Shadows of the Empire: Star Wars Legends (Star Wars - Legends) by Steve Perry

Author:Steve Perry [Perry, Steve]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780307796349
Publisher: Random House Worlds
Published: 2011-06-28T00:00:00+00:00

29

After Guri had taken Leia away, Xizor sipped at another glass of green champagne. Perhaps it would help ease the pain in his groin.

After a time, he called his chief of security.

“Did the Wookiee escape?”

“Yes, Highness.”

“You did not allow him to think it was too easy?”

“He put five of our troops down, my prince. We singed him with a blaster beam as he ran down a hall. He won’t think it was easy.”

“Good.”

Xizor broke the link and smiled into the green, bubbly liquid. His surveillance on the Wookiee had reported the escape attempt immediately. Before Leia had returned to him, Xizor had already put his alternate plan into effect. He had intended to let the Wookiee go all along, albeit not quite this soon. Well. No matter. The Wookiee would surely contact Skywalker, and the boy would come running to try to rescue the princess. Xizor’s agents would probably collect Skywalker before he got within hours of the castle.

So easy. The hot ones were so predictable.

A priority offworld message announced itself on his private channel. He didn’t feel like talking to anybody just at the moment, but only a few people had access to the direct link, and if one of them was calling, it was likely something he’d best not ignore.

The connection was vox only, no image of the speaker. Understandable, considering the position some of his agents sometimes found themselves in regarding their security. He himself did not like to transmit his image. A personal quirk. You could scramble the transmission, of course, but in the field, paranoia was high. Many operatives reasoned that if a shielded pipeline was broken into and the com somehow unscrambled, better it should not have pictures attached to the speaker.

His computer had verified the caller from his voice patterns, else it would not have been put through.

“Yes?”

“My prince, there is news of Skywalker.”

“And it is …?”

“He has allegedly been captured by a group of bounty hunters. They would not say where they are precisely, but we have determined that they are on Kothlis. We expect to have that information updated momentarily. There is a problem, however.”

“I see. And this problem is …?”

“They say there is another bidder for their prisoner. One whose offer tops ours and who has … Imperial connections.”

Hmm. Vader had just gone to that area. Ostensibly it was to give credence to the computer theft, but consider: Who in the galaxy wanted Skywalker as much as Xizor himself did? Vader, of course. Then again, Vader was already back here onplanet, had gone to see the Emperor, and there were no indications he had brought Skywalker back with him. Perhaps the information had reached him too late for him to make proper use of it. Or not reached him at all.

Well. This ploy with the princess might not be necessary at all.

“Tell them we’ll double whatever the other side has to offer.”

“Highness, if we’re bidding against the Empire, we can’t match them.”

“I know that. It doesn’t matter since we aren’t ever going to have to pay it.

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