by Timothy Zahn
“What about fighters?” A-wing Commander C’taunmar asked from the other side of the room. “You’ll want my squadron for screening, I presume?”
Bel Iblis shook his head. “No. If we had some Imperial fighters—TIEs or Preybirds—I’d definitely bring them along. But this whole operation depends on dragging out the bluff as long as possible; and a screen of A-wings or X-wings would wreck that bluff rather quickly. No, all fighters will be staying with the outer attack group.”
His eyes found Wedge. “Including Rogue Squadron.”
He held Wedge’s eyes just long enough to make it clear there would be no argument, then looked around the room again. “Your individual assignments and positions in the battle array will be given to you on the way out of the briefing. Are there any further general questions?”
“Yes, sir,” someone said. “You said you had a false ID set up for the Errant Venture. Is it a real name, or something fictitious?”
“Oh, it has to be real,” Bel Iblis said. “Twenty years ago there were enough Star Destroyers that an individual Imperial could never keep track of all of them, and might assume that his database just happened to be missing something. But not anymore.
“Fortunately, Intelligence has picked up on three ships that haven’t been heard from for several weeks. Presumably they’re off on some special assignment; regardless, the chances are slim that any of them will turn up at Yaga Minor. We’ll therefore be running under the name and ID of the Imperial Star Destroyer Tyrannic”—he gestured to Booster—“under the command of Captain Nalgol.”
Five minutes later, Wedge and Corran were heading back toward the hangar bay where the rest of Rogue Squadron waited. “It’s going to be some trick to protect them from outside the perimeter,” Wedge commented grimly.
“I know,” Corran said, his voice sounding oddly distant. “We’ll just have to be creative.”
Wedge frowned at him. “Trouble?”
Corran shook his head slowly. “The Tyrannic,” he said. “There’s something that bothers me about Bel Iblis using that name. But I don’t know what.”
A Jedi hunch? “Well, you better figure it out fast,” Wedge warned. “Launch point is only an hour away.”
“I know.” Corran took a deep breath. “I’ll try.”
CHAPTER
36
“Navett, wake up!”
Navett came awake in an instant, his hand closing automatically on the blaster hidden beneath his pillow. His eyes snapped open, taking in the scene with a single glance: Klif standing in the bedroom doorway, a blaster in his hand and a furious expression on his face, barely visible in the dim light of Drev’starn dawn streaming through the window. “What?” he snapped.
“Someone’s been in the shop,” Klif snarled. “Throw on some clothes and come on.”
Someone had been in the shop, all right. Navett walked through the store in a stunned daze, crunching datacards and bits of random equipment underfoot, staring in disbelief at the carnage that had been visited on their neat little pet emporium.
“I don’t believe this,” Klif muttered, for about the fifth time. “I do not believe this. How in space did she get in without tripping the alarms?”
“I don’t know,” Navett said, glancing over one of the rows of cages. “At least she didn’t take the mawkrens.”
“Near as I can tell, she didn’t actually take anything,” Klif growled, looking around. “Just quietly took everything apart and rearranged it.”
Navett nodded. Yet for all her energy and enthusiasm, it looked as if she’d missed the real prize. The section of back wall beside the power coupling box, where he and Klif had installed their hidden storage compartment, seemed to be untouched. “Well, aside from making a mess, she hasn’t really done anything,” he said, circling around the sales counter. The computer was on; she must have gone in and poked through their files. A waste of her time there, too.
“Navett.”
He looked up. Klif was standing at the prompous cage, gazing down on the shelf beside it. “What?” Navett asked, rounding the counter again and joining him.
Lying on the shelf, laid out in neat rows, were the tiny cylinders that had been hidden in the false bottom of the mawkren cage.
And sitting next to them was another binary-linked comlink.
“You going to talk to her?” Klif prompted.
“And do what?” Navett retorted. “Listen to her gloat some more?”
“Maybe you can get her to tell you what she’s going to do next.” Klif gestured at the cylinders. “One of them is missing.”
