Part 13 (1/2)

Glorious, the guns.h.i.+pMarauder , and the pilotless ferret D-89 remained on the initial intercept heading, closing with the shadowing ferret so slowly that at times an impatient Lando thought they would never reach it.

”This Pakkpekatt is so cautious, he makes you look impetuous, Threepio, ” Lando complained in the privacy ofLady Luck's main cabin.

”I agree with his tactics, ” said Lobot.

”You would, ” Lando said wryly.

”Is it not prudent to take all pains to avoid alarming one's prey? ”

”We've gone far beyond prudent, ” Lando grumbled. ”I'm beginning to suspect the Hortek hunt by boring their prey to death. ”

But finally the hour came when all ten s.h.i.+ps were in position, and IX-44F and its three-man crew were relieved from their seventy-nine-day deployment.

”Captain, you are free to return to base, with our thanks, ” Pakkpekatt signaled the ferret. ”I'm afraid you will have to make a stealth withdrawal from the target zone, however. ”

”Thank you, Colonel, ” came the response. ”A couple of days more or less in this closet don't mean much to us at this point. Good luck and good hunting. ”

As IX-44F veered slowly off the intercept heading and fell behind, the cruiserGlorious took up its position.

”What do you think is inside, General Calrissian? ” asked Pakkpekatt as they stood together at the main bridge viewport. ”Why is it here? Where is it going? Tell me what you're thinking. ”

”Wherever it's going, Colonel, it's not in a hurry, ” Lando said easily. ”Just like us, eh? Have you made a final decision on when to send in your ferret? ”

”I intend to establish an observation baseline before making any approach, ” Pakkpekatt said. ”Have you and your staff made any progress on the signal fragment from the Hra.s.skis contact? ”

”Colonel, you know our hands have been tied by your blackout orders. We've had hardly any bandwidth available to us on the HoloNet. Lady Luck doesn't have the kind of data capacity you have here onGlorious . We depend more heavily than you do on access to records located elsewhere. ”

”I will take that as a report of 'No progress, ' ” Pakkpekatt said. With a light touch on the main viewport's controls, he increased the gain on the photo-amplifiers until the outline of the vagabond sharpened and the body of the vessel brightened enough to show the gross detail.

”Look at it, General, ” he went on. ”For all we know, it may be five hundred years old, or fifty thousand. It may have been roaming s.p.a.ce since both our species were too young to raise our eyes to the stars. Perhaps the only reason we can get this close is that the work of some ancient engineer has at long last begun to decay and fail. ”

”The odds favor a shorter history, ” Lando said, surprised at the Hortek's sentimentality. ”There are many dangers in s.p.a.ce. ”

”Yes, ” said Pakkpekatt, ”and to the vagabond, we are one of them. Do you know, General, that no s.h.i.+p like this, no plan or design, appears in any registry of any New Republic world? No s.h.i.+pwright we've found will claim it as his handiwork, though all seem to admire the craft evident in it. If the vagabond was built by any species we know, no other like it was ever made. ”

”Our catalog of everything that ever was is a long way from being complete, ” said Lando. ”The odds favor a less exotic history. ”

”How can a gambler post the odds without knowing the game? ” scoffed Pakkpekatt. ”Perhaps this s.h.i.+p before us is home to a species which has no other home. Perhaps it's a new and curious visitor to this part of the universe, from places for which we have no names. Or perhaps it comes here from deep in the Core, where we have vanis.h.i.+ngly few friends. All are possible-as are a universe of possibilities beyond our present imagining. ”

”Yes, possible, ” Lando admitted. ”Not likely. ”

”But reason enough to be cautious, wouldn't you agree? ” Pakkpekatt said pointedly. ”Reason enough for patience, even to the point of pain. Even to the point of boredom. We will watch them for a while, General. We'll let them watch us for a while as well. And I'll tell you when we're ready to do more. Can you live with that, General? ”

Lando's skin p.r.i.c.kled to hear echoes of his private conversations in Pakkpekatt's words. It seemed more than a coincidence, and yet he had, on many occasions, seen charlatans perform even more convincing feats of mind reading through trickery.

”For now, Colonel, ” Lando said. ”I just hope whoever or whatever's inside that thing isn't busy making plans to destroy it to keep it out of our hands. That's part of your universe of possibilities, too. I hope you won't forget it. ”

Pakkpekatt's expression was unreadable. ”I will ask the communications officer to allot what slack time there may be in our HoloNet queue to your staff. Perhaps that will allow you to make faster progress. ”

”Thank you, Colonel, ” Lando said with courtly politeness. ”That'd be a step in the right direction. ”

”What a mess, ” Lieutenant Norda Proi said, studying the high-resolution scan of s.p.a.ce directly ahead of theSteadfast . The three-D display showed more than twelve thousand objects, from hundreds no larger than a stormtrooper's combat boot to one that promised to be the aft third of an Imperial Star Destroyer.

