'It comes of hanging around Han and this ship,' Leia said dryly. 'Where did you go, anyway?
Back to look at the stabilizer?'
The Caamasi nodded. 'I didn't expect to be able to do anything, certainly not after you'd finished with it. But you'd indicated I was trying to repair it, and I wanted there to be some truth in what you were saying.'
'Truth.' Leia sighed. 'That's what we need here, Elegos. What we need desperately. Truth.'
'Captain Solo will have that truth here within another day,' Elegos reminded her quietly. 'All you and President Gavrisom need to do is hold things together that long.' Leia stretched out with the Force, trying to get a feel for the future. 'No, I don't think so,' she said slowly. 'Something tells me it's not going to be that easy. Not nearly that easy.'
* * *
Navett and Klif had cut through the floor of the Ho'Din tapcafe's storage subbasement floor their first night of work, a ten-minute task with the fusion cutter Pensin had scrounged from somewhere. But after that the job had switched over to something longer, harder, and considerably more tedious.
'Four more days of this, huh?' Klif grunted, heaving another shovelful of noxious Bothawui dirt out of the chest-deep hole onto the large drop cloth they'd spread out to catch it.
'Well, if we really put our backs into it, maybe it'll only take three,' Navett pointed out, scooping up the dirt from the cloth in turn and dumping it into their Valkrex fusion disintegration canister. He sympathized with Klif's frustration, but there wasn't a lot either of them could do about it. The vibrations of their digging were iffy enough; but if they tried operating heavy equipment within range of the power conduit's sensors, they'd bring Bothan Security down on them in double-quick time.
'Thanks lots,' Klif said dryly, dumping another shovelful. 'You know, I don't mind dying for the Empire, but to Vader with these preliminaries.'
'Watch your words,' Navett warned him, glancing at the door at the top of the stairway. Pensin was supposed to be keeping an eye on the door to the subbasement, but there were a handful of other staff and night guards still up in the tapcafe, and a wrong word overheard by one of them could ruin everything. He scooped up the next shovelful —
There was a scrabbling sound at the door. Navett let the shovel down silently onto the cloth, dropping to one knee and drawing his blaster in a single smooth motion. He leveled the weapon on the door, then lifted it at the soft two-one-two knock. The door opened and Horvic stuck his head around the corner. 'Pack it up,' he hissed. 'The night guards think they've spotted an intruder, and they might come down here looking.'
Klif was already out of the hole, manhandling the square of duracrete floor they'd cut back into place. 'They get a good look?' Navett asked, holstering his blaster and giving Klif a hand.
'I don't know,' Horvic said grimly. 'But personally, my money's on that old woman of yours. I spotted someone with your description of her sitting off in a corner booth when Pensin and I came on duty.'
'Terrific,' Navett snarled under his breath, leaving Klif to disguise the edges of their trapdoor as he shut off the disintegrator and carried it back to its hiding place behind a stack of vodokrene cases.
'Well, don't just stand there—go help them find her.'
'Right,' Horvic said. 'What about you?'
'We'll head outside,' he said. 'Maybe we can tag her on her way out.'
'Happy hunting,' Horvic said, and disappeared.
It took thirty seconds to fold up the drop cloth and hide it, and another minute to ease their way up through the main basement to the gimmicked back door. The streets in this part of Drev'starn were mostly deserted at this hour, the high-mounted glow panels dimmed to a fairly low light. 'I'll take back here,' Navett murmured to Klif. 'You circle around front. Don't let anyone see you.'
'Don't worry.' Moving like a shadow, Klif headed down the side alley and disappeared around the corner of the building. Checking both directions, Navett crossed to a trash container a few meters away. Sinking into its shadow, he balanced his blaster across one knee and waited. And waited. Occasionally he spotted figures hurrying by in front of the lighted windows of the tapcafe, and several times the Ho'Din or one of his night guards poked their head out the back door, double-checked the lock, and went back in. But no one came out and stayed out. Not the woman or anyone else.
It was an hour before the commotion seemed to finally die down inside. Navett waited another thirty minutes, irritably counting the number of shovelfuls behind schedule this was costing them, before finally pulling out his comlink. 'Klif?'
