by Timothy Zahn
“Bedtime arguments, mainly,” she said. “Problems with the little one over who’s going to get to stay up and read—that sort of thing. You understand.”
“Yeah,” Han said. “I know the kids pretty well. How about the neighbors? He still having trouble with them?”
There was a brief pause. “I’m . . . not exactly sure,” she said. “He hasn’t mentioned anything about them to me. I can ask, if you’d like.”
“It’s no big deal,” Han said. “As long as the family’s doing okay—that’s the important thing.”
“I agree. At any rate, I think he mainly just wanted to be remembered to you.”
“Thanks for passing on the message.” He threw Lando a look. “Go ahead and tell him that we won’t be out here too much longer. We’ll go to Abregado and maybe look in on a couple of others and then head back.”
“All right,” Winter said. “Anything else?”
“No—yes,” Han corrected himself. “What’s the latest on the Bpfasshi recovery program?”
“Those three systems the Imperials hit?”
“Right.” And where he and Leia had had their second brush with those gray-skinned alien kidnappers; but there was no point in dwelling on that.
“Let me call up the proper file,” Winter said. “. . . It’s coming along reasonably well. There were some problems with supply shipments, but the material seems to be moving well enough now.”
Han frowned at the speaker. “What did Ackbar do, dig up some mothballed container ships from somewhere?”
“Actually, he made his own,” Winter came back dryly. “He’s taken some capital ships—Star Cruisers and Attack Frigates, mostly—cut the crews back to skeleton size and put in extra droids, and turned them into cargo ships.”
Han grimaced. “I hope he’s got some good escorts along with them. Empty Star Cruisers would make great target practice for the Imperials.”
“I’m sure he’s thought of that,” Winter assured him. “And the orbit dock and shipyards at Sluis Van are very well defended.”
“I’m not sure anything’s really well defended these days,” Han returned sourly. “Not with the Imperials running loose like they are. Anyway. Got to go; talk to you later.”
“Enjoy your trip. Your Highness? Good-bye.”
Lando snapped his fingers at Threepio. “Good-bye, Winter,” the droid said.
Han made a slashing motion across his throat, and Lando shut off the transmitter. “If those Star Cruisers had been built with proper slave circuits, they wouldn’t have to load them with droids to make container ships out of them,” he pointed out innocently.
“Yeah,” Han nodded, his mind just barely registering Lando’s words. “Come on—we’ve got to cut this short and get back.” He climbed out of the cockpit seat and checked his blaster. “Something’s about to burn through on Coruscant.”
“You mean all that stuff about Ackbar’s family?” Lando asked, standing up.
“Right,” Han said, heading back toward the Falcon’s hatchway. “If I’m reading Winter right, it sounds like Fey’lya has started a major push toward Ackbar’s territory. Come on, Threepio—you need to lock up behind us.”
“Captain Solo, I must once again protest this whole arrangement,” the droid said plaintively, scuttling up behind Han. “I really feel that to impersonate Princess Leia—”
“All right, all right,” Han cut him off. “As soon as we get back, I’ll have Lando undo the programming.”
“It’s over already?” Lando asked, pushing past Threepio to join Han at the lock. “I thought you told Winter—”
“That was for the benefit of anyone tapping in,” Han said. “As soon as we’ve worked through this contact, we’re going to head back. Maybe even stop by Kashyyyk on the way and pick up Leia.”
Lando whistled softly. “That bad, huh?”
“It’s hard to say, exactly,” Han had to admit as he slapped the release. The ramp dropped smoothly down to the dusty permcrete beneath them. “That ‘staying up late to read’ is the part I don’t understand. I suppose it could mean some of the intelligence work that Ackbar’s been doing along with the Supreme Commander position. Or worse—maybe Fey’lya’s going for the whole sabacc pot.”
“You and Winter should have worked out a better verbal code,” Lando said as they started down the ramp.
“We should have worked out a verbal code, period,” Han growled back. “I’ve been meaning for three years to sit down with her and Leia and set one up. Never got around to it.”
