by Timothy Zahn
"They're preparing for some sort of maneuvers, I expect," the other said. "Military people are always maneuvering one direction or another."
"How far is it to where we're meeting Car'das?" Karrde asked, not particularly interested in what the Exocron Combined Air-Space Fleet had on its agenda for the day.
"Not far," Entoo Nee assured him. "Do you see that light blue building straight ahead, the one just a bit up the slope of the mountain? That's where he is."
Karrde shaded his eyes from the sunlight. From this distance, at least, it was not a very impressive place. Not a fortress; not even a mansion.
In fact, as Entoo Nee cleared the military area and started across the more sparsely trafficked civilian section of the city, the light blue building ahead began to look more and more like a simple, unassuming house.
Shada was apparently thinking along the same lines. "Is that where Car'das lives, or just where we're meeting him?" she asked.
Entoo Nee threw her a quick smile. "It's always questions with you, isn't it? Such a good, thoughtful mind."
"Asking questions is part of my job," Shada countered. "And you haven't answered me."
"Answering questions isn't part of my job," Entoo Nee said. "Come now, there's no need for impatience—it's only a little farther. Just relax and enjoy the trip." The blue house continued to look smaller and less impressive the closer they got. Smaller, less impressive, older, and considerably shabbier. "As you can see, it was built right up against the cliff face," Entoo Nee commented as they drove past the last cluster of other houses and started across a grassy field with a rapid creek running through the middle of it. "I believe the original owner thought that would provide extra stability during the winter winds."
"What happened to the left side?" Shada asked, pointing. "Did a wing get torn down?"
"No, it was never built," Entoo Nee told her. "Car'das once began to add on to the house, but—well, you'll see."
An unpleasant tingle ran down Karrde's back. "What do you mean, we'll see? What stopped him?"
Entoo Nee didn't answer. Karrde glanced over at Shada, found her looking at him with an odd expression on her face.
A minute later they were there. Entoo Nee brought the landspeeder to a smooth halt in front of a once-white door whose paint had chipped and faded with age and neglect. "You lead the way," Shada said to Entoo Nee, sliding herself deftly between Karrde and the house. "I'll be behind you; Karrde will be behind me."
"Oh, no, that won't do at all," Entoo Nee said. He shook his head, a quick, nervous-looking movement. "Only Captain Karrde and I will be able to go in."
Shada's eyes narrowed. "Let me put it another way—"
"No, that's all right, Shada," Karrde said, moving around her and taking a step toward the door. Away from the center of the group, with nothing between him and the blank and empty windows, he felt painfully exposed. "If Car'das only wants to see me, then that's the way it has to be."
"Forget it," Shada said flatly, catching hold of Karrde's arm and hauling him bodily to a stop.
"Entoo Nee, either I go in with him or he doesn't go in at all."
"Shada, this isn't helping," Karrde growled, glaring at her. Did she want all of them to be summarily shot down before he even had a chance to plead the New Republic's case? "If he wanted me dead, he could have done it at any of a hundred points along the way. He could certainly do it right here."
"I know that," Shada shot back. "And it doesn't matter. I came along as your bodyguard. And that's what I'm going to do."
Karrde stared at her, a sudden strange sensation running through him. Back at that Orowood Tower meeting with Solo, Organa Solo, and Calrissian, Shada had merely agreed to come along on this trip to help out. When during the two and a half weeks since then had that grudging agreement transmuted into the far deeper commitment of bodyguard? "Shada, I appreciate your concern," he said, quietly but firmly, reaching up to where she still gripped his arm and putting his hand gently on top of hers. "But you need to remember the big picture. My life, and what happens to it, isn't the most important thing at stake here."
"I'm your bodyguard," Shada said, just as quietly and just as firmly. "It's the most important thing to me."
"Please," Entoo Nee spoke up. "Please. I think you misunderstand. Captain Karrde and I must go in first, but you may certainly come in right behind us. It's simply that—well, you'll see." Shada still didn't look happy, but she gave a reluctant nod. "All right, fine," she said. "Just remember that if anything happens, you personally will be directly in my line of fire. You two first, then me, then Threepio."
