Heir to the Empire

C H A P T E R 21

Mara stepped up to the comm room door, wondering uneasily what this sudden summons was all about. Karrde hadn’t said, but there had been something in his voice that had set her old survival instincts tingling. Checking the tiny blaster hanging upside down in its sleeve sheath, she slapped at the door release.

She’d expected to find at least two people already in the room: Karrde plus the comm room duty man plus whoever else had been called in on this. To her mild surprise, Karrde was alone. “Come in, Mara,” he invited, looking up from his datapad. “Close the door behind you.”

She did so. “Trouble?” she asked.

“A minor problem only,” he assured her. “A bit of an awkward one, though. Fynn Torve just called to say he was on his way in … and he has guests. Former New Republic generals Lando Calrissian and Han Solo.”

Mara felt her stomach tighten. “What do they want?”

Karrde shrugged fractionally. “Apparently, just to talk to me.”

For a second, Mara’s thoughts flicked to Skywalker, still locked away in his barracks room across the compound. But, no—there was no way anyone in the New Republic could possibly know he was here. Most of Karrde’s own people didn’t know it, including the majority of those right here on Myrkr. “Did they bring their own ship?” she asked.

“Theirs is the only one coming in, actually,” Karrde nodded. “Torve’s riding with them.”

Mara’s eyes flicked to the comm equipment behind him. “A hostage?”

Karrde shook his head. “I don’t think so. He gave all the proper all-clear passwords. The Etherway’s still on Abregado—been impounded by the local authorities or some such. Apparently, Calrissian and Solo helped Torve avoid a similar fate.”

“Then thank them, have them put Torve down, and tell them to get off the planet,” she said. “You didn’t invite them here.”

“True,” Karrde agreed, watching her closely. “On the other hand, Torve seems to think he’s under a certain obligation to them.”

“Then let him pay it back on his own time.”

The skin around Karrde’s eyes seemed to harden. “Torve is one of my associates,” he said, his voice cold. “His debts are the organization’s. You should know that by now.”

Mara’s throat tightened as a sudden, horrible thought occurred to her. “You’re not going to give Skywalker to them, are you?” she demanded.

“Alive, you mean?” Karrde countered.

For a long moment Mara just stared at him; at that small smile and those slightly heavy eyelids and the rest of that carefully constructed expression of complete disinterest in the matter. But it was all an act, and she knew it. He wanted to know why she hated Skywalker, all right—wanted it with as close to genuine passion as the man ever got.

And as far as she was concerned, he could go right on wanting it. “I don’t suppose it’s occurred to you,” she bit out, “that Solo and Calrissian might have engineered this whole thing, including the Etherway’s impoundment, as a way of finding this base.”

“It’s occurred to me, yes,” Karrde said. “I dismissed it as somewhat far fetched.”

“Of course,” Mara said sardonically. “The great and noble Han Solo would never do something so devious, would he? You never answered my question.”

“About Skywalker? I thought I’d made it clear, Mara, that he stays here until I know why Grand Admiral Thrawn is so interested in acquiring him. At the very least, we need to know what he’s worth, and to whom, before we can set a fair market price for him. I have some feelers out; with luck, we should know in a few more days.”

“And meanwhile, his allies will be here in a few more minutes.”

“Yes,” Karrde agreed, his lips puckering slightly. “Skywalker will have to be moved somewhere a bit more out of the way—we obviously can’t risk Solo and Calrissian stumbling over him. I want you to move him to the number four storage shed.”

“That’s where we’re keeping that droid of his,” Mara reminded him.

“The shed’s got two rooms; put him in the other one.” Karrde waved toward her waist. “And do remember to lose that before our guests arrive. I doubt they’d fail to recognize it.”

Mara glanced down at Skywalker’s lightsaber hanging from her belt. “Don’t worry. If it’s all the same to you, I’d just as soon not have much to do with them.”

“I wasn’t planning for you to,” Karrde assured her. “I’d like you here when I greet them, and possibly to join us for dinner, as well. Other than that, you’re excused from all social activities.”

“So they’re staying the day?”

“And possibly the night, as well.” He eyed her. “Requirements of a proper host aside, can you think of a better way for us to prove to the Republic, should the need arise, that Skywalker was never here?”

It made sense. But that didn’t mean she had to like it. “Are you warning the rest of the Wild Karrde’s crew to keep quiet?”

“I’m doing better than that,” Karrde said, nodding back toward the comm equipment. “I’ve sent everyone who knows about Skywalker off to get the Starry Ice prepped. Which reminds me—after you move Skywalker, I want you to run his X-wing farther back under the trees. No more than half a kilometer—I don’t want you to go through any more of the forest alone than you have to. Can you fly an X-wing?”

