"I won't hold my breath," Karrde said. "We'll do this on account, then. We can set the price later."

"You're all heart."

"I know," Karrde said. "Who shall I report to, you or Luke?"

"Better make it me," Han said. "Luke may be out of touch; he's gone off on a little pirate hunt of his own."

"Really," Karrde said, frowning. "Who's he going after, if I may ask?"

"The Cavrilhu gang. He got the location of one of their bolt-holes from New Republic Intelligence-it's an asteroid cl.u.s.ter in the Kauron system-and he decided to sneak in and take a look around."

"I see," Karrde said. "Too late to call him back, I suppose?"

"Probably," Han said. "Don't worry, Luke can take care of himself."

"That wasn't the part I was worried about," Karrde said. "I was thinking more along the lines that his sudden appearance might chase them underground where we can't get at them at all."

"Well, if they scare that easily, they can't be much of a threat, can they?" Han suggested.

"I suppose that's one way of looking at it." Karrde paused, and a shadow seemed to pa.s.s over his face. "Speaking of Luke, how is he doing these days?"

Han studied the smuggler, trying to decipher his suddenly changed expression. "All right, I guess," he said cautiously. "Why?"

"A feeling," Karrde said. "Mara's been oddly restive lately, and seemed a bit touchy for a while after we ran into Leia on Wayland. I thought it might have something to do with him."

"Funny you should bring that up," Han said, scratching his chin thoughtfully. "I got that same feeling about Luke the last time I mentioned Mara to him. Coincidence?"

"Perhaps," Karrde said. "On the other hand, they're both rather strong in the Force. Maybe there's something going on there that they're both sensing."

"Could be," Han said slowly. Though that wouldn't explain the other stuff Luke seemed to have been going through at Iphigin. Would it? "These clones, maybe?"

Karrde shrugged. "I'll try to talk to her about it. Maybe find a way to get the two of them together."

"Yeah, it's been a while since they've talked," Han agreed. "I'll try to work on Luke at this end when he gets back."

"Good," Karrde said. "In the meantime, I'd better get on this pirate matter. Tell Leia good-bye for me, if you would, and tell her I'll be in touch."

"Sure," Han said. "Happy hunting."

Karrde smiled, and the display went blank.

Han leaned back in his chair, gazing darkly at nothing in particular. Caamas. It was, as he'd said to Karrde, all that the New Republic needed right now.

Because it wasn't just Caamas, though Caamas by itself was certainly bad enough. The bigger problem was that dragging Caamas back into the light again was going to dredge up memories of a thousand other atrocities that had been inflicted by one group or another over the years. Old grudges, old feuds, old conflicts&mdashthe galaxy was riddled with them. It was what had made it possible for people like Karrde-and him and Chewie, for that matter-to make a good living at smuggling. There were so many sides of s o many conflicts for smugglers to sell stuff to.

For the last couple of decades the need for a common resistance to the Empire had kept most of those resentments buried under the surface. But not anymore. The Imperial threat was so small now as to be laughable. If this Caamas thing got all those old problems boiling to the surface again . . .

He started as the door to his left hissed open. "Hi," Leia said softly as she came into the room.

"Oh. Hi," Han said, scrambling to his feet and throwing a belated look at the intercom display. Engrossed first with Karrde and then with his own thoughts, he hadn't even noticed Leia's guests departing. "Sorry-I got distracted."

"That's all right," Leia said, stepping into his arms for a quick hug.

Or not so quick. She remained there, pressing close to him, holding him tightly. "I just talked to Karrde," Han said, her hair tickling his lips. "He told me what you found out about Caamas."

"We're in trouble, Han," Leia said, her voice m.u.f.fled by his shirt. "They don't realize it yet, most of them. But this could be the biggest threat the New Republic has ever faced.

It could literally tear us apart."

"It'll be okay," Han soothed her, feeling just a tiny bit smug despite the seriousness of the moment. Most of the Senators in there hadn't spotted the danger of the Caamas thing, but he had. "We got through that Almania rebellion okay, didn't we?"

"It isn't the same," Leia said. "Kueller was a troubled man lashing out around him, and the New Republic was trying to stop him without looking to everyone like we were becoming a new version of the Empire. What Caamas is going to do is polarize good, honest people, all of whom genuinely want justice but differ violently as to what that justice should consist of."

"It'll still be okay," Han insisted, taking her by her upper arms and pushing her far enough away to peer sternly into her eyes. "Let's not give up before we even get started, okay?"

