With an effort, Han kept his sabacc face in place. “The Katana fleet. Right.”
“I’m not kidding,” Ferrier insisted. “The Katana’s been found … and I’ve got a line on the guy who found it.”
“Yeah?” Han said. Something in Ferrier’s face—
He turned around quickly, half expecting to see someone trying to sneak up over the edge of the ramp into the Lady Luck. But aside from the usual mix of shadows from the spaceport lights, there was nothing there. “Something?” Lando demanded.
“No,” Han said, turning back to Ferrier. If the thief really did have a line on Bel Iblis’s supplier, it could save them a lot of time. But if he had nothing but rumors—and was maybe hoping to wangle something a little more solid … “What makes you think this guy has anything?” he demanded.
Ferrier smiled slyly. “Free information, Solo? Come on—you know better than that.”
“All right, then,” Lando said. “What do you want from us, and what are you offering in trade?”
“I know the guy’s name,” Ferrier said, his face turning serious again. “But I don’t know where he is. I thought we could pool our resources, see if we can get to him before the Empire does.”
Han felt his throat tighten. “What makes you think the Empire’s involved?”
Ferrier threw him a scornful look. “With Grand Admiral Thrawn in charge over there? He’s involved in everything.”
Han smiled lopsidedly. At last they had a name to go with the uniform. “Thrawn, huh? Thanks, Ferrier.”
Ferrier’s face went rigid as he suddenly realized what he’d just given away. “No charge,” he said between stiff lips.
“We still haven’t heard what we’re getting out of the deal,” Lando reminded him.
“Do you know where he is?” Ferrier asked.
“We have a lead,” Lando said. “What are you offering?”
Ferrier shifted a measuring gaze back and forth between them. “I’ll give you half the ships we take out,” he said at last. “Plus an option for the New Republic to buy out the rest at a reasonable price.”
“What’s a reasonable price?” Han asked.
“Depends on what kind of shape they’re in,” Ferrier countered. “I’m sure we’ll be able to come to an agreement.”
“Mm.” Han looked at Lando. “What do you think?”
“Forget it,” Lando said, his voice hard. “You want to give us the name, fine—if it checks out, we’ll make sure you’re well paid once we’ve got the ships. Otherwise, shove off.”
Ferrier drew back. “Well, fine,” he said, sounding more hurt than annoyed. “You want to do it all by yourselves, be my guest. But if we get to the ships first, your precious little New Republic’s going to pay a lot more to get them. A lot more.”
Spinning around, he stalked off. “Come on, Han, let’s get out of here,” Lando muttered, his eyes on Ferrier’s retreating back.
“Yeah,” Han said, looking around for the loiterers he’d spotted earlier. They, too, were drifting away. It didn’t look like trouble; but he kept his hand on his blaster anyway until they were inside the Lady Luck with the hatch sealed.
“I’ll prep for lift,” Lando said as they headed back to the cockpit. “You talk to Control, get us an exit slot.”
“Okay,” Han said. “You know, with a little more bargaining—”
“I don’t trust him,” Lando cut him off, running his hand over the start-up switches. “He was smiling too much. And he gave up too easily.”
It was a hard comment to argue against. And as Han had noted earlier, it was Lando’s ship. Shrugging to himself, he keyed for spaceport control.
They were out in ten minutes, once again leaving an unhappy group of controllers behind them. “I hope this is the last time we have to come here,” Han said, scowling across the cockpit at Lando. “I get the feeling we’ve worn out our welcome.”
Lando threw him a sideways glance. “Well, well. Since when did you start caring what other people thought about you?”
“Since I married a princess and started carrying a government ID,” Han growled back. “Anyway, I thought you were supposed to be respectable, too.”
“It comes and goes. Ah-ha.” He smiled humorlessly at Han. “It looks like while we were talking to Ferrier, someone sneaked up and put something on our hull. Ten’ll get you one it’s a homing beacon.”
“What a surprise,” Han said, keying his display for its location. It was on the rear lower hull, back near the ramp where it would be out of most of the lift-off turbulence. “What do you want to do with it?”
