THE HUTT GAMBI(95)

“Right!” they roared.

“And …” Mako finished up, “if this doesn’t work …” He shrugged.

“Well, we’ll just have to keep trying. It’s not like we can just give up and go away.”

The crowd regarded him, alert but sobered by his final words.

Han stepped back up to the podium. “Okay,” he said. “That’s the plan.

We’ll go over it until you’ve got it down pat. Any questions?”

To Han’s amazement, over the next several days, Xaverri and Salla became the best of friends. He and Mako were busy staging repeated battle drills for their pilots and crews on the Nar Shaddaa defense squadron, so he didn’t have much time to hang out at Shug’s spacebarn, but every time he did go there, he found Salla and Xaverri working together on creating the illusionist’s “masterpiece.”

“It’ll only be good for about a two-or three-minute distraction, Solo,” Xaverri warned. “They’re going to see these ships swooping at them, real close, and they’re going to see data that corresponds to their visual sightings appear on their instrument panels. But I want these ships to appear close, so their reaction will be to turn all their vessels to bring their forward guns into play. That makes them vulnerable to your flank attack.”

Xaverri took a sip from a cup of stimtea Han had brewed for Shug, Salla, Chewie, Jarik, and the other technician volunteers who were working on making Xaverri’s illusion a “reality.”

“But these ships are going to appear such a threat because they’re going to be close. Within a couple of minutes, when the Imps realize that none of them has been hit by the blasts they’re seeing emanate from those ships, they’ll realize it’s a fake.”

Han nodded. “A minute or three is all we can ask for, Xaverri. We’ll be really grateful for that diversion. We’ve contacted the pirate captain the Hutts hired. Drea Renthal. Her flagship, Renthal’s Fist, is gonna be hiding ‘behind’ Nar Shaddaa—that is, on the Nal Hutta side of the moon—along with the rest of her fleet. When those Capital-class ships come swinging around the moon, then turn to face your illusionary fleet, she and Mako are going to hit them hard.”

Jarik Solo wiped tiredly at his dirty face with an even filthier hand.

“Han, what’s the strength of that merc fleet? Are they gonna be much help?”

Han nodded. “Yeah, Jarik. Renthal’s Fist is a Corellian corvette.

She’s heavily modified, and heavily armed. Even has proton torpedo launchers in the front. Only problem is, they don’t have many torpedoes. Renthal can’t afford to miss.”

“How many other ships?” Xaverri wanted to know.

“Renthal also has a bulk freighter, Golden Dreams, that’s been converted to carry fighters. SoroSuub medium transport. Big ship.

Not much shielding, though. She’ll launch her Z-95 Headhunters, then hang back, letting Renthal’s Fist carry the attack. Then there’s the Too Late Now and the Minestra. Too Late Now is a captured Imp patrol craft. Renthal replaced one of the laser turrets with an ion cannon, so hopefully she can knock out some of those bulk cruisers. Minestra is a Rendili Stardrive light corvette. Nice ship, modified so she has concussion missiles and ion cannons to go with her laser turrets.”

“That sounds like a pretty good force to me,” Xaverri said. “Of course, I barely know the difference between an ion cannon and a concussion missile.”

“When I first started smuggling, I barely did, too,” Salla said with a laugh. “But when the Imp patrols start shooting at you with ‘em, you find yourself getting real knowledgeable real fast.”

The two women smiled at each other. Han still couldn’t get over how quickly they’d become friends. To tell the truth, he was a bit jealous. In many ways, Salla and Xaverri seemed closer to each other than either woman had ever been to him. He wondered whether they’d ever talked to each other about him. Compared notes, maybe?

The thought made his face redden. Jarik provided a welcome distraction.

“Hey, Han… can I talk to you a minute?”

Han gulped the last of his stimtea and stood up. “Sure, Jarik. Want to go into Shug’s office so we can be out of the way?”

“Yeah,” the youth said. “If we try to talk here, someone will run over us with an antigrav lifter or something?

The spacebarn was a hive of activity. Everywhere smugglers were fixing up their ships, in some cases modifying them, trying to squeeze extra speed out of their engines, or adding an extra quad laser or missile launcher.