'You'd better be more than just thinking you've persuaded him,' Mara warned from the pilot's chair, her eyes on the nav computer display. 'Sneaking into an Imperial supply depot is going to be hard enough without a New Republic X-wing in tow.
'Right,' Luke said, throwing a sideways look at her and wondering if getting into the Skipray with her had been one of the smarter things he'd done lately. Mara had put the ysalamir away in the rear of the ship, and he could feel her hatred of him simmering beneath her consciousness like a half-burned fire. It evoked unpleasant memories of the Emperor, the man who'd been Mara's teacher and Luke briefly wondered if this could be some sort of overly elaborate trick to lure him to his death.
But her hatred seemed to be under control, and there was no deceit in her that he could detect.
But then, he hadn't seen C'baoth's deceit either, until it was almost too late.
Luke shifted in his chair, his face warming with embarrassment at how easily he'd been taken in by C'baoth's act. But it hadn't all been an act, he reminded himself. The Jedi Master's emotional instabilities were genuine-that much he was convinced of. And even if those instabilities didn't extend as far as the insanity that Mara had alluded to, they certainly extended far enough for C'baoth to qualas ill.
And if what she'd said about C'baoth working with the Empire was also true ...
Luke shivered. I will teach her such power as you can't imagine, C'baoth had said about Leia. The words had been different from those Vader had spoken to Luke on Endor, but the dark sense behind them had been identical. Whatever C'baoth had once been, there was no doubt in Luke's mind that he was now moving along the path of the dark side.
And yet, Luke had been able to help Vader win his way back from that same path. Was it conceit to think he could do the same for C'baoth?
He shook the thought away. However C'baoth's destiny might yet be entwined with his, such encounters were too far in the future to begin planning for them. For now, he needed to concentrate on the immediate task at hand, and to leave the future to the guidance of the Force. 'How did the Grand Admiral find Karrde?' he asked Mara.
Her lips compressed momentarily, and Luke caught a flash of self-reproach. 'They put a homing beacon aboard my ship,' she said. 'I led them right to his hideout.'
Luke nodded, thinking back to the rescue of Leia and that harrowing escape from the first Death Star aboard the Falcon. 'They pulled that same trick on us, too,' he said. 'That's how they found the Yavin base.'
'Considering what it cost them, I don't think you've got any complaints coming,' Mara said sarcastically.
'I don't imagine the Emperor was pleased,' Luke murmured.
'No, he wasn't,' Mara said, her voice dark with memories of her own.
'Vader nearly died for that blunder.' Deliberately, she looked over at Luke's hands. 'That was when he lost his right hand, in fact.' Luke flexed the fingers of his artificial right hand, feeling a ghostly echo of the searing pain that had lanced through it as Vader's lightsaber had sliced through skin and muscle and bone. A fragment of an old Tatooine aphortsm flickered through his mind: something about the passing of evil from one generation to the next 'What's the plan?' he asked. Mara took a deep breath, and Luke could sense the emotional effort as she put the past aside. 'Karrde's being held aboard the Grand Admiral's flagship, the Chimaera,' she told him. 'According to their flight schedule, they're going to be taking on supplies in the Wistril system four days from now. If we push it, we should be able to get there a few hours ahead of them. We'll ditch the Skipray, take charge of one of the supply shuttles, and just go on up with the rest of the flight pattern.'
Luke thought it over. It sounded tricky, but not ridiculously so.
'What happens after we're aboard?'
'Standard Imperial procedure is to keep all the shuttle crews locked aboard their ships while the Chimaera's crewers handle the unloading,' Mara said. 'Or at least that was standard procedure five years ago. Means we'll need some kind of diversion to get out of the shuttle.'
'Sounds risky,' Luke shook his head. 'We don't want to draw attention to ourselves.'
'You got any better ideas?'
Luke shrugged. 'Not yet,' he said. 'But we've got four days to think about it. We'll come up with something.'
CHAPTER
22
Mara eased the repulsorlifts off; and with a faint metallic clank the cargo shuttle touched down on the main deck of the Chimaera's aft hangar bay.
