29

After Guri had taken Leia away, Xizor sipped at another glass of green champagne. Perhaps it would help ease the pain in his groin.

After a time, he called his chief of security.

“Did the Wookiee escape?”

“Yes, Highness.”

“You did not allow him to think it was too easy?”

“He put five of our troops down, my prince. We singed him with a blaster beam as he ran down a hall. He won’t think it was easy.”

“Good.”

Xizor broke the link and smiled into the green, bubbly liquid. His surveillance on the Wookiee had reported the escape attempt immediately. Before Leia had returned to him, Xizor had already put his alternate plan into effect. He had intended to let the Wookiee go all along, albeit not quite this soon. Well. No matter. The Wookiee would surely contact Skywalker, and the boy would come running to try to rescue the princess. Xizor’s agents would probably collect Skywalker before he got within hours of the castle.

So easy. The hot ones were so predictable.

A priority offworld message announced itself on his private channel. He didn’t feel like talking to anybody just at the moment, but only a few people had access to the direct link, and if one of them was calling, it was likely something he’d best not ignore.

The connection was vox only, no image of the speaker. Understandable, considering the position some of his agents sometimes found themselves in regarding their security. He himself did not like to transmit his image. A personal quirk. You could scramble the transmission, of course, but in the field, paranoia was high. Many operatives reasoned that if a shielded pipeline was broken into and the com somehow unscrambled, better it should not have pictures attached to the speaker.

His computer had verified the caller from his voice patterns, else it would not have been put through.

“Yes?”

“My prince, there is news of Skywalker.”

“And it is …?”

“He has allegedly been captured by a group of bounty hunters. They would not say where they are precisely, but we have determined that they are on Kothlis. We expect to have that information updated momentarily. There is a problem, however.”

“I see. And this problem is …?”

“They say there is another bidder for their prisoner. One whose offer tops ours and who has … Imperial connections.”

Hmm. Vader had just gone to that area. Ostensibly it was to give credence to the computer theft, but consider: Who in the galaxy wanted Skywalker as much as Xizor himself did? Vader, of course. Then again, Vader was already back here onplanet, had gone to see the Emperor, and there were no indications he had brought Skywalker back with him. Perhaps the information had reached him too late for him to make proper use of it. Or not reached him at all.

Well. This ploy with the princess might not be necessary at all.

“Tell them we’ll double whatever the other side has to offer.”

“Highness, if we’re bidding against the Empire, we can’t match them.”

“I know that. It doesn’t matter since we aren’t ever going to have to pay it. As soon as we find out precisely where they are holding him, we’ll scramble a jade ops team and collect him for free. We don’t need him breathing, only his body.”

“Very well, Highness—wait. Your pardon; I’m getting a call from one of our operatives regarding this; it may be the location we need …”

Xizor gave the agent leave to answer the call. He sat and waited. Meditated on the ruthlessness of entropy. On the amount of time he had spent waiting for somebody to get back to him. Months, probably, maybe more. Of course, that happened a lot less now than once it had …

When his agent came back online, his voice was shaky and he had difficulty speaking without swallowing frequently.

“M-My prince, there has been a … complication.” Fear lurked in the man’s words like a desert scavenger circling a dying animal.

“A complication,” Xizor repeated.

“It—It seems that Skywalker has escaped custody. And Darth Vader is now personally involved; he was seen near the site of the escape within hours of the event.”

As the bearer of what he thought very bad news, the agent feared for his life. People had been killed for less when offering unhappy tiding to their princes, and the man knew it, knew his employer had done it himself. Had doubtless heard the tale of the traitor Green by now, too.

Xizor laughed.

“M-My prince?”

Finally. Some good news. Vader had just missed Skywalker. The boy was free, and as long as Leia was safely installed here, sooner or later Skywalker would show up on Xizor’s doorstep. The Wookiee would see to that.

“Do not concern yourself with Skywalker’s escape,” the Dark Prince said. “That situation is under control.”

Someday, perhaps, he would allow this story to become public—once he was in control of the galaxy.

Ah, people would say, how devious the Dark Prince is. Beware!

Beware, indeed.

Leia tried the door to her room, but of course it was locked. She looked around. It didn’t appear as if the last occupant had forgotten and left a spare blaster in the bedside table; there were no tools with which to open the door, no secret escape hatches she could find. She also couldn’t spot the holocam, but she was sure the room was wired for surveillance, given what she now knew. If she had to stay here long enough to undress, she would do it in the dark and hope they didn’t have a light-gathering scope on the lens. Although it was probably a little late for modesty.

