“Was in pursuit, Captain,” Thrawn corrected lazily, those eyes seeming to burn into Karrde’s face. “Or didn’t you know they both went down?”
Karrde stared at him, a thin needle of ice running through him. “I didn’t know that, no,” he said. “Our sensors—the metallic content of the trees fouls them up badly.”
“We had a higher observation angle,” Thrawn said. “It looked as if the first ship hit the trees, with the pursuer getting caught in the slipstream.” He regarded Karrde thoughtfully. “I take it the pursuer was someone special?”
Karrde let his face harden a bit. “All my associates are special,” he said, pulling out his comlink. “Please excuse me a moment; I have to get a rescue team organized.”
Thrawn took a long step forward, reaching two pale blue fingers to cover the top of the comlink. “Permit me,” he said smoothly. “Troop commander?”
One of the stormtroopers stepped forward. “Sir?”
“Take a detail out to the crash site,” Thrawn ordered, his eyes still on Karrde. “Examine the wreckage, and bring back any survivors. And anything that looks like it wouldn’t normally belong in a Skipray blastboat.”
“Yes, sir.” The other gestured, and one of the columns of stormtroopers turned and retraced their steps up the ramp of the leftmost shuttle.
“I appreciate your assistance, Admiral,” Karrde said, his mouth suddenly a little dry. “But it really isn’t necessary.”
“On the contrary, Captain,” Thrawn said softly. “Your assistance with the ysalamiri has left us in your debt. How better for us to repay you?”
“How better, indeed?” Karrde murmured. The ramp lifted into place, and with the hum of repulsorlifts, the shuttle rose into the air. The cards were dealt, and there was nothing he could do now to alter them. He could only hope that Mara somehow had things under control.
With anyone else, he wouldn’t have bet on it. With Mara … there was a chance.
“And now,” Thrawn said, “I believe you were going to show me around?”
“Yes.” Karrde nodded. “If you’ll come this way, please?”
“Looks like the stormtroopers are leaving,” Han said quietly, pressing the macrobinoculars2 a little harder against his forehead. “Some of them, anyway. Filing back into one of the shuttles.”
“Let me see,” Lando muttered from the other side of the tree.
Keeping his movements slow and careful, Han handed the macrobinoculars over. There was no telling what kind of equipment they had on those shuttles and TIE fighters, and he didn’t especially trust all this talk about how good the trees were at sensor shielding.
“Yes, it seems to be just the one shuttle that’s going,” Lando agreed.
Han half turned, the serrated, grasslike plants they were lying on top of digging into his shirt with the movement. “You get Imperial visitors here often?” he demanded.
“Not here,” Ghent shook his head nervously, his teeth almost chattering with tension. “They’ve been to the forest once or twice to pick up some ysalamiri, but they’ve never come to the base. At least, not while I was here.”
“Ysalamiri?” Lando frowned. “What are those?”
“Little furry snakes with legs,” Ghent said. “I don’t know what they’re good for. Look, couldn’t we get back to the ship now? Karrde told me I was supposed to keep you there, where you’d be safe.”
Han ignored him. “What do you think?” he asked Lando.
The other shrugged. “Got to have something to do with that Skipray that went burning out of here just as Karrde was herding us out.”
“There was some kind of prisoner,” Ghent offered. “Karrde and Jade had him stashed away—maybe he got out. Now, can we please get back to—”
“A prisoner?” Lando repeated, frowning back at the kid. “When did Karrde start dealing with prisoners?”
“Maybe when he started dealing with kidnappers,” Han growled before Ghent could answer.
“We don’t deal with kidnappers,” Ghent protested.
“Well, you’re dealing with one now,” Han told him, nodding toward the group of Imperials. “That little gray guy in there?—that’s one of the aliens who tried to kidnap Leia and me.”
“What?” Lando peered through the macrobinoculars again. “Are you sure?”
“It’s one of the species, anyway. We didn’t stop at the time to get names.” Han looked back at Ghent. “This prisoner—who was he?”
“I don’t know,” Ghent shook his head. “They brought him back on the Wild Karrde a few days ago and put him in the short-term barracks. I think they’d just moved him over to one of the storage sheds when we got the word that the Imperials were coming down for a visit.” “What did he look like?”
“I don’t know!” Ghent hissed, what little was left of his composure going fast. Skulking around forests and spying on armed stormtroopers was clearly not the sort of thing an expert slicer was supposed to have to put up with. “None of us was supposed to go near him or ask any questions about him.”
Lando caught Han’s eye. “Could be someone they don’t want the Imperials to get hold of. A defector, maybe, trying to get to the New Republic?”
Han felt his lip twist. “I’m more worried right now about them having moved him out of the barracks. That could mean the stormtroopers are planning to move in for a while.”
“Karrde didn’t say anything about that,” Ghent objected.
“Karrde may not know it yet,” Lando said dryly. “Trust me—I was on the short end of a stormtrooper bargain once.” He handed the macrobinoculars back to Han. “Looks like they’re going inside.”
They were, indeed. Han watched as the procession set off: Karrde and the blue-skinned Imperial officer in front, their respective entourages following, the twin columns of stormtroopers flanking the whole parade. “Any idea who that guy with the red eyes is?” he asked Ghent.
“I think he’s a Grand Admiral or something,” the other said. “Took over Imperial operations a while back. I don’t know his name.”
Han looked at Lando, found the other sending the same look right back at him. “A Grand Admiral?” Lando repeated carefully.
“Yeah. Look, they’re going—there’s nothing else to see. Can we please—?”
“Let’s get back to the Falcon,” Han muttered, stowing the macrobinoculars in their belt pouch and starting a backward elbows-and-knees crawl from their covering tree. A Grand Admiral. No wonder the New Republic had been getting the sky cut out from under them lately.
“I don’t suppose you have any records on Imperial Grand Admirals back on the Falcon,” Lando murmured, backing up alongside him.
“No,” Han told him. “But they’ve got ’em on Coruscant.”
“Great,” Lando said, the words almost lost in the hissing of the sharp-bladed grass as they elbowed their way through it. “Let’s hope we live long enough to get this tidbit back there.”
“We will,” Han assured him grimly. “We’ll stick around long enough to find out what kind of game Karrde’s playing, but then we’re gone. Even if we have to blow out of here with that camo net still hanging off the ship.”
The strangest thing about waking up this time, Luke decided dimly, was that he didn’t actually hurt anywhere.
And he should have. From what he remembered of those last few seconds—and from the view of splintered trees outside the fighter’s twisted canopy—he would have counted himself lucky even to be alive, let alone undamaged. Clearly, the restraints and crash balloons had been augmented by something more sophisticated—an emergency acceleration compensator, perhaps.