The Wild Karrde’s small docking bay was directly above him, its outer door gaping invitingly. Luke checked his instruments, confirmed there was indeed a corridor of air between the two ships, and took a deep breath. “Here we go, Artoo,” he said, and popped the canopy.
A puff of breeze brushed across his face as the air pressures equalized. Giving himself a careful push, he eased up and out, gripping the edge of the canopy to turn himself around. Artoo, he saw, had ejected from his socket and was drifting freely just above the X-wing, making distinctly unhappy noises about his situation. “I’ve got you, Artoo,” Luke soothed, reaching out with the Force to pull the droid toward him. Getting his bearings one last time, he bent his knees and pushed off.
He reached the airlock at the back of the bay a half second ahead of Artoo, grabbed hold of the straps fastened to the walls, and brought both of them to a smooth halt. Someone was obviously watching; they were still moving when the outer lock door slid shut. Gravity came back, slowly enough for him to adjust his stance to it, and a moment later the inner door slid open.
There was a young man waiting for them, wearing a casual coverall of an unfamiliar cut. “Welcome aboard the Wild Karrde,” he said, nodding gravely. “If you’ll follow me, the captain would like to see you.”
Without waiting for a reply, he turned and headed down the curving corridor. “Come on, Artoo,” Luke murmured, starting after him and reaching out with the Force for a quick survey of the ship. Aside from their guide, he could sense only four others aboard, all of them in the forward sections. Behind him, in the aft sections …
He shook his head, trying to clear it. It didn’t help: the aft sections of the ship still remained oddly dark to him. An aftereffect of the long hibernation, probably. It was for certain, though, that there were no crew members or droids back there, and that was all he needed to know for the moment.
The guide led them to a door, which slid open as he stepped to one side. “Captain Karrde will see you now,” he said, waving toward the open door.
“Thank you.” Luke nodded to him. With Artoo bumping against his heels, he stepped into the room.
It was an office of sorts; small, with much of its wall space taken up with what looked like highly sophisticated communications and encrypt equipment. In the center was a large desk/console combination … and seated behind it, watching Luke’s approach, was a slender man, thin-faced, with short dark hair and pale blue eyes.3
“Good evening,” he said in a cool, carefully modulated voice. “I’m Talon Karrde.” His eyes flicked up and down Luke, as if measuring him. “And you, I presume, are Commander Luke Skywalker.”
Luke stared at him. How in the worlds …? “Private citizen Skywalker,” he said, striving to keep his own voice calm. “I resigned my Alliance commission nearly four years ago.”4
An almost-smile twitched the corners of Karrde’s mouth. “I stand corrected. I must say, you’ve certainly found a good place to get away from it all.”
The question was unstated, but no less obvious for that. “I had some help choosing it,” Luke told him. “A small run-in with an Imperial Star Destroyer about half a light-year away.”
“Ah,” Karrde said, without any surprise that Luke could see or sense. “Yes, the Empire is still quite active in this part of the galaxy. Growing more so, too, particularly of late.” He cocked his head slightly to the side, his eyes never leaving Luke’s face. “Though I presume you’ve already noticed that. Incidentally, it looks like we’ll be able to take your ship in tow, after all. I’m having the cables rigged now.”
“Thank you,” Luke said, feeling the skin on the back of his neck start to tingle. Whether a pirate or a smuggler, Karrde should certainly have reacted more strongly to the news that there was a Star Destroyer in the area. Unless, of course, he already had an understanding with the Imperials … “Allow me to thank you for the rescue, as well,” he continued. “Artoo and I are lucky you happened along.”
“And Artoo is—? Oh, of course—your astromech droid.” The blue eyes flicked down briefly. “You must be a formidable warrior indeed, Skywalker—escaping from an Imperial Star Destroyer is no mean trick. Though I imagine a man like yourself is accustomed to giving the Imperials trouble.”
“I don’t see much front-line action anymore,” Luke told him. “You haven’t told me how you came to be out here, Captain. Or, for that matter, how you knew who I was.”
Another almost-smile. “With a lightsaber attached to your belt?” he asked wryly. “Come now. You were either Luke Skywalker, Jedi, or else someone with a taste for antiques and an insufferably high opinion of his swordsmanship.” Again, the blue eyes flicked up and down Luke. “You’re not really what I expected, somehow. Though I suppose that’s not all that surprising—the vast majority of Jedi lore has been so twisted by myth and ignorance that to get a clear picture is almost impossible.”
The warning bell in the back of Luke’s mind began to ring louder. “You almost sound as if you were expecting to find me here,” he said, easing his body into a combat stance and letting his senses reach out. All five of the crewers were still more or less where they’d been a few minutes earlier, farther up toward the forward part of the ship. None except Karrde himself was close enough to pose any kind of immediate threat.
“As a matter of fact, we were,” Karrde agreed calmly. “Though I can’t actually take any of the credit for that. It was one of my associates, Mara Jade, who led us here.” His head inclined slightly to his right. “She’s on the bridge at the moment.”
He paused, obviously waiting. It could be a setup, Luke knew; but the suggestion that someone might actually have been able to sense his presence from light-years away was too intriguing to pass up. Keeping his overall awareness clear, Luke narrowed a portion of his mind to the Wild Karrde’s bridge. At the helm was the young woman he’d spoken to earlier from the X-wing. Beside her, an older man was busy running a calculation through the nav computer. And sitting behind them—
The jolt of that mind shot through him like an electric current. “Yes, that’s her,” Karrde confirmed, almost offhandedly. “She hides it quite well, actually—though not, I suppose, from a Jedi. It took me several months of careful observation to establish that it was you, and you personally, for whom she had these feelings.”
It took Luke another second to find his voice. Never before, not even from the Emperor, had he ever felt such a black and bitter hatred. “I’ve never met her before,” he managed.
“No?” Karrde shrugged. “A pity. I was rather hoping you’d be able to tell me why she feels this way. Ah, well.” He got to his feet. “I suppose, then, there’s nothing more for us to talk about for the moment … and let me say in advance that I’m very sorry it has to be this way.”
Reflexively, Luke’s hand darted for his lightsaber. He’d barely begun the movement when the shock of a stun weapon coursed through him from behind.
There were Jedi methods for fighting off unconsciousness. But they all took at least a split second of preparation—a split second that Luke did not have. Dimly, he felt himself falling; heard Artoo’s frantic trilling in the distance; and wondered with his last conscious thought how in the worlds Karrde had done this to him.
C H A P T E R 19
He awoke slowly, in stages, aware of nothing but the twin facts that, one, he was lying flat on his back and, two, he felt terrible.
Slowly, gradually, the haze began to coalesce into more localized sensations. The air around him was warm but damp, a light and shifting breeze carrying several unfamiliar odors along with it. The surface beneath him had the soft/firm feel of a bed; the general sense of his skin and mouth implied he’d been asleep for probably several days.