Star Wars_ The Han Solo Trilogy 02_ The Hutt Gambit - A. C. Crispin [103]
“That’s her, c’mon!” Han told Salla. Chewie was already loping forward, growling a friendly greeting.
“Solo!” the newcomer cried. “Chewbacca!”
“Xaverri!” Han called back, jogging toward her. It was so good to see her again!
When they reached each other, he grabbed her shoulders, but she flung her arms around him and hugged him, hard. Han hugged her back, but he carefully kissed her forehead, rather than her mouth. After Xaverri greeted Chewie with a big hug and a Wookiee head-rub, she turned back to Han and Salla. “Xaverri, I want you to meet Salla Zend,” Han said as the two women stood regarding each other. “Xaverri, this is Salla, smuggler and expert mechanic.”
“Hi, pleased to meet you!” Salla said, sticking out her hand.
“My pleasure,” Xaverri said, shaking hands. “Any friend of Solo’s is a friend of mine.”
Han was vastly uncomfortable. I’ve never had two girlfriends meet each other before, he thought. The Corellian wondered whether Xaverri would want to take up their relationship where they’d left off, months before. Salla, he knew, would likely take a dim view of that.
But, hey, she doesn’t own me, he thought defensively. It’s not like we’re married or anything.
Still, he was careful to walk beside Salla as he picked up Xaverri’s bag and they started across the permacrete of the landing field together.
Later, over flatbread and traladon-cheese appetizers at Han’s favorite Corellian eatery, he explained his plan to Xaverri.
When he’d finished, she regarded him searchingly. “Let me get this straight. You want me to create a holo-illusion of a whole bunch of smuggler vessels coming straight at these Imperial Capital-class ships. You want the illusion to be real enough, and last long enough, to cause the Imp vessels to be fooled into turning to fire on the fake fleet. Have I got it right?”
“That’s it,” Han said. As she’d detailed the plan, he’d realized just what he was asking. Xaverri had never created anything on this scale before. Probably no one had.
Xaverri shook her head, her long black hair sliding over her shoulders. “You don’t ask much, do you, Solo?”
“Hey,” Han said, trying to grin, “think of it as a challenge. Your greatest illusion ever!”
“Any holo-illusion requires projectors,” Xaverri said. “What can we use for them?”
“I was thinking we could get all the tri-dee projectors from the casinos,” Han said. “You know, the ones that they use to project shows onto the screens in the gambling areas, so people can watch the shows while they lose their shirts.”
Xaverri frowned. “Maybe,” she said. “But even if we could create the image of the fleet, the Imp sensors would tell them right away it was an illusion. They’d ignore it.”
“Maybe we could jam their sensors?” Salla suggested. “After all, we can jam transmissions going out. Isn’t there some way to jam what’s going in?”
The magician was looking at the smugglers with her eyes wide. “You know something,” she said, “I think I’m getting an idea …”
Han leaned forward. “Yeah? What?”
She sipped her drink, thinking, then replied, “I think we may be able to use the traffic-control buoys to send false data to the Imps. So they’ll see the holo-illusion, at the same time as their sensors pick up data that tells them what they’re seeing is real!”
Salla was excited. “Great! That sounds perfect!”
Xaverri smiled at her. “But I’ll need help building all this. Slicers to help reprogram the traffic-control buoys, techs to build the projectors for the illusion. Do you know any good slicers and techs?”
Salla grinned back and impulsively reached out a hand. The two women clasped hands over the table. “You bet I do, Xaverri,” the tall smuggler said. “Shug and I will help.”
Chewbacca let out a loud, emphatic roar that caused a passing wait droid to drop a food tray and scuttle back into the kitchen.
“Chewie says, include him in, too,” Han supplied the translation with a grin. “Xaverri … I know you probably gave up a fancy booking