“I can fly anything.”

“Good,” he said, smiling slightly. “You’d better be off, then. The Millennium Falcon will be landing in less than twenty minutes.”

Mara took a deep breath. “All right,” she said. Turning, she left the room.

The compound was empty as she walked across it to the barracks building. By Karrde’s design, undoubtedly; he must have shifted people around to inside duties to give her a clear path for taking Skywalker to the storage shed. Reaching his room, she keyed off the lock and slid open the door.

He was standing by the window, dressed in that same black tunic, pants, and high boots that he’d worn that day at Jabba’s palace.

That day she’d stood silently by and watched … and let him destroy her life.

“Get your case and let’s go,” she growled, gesturing with the blaster. “It’s moving day.”

His eyes stayed on her as he stepped over to the bed. Not on the blaster in her hand, but on her face. “Karrde’s made a decision?” he asked calmly as he picked up the case.

For a long moment she was tempted to tell him that, no, this was on her own initiative, just to see if the implications would crack that maddening Jedi serenity. But even a Jedi would probably fight if he thought he was going to his death, and they were on a tight enough schedule as it was. “You’re moving to one of the storage sheds,” she told him. “We’ve got company coming, and we don’t have any formal wear your size. Come on, move.”

She walked him past the central building to the number four shed, a two-room structure tucked conveniently back out of the compound’s major traffic patterns. The room on the left, normally used for sensitive or dangerous equipment, was also the only one of the storage areas with a lock, undoubtedly the reason Karrde had chosen it to serve the role of impromptu prison. Keeping one eye on Skywalker, she keyed open the lock, wondering as she did so whether Karrde had had time to disable the inside mechanism. A quick look as the door slid open showed that he hadn’t.

Well, that could easily be corrected. “In here,” she ordered, flicking on the inside light and gesturing for him to enter.

He complied. “Looks cozy,” he said, glancing around the windowless room and the piled shipping boxes that took up perhaps half the floor space to the right. “Probably quiet, too.”

“Ideal for Jedi meditation,” she countered, stepping over to an open box marked Blasting Disks and taking a look inside. No problem; it was being used for spare coveralls at the moment. She gave the rest of the box markings a quick check, confirmed that there was nothing here he could possibly use to escape. “We’ll get a cot or something in for you later,” she said, moving back to the door. “Food, too.”

“I’m all right for now.”

“Ask me if I care.” The inner lock mechanism was behind a thin metal plate. Two shots from her blaster unsealed one end of the plate and curled it back; a third vaporized a selected group of wires. “Enjoy the quiet,” she said, and left.

The door closed behind her, and locked … and Luke was once again alone.

He looked around him. Piled boxes, no windows, a single locked door. “I’ve been in worse places,” he muttered under his breath. “At least there’s no Rancor here.”

For a moment he frowned at the odd thought, wondering why the Rancor pit at Jabba’s palace should suddenly have flashed to mind. But he gave it only a moment. The lack of proper preparation and facilities in his new prison strongly suggested that moving him here had been a spur-of-the-moment decision, possibly precipitated by the imminent arrival of whoever the visitors were Mara had mentioned.

And if so, there was a good possibility that somewhere in the mad scramble they might finally have made a mistake.

He went over to the door, easing the still-warm metal plate a little farther back and kneeling down to peer inside at the lock mechanism. Han had spent a few idle hours once trying to teach him the finer points of hot-wiring locks, and if Mara’s shot hadn’t damaged it too badly, there was a chance he might be able to persuade it to disengage.

It didn’t look promising. Whether by design or accident, Mara’s shot had taken out the wires to the inside control’s power supply, vaporizing them all the way back into the wall conduit, where there was no chance at all of getting hold of them.

But if he could find another power supply …

He got to his feet again, brushed off his knees, and headed over to the neatly piled boxes. Mara had glanced at their labels, but she’d actually looked inside only one of them. Perhaps a more complete search would turn up something useful.

The search, unfortunately, took even less time than his examination of the ruined lock. Most of the boxes were sealed beyond his capability to open without tools, and the handful that weren’t held such innocuous items as clothing or replacement equipment modules.

All right, then, he told himself, sitting down on the edge of one of the boxes and looking around for inspiration. I can’t use the door. There aren’t any windows. But there was another room in this shed—he’d seen the other door while Mara was opening this one. Perhaps there was some kind of half-height doorway or crawl space between them, hidden out of sight behind the stacked boxes.

It wasn’t likely, of course, that Mara would have missed anything that obvious. But he had time, and nothing else to occupy it. Getting up from his seat, he began unstacking the boxes and moving them away from the wall.

He’d barely begun when he found it. Not a doorway, but something almost as good: a multisocket power outlet, set into the wall just above the baseboard.