“Well, if it helps, the analysis makes sense,” Lando offered, glancing around the docking pit. “It fits the rumors I’ve heard, anyway. I take it the neighbors you referred to are the Empire?”
“Right. Winter should have heard something about it if Ackbar had had any luck plugging the security leaks.”
“Won’t that make it dangerous to go back, then?” Lando asked as they started toward the exit.
“Yeah,” Han agreed, feeling his lip twist. “But we’re going to have to risk it. Without Leia there to play peacemaker, Fey’lya might just be able to beg or bully the rest of the Council into giving him whatever it is he wants.”
“Mmm.” Lando paused at the bottom of the ramp leading to the docking pit exit and looked up. “Let’s hope this is the last contact in the line.”
“Let’s hope first that the guy shows,” Han countered, heading up the ramp.
The Abregado-rae Spaceport had had a terrible reputation among the pilots Han had flown with in his smuggling days, ranking right down at the bottom with places like the Mos Eisley port on Tatooine. It was therefore something of a shock, though a pleasant one, to find a bright, clean cityscape waiting for them when they stepped through the landing pit door. “Well, well,” Lando murmured from beside him. “Has civilization finally come to Abregado?”
“Stranger things have happened,” Han agreed, looking around. Clean and almost painfully neat, yet with that same unmistakable air that every general freight port seemed to have. That air of the not-entirely tame . . .
“Uh-oh,” Lando said quietly, his eyes on something past Han’s shoulder. “Looks like someone’s just bought the heavy end of the hammer.”
Han turned. Fifty meters down the port perimeter street, a small group of uniformed men with light-armor vests and blaster rifles had gathered at one of the other landing pit entrances. Even as Han watched, half of them slipped inside, leaving the rest on guard in the street. “That’s the hammer, all right,” Han agreed, craning his neck to try and read the number above the door. Sixty-three. “Let’s hope that’s not our contact in there. Where are we meeting him, anyway?”
“Right over there,” Lando said, pointing to a small windowless building built in the gap between two much older ones. A carved wooden plank with the single word “LoBue” hung over the door. “We’re supposed to take one of the tables near the bar and the casino area and wait. He’ll contact us there.”
The LoBue was surprisingly large, given its modest street front, extending both back from the street and also into the older building to its left. Just inside the entrance were a group of conversation-oriented tables overlooking a small but elaborate dance floor, the latter deserted but with some annoying variety of taped music playing in the background. On the far side of the dance floor were a group of private booths, too dark for Han to see into. Off to the left, up a few steps and separated from the dance floor by a transparent etched plastic wall, was the casino area. “I think I see the bar up there,” Lando murmured. “Just back of the sabacc tables to the left. That’s probably where he wants us.”
“You ever been here before?” Han asked over his shoulder as they skirted the conversation tables and headed up the steps.
“Not this place, no. Last time I was at Abregado-rae was years ago. It was worse than Mos Eisley, and I didn’t stay long.” Lando shook his head. “Whatever problems you might have with the new government here, you have to admit they’ve done a good job of cleani
ng the planet up.”
“Yeah, well, whatever problems you have with the new government, let’s keep them quiet, okay?” Han warned. “Just for once, I’d like to keep a low profile.”
Lando chuckled. “Whatever you say.”
The lighting in the bar area was lower than that in the casino proper, but not so low that seeing was difficult. Choosing a table near the gaming tables, they sat down. A holo of an attractive girl rose from the center of the table as they did so. “Good day, gentles,” she said in pleasantly accented Basic. “How may I serve?”
“Do you have any Necr’ygor Omic wine?” Lando asked.
“We do, indeed: ’47, ’49, ’50, and ’52.”
“We’ll have a half carafe of the ’49,” Lando told her.
“Thank you, gentles,” she said, and the holo vanished.
