[Hand Of Thrawn] - 01(57)

“I wanted to check out your security,” Luke told him. “See if you’re the sort of people my employer would be interested in doing business with.”

“And what would this business consist of?”

“I was instructed to discuss it with your captain,” Luke said loftily. “Not underlings.”

Hensing growled again, lifting his blaster. “Then your employer is either stupid or a fool or both,” Control said. “You have five seconds to give me something solid. After that, I turn Hensing loose on you.”

“If you insist,” Luke said, crossing his arms across his chest and looking across the room at the glow panel switch. That warning tingle had returned … We understand that you’re using clones to crew some of your ships. We want to discuss hiring some of them from you.”

Control tsked. “Sorry-wrong answer. Take him.” The pirates lifted their blasters&mdash

And reaching out through the Force, Luke flipped off the glow panels.

There was a snarled curse, almost drowned out by the sputtering of multiple blaster bolts cutting through the air where Luke had been standing. But Luke was no longer there. A Force-strengthened leap had sent him sailing over their heads toward the door, lightsaber ready in his hand. If they’d been overconfident enough not to leave a guard outside the door&mdash There was a flicker of premonition, and he had the lightsaber in guard position just as he spotted the Defel’s pale red eyes gazing down at him from, the top of one of the stacks of boxes. He sensed rather than saw the weapon tracking toward him, igniting the lightsaber just as the blaster’s flash sparked from between the red eyes.

The green blade blazed into existence, startlingly bright in the darkness, deflecting the Defel’s blaster bolt harmlessly away. But even as he hit the floor beside the door, Luke realized the Defel had won this round. His shot had missed, but he had forced Luke to reveal both his location and his true identity.

The other pirates weren’t slow in picking up on either. Someone across the room swore-“It’s Skywalker!” another shouted&mdashand suddenly a fresh volley of blaster fire was raining through the air toward him.

Luke backed to the door, letting the Force guide his defense. The door had probably been sealed; jumping sideways toward it to temporarily throw off his opponents’ aim, he slashed twice with his lightsaber. A flat dive out the opening, and he was free.

The corridor outside was deserted. Rolling back to his feet, lightsaber at the ready; he stretched out with the Force, seeking the ambush that must surely be lurking nearby. But there were no other presences that he could detect. “Giving up already?” he called.

“Hardly,” Control’s voice came from a speaker set into the ceiling a few meters away. “Rather foolish of you to give away your identity so quickly.”

“I prefer to think of it as an overabundance of confidence,” Luke countered, stretching out a little harder. Still nothing; and if he’d really caught them off. guard, it wouldn’t be smart to give them time to regroup. Picking what he hoped was the direction he’d come from, he set off at a fast trot. “You ready to tell me where you’re getting your clones from?” he added toward the speaker. “I’d really rather not have to hunt down your captain and ask him personally.”

“Hunt all you like,” Control said, his voice now coming from a different speaker farther down the corridor. Clearly, they were tracking Luke’s movements. “You won’t find anyone here who knows. But thank you for confirming that was what you came here to learn.”

“You’re welcome,” Luke said, clenching his teeth as the tingle of danger again tugged at him. Ahead, the corridor curved gently to the right, and somewhere beyond the curve he could finally sense other presences waiting for him.

It was a classic bottle-squeeze setup: pin the enemy in a curve or angle where he would be trapped in a crossfire without the two ends of the crossfire shooting’ at each other. He could sense the pirates he’d left behind in the storeroom piling out into the corridor now; a few more heartbeats, and there would be blaster fire coming at his back.

But the pirates’ contingency plans were unlikely to have included the possibility of a Jedi running loose in their base. Just this side of the curve, a heavy blast door revealed the presence of a side corridor leading out of the trap to the left. The blaster he’d left back in the storeroom wouldn’t have made a dent in it; but he had a far more efficient way of opening doors than the pirates could have anticipated. Skidding to a stop in front of the blast door, he ignited his lightsaber and slashed throu gh the lock mechanism. It began sliding ponderously open&mdash