Part 13 (1/2)
”No,” Dracmus said, clearly startled. ”Do you speak truly?”
”Very much so,” Han replied, a trifle excitedly. ”It also would explain how the bad guys managed to get hold of the Chief of State's private diplomatic cipher.
She used to be a spy. She knows how to get that kind of stuff.”
He thought for a moment and then spoke again.
”It all fits. Mara Jade brought us the message, and she gave us some long complicated story about how it got to her. From what was on the message container, it looked as if it had been meant for Luke Skywalker, but that they had used Mara as a backup when that failed.
But what if that was all an elaborate charadene that we bought into all the way?”
”You are suggesting Mara Jade brought a message she had written herself? That she is part of the starbuster plot?”
”Yes!” Han said. ”And she was nowhere to be found the day Corona House was attacked.”
”Ah! Of this I can speak, and glad to do so, to defend the honor of Mara Jade, which I wish to do. She has been sighted in Corona House since day after rocket attack.”
”How do you know thatkay, okay, I should have known. You must say no more about it. You're just full of secrets you can't tell, aren't you?
But I don't know that her being there before the attack and after it, but not being around during it is much of a defense.
”But why would she do it? What would be motive?”
Han hooked a thumb at the cell door. ”Our kindly hosts are very obviously all either ex-Imperial or people who just want - the good old Imperial days back.
Thrackan said as much to me. Now, I grant, she has done a lot of good for the Republic over the years, and she hasn't gone around chanting the Emperor's name out loud or anything, but Mara has never been one to show her hand. She always was good at keeping secrets.
I doubt anyone is ever quite sure of what she intends.
Suppose, just suppose, that Mara has changed her mind again. What if she's decided she wants the Empire back after all? Maybe she looks at Corellian and figures o0 have to start somewhere. I grant it's a little hard u believe, but it seems to me we're in the position of having to choose between improbable explanations.”
”The idea has logic, but does not convince,” said Dracmus. ”I do agree Jade is hard-edged, ruthless. But she has honor, and we speak of wiping out whole planets. Could she truly be capable of such brutal savagery?”
Han nodded. ”I grant you have a point. She's always been tough, and hard, but never barbaric. I can't see her as the sort to murder millions.
But maybe we don't have the whole story. We might be missing something.
Remember the first nova didn't hurt anyone. Maybe the threat to inhabited systems is a bluff.”
”Mine is another theory,” said Dracmus. ”I believe the folk behind this are indeed ex-Imperial, but not Imperial spies. The Imperial Navy.
Some remnant formation of Imperial s.h.i.+ps has finally made an old Imperial superweapon work. Starbuster is like Death Stars or world devastators.
Ahuge weapon, meant for terror, not true military use.
”No way,” Han said. ”A lot of time has pa.s.sed since the last of the Imperials were beaten back, and we've had a good look through the Imperial archives. Virtually all Imperial forces have been accounted for.
You might be able to spin out a story where someone managed to sc.r.a.pe together a task force from s.h.i.+ps mistakenly listed as destroyed.
Some people say there are whole fleets out there that no one knows about. But even if that were true, where are the thousands of trained crew supposed to come from? Every time anything goes wrong anywhere in the Republic, some conspiracy buff or another trots out a theory of a cabal intent on reviving the Empire. If someone runs out of place mats in the palace commissary, it's an Imperial plot. I for one no longer believe in that particular bogeyman. The Empire is as dead as Darth Vader. I still say it's Mara Jade. She's a master trader, and an ex-Imperial intell operative. She's got s.h.i.+ps, resources, technical centers, and spies everywhere, and she's real. She's no imaginary fleet of s.h.i.+ps drifting in the Sand Crab Nebula. She had means, motive, and opportunity.
”Unless, of course, we are both right,” said Dracmus.
”To make conspiracy is to draw many together. Perhaps one plot pulls in Jade, Imperial Navy fragment, Human 120 -r -s ALeague, and others, too. ; 3ut I hope you are all wrong, honored Solo. I truly do.
”Why, Dracmus?”
”It is not obvious? If she is behind this plot, she has quite deliberately arranged things so she is where she is right now, to be where she can do the plot the most good.”
”What's your point?” Han asked.
”Right now,” she said, ”Mara Jade is in same place with your wife.”
CHAPTER SEVEN.
Trust must be granted access to working communications equipment!” leia Organa Solo told the guard, not for the first time. She stood there, her fists balled up, seething with rage, as the guard ignored her and set the tray down on the table. She had been locked up in Corona House, for days now. Until a few days ago, it had been the Governor's residence, and now it was a Human League prison. It was not a place she wanted to be any more. ”Didn't you hear me? You must grant me access-” The Human League guard was puffing a bit, as he always did when he brought in the food. Once he had set the tray down and caught his breath, he seemed to feel he could pay attention to his captive, and proceeded to laugh in her face, not for the first time.
”Guess what?” he asked. ”I'm not gonna do it. I'm not going to grant you access to nothing. But tell you what.
You go on telling me to do it every time I bring your food up from downstairs.” The guard leered unpleasantly. ”I don't mind, and maybe it makes you feel better.” He plopped down the lunch tray and took away the breakfast tray. ”You can tell me to do it again at dinnertime, if you like.” He seemed to think that was all very funny, and laughed louder than ever as he headed out 121 of the guest room, now made over into an improvised cell, where leia was being held.
Just before he reached the door, he turned back and spoke again.
”Oh,” he said, ”I almost forgot. We're rearranging the cells.
Seems one female prisoner had a fight with another. Gotta divide em up.
Right after lunch, you get a new cell mate.” The guard laughed one more time as he stepped out into the hallway.
leia heard the lock snick shut behind him. She always heard the lock. Why was it the one thing this bunch of incompetents always remembered to do was lock the door?
leia forced herself to calm down. She opened up her fists, and took three deep breaths. There were Jedi exercises she could have done to calm herself more completely, but she didn't want to be completely calm. She wanted the luxury of a little anger.
Though she was not in the least bit hungry, and the food appeared to be poorly prepared field rations again, leia forced herself to sit down at the table and eat it.
She needed to keep her strength up. Sooner or later the Leaguers were going to decide what to do with her, and she needed to be rested, ready, alert. She took a sip of water to wash down whatever the unappetizing glop on her plate was, and tried to think.
If the secret message they had sent her was to be believed, the League was going to blow up its second star, Thanta Zilbra, in three and a half weeks, unless the New Republic agreed to their demands-and yet the demands were impossible.
Why make demands so outrageously unrealistic in the first place?
leia wondered. And why had the League gone to all the trouble of sending a secret message when the League publicly announced a slightly less detailed version of the same information only a day later?
Something did not fit. Either something had gone seriously wrong with the League's plan of action, and they were now merely improvising, as best they could, bluffing it out. Or else the secret message had been a piece of misdirection, intended to serve some other, as yet unknown purpose.
leia realized that she had finished her meal, though she still wasn't all that clear on what she had been eating. She shoved the tray aside and tried to think. None of it made sense.