They went about five meters into the forest, then changed direction to circle the compound. A quarter of the way around the circle, they found a likely looking group of small buildings.
“Look for a door with a lock,” Lando suggested as they came out among the sheds. “Either permanent or temporary.”
“Right.” Han peered through the darkness. “That one over there-the one with two doors?”
“Could be,” Lando agreed. “Let’s take a look.”
The left-most of the two doors did indeed have a lock. Or, rather, it had had a lock. “It’s been shot off,” Lando said, poking at it with a finger. “Strange.”
“Maybe the prisoner had friends,” Han suggested, glancing around. There was no one else in sight. “Let’s go inside.”
They slid the door open and went in, closing it behind them before turning on the light. The shed was less than half full, with most of the boxes piled against the right-hand wall. The exceptions to that rule …
Han stepped over for a closer look. “Well, well,” he murmured, gazing at the removed power outlet plate and the wires poking through the gap. “Someone’s been busy over here.”
“Someone’s been even busier over here,” Lando commented from behind him. “Come have a look.”
Lando was crouched down beside the door, peering into the inside of the door lock mechanism. Like the outside, half of its covering plate had been blasted off. “That must have been one beaut of a shot,” Han frowned, coming over.
“It wasn’t a single shot,” Lando said, shaking his head. “The stuff in between is mostly intact.” He pushed back the cover a little, poking at the electronics inside with his fingers. “Looks like our mysterious prisoner was tampering with the equipment.”
“I wonder how he got it open.” Han glanced back at the removed power plate. “I’m going to take a look next door,” he told Lando, stepping back to the entrance and tapping the release.
The door didn’t open. “Uh-oh,” he muttered, trying again.
“Wait a second-I see the problem,” Lando said, fiddling with something behind the plate. “There’s a power supply been half spliced into the works …”
Abruptly, the door slid open. “Back in a second,” Han told him, and slipped outside.
The shed’s right-hand room wasn’t much different from the other one. Except for one thing: in the center, in a space that had very obviously been cleared for the purpose, lay an open droid restraint collar.
Han frowned down at it. The collar hadn’t been properly put away, or even closed again-hardly the way someone in an organization like Karrde’s would be expected to take care of company equipment. Roughly in the center of the collar’s open jaws were three faint marks on the floor. Skid marks, he decided, formed by the restrained droid’s attempts to move or get free.
Behind him, the door whispered open. Han spun around, blaster in hand-
“You seem to have gotten lost,” Karrde said calmly. His eyes flicked around the room. “And to have lost General Calrissian along the way.”
Han lowered the blaster. “You need to tell your people to put their toys away when they’re done,” he said, nodding his head at the abandoned restraint collar. “You were holding a droid prisoner, too?”
Karrde smiled thinly. “I see Ghent was talking out of turn again. Amazing, isn’t it, how so many expert slicers know everything about computers and droids and yet don’t know when to keep their mouths shut.”
“It’s also amazing how so many expert smugglers don’t know when to leave a messy deal alone,” Han shot back. “So what’s your Grand Admiral got you doing? Formal slaving, or just random kidnappings?”
Karrde’s eyes flashed. “I don’t deal in slaves, Solo. Slaves or kidnapping. Never.”
“What was this one, then? An accident?”
“I didn’t ask for him to come into my life,” Karrde countered. “Nor did I especially want him there.”
Han snorted. “You’re stretching, Karrde. What’d he do, drop in out of the sky on top of you?”
“As a matter of fact, that’s very nearly the way it happened,” Karrde said stiffly.
“Oh, well, that’s a good reason to lock someone up,” Han said sardonically. “Who was he?”
“That information’s not for sale.”
“Maybe we don’t need to buy it,” Lando said from behind him.
Karrde turned. “Ah,” he said as Lando stepped past him into the room. “There you are. Exploring the other half of the shed, were you?”