Mara was waiting at the turbolift cluster with the spare flight suit draped over her arm. “Car’s on its way she murmured. For a second, as her eyes met Karrde’s, her face seemed to tighten.
“He knows you didn’t betray him,” Luke told her quietly.
“I didn’t ask,” she growled. But Luke could sense some of her tension vanish. “Here,” she added, thrusting the flight suit at Karrde. “A little camouflage.”
“Thank you,” Karrde said. “Where are we going?”
“We came in on a supply shuttle,” Mara said. “We cut an exit hole in the lower hull, but we should have enough time to weld it airtight before they send us back to the surface.”
The turbolift car arrived as Karrde was adjusting the fasteners on his borrowed flight suit. Two men with a gleaming power core relay on a float table were there before them, taking up most of the room. “Where to?” one of the techs asked with the absent politeness of a man with more important things on his mind.
“Pilot ready room 33-129-T,” Mara told him, using the same tone.
The tech entered the destination on the panel and the door slid shut; and Luke took his first really relaxed breath since Mara had put the Skipray down on Wistril five hours ago. Another ten or fifteen minutes and they’d be safely back in their shuttle.
Against all odds, they’d done it.
The midpoint report from the hangar bay came in, and Pellaeon paused in his monitoring of the bridge deflector control overhaul to take a quick look at it. Excellent; the unloading was running nearly eight minutes ahead of schedule. At this rate the Chimaera would be able to make its rendezvous with the Stormhawk in plenty of time for them to set up their ambush of the Rebel convoy assembling off Corfai. He marked the report as noted and sent it back into the files; and he had turned his attention back to the deflector overhaul when he heard a quiet footstep behind him.
“Good evening, Captain,” Thrawn nodded, coming up beside Pellaeon’s chair and giving the bridge a leisurely scan.
“Admiral,” Pellaeon nodded back, swiveling to face him. “I thought you’d retired for the night, sir.
“I’ve been in my command room,” Thrawn said, looking past Pellaeon at the displays. “I thought I’d make one last survey of ship’s status before I went to my quarters. Is that the bridge deflector overhaul?”
“Yes, sir,” Pellaeon said, wondering which species’ artwork had been favored with the Grand Admiral’s scrutiny tonight. “No problems so far. The cargo unloading down in Aft Bay Two is running ahead of schedule, too.”
“Good,” the Grand Admiral said. “Anything further from the patrol at Endor?”
“Just an addendum to that one report, sir,” Pellaeon told him. “Apparently, they’ve confirmed that the ship they caught coming into the system was in fact just a smuggler planning to sift again through the remains of the Imperial base there. They’re continuing to back-check the crew.”
“Remind them to make a thorough job of it before they let the ship go,” Thrawn said grimly. “Organa Solo won’t have simply abandoned the Millennium Falcon in orbit there. Sooner or later she’ll return for it:and when she does, I intend to have her.”
“Yes, sir,” Pellaeon nodded. The commander of the Endor patrol group, he was certain, didn’t need any reminding of that. “Speaking of the Millennium Falcon, have you decided yet whether or not to do any further scan work on it?”
Thrawn shook his head. “I doubt that would gain us anything. The scanning team would be better employed assisting with maintenance on the Chimaera’s own systems. Have the Millennium Falcon transferred up to vehicle deep storage until we can find some use for it.”
“Yes, sir,” Pellaeon said, swiveling back and logging the order. “Oh, and there was one other strange report that came in a few minutes ago. A routine patrol on the supply base perimeter came across a Skipray blastboat that had made a crash landing out there.”
“A crash landing?” Thrawn frowned.
“Yes, sir,” Pellaeon said, calling up the report. “Its underside was in pretty bad shape, and the whole hull was scorched.”
The picture came up on Pellaeon’s display, and Thrawn leaned over his shoulder for a closer look. “Any bodies?”
“No, sir,” Pellaeon said. “The only thing aboard-and this is the strange partwas an ysalamir.”
He felt Thrawn stiffen. “Show me.”
Pellaeon keyed for the next picture, a close-up of the ysalamir on its biosupport frame. “The frame isn’t one of our designs,” he pointed out. “No telling where it came from.”