Dark Force Rising (Star Wars) swtt-2

by Timothy Zahn

  "He knows you didn't betray him," Luke told her quietly.

  "I didn't ask," she growled. But Luke could sense some of her tension vanish. "Here," she added, thrusting the flight suit at Karrde. "A little camouflage."

  "Thank you," Karrde said. "Where are we going?"

  "We came in on a supply shuttle," Mara said. "We cut an exit hole in the lower hull, but we should have enough time to weld it airtight before they send us back to the surface."

  The turbolift car arrived as Karrde was adjusting the fasteners on his borrowed flight suit. Two men with a gleaming power core relay on a float table were there before them, taking up most of the room. "Where to?" one of the techs asked with the absent politeness of a man with more important things on his mind.

  "Pilot ready room 33-129-T," Mara told him, using the same tone. The tech entered the destination on the panel and the door slid shut; and Luke took his first really relaxed breath since Mara had put the Skipray down on Wistril five hours ago. Another ten or fifteen minutes and they'd be safely back in their shuttle.

  Against all odds, they'd done it.

  The midpoint report from the hangar bay came in, and Pellaeon paused in his monitoring of the bridge deflector control overhaul to take a quick look at it. Excellent; the unloading was running nearly eight minutes ahead of schedule. At this rate the Chimaera would be able to make its rendezvous with the Stormhawk in plenty of time for them to set up their ambush of the Rebel convoy assembling off Corfai. He marked the report as noted and sent it back into the files; and he had turned his attention back to the deflector overhaul when he heard a quiet footstep behind him.

  "Good evening, Captain," Thrawn nodded, coming up beside Pellaeon's chair and giving the bridge a leisurely scan.

  "Admiral," Pellaeon nodded back, swiveling to face him. "I thought you'd retired for the night, sir.

  "I've been in my command room," Thrawn said, looking past Pellaeon at the displays. "I thought I'd make one last survey of ship's status before I went to my quarters. Is that the bridge deflector overhaul?"

  "Yes, sir," Pellaeon said, wondering which species' artwork had been favored with the Grand Admiral's scrutiny tonight. "No problems so far. The cargo unloading down in Aft Bay Two is running ahead of schedule, too."

  "Good," the Grand Admiral said. "Anything further from the patrol at Endor?"

  "Just an addendum to that one report, sir," Pellaeon told him.

  "Apparently, they've confirmed that the ship they caught coming into the system was in fact just a smuggler planning to sift again through the remains of the Imperial base there. They're continuing to back-check the crew."

  "Remind them to make a thorough job of it before they let the ship go," Thrawn said grimly. "Organa Solo won't have simply abandoned the Millennium Falcon in orbit there. Sooner or later she'll return for it...and when she does, I intend to have her."

  "Yes, sir," Pellaeon nodded. The commander of the Endor patrol group, he was certain, didn't need any reminding of that. "Speaking of the Millennium Falcon, have you decided yet whether or not to do any further scan work on it?"

  Thrawn shook his head. "I doubt that would gain us anything. The scanning team would be better employed assisting with maintenance on the Chimaera's own systems. Have the Millennium Falcon transferred up to vehicle deep storage until we can find some use for it."

  "Yes, sir," Pellaeon said, swiveling back and logging the order. "Oh, and there was one other strange report that came in a few minutes ago. A routine patrol on the supply base perimeter came across a Skipray blastboat that had made a crash landing out there."

  "A crash landing?" Thrawn frowned.

  "Yes, sir," Pellaeon said, calling up the report. "Its underside was in pretty bad shape, and the whole hull was scorched." The picture came up on Pellaeon's display, and Thrawn leaned over his shoulder for a closer look. "Any bodies?"

  "No, sir," Pellaeon said. "The only thing aboard-and this is the strange part-was an ysalamir."

  He felt Thrawn stiffen. "Show me."

  Pellaeon keyed for the next picture, a close-up of the ysalamir on its biosupport frame. "The frame isn't one of our designs," he pointed out.

  "No telling where it came from."

  "Oh, there's telling, all right," Thrawn assured him. He straightened up and took a deep breath. "Sound intruder alert, Captain. We have visitors aboard."

