[Legacy Of The Force] - 04(47)

The door slid aside with a scraping noise suggesting that it needed to be realigned on its rails. The Jedi waited a moment for traps to spring, then cautiously entered.

This set of quarters wasn’t a hovel, but it was primitive. The main room, four meters by five, opened via a curtained doorway into a short hall; doors there accessed two bedrooms, a kitchen with minimal facilities, and a refresher. The walls and ceiling were the same blue as the halls outside, and the floor was covered by a thin, springy, off-white pad, scuffed here and there but clean. There was no furniture other than a sleep-mat in one bedroom and a chair in the main room.

Luke and Mara moved cautiously from room to room, inspecting every closet and cabinet, turning the chair over, unscrewing panels from walls to see if anything was hidden.

In one bedroom closet were two Zorp House apartment tower jumpsuits in Lumiya’s size. Mara paused while looking through them. Luke saw her nostrils flare, and then she pulled the garments from the closet, tossed them to the floor, and leaned in to study the back of the closet.

“Something?” Luke asked.

“A hidden panel concealing a locking mechanism. I think the whole back of the closet is a doorway. You?”

“The alert diode on the package delivery slot was disabled. Something was delivered since the last time she was here-a datacard.”

“Go ahead and run it. I’m going to be a minute or two here.”

Luke slid the unlabeled card into his datapad and watched a password prompt and a couple of lines of analysis text pop up on his screen. “Encrypted,” he said. “We’ll need to run it on a computer with some decryption muscle.”

Mara’s reply sounded like muttered swearing in Huttese.

Luke didn’t know whether she was reacting to his statement or to the persistent unwillingness of the lock she was working on to be opened.

“And speaking of encryption,” he continued, “while I was getting at the datacard, I was forwarded a message by the Temple comm system. An encrypted recording from Leia.”

Mara glanced back at him, her brows up. “How is she?”

“So-so, I think. She didn’t mention Jacen shooting from the Anakin Solo and killing her bodyguards. She did mention that Han was getting back to normal from the blaster shot he sustained.”

“Good.”

“And she asked me to do something.” In a few words, he outlined Leia’s request about putting a word in Jacen’s ear regarding the Errant Venture.

Mara turned her attention to the locking mechanism as she considered. “Sounds like a good tactic. But if you do it, you’ll be conspiring with an enemy of the GA. I know how you like to keep your nose clean.”

Luke offered her a dismissive little sniff. “Han and Leia aren’t enemies of the GA-they’re suspects in an investigation. If they’re ever captured and charged, they’ll be cleared.”

“That’s true. Our justice system is particularly fair and rational these days.”

“Also, getting to the truth is always a good idea … no matter how it hurts. Besides, if you’re ever strapped for credits, you can always turn me in for the reward.”

Mara turned again to smile at him. “Luke, you always know the right thing to say.”

“I do.”

She turned back and made one final adjustment to the locking mechanism. “Ah, here we go.” There was a faint rumble from the closet and Mara abruptly bent over backward, flexible as a gymnast, catching her fall with one palm on the floor.

A dart-if a meter-long shaft of polished durasteel could be termed a dart-flew from the closet, passing over her at waist level and burying itself in the wall opposite.

Luke’s tone was exactly what he’d use to order a meal he wasn’t interested in eating. “Look out, a trap.”

“Thank you.” Mara rose.

The doorway in the back of the closet opened onto blackness and admitted warm air, pungent with the smells of Coruscant’s undercity: native and Yuuzhan Vong plant life, standing water, plascrete so old that it was going to powder in places, distant sewage.

Luke and Mara lit glowrods and entered. The access led to a utilities and repair tunnel; the Jedi explored it for thirty meters in one direction, twenty in the other, just far enough to confirm that its connections to bigger, more traveled tunnels were blocked by new plascrete plugs that looked solid but featured hatches cunningly textured to look like surrounding materials.

“Her own private means into and out of the building,” Luke said. “Chiefly as escape route, probably, since we know she didn’t use it when she returned here after killing Master Lobi.”

“But knowing that doesn’t offer us anything.” Mara sounded annoyed. “The datacard had better give us something. Or we visit the Neimoidian and get our money back.”