2

Leia sat in a bad cantina in the bad part of Mos Eisley.

You really had to work at it to earn both of those low distinctions. Calling this place a dive would have elevated it four notches. The table was expanded metal, aluminum plate turned into a cheap and easy-to-clean mesh—probably they used a high-pressure solvent hose to wash everything into that drain in the middle of a sunken spot over there in the floor. If they opened the door to the arid outside, it would dry in a hurry. The cup of whatever vile brew it was she had in front of her was certainly losing more liquid to evaporation than to her drinking from it. The air refreshing system must have had a bad circuit—the place was hot, the desert air outside seeping in along with the gutter scum who came to hang out here. It smelled like a bantha stable in the hot summer, and the only good thing about the place was that the light was dim enough so she didn’t have to look too closely at the patrons—from a dozen different species and none of them particularly savory-looking examples at that.

Lando must have done it on purpose, picking this pit in which to meet, just to get a rise out of her. Well. When he finally arrived, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. For a time, she’d hated him, until she understood his apparent betrayal of Han had only been a ruse to help save them from Vader. Lando had given up a lot for that, and they all owed him for it.

Still, this wasn’t a bar she would have gone into without a good reason—a very good reason—and not a place she would have gone alone, despite her protests that she didn’t need a bodyguard. But need one or not, she had one—Chewbacca sat next to her, glowering at the assorted patrons. The only reason Chewie had left her with Luke after the last encounter with Vader was to go with Lando to Tatooine to set up Han’s rescue. Once Leia had arrived, Chewie had stayed as close to her as part of her wardrobe. It was irritating.

Lando had explained it: “Chewie owes Han a life debt. That’s a big deal among Wookiees. Han told him to take care of you. Until Han tells him otherwise, that’s what he’s going to do.”

Leia had tried to be firm. She told Chewie, “I appreciate it, but you don’t have to.”

It was no use, Lando told her. As long as he was alive, Chewbacca was going to be with her, and that was that. She didn’t even speak Wookiee, save for a couple of swear words she thought she recognized, but Lando had smiled and told her she might as well get used to it.

She almost had, after a fashion. Chewie could understand a number of languages, and while he couldn’t speak them, he could usually make known what he wanted somebody to know.

Leia liked Chewie okay, but here was another reason to find and free Han—so he could call the Wookiee off.

Then again, even though she would never admit it, there were times when having a two-meter-tall Wookiee around was useful. Such as in this wonderful place.

During the last hour, she’d had to look a little closer at several of the patrons than she liked. Despite the fact that she wore old and threadbare freight handler’s coveralls spotted and stained with lube, had her hair wound into a tight and unattractive bun, and did not meet anyone’s gaze, there had been a steady parade of various humans and aliens to her table, trying to pick her up—also despite the fact that a fully grown and armed Wookiee sat at the same table.

Males. Didn’t seem to matter what species they were when they wanted female company. And it didn’t seem to matter what species the female was, either.

Chewie made it clear they weren’t welcome, and between his size and bowcaster, nobody much wanted to argue the point. But new ones kept coming.

Chewie growled at a bulbous-headed Bith who banged into the table. The alien, whose species was normally well behaved and peaceful, had obviously had way too much to drink, if he would even think it possible that he and Leia could find anything in common. The Bith looked at Chewie’s bared teeth, hiccuped, then tottered off.

Leia said, “Look, I appreciate your help, but I can handle these guys.”

Chewie turned his head to one side and regarded her, a gesture she was coming to realize meant skepticism and amusement mixed about equally.

She took it as a challenge. “Hey, next time somebody comes over, just watch me. You can do it without threats, you know.”

It didn’t take long. The next pest in the rotation was a Devaronian, a horned humanoid who—surprise—wanted to buy Leia a drink.

“Thank you, but I’m waiting for somebody.”

The Devaronian said, “Well, why don’t I keep you company until they get here? Perhaps they were delayed? It might be a long wait.”

“Thank you, but I have company.” She nodded at Chewie.

The alien ignored the gesture and, since the Wookiee didn’t speak or point his weapon, kept right on talking.

“I’m really quite pleasant to have around, you know. Many fems have thought so. Many.” He leered at her, his pointed teeth looking particularly white against his red lips. Shot his tongue out and sucked it back in; it was as long as her forearm.

