by Timothy Zahn
"As long as they don't start a conversation with the guy, anyway," Han grunted. "So what's the plan? Straight back to the ship?"
"It was," Lando said. "Unless you think it would be worth the time to be a little more devious than that."
"I wonder," Han said, rubbing his cheek. "Those droid transmissions ought to blanket any more echo searches, at least for now. But they did already have an idea where we were in the city. If we can hop a cargo carrier, that would let us get around the spaceport and hit it from the other side."
"If we don't get caught," Lando warned. "They take a dim view around here of people riding cargo carriers."
"It's worth the risk," Han said, making it clear that he'd already made up his mind. "Come onnearest access is this way."
CHAPTER
22
The conversationor at least the part Karoly had been able to hear through the half-open doorhad been short, sharp, and unpleasant.
And very enlightening. The Cavrilhu Pirates, allied with the Empire?
On one level, she supposed, it wasn't that much of a revelation, particularly not after that overheard conversation between Solo and Calrissian. Imperials had been doing under-the-board business with the dregs of the fringe for years, after all, from that accursed murderer Palpatine's cozy relationship with Prince Xizor on down. Now that the vast, star-spanning Empire had been reduced to a pitiful handful of sectors, all the more reason they would have to hire out some of their dirty work.
But on another level, this was indeed something new. Zothip hadn't been talking to Moff Disra as a hireling would to his master, but as a full equal. A very unhappy equal, moreover, if the pirate chief's tone and streams of invective were any indication.
Even more interesting, given Zothip's veiled threats to go public, it would also appear that this arrangement was neither sanctioned by nor even known to the rest of the Imperial leadership.
Karoly had originally followed Zothip with the idea of exacting revenge against the pirates for their part in the Lorardian slaughter three years ago. Now, she had stumbled on something far more interesting.
"You think he'll come?" one of the pirates' voices intruded on Karoly's musings.
" 'Course he will," Zothip grunted. "You think he wants us announcing our deal on the all-Bastion comm broadcast frequency?"
"He won't be coming alone," Control's voice warned. "He'll have guards with him."
"Not many of 'em," Zothip said. "There aren't a lot of people that slug trusts."
"A hidden backup might still be a good idea," Control said, and Karoly could hear the verbal nudging in his tone. "Just in case."
"Oh, all right," Zothip conceded with ill grace. "Crans, Portingo get back in the passageway. If I whistle, come out and kill everything that's not us."
There was a pair of acknowledgments and the sound of approaching footsteps. Moving with considerably less noise, Karoly retreated around the slight bend in the passageway. The dim light increased as the pirates pulled open the door, decreased again as they partially closed it down.
And she now had a decision to make. Back here, four meters behind the two hidden pirates and their mutterings, she wouldn't be able to hear the upcoming conversation between Zothip and Disra the way she'd like to. Moreover, the thought of even an Imperial Moff getting ambushed by the likes of the Cavrilhu Pirates did not sit well with her.
She smiled tightly in the darkness at the irony of the situation. It was precisely the same thing Shada had objected to back on that windswept rooftop on Borcorash five weeks ago, and the reason Karoly was even here.
But the deep philosophical considerations could wait till another day. In the meantime, the Cavrilhu Pirates owed a death debt to the Mistryl... and the first installment would be collected right here and now. Putting her blaster away, Karoly drew a pair of slender knives and moved silently forward.
Crans and Portin, crouched side by side behind the partially open door, whispering and chuckling to each other in grim anticipation of the carnage to come, never even heard her coming.
It was another minute's work to quietly drag the bodies a few meters back in the passageway where they'd be out from underfoot. Then, returning to the partially open door, she crouched down and eased the tip of one of her knives along the thick carpet into the room.
The image reflected in the metal was small and somewhat distorted, but Karoly had done this a thousand times before and knew how to read it. As she'd expected, Zothip and his three remaining men were all facing the ornate door set into the right-hand wall. Zothip was seated rather arrogantly at the Moff's computer desk, the others slouched against walls or pieces of furniture at various other places around the room. All were fingering blaster butts or rubbing gun hands in preparation; all were well clear of her line of fire and the ambush they still thought was set up.