She sighed. She hoped Chewie had gotten away. Not that it would do her much good, but at least if he’d made it, he could fill Luke and Lando in, so they’d know to get Luke as far away from Black Sun as possible. Luke would want to come and rescue her, but Lando was a realist; he should be able to talk Luke out of it. They needed to be free, to rescue Han. That was the important thing.

Forgive me, Han, for what I almost did. It was a drug, I know, but I’m sorry I was so weak.

When she saw him again—well, if she saw him again—maybe she would tell him about it. Then again, maybe not. No point in upsetting him, right?

The idea of seeing Han again made her feel momentarily better, but she had to admit that her chances didn’t seem particularly good just now.

She sat on the bed and considered her options. At the moment, she didn’t seem to have an awful lot of them.

She leaned back, stretched out. One of the things she’d learned while working with the Alliance’s military personnel was: When in doubt, take a nap. Never knew when you would get the chance again.

Not that she thought she’d be able to sleep, given all that was going on. She’d just lie here and try to relax for a few moments.

She surprised herself by dropping into a deep sleep almost immediately.

Lando didn’t want to stop, but Luke insisted.

“Look, I trust the Force and it’s telling me Leia is in danger. So let’s just put in a call and check, okay?”

“Can’t it wait until we get to Tatooine?”

“No.”

Lando sighed. “All right. But you remember I did this. You owe me one.”

He dropped the Falcon out of hyperspace.

“How do we call?” Luke asked.

Lando smiled. “I’ve got a little surprise for you. Han isn’t the only one who can rig the Falcon.”

“What do you mean?”

Lando put the ship on automatic control and led Luke to the aft cargo hold. He pointed at a device mounted on one wall.

“That looks like a comm unit.”

“Bright boy. Go ahead, make your call.”

Luke punched in the relay codes that Lando gave him while the gambler kept fiddling with the override to make sure the communication wasn’t tapped.

Dash didn’t answer, but there was a recorded computer response.

Luke turned to Lando. “Do we have the ‘play message’ code?”

“Yes.” Lando gave it to him.

The image that ghosted into being surprised them. A Wookiee with a bad haircut. Luke didn’t recognize him at first. Until he started talking. Yelling was more like it.

Chewie!

“What?” Lando said.

“What is it?”

“Oh, no!”

“Lando!”

Lando translated. “Leia is being held on Coruscant by Black Sun. They tried to kill Chewie but he escaped—the princess made him go, it wasn’t his idea—”

Abruptly the transmission ended.

“What happened?”

“I dunno, my codes just went blank. Somebody must have reported the override’s theft.” He pulled the override from the comm unit’s slot and tossed the electronic card on the floor.

“Let’s go,” Luke said.

“To Tatooine, right?”

“Wrong.”

“Somehow I knew you were gonna say that. We can’t go to Coruscant! It’s too dangerous.”

“You can stay here if you want.”

“Luke …”

“Leia needs my help. I’m going.”

Lando stared at the ceiling for a moment, then shook his head. “Why me? Why do these things always happen to me?”

Time and space shivered, and the Millennium Falcon dropped out of hyper- and into realspace.

Luke glanced at the control screens. “We’re still a pretty long way off,” he said. “It’ll take days to get there.”

“Yeah, well, there’s a reason for that,” Lando said. “We’re not talking about some backrocket world with two cities and a small town on it. Coruscant is one big building complex that almost covers the entire planet. The space around it is filled with skyhooks, wheel-worlds, power sats, and a whole river of commercial and private traffic, not to mention a great big chunk of the Imperial Navy. It’s like a huge canopy, and the holes in it are real tiny. We aren’t going to sail merrily past all that in this ship. My guess is that the Falcon is plastered on computer wanted screens all over the galaxy and, sure as lizards like sunshine, on every security scanner here in the center of the Empire. I don’t think a swiped security code is gonna get us past. We won’t do Leia any good locked in an Imperial prison.”

“I get your point.”

“So we work our way in slow and try to figure out something. Got any bright ideas?”

Luke thought about it. “Well, actually, yes.”

Lando blinked. “Yeah? Let’s hear it.”

Luke told him.

“I don’t know about this,” Lando said.

“Hey, Han did it—and on a Star Destroyer and not a droid-operated robotic freighter, too.” Luke paused a second. Then said, “If you want, I’ll take over.”

Lando raised his eyebrows. “Listen, I taught Han that trick.”

Luke smiled.

In theory, it ought to work. They were near the freighter lanes leading to and from Coruscant. Here was where the big vessels lumbered along, bulk freighters or container ships, in restricted channels. To be there, you had to be flying something that hauled a couple hundred metric tons or more. While the law said there had to be somebody other than droids on board one of the big ships, that law was usually ignored and seldom enforced, especially when it was somebody delivering goods for the Empire. A droid programmed to ferry ships in and out of gravity wells wasn’t apt to be paying a lot of attention to what went on around it once it got into the lanes—the system’s vack-traffic-control took care of all that, so sneaking up to the belly or backside of a big freighter ought to be as easy as snapping your fingers. After that, you just had to stay in its shadow all the way down until you were off the grid and into planetary Doppler. The Falcon had jammers that should take care of that without any problems—a bright ten-year-old could build a decent jammer from an old microwave cooker and a couple of detuned repulsor grids.

