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“And there were other reasons you didn’t want to attract attention?”

“Why would you ask that?”

“Your father-in-law is Booster Terrik.” Mara Jade let the barest shadow of a smile tug at the corners of her mouth. “That’s reason enough for anyone to go into hiding. I don’t seem to recall having heard anything of Mirax for six weeks or so. You’ve been here, what, a month?”

“And you wonder if I murdered her and have come here to hide?”

“No.” Mara’s words came cold and solemn. “I wondered if someone else murdered her and you’re here learning how to find them.”

Her hitting so close to the mark sent a jolt through me. “How is it that you know how long ago anyone heard about my wife?”

She shrugged easily as we passed into the back corridor leading to the old pilots’ quarters. “She’s very good at what she does, you know. As a smuggler, she’s easily in the ninety-fifth percentile in finding exotic goods and finding buyers for them. Talon Karrde still talks about the Sith lanvarok she enabled him to unload. When someone like her drops out for more than a couple of weeks, either they’re up to something big, or they’re dead.”

I flicked on the glowlamps in a small room. “This room belonged to a female Rebel pilot. She died before the Death Star battle.”

Mara took a quick look around the room, then nodded. “It’ll suit me. So, what happened to Mirax?”

“She’s alive, but that’s all I know.” I leaned against the door jamb. “Master Skywalker and Wedge think she was kidnapped for reasons unknown. They think someone has her in hibernation. She’s out there, somewhere, waiting.”

The fire-haired woman folded her arms across her chest. “And you’re here learning what you can so you can find her.”

“Find her and save her.”

Mara nodded. “Lucky woman.”

“I hope so.” I let my voice descend into a growl. “If she’s not, if I arrive too late; her captors are going to find all the luck in the galaxy won’t do them any good.”

EIGHTEEN

I think Master Skywalker planned on or hoped for something a bit festive in the way of a meal for our guest. This meant I got tagged with kitchen duty. While I didn’t really have any formal training in the culinary arts—and the Holocron had not revealed any Jedi power oriented toward making food taste good—I had been raised on Corellia and had seen a fair amount of the galaxy. Luke reasoned that I knew more about interesting food than a Bespin hermit or Dorsk 81—especially because the clone’s digestive system was so specialized he could only eat processed food wafers.

Ugh.

Luckily for me, I’d learned all I needed to know about cooking from the chef on Siolle Tinta’s private yacht. During a party with which I had become bored I met Chid—like all great artists, he asserted he only needed one name—and we chatted about the self-important guests on the cruise. We also drank, and after a lot of chatting and even more drinking, Chid confided in me the keys of great culinary success.

“First, make portions small. If they want more, they think it was good. Two, give the dish an exotic name and make it sound like there are secret spices in there. Snobs will spend much time trying to see if their palate is sophisticated enough to detect one part per million of Ithorian saffron and they won’t dare pass judgment on the food for fear someone will think them a boor. Three, serve things that are supposed to be cooked raw, and serve hot things cold. Makes them think it’s special. Four—most important—tell them you created it special for them. Only a Gamorrean would protest such an honor.”

The academy’s supplies weren’t really long on spices—calling them survival rations would actually be stretching a point—but mashing up ration bars, mixing them with fruit compotes and baking them into long slender loaves that I sliced on a bias made for an interesting breadlike food. Dried meat became something of a stew with enough boiling, and tossing the dried veggies into the meat broth allowed them to soak up some flavor. And since we’d all gotten to realizing that the grain gruel the New