”Must have been one wild party. ”

Captain Oolas nodded. ”We'll be here a month, at least. Where would you like to start, Lieutenant? ”

”The big piece of cake, of course, ” Proi said, pointing. ”But we can launch droids on the way in, and let them start picking up the crumbs. ”

For nearly a year the fleet haulerSteadfast had traced a solitary course through some of the most famous regions of what had once been Imperial s.p.a.ce.

Known in Fleet Office slang as a junker, Steadfast had served in the Battle of Endor, in the defense of Coruscant against Admiral Thrawn, and in the pursuit of the Knight Hammer.

But with the cessation of hostilities, the four oldest fleet haulers had been recalled-at the request of the Intelligence Section-from the combat groups they usually served. Equipped with dozens of specialized droids and with Intelligence officers supplementing the usual crew, the junkers were reborn as scavengers.

Their mission orders took them to the coordinates of major battles between the Empire and its enemies, where they searched through the wreckage for objects or information of potential value.

”Do you think we're the first ones here this time? ” asked Captain Oolas.

Norda Proi studied the spectroscopic a.n.a.lysis of the objects being tracked. ”Just possibly so, Captain. I don't want to get my hopes up, though. We'll know pretty quickly when we board the wreck if the mice have been here before us. ”

Operation Flotsam had been launched when military artifacts, Rebel and Imperial, began showing up on the private collectors' market. When further investigation showed that the artifacts had not been stolen but had been salvaged from battle zones by smugglers and other entrepreneurs, the Senate acted with unusual speed and unanimity.

The Historic Battle Site Protection Act established more than two dozen restricted areas and claimed owners.h.i.+p of all combat debris everywhere in the name of the Alliance War Museum. But security, not history, was the prime concern. Many observers credited the explosion of a thermal detonator in a wealthy residential zone on Givin and a Rudrig crime ring's use of an Imperial interrogator droid on a kidnap victim with putting the fear into the Senate.

But a declaration of owners.h.i.+p by Coruscant only made the traffic in artifacts illegal-it didn't end it. That took guns.h.i.+p patrols through the restricted areas, the arrest of the notorious Huttese smuggler Uta, and the seizure of weapons and other exotic collectibles from the upper-cla.s.s customers of a well-known Imperial City art dealer. Even at that, the arrival ofSteadfast had twice sent would-be poachers running, and the debris fields it had surveyed so far had all seemed picked over.

”I have a positive identification on the wreck, Lieutenant, ” a junior Intelligence officer called out. ”It's the I-cla.s.s Star DestroyerGnisnal , our registry number SD-489. Reported destroyed by internal explosions during the Imperial evacuation of Narth and Ihopek. The report is from Alliance sources. ”

”All right, ” said Norda Proi, nodding. ”Let's move in. ”

First aboard the wreck were half a dozen scanning and monitoring droids, which jetted across to it on their own power while theSteadfast held station a safe distance away.

Working in pairs, so that anything that happened to one would be doc.u.mented by the other, the droids fanned out according to a search plan tailored to that cla.s.s of vessel. The priorities were live weapons, known b.o.o.by traps, and other possible hazards to the living, breathing search teams that were ready to follow.

The threats were not merely theoretical. The junkerSeloniahad been badly damaged when a poacher's bomb disguised as a datapad went off in its hold. A year earlier, the ironically named surveyorForesighthad been destroyed by autofiring laser cannon when search teams tripped an alarm inside an abandoned Imperial cruiser.

But one rule of thumb had never failed the scavengers--if the droids found bodies aboard, there would be no bombs. Imperial guile did not extend to using the bodies of their own as bait for their enemies, and poachers-out of superst.i.tion or respect-always cleared the corridors and compartments of corpses.

Still, Norda Proi found that it made him uncomfortable to be gladdened by the sight of bodies aboard theGnisnal .

”Did you hear about the fellow Republic Security arrested on Derra Four last month? ” Proi asked, studying the images being relayed toSteadfast by SM-6. ”He had eleven Imperial corpses in cryotanks in a hangar, all of them in full armor or deck uniform. Crazy. ”

”I heard, ” said Captain Oolas. ”Crazy and sad. Apparently he was keeping them until his son was old enough to be told what happened to his mother during the occupation. Seems he planned to hand his son whatever weapon he wanted and let him take his revenge. ”

”I'm glad I had a normal father, ” Proi said, switching the display to the signal from SM-1.

Captain Oolas sat back and folded his hands on his lap. ”I'm glad my homeworld was never occupied by the Empire. ”

At that moment, SM-1 b.u.mped against a floating body, sending it slowly cartwheeling away. But for just a moment, the face of a dead Imperial petty officer-burned by fire or explosion and blistered by decompression-seemed to hover in front of the droid's optical scanner.