Spare me, Leia thought. So much for the easy way.

“No. Go away.”

“You don’t know what you are missing, little one.” His leer grew wider, making him look more demonic.

She glanced at Chewie, who was about to start laughing, she could tell. She glared at the Devaronian.

“I’ll try to get over it. Leave.”

“Just one drink. And I can show you my Weranian holocards; they are very, ah … stimulating.”

He started to sit across from her.

Leia pulled the small blaster she had tucked into her coverall pocket, brought it out over the table where the Devaronian could see it. She pointed it at the ceiling and thumbed the power setting button from “stun” to “kill.”

He saw that, too.

Very quickly he said, “Ah, well, perhaps another time. I, ah, just recalled that, ah, I left the converter charging on my ship. You’ll excuse me.”

He hurried away. Amazing what waving a blaster under an obnoxious would-be suitor’s nose would do to improve his manners.

Chewie did laugh now. Said something, and she had a pretty good idea of what it meant.

“Nobody likes an obnoxious Wookiee,” she said. But she smiled. That point went to Chewie, and she was woman enough to admit it.

She put the safety on and tucked the blaster away. Fiddled with the stir stick in her drink. Lando was going to pay for calling the meeting in this hole. Somehow.

Somebody opened the door and a flash of hot light spilled into the dank bar. Outlined in the doorway was a human who, for just a second, reminded her of Han.

Han.

She felt the grief start to well in her again, and she shook her head, as if that could stop the emotions from flowing. The last time she had seen Han Solo, he had been frozen in a block of carbonite. The last thing he had said to her was an answer: “I know.”

Leia sighed. She hadn’t really known until that moment that she loved him. When she saw Vader order him lowered into the freezing chamber, when she knew there was a chance he might not come out alive, she’d had to say it. It had come out of her unbidden, it had seemed as if the words had been spoken by another woman. It had been so … unreal.

But she couldn’t deny it. Not then, not now. She did love him, pirate and rogue that he was. There was no help for it.

That feeling scared her more than anything she could think of. More than when she’d been in Vader’s hands on the Death Star, more than when it seemed half the Imperial Army and Navy had been after them—

“Buy you a drink, beautiful?” somebody said from behind her.

Leia turned. It was Lando. She was angry at him, but glad to see him, too. “How’d you get in here?”

“Back door,” Lando said. He smiled. He was a handsome man—tall, dark-skinned, a thin mustache above those shiny white teeth—and he knew it, too.

Behind him were the droids R2-D2 and C-3PO. Artoo’s dome swiveled as the droid took in the bar, and Threepio, the most skittish droid Leia had ever been around, managed to look nervous even though he could not change his facial expression.

Artoo whistled.

“Yes, I see that,” Threepio said. A short pause. “Master Lando, wouldn’t it be better if we waited outside? I don’t think they like droids in this place. We’re the only ones here.”

Lando smiled. “Relax. Nobody is going to bother you. I know the owner. Besides, I don’t want you alone outside. You might find this hard to believe, but this town is full of thieves.” He opened his eyes wide in mock amazement and waved his hands to take in the bar and the port around it. “You wouldn’t want to wind up shoveling sand on some moisture farm, now would you?”

“Oh, dear me, no.”

Leia smiled, unable to help herself. What a band of characters she’d wound up with. Two funny droids, Lando Calrissian the gambler, Chewbacca the Wookiee, Luke the—

What was Luke? Halfway to becoming a Jedi, at least. And awfully important, given how badly Darth Vader seemed to want him. She’d heard other rumors, too, that Vader wasn’t particular how he got Luke, alive or dead. She loved Han, but she felt something for Luke, too.

Another complication she did not need. Why wasn’t life simpler?

And Han …

“I think we’ve got Slave I spotted,” Lando said quietly.

That was Boba Fett’s ship. The bounty hunter who had taken Han from Cloud City. “What? Where?”

“A moon called Gall, circling Zhar, a gas giant out in one of the far Rim Systems. The information is third-hand, but the informant chain is supposed to be reliable.”

“We’ve heard that before,” she said.

Lando shrugged. “We can sit and wait or we can go see. The bounty hunter should have delivered Han to Jabba months ago. He’s got to be someplace. I’ve got a contact in that system, an old gambling buddy who does a little, uh, freelance cargo delivery. Name is Dash Rendar. He’s checking it out for us.”

