back, we blow the whistle on Fey'lya, and Mon Mothma pulls back ships to protect Coruscant from a coup attempt that never materializes. More chaos, and even more unprotected sectors for the Imperials to gobble up.'
Han shook his head. 'I think you're jumping at shadows.'
'Maybe,' Lando said darkly. 'And maybe you're putting too much trust in the ghost of a Corellian Senator.'
They had reached their quarters now, one of a double row of small square buildings each about five meters on a side. Han keyed in the lock combination Sena had given them, and they went inside.
The apartment was about as stark and simple as it could be while still remaining even halfway functional. It consisted of a single room with a compact cooking niche on one side and a door leading to what was probably a bathroom on the other. A brown fold down table/console combo and two old-fashioned contour chairs upholstered in military gray occupied much of the space, with the cabinets of what looked like two fold-down beds positioned to take up the table's share of the floor space at night. 'Cozy,' Lando commented.
'Probably can be packed up and shipped off planet on three minutes'
notice, too,' Han said.
'I agree,' Lando nodded. 'This is exactly the sort of feel that lounge should have had, only it didn't.
'Maybe they figured they ought to have at least one building around here that didn't look like it came out of the Clone Wars,' Han suggested.
'Maybe,' Lando said, squatting down beside one of the chairs and peering at the edge of the seat cushion. 'Probably pulled them out of that Dreadnaught up there.' Experimentally he dug his fingers under the gray material. 'Looks like they didn't even add any extra padding before they reupholstered them with this-'
He broke off, and abruptly his face went rigid. 'What is it?' Han demanded.
Slowly, Lando turned to look up at him. 'This chair,' he whispered.
'It's not gray underneath. It's blue-gold.'
'Okay,' Han said, frowning. 'So?'
'You don't understand. The Fleet doesn't do the interiors of military ships in blue-gold. They've never done them in blue-gold. Not under the Empire, not under the New Republic, not under the Old Republic. Except one time.'
'Which was?' Han prompted.
Lando took a deep breath. 'The Katana fleet.' Han stared at him, an icy feeling digging up under his breastbone. The Katana fleet ... 'That can't be right, Lando,' he said. 'Got to be a mistake.'
'No mistake, Han,' Lando shook his head. Digging his fingers in harder, he lifted the edge of the gray covering high enough to show the material beneath it. 'I once spent two whole months researching the Dark Force. This is it.'
Han gazed at the age-dulled blue-gold cloth, a sense of unreality creeping over him. The Katana fleet. The Dark Force. Lost for half a century
... and now suddenly found.
Maybe. 'We need something better in the way of proof,' he told Lando.
'This doesn't do it by itself.'
Lando nodded, still half in shock. 'That would explain why they kept us aboard the Lady Luck the whole way here,' he said. 'They'd never be able to hide the fact that their Dreadnaught was running with only two thousand crewers instead of the normal sixteen. The Katana fleet.'
'We need to get a look inside one of the ships,' Han persisted. 'That recognition code Irenez sent-I don't suppose you made a recording of it?' Lando took a deep breath and seemed to snap out of it. 'We can probably reconstruct it,' he said. 'But if they've got any sense, their code for getting in won't be the same as their code for getting out. But I don't think we have to get aboard the ships themselves. All I need is a good, close look at that,t repeater display panel back in the headquarters lounge.'
'Okay,' Han nodded grimly. 'Let's go and get you that look.'
CHAPTER
