Luke nodded agreement. “Then we’d better get up there.”
“Unless you’d all rather come with us,” Sena offered. “There’s plenty of room on our ship, and it’s hidden away where they won’t find it.”
“Thanks, but no,” Han said. He wasn’t about to go off with these people until he knew a lot more about them. Whose side they were on, for starters. “Lando won’t want to leave his ship.”
“And I need to get my droid back,” Luke added.
Irenez slipped back into the room. “Everyone’s on their way down, and the ship’s being prepped,” she told Sena. “And I got through to the Commander.” She handed the tall woman a data pad.
Sena glanced at it, nodded, and turned back to Han. “There’s a service shaft near here that opens up into the west edge of the landing area,” she told him. “I doubt the Imperials know about it; it’s not on any of the standard city maps. Irenez will guide you up there and give you what help she can.”
“That’s really not necessary,” Han told her.
Sena held up the data pad. “The Commander has instructed me to give you whatever aid you require,” she said firmly. “I’d appreciate it if you’d allow me to carry out my orders.”
Han looked at Luke, raised his eyebrows. Luke shrugged slightly in return: if there was treachery in the offer, his Jedi senses weren’t picking it up. “Fine, she can tag along,” he said. “Let’s go.”
“Good luck,” Sena said, and disappeared out the door.
Irenez gestured to the door after her. “This way, gentlemen.”
The service shaft was a combination stairway and liftcar tube set into the outer city wall, its entrance almost invisible against the swirling pattern of that section of the mural. The liftcar itself was nowhere to be seen—probably, Han decided, still ferrying Sena’s group to wherever it was they’d stashed their ship. With Irenez in the lead, they started up the stairs.
It was only three levels up to the landing area. But three levels in a city with Ilic’s high-ceilinged layout translated into a lot of stairs. The first level ran to fifty-three steps; after that, Han stopped counting. By the time they slipped through another disguised door into the landing area and took cover behind a massive diagnostic analyzer, his legs were beginning to tremble with fatigue. Irenez, in contrast, wasn’t even breathing hard.
“Now what?” Luke asked, looking cautiously around the analyzer. He wasn’t breathing hard, either.
“Let’s find Lando,” Han said, pulling out his comlink and thumbing his call. “Lando?”
“Right here,” the other’s whispered voice came back instantly. “Where are you?”
“West end of the landing area, about twenty meters from Luke’s X-wing. How about you?”
“About ninety degrees away from you toward the south,” Lando answered. “I’m behind a stack of shipping boxes. There’s a stormtrooper standing guard about five meters away, so I’m sort of stuck here.”
“What sort of trouble are we looking at?”
“It looks like a full-fledged task force,” Lando said grimly. “I saw three drop ships come in, and I think there were one or two on the ground when I got here. If they were fully loaded, that translates to a hundred sixty to two hundred men. Most of them are regular army troops, but there are a few stormtroopers in the crowd, too. There aren’t too many of either still up here—most of them headed on down the ramps a few minutes ago.”
“Probably gone to search the city for us,” Luke murmured.
“Yeah.” Han eased up to look over the analyzer. The top of Luke’s X-wing was just visible over the nose of a W-23 space barge. “Looks like Artoo’s still in Luke’s ship.”
“Yeah, but I saw them doing something over that way,” Lando warned. “They may have put a restraining bolt on him.”
“We can handle that.” Han scanned as much of the area around them as he could see. “I think we can make it to the X-wing without being spotted. You told me on the trip here that you had a beckon call for the Lady Luck, right?”
“Right, but it’s not going to do me any good,” Lando said. “With all these boxes around, there’s no place I can set it down without opening myself to fire.”
“That’s okay,” Han told him, feeling a tight smile twist at his lip. Luke might have the Force, and Irenez might be able to climb stairs without getting winded; but he would bet heavily that he could outdo both of them in sheer chicanery. “You just get it moving toward you when I give the word.”
