But then. Then she had seen Han Solo come back. And, somehow, she knew. Maybe it was that niggling little nubbin of Force potential she thought she might have. Maybe it was something in the way he seemed to look toward the villa where she was hiding. Maybe it was lack of sleep and she was hallucinating. But she was suddenly possessed of the absolute conviction that he knew that she was here, and that he had come back in order to make contact.
Her heart pounded with excitement as she watched him get out of the hover car, chat with the CDF guards, and shake a hand or two and say his thanks as he made his way into the house. Why else would he come back one more time? It had to be that he was here for her. It had to be.
Kalenda settled herself in for one final vigil, the one that would pay for all. She watched as the last of the CDF agents packed up their gear, got into their ground cars and hover cars, and headed off into the darkness. She watched, her eyes glued to the macrobinoculars, for five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes, giving the CDF agents plenty of time to remember something they had left behind and come back for it.
At precisely the moment that she herself judged that enough time had pa.s.sed, that the coast was clear and they weren"t coming back, a dot of ruby-red light appeared in an upper-story window of Solo"s villa. It flashed three times long, then there was a pause, three more long flashes, another pause, and another three longs.
Mon Calamari blink code, carried by a very old-fashioned laser beam. Something utterly simple, incredibly crude. Something that every midshipman learned, something they bashed into your head at the NRI Academy. And something the CDF forces, with all their high-tech com gear and snooper systems, would be unlikely to detect at all, even if they did come back at exactly the wrong moment.
And more to the point, something they would be unlikely to be able to read.
BEET ME AT YR FRONT DR MUDNIGHZ, the sign read.
Okay, so he was a little out of practice. But the intent was clear.
And maybe her vigil had been worth it after all.
Kalenda saw him coming up the road, moving quietly, slowly, at just the pace of a fellow out for a late-evening stroll.
She saw him pause, just a moment, at the path leading to her door.
He looked around, making one last check for whoever else might have stayed behind to watch out there, and then he walked straight up the Path to her door. She pulled it open just as he reached the porch, and he came in without breaking stride. She shut the door behind him, and gestured for him to follow her into the bas.e.m.e.nt of the villa.
He nodded and followed without speaking. In the unlikely event that someone was still watching, it would be that much tougher for a sound snooper or a spy beam to penetrate into underground, and besides, they could risk a light once the door to the upstairs was shut. She ushered him down the darkened stairs, closed the door, and hit the wall switch.
A warm yellow light flooded the bas.e.m.e.nt storeroom, and Kalenda gasped in surprise. She hadn"t dared use an artificial light for longer than she liked to think.
"I brought you stuff," Han said without preamble, emptying a small carry bag out onto the old table that the owners of the house had abandoned to the cellar sometime in the years gone by. "Some cash, a change or two of clothesLeia"s jumpsuit-some fresh food and water rations in case you"re sick of what you"ve got or you"re running out. Glow rod, a pocket blaster-and a comlink." Kalenda nodded, unable to speak at first.
Someone talking to her. Someone here she could trust, who trusted her.
Someone doing something for her. She felt a tear run down her face, but she forced herself to calmness, or at least to something close, and spoke. "Thank, thank you," she said.
She grabbed for one of the ration packs and tore it open.
Food had been getting tight, and anything, anythingven just another brand of shipboard survival rations-would taste better than another meal of the identical mealpacks she had been living on. She took a big bite and chewed vigorously.
"You"ve been watching the house the whole time," Han said, and it was not a question. "Just in case we were in trouble, just in case the locals tried anything. Hardly any sleep, nothing decent to eat." She swallowed so she could answer. "Yes-yes," she said, and realized that her voice was creaky from lack of use. She hadn"t had anyone to speak with for longer than she cared to think.
"I"m impressed," Han said. "I don"t think I could have stuck it out."
"What-what do you want me to do?" Kalenda asked.
"Rest," Han said. "Find some nice quiet hotel or dosshouse in Coronet City where you can pay cash and keep a low profile, and get some rest. Do whatever you like. Take in a show, go for a walk. Just keep that comlink on you, and answer when I call you. I want you watching over us still, but now we can call for help if we need it."
"Call for what kind of help?" Kalenda asked.
Han shook his head. "I won"t know that until we know what kind of trouble we"ve got. But I"ve got a hunch that you might be a very handy hole card to have, just in case.
"What do you think is going to happen?" Kalenda asked.
"War," Han said, making the word sound like the obscenity it was.
"Whose war against what, I don"t know.
Maybe just a little one, not much more than an oversized riot. But a war all the same. Too many people around here are spoiling for a fight. Too many people are playing rough.
Kalenda nodded her agreement. "I think you"re right," she said.
