“Lando?” Luke frowned, reading the sentence again. “I don’t remember ever seeing Lando with anything like this.”
More words scrolled across the scope. “Yes, I realize I was busy at the time,” Luke agreed, unconsciously flexing the fingers of his artificial right hand. “Getting fitted with a new hand will do that. So did he give it to General Madine, or was he just showing it to him?”
Another sentence appeared. “That’s okay,” Luke assured the droid. “I imagine you were busy, too.”
He looked into his rear display, at the crescent of Dagobah growing ever smaller behind him. He had intended to go straight back to Coruscant and wait for Leia and Han to return from Bpfassh. But from what he’d heard, their mission there could run a couple of weeks or even more. And Lando had invited him more than once to visit his new rare-ore mining operation on the superhot planet of Nkllon.
“Change in plans, Artoo,” he announced, keying in a new course. “We’re going to swing over to the Athega system and see Lando. Maybe he can tell us what this thing is.”
And on the way, he’d have time to think about that disturbing dream or vision or whatever it was he’d had in the cave. And to decide whether it had been, in fact, nothing more than a dream.
Chapter 12
“No, I don’t have a transit permit for Nkllon,” Han said patiently into the Falcon’s transmitter, glaring across at the modified B-wing running beside them. “I also don’t have any accounts here. I’m trying to reach Lando Calrissian.”
From the seat behind him came a sound that might have been a stifled laugh. “You say something?” he asked over his shoulder.
“No,” Leia said innocently. “Just remembering the past.”
“Right,” Han growled. He remembered, too; and Bespin wasn’t on his list of fond memories. “Look, just give Lando a call, will you?” he suggested to the B-wing. “Tell him that an old friend is here, and thought we might play a hand of sabacc for my choice of his stock. Lando will understand.”
“We want to what?” Leia asked, leaning forward around his chair to give him a startled look.
Han muted the transmitter. “The Imperials might have spies here, too,” he reminded her. “If they do, announcing our names to the whole Athega system wouldn’t be very smart.”
“Point,” Leia conceded reluctantly. “That’s a pretty strange message, though.”
“Not to Lando,” Han assured her. “He’ll know it’s me-provided that middle-level button pusher out there loosens up and sends it in.”
Beside him, Chewbacca growled a warning: something big was approaching from aft-starboard. “Any make on it?” Han asked, craning his neck to try to get a look.
The transmitter crackled back to life before the Wookiee could answer. “Unidentified ship, General Calrissian has authorized a special transit waiver for you,” the B-wing said, his tone sounding a little disappointed. He’d probably been looking forward to personally kicking the troublemakers out of his system. “Your escort is moving to intercept; hold your current position until he arrives.”
“Acknowledged,” Han said, not quite able to bring himself to thank the man.
“Escort?” Leia asked cautiously. “Why an escort?”
“That’s what you get for going off and doing politics stuff when Lando drops by the Palace for a visit,” Han admonished her, still craning his neck. There it was … “Nkllon’s a superhot planet-way too close to its sun for any normal ship to get to without getting part of its hull peeled off. Hence-” he waved Leia’s attention to the right “-the escort.”
There was a sharp intake of air from behind him, and even Han, who’d seen Lando’s holos of these things, had to admit it was an impressive sight. More than anything else the shieldship resembled a monstrous flying umbrella, a curved dish fully half as big across as an Imperial Star Destroyer. The underside of the dish was ridged with tubes and fins-pumping and storage equipment for the coolant that helped keep the dish from burning up during the trip inward. Where the umbrella’s handle would have been was a thick cylindrical pylon, reaching half as far back as the umbrella dish was wide, its far end bristling with huge radiator fins. In the center of the pylon, looking almost like an afterthought, was the tug ship that drove the thing.
“Good skies,” Leia murmured, sounding stunned. “And it actually flies?”
“Yeah, but not easily,” Han told her, watching with a slight trickle of apprehension as the monstrosity moved ever closer to his ship. It didn’t have to move all that close-the Falcon was considerably smaller than the huge container ships the shieldships normally escorted. “Lando told me they had all sorts of trouble getting the things designed properly in the first place, and almost as much trouble teaching people how to fly them.”