He switched off the comlink. “We’re going over to the X-wing,” he told Luke and Irenez, adjusting his grip on his blaster. “You ready?”
He got two acknowledgments, and with a last look around the area headed as quickly as silence permitted across the floor. He reached the space barge lying across their path without incident, paused there to let the others catch up—
“Shh!” Luke hissed.
Han froze, pressing himself against the barge’s corroded hull. Not four meters away a stormtrooper standing guard was starting to turn in their direction.
Clenching his teeth, Han raised his blaster. But even as he did so, his peripheral vision caught Luke’s hand making some sort of gesture; and suddenly the Imperial spun around in the opposite direction, pointing his blaster rifle toward a patch of empty floor. “He thinks he heard a noise,” Luke whispered. “Let’s go.”
Han nodded, and sidled around to the other side of the barge. A few seconds later they were crouched beside the X-wing’s landing skids. “Artoo?” Han stage-whispered upward. “Come on, short stuff, wake up.”
There was a soft and rather indignant beep from the top of the X-wing. Which meant the Imperials’ restraining bolt hadn’t shut the droid down entirely, just blocked out his control of the X-wing’s systems. Good. “Okay,” he called to the droid. “Get your comm sensor warmed up and get ready to record.”
Another beep. “Now what?” Irenez asked.
“Now we get cute,” Han told her, pulling out his comlink. “Lando? You ready?”
“As ready as I’m going to be,” the other came back.
“Okay. When I give the signal, turn on your beckon call and get the Lady Luck moving. When I tell you again, shut it off. Got that?”
“Got it. I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“Trust me.” Han looked at Luke. “You got your part figured out?”
Luke nodded, holding up his lightsaber. “I’m ready.”
“Okay, Lando. Go.”
For a long moment nothing happened. Then, through the background noise of the landing area, came the distinctive whine of repulsorlifts being activated. Half standing up, Han was just in time to see the Lady Luck rise smoothly up from among the other docked ships.
From somewhere in the same general vicinity came a shout, followed by the multiple flash of blaster fire. Another three weapons opened up almost immediately, all four tracking the Lady Luck as it made a somewhat ponderous turn and began floating south toward Lando’s hiding place.
“You know it’ll never get there,” Irenez muttered in Han’s ear. “As soon as they figure out where it’s going, they’ll be all over him.”
“That’s why it’s not going to get to him,” Han countered, watching the Lady Luck closely. Another couple of seconds and every stormtrooper and Imperial soldier in the place ought to have his attention solidly fixed on the rogue ship … “Ready, Luke … now.”
And suddenly Luke was gone, a single leap taking him to the top of the X-wing. Over the commotion Han heard the snap-hiss as Luke ignited his lightsaber, could see the green glow reflected from the nearest ships and equipment. The glow and sound shifted subtly as Luke made a short slice—
“Restraining bolt’s off,” Luke called down. “Now?”
“Not yet,” Han told him. The Lady Luck was about a quarter of the way to the far wall, blaster bolts still scattering off its armored underside. “I’ll tell him when. You get ready to fly interference.”
“Right.” The X-wing rocked slightly as Luke moved forward and dropped into the cockpit, its own repulsorlifts beginning to whine as Artoo activated them.
A whine that no one else out in all that confusion had a hope of hearing. The Lady Luck was halfway to the wall now … “Okay, Lando, shut down,” Han ordered. “Artoo, your turn. Call it back this way.”
With full access again to the X-wing’s transmitters, it was a simple task for the droid to duplicate the signal from Lando’s beckon call. The Lady Luck shuddered to a halt, reoriented itself to the new call, and started across the landing area again toward the X-wing.
It wasn’t something the Imperials had expected. For a second the blaster fire faltered as the soldiers chasing the yacht skidded to a halt; and by the time the fire resumed in earnest, the Lady Luck was nearly to the X-wing.
“Now?” Luke called.
“Now,” Han called back. “Put ’er down and clear us a path.”