"But you be careful, more careful than you think you need to be. Someone has penetrated deep into the NRI somehow. I came in-system in a totally covert setup, topgrade cover story, the best the NRI could do-and they were waiting for me the second I came out of hypers.p.a.ce.
Shot me down. I barely got out of it alive. I don"t know who it is, or how, but they know what we"re doing."
Han Solo frowned. "That"s worse than I thought," he said. "If they know all that, they know just how little we have in the way of troops and ships just now."
"What do you mean?" Kalenda asked.
"I mean," said Han, "that if I were a Corellian who wanted to break free of the Republic, and I had access to NRI information, then i think I"d figure that right now was the perfect moment to make my move.
" Han leaned back against the wall of the bas.e.m.e.nt and folded his arms. "which leaves the question-what is their move going to he?"
CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
h.e.l.lo and Farewell Lando Cairissian stepped off the Lady Luck and had the very distinct impression that his luck was changing.
There she was, Tendra Risant. She was a hundred meters or so away, just outside the safety barrier, waiting for him to come down off the ship", and waving vigorously.
That had to mean something.
He paused a minute and breathed in the fresh, clean air of Sacorria. Not a bad place. Not a place at all, even if it was one of the Outlier worlds. The Outliers had a reputation for trouble, but Lando hadn"t seen any such signs so far.
Lando turned to watch Luke come off the ship. "Feel nervous about this one?" he asked.
Luke laughed and shook his head no. "Not at all," he said. "I feel just fine."
"Good, good," Lando said as they walked along toward their hostess.
"She looks just fine, too, I might add," he said as he cast an appraising eye over Tendra.
Tendra Risant was about thirty standard years, tall, strong, and healthy, and obviously well-off. Her complexion was rather fair, and her high cheekbones and slender face set her dark brown eyes off quite dramatically. She had a nice, if not spectacular, figure, though she was perhaps just a trifle heavier set than was fashionable. She was dressed in a pretty, sensible-looking high-collared blue dress of conservative cut, the hem modestly long without seeming prudish. Her hair was a somewhat nondescript brownish blond, and she wore it in a short, dignified cut. Everything about her seemed open, relaxed, friendly.
In short, she was not one little bit like the predatory sirens, the dangerous-looking s.e.x G.o.ddesses with everything cut high and low, the women with smoldering, provocative eyes and pasts full of dark secrets, that were more to Lando"s usual taste.
And just at the moment, that suited Lando just fine.
"h.e.l.lo, Lando," she said as soon as they were close enough, and the warmth in her voice and the smile in her face made Lando feel as if he had known her all his life, that they were old friends being reunited rather than strangers who had never met before. Lando had to hand it to Luke. There were definite advantages to long chats via holocom.
"h.e.l.lo, Tendra," he said as he crossed the safety barrier.
She offered him her hand, and Lando, to his own astonishment, did not bend down to kiss it, or make any sort of sweeping, theatrical gesture at all. He took her hand in his, and shook it, the way regular people did it.
This is getting interesting, he told himself. "Tendra," he said, "I"d like you to meet my very good friend Luke Skywalker." Lando realized that he had not said a word about Luke being a great Jedi Master, or any of that. Tendra knew it, of course-but Lando already knew her well enough to know it wouldn"t matter to her at all.
"h.e.l.lo, Luke," she said. "Welcome to my world. I hope that we can make your stay very pleasant indeed."
"Thank you, Lady Tendra," said Luke, accepting the hand she offered.
"Please, just call me Tendra," she said. "Come along, both of you.
There is a great deal we have to talk about."
* Lando found himself spending most of the evening being astonished, mostly at himself. He had pursued many women over the years, of course, and his reputation for female conquest was far from exaggerated. But with Tendra, he found himself doing something it seemed to him he had never done before. He found himself talking to the woman he was interested in, having an actual conversation with her, about something other than how beautiful she was, or all the lovely things he was going to do for her, or any of the rest of the tired old nonsense.
The three of them had dinner at a public restaurant in a handsome old cobblestone square in the center of town, and they talked politics, of all things. Lando could not remember when he had enjoyed a conversation with a woman-or a conversation with anyone, for that matter-more. By the time the serving droids had cleared away the dessert dishes and poured the after-dinner liqueurs, they had "worked through all the political scuttleb.u.t.t from Comscant, and had turned to more local questions.
"Things are definitely getting tense here," Tendra said.
"We know," Luke said. "The local customs people almost didn"t let us land.
Tendra nodded. "It was a struggle for me to get any clearance at all for you to land, and I wouldn"t be surprised if your transit visa was canceled. Whatever is going on in the Corellian System is definitely stirring up trouble here."
"what is going on in the Corellian System?" Luke asked. "I"ve got family there right now."
