with you a moment, Admiral," Disra said, picking up on the cue. "Privately, if I may."
; "Certainly, Your Excellency," Thrawn said, gesturing toward the corner. "Let's step over here." They crossed to the corner. "Don't tell me—let me guess," Disra muttered, keeping his voice low.
"They're here after the Caamas Document."
"What an amazing revelation, Your Excellency," Flim said, not quite sarcastically, his tone changing subtly out of his Thrawn character. "The interesting part is that I've never heard of either Solo or Calrissian having anywhere near the slicing training for a job like that." Disra frowned. Getting past the con man's impertinence, he had a good point. A very good point. Disra himself had worked his way into the Emperor's Special Files, but he'd had years to do it and any number of experts to call on for advice along the way. "Then the slicer must be the head-implant who's with them," he suggested.
Flim's mouth puckered slightly. "No, I don't think so," he said. "They didn't get a good enough look at him for a positive ID, but my guess is that that's Lobot, Calrissian's old administrator from his pre-Endor days on Bespin. As far as I know Lobot hasn't got any slicing expertise, either..." He trailed off, his eyes suddenly narrowing. "What is it?" Disra demanded.
"There's a trick I heard about once," Flim said slowly. "A slicing trick someone in the fringe came up with a few years ago. Now, how did that work? No, be quiet a minute—let me think." For a dozen heartbeats the only sound in the room was the murmur of background conversation as the men working their boards reported to each other new information as it came in. All of it negative. Disra took deep breaths, concentrating on keeping a firm leash on his impatience. There were enemy spies loose in his city...
And abruptly, Flim's eyes focused on him again. "Verpines," he said with a note of triumph in his tone. "That was it. Verpines."
He took a half step past Disra. "Lieutenant, start a wide-spectrum comm frequency scan," he ordered, his voice suddenly that of Thrawn again. "Concentrate on Verpine biocomm frequencies." The lieutenant's eyebrows didn't even lift. "Yes, sir," he said briskly, setting to work.
"Wait a second," Disra said, almost grabbing at Flim's sleeve and remembering just in time that that would be out of character. "Verpine biocomm frequencies?"
"It's really an impressively cute trick," Flim said, dropping his voice again to a level where only Disra could hear. "You have a Verpine slicer sitting off in a hole somewhere while a runner with an implant tuned to his personal biocomm frequency goes to the system you want to slice. With the data flow the implant can handle, the whole thing acts almost like a telepathic link. The Verpine sees through the implant's eyes and works the slicing on his own computer board, and the runner's fingers mimic his on the real system."
"He turns him into a puppet, in other words," Disra bit out, his stomach twisting with distaste. For an alien to play a human being that way, even an implant who was no longer really human, was a vileness that bordered on the obscene.
"Basically," Flim agreed casually. "Like I said, a real cute trick."
"I'll take your word for it," Disra growled. Naturally, to a con man mired in the fringe himself, such obscenities were probably just a commonplace way of life. "So what if they've shut the link down?" Flim shrugged, the same Thrawn-like gesture he'd used earlier. Out of earshot of the other troopers, he was still cagey enough to stay visually within his role. "Then we crump out, and we'll have to try something else."
Disra looked over at the status board. "What if we try broadcasting on those biocomm frequencies?" he asked. "Maybe tell the Verpine to start up their repulsorlifts or something? That would at least smoke out their ship for us."
"We'd have to know how to encode a message into Verpine," Flim said doubtfully. "I doubt we could find someone who can do it fast enough."
"Couldn't a protocol droid handle the translation?"
"Not without a special module," Flim told him. "Off-the-floor models don't usually come equipped to translate Verpine. Not enough call for it."
He stroked his lower lip thoughtfully. "On the other hand, if Lobot's still got the link open from his end, we might be able to pick up a resonance echo if we hit the right frequency. That was something we used to have to worry about with our comlinks when we were running against some of the more sophisticated planetary patrol groups. If we can get a receiver close enough, and if we're lucky, we might be able to locate them."
Disra felt his lip twist. "An awful lot of ifs in there."
"I know," Flim conceded. "But we've got to try something, and that's the best I can do right now." He nodded toward the door. "Maybe you'd better get Tierce back up here. This is tactics, and he is our tactics expert."
And Pellaeon had had enough time alone with the man, anyway. "I'll send him up," he said, heading toward the door. "Keep me informed, Admiral."
* * *
With one final lurch, the turbolift car came to a halt. "This it?" Zothip's voice growled.