Karrde and Mara had made their mistake.¹

The metal doorplate, already stressed by the blaster fire Mara had used to peel it back, was relatively easy to bend. Luke kept at it, bending it back and forth, until a roughly triangular piece broke off in his hand. It was too soft to be of any use against the sealed equipment boxes, but it would probably be adequate for unscrewing the cover of a common power outlet.

He returned to the outlet and lay down in the narrow gap between wall and boxes. He was just trying to wedge his makeshift screwdriver against the first screw when he heard a quiet beep.

He froze, listening. The beep came again, followed by a series of equally soft warbles. Warbles that sounded very familiar … “Artoo?” he called softly. “Is that you?”

For a pair of heartbeats there was silence from the other room. Then, abruptly, the wall erupted with a minor explosion of electronic jabbering. Artoo, without a doubt. “Steady, Artoo,” Luke called back. “I’m going to try and get this power outlet open. There’s probably one on your side, too—can you get it open?”

There was a distinctly disgusted-sounding gurgle. “No, huh? Well, just hang on, then.”

The broken metal triangle wasn’t the easiest thing to work with, particularly in the cramped space available. Still, it took Luke only a couple of minutes to get the cover plate off and pull the wires out of his way. Hunching forward, he could see through the hole to the back of the outlet in Artoo’s room. “I don’t think I can get your outlet open from here,” he called to the droid. “Is your room locked?”

There was a negative beep, followed by an odd sort of whining, as if Artoo was spinning his wheels. “Restraining bolt?” Luke asked. The spinning/whine came again—“Or a restraint collar?”

An affirmative beep, with frustrated overtones. It figured, in retrospect: a restraining bolt would leave a mark, whereas a collar snugged around Artoo’s lower half would do nothing but let him wear out his wheels a little. “Never mind,” Luke reassured him. “If there’s enough wire in here to reach to the door, I should be able to unlock it. Then we can both get out of here.”

Carefully, mindful of the possibility of shock from the higher-current lines nearby, he found the low-voltage wire and started easing it gently toward him out of the conduit. There was more than he’d expected; he got nearly one and a half meters coiled on the floor by his head before it stopped coming.

More than he’d expected, but far less than he needed. The door was a good four meters away in a straight line, and he would need some slack to get it spliced into the lock mechanism. “It’s going to be a few more minutes,” he called to Artoo, trying to think. The low-power line had a meter and a half of slack to it, which implied the other lines probably did, as well. If he could cut that much length off two of them, he should have more than enough to reach the lock.

Which left only the problem of finding something to cut them with. And, of course, managing to not electrocute himself along the way.

“What I wouldn’t give to have my lightsaber back for a minute,” he muttered, examining the edge of his makeshift screwdriver. It wasn’t very sharp; but then, the superconducting wires weren’t very thick, either.

It was the work of a couple of minutes to pull the other wires as far out of the conduit as they would go. Standing up, he took off his tunic, wrapped one of the sleeves twice around the metal, and started sawing.

He was halfway through the first of the wires when his hand slipped off the insulating sleeve and for a second touched the bare metal. Reflexively he jerked back, banging his hand against the wall.

And then his brain caught up with him. “Uh-oh,” he murmured, staring at the half-cut wire.

There was an interrogative whistle from the other room. “I just touched one of the wires,” he told the droid, “and I didn’t get a shock.”

Artoo whistled. “Yeah,” Luke agreed. He tapped at the wire … touched it again … held his finger against it.

So Karrde and Mara hadn’t made a mistake, after all. They’d already cut the power to the outlet.

For a moment he knelt there, holding the wire, wondering what he was going to do now. He still had all this wire, but no power supply for it to connect with. Conversely, there were probably any number of small power sources in the room, attached to the stored replacement modules, but they were all packed away in boxes he couldn’t get into. Could he somehow use the wire to get into the boxes? Use it to slice through the outer sealant layer, perhaps?

He got a firm grip on the wire and pulled on it, trying to judge its tensile strength. His fingers slipped along the insulation; shifting his grip, he wrapped it firmly around his right hand—

And stopped, a sudden prickly feeling on the back of his neck. His right hand. His artificial right hand. His artificial, dual-power-supply right hand … “Artoo, you know anything about cybernetic limb replacements?” he called, levering the wrist access port open with his metal triangle.

There was a short pause, then a cautious and ambiguous-sounding warble. “It shouldn’t take too much,” he reassured the droid, peering at the maze of wiring and servos inside his hand. He’d forgotten how incredibly complex the whole thing was. “All I need to do is get one of the power supplies out. Think you can walk me through the procedure?”

The pause this time was shorter, and the reply more confident. “Good,” Luke said. “Let’s get to it.”