He stopped, a sudden horrible suspicion digging into him. "Unless," he added slowly, "it's already over. Do you know something I don't?"

"I don't know," Leia said, her eyes slipping away from his gaze. "I'm sensing something about the coming days. A-I don't know-a crisis point, I suppose, where something vitally important could go either of two ways."

"About Caamas?" Han asked.

"I don't know," Leia sighed. "I've tried meditating, but so far I haven't been able to get anything more. All I know is that it started when I met Karrde on Wayland and we read the Caamas datacard."

"Mm," Han said, wishing now that he'd tried to talk Luke out of his private pirate hunt.

He might have been able to help Leia focus this feeling of hers. "Well, don't worry, you'll get it. A little quiet time-a little husbandly affection-and it'll pop right out at you."

Leia smiled at him, some of the tension leaving her face as she did so. "Is that what you want right now? A little wifely affection?"

"First thing I want is to get you out of here," Han told her, taking her arm and starting her toward the door. "You need some peace and quiet, and once the kids get back from their cla.s.ses, there'll be precious little of either. Let's grab it while we can."

"Sounds good to me," Leia sighed. "I don't imagine they're doing anything out there right now except arguing about justice and revenge. They can do that without my help."

"Sure," Han said. "Nothing important's going to happen in the galaxy for the next hour."

"You sure?"

Han squeezed her arm rea.s.suringly. "I absolutely guarantee it."

There was a flicker from the bridge lights, and through the viewports the mottled sky of hypers.p.a.ce faded away.

But not into the usual pattern of starlines. This time when the mottled sky vanished, it vanished into total blackness.

And into total blindness.

For a long moment Captain Nalgol gazed out the Tyrannic's viewport at the emptiness, fighting against the queasy feeling of vulnerability. True, jumping his Imperial Star Destroyer while cloaked had brought them into the Bothawui system completely blind and deaf, which was a potentially disastrous position for a combat ship to be in. But in this case, of course, the cloaking shield also worked the other way, concealing them from their enemies. Still, all other things being equal, it wasn't a trade-off he would have voluntarily chosen to make.

"Report from the hangar bay," the fighter control officer called. "Scout ships are away."

"Acknowledged," Nalgol said, scanning as much of the blackness out there as he could see without moving his head-it wouldn't look good for the bridge crew to see him looking back and forth at nothing. He caught a glimpse of one of the drive flares coming out from beneath the hull; and then the scout crossed the cloaking shield boundary and vanished.

He took a deep breath, wondering yet again what in the Empire he and the others were doing here. Sitting there in Moff Disra's office with Trazzen and Argona and Dorja, it had all sounded reasonable enough. Out here in the wilds of the Bothawui system, millions of kilometers from anywhere, it didn't seem nearly as clever anymore.

On the other hand, how many of Grand Admiral Thrawn's schemes had ever looked even vaguely reasonable until they were sprung on the enemy?

Nalgol snorted under his breath. He'd never served directly beneath Thrawn, or any of the Emperor's other Grand Admirals for that matter, so he'd never been able to form a personal opinion of their skills. Still, even viewed from the edges of Thrawn's war machine where the Tyrannic's duty had taken it most of that time, Nalgol had to admit the Empire had been doing pretty well while the Grand Admiral was in command. Before he'd been murdered by that Noghri traitor Rukh.

Or had apparently been murdered. That had been a nifty little sleight of hand. How had he pulled it off, anyway?

More to the point, why had he been lying low all these years, letting incompetent megalomaniacal fools like Admiral Daala bleed the Empire of resources without gaining anything to show for it?

And why, now that be was back, had he linked up with Moff Disra, of all people?

Nalgol grimaced to himself. He'd never liked Disra. Had never really trusted the man, for one thing-he'd always struck Nalgol as the type who would fight viciously to keep his share of the sc.r.a.ps of the Empire rather than watch it grow to someone else's advantage.

If Thrawn had thrown in with him, maybe he wasn't as smart as legend had it.

Of course, Dorja had vouched firmly for the Grand Admiral, both for his character and his military genius. But then, Argona just as firmly vouched for the competence of Disra himself. So what did any of them know?

But at least it was Thrawn back there. The genetic a.n.a.lysis he'd done had confirmed that beyond the whisper of a doubt. It was Thrawn, and everyone said he was a genius. He would just have to hope they were right.

A movement to the left caught his attention, and be turned to see one of the scout ships cut across the edge of the cloaking shield, changing course to stay inside it. "Well?"

Nalgol demanded.

