Vision of the future

But if there had been any clues in his expression, they were buried now. 'I need to be here,' he said quietly. 'Don't ask me why.'

For a few heartbeats they gazed at each other. Mara stretched out with the Force, but Luke's emotions weren't giving away anything more than his face was. 'All right,' she said at last. 'Let me get my pack. I don't suppose Karrde thought to send a spare glow rod along with you.'

'As a matter of fact, he sent three,' Luke said, crouching down beside his pack and pulling one of them from an outside pocket. 'Oh, and I should refill these water bottles before we leave. You said there was a stream nearby?'

'It's right over there,' Mara said, waving that direction as she stepped over to her pack and squatted down beside it. 'Hang on a second and I'll show you.' No, she wouldn't ask, she decided as she secured the seals. Not now. But she would find a way to bring up the subject again later.

Because whatever it was, it was something that had Luke worried. And anything that worried a Jedi Knight was something that deserved very careful attention indeed.

'Okay,' she said, getting to her feet and slinging the pack over one shoulder. 'Follow me. And watch your step.'

CHAPTER

7

'That's it,' Han said, nodding out the Falcon's viewport. 'Pakrik Minor. Not much to look at, is it?'

'It's beautiful,' Leia assured him, gazing out at the speckled blue-green world looming in front of them. A vacation. A real vacation. No Coruscant; no politics; no Caamas issue; no ancient vengeances and smoldering wars. Not even any children, droids, or watchful Noghri underfoot. Just her and Han and silence. 'Farms and forests, you said?'

'That's all there is,' he promised. 'And we're going to get a little of both. Sakhisakh called while you were at the closing ceremonies and said they'd found a nice little inn run by a farm family right at the edge of one of the forests.'

'Sounds wonderful,' Leia said dreamily. 'Did he give you any more grief about him and Barkhimkh having to wait for us at the spaceport?'

'Oh, they're still not happy about leaving us alone like this,' Han said with a shrug. 'Especially not after that riot on Bothawui. But they know how to obey orders.' He smiled slyly. 'And I think he felt better when I told him we'd be running under a fake ID.'

Leia blinked. 'A what?'

'Yeah—didn't I tell you?' Han asked, radiating innocence. 'I brought along an old smuggler ID to book the room with.'

She sent him one of her repertoire of patient looks. 'Han, you know we can't do that.'

'Sure we can,' he said, as usual ignoring the look. 'Anyway, you're supposed to be leaving everything to me, remember?'

'I don't remember lawbreaking being on the program,' Leia said. But the tensions were already starting to fade away, and she discovered with mild surprise that the issue of false IDs wasn't even sending a ripple of guilt through her conscience. Considering some of the things she'd done in her life—including open and active rebellion against a legally established government—this was hardly something to get worked up over. 'You wouldn't get away with it if Threepio was here.'

'Not without having to listen to a lecture, anyway,' Han said, making a face. Leia smiled. 'Oh, come on, Han. Admit it—you miss him, too.'

'I do not,' Han protested. 'I just—never mind.'

'Never mind what?'

Han grimaced. 'Thinking about Threepio makes me think about Karrde; and I still don't like the idea of him heading off to the Outer Rim with that Shada D'ukal woman. I know you didn't pick up any treachery when we talked to her, but I still think she's trouble.' Leia sighed. Shada D'ukal, former bodyguard to the smuggler chief Mazzic, who had casually slipped through the Noghri screen around their Manarai Mountain apartment and invited herself into their private strategy session with Karrde and Lando. A potentially powerful ally? Or an equally deadly enemy? 'I don't particularly like it, either,' she told Han. 'But Karrde's a big boy, and it was his idea to take her along. Did you ever get in touch with Mazzic to ask about her, by the way?' Han shook his head. 'The word's still floating around the fringe that I want to talk to him, but nothing came through before we left Pakrik Major. 'Course, now it'll have to wait till we get back.' Leia raised her eyebrows. 'You mean you didn't even tell your smuggler contacts we were going to Pakrik Minor? You are serious about this being a vacation.'