Another electronic warble, this one fairly dripping with sarcasm. “It’s true,” Mara insisted. Her dazzled vision was starting to recover now, and she could make out the dark shape of the X-wing hovering on its repulsorlifts about five meters away, its two starboard laser cannons pointed directly at her face. “I need to talk to him right away,” Mara went on. “Before that Jedi Master up there figures out I’m still alive and tries to rectify the situation.”
She’d expected more sarcasm, or even out-and-out approval for such a goal. But the droid didn’t say anything. Perhaps it had witnessed the brief battle between the Skipray and C’baoth’s flying boulders. “Yes, that was him trying to kill me,” she confirmed. “Nice and quiet, so that your master wouldn’t notice anything and ask awkward questions.”
The droid beeped what sounded like a question of its own. “I came here because I need Skywalker’s help,” Mara said, taking a guess as to the content. “Karrde’s been captured by the Imperials, and I can’t get him out by myself. Karrde, in case you’ve forgotten, was the one who helped your friends set up an ambush against those stormtroopers that got both of you off Myrkr. You owe him.”
The droid snorted. “All right, then,” Mara snapped. “Don’t do it for Karrde, and don’t do it for me. Take me up there because otherwise your precious master won’t know until it’s too late that his new teacher, C’baoth, is working for the Empire.”
The droid thought it over. Then, slowly, the X-wing rotated to point its lasers away from her and sidled over to the damaged Skipray. Mara holstered her blaster and got ready, wondering how she was going to squeeze into the cockpit with the ysalamir framework strapped to her shoulders.
She needn’t have worried. Instead of maneuvering to give her access to the cockpit, the droid instead presented her with one of the landing skids.
“You must be joking,” Mara protested, eyeing the skid hovering at waist height in front of her and thinking about the long drop to the lake below. But it was clear that the droid was serious; and after a moment, she reluctantly climbed aboard. “Okay,” she said when she was as secure as she could arrange. “Let’s go. And watch out for flying rocks.”
The X-wing eased away and began moving upward. Mara braced herself, waiting for C’baoth to pick up the attack where he’d left off. But they reached the top without incident; and as the droid settled the X-wing safely to the ground, Mara saw the shadowy figure of a cloaked man standing silently beside the fence surrounding the house.
“You must be C’baoth,” Mara said to him as she slid off the landing skid and got a grip on her blaster. “You always greet your visitors this way?”
For a moment the figure didn’t speak. Mara took a step toward him, feeling an eerie sense of d?v? vu as she tried to peer into the hood at the face not quite visible there. The Emperor had looked much the same way that night when he’d first chosen her from her home : “I have no visitors except lackeys from Grand Admiral Thrawn,” the figure said at last. “All others are, by definition, intruders.”
“What makes you think I’m not with the Empire?” Mara countered. “In case it escaped your notice, I was following the Imperial beacon on that island down there when you knocked me out of the sky.”
In the dim starlight she had the impression that C’baoth was smiling inside the hood. “And what precisely does that prove?” he asked. “Merely that others can play with the Grand Admiral’s little toys.”
“And can others get hold of the Grand Admiral’s ysalamiri, too?” she demanded, gesturing toward the frame on her back. “Enough of this. The Grand Admiral-“
“The Grand Admiral is your enemy,” C’baoth snapped suddenly. “Don’t insult me with childish denials, Mara Jade. I saw it all in your mind as you approached. Did you really believe you could take my Jedi away from me?”
Mara swallowed, shivering from the cold night wind and the colder feeling within her. Thrawn had said that C’baoth was insane, and she could indeed hear the unstable edge of madness in his voice. But there was far more to the man than just that. There was a hard steel behind the voice, ruthless and calculating, with a sense of both supreme power and supreme confidence underlying it all.
It was like hearing the Emperor speak again.
“I need Skywalker’s help,” she said, forcing her own voice to remain calm. “All I need to do is borrow him for a little while.”
“And then you’ll return him?” C’baoth said sardonically.