"I must apologize for chasing you out like that;" Karrde said as he walked Han toward the central building. "Particularly in the middle of a meal. It's not exactly the sort of hospitality we strive for here."

"No problem," Han told him casually and eyeing him as best as he could in the gathering dusk. "What was that all about anyway?"

"Nothing serious," Karrde assured him easily. "Some people with whom I've had business dealings wanted to come and look at the place over."

"Ah;" said Han. "So you're working directly for the Empire now? Luke and Mara are going to be extremely disappointed."

Karrde's expression cracked just a little. Han expected him to make some sort of reflexive denial; instead, he stopped to look at Lando and Ghent who were walking behind them. "Ghent?" he asked mildly.

"I'm sorry, sir," the kid said, sounding utterly miserable. "They insisted on coming out to see what was happening."

"I see." Karrde looked back at Han, his face calm again. "No harm done, probably. Not the wisest of risks to take, though."

"I'm used to taking risks," growled Han, crossing his arms, "You haven't answered my question."

Karrde resumed walking. "If I'm not interested in working for the New Republic, I'm certainly not interested in working for the Empire. The Imperials have been coming here for the past few weeks to collect ysalamiri."

"Is that so?" asked Han. "It's no secret what those things are good for, Karrde. It's obvious they're planning on using them against the Jedi. I recognized Darth Diabolis, self proclaimed big head-man of the Sith but who was the blue skinned being in the Grand Admiral's uniform."

Karrde gave a thin smile. "You know that information costs money, Captain Solo?"

"How much money?" growled Han, beginning to get very sick of this two faced smuggler chief and his ridiculous games. "Actually, his name is not for sale at the moment. Perhaps we can talk about it later."

"Thanks, but I don't think there's going to be a later," Han snapped. "If you don't mind, we'll just say our goodbyes here and get back to the ship."

Karrde seemed mildly surprised. "You're not going to finish our dinner? You hardly had a chance to get started."

Han looked him straight in the eye. "I don't especially like sitting on the ground like a practice target when there are Stormtroopers wandering around," he said bluntly. Karrde's face hardened. "At the moment, sitting on the ground is preferable to drawing attention in the air," he said coldly. "The Star Destroyer hasn't left orbit yet. Lifting off now would be an open invitation for them to swat you down."

"The Falcon's outrun Star Destroyers before," Han countered. But Karrde had a point and the fact that he hadn't turned the two of them over to the Imperials probably meant that he could be trusted, at least for now. Probably. On the other hand, if they did stay... "But I suppose it wouldn't hurt to stick around a little longer," he conceded. "All right, sure, we'll finish dinner."

"Good," Karrde said. "It will just take a few minutes to get things put back together."

"You took everything apart?" Lando asked. "Everything that might have indicated we had guests," Karrde said. "The Grand Admiral is highly observant, and I wouldn't have put it past him to know exactly how many of my associates are staying here at the moment."

"Well, while you're getting things ready," Han said, "I want to go back to the ship and check on the couple of things."

Karrde's eyes narrowed slightly. "But you will be back."

Han gave him an innocent smile. "Trust me."

Karrde gazed at him a moment longer, then shrugged. "Very well. Watch yourselves, though. The local predators don't normally come this close in to our encampment, but there are exceptions."

"We'll be careful," Han promised. "Come on, Lando."

They headed back the way they'd come. "So what did we forget to do back at the Falcon?" Lando asked quietly as they reached the trees. "Nothing," Han murmured back. "I just thought it'd be a good time to go check out Karrde's storage sheds. Particularly the one that was supposed to have a prisoner in it."

They went about five meters into the forest, then changed direction to circle the compound. A quarter of the way around the circle, they found a likely looking group of small buildings. "Look for a door with a lock," Lando suggested as they came out among the sheds. "Either permanent or temporary."

"Right." Han peered through the darkness. "That one over there - the one with two doors?"

"Could be," Lando agreed. "Let's take a look."

The leftmost of the two doors did indeed have a lock. However, the lock had been jimmied and it was clear that the building had no power running to it. Normally, do to safety features of doors on buildings like this, the doors would open automatically. However, this door's controls had been tweaked so that the door would stay shut even when the power went off. "What do you think, Han?"

"I think that this is our makeshift prison sell. Let's see here;" and he tried to activate the door. It didn't work. Frowning, Han knelt down and fiddled with the door. With a soft hiss, it slid open as its safety feature kicked in. Inside was an interesting scene. There was a cot, some ration packs, open boxes of uniforms and uniform pins and the like and, on one wall, a plate was damaged. "I wonder how our mysterious prisoners got that door open;" mused Lando as he examined the inner door control. The outer panel had been removed and the wiring had been tampered with. "Hey Han, it looks like someone might have used another power source to open the door from in here."