Navett swallowed a curse. Picking up the comlink, he thumbed it on. “You’ve been a busy little girl, haven’t you?” he ground out.
“Why, good morning,” the old woman’s voice came back. Didn’t she ever sleep? “You’re up early.”
“You’re up late,” Navett countered. “And you ought to take better care of yourself. Unaccustomed exercise could be fatal in someone your age.”
“Oh, pish,” she scoffed. “A little exercise keeps the old heart running smoothly.”
“Until you run it up against a sharp object,” Navett reminded her darkly. “There are laws on Bothawui against vandalism, you know.”
“Only if you know who to deliver the warrant against,” she said airily. “And you don’t, do you?”
Navett ground his teeth together. She was right; all their efforts to backcheck her ship ID had come up completely dry. “Then I guess we’ll just have to deal with you ourselves,” he said.
There was a clucking sound. “I suggested that last night. I do wish you’d make up your minds. Did you fetch your Xerrol Nightstinger, by the way?”
Navett smiled tightly. He’d fetched it, all right. It was sitting right there across the room in their hidden storage compartment, ready to go. “What exactly did you think you would find in here, anyway?”
“Oh, you never know,” she said. “I’ve always liked animals, you know. What are all those little cylinders for?”
“You’re the expert on everything. You figure it out.”
“My, but you’re crabby first thing in the morning,” she chided. “Not even a hint?”
“I’ll trade you,” Navett offered. “Why don’t you tell me what you’re planning next.”
“Me?” she asked, all wide-eyed innocence. “Why, nothing. From this point on it’s up to the Bothans.”
Navett shot a look at Klif. “Of course it is,” he said. “Come on, now—you can’t call Security in on this, and we both know it. It’s just you and us.”
“You go ahead and believe that,” she said encouragingly. “Well, I’m a little tired, and you’ve got company coming. Talk to you later.”
The transmission shut off with a click. “Good-bye to you, too,” Navett muttered, turning off the comlink and setting it down on the shelf. Pulling his knife, he deliberately drove it through the device.
“What did she mean about company?” Klif asked suspiciously as Navett brushed the pieces of the comlink into the waste collector. “You don’t suppose she has called Security, do you?”
“Not a chance,” Navett said. “Come on, we’ve got to get this place straightened up before opening time—”
He broke off as, across the shop, there was a knock at the door. Frowning, he crossed the room, returning knife and blaster to their hiding places in his tunic. Unlocking the door, he pulled it open.
To find himself face-to-face with a group of four Bothans wearing the wide green-and-yellow shoulder sashes of local police. “Proprietor Navett of the Exoticalia Pet Emporium?” the one in front asked.
“Yes,” Navett confirmed. “Shop hours are—”
“I’m Investigator Proy’skyn of the Drev’starn Department of Criminal Discouragement,” the Bothan interrupted briskly, holding up a shimmering ID. “We received word that you had had a break-in.”
His eyes flicked over Navett’s shoulder. “Obviously, the report was accurate. May we come in?”
&
nbsp; “Of course,” Navett said, stepping back to let them enter, trying to keep his suddenly murderous thoughts out of his voice. No, the old woman hadn’t done anything so obvious as calling Security. Not her. “I was just about to call you, actually,” he added as the Bothans fanned out across the shop. “We only just discovered it ourselves.”
“You have a list of inventory and stock?” Proy’skyn called back over his shoulder.
“I’ll get it for you,” Klif volunteered, heading off toward the computer.
One of the Bothans had paused beside the prompous cage. “Proprietor?” he called. “What are these cylinders?” He reached down.
“Please, be careful with those,” Navett said quickly, hurrying to his side, mind furiously casting about for something that would sound reasonable. “They’re hormonal-drip capsules for our baby mawkrens.”
“What sort of hormones are required?” the Bothan asked.
“Newborn mawkrens need a particular combination of solar spectrum, atmospheric conditions, and diet,” Klif put in, picking up on Navett’s cue and running with it as only Klif could do. “You can almost never get the right mixture off their own world, so you use a hormonal-drip.”