"We're nearly on top of it, sir," the comm officer reported. "A small course change and we'll be there."

"Feed the course to the helm," Nalgol ordered, though if that hadn't already been done he was going to be angry. "Helm, get us moving. Comm, what about the Obliterator and Ironhand?"

"Our scouts have made contact with theirs, sir," the fighter control officer said.

"They're coordinating our courses to make sure we don't b.u.mp into each other."

"They had better," Nalgol warned icily. Skulking around out here blind and deaf was bad enough; it would be the height of professional humiliation if the three Star Destroyers managed to fumble their sightless way into collisions with each other. All the more so if the cloaking shields went down and the spectacle was laid bare right out in the open for all of Bothawui system to see.

But at the moment, of course, they couldn't see. That was the whole point of this exercise. As far as the Bothans' homeworld defense apparatus was concerned, there was nothing out here except the exhausts of a handful of small ships moving apparently aimlessly around.

Small ships . . . and one not-quite-so-small comet.

"We're under way, Captain," the helm announced. "ETA, five minutes."

Nalgol nodded. "Acknowledged."

Slowly, the minutes ticked by. Nalgol watched the blackness outside the viewport, occasionally glimpsing a drive flare as one or another of his scouts ducked back inside the shroud of the cloaking shield to check on the Tyrannic's progress and then ducked back out again. The timer ran down to zero-he sensed the huge ship slowing&mdash And then, abruptly, there it was, off to starboard: a slice of dirty rock and ice poking through the edge of the shield, sliding rapidly sternward. "There!" he snapped. "We're pa.s.sing it!"

"We're on it, sir," the helm called back. Sure enough, even as Nalgol watched, the aft motion of the comet's edge. came to a stop and then slowly backed up until it was hanging off the starboard side just ahead of the command superstructure. "We're stabilized now, Captain."

"Tether lines?"

"The shuttles are on their way with them now, sir," another officer reported. "They'll be secured in ten minutes."

"Good." The tether lines weren't nearly strong enough to physically hold the Star Destroyer and comet together, of course. Their purpose was merely to give the helm the necessary feedback to make sure the orbiting bodies stayed in the same relative positions as the comet continued its leisurely drift inward toward Bothawui. "Any word from the other two Star Destroyers?"

"The Ironhand has successfully tethered," the comm officer reported. "The Obliterator's in position; they should be tethered about the time we are."

Nalgol nodded, taking a deep breath and. letting it out quietly. So they'd made it. They were here, presumably un.o.bserved by the Bothans.

And now there was nothing to do but wait. And hope that Grand Admiral Thrawn was really the genius everyone claimed he was.

CHAPTER 8.

"Yeah, all right," the greasy-looking man on the comm display said, his eyes narrowed with suspicion. "Let's try it again."

"I've already told you twice," Luke said, putting some grouchy weariness into his voice and expression. "It's not going to change just because you think it ought to."

"So tell me again. Your name is&mdash?"

"Mensio," Luke said tiredly, glancing out the viewport at the hundreds of asteroids drifting past and wondering which one this particular sentry was hiding on. "I work for Wesselman, and I've got a shipment to deliver to you. Which part of that don't you understand?"

"Let's start with the part about you and Wesselman," the man growled. "He never mentioned anyone named Mens...o...b..fore."

"I'll have him send you a complete crew list when I get back," Luke said sarcastically.

"Watch your mouth," the other snapped. For a long moment he stared hard at Luke's face.

Luke gazed back, trying to look as bored and unconcerned as possible. All things considered, the face of Luke Skywalker had to be one of the most recognizable in the galaxy. But with darkened hair and skin, an artificial beard, a Gorezh-style slant added to the outer corners of his eyes, and a pair of scars slicing across one cheek, he should be able to pa.s.s completely unrecognized.

"Another thing is that Pinchers usually makes this run," the sentry said at last. "How come he's not here?"

"He came down with something and can't fly," Luke said. Which was true, more or less.

Pincers should still be snoozing in peaceful oblivion back on Wistril under the influence of the Jedi healing trance Luke had put on him.

His a.s.sociates were not going to be happy with the smuggler for letting Luke get the drop on him that way. On the other hand, when he came out of the trance he ought to be healthier than he'd been in years.

"Look, I haven't got all week to sit out here dishing the dust with you," Luke continued.

"You going to let me in, or do I take it back to Wesselman and let him charge you a double delivery fee? I don't care-I get paid either way."

The sentry growled something unintelligible. "All right, keep your blaster tucked. What have you got?"