"Really, Mistress Shada, I'm sure it's not necessary for me to come in with you," the droid hastened to assure her, taking a shuffling step back toward the landspeeder. "Perhaps I should remain here and guard the landspeeder—"
"Actually, he may be useful," Entoo Nee said, smiling reassuringly. "Come, Threepio, it'll be all right."
"Yes, Master Entoo Nee," Threepio said in a resigned tone. Moaning almost inaudibly to himself, he shuffled to a spot half a meter behind Shada. "But I must say, I have a bad feeli—"
"Good," Entoo Nee said cheerfully. The solemn moment past, he was radiating his usual harmlessness again. "Shall we go?"
The door was unlocked. Karrde followed the little man in, feeling more vulnerable than ever as they stepped out of the sunlight into a dank, gloomy room.
A room that, to his surprise, had apparently not been used for some time. The few pieces of furniture scattered about were old and dusty, with the same signs of long neglect that they'd seen in the exterior of the house itself. The three windows, which from the outside had seemed so dark and threatening, could now be seen from this side to be merely incredibly dirty, with the slight frosting effect that came from years of wind-driven dust or sand slashing across them. In the shafts of dim sunlight that managed to penetrate the grime, long strands of cobweb could be seen stretching from some of the chairs to the ceiling.
"This way," Entoo Nee said quietly, his voice an intrusion in the eerie atmosphere as he led them across the room to a closed door. "He is here, Captain Karrde. Please prepare yourself." Karrde took a deep breath. Behind him, he heard the faint scraping sound as Shada's blaster came free of its holster. "I'm ready," he said. "Let's get it over with."
"Indeed." Reaching past him, Entoo Nee touched the door control. With a faint squeak, it slid open.
It was the smell that hit Karrde first. An odor of age, and distant memories, and lost hopes. An odor of sickness and tiredness.
An odor of death.
The room itself was small, much smaller than Karrde would have expected. To both sides built-in shelves covered each of the side walls, on which were stacked a strange assortment of small art objects, useless-looking knickknacks, and medical vials and equipment. A large bed took up most of the rest of the space, the foot coming to within a meter of the doorway and leaving barely enough room left over for two people to stand.
And lying in the bed beneath a stack of blankets, humming softly to himself as he stared at the ceiling, was an old man.
"Jorj?" Entoo Nee called softly as he stepped through the doorway. The humming stopped, but the man's gaze remained on the ceiling. "Jorj? There's someone here to see you." Karrde stepped in beside him, squeezing into the remaining space, his mind spinning. No. Surely this couldn't be Jorj Car'das. Not the vigorous, hot-tempered, ambitious man who'd almost single-handedly created one of the greatest smuggling organizations ever known. "Jorj?" he called carefully.
The wrinkled face frowned, and the head lifted up. "Mertan?" a quavering voice asked. "Mertan?
Is that you?"
Karrde let his breath out in a tired sigh. The voice, and the eyes. Yes, it was indeed him. "No, Jorj," he said gently. "Not Mertan. It's Karrde. Talon Karrde. You remember?" The old man's eyes blinked a couple of times. "Karrde?" he said in the same uncertain voice. "Is that you?"
"Yes, Jorj, it's me," Karrde assured him. "Do you remember me?" A tent
ative smile started on the old man's face, fading as if the muscles were too old or too tired to hold on to it. "Yes," he said. "No. Who are you again?"
"Talon Karrde," Karrde repeated, the bitter taste of defeat and disappointment and utter fatigue in his mouth. All this way. They'd come all this way to see Car'das and plead for his help. All of Karrde's fears about this meeting—his fears, his regrets, his guilt—all of it for nothing. The Jorj Car'das he had lived in quiet terror of for so many years was long gone. In his place was an empty shell.
Dimly, through the darkness swirling through his mind, he felt a hand on his shoulder. "Come on, Karrde," Shada said quietly. "There's nothing here anymore."
"It was Karrde, right?" the old man asked. A thin arm came up from beneath the blankets, flailing a bit before the hand was able to tuck the pillows tighter behind his neck. "Tarron Karrde?"
"It's Talon Karrde, Jorj," Entoo Nee corrected, his voice that of a patient parent to a very young child. "Is there anything I can get for you?"