She was just working through her likely attack plan, should it come to that, when there was the soft click of a lock from across the room. Instantly, the pirates' muttered conversation ceased. The door swung open, and two men stepped inside.
The one on the right was Moff Disra; that much was obvious from his age and his robe of office and the arrogant hauteur with which he strode into the room. The second man, on Disra's right, dressed in an Imperial uniform
Karoly felt her breath catch in her throat, an unpleasant tingling on the back of her neck. The second man was a warrior.
Not a soldier a warrior. She could see it in his stance, in his walk, in the way he held his hands, in the way his eyes took in the situation in front of him.
Control had warned that Disra would bring guards with him. Dimly, Karoly wondered if any of the pirates was capable of recognizing the warrior beneath the uniform.
Zothip himself, apparently, could not. "Took your own sweet time getting here," he growled as the warrior swung the door closed. "Who's the nerf?"
"Get out of my chair," Disra growled back, ignoring the question and gesturing irritably at the lounging pirate chief.
"I'm doing the talking here, Disra," Zothip said, making no move to vacate the chair. "Wait a minuteI know you," he added, leveling a finger at the warrior. "Yeahyou're the snotter who pulled all my advisers out on me. You rotten, rark-eating sovler."
Karoly winced, half expecting sudden death to be the warrior's response to the insult. But he wasn't so easily provoked. "That's right," he said, his voice glacially calm. "I'm Major Tierce. And as I explained at the time, the Empire had a more pressing need for their services."
"So you just upped and pulled them, huh?" Zothip countered, his voice darkening. "Well, maybe that's how you Imperial dreg-sifters do things. But that's not how it's done in the fringe. You make a deal, you stick with it." He leveled his finger again. "Or you get to spend your last couple of minutes of life regretting it."
"I thought that in the fringe you also didn't lose your nerve," Disra put in disdainfully. "Did Pellaeon scare you that badly?"
"Never mind Pellaeon," Zothip bit out. "I'll deal with him later. Right now you're the one in the hot circle. Starting with full compensation for my battlecruiser and the eight hundred men who died with it."
"Apparently, he has lost his nerve, Your Excellency," Tierce said. "The sabacc pot's grown too big for his taste, and he wants out."
Zothip snorted. "Words. That's all it is with you, Disra. Words and promises, and we end up doing all the work and all the dying. But not anymore. I figure twenty million ought to cover it"
"Suppose we can show you we have more than words," Tierce interrupted, an edge of challenge to his voice. "Suppose we can give you proof that the Empire is once again on the rise, and that this time there will be no stopping us. Would you still want to quit?"
Zothip laughed, a thoroughly humorless sound. "Proof, huh? If you think anything you've got can"
He broke off as behind Disra and Tierce the door again swung open. One of the pirates half drew his blaster
"Good afternoon, Captain Zothip," the white-uniformed figure sai
d calmly as he stepped into the room. "Permit me to introduce myself. I'm Grand Admiral Thrawn."
* * * It took Commander Dreyf less than a minute to locate the secret drawer hidden away beneath the ivrooy desk's writing surface. It took only two minutes longer, with the help of some rather illegal tools, for him to force it open.
Inside were eight datacards. Three of them carried the labels of official governmental briefings one from the Ubiqtorate, the other two from Fleet Intelligence.
But the other five...
"Make copies of them," Pellaeon ordered as Dreyf slid one of the unlabeled datacards into his datapad. "All of them, even the official ones. We'll see what the Chimaera's decrypt section can do with them."
"Let me try something first, if I may, sir," Dreyf said, pulling a datacard from his pocket and inserting it into his datapad's auxiliary slot. "One of the little extras that fell out of my backcheck of Lord Graemon's finances was the encrypt he was using to communicate back to Bastion. Let's see if Disra was careless or overconfident enough to use the same one here... Well, well. Our clever little Moff seems to have missed a bet."
He smiled tightly at Pellaeon. "It's here, Admiral. It's all here."
