[Thrawn Trilogy] - 03 by The Last Command (Timothy Zahn)

Author:The Last Command (Timothy Zahn) [Command, The Last]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-03-10T13:36:12+00:00

Chapter 15

The fortress of Hijarna had been crumbling slowly away for perhaps a thousand years before the Fifth Alderaanian Expedition had spotted it, keeping its silent, deserted vigil over its silent, deserted world. A vast expanse of incredibly hard black stone, it stood on a high bluff overlooking a plain that still bore the deep scars of massive destruction. To some, the enigmatic fortress was a tragic monument: a last-ditch attempt at defense by a desperate world under siege. To others, it was the brooding and malicious cause of both that siege and the devastation that had followed.

To Karrde, for the moment at least, it was home.

“You sure know how to pick ‘em, Karrde,” Gillespee commented, propping his feet up on the edge of the auxiliary comm desk and looking around. “How did you find this place, anyway?”

“It’s all right there in the old records,” Karrde told him, watching his display as the decrypt program ran its course. A star map appeared, accompanied by a very short text …

Gillespee nodded toward Karrde’s display. “Clyngunn’s report?”

“Yes,” Karrde said, pulling out the data card. “Such as it is.”

“Nothing, right?”

“Pretty much. No indications of clone traffic anywhere on Poderis, Chazwa, or Joiol.”

Gillespee dropped his feet off the table and stood up. “Well, that’s that, then,” he said, stepping over to the fruit rack someone had laid out on a side table and picking himself out a driblis fruit. “Looks like whatever the Empire had going in Orus sector has dried up. If there was anything going there in the first place.”

“Given the lack of a trail, I suspect the latter,” Karrde agreed, choosing one of the cards that had come from his contact on Bespin and sliding it into the display. “Still, it was something we needed to know, one way or the other. Among other things, it frees us up to concentrate on other possibilities.”

“Yeah,” Gillespee said reluctantly as he went back to his seat. “Well … you know, Karrde, this whole thing has been land of strange. Smugglers, I mean, doing this kind of snoop work. Hasn’t paid very much, either.”

“I’ve already told you we’ll be getting some reimbursement from the New Republic.”

“Except that we don’t have anything to sell them,” Gillespee pointed out. “Never known anyone yet who paid for no delivery.”

Karrde frowned over at him. Gillespee had produced a wicked-looking knife from somewhere and was carefully carving a slice from the driblis fruit. “This isn’t about getting paid,” he reminded the other. “It’s about surviving against the Empire.”

“Maybe for you it is,” Gillespee said, studying the slice of fruit a moment before taking a bite. “You’ve got enough sidelines going that you can afford to lay off business for a while. But, see, the rest of us have payrolls to meet and ships to keep fueled. The money stops coming in, our employees start getting nasty.”

“So you and the others want money?”

He could see Gillespee brace himself. “I want money. The others want out.”

It was not, in retrospect, exactly an unexpected development.

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