Vision of the future

'Certainly, Your Excellency,' Thrawn said, gesturing toward the corner. 'Let's step over here.' They crossed to the corner. 'Don't tell me—let me guess,' Disra muttered, keeping his voice low.

'They're here after the Caamas Document.'

'What an amazing revelation, Your Excellency,' Flim said, not quite sarcastically, his tone changing subtly out of his Thrawn character. 'The interesting part is that I've never heard of either Solo or Calrissian having anywhere near the slicing training for a job like that.' Disra frowned. Getting past the con man's impertinence, he had a good point. A very good point. Disra himself had worked his way into the Emperor's Special Files, but he'd had years to do it and any number of experts to call on for advice along the way. 'Then the slicer must be the head-implant who's with them,' he suggested.

Flim's mouth puckered slightly. 'No, I don't think so,' he said. 'They didn't get a good enough look at him for a positive ID, but my guess is that that's Lobot, Calrissian's old administrator from his pre-Endor days on Bespin. As far as I know Lobot hasn't got any slicing expertise, either...' He trailed off, his eyes suddenly narrowing. 'What is it?' Disra demanded.

'There's a trick I heard about once,' Flim said slowly. 'A slicing trick someone in the fringe came up with a few years ago. Now, how did that work? No, be quiet a minute—let me think.' For a dozen heartbeats the only sound in the room was the murmur of background conversation as the men working their boards reported to each other new information as it came in. All of it negative. Disra took deep breaths, concentrating on keeping a firm leash on his impatience. There were enemy spies loose in his city...

And abruptly, Flim's eyes focused on him again. 'Verpines,' he said with a note of triumph in his tone. 'That was it. Verpines.'

He took a half step past Disra. 'Lieutenant, start a wide-spectrum comm frequency scan,' he ordered, his voice suddenly that of Thrawn again. 'Concentrate on Verpine biocomm frequencies.' The lieutenant's eyebrows didn't even lift. 'Yes, sir,' he said briskly, setting to work.

'Wait a second,' Disra said, almost grabbing at Flim's sleeve and remembering just in time that that would be out of character. 'Verpine biocomm frequencies?'

'It's really an impressively cute trick,' Flim said, dropping his voice again to a level where only Disra could hear. 'You have a Verpine slicer sitting off in a hole somewhere while a runner with an implant tuned to his personal biocomm frequency goes to the system you want to slice. With the data flow the implant can handle, the whole thing acts almost like a telepathic link. The Verpine sees through the implant's eyes and works the slicing on his own computer board, and the runner's fingers mimic his on the real system.'

'He turns him into a puppet, in other words,' Disra bit out, his stomach twisting with distaste. For an alien to play a human being that way, even an implant who was no longer really human, was a vileness that bordered on the obscene.

'Basically,' Flim agreed casually. 'Like I said, a real cute trick.'

'I'll take your word for it,' Disra growled. Naturally, to a con man mired in the fringe himself, such obscenities were probably just a commonplace way of life. 'So what if they've shut the link down?' Flim shrugged, the same Thrawn- like gesture he'd used earlier. Out of earshot of the other troopers, he was still cagey enough to stay visually within his role. 'Then we crump out, and we'll have to try something else.'

Disra looked over at the status board. 'What if we try broadcasting on those biocomm frequencies?' he asked. 'Maybe tell the Verpine to start up their repulsorlifts or something? That would at least smoke out their ship for us.'

'We'd have to know how to encode a message into Verpine,' Flim said doubtfully. 'I doubt we could find someone who can do it fast enough.'

'Couldn't a protocol droid handle the translation?'

'Not without a special module,' Flim told him. 'Off-the-floor models don't usually come equipped to translate Verpine. Not enough call for it.'

He stroked his lower lip thoughtfully. 'On the other hand, if Lobot's still got the link open from his end, we might be able to pick up a resonance echo if we hit the right frequency. That was something we used to have to worry about with our comlinks when we were running against some of the more sophisticated planetary patrol groups. If we can get a receiver close enough, and if we're lucky, we might be able to locate them.'

Disra felt his lip twist. 'An awful lot of ifs in there.'

'I know,' Flim conceded. 'But we've got to try something, and that's the best I can do right now.' He nodded toward the door. 'Maybe you'd better get Tierce back up here. This is tactics, and he is our tactics expert.'

And Pellaeon had had enough time alone with the man, anyway. 'I'll send him up,' he said, heading toward the door. 'Keep me informed, Admiral.'

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