Car'das frowned, his head settling back onto the pillow, his eyes again drifting to whatever it was he saw on the ceiling. "Shem-mebal ostorran se'mmitas Mertan anial?" he muttered, his voice almost inaudible. "Karmida David shumidas krree?"
"Old Tarmidian," Entoo Nee murmured. "The language of his childhood. He's been slipping into that more and more lately."
"Threepio?" Shada prompted.
"He's asking if Mertan has been by here today," the droid translated. For once, there was no mention of how many types of communication he was fluent in. "Or that nice Admiral David person."
"No, neither of them," Entoo Nee said to the figure in the bed, motioning Karrde to back out of the room. "I'll be back later, Jorj. Try to get some sleep, all right?" He followed Karrde out of the room and reached for the door control. "Sleep?" The old man snorted weakly, giving a cackling laugh. "Can't sleep now, Mertan. Too much to do. Far too much to—"
The door slid shut, mercifully cutting off the rest. "You see, now, how it is," Entoo Nee said quietly.
Karrde nodded, the taste of ashes in his mouth. All those years... "How long has he been this way?"
"And why did you even bother bringing us here in the first place?" Shada demanded.
"What can I say?" Entoo Nee said. "He's old—very old—with the many and varied afflictions that so often come of long age." His bright eyes shifted to Shada. "And as for bringing you here, you were the ones who wanted to come."
"We wanted to see Jorj Car'das," Shada bit out. "What's in there is not what we had in mind."
"It's all right, Shada," Karrde said. All those years... "It's my fault, not Entoo Nee's. I should have come here years ago."
He blinked sudden tears from his eyes. "I suppose there's only one more question to be asked. Entoo Nee, Car'das once had a huge datacard library. Do you have any idea where it might be?" Entoo Nee shrugged. "Whatever he did with it, he did it long before I came to be in his service." Karrde nodded. So much for even their last hope of finding a copy of the Caamas Document here. Wasted fears, and now a wasted trip. Suddenly, he was feeling very old. "Thank you," he said, pulling out his comlink and keying it on. "Dankin?"
"Right here, Chief," Dankin's voice came promptly, an edge of tautness to it. "How are things?"
"Running quite smoothly, thank you," Karrde said, giving the all-clear code response. "The mission is over. Get the ship ready; we'll be leaving as soon as we get back."
"Yeah, well, that might be a bit tricky," Dankin said, his voice turning grim. "There's something about to happen here, Chief, something big. Every ship on the field's getting tooled up for combat." Karrde frowned. "Are you sure?"
"I'm positive," Dankin said. "There are racks of missiles being taken aboard, gunner-type flak-vac suits—the works. And they seem to be arming a lot of civilian ships, too."
"It's Rei'Kas and his pirates," Entoo Nee murmured quietly at Karrde's side. "It would appear one of them followed you in."
Karrde grimaced, yet another piece of his carefully built up mental picture crumbling to dust. He'd been so sure that Rei'Kas had been hired and brought here by Car'das. "No one should have been able to follow us," he told Entoo Nee. "We always watch our backtrail very closely." Entoo Nee shrugged again. "I don't know how they did it. I only know that they did. According to Admiral David, their entire fleet has now left its hidden base and is on its way to Exocron."
"You knew about this before we even landed?" Shada demanded. "Why didn't you say something?"
"What should I have said?" Entoo Nee countered. "The damage had already been done. They had found Exocron." He gestured upward. "In fact, that was why I wanted to bring you here myself from Dayark, Captain Karrde. They wouldn't have been able to track my ship." Karrde grimaced. As if his guilt burden hadn't been heavy enough, now this. "How long before they reach the planet?"
"Excuse me," Threepio spoke up before Entoo Nee could answer. "But if pirates are on their way, shouldn't we be planning our departure?"
"He's right," Entoo Nee agreed. "Still, there's no particular hurry for you. They won't be here for at least another eight hours. Possibly more."
"What about you?" Shada asked.
Entoo Nee's mouth puckered. "I'm sure we'll be all right. I'm told the Combined Air-Space Fleet is quite good."
"Maybe against the occasional smuggler or rock-dodger," Shada said darkly. "But this is Rei'Kas we're talking about."