  Pellaeon stared up at him in astonishment, fumbling fingers locating and twisting the alert key. "Visitors?" he asked as the alarms began their throaty wailing.

  "Yes," Thrawn said, his glowing red eyes glittering with a sudden fire. "Order an immediate check of Karrde's cell. If he's still there, he's to be moved immediately and put under direct stormtrooper guard. I want another guard ring put around the supply shuttles and an immediate ID check begun of their crews. And then"-he paused-"have the Chimaera's main computer shut down."

  Pellaeon's fingers froze on his keyboard. "Shut down-?"

  "Carry out your orders, Captain," Thrawn cut him off.

  "Yes, sir," Pellaeon said between suddenly stiff lips. In all his years of Imperial service he had never seen a warship's main computer deliberately shut down except in space dock. To do so was to blind and cripple the craft. With intruders aboard, perhaps fatally.

  "It will hamper our efforts a bit, I agree," Thrawn said, as if reading Pellaeon's fears. "But it will hamper our enemies' far more. You see, the only way for them to have known the Chimaera's course and destination was for Mara Jade to have tapped into the computer when we brought her and Karrde aboard."

  "That's impossible," Pellaeon insisted, wincing as his computer-driven displays began to wink out. "Any access codes she might have known were changed years ago.

  "Unless there are codes permanently hard-wired into the system," Thrawn said. "Set there by the Emperor for his use and that of his agents. Jade no doubt is counting on that access in her rescue attempt; therefore, we deprive her of it."

  A stormtrooper stepped up to them. "Yes, Commander?" Thrawn said.

  "Comlink message from detention," the electronically filtered voice announced. "The prisoner Talon Karrde is no longer in his cell."

  "Very well," the Grand Admiral said darkly. "Alert all units to begin a search of the area between detention and the aft hangar bays. Karrde is to be recaptured alive-not necessarily undamaged, but alive. As to his would-be rescuers, I want them also alive if possible. If not-" He paused. "If not, I'll understand."

  CHAPTER

  23

  The wail of the alarm sounded over the overhead speaker; and a few seconds later the turbolift car came to an abrupt halt. "Blast," one of the two gunners who had replaced the service techs in the car muttered, digging a small ID card from the slot behind his belt buckle. "Don't they ever get tired of running drills up there on the bridge?"

  "Talk like that might get you a face-to-face with a stormtrooper squad," the second warned, throwing a sideways glance at Luke and the others. Stepping past the first gunner, he slid his ID card into a slot on the control board and tapped in a confirmation code. "It was a lot worse before the Grand Admiral took over. Anyway, what do you want èm to do, announce snap drills in advance?"

  "The whole thing's burnin' useless, if you ask me," the first growled, clearing his ID the same way. "Who they expect's gonna come aboard, anyway? Some burnin' pirate gang or something?"

  Luke glanced questioningly at Karrde, wondering what they should do. But Mara was already moving toward the two gunners, the ID from her borrowed flight suit in hand. She stepped between them, reached the ID toward the slot And whipped the edge of her hand hard into the side of the first gunner's neck.

  The man's head snapped sideways and he toppled to the floor without a sound. The second gunner had just enough time to gurgle something unintelligible before Mara sent him to join his friend.

  "Come on, let's get out of here," she snapped, feeling along the line where the door fitted into the car's cylindrical wall. "Locked solid. Come on, Skywa
lker, get busy here."

  Luke ignited his lightsaber. "How much time have we got?" he asked as he carved a narrow exit through part of the door.

  "Not much," Mara said grimly. "Turbolift cars have sensors that keep track of the number of people inside. It'll give us maybe another minute to do our ID checks before reporting us to the system computer. I need to get to a terminal before the flag transfers from there to the main computer and brings the storm troopers down on top of us."

  Luke finished the cut and closed down the lightsaber as Mara and Karrde lifted the section down and out of the way. Beyond was the tunnel wall, not quite in line with the hole. "Good," Mara said, easing through the gap.

  "We were starting to rotate when the system froze down. There's room here to get into the tunnel."

  The others followed. The turbolift tunnel was roughly rectangular in cross-section, with gleaming guide rails along the walls, ceiling, and floor. Luke could feel the tingle of electric fields as he passed close beside the rails, and he made a mental note not to touch them. "Where are we going?" he whispered down the tunnel toward Mara.

