[Hand Of Thrawn] - 01(146)

Karrde shrugged. “I didn’t expect them to be quite so upset about it, either,” he said. “Of course, to be fair, I didn’t know about Thrawn until this evening.”

Shada shook her bead. “It’s hard to believe he survived.”

“Agreed,” Karrde said. “On the other hand, it’s equally hard to believe the Empire would pull a dangerous stunt like this purely as a bluff. Either Thrawn’s really back, or somebody somewhere has a Pure 23 hidden in his vest.”

Shada seemed to ponder that. “Suppose this Thrawn is actually just a clone,” she said. “Would it be as skilled as the original?”

“I suppose it would depend on how much of his tactical ability was innate and how much was learned.” Karrde considered. “And whether or not they used a flash-teaching imprint taken from Thrawn’s own mind, and how good the pattern was. I just don’t know.”

“Because if they have one clone of Thrawn, why not fifty?” Shada went on. “And if they have fifty clones of Thrawn, why not a hundred clones of that crazy Dark Jedi Joruus C’baoth, too?”

Karrde winced. That last possibility hadn’t even occurred to him. “Why not, indeed?”

Shada didn’t pick up on his rhetorical question, and a dark silence descended on the airspeeder. Karrde flew mechanically, not really seeing Coruscant’s magnificent horizon-to-horizon lights.

Or rather, seeing the total destruction of those lights superimposed on his view. Thrawn had threatened such destruction the last time he attacked the planet. This time, he might actually do it.

They were descending toward the reassuring bulk of the Wild Karrde when Shada spoke again. “So who’s this Jorj Car’das we’re looking for?”

With an effort, Karrde shook off the vision of a circle of Star Destroyers closing in on him. “He’s someone who used to be in the same business I am,” he told her. “Probably still is, actually.”

“But not a competitor?” she prompted.

“You were certainly paying attention in there,” he complimented her. “Incidentally, just out of curiosity, where in the bedroom were you hiding? I didn’t notice any place where anyone bigger than a Noghri could have been tucked away.”

“I was on the floor, between the back bed and the wall,” she said. “A gap like that always looks smaller than it really is. If Car’das wasn’t a competitor, what was he?”

Karrde threw her a smile. “Persistent, too. I like that in my people.”

“Delighted to hear it,” she said. “If he wasn’t a competitor, what was be?”

Ahead, the Wild Karrde’s hangar door was sliding open to receive them. “Ask me on the way into the Exocron system,” he told her. “Assuming we make it that far.”

Shada snorted under her breath. “So, what, you’re asking me to risk my life on nothing but your word?”

“You don’t have to come,” Karrde said mildly. “If you want to leave right now, you’re free to do so.”

She looked away from him. “Thanks for the permission. I’ll stay.”

The airspeeder settled with a muffled dunk into its slot in the Wild Karrde’s hangar. “As you choose,” Karrde said as be shut down the engines. “Out of curiosity, why exactly did you leave Mazzic?”

She twisted her shoulders out of the restraints. “Ask me on the way out of the Exocron system,” she said sardonically. “Assuming we make it that far.”

Without waiting for a response she popped her door and dropped feetfirst onto the deck. “I’m sure some of us will,” Karrde murmured, watching as she threaded her way between the other vehicles toward the exit.

The only question was which ones.





CHAPTER


23


This time, the alarm didn’t come in the middle of dessert. It came instead in the middle of the night.

Wedge jerked awake, hand flailing for a cutoff switch that wasn’t where it was supposed to be. His knee twitched to the side, coming up short against something solid; and as the brief stab of pain jolted him fully awake, he remembered where he was. As per orders-and one of General Bel Iblis’s hunches-he and the rest of Rogue Squadron were sleeping in their X-wings.

From the sound of the alarm still blaring away, the general’s hunch had apparently paid off.

He slapped at the alarm switch, hitting it this time, and keyed the comm. “Antilles,” he snapped.

“Full scramble,” Commander Perris’s voice snapped back. “We’ve got a panic call in from Bothawui.”

“Terrific,” Wedge muttered, hitting his engine prestart. Trust the Bothans to ruin a good night’s sleep. “Okay, Rogues, you all heard the man. Let’s get em in the air.”