26: Lobot
CLOUD CITY
TIBANNA MINING & TRADE COMPLEX, BUILDING 3
She had to be aware of the cameras. They were everywhere.
Namyr moved surreptitiously through the buzzing crowds. The halls of the Tibanna Mining & Trade Complex were, like most of Cloud City, corridors that acted as both public concourses and private venue access—in other words, the architects had cleverly wound them through the city, seamlessly attaching to the plankways and glideways on the outside, and carrying on, uninterrupted, throughout each of the buildings. This created a kind of insect hive, one that buzzed with beings of every shape and size.
But tibanna was the core of the city’s economy, the very reason for its existence, and so while public cameras might be scarce on certain plankways, they were in abundance inside the halls of a place like this, where Cloud City’s administrators met to discuss setting the price for tibanna, dealing with difficult transport companies, and the ins and outs of government contracts.
There were three types of camera modes to be aware of: stationary, offset, and random-offset. Random-offset was the most difficult to deal with because it meant the cameras were positioned in such a way so that, whenever they panned left to right, whatever area they were temporarily looking away from was covered by another camera. And that was mostly the type of camera she saw at work.
Namyr had to operate under the assumption that her face could be known by the local authorities now—they may have seen her daring aerobatics against the Hard Leaf, and could be using facial-recognition software to locate her.
All her inquiries had led her here. She had spent twenty minutes asking people if they had recently seen a Wookiee, or where she might find Lando Calrissian, and most people answered that he was a kind of playboy and could be found just about anywhere, bouncing from one important meeting to the next. But a few protocol droids insisted Calrissian spent almost every morning here, in the Tibanna Mining & Trade Complex, dealing with visiting dignitaries, or trying to wine and dine a prospective new business partner. The droids she spoke to had been helpful with a description—apparently Calrissian had changed his appearance since the picture of him on the visitor’s center site was taken.
She jogged up another flight of stairs, watching the cameras that panned, and keeping out of their field of vision as best she could. For stationary cameras, she waited for groups of people to head in her intended direction, and blended in with them. Her eyes searched for opportunities, until at last she found a door that was left open, leading into a small exercise room meant for employees of the complex. Namyr slipped inside, knowing that gyms like these were excellent places to find discarded clothes, towels, and neglected bags.
The women’s locker room was wide and expansive, and she only had to mill about for about ten minutes before she saw a woman drop her duffel bag on the floor, and then slip into the shower. Namyr walked past it, had a peek inside, and found what appeared to be a custodian’s uniform. Also, tucked in a side pocket, was a vibro-razor. She took both, stepped into a shower stall, changed into the uniform, and quickly shaved her head down to a fuzz before stepping back out into the corridor.
With her silhouette sufficiently changed now, Namyr continued through the complex, searching for Calrissian, or the Wookiee, or even the famous face of Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan. She came to a terminal in a hallway with little traffic. She used her body to hide her slicer’s rig from the camera behind her, and jacked into the terminal.
Cloud City’s systems admins seemed to prefer an operating system called Umoi’da, a somewhat new and popular system out here in the Outer Rim, and one that Namyr happened to know had a zero-day exploit. She checked briefly to see if anyone had discovered it and patched it yet. Mentally calling on the Force or any gods for a bit of luck, she was relieved when she found it had not been patched, and she inserted her mal-code. Once inside, her rig sent packets to specific ports to try and find weaknesses—they called this port knocking. Eventually, if the mal-code is sound, the target computer accepts this “handshake” and opens up a connection to the outside system.
Her fingers danced across the rig’s keypad for several seconds before she got the greenlight. The first thing she did was access the public camera system and switch off facial-recognition, and then used a shred-command to not only bury her systems alteration so that no technical support could find it, but also rewrote the files so they would be much more difficult to recover. For the time, the cameras would all appear to be functioning normally.
Next, she used the screen on her rig to quickly sift through the cameras on all the floors. It would be difficult to find Princess Leia or Solo or Calrissian in all the crowds on all the concourses, but a Wookiee ought to stand out—
There!
She almost missed it. A Wookiee was jogging quickly through the corridors, just rounding a tall sculpture of somebody important, and in his hands…Is that a protocol droid? If so, the thing was in pieces, like someone had blasted it apart. She followed him from one camera angle to the next, and saw him entering a suite on the eighteenth floor.
“Alpha, are you out there?” she called to Ageless over her commlink. No response. “Mother, Alpha, if any of you can read me, I’ve found them. Repeat, I’ve found our tickets off this planet and I’m heading to rendezvous with them now.”