The trick was to match the speed and course of the bigger vessel so you’d stay in exactly the same place relative to it. A good pilot should be able to manage it, but if he zigged when he should zag, well, that might mean getting vaporized by an Imperial picket ship or a planetary defense battery. But it was doable if you had the nerve and the skill. It ought to work—in theory.

Yes, the Empire had rings of ships around the planet, but they were designed to stop an attacking force. Space was too big for them to be able to see everything, and what was a single ship going to be able to do to a whole planet, especially if—as the Alliance did—your enemy refused to attack and destroy civilian targets anyway?

“Ready?” Lando said.

“Ready,” Luke said.

“We’re ready, too,” Threepio said. “If anyone cares.”

Artoo whistled.

Lando grinned. “Hang on. Here we go.”

The freighter moving in their general direction was a big one, actually a modified tug towing a series of closely linked cylindrical cargo containers, arranged in a long ring. Each of these containers was as big as the Falcon, and each was hung with orbital braking rockets. It was a bit small for a supertransport, but the ship’s cargo was probably pushing eight or nine hundred m-tons, not exactly tiny. The freighter put out a bounce signal identifying it as the ISO—Independent Ship Owners’—vessel Tuk Prevoz, registered on Imperial Center and flying under contract to Xizor Transportation Systems.

Lando brought the Falcon around in a long, shallow arc, almost a hemispherical 180, first heading away from the freighter, then behind and under its belly.

“This ought to be right in their sensor shadow,” he said.

Luke nodded. Big ships had plenty of blind spots, especially those towing large cargoes. If they could stay in the sensor shadow as they approached, the crew couldn’t spot them. Once they were safely next to one of the cargo containers, nobody in the ship would be able to visually tag them, and, unless they passed within spitting distance of one of the picket line ships, no Imperial eyes would be able to make them out, either.

Luke looked at the scopes. Lando was dead on his flight plan. A degree or two either way and the crew on the freighter might get a blip on their scopes, but so far, so good.

The cargo containers loomed bigger. Problem with visual flying out here in the outvack was perspective; movement became pretty subjective. Relatively speaking, either they were getting closer or the freighter was dropping down upon them, and when you got right down to it, it didn’t matter—as long as they stayed on the line inside the sensor shadow.

Lando moved his hands precisely, like a microsurgeon splicing nerves. The Falcon slowed, slowed … stopped.

The surface of the nearest cargo pod was three meters away.

“Good job,” Luke said. Despite his giving Lando a hard time, he was a good pilot.

“Yeah, but that’s the easy part. Now we got to stay with this boomer until we get into atmosphere and he drops his cargo into a spiral-in orbit. I’m shutting down the transponder and nonessential systems. We don’t want anybody seeing our lights or picking up active sensors. From here on in, it’s seat-of-the-pants.”

“You thought about what we’re going to do once we land?”

Lando snorted. “Let’s worry about landing first, how about? I know some people, I have a few contacts. We’ll be okay.”

Luke nodded. He hoped Lando was right.

Of course, they might stray off course on the way to the planet and get roasted by a coherent light battery and he wouldn’t have to worry about it. Not that that made him feel any better.

He reached out, tried to find Leia, using the Force. Pushed to the limit of his abilities …

Nothing. If she was there, he was too far away to touch her.

Well. They’d be closer soon. If they survived, he would try again.

If they survived.

Sitting naked in his chamber and working on his healing meditation, Darth Vader frowned. There was a disturbance in the Force. He reached for it with the power of the dark side …

He could not connect with it, whatever it was.

Abruptly the sensation of a ripple passed.

The dark side still had surprises for him. Like a fire, it could warm or burn, and great care must be taken not to trip and fall into it. He had seen what extensive use had done to the Emperor; it had eaten away at him physically. But that would not happen to Vader, for he intended to master the dark side. He was well on the way. It would be only a matter of how long, of when, not if. And when he finally snared Luke, the process would go faster. Two powerful magnets would attract more of the dark energy than one. Together they would manipulate the Force quicker than either could alone.

So strong, the boy. Who could have known? Luke Skywalker—his son—might well be the most powerful man in the galaxy.

He allowed himself a smile, even though the expression stretched scar tissue and was painful. He could withstand pain.

He was the Dark Lord of the Sith, and he could withstand anything.