Star Wars_ The Black Fleet Crisis 01_ Before the Storm - Michael P. Kube-McDowell [83]
“Calrissian, you are a madman,” said Pakkpekatt with an icy evenness. “You will lose more than your commission over this, I promise you that.”
“Colonel, I’ll take that as your promise to do everything you can to help keep me alive long enough to satisfy your fine sense of outrage. I understand the Fleet doesn’t allow you to court-martial a corpse.”
“There are other uses for corpses,” said Pakkpekatt with a cold smile. “While you are still alive, perhaps you would like to place your justifications on the record.”
“Gladly,” said Lando. “Your decision to exclude us from the foray team endangered not only the lives of Bijo and his men, but the whole mission. And your attitude during yesterday’s briefing convinced me that you’d never give any real weight to anything we brought to the table—”
“You mean to blame me for your recklessness?” Pakkpekatt raged, his frosty reserve vaporizing in an instant. “You brought nothing to the table. You obviously came here with secret information about this vessel, which you denied having, and denied to us.”
“Secret information? What’re you blathering about, Colonel?”
“You as much as admitted it. You are the one who knew that the foray team would be in danger. You knew that the target was expecting a countersign, which you already possessed.”
“Colonel, you don’t know what you’re talking about. I had a hunch about what the builders of this ship out here were doing, and this was the only way to play my hunch.”
“You expect me to believe that you risked your lives and your ship on a ‘hunch’?”
Lando chuckled, a low, smooth sound. “You’ve never played sabacc with me, have you, Colonel? You have to be willing to lose big if you’re hoping to win big. No one ever got rich wagering one credit at a time.”
“I hope you’ve enjoyed your little game, General. But I had always understood that hiding cards was considered dishonest.”
“Colonel, we didn’t have any secret information. We simply happened to look in the right place in the Imperial archives, and just barely in time, too. Now we’re in, and we’re going to do what we can while we’re here. I trust you have the recorders running by now?”
Pakkpekatt muted the link and looked away from the comm unit toward his operations officer. “Do we have the recording of the key signal Lady Luck used to enter the restricted zone?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Is the tractor beam on D-89 strong enough to tie up Lady Luck?”
“Easily,” said the operations officer with contempt. “She’s just a civilian pleasure yacht.”
“Is the interdiction field up?”
“Yes, sir, the field is operational.”
“Then queue up that key, and get ready to send the picket in to yank them out of there.” Pakkpekatt turned back to the comm unit and opened the link. “We’re doing the best we can,” he told Lando. “But some systems were in the middle of a calibration diagnostic, getting ready for our attempt later today, and they’re not back up yet. Can you stand off at your present range and give us a little time? A few minutes ought to be enough.”
“I guess that’s reasonable enough. But I hope you’re not thinking about trying to send the foray team in,” Lando said warningly. “We’ve talked about it here, and we have doubts that the key will work a second time.”
“No,” said Pakkpekatt, “we have no plans to do that. Just stand by.” He broke the link. “Ready?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then do it.”
Since making its pass at the vagabond the day before, D-89 had been flying formation with Glorious, awaiting its next job as the second spotter platform for the long-range stereo recordings to be made of the foray team’s contact. When its realspace engines suddenly roared to life, it had only a few kilometers to cover before reaching the invisible boundary of the vagabond’s security sphere.
D-89 was still accelerating when the vagabond hailed