Leia smiled again. “Freelance cargo delivery” was a euphemism for “smuggling.”

“You trust him?”

“Well, as long as my money holds out, yeah.”

“Fine. How soon will we know?”

“A few days.”

Leia looked around. “Anything would be better than waiting here.”

Lando flashed his bright smile again. “Mos Eisley is known as the galaxy’s armpit,” he said. “I guess there are worse parts of the anatomy where we could be stuck.”

Chewie said something.

Lando shook his head. “I don’t know why he’d be there. There’s a shipyard on the moon; maybe he needed repairs. Something serious had to hold him up because Jabba won’t pay him until he gets here.”

Chewie said something else.

“Yeah, I’m afraid so.” Lando looked at Leia. “Gall is an Imperial Enclave. Got a couple of destroyers based there, plus all the attendant TIE fighters. If Fett’s ship is there, it won’t be easy to get to him.”

“When has anything been easy since I met you?” she said. “Let me ask you something. Of all the crummy places in this port, why did you choose this one?”

“Well, I do know the owner. He owes me for a bet we once made. I get to eat and drink here for free whenever I’m in town.”

“Oh, boy. What a thrill that must be. You ever try to eat anything in this place?”

“I haven’t been that hungry yet, no.”

She shook her head. Her life had certainly been interesting since she’d fallen in with these guys. But it was like Lando had just said about Boba Fett: Everybody had to be someplace.

Until they found Han, this was as good as any.

Leia said, “Maybe we better go tell Luke.”

Xizor left his four bodyguards in the antechamber and went into Darth Vader’s personal meeting room. The guards were trained in half a dozen forms of hand-to-hand combat, each armed with a blaster and each an expert shot; still, if Vader wanted to harm him, it wouldn’t matter if he took four or forty men with him. The mysterious Force would let Vader block a fired blaster bolt with his lightsaber or his hands, and he could kill with a gesture, could freeze your lungs or stop your heart, just like that. It was a lesson many had learned the hard way: One did not stand toe-to-toe with Darth Vader and challenge him directly.

Fortunately, Xizor enjoyed the Emperor’s patronage. As long as that was the case, Vader would not dare harm him.

The room was spare. A long table of polished, dark greel wood, several nonreactive chairs made from the same kind of wood, a holoplate and viewer. A faint tang of something spicy hung in the air. There were no pictures on the walls, no conspicuous signs of the wealth Vader commanded. He was nearly as rich as Xizor and, like the Dark Prince, cared little for wealth itself.

Xizor pulled one of the chairs away from the table and sat, allowing himself to appear completely relaxed, legs stretched out in front of him, leaning back. Somewhere in Vader’s castle monitoring technicians would be watching every move he made, recording it all. Xizor knew that Vader’s spies followed him everywhere he went, on- or offplanet; here in the dark heart of the serpent’s nest itself, there could be no doubt that his slightest gesture would be watched and analyzed. If Vader wished it, he could likely know how much air Xizor breathed, the volume, weight, and composition of that air, the percent of carbon dioxide in the residue.

Xizor allowed himself a tight grin. Give the techs something to think about: Uh-oh, he’s smiling—what do you suppose that means?

Of course, he had Vader under constant surveillance, too, every time he set foot outside his castle. On Coruscant—yes, it had been renamed the Imperial Center, but Xizor did not care for the new name—virtually everyone of any importance had his or her own spynet keeping track of all the other people of importance. It was necessary. And Black Sun’s spynet was second to none, not even the Empire’s own. Well. Perhaps the Bothans were slightly better …

The wall at the opposite end of the room slid aside silently, and Vader stood there, quite dramatic in his cape and black uniform, his breathing audible inside the armored helmet and mask.

Xizor stood, offered a military bow. “Lord Vader.”

“Prince Xizor,” Vader offered in return. No bow—he bent the knee only to the Emperor—but Xizor did not acknowledge the small breach of etiquette. This was all being recorded. The recording might find its way before the Emperor—in fact, Xizor would be greatly surprised if it did not come under the Emperor’s scrutiny; the old man was not one to let much get past him. Instead, Xizor intended to be the soul of grace, the epitome of politeness, the acme of good manners.

“You asked to see me, Lord Vader. How may I be of service to you?”