“Was that part of the countersign?” Han asked, letting his gaze drift around the casino. It was only the middle of the afternoon, local time, but even so over half the tables were occupied. The bar area, in contrast, was nearly empty, with only a handful of humans and aliens scattered around. Drinking, apparently, ranked much lower than gambling on the list of popular Gado vices.
“Actually, he didn’t say anything about what we should order,” Lando said. “But since I happen to like a good Necr’ygor Omic wine—”
“And since Coruscant will be picking up the tab for it?”
“Something like that.”
The wine arrived on a tray delivered through a slidehatch in the center of the table. “Will there be anything else, gentles?” the holo girl asked.
Lando shook his head, picking up the carafe and the two glasses that had come with it. “Not right now, thank you.”
“Thank you.” She and the tray disappeared.
“So,” Lando said, pouring the wine. “I guess we wait.”
“Well, while you’re busy waiting, do a casual one-eighty,” Han said. “Third sabacc table back—five men and a woman. Tell me if the guy second from the right is who I think it is.”
Lifting his wine glass, Lando held it up to the light, as if studying its color. In the process he turned halfway around—“Not Fynn Torve?”
“Sure looks like him to me,” Han agreed. “I figured you’d probably seen him more recently than I have.”
“Not since the last Kessel run you and I did together.” Lando cocked an eyebrow at Han. “Just before that other big sabacc table,” he added dryly.
Han gave him an injured look. “You’re not still sore about the Falcon, are you?”
“Now . . .” Lando considered. “No, probably not. No sorer than I was at losing the game to an amateur like you in the first place.”
“Amateur?”
“—but I’ll admit there were times right afterward when I lay awake at night plotting elaborate revenge. Good thing I never got around to doing any of it.”
Han looked back at the sabacc table. “If it makes you feel any better . . . if you hadn’t lost the Falcon to me, we probably wouldn’t be sitting here right now. The Empire’s first Death Star would have taken out Yavin and then picked the Alliance apart planet by planet. And that would have been the end of it.”
Lando shrugged. “Maybe; maybe not. With people like Ackbar and Leia running things—”
“Leia would have been dead,” Han cut him off. “She was already slated for execution when Luke, Chewie, and I pulled her out of the Death Star.” A shiver ran through him at the memory. He’d been that close to losing her forever. And would never even have known what he’d missed.
And now that he knew . . . he might still lose her.
“She’ll be okay, Han,” Lando said quietly. “Don’t worry.” He shook his head. “I just wish we knew what the Imperials wanted with her.”
“I know what they want,” Han growled. “They want the twins.”
Lando stared at him, a startled look on his face. “Are you sure?”
“As sure as I am of any of this,” Han said. “Why else didn’t they just use stun weapons on us in that Bpfassh ambush? Because the things have a better than fifty-fifty chance of sparking a miscarriage, that’s why.”
“Sounds reasonable,” Lando agreed grimly. “Does Leia know?”
“I don’t know. Probably.”
He looked at the sabacc tables, the cheerful decadence of the whole scene suddenly grating against his mood. If Torve really was Karrde’s contact man, he wished the other would quit this nonsense and get on with it. It wasn’t like there were a lot of possibilities hanging around here to choose from.
His eyes drifted away from the casino, into the bar area . . . and stopped. There, sitting at a shadowy table at the far end, were three men.
There was an unmistakable air about a general freight port, a combination of sounds and smells and vibrations that every pilot who’d been in the business long enough knew instantly. There was an equally unmistakable air about planetary security officers. “Uh-oh,” he muttered.
“What?” Lando asked, throwing a casual glance of his own around the room. The glance reached the far table— “Uh-oh, indeed,” he agreed soberly. “Offhand, I’d say that explains why Torve’s hiding at a sabacc table.”
“And doing his best to ignore us,” Han said, watching the security agents out of the corner of his eye and trying to gauge the focus of their attention. If they’d tumbled to this whole contact meeting there probably wasn’t much he could do about it, short of hauling out his New Republic ID and trying to pull rank on them. Which might or might not work; and he could just hear the polite screaming fit Fey’lya would have over it either way.