“That’s them over there,” Navett added, pointing to the cage with the tiny lizards. “We fasten the cylinders onto their backs with custom-designed harnesses.”
“I see,” the Bothan said, peering at them. “When will this need to be done?”
“This morning, actually,” Klif said. “Sorry, but you’ll have to look around on your own for a while, Investigator Proy’skyn, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course, of course,” Proy’skyn said. “Please, carry on.”
Navett stepped over to one of the overturned tables, hiding a grimly satisfied smile as he set it upright again. So much for the old woman’s attempt at subtlety—clearly, he and Klif could out-subtle her any day of the week. Not only did they now have reason to postpone long official questions, not only had they soothed any possible suspicion by offering the investigators the run of the place, but they would even be setting up the final phase of their plan right under the collective nose-fur of Bothan officialdom.
Of course, they hadn’t planned to institute that particular phase for a couple of days yet. But you couldn’t have everything.
Setting up the restraint grid, ignoring the quietly bustling Bothans wandering around looking for clues, they set to work.
They had finished fitting ninety-seven of the mawkrens with harnesses and cylinders, with about twenty more to go, when Navett first became aware of the new odor wafting through the shop.
He looked up at Klif, engrossed in attaching one of the cylinders onto the back of the tiny lizard standing in rigid immobility on the restraint grid, then let his gaze shift around the shop. The four original Bothan investigators had long since left, replaced by a group of three techs busily pulling handprints and chemical samples from the various counters and cages. None of them seemed to have noticed the smell.
Klif looked up, caught the expression on Navett’s face. “Trouble?” he murmured.
Navett wrinkled his nose. Klif frowned, sniffing the air …
And suddenly his eyes widened. “Smoke.”
Navett nodded fractionally, his eyes darting again around the shop. Nothing was visible, no flames and no smoke, but the smell was definitely getting stronger. “She wouldn’t,” Klif hissed. “Would she?”
“We’d better assume she would,” Navett said. “Take the mawkrens we’ve finished and get them over to the tapcafe.”
“Now?” Klif glanced at the bright sunshine outside the window. “Navett, there’s a full staff at work there right now.”
“Then you’d better come up with a really dandy diversion to get them out of the way,” Navett shot back. If they lost the mawkrens, this whole thing would have been for nothing. “Wake up Pensin and Horvic; we’re in full emergency mode here.”
Klif nodded grimly. “Got it,” he said. Setting his tools aside, he started putting the last few mawkrens back into the cage—
And suddenly one of the Bothans let out a squawk. “Fire!” he bleated. “The building is on fire! Morv’vyal—call the Extinguishers. Hurry!”
“Fire?” Navett asked, looking around in feigned bewilderment. “Where? I don’t see any fire.”
“Foolish human,” the Bothan snapped. “Can’t you smell the smoke? Hurry—leave everything and go.”
Navett shot a glare at Klif. So that was the old woman’s plan. She couldn’t figure out what in the shop their scheme needed, so she was going to force them to leave without any of it. “But my stock is very valuable,” he protested.
“As valuable as your life?” The Bothan, ignoring his own advice, was moving rapidly around the outer edge of the shop, hands brushing along the walls. “Go—get out.”
“What are you doing?” Klif asked.
“You are right, there is no flame yet,” the Bothan explained. “The fire must therefore be inside the walls.”
“The Extinguishers are coming,” one of the other Bothans reported anxiously, waving his comlink. “But they will not be here for a few more minutes.”
“Understood,” the first said, pausing at the power coupling box. Abruptly, his fur flattened, and he pulled a knife from his belt. “Perhaps we can help prepare their way.”
“Wait a minute,” Navett barked, jumping forward. The Bothan had dug the knife between wall panels directly over their hidden compartment. “What the fracas are you doing?”
