Han looked at the building as they passed it. At the smoothness of the edges where the memory-plastic would fold up, at the signs of wear in the subfoundation …
“There are other things, too,” Lando went on. “That headquarters lounge back there—did you notice all the decoration they had in that place? Probably a dozen sculptures scattered around on those corner ledges between the booths, plus a lot of light poles. And that doesn’t even count all the stuff on the walls. There was a whole antique repeater display panel mounted over the main bar, a ship’s chrono next to the exit—”
“I was there, too, remember?” Han cut him off. “What’s your point?”
“My point is that this place isn’t ready to pack up and ship offplanet on three minutes’ notice,” Lando said quietly. “Not anymore. And you don’t get this soft and comfortable if you’re still in the business of launching major attacks against Imperial bases.”
“Maybe they decided to lie low for a while,” Han said. This business of having to defend Bel Iblis was starting to feel uncomfortable.
“Could be,” Lando said. “In that case, the question is why? What else could he be holding his ships and troops back for?”
Han chewed at the inside of his cheek. He saw where Lando was going with this, all right. “You think he’s made a deal with Fey’lya.”
“That’s the obvious answer,” Lando agreed soberly. “You heard how he talked about Mon Mothma, like he expected her to declare herself Emperor any day now. Fey’lya’s influence?”
Han thought it over. It was still crazy, but not nearly as crazy as it had seemed at first blush. Though if Fey’lya thought he could stage a coup with six private Dreadnaughts, he was in for a rude surprise.
But on the other hand— “Wait a minute, Lando, this is crazy,” he said. “If they’re plotting against Mon Mothma, why bring us here?”
Lando hissed softly between his teeth. “Well, that brings us to the worst-case scenario, Han old buddy. Namely, that your friend the Senator is a complete phony … and that what we’ve got here is a giant Imperial scam.”
Han blinked. “Now you’ve lost me.”
“Think about it,” Lando urged, lowering his voice as a group of uniformed men rounded a corner of one of the buildings and headed off in another direction. “Garm Bel Iblis, supposedly killed, suddenly returned from the dead? And not only alive, but with his own personal army on top of it? An army that neither of us has ever heard of?”
“Yeah, but Bel Iblis wasn’t exactly a recluse,” Han pointed out. “There were a lot of holos and recordings of him when I was growing up. You’d have to go to a lot of effort to look and sound that much like him.”
“If you had those records handy to compare him with, sure,” Lando agreed. “But all you’ve got is memories. It wouldn’t take that much effort to rig a fairly close copy. And we know that this base has been sitting here for more than a year. Maybe abandoned by someone else; and it wouldn’t take much effort to throw a fake army together. Not for the Empire.”
Han shook his head. “You’re skating on drive trails, Lando. The Empire’s not going to go to this much effort just for us.”
“Maybe they didn’t,” Lando said. “Maybe it was for Fey’lya’s benefit, and we just happened to stumble in on it.”
Han frowned. “Fey’lya’s benefit?”
“Sure,” Lando said. “Start with the Empire gimmicking Ackbar’s bank account. That puts Ackbar under suspicion and ripe for someone to push him off his perch. Enter Fey’lya, convinced that he’s got the support of the legendary Garm Bel Iblis and a private army behind him. Fey’lya makes his bid for power, the New Republic hierarchy is thrown into a tangle; and while no one’s watching, the Empire moves in and takes back a sector or two. Quick, clean, and simple.”
Han snorted under his breath. “That’s what you call simple, huh?”
“We’re dealing with a Grand Admiral, Han,” Lando reminded him. “Anything is possible.”
“Yeah, well, possible doesn’t mean likely,” Han countered. “If they’re running a con game, why would they bring us here?”
“Why not? Our presence doesn’t hurt the plan any. Might even help it a little. They show us the setup, send us back, we blow the whistle on Fey’lya, and Mon Mothma pulls back ships to protect Coruscant from a coup attempt that never materializes. More chaos, and even more unprotected sectors for the Imperials to gobble up.”
Han shook his head. “I think you’re jumping at shadows.”