"I expect so," Control said as the doors slid open. "Yes—this should be it."
"So which way?" one of the other pirates demanded.
Easing her head to the side, Karoly lined up one eye with the crack still showing between the back doors. The pirates were half in and half out of the car now, Zothip standing in a narrow passageway outside with his fists set on his hips, all of them looking back and forth both directions down a narrow corridor.
"I don't know," Control said, looking around once himself and then pointing to the left. "Let's try that way first."
"Okay," Zothip said. "Grinner, lock down the car—we don't want anyone coming up behind us."
"Right," Grinner said, doing something Karoly couldn't see with the control board. "Done." The pirates disappeared out of sight to the left. Karoly gave them a five-count; then, finding a toehold on the doorframe lip, she set her climbing claws into the crack between the doors and pried them open.
She stepped into the car; and she was just starting to close the doors again when she heard the sound of footsteps in the corridor outside.
The pirates were coming back.
There was no time for anything but instinctive reaction. Putting her full strength into the effort, she pulled the doors to within a couple of centimeters of being closed. They hung up there, but there was no time for her to try to free them. Crossing the car in two quick strides, she squeezed herself as invisibly as she could into the front left-hand corner.
Just in time. Even as she pressed her climbing claws firmly against the car walls to avoid the telltale clink of metal on metal should they accidentally brush together, the footsteps reached her.
"I don't see what the big deal is that he's got company," Zothip was muttering as the first puff of air from their passage wafted in through the car opening. "Anyway, I only heard two voices in there."
"That doesn't mean there aren't more," Control said patiently as the group passed the open door and continued down the passageway. "Besides, if we're seen by the wrong people this arrangement of ours goes straight down."
"So what?" Zothip growled, his voice fading as they all continued down the corridor. "Canceling the arrangement— and Disra—is the whole idea, isn't it?"
"We ought to at least talk first," Control said. "We might be able to recast the deal."
"Hey, Grinner, you sure know your way around a control panel," another voice put in from the rear of the pack as the group continued on its way. "Did you know that when you locked the car down you popped the back doors?"
Karoly held her breath; but Grinner's response was a brief obscenity and an uninterrupted tread down the corridor. She gave them another five-count; then, pulling off the climbing claws and putting them away, she drew her blaster and headed out after them.
She wasn't more than a few steps into the corridor when a subtle wave of air in her face warned her that somewhere ahead a door had opened. She picked up her pace a bit, and came around a slight curve in the passageway just in time to see a rectangle of muted light close down to a sliver as the pirates closed a door down to a crack. Hurrying silently forward, she stopped at the door and
eased her ear against the crack.
"Fancy place," she heard one of the pirates say, his tone a mixture of contempt and envy. "Look at this—Ramordian silk sheets and everything."
"Maybe he'll give you a set for your bunk," Zothip growled. "Where's the—oh, there it is." There was the soft sound of a chair being pulled back across a thick carpet. Karoly moved her eye around the crack, trying to see what was going on. But from her angle all she could see was a small section of an elaborate wall hanging. "What are you going to do?" Control asked.
"Put in a call to his office," Zothip grunted. "Whoever he's got in there, I figure he can tell them to wait."
* * *
"I'm sorry, Admiral," Major Tierce said, his fingertips rubbing nervously at the sides of his pant legs. "But with all due respect, I really don't know what you're talking about. I don't think I've ever been to Yaga Minor. If I have, it would have been as part of a training cruise when I was a cadet. Certainly not—what did you say; six weeks ago?"
"About that," Pellaeon said, watching Tierce's face closely and wishing mightily that he had enough evidence on him to order a full verity analysis. The man was lying through his teeth—that much Pellaeon was sure of. But until he could positively identify Tierce as the man who'd sliced into the Yaga Minor computer system, there was nothing else he could do.
Or until that New Republic slicer Ghent found evidence of Tierce's tampering. That was a wild card neither Tierce nor Disra knew about.
Behind Pellaeon, the double doors swung open. "I apologize for the delay, Admiral," Disra said, striding past Commander Dreyf and around the side of the ivrooy desk. "That will be all, Major," he added curtly to Tierce.
"Yes, Your Excellency," Tierce said. For the briefest instant their eyes met, and Pellaeon thought he saw Disra give his aide a microscopic nod. Then, moving with the air of a man trying to run from a group of besiioths while still keeping some shreds of dignity, the major crossed the office and escaped.
"I trust Major Tierce was congenial company for you," Disra commented.
