[Hand Of Thrawn] - 01(143)

Another ripple of surprise ran through the room. A ripple that, to Shada’s own mild surprise, didn’t seem to touch Solo himself. “Really,” he said. “Tell us how.”

“A friend and I stole the component from an Imperial research base,” she said, trying to read his face. Suddenly the one who’d been pushing her the most seemed almost to be on her side. “It was code-named the Hammertong. We flew the ship it was mounted aboard to Tatooine-“

“What kind of ship?” Solo interrupted.

“Loronar Strike Cruiser,” Shada said. “Heavily modified-the interior had been gutted so the thing would fit inside. We half buried the ship in a dune and went to the Mos Eisley cantina to find a freighter pilot with a ship who could transport a segment of it for us.”

She gestured to Solo. “My partner and I saw you gun down Greedo in there,” she said. “We were going to try to hire you, but were picked up by the Imperials before we could get over to you.”

“Why?” Solo asked. “I mean, why did they grab you?”

“Karoly and I had disguised ourselves as Brea and Senni Tonnika. Our cam-we’d beard we looked a lot like them,” she corrected as smoothly as she could. Now was not the time to mention the Mistryl camouflage prematch files. “We didn’t know some Moff had put a detain order on them. Anyway, a Rebel sympathizer sprung us from our police cell and got us a freighter. We flew out a segment of the superlaser component and gave him a droid with the technical readout loaded in.”

“What was this sympathizer’s name?” Solo asked.

Shada had to search her memory. “Winward,” she said. “Riij Winward.”

Solo nodded slowly. “So that was you, huh?”

Organa Solo blinked at him. “You knew about this?”

“I read Winward’s report,” Solo told her. “It was in the briefing textdoc Madine gave us before we headed out for Endor.”

His wife shook her head. “I must have missed it.”

“Well, there were a couple of small differences,” Solo said dryly. “According to Winward, they’d promised him his own segment of the superlaser in return for springing them.”

“There was a sandstorm coming,” Shada protested. “There was no time to cut another segment and get it loaded.”

“And they didn’t exactly give him the technical readout,” Solo added. “He had to sort of borrow their droid to get it.”

Shada felt her face warm. “Yes, you’re right,” she admitted. “I’d forgotten that”

“Charming,” Calrissian murmured under his breath.

Shada threw him a glare. “For whatever it’s worth, my partners thought we should have killed him rather than let anyone know what we’d done,” she bit out. “I stopped them from doing that.”

There was another silence. A hard, tense, discomfiting silence. Shada kept her eyes on Organa Solo, trying to read her face. As the ranking political power of the group, it would be up to her to make the final decision.

“I’ve got an idea,” Calrissian spoke up. “She said Karrde knows what she can do. So why don’t we send her with him?”

Shada looked at Karrde, her impulsive refusal freezing in her throat. She’d just wasted twelve years with one smuggling group, and she hadn’t come to Coruscant just to hook up with another one.

But there was something in Karrde’s expression …

“And just where is it Karrde’s going?” Solo asked, cocking his head toward the smuggler chief.

“A special mission,” Karrde said. His eyes were still on Shada, that expression still on his face. “Something Calrissian asked me to do.”

“Do we get a hint?” Organa Solo asked, a small smile playing around her lips.

Karrde didn’t smile back. “It’s possible there’s a copy of the complete Caamas Document out there that’s not in Imperial hands,” He told her, “I’m going to see if I can get hold of it.”

Solo and Organa Solo exchanged startled glances. “Why didn’t you tell us this before?” Organa Solo demanded, the patient amusement gone from her face.

“Because up till now none of this has been any of my business,” Karrde said coolly. “Political arguments have nothing to do with me, except insofar as planetary snits and sulkings tend to benefit information dealers.”

He booked at Calrissian. “But now a new factor has been stirred in to the mix. One which I’ve been persuaded can no longer be ignored.”

Organa Solo hunched her shoulders as if a sudden cold draft had blown across her back. “Thrawn.”