"Not to mention that we"re supposed to head there next," Lando said. "I"m supposed to meet some people at that trade meeting."
Tendra shook her head sadly. "No one really knows," she said.
"There are rumors flying in all directions, and proclamations by this Drall or that Selonian or those humans that they are about to seize power, or chase the oppressors from office, or whatever. They seem to spend most of their time calling each other liars."
"what about here?" lando asked. "This is part of the Corellian Sector, after all. Surely it"s all got some direct effect on you."
Tendra shrugged. "Yes and no. We"re ruled by the Triad, so it"s a little hard for the government to play the myspecies-first game.
"Triad?" Lando asked.
"Oh, sorry, of course, you"re not from here. How would you know?
The Triad is a council of three members-a human, a Selonian, and a Drall.
They make all the major decisions about policy and so forth. It used to be the Triad wasn"t much more than the mouthpiece for the Diktat back in Coronet, but Coronet hasn"t taken much of an interest in us the last few years. We"ve had to learn to take care of ourselves, and these days the Triad pretty much runs to please itself.
"And it would see that it pleases them to clamp down," Lando said, glancing out the plate-gla.s.s front of the restaurant. A squad of rather angry-looking Selonians in police uniforms was coming across the square, straight toward the restaurant. Selonians were generally regarded as a rather handsome species, with their long, lithe bodies that were plainly the result of evolution from active, nimble, swimming mammals, and their sleek, short fur. But these Selonians did not seem to have anything much to recommend them. They were big, burly, thuggish-looking specimens, their fur a bit ratty, their bodies thickened by too much food and not enough exercise. They were plainly brawlers, not athletes. "I don"t like any kind of cop," Lando said, "but especially ones that look that ticked off."
"And I"ve got a feeling they"re looking for us," Luke said.
Tendra shook her head. "1 was afraid of this," she said.
"Sme late-working bureaucrat or other just decided the two of you are undesirable for some reason.
"But how did they find us?" Lando asked.
Tendra raised an eyebrow. "Following people is one of the few growth industries on Sacorria," she said.
"Lando," Luke said. "We only have a few seconds.
This is your call. You"re the one with a stake in this place.
How do you want to play it?"
Lando looked toward Tendra, and then out the window at the cops.
They were definitely headed straight for the restaurant. His first instinct was to raise a ruckus, create a diversion, try to bribe them-anything rather than play along. But it was suddenly quite clear to him that he would want to come back this way again, as soon as possible. He had best be as law-abiding as possible. "We cooperate," he said, most reluctantly. He turned back toward Tendra, and smiled. "I must admit it would be more in line with my image if we pulled out our blasters and shot up half the neighborhood in our heroic attempt to escape, but I have a feeling the restaurant management would object."
"I"m afraid they would," Tendra agreed. She flipped open a little compartment set into the arm of her chair, and punched in a quick sequence of commands. "There," she said, "I just bought you dinner. what do you say we meet our uniformed friends outside instead of causing a scene in here?"
"You clearly have no flair at all for the dramatic," Lando said as he stood up.
Tendra smiled broadly as she got out of her chair. "Try me some other time," she said. "I might change your mind." Luke got up as well, and the three of them went out into the cool and pleasant night.
The squad of Selonian police came up to them immediately, and did not waste any time in pleasantries. "Calrissian? Skywalker?" the paunchiest of them demanded.
"That"s right," Lando said. "What can we do for you officers?"
"You can get off our planet," the head cop said, smiling unpleasantly and displaying her lull set of extremely sharp teeth. "Visas canceled. You"ve got six hours to get off the planet, and eighteen to get clear of the system. Got it?"
"Yes indeed," Lando said, struggling to keep his voice smooth and genteel. These were the sort of cops he hated the worst. "We get it.
And we were just going, in any event. Good evening to you, officers," he said.
"You watch that wise-guy polite stuff," the head cop snapped, and Lando reflected that it truly was a snap when a jaw that size slasnmed shut suddenly. "Just get back on your ship, pretty boy, and take your friend with you."
"We"re going," Lando said, no longer able to keep the edge out of his voice. "We will meet the deadline."
"See that you do, pretty boy, or you"ll be spending ten years banging rocks together in Dorthus Tal prison. We"ll have cops watching to see that you go. Now beat it." The four cops turned their backs on the three humans, and stalked off, clearly disappointed that there hadn"t been a fight.
Luke watched the police go, and then turned to Lando and Tendra.
"Well," he said, "I hope I don"t put our police friends to any inconvenience by going my own way, but it"s my guess that they have enough operatives on duty to watch us even if we split up. You two aren"t going to have much time together, and you don"t need me tagging along.
Lady Tendra-Tendra-it has been a pleasure to meet you, but I think I had best say my good-byes here and now."