“The Terrijo system’s more or less on the way to Pantolomin,” Lando said, consulting his display. “We’ll swing through there and drop it off.”
“Okay.” Han scowled at his display. “Too bad we can’t put it on another ship right here. That way he wouldn’t even know what direction we’re going.”
Lando shook his head. “He’ll know we’ve spotted it if we put down on New Cov now. Unless you want to take it off up here and try to toss it onto another passing ship.” He glanced at Han; paused for a longer look. “We’re not going to try it, Han,” he said firmly. “Get that look out of your eye.”
“Oh, all right,” Han grumbled. “That’d get him off our backs, though.”
“And might get you killed in the process,” Lando retorted. “And then I’d have to go back and explain it to Leia. Forget it.”
Han gritted his teeth. Leia. “Yeah,” he said with a sigh.
Lando looked at him again. “Come on, buddy, relax. Ferrier hasn’t got a hope of beating us. Trust me—we’re going to win this one.”
Han nodded. He hadn’t been thinking about Ferrier, actually. Or about the Katana fleet. “I know,” he said.
The Lady Luck disappeared smoothly through one of the ducts in the transparisteel dome, and Ferrier shifted his cigarra to the other side of his mouth. “You’re sure they won’t find the second beacon?” he asked.
Beside him, the oddly shaped shadow between a pile of shipping crates stirred. “They will not,” it said in a voice like cold running water.
“You’d better be right,” Ferrier warned, a note of menace in his voice. “I didn’t stand there and take that garbage from them for nothing.” He glared at the shadow. “As it was, you almost gave the game away,” he said accusingly. “Solo looked straight back at you once.”
“There was no danger,” the wraith said flatly. “Humans need movement to see. Not-moving shadows are of no concern.”
“Well, it worked this time,” Ferrier was willing to concede. “You’re still lucky it was Solo and not Calrissian who looked—he saw you once before, you know. Next time, keep your big feet quiet.”
The wraith said nothing. “Oh, go on, get back to the ship,” Ferrier ordered. “Tell Abric to get ’er ready to lift. We’ve got ourselves a fortune to make.”
He threw a last look upward. “And maybe,” he added with grim satisfaction, “a smart-mouthed gambler to take out.”
CHAPTER
19
The Etherway was clearly visible now, dropping like a misshapen rock out of the sky toward its assigned landing pit. Standing in the protective shadow of the exit tunnel, Karrde watched its approach, stroking the grip of his blaster gently with his fingertips and trying to ignore the uneasiness still tickling the back of his mind. Mara was over three days late in bringing the freighter back from Abregado—not a particularly significant delay under normal conditions, but this trip had hardly qualified as normal. But there had been no other ships on her tail as she entered orbit, and she’d transmitted all the proper “all clear” code signals to him as she dropped into the approach pattern. And aside from the incompetence of the controllers, who’d taken an inordinate amount of time to decide which pit she was actually being assigned to, the landing itself had so far been completely routine.
Karrde smiled wryly as he watched the ship come down. There had been times in the past three days when he’d thought about Mara’s hatred of Luke Skywalker, and had wondered if she had decided to drop out of his life as mysteriously as she’d dropped into it. But it seemed now that his original reading of her had been correct. Mara Jade wasn’t the sort of person who gave her loyalty easily, but once she’d made a decision she stuck with it. If she ever ran out on him, she wouldn’t do so in a stolen ship. Not stolen from him, anyway.
The Etherway was on its final approach now, rotating on its repulsorlifts to orient its hatchway toward the exit tunnel. Obviously, Karrde’s reading of Han Solo had been correct, too. Even if the other hadn’t been quite gullible enough to send a Mon Cal Star Cruiser out to Myrkr, he’d at least kept his promise to get the Etherway out of impoundment. Apparently, all of Karrde’s private worrying of the past three days had been for nothing.
But the uneasiness was still there.
With a hiss of back-release outgassing, the Etherway settled to the stress-scored paving of the landing pit. His eyes on the closed hatchway, Karrde pulled his comlink from his belt and thumbed for his backup spotter. “Dankin? Anything suspicious in sight?”