"It's our trouble, not yours," Entoo Nee said firmly. "You'd best make preparations to go." The comlink, Karrde suddenly realized, was still on. "Dankin?" he called. "You get all that?"
"We got it, Chief," Dankin confirmed. "You still want me to get the ship ready?" Karrde looked past Entoo Nee at the room's darkened windows. Beyond those windows were people his actions, however unintended, had put in deadly danger.
Which meant there really wasn't any decision here to be made. "Yes, get it ready," he told Dankin. "But get it ready for full combat."
He looked back at Entoo Nee. "We're going to stay and fight."
CHAPTER
25
It was, Booster Terrik thought, about as chaotic aboard the Errant Venture as he'd ever seen it. And considering this was the Errant Venture he was talking about, that was really saying something. They were all over the place: New Republic techs and workers and officer types, thousands of them, crawling around every corner of his Star Destroyer. Fixing things, adding things, taking things out, upgrading things, and occasionally changing things around just for the fun of it. His own people had been overridden, nudged aside, superseded, or flat out run over as this oversized rancor of a restoration crew lumbered through his ship.
And moving around the center of it, like the single calm spot in the middle of a circlestorm, was General Bel Iblis.
"Five more warships arrived in the system last night," a harried-looking aide was saying, hurrying to keep up with Bel Iblis as the general strode briskly along the Starboard-16 weapons emplacement corridor. Booster, with his longer legs, had less of a problem in that department. Still, in his opinion, Bel Iblis had a lot more energy than anyone had any business having this early in the morning. "The Freedom's Fury, Spirit of Mindor, Starline Warrior, Stellar Sentinel, and Welling's Revenge."
"Good," Bel Iblis said, stopping beside a turbolaser monitor panel. "What about the Garfin and Beledeen II?"
"No word on them yet," the aide said, checking his datapad. "I've also heard rumors that the Webley's here, but so far they haven't checked in."
"They're here," Booster spoke up. "Captain Winger is, anyway—those mechanical fingers of hers leave pretty distinctive marks on metal ale tubes."
The aide's eyes darkened. "All incoming ships are supposed to check in immediately—"
"It's all right," Bel Iblis calmed him. "Don't worry, they'll surface in plenty of time. Alex probably just wanted her crew to get some rest before the orders started flying."
"They're not the only ones who could use some rest," Booster muttered under
his breath. Bel Iblis frowned slightly, as if only now noticing the big man's presence. "Was there something you wanted, Terrik?" he asked.
"Just wondering when the work on my ship will be finished," Booster said.
"We're almost there," Bel Iblis said. "Lieutenant?"
"Looks like the major refitting will be completed inside of twelve hours," the younger man confirmed, studying his datapad. "There may be a few odds and ends left, but they can be finished on the way to Yaga Minor."
Bel Iblis looked at Booster. "Was there anything else?" he asked.
"Yeah, there was," Booster said. He stopped, looking significantly at the aide. Bel Iblis took the hint. "Lieutenant, go check on the Number 7 tractor beam emplacement," he said. "Make sure the balance adjustments are being made properly."
"Yes, sir," the aide said. Throwing a speculative look at Booster, he headed at a quick walk down the corridor.
"Why don't we step in here out of the way," Bel Iblis suggested, crossing to a door with the bright red markings of an emergency med station.
They went inside. "Up to now, you've been pretty quiet about what your plan is for this little raid," Booster said when the door was sealed again behind them. "I think it's about time I heard some details."
"There's not much to tell," Bel Iblis said. "We'll be taking the Errant Venture in past their sentry line and, hopefully, through their main defense perimeter. Once we're inside, the rest of the task force will come in behind us from hyperspace and attack the perimeter. If we're lucky, the Imperials will be so busy with them they won't give us a second look."
"That assumes their first look doesn't pin us to the wall, of course," Booster pointed out darkly.
"Assuming that, what then?"
"Yaga Minor has a peculiarity that as far as I know is unique among Imperial installations," Bel Iblis said. "There are a pair of outrider computer stations set up at the end of a corridor/walkway tube that extends about a hundred meters out from the main orbiting Ubiqtorate station." Booster frowned. "Odd design."