Han looked over at it and said, "But what kind of power source would give that kind of charge?"

Lando chuckled, "Plenty could - droid powercells, some blaster powercells, more powerful communications equipment power sources and so on. My question is, what kind of power source would be available for prisoners? They wouldn't have any equipment like that."

Han nodded as he ran through a list of equipment that a prisoner might be allowed to maintain during their internment. "I'm gonna take a look next door;" her murmured absently. He headed out and into the next room. It's door was open and there was only some more boxes and a droid restraining collar. On the ground were a pair of ruts where it looked like an astromech droid had tried to force its way out. "There's no way;" muttered Han. The door hissed open behind him again and Han spun, his trusty blaster in his hand and ready to shoot. There stood Karrde. "You seem to have gotten lost;" said the smuggler chief calmly. His eyes flicked around the room. "And to have lost General Calrissian along the way."

Han lowered his blaster. "You need to tell your people to put their toys away when they're done," he said, nodding his head at the abandoned restraint collar. "So, you were holding a droid prisoner, too? An astrodroid by the look of it."

Karrde smiled thinly. "I see Ghent was talking out of turn again. Amazing, isn't it, how so many expert slicers know everything about computers and droids and yet don't know when to keep their mouths shut."

"It's amazing how so many expert smugglers don't know when to leave a messy deal alone;" snapped Han. "So what's your Grand Admiral and Sith Lord buddies have you doing - formal slaving or just random kidnappings?"

Karrde's eyes flashed. "I don't deal in slaves, Solo. Slaves or kidnapping. Never."

"What was this one, then? An accident?"

"I didn't ask for them to come back into my life," Karrde snapped, "Nor did I especially want him there."

Han snorted. "You're stretching, Karrde. What'd they do, drop in out of the sky on top of you?"

"As a matter of fact, that's very nearly the way it happened," said Karrde stiffly. "Oh, well, that's a good reason to lock someone up," Han said sardonically. "Who were they?"

"That information's not for sale."

"Well maybe we don't need to buy it;" said Lando, coming in the door from behind him. "Think about it, Han - you have a couple of prisoners, right? They manage to get through a door that was rigged shut, ignoring regular safety protocols to a powerless building. Adding on top of that, the fact that they had an astrodroid and the fact that they used a mysterious power source that is now missing and it gives me a couple ideas. Thinking of everything that could use a small power source with enough juice to power a door, there is really only one piece of equipment that a prisoner would be allowed to maintain: a cybernetic limb such as a hand."

Han's eyes hardened and he glared at Karrde, his blaster raising slightly. Karrde sighed, his expression a mixture of annoyance and resignation. "What do you want me to say? -that Luke and Mara Jade Skywalker were prisoners here? Alright, consider it said."

Han's blaster rose a little more and he growled through a tight jaw, "Where are they now?"

"I thought Ghent would have told you. They escaped in one of my Skipray blastboats and crashed them both in the process."

Han felt anxiety chill his blood, "They did what? Mara's pregnant!"

"They're all right, or at least they were a couple hours ago. The stormtroopers who went to investigate said that both wrecks were deserted. I hope that means Skywalker and Jade Skywalker are working with Shada and Rianna."

Han cocked a brow. "Why wouldn't they be? Rianna and Luke go way back."

"That's true but Shada has a distrust for anyone who comes from the New Republic due to Ackbar and Fey'lya deciding that I would be better in an interrogation chair than in a business deal."

"But Luke and Mara literally let you go immediately after resigning their commissions to the military. Of all members of the New Republic, she should trust them."

Karrde shrugged and said, "That's why I think they'll be alright."

Han nodded and holstered his blaster. "Do to the fact that you didn't hand them or us directly over to the Empire, I'm going to show you some trust, Karrde. Now, I want you to take us to the Jade Star, Luke and Mara's yacht."

"Of course;" said Karrde, "I would recommend waiting until morning, though. We moved it quite a bit further back into the trees and at this hour, there will be predators out there."

Han complied after a moment of hesitation, thinking that if Karrde was working an angle of some kind, he would have done it already when he first captured the Skywalkers. A few more hours would likely make no difference what so ever. "What are we going to do about Luke, Mara, Rianna and Shada?"

Karrde shook his head, not quite meeting Han's eye. "There's nothing we can do for them tonight. Not with vornskrs roaming the forest and the Grand Admiral still in orbit. We'll have to discuss it tomorrow and see what we come up with. In the meantime, dinner should be ready by now. If you'll follow me..."