But if they were just after Torve, maybe as part of that landing pit raid he and Lando had seen on the way in . . .
It was worth the gamble. Reaching over, he tapped the center of the table. “Attendant?”
The holo reappeared. “Yes, gentles?”
“Give me twenty sabacc chips, will you?”
“Certainly,” she said, and vanished.
“Wait a minute,” Lando said cautiously as Han drained his glass. “You’re not going to go over there, are you?”
“You got a better idea?” Han countered, reaching down to resettle his blaster in its holster. “If he’s our contact, I sure don’t want to lose him now.”
Lando gave a sigh of resignation. “So much for keeping a low profile. What do you want me to do?”
“Be ready to run some interference.” The center of the table opened up and a neat stack of sabacc chips arrived. “So far it looks like they’re just watching him—maybe we can get him out of here before their pals arrive in force.”
“If not?”
Han collected the chips and got to his feet. “Then I’ll try to create a diversion, and meet you back at the Falcon.”
“Right. Good luck.”
There were two seats not quite halfway across the sabacc table from Torve. Han chose one and sat down, dropping his stack of chips onto the table with a metallic thud. “Deal me in,” he said.
The others looked up at him, their expressions varying from surprised to annoyed. Torve himself glanced up, came back for another look. Han cocked an eyebrow at him. “You the dealer, sonny? Come on, deal me in.”
“Ah—no, it’s not my deal,” Torve said, his eyes flicking to the pudgy man on his right.
“And we’ve already started,” the pudgy man said, his voice surly. “Wait until the next game.”
“What, you haven’t all even bet yet,” Han countered, gesturing toward the handful of chips in the hand pot. The sabacc pot, in contrast, was pretty rich—the session must have been going for a couple of hours at least. Probably one reason the dealer didn’t want fresh blood in the game who might conceivably win it all. “Come on, give me my cards,” he told the other, tossing a chip into the hand pot.
Slowly, glaring the whole time, the dealer peeled the top two cards off the deck and slid them over. “That’s more like it,” Han said approvingly. “Brings back memories, this does. I
used to drop the heavy end of the hammer on the guys back home all the time.”
Torve looked at him sharply, his expression freezing to stone. “Did you, now,” he said, his voice deliberately casual. “Well, you’re playing with the big boys here, not the little people. You may not find the sort of rewards you’re used to.”
“I’m not exactly an amateur myself,” Han said airily. The locals at the spaceport had been raiding landing pit sixty-three . . . “I’ve won—oh, probably sixty-three games in the last month alone.”
Another flicker of recognition crossed Torve’s face. So it was his landing pit. “Lot of rewards in numbers like that,” he murmured, letting one hand drop beneath the level of the table. Han tensed, but the hand came back up empty. Torve’s eyes flicked around the room once, lingering for a second on the table where Lando was sitting before turning back to Han. “You willing to put your money where your mouth is?”
Han met his gaze evenly. “I’ll meet anything you’ve got.”
Torve nodded slowly. “I may just take you up on it.”
“This is all very interesting, I’m sure,” one of the other players spoke up. “Some of us would like to play cards, though.”
Torve raised his eyebrows at Han. “The bet’s at four,” he invited.
Han glanced at his cards: the Mistress of Staves and the four of Coins. “Sure,” he said, lifting six chips from his stack and dropping them into the hand pot. “I’ll see the four, and raise you two.” There was a rustle of air behind him—
“Cheater!” a deep voice bellowed in his ear.
Han jumped and spun around, reaching reflexively toward his blaster, but even as he did so a large hand shot over his shoulder to snatch the two cards from his other hand. “You are a cheater, sir,” the voice bellowed again.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Han said, craning his neck up to get a look at his assailant.
He was almost sorry he had. Towering over him like a bushy-bearded thundercloud twice his own size, the man was glaring down at him with an expression that could only be described as enflamed with religious fervor. “You know full well what I’m talking about,” the man said, biting out each word. “This card—” he waved one of Han’s cards “—is a skifter.”
