[Thrawn Trilogy] - 01(139)

And Solo knew it. “Yeah,” he conceded. “Well … so long.”

Karrde watched as they got into the airspeeder. “One other thing,” he said as they strapped in. “Obviously, we’re going to have to pull out of here before the Imperials figure out what’s happened. That means a lot of lifting capacity if we’re going to do it quickly. You wouldn’t happen to have any surplus cargo or stripped-down military ships lying around I could have, would you?”

Solo gave him a strange look. “We don’t have enough cargo capacity for the New Republic’s normal business,” he said. “I think I might have mentioned that to you.”

“Well, then, a loan, perhaps,” Karrde persisted. “A stripped-down Mon Calamari Star Cruiser would do nicely.”

“I’m sure it would,” Solo returned with more than a hint of sarcasm. “I’ll see what I can do.”

The canopy dropped smoothly down over them and sealed in place. Karrde stepped back, and with a whine of repulsorlifts, the airspeeder rose into the sky. Orienting itself, it shot off toward the forest.

Karrde watched it go, wondering if that last suggestion had been too little too late. But perhaps not. Solo was the type to hold debts of honor sacred-something he’d probably picked up from his Wookiee friend somewhere along the line. If he could find a spare Star Cruiser, he’d likely send it along.

And once here, it would be easy enough to steal from whatever handlers Solo sent with it. Perhaps such a gift would help assuage Grand Admiral Thrawn’s inevitable anger over what had happened here today.

But then, perhaps it wouldn’t.

Karrde looked back at the ruins of the collapsed arch, a shiver running through him. No, a warship wasn’t going to help. Not on this. Thrawn had lost too much here to simply shrug it off as the fortunes of war. He would be back … and he would be coming for blood.

And for perhaps the first time in his life, Karrde felt the unpleasant stirrings of genuine fear.

In the distance, the airspeeder disappeared over the forest canopy. Karrde turned and gave Hyllyard City one final, lingering look. One way or the other, he knew he would never see it again.

Luke got Lando settled into one of the Falcon’s bunks while Han and a couple of Karrde’s men busied themselves outside getting a tow cable attached to the X-wing. The Falcon’s medical package was fairly primitive, but it was up to the task of cleaning and bandaging a blaster burn. A complete healing job would have to wait until they could get him to a bacta tank, but for the moment he seemed comfortable enough. Leaving Artoo and Threepio to watch over him-despite his protestations that he didn’t need watching over and, furthermore, had had enough of Threepio-Luke returned to the cockpit just as the ship lifted off.

“Any problems with the tow cable?” he asked, sliding into the copilot’s seat.

“Not so far,” Han said, leaning forward and looking all around them as the Falcon cleared the trees. “The extra weight’s not bothering us, anyway. We should be all right.”

“Good. You expecting company?”

“You never know,” Han said, giving the sky one last look before settling back into his seat and gunning the repulsorlifts. “Karrde said there were still a couple of Chariots and a few speeder bikes unaccounted for. One of them might have figured that a last-ditch suicide run was better than having to go back to the Grand Admiral and report.”

Luke stared at him. “Grand Admiral?” he asked carefully.

Han’s lip twisted. “Yeah. That’s who seems to be running the show now for the Empire.”

A cold chill ran up Luke’s back. “I thought we’d accounted for all the Grand Admirals.”

“Me, too. We must have missed one.”

And abruptly, right in the middle of Han’s last word, Luke felt a surge of awareness and strength fill him. As if he were waking up from a deep sleep, or stepping from a dark room into the light, or suddenly understanding the universe again.

The Force was again with him.

He took a deep breath, eyes flicking across the control board for the altimeter. Just over twelve kilometers. Karrde had been right-those ysalamiri did, indeed, reinforce one another. “I don’t suppose you got a name,” he murmured.

“Karrde wouldn’t give it to me,” Han said, throwing a curious frown in Luke’s direction. “Maybe we can bargain the use of that Star Cruiser he wants for it. You okay?”

“I’m fine,” Luke assured him. “I just-it’s like being able to see again after having been blind.”

Han snorted under his breath. “Yeah, I know how that is,” he said wryly.