Pellaeon thought back. On the matter of Skywalker, at least, C’baoth’s desire seemed to have remained remarkably steady. “I respectfully suggest, Admiral, that we still make every possible effort to take Skywalker alive.” He had a flash of inspiration—“Particularly since his death might induce C’baoth to leave Jomark and return to Wayland.”
Thrawn3 looked back at him, glowing eyes narrowed. “Interesting point, Captain,” he murmured softly. “Interesting point, indeed. You’re right, of course. By all means, we must keep him off Wayland. At least until the work on the Spaarti cylinders is finished and we have all the ysalamiri there we’re going to need.” He smiled tightly. “His reaction to what we’re doing there might not be at all pleasant.”
“Agreed, sir,” Pellaeon said.
Thrawn’s lip twitched. “Very well, Captain: I accede to your suggestion.” He straightened himself in his seat. “It’s time to be going. Prepare the Chimaera for lightspeed.”
Pellaeon turned back to his displays. “Yes, sir. Direct route to the rendezvous point?”
“We’ll be making a short detour first. I want you to swing us around the system to the commercial outvector near the shieldship depot and drop some probes to watch for Skywalker’s departure. Near-system and farther out.” He looked out the viewport in Nkllon’s direction. “And who knows? Where Skywalker goes, the Millennium Falcon often goes, as well.
“And then we’ll have them all.”
C H A P T E R 14
“Fifty-one,” Lando Calrissian growled, throwing a glare at Han and Leia as he paced a convoluted path around the low chairs in the lounge. “Fifty-one of my best reconditioned mole miners. Fifty-one. That’s almost half my workforce. You realize that?—half my work force.”
He dropped down into a chair, but was on his feet again almost immediately, stalking around the room, his black cloak billowing behind him like a tame storm cloud. Leia opened her mouth to offer commiseration, felt Han squeeze her hand warningly. Obviously, Han had seen Lando in this state before. Swallowing back the words, she watched as he continued his caged-animal pacing.
And without obvious warning, it was over. “I’m sorry,” he said abruptly, coming to a halt in front of Leia and taking her hand. “I’m neglecting my duties as host, aren’t I? Welcome to Nkllon.” He raised her hand, kissed it, and waved his free hand toward the lounge window. “So. What do you think of my little enterprise?”
“Impressive,” Leia said, and meant it. “How did you ever come up with the idea for this place?”
“Oh, it’s been kicking around for years.” He shrugged, pulling her gently to her feet and guiding her over to the window, his hand resting against the small of her back. Ever since she and Han had gotten married, Leia had noticed a resurgence of this kind of courtly behavior toward her from Lando—behavior that harkened back to their first meeting at Cloud City. She’d puzzled over that for a while, until she’d noticed that all the attention seemed to annoy Han.
Or, at least, it normally annoyed him. Right now, he didn’t even seem to notice.
“I found plans for something similar once in the Cloud City files, dating back to when Lord Ecclessis Figg first built the place,” Lando continued, waving a hand toward the window. The horizon rolled gently as the city walked, the motion and view reminding Leia of her handful of experiences aboard sailing ships. “Most of the metal they used came from the hot inner planet, Miser, and even with Ugnaughts doing the mining they had a devil of a time with it. Figg sketched out an idea for a rolling mining center that could stay permanently out of direct sunlight on Miser’s dark side. But nothing ever came of it.”
“It wasn’t practical,” Han said, coming up behind Leia. “Miser’s terrain was too rough for something on wheels to get across easily.”
Lando looked at him in surprise. “How do you know about that?”
Han shook his head distractedly, his eyes searching the landscape and the starry sky above it. “I spent an afternoon going through the Imperial files once, back when you were trying to talk Mon Mothma into helping fund this place. Wanted to make sure someone else hadn’t already tried it and found out it didn’t work.”
“Nice of you to go to that kind of trouble.” Lando cocked an eyebrow. “So, what’s going on?”
“We should probably wait until Luke gets here to talk about it,” Leia suggested quietly before Han could answer.
Lando glanced past Han, as if only just noticing Luke’s absence. “Where is he, anyway?”
“He wanted to catch a fast shower and change,” Han told him, shifting his attention to a small ore shuttle coming in for a landing. “Those X-wings don’t have much in the way of comfort.”
“Especially over long trips,” Lando agreed, tracing Han’s gaze with his eyes. “I’ve always thought putting a hyperdrive on something that small was a poor idea.”
“I’d better see what’s keeping him,” Han decided suddenly. “You have a comm in this room?”
“It’s over there,” Lando said, pointing toward a curved wooden bar at one end of the lounge. “Key for central; they’ll track him down for you.”
“Thanks,” Han called over his shoulder, already halfway there.
“It’s bad, isn’t it?” Lando murmured to Leia, his eyes following Han across the room.
“Bad enough,” she admitted. “There’s a chance that that Star Destroyer came here looking for me.”
For a moment, Lando was silent. “You came here for help.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes.”
He took a deep breath. “Well … I’ll do what I can, of course.”
“Thank you,” Leia said.
“Sure,” he said. But his eyes drifted from Han to the window and the activity beyond it, his expression hardening as he did so. Perhaps he was thinking of the last time Han and Leia had come to him for help.
And what giving that help had cost him.
Lando listened to the whole story in silence, then shook his head. “No,” he said positively. “If there was a leak, it didn’t come from Nkllon.”
“How can you be sure of that?” Leia asked.
“Because there’s been no bounty offered for you,” Lando told her. “We have our fair share of shady people here, but they’re all out for profit. None of them would turn you over to the Empire just for the fun of it. Besides, why would the Imperials steal my mole miners if they were after you?”
“Harassment, maybe,” Han suggested. “I mean, why steal mole miners anyway?”
“You got me,” Lando conceded. “Maybe they’re trying to put economic pressure on one of my clients, or maybe they just want to disrupt the New Republic’s flow of raw materials generally. Anyway, that’s beside the point. The point is that they took the mole miners, and they didn’t take you.”
“How do you know there’s been no bounty offer?” Luke asked from his seat off to the right—a seat, Leia had already noted, where he and his lightsaber would be between his friends and the room’s only door. Apparently, he didn’t feel any safer here than she did.
“Because I’d have heard about it,” Lando said, sounding a little miffed. “Just because I’m respectable doesn’t mean I’m out of touch.”
“I told you he’d have contacts,” Han said with a grimly satisfied nod. “Great. So which of these contacts do you trust, Lando?”
“Well—” Lando broke off as a beep came from his wrist. “Excuse me,” he said, sliding a compact comlink from the decorative wristband and flicking it on. “Yes?”
A voice said something, inaudible from where Leia was sitting. “What kind of transmitter?” Lando asked, frowning. The voice said something else. “All right, I’ll take care of it. Continue scanning.”