One of the officers nodded and began relaying the order into his comlink. “You trying to herd them toward the hangar bays?” Pellaeon hazarded.
“I’m trying to herd them in from a specific direction, yes,” Thrawn nodded. His forehead was creased with thought, his eyes still gazing at nothing in particular. “The question is what they’ll do once they realize that. Presumably try to break out of the nexus; but in which direction?”
“I doubt they’ll be foolish enough to return to the supply ship,” Pellaeon suggested. “My guess is that they’ll bypass the aft hangar bays entirely and try for one of the assault shuttles in the forward bays.”
“Perhaps,” Thrawn agreed slowly. “If Skywalker is directing the escape, I’d say that was likely. But if Karrde is giving the orders :” He fell silent, again deep in thought.
It was somewhere to start, anyway. “Have extra guards placed around the assault shuttles,” Pellaeon ordered the stormtrooper commander. “Better put some men inside the ships, too, in case the intruders make it that far.”
“No, they won’t make for the shuttles if Karrde’s in command,” Thrawn murmured. “He’s more apt to try something less obvious. Perhaps TIE fighters; or perhaps he’ll return to the supply shuttles after all, assuming we won’t expect that. Or else-“
Abruptly, his head snapped around to look at Pellaeon. “The Millennium Falcon,” he demanded. “Where is it?”
“Ah-” Again, Pellaeon’s hand reached uselessly for his command board. “I ordered it sent to deep storage, sir. I don’t know whether or not the order’s been carried out.”
Thrawn jabbed a finger at the stormtrooper commander. “You-get someone on the hangar bay computer and find that ship. Then get a squad there.”
The Grand Admiral looked at Pellaeon : and for the first time since ordering the intruder alert, he smiled. “We have them, Captain.”
Karrde pulled away the section of cable duct that Luke had cut and carefully looked through the opening. “No one seems to be around,” he murmured over his shoulder, his voice almost inaudible over the background rumble of machinery coming through from the room beyond. “I think we’ve beaten them here.”
“If they’re coming at all,” Luke said.
“They’re coming,” Mara growled. “Bet on it. If there was one thing Thrawn had over all the other Grand Admirals, it was a knack for predicting his enemies’ strategy.”
“There are a half dozen ships out there,” Karrde continued. “Unmarked Intelligence ships, from the look of them. Any would probably do.”
“Any idea where we are?” Luke asked, trying to see past him through the cable duct. There was a fair amount of empty space out there surrounding the ships, plus a gaping light-rimmed opening in the deck that was presumably the shaft of a heavy vehicle lift. Unlike the one he remembered from the Death Star’s hangar bay, though, this shaft had a corresponding hole in the ceiling above it to allow ships to be moved farther up toward the Star Destroyer’s core.
“We’re near the bottom of the deep storage section, I think,” Karrde told him. “A deck or two above the aft hangar bays. The chief difficulty will be if the lift itself is a deck down, blocking us from access to the bay and entry port.”
“Well, let’s get in there and find out,” Mara said, fingering her blaster rifle restlessly. “Waiting here won’t gain us anything.”
“Agreed.” Karrde cocked his head to the side. “I think I hear the lift coming now. They’re slow, though, and there’s enough cover by the ships. Skywalker?”
Luke ignited his lightsaber again and quickly cut them a hole large enough to get through. Karrde went first, followed by Luke, with Mara bringing up the rear. “The hangar bay computer link is over there,” Mara said, pointing to a freestanding console to their right as they crouched beside a battered-looking light freighter. “As soon as the lift passes I’ll see if I can get us into it.”
“All right, but don’t take too long at it,” Karrde warned. “A faked transfer order won’t gain us enough surprise to be worth any further delay.”
The top of a ship was becoming visible now as it was lifted from the hangar bays below. A ship that seemed remarkably familiar :
Luke felt his mouth drop open in surprise. “That’s-no. No, it can’t be.”
“It is,” Mara said. “I’d forgotten-the Grand Admiral mentioned they were taking it aboard when I talked to him at Endor.”