Still no reply.
Namyr ripped her slicer’s rig from the terminal and pocketed it and walked to the nearest turbolift as fast as she dared without making herself stick out. She was in the lift with a Rodian and two Humans, all of them in elegant robes and talking excitedly about the price jump in tibanna in today’s market. She got off at the eighteenth floor and moved down the hallway and was just in time to see a giant, furry being stepping down a set of steps on her right, about fifteen meters away. He seemed to be in the company of someone familiar…
“Princess Leia!” she shouted, and ran after them. “Princess Leia Organa!” But they were too far away, and there were too many people in the hallways, all chattering and bustling about, so the princess never heard her.
When she rounded the corner, Namyr saw what appeared to be Lando Calrissian leading Han Solo, Princess Leia, and the Wookiee down another short set of stairs. She started to move towards them…when she saw, out of the corner of her eye, something familiar. Alerts went off inside her brain. The door to a closet across the hallway was slightly ajar, and she saw what looked like white, familiar armor plates. The armor of an Imperial stormtrooper.
Oh no. Oh, Force help us, no.
Namyr hung back, pressing herself into a crenelation along the wall, where the statue of a beautiful Twi’lek woman was carved from granite. She was close enough to hear Han Solo speaking to Calrissian.
“Aren’t you afraid the Empire’s gonna find out about this little operation? Shut you down?” Solo was asking.
“It’s always been a danger,” Calrissian said, “but it looms like a shadow over everything we’ve built here. But things have developed that will ensure security.”
At this point, Solo’s Wookiee friend made a low, low moan, and looked around the corridor suspiciously. It’s like he knows already, Namyr thought. He senses what I sense. He smells it.
“I’ve just made a deal,” Calrissian continued, “that’ll keep the Empire out of here forever.”
Namyr had to peek her head out a little more, and watched as Calrissian touched a switch on the wall that opened a set of double doors. She was at an angle that she could not see into the room, but as soon as the doors were opened the Wookiee gave vent to a vicious roar as Solo drew his DL-44 and fired several bolts into the room. Then, strangely, she watched as Solo’s blaster was yanked out of his hand by an unseen force, and went into the room.
Then a deep, menacing, mechanical-sounding voice spoke from somewhere inside the room, “We would be honored if you would join us.”
I know that voice! She had heard it a dozen times in intercepted transmissions. Vader! But Commander Fera said he was going to the Bespin Medical Center. Does that mean…he’s already found and captured Kevv and Ageless?
Suddenly, the stormtroopers Namyr had seen hiding in the closet burst out, and a few others came tearing down the hallway from the other side and converged on the Rebels, blasters pointed at them. And there was someone else—a Human? He was bald, with an AJˆ6 cyborg implant ringlet attached to his head.
Calrissian took on a serious, yet mournful look. “I had no choice. They arrived right before you did. I’m sorry.”
Namyr’s hand went to her holdout blaster, and froze there. Every fiber of her being told her to attack, to help the princess and her friends—The last princess of Alderaan, a symbol to the Rebellion and to all free peoples—and yet her training told her the numbers made it folly. Outgunned, outmaneuvered, the Rebels had lost this one, yet again, to their eternal regret.
“I’m sorry, too,” said Solo, taking the princess’s hand in his.
And in a flash, Namyr read the motion. They’re in love. The thought was barely through when the Wookiee gave out a low, mournful howl, and then they were led into the room and the doors were shut.
Namyr waited for the troopers to take up guard outside the doors—Giving the Dark Lord a private audience?—and then she slowly receded, back down the hallway, along with twenty or thirty other civilians who had been walking that corridor and were as surprised as she was by the Imperial ambush. She left them to their whispers and their fears.
Gutted, feeling nothing but despair, Namyr got into a turbolift and headed back down to Platform 326, where the Hard Leaf was still parked. Despondent, feeling that their luck had finally run out, Namyr stood there looking at the Hard Leaf and thought about just taking it up into orbit, despite its damaged life-support, and trying to send out a signal for the Midra’hara to rendezvous with her. If I did that, the Empire would almost certainly pick up on the transmission, and would know exactly where the Midra’hara is.
But another thought occurred to her.
Ageless said the life-support could probably only support one other person. If I dump Zumter and the Ugnaught crew off here, then maybe I can get out myself.
But then reality hit her like a hammer. The Executor was in orbit right then, and would surely capture her small shuttle in its tractor beams.