The dimly lit holographic art gallery had changed again, this time to a collection of remarkably similar flame-shaped works that seemed to pulsate and alter in form as Pellaeon moved carefully between the pedestals. As usual, Darth Diabolis was studying the works of art, attempting to glean information from them as Grand Admiral Thrawn did. "Have you found them, Captain?" asked Thrawn as the captain reached the double display circle. Pellaeon braced himself. "I'm afraid not, sir. We'd hoped that with the arrival of local nightfall, we'd be able to get some results from the infrared sensors. But they don't seem to be able to penetrate the tree canopy, either."

Thrawn nodded. "What about that pulse transmission we picked up just after sundown?"

"We were able to confirm that it originated from the approximate location of the crash site but it was too brief for the precise location check. The encrypt on it is a very strange one. Decrypt thinks that it might be a type of counterpart coding. They're still working on it."

"They've tried all Rebel encrypts I presume?"

"Yes, sir, as per your orders."

Thrawn nodded thoughtfully before looking over at Diabolis. "My lord, what are your thoughts?"

Diabolis turned and said, "Correct me if I'm wrong, it's still a somewhat new concept to me, but there really is no way to decrypt a counterpart code without having the counterpart."

Thrawn shrugged and said, "There are ways to do it but the simplest way is to get a hold of the counterpart computer or ship. As it stands, we seem to be at something of a stalemate then, gentlemen. At least as long as they're in the forest. Have you calculated their their likely emergence points?"

"There's really only one practical choice, Admiral;" Pellaeon said, wondering why they were making so much of a fuss over this. "A town called Hyllyard City, on the edge of the forest and almost directly along their path. It's the only population center anywhere for more than a hundred kilometers. With only a couple survival packs for four individuals, they almost have to come out there."

"Excellent;" said Thrawn. "I want you to detail three squads of Stormtroopers to set up an observation post there. They're to assemble and depart ship immediately."

Pellaeon blinked. "Stormtroopers, sir?"

"Stormtroopers," Thrawn repeated, turning his gaze to one of the flame sculptures. "Better add half a biker scout unit, too, and three Chariot light assault vehicles."

Cautiously, Pellaeon said, "Yes, sir."

Stormtroopers had become in increasingly short supply these days. To waste them like this, on something so utterly unimportant as a smuggler squabble. "Karrde lied to us, you see," Thrawn continued, as if reading Pellaeons mind. Lord Diabolis chuckled, "Even without the force, I could tell that. I'm quite curious about that drama with those to Skiprays."

"Indeed. It's quite simple, gentlemen. The pilot of the pursuit vehicle never reported in and no one from Karrde's organization reached out to contact them;" explained Thrawn. Diabolis had strolled over, his hands firmly clasped behind his back and listening as intently as a student would to a teacher. "We know that since we'd have intercepted any transmissions."

The Sith Lord nodded as he mused, "No progress reports, no requests for assistance, nothing."

Thrawn looked over at Pellaeon. "Speculation, Captian?"

"Whatever it was," the Captain said slowly, "it was something they didn't want us knowing about. Beyond that I don't know, sir. There could be any number of things they wouldn't want outsiders to know about. They are smugglers, after all."

Thrawn's red eyes glittered. "Agreed, but now consider the additional fact that Karrde refused our invitation to join in the search for the Skywalkers and the fact that this afternoon, he implied that the search was over. What does that suggest to you, Captain?"

Diabolis scratched his stubbly chin. "So we're operating under the assumption that the Skywalkers were in that first Skipray - good. I am eagerly awaiting our next meeting. If you do not mind, Grand Admiral Thrawn, I would appreciate you bringing them in alive. It would bring me great pleasure to execute them personally."

Thrawn gave the ghost of a smile. "It isn't all that likely, my lord but, if I am correct and it is them and we do encounter them, I will issue orders to take them alive. As it is, we should follow up with this speculation."

Captian Pellaeon nodded and checked his chrono. "If we stay here more than another day or two, we may have to move back the Sluis Van attack."

"We're no moving Sluis Van," said Thrawn emphatically. "Our entire victory campaign against the Rebellion begins there, and I'll not have so complex and far-reaching a schedule altered. Not for the Skywalkers, no for anyone else. Sluissi art clearly indicates a biannual cyclic pattern, and I want to hit them at their most sluggish point. We'll have for our rendezvous with the Inexorable and the cloaking shield test as soon as the troops and vehicles have been dropped. Three squads of Stormtroopers should be adequate to the Skywalkers, if they are indeed here."

Diabolis frowned and said, "From personal experience, Grand Admiral Thrawn, I would include more soldiers and even perhaps a light mechanized unit if you can spare them. The Skywalkers are more than any three squads of Stormtroopers can handle."

Thrawn considered before saying, "Very well, my Lord; add three squads of army soldiers and perhaps a sniper team as well. Would that be sufficient?"

Diabolis looked as though he was resisting the urge to grimace. "It is better, yes. Perhaps I should go as well."