Pellaeon stepped to his side and looked over his shoulder. It was there, all right names, dates, amounts, details of the various transactions. Everything. "You'll be able to link this with Graemon's end of the operation?" he asked.
"Easily," Dreyf assured him, still scrolling through the files. "Disra was even kind enough to supply dates on everything. All I really need to do"
"Wait," Pellaeon cut him off, slapping fingertips at the other's arm. Something had caught his eye as it went past. "Back up a few files. No, try one more. One more."
And there it was the name Pellaeon had spotted going past. The name, current location, imprisonment order
"Colonel Meizh Vermel," Dreyf read, frowning. "Isn't he one of your aides, Admiral?"
"He is indeed," Pellaeon said, his satisfaction with the catch they'd just made vanishing suddenly into the haze of dark fury. "He vanished while on a special mission for me."
"Did he, now," Dreyf said, his own voice darkening. "So Disra's branched out into kidnapping now, has he?"
"Only on special occasions," Pellaeon said, looking at the hidden drawer. Dreyf had done an efficient job of forcing the lock, but there was no way the damage could be covered up. The minute Disra opened the drawer again he would know someone had been in there.
And Pellaeon came to a decision. "Never mind copying them," he said, gathering up the datacards. "We'll take the originals."
Dreyf blinked. "Sir? But"
"And we're leaving," Pellaeon added, looking over at one of the troopers guarding the door. "Signal the Chimaera," he ordered. "Captain Ardiff is to prepare for departure as soon as I'm aboard. Then call Lieutenant Marshian at the shuttle and tell him we're on our way."
"Yes, sir." The trooper pulled out his comlink.
"What about Disra?" Dreyf asked. "We haven't settled with him yet."
"Disra will keep," Pellaeon said grimly. "Right now, my main concern is to get Vermel free before Disra decides he's a liability."
"You'll be going yourself?"
"Yes," Pellaeon said, sliding the hidden drawer closed. "Depending on how Disra's set up the imprisonment order, it may take my personal authority as Supreme Commander to get him out. Besides, at this point I don't trust anyone off the Chimaera not to be in Disra's pocket."
"Or in Thrawn's?" Dreyf murmured.
Pellaeon grimaced. "If Thrawn is indeed alive," he said. "Regardless, I'm going."
"It could be tricky," Dreyf warned, dropping into step beside Pellaeon as they headed for the double doors. "Rimcee Station is a couple days' flight away. Disra's certainly going to miss these datacards before then."
"Don't worry, I have a few tricks of my own available," Pellaeon said. "Trooper?"
"Lieutenant Marshian reports the shuttle will be ready to fly when we arrive, sir," the trooper reported. "Captain Ardiff reports likewise for the Chimaera."
"Good," Pellaeon said, motioning the troopers to open the doors. "Then let's not keep them waiting."
* * * For a few seconds the room was utterly quiet. The silence of a cave, or a forest, or a tomb. Disra let the stillness linger, thoroughly enjoying the look of stunned disbelief on Zothip's face. It was high time the cocky, slime-eating pirate ran face-first into something his noise and bluster couldn't handle.
He would have liked to see the consternation last a little longer. But for reasons known only to himself, the con man chose to break the spell. "You seem surprised by my presence here," he said, his smooth Thrawn voice as absolutely perfect as the silence had been. "I can only conclude you haven't been paying attention to the news coming out of Coruscant."
For a moment Zothip's mouth worked silently, the movement amplified grotesquely by the bushy beard, before he finally found his voice. "No, I heard you were back," he said at last, the words coming out with some difficulty. The sound of his voice seemed to embolden him. "I just didn't believe it, that's all," he added, straightening his shoulders.
"Why not?"
Zothip's eyes darted to one of his men, as if reassuring him that he was the one in control here. "Because I figured anyone who'd gotten away from this slime-hole of an Empire wouldn't be stupid enough to come back," he said, his voice suddenly aggressive again.
On Thrawn's other side, Tierce stirred. But Thrawn merely smiled. "Not bad," he said. "A bit slow, but otherwise not bad at all."
Zothip's eyebrows pressed together. "What are you talking about?"
