There was a short pause. The scouts conferring privately between themselves, Luke decided, or else calling back to base for instructions. The fact that the prisoner was a woman did indeed seem to have thrown them. Whether it would be enough, of course, was another question entirely.
“You’ll come with us,” the scout ordered. “Our officer wants to talk to you. You—woman—put the droid down and move away from it.”
“Fine with me,” Luke said as the second scout maneuvered his speeder bike to a position in front of Artoo’s travois. “But I want both of you to witness, for the record, that I had her fair and square before you showed up. Karrde weasels his way out of these capture fees too often; he’s not going to weasel out of this one.”
“You’re a bounty hunter?” the scout asked, a clear note of disdain in his voice.
“That’s right,” Luke said, putting some professional dignity in his voice as a counter to the scout’s contempt. Not that he minded their distaste. He was, in fact, counting on it. The more firmly the Imperials had the wrong image of him set in their minds, the longer it would take them to see through the deception.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, though, he couldn’t help but wonder if this was the sort of trick a Jedi should use.
The second scout had dismounted and fastened the handles of Artoo’s travois to the rear of his speeder bike. Remounting, he headed off at about the speed of a brisk walk. “You two follow him,” the first scout ordered, swinging around to take up the rear. “Drop your blaster on the ground first, Jade.”
Luke complied, and they set off. The first scout put down just long enough to scoop up the abandoned blaster and then followed.
It took another hour to reach the edge of the forest. The two speeder bikes stayed with them the whole time; but as they traveled, the party began to grow. More speeder bikes swept in from both sides, falling into close formation on either side of Luke and Mara or else joining up with the guards to both front and rear. As they neared the forest’s edge, fully armored stormtroopers began to appear, too, moving in with blaster rifles held ready across their chests to take up positions around the two prisoners. As they did so, the scouts began drifting away, ranging farther out to form a kind of moving screen.
By the time they finally stepped out from under the forest canopy, their escort numbered no fewer than ten biker scouts and twenty stormtroopers. It was an impressive display of military power … and more even than the fact of the search itself, it drove home to Luke the seriousness with which the mysterious man in charge of the Empire was treating this incident. Even at the height of their power, the Imperials hadn’t spent stormtroopers lightly.
Three more people were waiting for them in the fifty-meter strip of open land between the forest and the nearest structures of Hyllyard City: two more stormtroopers and a hard-faced man wearing a major’s insignia on his dusty brown Imperial uniform. “About time,” the latter muttered under his breath as Mara and Luke were nudged in his direction. “Who are they?”
“The male says his name is Jade,” one of the stormtroopers in front reported in that slightly filtered voice they all seemed to have. “Bounty hunter; works for Karrde. He claims the female is his prisoner.”
“Was his prisoner,” the major corrected, looking at Mara. “What’s your name, thief?”
“Senni Kiffu,” Mara said, her voice surly. “And I’m not a thief. Talon Karrde owes me—he owes me big. I didn’t take any more than I had coming.”
The major looked at Luke, and Luke shrugged. “Karrde’s other dealings aren’t any of my business. He said bring her back. I brought her back.”1
“And her theft, too, I see.” He looked at Artoo, still tied to his travois and dragging behind the speeder bike. “Get that droid off your bike,” he ordered the scout. “The ground’s flat enough here, and I want you on perimeter. Put it with the prisoners. Cuff them, too—they’re hardly likely to fall over tree roots out here.”
“Wait a minute,” Luke objected as one of the stormtroopers stepped toward him. “Me, too?”
The major raised his eyebrows slightly. “You got a problem with that, bounty hunter?” he asked, his voice challenging.
“Yeah, I got a problem with it,” Luke shot back. “She’s the prisoner here, not me.”
“For the moment you’re both prisoners,” the other countered. “So shut up.” He frowned at Luke’s face. “What in the Empire happened to you, anyway?”
So they weren’t going to be able to pass the puffiness off as Luke’s natural features. “Ran into some kind of bush while I was chasing her,” he growled as the stormtrooper roughly cuffed his hands in front of him. “It itched like blazes for a while.”
The major smiled thinly. “How very inconvenient for you,” he said dryly. “How fortunate that we have a fully qualified medic back at HQ. He should be able to bring that swelling down in no time.” He held Luke’s gaze a moment longer, then shifted his attention to the stormtrooper leader. “You disarmed him, of course.”
The stormtrooper gestured, and the first of the biker scouts swooped close to hand Mara’s blaster to the major. “Interesting weapon,” the major murmured, turning it over in his hands before sliding it into his belt. From overhead came a soft hum, and Luke looked up to see a repulsorlift craft settle into place overhead. A Chariot assault vehicle, just as Mara had predicted. “Ah,” the major said, glancing up at it. “All right, Commander. Let’s go.”
In many ways, Hyllyard City reminded Luke of Mos Eisley: small houses and commercial buildings crammed fairly tightly together, with relatively narrow streets running between them. The troop headed around the perimeter, clearly aiming for one of the wider avenues that seemed to radiate, spokelike, from the center of town. Looking into the city as they passed by the outer buildings, Luke was able to catch occasional glimpses of what seemed to be an open area a few blocks away. The town square, possibly, or else a spacecraft landing area.
The vanguard had just reached the target street when, in perfect synchronization, the stormtroopers abruptly changed formation. Those in the inner circle pulled in closer to Luke and Mara while those in the outer circle moved farther away, the whole crowd coming to a halt and gesturing to their prisoners to do the same. A moment later, the reason for the sudden maneuver came around the corner: four scruffy-looking men walking briskly toward them with a fifth man in the center of their square, his hands chained behind him.
They had barely emerged from the street when they were intercepted by a group of four stormtroopers. A short and inaudible conversation ensued, which concluded with the strangers handing their blasters over to the stormtroopers with obvious reluctance. Escorted now by the Imperials, they continued on toward the main group … and as they walked, Luke finally got a clear look at the prisoner.
It was Han Solo.
The stormtroopers opened their ranks slightly to let the newcomers through. “What do you want?” the major demanded as they stopped in front of him.
“Name’s Chin,” one of them said. “We caught this ratch snooping around the forest—maybe looking for your prisoners there. Figured you might want to have a talk with him, hee?”
“Uncommonly generous of you,” the major said sardonically, giving Han a quick, measuring glance. “You come to this conclusion all by yourself?”
Chin drew himself up. “Just because I don’t live in a big flashy city doesn’t mean I’m stupid,” he said stiffly. “What hai—you think we don’t know what it means when Imperial stormtroopers2 start setting up a temporary garrison?”
The major gave him a long, cool look. “You’d best just hope that the garrison is temporary.” He glanced at the stormtrooper beside him, jerked his head toward Han. “Check him for weapons.”