Karrde pursed his lips. “We don’t really have a choice anymore, Aves. They’re our guests.”
Aves umphed. “The Grand Admiral isn’t going to be happy.”
Karrde shrugged. “They’re our guests,” he repeated.
In the darkness, he sensed Aves shrug back. He understood, Aves did—understood the requirements and duties of a host. Unlike Mara, who’d wanted him to send the Millennium Falcon away.
He wished now that he’d listened to her. Wished it very much indeed.
“I’ll want you to organize a search party for tomorrow morning,” he told Aves. “Probably futile, all things considered, but it has to be tried.”
“Right. Do we defer to the Imperials in that regard?”
Karrde grimaced to himself. “I doubt if they’ll be doing any more searching. That ship that sneaked out from the Star Destroyer an hour ago looked suspiciously like a stripped-down assault shuttle. My guess is that they’ll set up in Hyllyard City and wait for Mara and Skywalker to come to them.”
“Sounds reasonable,” Aves said. “What if we don’t get to them first?”
“We’ll just have to take them away from the stormtroopers, I suppose. Think you can put a team together for the purpose?”
Aves snorted gently. “Easier done than said. I’ve sat in on a couple of conversations since you made the announcement, and I can tell you that feelings in camp are running pretty strong. Hero of the Rebellion and all that aside, a bunch of our people figure they owe Skywalker big for getting them out of permanent hock to Jabba the Hutt.”2
“I know,” Karrde said grimly. “And all that warm enthusiasm could be a problem. Because if we can’t get Skywalker free from the Imperials … well, we can’t let them have him alive.”
There was a long silence from the shadow beside him. “I see,” Aves said at last, very quietly. “It probably won’t make any difference, you know, in what Thrawn suspects.”
“Suspicion is better than unequivocal proof,” Karrde reminded him. “And if we can’t intercept them while they’re still in the forest, it may be the best we’re going to get.”
Aves shook his head. “I don’t like it.”
“Neither do I. But we need to be prepared for every eventuality.”
“Understood.” For another moment Aves sat there in silence. Then, with a grunted sigh, he stood up. “I’d better get back, see if Ghent’s made any progress on Mara’s message.”
“And after that you’d better hit the sack,” Karrde told him. “Tomorrow’s going to be a busy day.”
“Right. Good night.”
Aves left, and once again the soft mixture of forest sounds filled the night air. Sounds that meant a great deal to the creatures who made them but nothing at all to him.
Meaningless sounds …
He shook his head tiredly. What had Mara been trying to do with that opaque message of hers? Was it something simple—something that he or someone else here ought to be able to decrypt with ease?
Or had the lady who always played the sabacc cards close to her chest finally outsmarted herself?
In the distance, a vornskr emitted its distinctive cackle/purr. Beside his chair, Drang lifted his head. “Friend of yours?” Karrde inquired mildly, listening as another vornskr echoed the first’s cry. Sturm and Drang had been wild like that once, before they’d been domesticated.
Just like Mara had been, when he’d first taken her in. He wondered if she would ever be similarly tamed.
Wondered if she would solve this whole problem by killing Skywalker first.
The cackle/purr came again, closer this time. “Come on, Drang,” he told the vornskr, getting to his feet. “Time to go inside.”
He paused at the door to take one last look at the forest, a shiver of melancholy and something that felt disturbingly like fear running through him. No, the Grand Admiral wasn’t going to be happy about this. Wasn’t going to be happy at all.
And one way or the other, Karrde knew that his life here was at an end.
C H A P T E R 25
The room was quiet and dark, the faint nighttime sounds of Rwookrrorro floating in through the mesh window with the cool night breeze. Staring at the curtains, Leia gripped her blaster with a sweaty hand, and wondered what had awakened her.1
She lay there for several minutes, heart thudding in her chest. But there was nothing. No sounds, no movements, no threats that her limited Jedi senses could detect. Nothing but a creepy feeling in the back of her mind that she was no longer safe here.
She took a deep breath, let it out silently as she continued to listen. It wasn’t any fault of her hosts, or at least nothing she could blame them for. The city’s leaders had been on incredibly tight alert the first couple of days, providing her with over a dozen Wookiee bodyguards while other volunteers combed through the city like hairy Imperial Walkers, searching for the alien she’d spotted that first day here. The whole thing had been carried out with a speed, efficiency, and thoroughness that Leia had seldom seen even in the top ranks of the Rebel Alliance.
But as the days passed without anyone finding a trace of the alien, the alert had gradually softened. By the time the negative reports also began coming in from other Kashyyyk cities, the number of searchers had dwindled to a handful and the dozen bodyguards had been reduced to three.
And now even those three were gone, returning to their regular jobs and lives. Leaving her with just Chewbacca, Ralrra, and Salporin to watch over her.
It was a classic strategy. Lying alone in the dark, with the advantage of hindsight, she could see that. Sentient beings, human and Wookiee alike, simply could not maintain a continual state of vigilance when there was no visible enemy to be vigilant toward. It was a tendency they’d had to fight hard against in the Alliance.
As they’d also had to fight against the too-often lethal inertia that seduced a person into staying too long in one place.
She winced, memories of the near disaster on the ice world of Hoth coming back to haunt her. She and Chewbacca should have left Rwookrrorro days ago, she knew. Probably should have left Kashyyyk entirely, for that matter. The place had become too comfortable, too familiar—her mind no longer really saw everything that went on around her, but merely saw some of it and filled in the rest from memory. It was the kind of psychological weakness that a clever enemy could easily exploit, simply by finding a way to fit himself into her normal routine.
It was time for that routine to be broken.
She peered over at the bedside chrono, did a quick calculation. About an hour until dawn. There was a repulsorlift sled parked just outside; if she and Chewbacca got going now, they should be able to get the Lady Luck into space a little after sunrise. Sitting halfway up, she slid across the bed, set her blaster down on the nightstand, and picked up her comlink.
And in the darkness, a sinewy hand reached out to seize her wrist.
There was no time to think; but for that first half second there was no need. Even as her mind froze, stunned by the unexpectedness of the attack, old self-defense reflexes were already swinging into action. Falling away from her assailant, using the pull on her arm for balance, she swiveled on her hip, tucked her right leg under her, and kicked out with all her strength.
The edge of her foot thudded against something unyielding—body armor of some kind. Reaching back over her shoulder with her free hand, she grabbed the corner of her pillow and hurled it at the shadowy outline of his head.
Under the pillow was her lightsaber.
It was doubtful that he ever saw the blow coming. He was still in the process of scooping the pillow away from his face when the ignited lightsaber lit up the room. She got just a glimpse of huge black eyes and protruding jaw before the blazing blade sliced him almost in half.