  "Right here," she whispered back, stopping at a red rimmed plate set in the wall between the guide rails. "Access tunnel-should lead back to a service droid storage room and computer terminal."

  The lightsaber made quick work of the access panel's safety interlock. Mara darted through the opening, blaster in hand, and disappeared down the dark tunnel beyond. Luke and Karrde followed past a double row of deactivated maintenance droids, each with a bewildering array of tools fanned out from their limbs as if for inspection. Beyond the droids the tunnel widened into a small room where, as predicted, a terminal sat nestled amid the tubes and cables. Mara was already hunched over it; but as Luke stepped into the room he caught the sudden shock in her sense. "What's the matter?" he asked.

  "They've shut down the main computer," she said, a stunned expression on her face. "Not just bypassed or put it on standby. Shut it down."

  "The Grand Admiral must have figured out you can get into it," Karrde said, coming up behind Luke. "We'd better get moving. Do you have any idea where we are?"

  "I think we're somewhere above the aft hangar bays," Mara said.

  "Those service techs got off just forward of the central crew section, and we hadn't gone very far down yet."

  "Above the hangar bays," Karrde repeated thoughtfully. "Near the vehicle deep storage area, in other words?"

  Mara frowned at him. "Are you suggesting we grab a ship from up there?"

  "Why not?" Karrde countered. "They'll probably be expecting us to go directly to one of the hangar bays. They might not be watching for us to come in via vehicle lift from deep storage."

  "And if they are, it'll leave us trapped like clipped mynocks when the stormtroopers come to get us," Mara retorted. "Trying to shoot our way out of deep storage-"

  "Hold it," Luke cut her off, Jedi combat senses tingling a warning.

  "Someone's coming."

  Mara muttered a curse and dropped down behind the computer terminal, blaster trained on the door. Karrde, still weaponless, faded back into the partial cover of the service tunnel and the maintenance droids lined up there. Luke flattened himself against the wall beside the door, lightsaber held ready but not ignited. He let the Force flow through him as he poised for action, listening to the dark, purposeful senses of the troopers coming up to the door and recognizing to his regret that no subtle mind touches would accomplish anything here. Gripping his lightsaber tightly, he waited ... Abruptly, with only a flicker of warning, the door slid open and two stormtroopers were in the room, blaster rifles at the ready. Luke raised his lightsaber, thumb on the activation switch And from the tunnel where Karrde had disappeared a floodlight suddenly winked on, accompanied by the sound of metal grinding against metal. The stormtroopers took a long step into the room, angling to opposite sides of the door, their blaster rifles swinging reflexively toward the light and sound as two black-clad naval troopers crowded into the room behind them. The stormtroopers spotted Mara crouching beside the terminal, and the blaster rifles changed direction to track back toward her.

  Mara was faster. Her blaster spat four times, two shots per stormtrooper, and both Imperials dropped to the floor, one with blaster still firing uselessly in death reflex. The naval troopers behind them dived for cover, firing wildly toward their attacker.

  A single sweep of the lightsaber caught them both. Luke closed down the weapon and ducked his head out the doorway for a quick look around. "All clear," he told Mara, coming back in.

  "For now, anyway," she countered, holstering her blaster and picking up two of the blaster rifles. "Come on.""

  Karrde was waiting for them at the access panel they'd come in by.

  "Doesn't sound like the turbolifts have been reactivated yet," he said. "It should be safe to move through the tunnels a while longer. Any trouble with the search party?"

  "No," Mara said, handing him one of the blaster rifles. "Effective diversion, by the way."

  "Thank you," Karrde said. "Maintenance droids are such useful things to have around. Deep storage?"

  "Deep storage," Mara agreed heavily. "You just better be right about this."

  "My apologies in advance if I'm not. Let's go." Slowly, by comlink and intercom, the reports began to come in. They weren't encouraging.

  "No sign of them anywhere in the detention level area," a stormtrooper commander reported to Pellaeon with the distracted air of someone trying to hold one conversation while listening to another. "One of the waste chute gratings in detention has been found cut open-that must be how they got Karrde out."

