[Thrawn Trilogy] - 02(123)

Talon Karrde looked up from the cot as the door slid open, that well-remembered sardonic half smile on his face. His eyes focused on the face above the flight suit, and abruptly the smile vanished. “I don’t believe it,” he murmured.

“Me, either,” Luke told him, throwing a quick glance around the room. “You fit to travel?”

“Fit and ready,” Karrde said, already up and moving toward the door. “Fortunately, they’re still in the softening-up phase. Lack of food and sleep-you’re familiar with the routine.”

“I’ve heard of it.” Luke looked both ways down the corridor. Still no one. “Exit’s this way. Come on.”

They made it to the grating without incident. “You must be joking, of course,” Karrde said as Luke maneuvered his way into the hole and got his feet and back braced against the chute walls.

“The other way out has guards at the end of it,” Luke reminded him.

“Point,” Karrde conceded, reluctantly looking into the gap. “I suppose it’d be too much to hope for a rope.”

“Sorry. The only place to tie it is this grate, and they’d spot that in no time.” Luke frowned at him. “You’re not afraid of heights, are you?”

“It’s the falling from them that worries me,” Kai’rde said dryly. But he was already climbing into the opening, though his hands were white-knuckled where he gripped the grating.

“We’re going to rock-chimney it down to the garbage masher,” Luke told him. “You ever done that before?”

“No, but I’m a quick study,” Karrde said. Looking back over his shoulder at Luke, he eased into a similar position against the chute walls. “I presume you want this hole covered up,” he added, pulling the grating section from its perch and filling it back into the opening. “Though it’s not going to fool anyone who takes a close look at it.”

“With luck, we’ll be back at the hangar bay before that happens,” Luke assured him. “Come on, now. Slow and easy; let’s go.”

They made it back to the garbage compactor without serious mishap. “The dark side of the Empire the tourists never see,” Karrde commented dryly as Luke led him across the tangle of garbage. “How do we get out?”

“The door’s right there,” Luke said, pointing down below the level of the mass they were walking on. “Mara’s supposed to open the walls again in a couple of minutes and let us down.

“Ah,” Karrde said. “Mara’s here, is she?”

“She told me on the trip here how you were captured,” Luke said, trying to read Karrde’s sense. If he was angry at Mara, he was hiding it well. “She said she wasn’t in on that trap.”

“Oh, I’m sure she wasn’t,” Karrde said. “If for no other reason than that my interrogators worked so hard to drop hints to the contrary.” He looked thoughtfully at Luke. “What did she promise for your help in this?”

Luke shook his head. “Nothing. She just reminded me that I owed you one for not turning me over to the Imperials back on Myrkr.”

A wry smile twitched Karrde’s lip. “Indeed. No mention, either, of why the Grand Admiral wanted me in the first place?”

Luke frowned at him. The other was watching him closely : and now that he was paying attention, Luke could tell that Karrde was holding some secret back from him. “I assumed it was in revenge for helping me escape. Is there more to it than that?”

Karrde’s gaze drifted away from him. “Let’s just say that if we make it away from here the New Republic stands to gain a great deal.”

His last word was cut off by a muffled clang; and with a ponderous jolt the compactor walls began slowly moving apart again. Luke helped Karrde maintain his balance as they waited for the door to be clear, stretching his senses outward into the corridor beyond. There were a fair number of crewers passing by, but he could sense no suspicion or special alertness in any of them. “Is Mara doing all this?” Karrde asked.

Luke nodded. “She has an access code for the ship’s computer.”

“Interesting,” Karrde murmured. “I gathered from all this that she had some past connection with the Empire. Obviously, she was more highly placed than I realized.”

Luke nodded, thinking back to Mara’s revelation to him back in the Myrkr forest. Mara Jade, the Emperor’s Hand : “Yes,” he told Karrde soberly. “She was.”

The walls reached their limit and shut down. A moment later there was a click of a relay. Luke waited until the corridor immediately outside was deserted, then opened it and stepped out. A couple of maintenance techs working at an open panel a dozen meters down the corridor threw a look of idle curiosity at the newcomers; throwing an equally unconcerned glance back their way, Luke pulled the data pad from his pocket and pretended to make an entry. Karrde played off the cue, standing beside him and spouting a stream of helpful jargon as Luke filled out his imaginary report. Letting the door slide closed, Luke stuffed the data pad back into his pocket and led the way down the corridor.