“Were you just going to walk past? Not even say hello?”
“Yes.” And then he was gone, swallowed up by the Coruscant night beyond the doors.
GYNDINE SYSTEM
TENDRANDO REFUELING AND REPAIR STATION
Hands on hips, Han stood in the lounge of the vehicle now parked alongside the Millennium Falcon. “You have got to be kidding.”
“If you’ll forgive me, Captain Solo,” C-3P0 said, “Master Calrissian’s vocal mannerisms, though laced with humor, do not suggest that his basic thesis was in jest.”
Han glared at the gold-toned protocol droid, then returned his attention to his surroundings.
The lounge was, if not a thing of beauty, a testimonial to obsessive detail. The walls and ceiling were covered by thick velvety material in a dark blue that matched the deep carpet on the floor. Silver glow rod housings, polished to a dazzling level of reflectivity, protruded at tasteful intervals from the walls and ceilings. Furniture included four comfort couches, each with ceiling-mounted, semi-transparent privacy curtains that would glide into position or retract at the touch of a button. Controls for the couches’ temperature and vibration settings were mounted on silver panels inset in the velvet walls. Hanging chairs of woven plantstalk, plated in a silvery surface, were suspended from the ceiling, gleaming tables stood nearby to bear the weight of platters of food, and a water fountain reproducing, in miniature form, a famous waterfall from the world of Naboo burbled in the center of the chamber.
Leia, beside Han, nodded. “It’s even more crass than the Lady Luck.”
Lando, facing them from across the room to view their first reactions to the pleasure pit, smirked. “She’s a bit like the Lady. An older model, a SoroSuub Twenty-fourhundred yacht. Her owner-her former owner-fell on hard times, and they got harder when he decided to win hack his fortunes in a sabacc match I was sitting in on.” He shrugged. “We had a lot in common, including taste in luxury yachts, but not including the fact that he drinks while gambling. I won his craft and a year’s contract for his services as a salesman. He’s marketing my droids in the Outer Rim now-and conveniently, the yacht is still officially registered in his name, since I somehow haven’t found time to file the change -of-ownership documentation.”
“What’s her name?” Leia asked.
Lando modulated his voice to its richest, most seductive tones. “The Love Commander.” He stretched out the word love, an exercise in mockery.
Leia looked at him as though he could not possibly be telling the truth. At his confirming nod, she put her hands over her mouth, the better to restrain any laughter that might emerge.
Han shook his head. “I don’t want to say what I think of her as a vehicle, but as a disguise, she’s perfect.” He pulled his left arm from its sling and flexed his hand experimentally. Several weeks’ worth of medical treatments since he sustained the injury and a good night’s sleep had improved his condition somewhat, and his manner suggested he would soon be his old fighting self. “Let’s move our gear from the Falcon to the master cabin,” he told Leia.
Lando shook his head. “No, you’re in the biggest of the guest cabins. I’m in the master cabin.”
They both looked at him. “You’re coming along?” Leia asked.
“After due consideration, it seems to me that you’ll be a lot more anonymous as my pilot and navigator-me being Bescat Offdurmin, holo-entertainment mogul and pleasureseeker of the Corporate Sector-rather than the faces the authorities see whenever they establish communications with the Looooove Commander Right?”
“Well …” Leia considered. “That’s true. But I don’t look forward to Tendra tracking us down and killing us if we get you hurt.”
“She’ll be glad to get me out of the home for a while. She knows how twitchy I’ve been lately.” Lando picked up his cane and twirled it theatrically. “Come on, nameless crew. Let’s get to it.”
Han clapped C-3P0 on his metal shoulder. “Goldenrod, you get the most important mission of all. You stay here and record every single thing they do to the Falcon during repairs. And try not to talk to them while you’re doing it.”
“Oh, dear.”
An hour later, personal possessions moved aboard and preflight checklists completed, Han, sitting at the navigator’s console, was a bit more favorably disposed toward the Love Commander.
Despite the yacht’s name and pleasure-oriented mission, despite her swirly, mood-altering sky-blue-and-green exterior paint job, the vehicle wasn’t a bad choice for their current needs. At fifty meters, she was nearly twice the length of the Falcon but didn’t mass much more, having a long, sleek design with two outrigger propulsion pods, one on either side, each carrying sublight ion drive and hyperdrive components. The hyperdrives were nothing special, but the ion drives had been rebuilt and overbuilt, giving the yacht considerable speed in sublight situations.