THE HUTT GAMBI(91)

You want the illusion to be real enough, and last long enough, to cause the Imp vessels to be fooled into turning to fire on the fake fleet.

Have I got it right?”

“That’s it,” Han said. As she’d detailed the plan, he’d realized just what he was asking. Xaverri had never created anything on this scale before.

Probably no one had.

Xaverri shook her head, her long black hair sliding over her shoulders.

“You don’t ask much, do you, Solo?”

“Hey,” Han said, trying to grin, “think of it as a challenge. Your greatest illusion ever!”

“Any holo-illusion requires projectors,” Xaverri said. “What can we use for them?”

“I was thinking we could get all the tri-dee projectors from the casinos,” Han said. “You know, the ones that they use to project shows onto the screens in the gambling areas, so people can watch the shows while they lose their shirts.”

Xaverri frowned. “Maybe,” she said. “But even if we could create the image of the fleet, the Imp sensors would tell them right away it was an illusion. They’d ignore it.”

“Maybe we could jam their sensors?” Salla suggested. “After all, we can jam transmissions going out. Isn’t there some way to jam what’s going in?”

The magician was looking at the smugglers with her eyes wide. “You know something,” she said, “I think I’m getting an idea …”

Han leaned forward. “Yeah? What?”

She sipped her drink, thinking, then replied, “I think we may be able to use the traffic-control buoys to send false data to the Imps. So they’ll see the holo-illusion, at the same time as their sensors pick up data that tells them what they’re seeing is real!”

Salla was excited. “Great! That sounds perfect!”

Xaverri smiled at her. “But I’ll need help building all this. Slicers to help reprogram the traffic-control buoys, techs to build the projectors for the illusion. Do you know any good slicers and techs?”

Salla grinned back and impulsively reached out a hand. The two women clasped hands over the table. “You bet I do, Xaverri,” the tall smuggler said. “Shug and I will help.”

Chewbacca let out a loud, emphatic roar that caused a passing wait droid to drop a food tray and scuttle back into the kitchen.

“Chewie says, include him in, too,” Han supplied the translation with a grin. “Xaverri … I know you probably gave up a fancy booking to come here and help us. I want you to know I—we—all appreciate it.”

“Hey, Solo, it’s a chance to hurt the Imperials,” the magician said.

“How could I refuse?”

When Han and Chewie arrived for the promised big briefing of their combat pilots, they found most of the smuggler pilots and crews assembled in the auditorium of The Chance Castle. Mako was already onstage, exchanging jokes and jibes with his audience. When he saw Han and Chewie, the senior smuggler rapped his knuckles on the rostrum to get his audience’s attention.

“Okay, all of you, listen up!” he shouted.

Silence descended. “Listen good, you spacebums,” Mako said, the pride and affection in his voice as he regarded his troops taking away any possible sting from his words. “‘Cause your lives, and the lives of those you’re flyin’ with, may be at stake here.”

Mako paused, surveying them all, seeing that he did, indeed, have their full attention.

“Here’s how we’re gonna pull this little trick off. We can’t be sure when the Imps are going to attack, but we’ve got a pretty good idea of the battle plan they’ll follow. That’s ‘cause the Imperial Navy has standard battle plans for just about any situation, and they’re trained to follow them, no matter what. Old Han here used to be an Imp officer, and he’ll back me up on this. Right, Han?”

Han walked out onto the stage and nodded exaggeratedly. “Mako’s right!” he shouted, because his voice wasn’t amplified the way Mako’s was. The senior smuggler motioned to the Corellian to come over and share the podium. Han did so.

“So, the standard plan for this kind of operation has them rendezvous and deploy fairly far out. If we’re lucky, we’ll pick them up on our sensors.

If not, we may have to scramble to get to our ships. Everyone prepared to do that?”

All the smugglers agreed, with a shout, that they were prepared.

“Good,” Han said. “So they’re gonna deploy, maybe fix any lastminute problems.

Then the Imps should make a microjump through hyperspace, so they’ll arrive pretty close to the far side of Nar Shaddaa, but well out of weapons range. By that time, we’ll be in our ships and launched. Each ship is gonna go to its hiding place among the debris, or lose itself in regular space traffic. A couple of smaller fighters, like Roa in his Lwyll, are gonna do recon. The bigger ships will fly false transponder codes, and the fighters will be either in cargo bays of the big freighters or clamped on to their hulls. The rest of us will just be innocent little spacers, and properly panicked when the Imps zoom into view. Right, gang?”