“Maybe,” Lando said darkly. “And maybe you’re putting too much trust in the ghost of a Corellian Senator.”
They had reached their quarters now, one of a double row of small square buildings each about five meters on a side. Han keyed in the lock combination Sena had given them, and they went inside.
The apartment was about as stark and simple as it could be while still remaining even halfway functional. It consisted of a single room with a compact cooking niche on one side and a door leading to what was probably a bathroom on the other. A brown fold-down table/console combo and two old-fashioned contour chairs upholstered in military gray occupied much of the space, with the cabinets of what looked like two fold-down beds positioned to take up the table’s share of the floor space at night. “Cozy,” Lando commented.
“Probably can be packed up and shipped offplanet on three minutes’ notice, too,” Han said.
“I agree,” Lando nodded. “This is exactly the sort of feel that lounge should have had, only it didn’t.”
“Maybe they figured they ought to have at least one building around here that didn’t look like it came out of the Clone Wars,” Han suggested.
“Maybe,” Lando said, squatting down beside one of the chairs and peering at the edge of the seat cushion. “Probably pulled them out of that Dreadnaught up there.” Experimentally he dug his fingers under the gray material. “Looks like they didn’t even add any extra padding before they reupholstered them with this—”
He broke off, and abruptly his face went rigid. “What is it?” Han demanded.
Slowly, Lando turned to look up at him. “This chair,” he whispered. “It’s not gray underneath. It’s blue-gold.”
“Okay,” Han said, frowning. “So?”
“You don’t understand. The Fleet doesn’t do the interiors of military ships in blue-gold. They’ve never done them in blue-gold. Not under the Empire, not under the New Republic, not under the Old Republic. Except one time.”
“Which was?” Han prompted.
Lando took a deep breath. “The Katana fleet.”
Han stared at him, an icy feeling digging up under his breastbone. The Katana fleet … “That can’t be right, Lando,” he said. “Got to be a mistake.”
“No mistake, Han,” Lando shook his head. Digging his fingers in harder, he lifted the edge of the gray covering high enough to show the material beneath it. “I once spent two whole months researching the Dark Force. This is it.”
Han gazed at the age-dulled blue-gold cloth, a sense of unreality creeping over him. The Katana fleet. The Dark Force. Lost for half a century … and now suddenly found.
Maybe. “We need something better in the way of proof,” he told Lando. “This doesn’t do it by itself.”
Lando nodded, still half in shock. “That would explain why they kept us aboard the Lady Luck the whole way here,” he said. “They’d never be able to hide the fact that their Dreadnaught was running with only two thousand crewers instead of the normal sixteen. The Katana fleet.”
“We need to get a look inside one of the ships,” Han persisted. “That recognition code Irenez sent—I don’t suppose you made a recording of it?”
Lando took a deep breath and seemed to snap out of it. “We can probably reconstruct it,” he said. “But if they’ve got any sense, their code for getting in won’t be the same as their code for getting out. But I don’t think we have to get aboard the ships themselves. All I need is a good, close look at that repeater display panel back in the headquarters lounge.”
“Okay,” Han nodded grimly. “Let’s go and get you that look.”
CHAPTER
16
It took them only a few minutes to make their way back to the headquarters lounge. Han kept an eye on the pedestrian and vehicle traffic as they walked, hoping they were still early enough for the place to be empty. Getting a close look at that repeater display would be tricky enough without a whole bunch of people sitting around with nothing better to do than watch what was happening at the bar. “What exactly are we looking for?” he asked as they came in sight of the building.
“There should be some specialized input slots on the back for the full-rig slave circuitry readouts,” Lando told him. “And there’ll be production serial numbers, too.”
Han nodded. So they were going to need to get the thing off the wall. Great. “How come you know so much about the fleet?”
“Like I said, I did a lot of studying.” Lando snorted under his breath. “If you must know, I got stuck with a fake map to it as part of a deal back when I was selling used ships. I figured if I could learn enough about it to look like an expert I might be able to unload the map on someone else and get my money back.”