Thrawn slowly nodded his head. "If that is what you wish then by all means, my Lord, go take your revenge. Take care, however. I fear that your followers would complicate things if you were to miscalculate and wind up dead."

Diabolis smiled and said, "I will take care, Grand Admiral Thrawn."

Night had fallen quickly and the darkness were almost absolute. Shada and Rianna had their survival kit lights on their lowest settings as they cleared the camp a little. Luke helped Mara to the ground where she sat with a sigh of relief and contentment. "Reminds me of Endor;" she murmured quietly. Luke chuckled. "Yes, the forest always sounds so busy at night."

Rianna chuckled. "Yeah, it's busy all right. There are a lot of nocturnal animals here, including vornskrs."

"Strange, Karrde's pets seemed wide enough awake in the late afternoon."

"Yeah well, even in the wild, they tend to take naps around the clock. They just do most of their hunting at night;" said Shada. Mara nodded appreciatively. "You seem to know a lot about this place."

"Know your territory;" murmured Shada. "It was the first lesson I ever learned."

Mara chuckled tiredly, "Yeah, same here."

"Really?" asked Shada, showing more interest than she had since they had met her. "Who was your first teacher?"

"Emperor Palpatine;" said Mara casually. Rianna and Shada both stared at her for a moment. "What?" asked Mara, "It's common knowledge that I was the Emperor's Hand. Well, an Emperor's Hand apparently."

"So you learned everything you know, except for maybe some of your Jedi skills, from the Emperor?"

"Oh stars, no. He had me training with the best of instructors for everything - piloting, armed combat, unarmed combat, infiltration, survival, diplomacy, the arts - you name it, he had me instructed. Most training was part of my general life but some was specifically tailored to specific missions."

Shada looked as though she was remembering a similar life. "I know what you mean; and here I thought you were just another Jedi, with perhaps a bit of a more sordid past."

Luke chuckled. "Oh she's more than just another Jedi. She could be an elite commando, an intelligence agent, an ace pilot, an assassin, a diplomat or a business woman on top of the fact that she is one of our best Jedi Knights."

Mara's smile widened, "He says that with so much pride because I was his first student - and he was mine too."

Shada and Rianna cocked their eyebrows. "We both had skills that the other could learn so we taught each other;" Mara explained simply. Rianna snickered, "Oh I'll bet you did."

Luke blushed and said, "Not like - well, I guess it applies there too."

After a long moment, Mara asked, "So, about the Imperials that were visiting you..."

"We can't talk about it;" said Shada quickly. Rianna rolled her eyes. "Shada, these are friends. They were friends of Karrdes long before either of us worked for him and they are the reason he wasn't thrown into an interrogator's chair."

"That may be true, but you know Karrde's policy on information. If he were to give it to them, it would cost them and you know for a fact that this information would be worth a lot of money."

Both Luke and Mara watched the exchange. As easily as if it were another outfit, Mara slipped into her soft interrogation mode. "So if that information is so valuable, I'm guessing we're dealing with a high ranking and intelligent Imperial military officer or perhaps a Moff. However, most moffs and the highest ranking individuals of the Imperial hierarchy have been accounted for. I don't think that any Grand Moffs are still out there and the Grand Generals and Grand Admirals are all accounted for. Well, not all accounted for but the last remaining Grand Admiral was last sent to the Unknown Regions to map it out."

As she spoke, she carefully monitored both Shada and Rianna, but she might as well be looking at a pair of statues. "Now, given that whoever it is was able to pull off several different attacks with so much ease, they are clearly tactically brilliant. They are also allied with Darth Diabolis - which isn't easy considering that he is a Dark Lord of the Sith bent on galactic conquest."

She would have kept going if Artoo, who had been scanning the surrounding area, hadn't started whistling. Shada and Rianna pulled their blasters and Luke unclipped his lightsaber. A vornskr stood in the low lights, it's tail pointed straight out and slowly flicking up and down. Coolly, Shada shot it through the head and it collapsed. "Nice shot. Are Karrde's pets a different species or did he have their tails removed?"

"The latter;" replied Shada as she holstered her blaster. "Vornkrs use their tails like whips, which have a mild poison in them, very painful. We actually found out that removing their tails not only avoids painful whip welts, it also kills some of their aggressive hunting instincts."

Rianna nodded. "Yeah, we'd talked about offering them up as guard animals but never really got around to it."

Mara chuckled sleepily. "Well if you need testimonials, you got two now."

Luke settled down beside his wife, putting an arm around her. Rianna murmured, "You think we can trust that droid and get some sleep?"

"Skywalker and Jade Skywalker obviously do. Having said that, I think we should keep a watch. You and I can take it, though. Let's let the soon-to-be parents sleep."

"No need for that;" murmured Luke. "Wake me up when you two have both taken a few hours and I'll stand a watch."

Updated 12.06.2017