Vader stepped into the room, and the door slid shut behind him. He made no move to sit, no surprise. Xizor also remained standing.

Vader said, “My master bids me to arrange for a fleet of your cargo ships to deliver supplies to our bases on the Rim.”

“But of course,” Xizor said. “My entire operation is at your disposal; I am always happy to aid the Empire in any way that I can.”

Xizor’s legitimate shipping operations were quite extensive, among the largest in the galaxy. Much of the money from Black Sun’s illicit activities had been funneled into Xizor Transport Systems, and XTS alone was enough to make him a wealthy and powerful man.

Vader was also aware that the holocams were upon him. He made a comment for the record. “In the past, it seems as if your company has been slow to respond to Imperial requests.”

“It embarrasses me to say that you are correct, Lord Vader. Certain individuals who worked for me were lax. However, those individuals are no longer employed by my company.”

Point, counterpoint. Vader jabbed, carefully, using a fine point, and Xizor parried. Each conversation he had with the Dark Lord of the Sith was thus, an obvious surface dialogue with much hidden in the depths below it. It was a kind of fugue, in which each player tried to score, like two brothers trying to outdo each other in the eyes of a critical father.

Xizor did not consider Vader anything like a nest-brother, however. The man was an impediment to be removed and—though he did not know it—a mortal enemy.

Ten years ago, Vader had a pet project, research on a biological weapon. He established a hazard lab on Xizor’s home planet of Falleen. There had been an accident at the supposedly secure facility. A mutant tissue-destroying bacterium somehow escaped quarantine. In order to save the planet’s population from a horrible, rotting, always fatal infection for which there was no cure, the city around the lab had been “sterilized.”

Sterilized, as in: baked, torched, seared, burned to cinders; houses, buildings, streets, parks—

And people.

Two hundred thousand Falleen had been killed by the sterilization lasers crisscrossing the doomed metropolis from orbit. The Empire counted itself lucky to have lost only that number when the necrotizing bacteria could have killed billions, maybe even escaped offworld to infect other planets. It had been a close call, but the cost had been relatively minor—in the opinion of the Empire.

In Darth Vader’s opinion.

Among the dead had been Xizor’s mother, father, brother, two sisters, and three uncles. He’d been offworld at the time, cementing his control of Black Sun into place; otherwise he would have been one of the victims himself.

He had never spoken of the tragedy. He had, through the offices of Black Sun, caused his family’s deaths to be erased from Imperial records. The operatives who had done that deed had been themselves eliminated. Nobody knew that Xizor the Dark Prince had personal reasons to detest Darth Vader. It would be natural to see the two as rivals for the Emperor’s favor, and there was no way to hide that, but of the other, no one save Xizor had any inkling.

He had been patient, Xizor had. It was never a question of “if,” only a matter of “when” he would repay Vader in kind.

Now at last, revenge was in the making. Soon he would have it. He would spear two fleek-eels with the same trident: Vader the impediment to his power and Vader the killer of his family would both be … removed.

Xizor felt a smile but held it from observation by Vader and his hidden holocams’ gazes. Killing the Dark Lord might be possible but much too good for him—and dangerous in the extreme. Dishonor and disgrace were ever so much more painful at this level of existence. He would break Vader, would cause him to be tossed upon the trash heap by his beloved master.

Yes. That would be justice—

“We shall need three hundred ships,” Vader said, cutting into Xizor’s thoughts. “Half of them tankers, half dry cargo transports. Standard Imperial delivery contracts. There is a large … construction project of which you are aware. Can you supply the vessels?”

“Yes, my lord. You need but tell me where and when you desire them and I will make it so. And Imperial terms are acceptable.”

Vader stood silently for a moment, the only sound the mechanical wheeze of his breathing.

He didn’t expect that, Xizor thought. He thought I might argue or try to haggle over the price. Good.

“Very well. I’ll have the fleet supply admiral contact you with details.”

“It is my honor to serve,” Xizor said. Again he gave Vader a military bow, a bit lower and slower than before.

Anybody watching would see only how courteous and eager to please Xizor was.

Without another word Vader turned. The wall slid back again, and he swept from the room.

And anybody watching would see how close to the edge of rudeness Lord Vader walked.

Again Xizor allowed himself a tiny smile.

Everything was going according to plan.