“Stranger things have happened,” Han agreed, looking around. Clean and almost painfully neat, yet with that same unmistakable air that every general freight port seemed to have. That air of the not-entirely tame …
“Uh-oh,” Lando said quietly, his eyes on something past Han’s shoulder. “Looks like someone’s just bought the heavy end of the hammer.”
Han turned. Fifty meters down the port perimeter street, a small group of uniformed men with light-armor vests and blaster rifles had gathered at one of the other landing pit entrances. Even as Han watched, half of them slipped inside, leaving the rest on guard in the street. “That’s the hammer, all right,” Han agreed, craning his neck to try to read the number above the door. Sixty-three. “Let’s hope that’s not our contact in there. Where are we meeting him, anyway?”
“Right over there,” Lando said, pointing to a small windowless building built in the gap between two much older ones. A carved wooden plank with the single word “LoBue”2 hung over the door. “We’re supposed to take one of the tables near the bar and the casino area and wait. He’ll contact us there.”
The LoBue was surprisingly large, given its modest street front, extending both back from the street and also into the older building to its left. Just inside the entrance were a group of conversation-oriented tables overlooking a small but elaborate dance floor, the latter deserted but with some annoying variety of taped music playing in the background.3 On the far side of the dance floor were a group of private booths, too dark for Han to see into. Off to the left, up a few steps and separated from the dance floor by a transparent etched plastic wall, was the casino area. “I think I see the bar up there,” Lando murmured. “Just back of the sabacc tables to the left. That’s probably where he wants us.”
“You ever been here before?” Han asked over his shoulder as they skirted the conversation tables and headed up the steps.
“Not this place, no. Last time I was at Abregado-rae was years ago. It was worse than Mos Eisley, and I didn’t stay long.” Lando shook his head. “Whatever problems you might have with the new government here, you have to admit they’ve done a good job of cleaning the planet up.”
“Yeah, well, whatever problems you have with the new government, let’s keep them quiet, okay?” Han warned. “Just for once, I’d like to keep a low profile.”
Lando chuckled. “Whatever you say.”
The lighting in the bar area was lower than that in the casino proper, but not so low that seeing was difficult. Choosing a table near the gaming tables, they sat down. A holo of an attractive girl rose from the center of the table as they did so. “Good day, gentles,” she said in pleasantly accented Basic. “How may I serve?”
“Do you have any Necr’ygor Omic4 wine?” Lando asked.
“We do, indeed: ’47, ’49, ’50, and ’52.”
“We’ll have a half carafe of the ’49,”5 Lando told her.
“Thank you, gentles,” she said, and the holo vanished.
“Was that part of the countersign?” Han asked, letting his gaze drift around the casino. It was only the middle of the afternoon, local time, but even so over half the tables were occupied. The bar area, in contrast, was nearly empty, with only a handful of humans and aliens scattered around. Drinking, apparently, ranked much lower than gambling on the list of popular Gado vices.
“Actually, he didn’t say anything about what we should order,” Lando said. “But since I happen to like a good Necr’ygor Omic wine—”
“And since Coruscant will be picking up the tab for it?”
“Something like that.”
The wine arrived on a tray delivered through a slide-hatch in the center of the table. “Will there be anything else, gentles?” the holo girl asked.
Lando shook his head, picking up the carafe and the two glasses that had come with it. “Not right now, thank you.”
“Thank you.” She and the tray disappeared.
“So,” Lando said, pouring the wine. “I guess we wait.”
“Well, while you’re busy waiting, do a casual one-eighty,” Han said. “Third sabacc table back—five men and a woman. Tell me if the guy second from the right is who I think it is.”
Lifting his wineglass, Lando held it up to the light, as if studying its color. In the process he turned halfway around—“Not Fynn Torve?”
“Sure looks like him to me,” Han agreed. “I figured you’d probably seen him more recently than I have.”
“Not since the last Kessel run you and I did together.” Lando cocked an eyebrow at Han. “Just before that other big sabacc table,” he added dryly.
Han gave him an injured look. “You’re not still sore about the Falcon, are you?”
“Now …” Lando considered. “No, probably not. No sorer than I was at losing the game to an amateur like you in the first place.”
“Amateur?”
“—but I’ll admit there were times right afterward when I lay awake at night plotting elaborate revenge. Good thing I never got around to doing any of it.”
Han looked back at the sabacc table. “If it makes you feel any better … if you hadn’t lost the Falcon to me, we probably wouldn’t be sitting here right now. The Empire’s first Death Star would have taken out Yavin and then picked the Alliance apart planet by planet. And that would have been the end of it.”
Lando shrugged. “Maybe; maybe not. With people like Ackbar and Leia running things—”
“Leia would have been dead,” Han cut him off. “She was already slated for execution when Luke, Chewie, and I pulled her out of the Death Star.” A shiver ran through him at the memory. He’d been that close to losing her forever. And would never even have known what he’d missed.
And now that he knew … he might still lose her.
“She’ll be okay, Han,” Lando said quietly. “Don’t worry.” He shook his head. “I just wish we knew what the Imperials wanted with her.”
“I know what they want,” Han growled. “They want the twins.”
Lando stared at him, a startled look on his face. “Are you sure?”
“As sure as I am of any of this,” Han said. “Why else didn’t they just use stun weapons on us in that Bpfassh ambush? Because the things have a better than fifty-fifty chance of sparking a miscarriage, that’s why.”
“Sounds reasonable,” Lando agreed grimly. “Does Leia know?”
“I don’t know. Probably.”
He looked at the sabacc tables, the cheerful decadence of the whole scene suddenly grating against his mood. If Torve really was Karrde’s contact man, he wished the other would quit this nonsense and get on with it. It wasn’t like there were a lot of possibilities hanging around here to choose from.
His eyes drifted away from the casino, into the bar area … and stopped. There, sitting at a shadowy table at the far end, were three men.
There was an unmistakable air about a general freight port, a combination of sounds and smells and vibrations that every pilot who’d been in the business long enough knew instantly. There was an equally unmistakable air about planetary security officers. “Uh-oh,” he muttered.
“What?” Lando asked, throwing a casual glance of his own around the room. The glance reached the far table—“Uh-oh, indeed,” he agreed soberly. “Offhand, I’d say that explains why Torve’s hiding at a sabacc table.”
“And doing his best to ignore us,” Han said, watching the security agents out of the corner of his eye and trying to gauge the focus of their attention. If they’d tumbled to this whole contact meeting there probably wasn’t much he could do about it, short of hauling out his New Republic ID and trying to pull rank on them. Which might or might not work; and he could just hear the polite screaming fit Fey’lya would have over it either way.