"The Empire is poised to rise again," Thrawn said, crossing in front of Disra as he gave each of the other three pirates a brief, measuring look. "And while we certainly do not need allies, we are also not averse to having them."
One of the pirates, standing behind Zothip and a little ways toward the right-hand wall, snorted in a refined sort of way. "Is that how you think of us?" he demanded, folding his arms across his chest. "As allies?"
"Control's right," Zothip seconded, jerking a thumb back at the other. "You give the orders and pull the profits while we do the dirty work. What kind of ally is that?"
"The kind of ally who stands to gain position beyond his wildest dreams," Thrawn said, his voice cooling noticeably. "Position, power, and the wealth to buy and sell whole systems."
"And when is all this supposed to happen?" Control put in. He was, Disra noted with a touch of uneasiness, drifting slowly away from Zothip toward the wall. As if distancing himself from his boss in preparation for some kind of action...
Tierce saw it, too. Out of the corner of his eye Disra saw the Guardsman take a quiet step that same direction, maintaining his same distance from Control as he simultaneously moved closer to the other pirate leaning against the wall to Zothip's left.
Which left only the pirate standing at Zothip's right out of the Guardsman's quick reach. Disra glanced furtively that direction, hoping Tierce hadn't forgotten about him.
"Quite soon," Thrawn assured him. "Most of the pieces are already prepared and in position. Those which aren't will be soon."
"Those pieces being your other allies?" Control suggested. "Is that how you see us? As pieces in a game?"
"I don't like being called anyone's game piece," Zothip growled before Thrawn could reply. "We're the Cavrilhu Pirates. We don't play any games but our own."
He broke off at a twitter from the computer desk. "You expecting a call?" he asked sarcastically.
Disra ignored the comment, stepping forward and keying the comm as he swiveled the display around to face him. "Yes?"
It was the lieutenant in the situation room... and from the look on his face Disra could tell it wasn't good news. "Your Excellency, we have a problem," the other said tautly. "The spies appear to have slipped out of the net."
Disra bit back a curse. "How?"
"They used droids from a shop to blanket the Verpine biocomm frequencies," the
lieutenant said, sounding disgusted. "By the time we located the shop and shut off the transmissions, they'd made it out of range of our echo detectors. Is Grand Admiral Thrawn there with you?"
"Yes," Thrawn said, stepping to Disra's side. "I'll be there shortly. In the meantime, disperse your echo detectors into a grid pattern to both sides of their last location and see if you can pick them up again."
"Yes, sir," the lieutenant said.
Disra blanked the display, throwing a quick glare at Tierce. He should never, ever have let himself be talked into this confrontation with Zothip while Solo and Calrissian were still on the loose. "We'd better get back," he said, looking at Thrawn.
"So what, you're just going to leave us here?" Control asked. He had backed away another step from Zothip, his arms still folded across his chest.
"Don't be absurd," Disra snapped, suddenly very tired of Zothip and his pirates. "You don't want to be on the winning side? Finethere are plenty who do. Major Tierce, call for an escort to show our visitors out."
"You hold it right there," Zothip rumbled, heaving his bulk out of the chair and dropping his hand to his blaster. "We'll leave when I've got my twenty million. Now fork it over or else."
"Or else what?" Disra demanded. "You ungrateful, slimy"
"That's it," Zothip snarled. Lifting a finger to his mouth, he blew a piercing whistle. The two pirates on either side of him grabbed for their blasters
And Tierce moved.
The pirate nearest to the Guardsman never even got his blaster clear of its holster before Tierce was on him. A short jaba blurred movement of handsa muffled snap of boneand the pirate crumpled to the carpet like an empty sack. There was a startled curse from his compatriot across at Zothip's right; but even as Disra turned his head to look, there was a whisper of movement from Tierce's direction and the hilt of a knife sprouted suddenly in the man's chest.
A knife that joined the one already sticking out of his neck.
Disra caught his breath, his eyes darting away from the pirate to the tall, slender woman who had suddenly appeared in the room by the hidden doorway. Her hand twitched, there was a flicker of reflected light