  "Never mind how they got him out," Pellaeon growled. "The recriminations can wait until later. The important thing right now is to find them."

  "The security teams are searching the area of that turbolift alert," the other said, his tone implying that anything a stormtrooper commander said must by, definition be important. "So far there's been no contact." Thrawn turned from the two communications officers who had been relaying messages for him to and from the hangar bays. "How was the waste chute grating cut open?" he asked.

  "I have no information on that," the commander said.

  "Get it," Thrawn said, his tone icy. "Also inform your search parties that two maintenance techs have reported seeing a man in a TIE fighter flight suit in the vicinity of that waste collector. Warn your guards in the aft hangar bays, as well."

  "Yes, sir," the commander said.

  Pellaeon looked at Thrawn. "I don't see how it matters right now how they got Karrde out, sir," he said. "Wouldn't our resources be better spent in finding them?"

  "Are you suggesting that we send all our soldiers and stormtroopers converging on the hangar bays?" Thrawn asked mildly. "That we thereby assume our quarry won't seek to cause damage elsewhere before attempting their escape?"

  "No, sir," Pellaeon said, feeling his face warming. "I realize we need to protect the entire ship. It just seems to me to be a low-priority line of inquiry.

  "Indulge me, Captain," Thrawn said quietly. "It's only a hunch, but "Admiral," the stormtrooper commander interrupted. "Report from search team 207, on deck 98 nexus 326-KK." Pellaeon's fingers automatically started for his keyboard; came up short as he remembered that there was no computer mapping available to pinpoint the location for him. "They've found team 102, all dead," the commander continued. "Two were killed by blaster fire; the other two ..." He hesitated. "There seems to be some confusion about the other two."

  "No confusion, Commander," Thrawn put in, his voice suddenly deadly.

  "Instruct them to look for near microscopic cuts across the bodies with partial cauterization."

  Pellaeon stared at him. There was a cold fire in the Grand Admiral's eyes that hadn't been there before. "Partial cauterization?" he repeated stupidly.

  "And then inform them," Thrawn continued, "that one of the intruders is the Jedi Luke Skywalker."

  Pellaeon felt his mouth drop open. "Skywalker?"
he gasped. "That's impossible. He's on Jomark with C'baoth."

  "Was, Captain," Thrawn corrected icily. "He's here now." He took a deep, controlled breath; and as he let it out, the momentary anger seemed to fade away. "Obviously, our vaunted Jedi Master failed to keep him there, as he claimed he'd be able to. And I'd say that we now have our proof that Skywalker's escape from Myrkr wasn't a spur-of-the-moment decision."

  "You think Karrde and the Rebellion have been working together all along?" Pellaeon asked.

  "We'll find out soon enough," Thrawn told him, turning to look over his shoulder. "Rukh?"

  The silent gray figure moved to Thrawn's side. "Yes, my lord?

  "Get a squad of noncombat personnel together," Thrawn ordered. "Have them collect all the ysalamiri from Engineering and Systems Control and move them down to the hangar bays. There aren't nearly enough to cover the whole area, so use your hunter's instincts on their placement. The more we can hamper Skywalker's Jedi tricks, the less trouble we'll have taking him." The Noghri nodded and headed for the bridge exit. "We could also use the ysalamiri from the bridge-" Pellaeon began.

  "Quiet a moment, Captain," Thrawn cut him off, his glowing eyes gazing unseeing through the side viewport and the edge of the planet turning beneath them. "I need to think. Yes. They'll try to travel in concealment whenever possible, I think. For now, that means the turbolift tunnels." He gestured to the two communications officers still standing beside his chair.

  "Order turbolift control to put the system back into normal service except for the 326-KK nexus between deck 98 and the aft hangar bays," he instructed them.

  "All cars in that area are to be moved to the nearest cluster point and remain locked there until further notice."

  One of the officers nodded and began relaying the order into his comlink. "You trying to herd them toward the hangar bays?" Pellaeon hazarded.

  "I'm trying to herd them in from a specific direction, yes," Thrawn nodded. His forehead was creased with thought, his eyes still gazing at nothing in particular. "The question is what they'll do once they realize that. Presumably try to break out of the nexus; but in which direction?"