“That’s right,” the Han impersonator said, his voice richer, more theatrical than the real Han’s.
“Any relation?”
The impersonator shook his head. “I changed my name for professional reasons.”
“Does it help?”
“I get a lot of work. Here, we’re doing a bio-holodrama of the Solos, with two endings, depending on whose side he takes in the upcoming conflict …”
Just beyond him, the Leia impersonator patted her right-hand bun and spoke to the man in line ahead of her. Over the crowd noise, Luke could barely make out her softer tones: “No, we’re not married, but I’ve worked with him before. Well, yes, maybe. Where are you staying?”
Mara bumped into Luke from behind. “Move along, Shorty. I’ve cleared customs.”
Luke picked up his bag and moved toward the chamber exit, through which other visitors to Corellia were streaming. Inside the bag, its housing replaced by a more innocuous one, its power supply replaced by one far less potent, his lightsaber now resembled nothing so much as a personal glow rod and had passed through customs without raising an eyebrow, as Mara’s had. The correct housings and power supplies, shipped separately, would be awaiting them at their respective destinations. “It worked spectacularly,” he said.
“It did. Hiring the actors for the various other ‘roles’ was the clincher, I think. Too bad your Chewbacca couldn’t make it.”
Luke shrugged. “You can’t always get a Wookiee at the last minute. Especially when you’d have to dye his fur and give him a trim. Still …” He allowed a false note of hurt creep into his voice. “Still, I think I make a pretty good Luke Skywalker.”
“Of course you do,” Mara said, her tone soothing, a millimeter short of condescending.
“So before you began impersonating Mara, what was your real hair color?”
“Farmboy, you’re asking for a beating …”
Outside the customs facility, they posed for a holocam picture with two tourists who were delighted to meet Jedi impersonators. Once the tourists were gone, Luke and Mara kissed, put up the hoods of their travelers’ robes, and went their separate ways.
Mara fetched the airspeeder she’d rented under her assumed name and sped off toward a series of meetings where she’d pick up supplies and information she’d need for her mission. Luke, his day’s activities as urgent but not as time-critical, waved down a public transportation groundspeeder and directed it to an address in one lightly trafficked area of the government districts of Coronet.
The building that was his destination-actually three buildings down from the address he’d given the driver and where he exited the transport-was simple of design and pleasing to the eye. It was very low, one story only, on its right and left wings, but swept upward toward the middle in a steep curve so that its center was a narrowing spire several stories in height. The entire building was duracrete, tan speckled with black, except for doors and windows of green transparisteel. It was set back from the street some fifty meters, the property decorated with dark green grasses sectioned off by narrow tan duracrete sidewalks, and was entirely surrounded by a fence of blue-black plasteel bars four meters high.
On the fence gate was a printed sign reading, CLOSED DURING PLANETARY EMERGENCY. FOR HELP OR INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT CORELLIAN SECURITY. Below that was a communications address. Elsewhere on the sign, hand-lettered, were phrases such as JEDI DIE, GO HOME, and WHO PLACES PHILOSOPHY ABOVE PLANET HAS BETRAYED BOTH. Luke recognized the last quote; it was from a recent speech by Chief Sal-Solo.
There was rubbish on the green lawn, and there were blaster scores on the walls and windows of the building side facing the street. Vandals had been at work. A uniformed CorSec officer walked the sidewalk in front of the fence, keeping her eye on pedestrian and speeder traffic.
Luke walked past the CorSec officer, not making eye contact, the slightest gesture of his hand and exertion of the Force keeping the officer from feeling any curiosity about the robed passerby. Once Luke was well past her, almost to the corner where the fence changed from plasteel to smooth stone and marked the beginning of a city library property, he glanced back.
The CorSec woman was facing away. Another few steps and she’d turn and begin pacing back in Luke’s direction. He took a quick look and feel around, detected no one’s attention on him, and leapt over the fence.
He came down, rolling to his feet almost silently, and dashed to the cover of the bushes along the side of the small Jedi enclave.
The transparisteel windows along this side of the enclave looked as though they were permanently inset in the walls and could not be opened, but Luke stopped at the third window, looked around again, and brought out his comlink. He changed frequencies to one routinely used by Jedi on field operations, then whistled three notes into it.