Luke nodded, thinking back to the rescue of Leia and that harrowing escape from the first Death Star aboard the Falcon. “They pulled that same trick on us, too,” he said. “That’s how they found the Yavin base.”
“Considering what it cost them, I don’t think you’ve got any complaints coming,” Mara said sarcastically.
“I don’t imagine the Emperor was pleased,” Luke murmured.
“No, he wasn’t,” Mara said, her voice dark with memories of her own. “Vader nearly died for that blunder.” Deliberately, she looked over at Luke’s hands. “That was when he lost his right hand, in fact.”
Luke flexed the fingers of his artificial right hand, feeling a ghostly echo of the searing pain that had lanced through it as Vader’s lightsaber had sliced through skin and muscle and bone. A fragment of an old Tatooine aphortsm flickered through his mind: something about the passing of evil from one generation to the next “What’s the plan?” he asked.
Mara took a deep breath, and Luke could sense the emotional effort as she put the past aside. “Karrde’s being held aboard the Grand Admiral’s flagship, the Chimaera,” she told him. “According to their flight schedule, they’re going to be taking on supplies in the Wistril system four days from now. If we push it, we should be able to get there a few hours ahead of them. We’ll ditch the Skipray, take charge of one of the supply shuttles, and just go on up with the rest of the flight pattern.”
Luke thought it over. It sounded tricky, but not ridiculously so. “What happens after we’re aboard?”
“Standard Imperial procedure is to keep all the shuttle crews locked aboard their ships while the Chimaera’s crewers handle the unloading,” Mara said. “Or at least that was standard procedure five years ago. Means we’ll need some kind of diversion to get out of the shuttle.”
“Sounds risky,” Luke shook his head. “We don’t want to draw attention to ourselves.”
“You got any better ideas?”
Luke shrugged. “Not yet,” he said. “But we’ve got four days to think about it. We’ll come up with something.”
Chapter 22
Mara eased the repulsorlifts off; and with a faint metallic clank the cargo shuttle touched down on the main deck of the Chimaera’s aft hangar bay. “Shuttle 37 down,” Luke announced into the comm. “Awaiting further orders.”
“Shuttle 37, acknowledged,” the voice of the controller came over the speaker. “Shut down all systems and prepare for unloading.”
“Got it.”
Luke reached over to shut off the comm, but Mara stopped him. “Control, this is my first cargo run,” she said, her voice carrying just the right touch of idle curiosity. “About how long until we’ll be able to leave?”
“I suggest you make yourselves comfortable,” Control said dryly. “We unload all the shuttles before any of you leave. Figure a couple of hours, at the least.”
“Oh,” Mara said, sounding taken aback. “Well : thanks. Maybe I’ll take a nap.”
She signed off. “Good,” she said, unstrapping and standing up. “That ought to give us enough time to get to the detention center and back.”
“Let’s just hope they haven’t transferred Karrde off the ship,” Luke said, following her to the rear of the command deck and the spiral stairway leading down to the storage area below.
“They haven’t,” Mara said, heading down the stairs. “The only danger is that they might have started the full treatment already.”
Luke frowned down at her. “The full treatment?”
“Their interrogation.” Mara reached the center of the storage room and looked appraisingly around. “All right. Just about : there should do it.” She pointed to a section of the deck in front of her. “Out of the way of prying eyes, and you shouldn’t hit anything vital.”
“Right.” Luke ignited his lightsaber, and began carefully cutting a hole in the floor. He was most of the way through when there was a brilliant spark from the hole and the lights in the storage room abruptly went out. “It’s okay,” Luke told Mara as she muttered something vicious under her breath. “The lightsaber gives off enough light to see by.”
“I’m more worried that the cable might have arced to the hangar deck,” she countered. “They couldn’t help but notice that.”
Luke paused, stretching out with Jedi senses. “Nobody nearby seems to have seen anything,” he told Mara.
“We’ll hope.” She gestured to the half-finished cut. “Get on with it.”