“The fire smells of wiring,” the Bothan explained breathlessly. “Here at the power coupling is the likely place for it to be. If we can expose it and bring fire preventers to bear—”
He broke off, staggering as the prying knife unexpectedly shattered through the relatively thin false front of the storage compartment. He caught his balance, gaping at the Nightstinger sniper blaster now visible inside. “Proprietor Navett!” he exclaimed. “What is this weapon—?”
He fell to the floor, question unfinished, as Navett shot him in the back.
The second Bothan got out just a squeak before Navett’s second shot dropped him. The third was fumbling frantically for both comlink and blaster when Klif’s shot took him out. “Well, that’s torn it,” Klif snarled, glaring at Navett. “What in the Empire—?”
“She’s expecting us to be properly professional about this,” Navett ground out. “And professionals never start shooting unless they have to. So fine: we’ve just gone unprofessional. That ought to take her by surprise.”
“Oh, terrific,” Klif said. “A brilliantly unorthodox strategy. Now what do we do?”
“We take it down, that’s what,” Navett snarled back, thrusting his blaster back into his tunic and stepping over the body to pull the Nightstinger from its hiding place. “Rouse Pensin and Horvic and get your tails out to the ship and into space. You’ve got two hours, maybe less, to get aboard the Predominance and into position.”
Nightstinger in hand, he turned back to find a stunned look on Klif’s face. “Navett, we can’t do it now,” he protested. “The attack force won’t be ready for another three days.”
“You want to try to dodge our lady friend that long?” Navett snapped, dropping the Nightstinger onto the table and starting to scoop the rest of the mawkrens into their cage. “You can see her plan—she’s trying to maneuver the police or Extinguishers or Vader knows who else in a uniform into running interference against us for her. We have to move now, when she’s not expecting it.”
“But the attack force—”
“Stop worrying about the attack force,” Navett cut him off. “They’ll be ready, all right. Or will get that way blasted quick. You have your orders.”
“All right,” Klif said, sliding his own weapon away. “I’ll leave you the landspeeder—I can lift another one for the three of us. Anything else you need?”
“Nothing I can’t get myself,” Navett told him shortly. “Go on—the chrono’s counting.”
/> “Right. Good luck.”
He left. Navett finished getting the mawkrens into their cage, then gathered up the rest of the cylinders and slid them back into the cage’s false bottom. Yes, the old woman had forced his hand, and that sudden drastic change in plans was going to cost them dearly.
But if she thought she’d won, she was mistaken. He only wished he could be around to see her when she realized that.
“I’m sure you understand, Admiral,” Paloma D’asima said, obviously picking her words very carefully, “how unprecedented this step would be for our people. We have never before had what might be considered close relations with the Empire.”
Seated a quarter of the way around the table, Disra suppressed a cynical smile. Paloma D’asima, one of the proud and exalted Eleven of the Mistryl, might well think herself subtle, even clever, in the ways of politics and political sparring. But to him, she was as patently transparent as only a rank amateur could be. If this was the best the Mistryl could do, he would have them eating out of his hand before the day was over.
Or rather, eating out of Grand Admiral Thrawn’s hand. “I understand the conflicts we’ve had in the past,” Thrawn said gravely. “However, as I’ve pointed out to you—and to Karoly D’ulin before you,” he added, nodding politely to the younger woman at D’asima’s side, “the Empire under my leadership will bear little resemblance to that of the late Emperor Palpatine.”
“I understand that,” the older woman said. Her face wasn’t giving anything away; her hands, though, more than made up for it. “I only bring it up to remind you that we would need more than just your word as guarantee.”
“Are you questioning the word of Grand Admiral Thrawn?” Disra asked, letting just a hint of an edge into his voice.
The gambit worked; D’asima was instantly on the defensive. “Not at all,” she assured him, too quickly. “It’s merely that—”
She was saved by a signal from the conference room intercom. “Admiral Thrawn, this is Captain Dorja,” the familiar voice said.
Seated at Thrawn’s side, Tierce touched the switch. “This is Major Tierce, Captain,” he said. “The Admiral is listening.”