There seemed to be no way off this planet. Trapped, and without any friends or allies left, Namyr was just beginning to consider going back in there and rescuing her Rebel allies. It would be a suicide mission, but if there was no way out of the city then she was dead here anyway—
Just then, a T-79 came up slowly over the edge of the platform, and parked just beside the Hard Leaf. On top of it, hanging on for dear life, was Ageless Void, wearing a doctor’s coat. She ran over to him and watched him slide off and land, with wobbly legs, onto the duracrete. “Ageless! Thank the Force you’re—”
“Sorry I didn’t reply to your message,” he panted, leaning against the airspeeder. “I needed both my hands to hang on.” After catching his breath, he looked at her strangely. “When did you shave your hair?”
She ignored his question. “Did you get him? Did you get Kevv?”
“See for yourself.”
Namyr popped the canopy, and inside, half conscious, was the Duros, who was holding up one hand in a thumbs-up.
“So, good news, right?” Ageless said. “We got the band back together, and you found our ride outta here. Where is Solo? I’m half afraid to meet him, since it was my mission to kill him just a few days ago. Please say you didn’t tell him that.”
She gave him a sorrowful look. “I’m sorry,” she said. “But…I couldn’t get to them in time. And even if I had, it wouldn’t have done any good, because Calrissian was in on it.”
“In on what?”
“Vader. He’s inside. He and a squad of stormtroopers just took all of them prisoner, and Calrissian was there. He set them up. Three blurrgs led to the slaughter.”
Ageless’s whole countenance fell, and he sagged against one of the airspeeder’s wings. “Well, so much for that plan.” He shook his head, and pulled off the doctor’s coat. “You’re sure of what you saw? You’re certain? Calrissian is helping the Empire?”
She nodded. “Him and another Human. Never seen him before. Bald guy, with a cyborg implant. I don’t know if he was a bounty hunter or—”
“Wait,” he said, brightening. He pushed himself off of the airspeeder’s wing quickly. “Wait a minute. Bald guy? Is the cyborg implant an AJˆ6?”
Namyr winced. “How did you know that?”
Ageless snorted out a laugh. “Lobot.”
“Who?”
“That’s his name. When IIS first got a lead that a smuggler named Han Solo had helped the Rebels attack the Death Star, they did a workup on him. That’s how I knew about Calrissian’s connection to Solo in the first place.”
“Right. And?”
“In that workup,” Ageless went on, “was all his past connections, including Calrissian. And so, the Kingdom did a workup on Calrissian. I knew he and Solo had a falling out, so did everyone in IIS, so no one really pressured Calrissian all that much—Solo’s had a long, long career as a smuggler, and his connections number in the hundreds. But I remember reading about Calrissian’s aide, or friend, or whatever—his name is Lobot. And the reason I remember is because Lobot used to be a battlefield coordinator for the Empire. He retired and went into the private sector.”
Namyr shrugged. “So how does that help us?”
“Lobot is an interesting person. That’s why I never forgot about his profile. He was highly dedicated to the Empire, and agreed to have the cyborg implant put in, which sacrificed some of his personality and independence for increased productivity, but it gave a super-tactical mind. He’s a master of integral and differential calculus, as well as linear algebra, and statistics, both normal and non-normal, and can make calculations almost as fast a starship’s navicomputer. And he applied it to Thrawn’s Force-squared Law to create brutal battlefield mathematics.”
Ageless massaged his hands, which were slightly cut and bruised from his fight with Zumter.
“Over his career,” he went on, “Lobot performed calculations for over two hundred major battles, and all of them came out with a favorable outcome for the Empire—and his commanders reported a seventeen-point-six percent efficiency increase in units’ performances wherever Lobot was involved. His battle plans resulted in an average of only two-point-eight percent loss of lives for the Imperial side. A stellar career.
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
“But then suddenly he retired, nobody knows why. He went into smuggling, where he suffered some accident, and apparently Lobot’s true mind was lost, and the cybernetic implants took over almost completely.”
“All right, but that still doesn’t answer my question. How does that help us?”
All around them, air traffic buzzed and hummed and thrummed, and Ageless scratched at his chin, thinking.
“Because, I always thought it was strange. Lobot’s calculations and battle estimations were considered some of the most accurate in the history of the Imperial service, and he created formulas for something called the Faith-index, which, legend has it, predicts the outcome of economies and governmental policies decades down the road. So here’s the question I always had.” Ageless looked squarely at her. “What is Lobot doing here? Why did he quit the Empire and go into smuggling? With a mind like his, able to predict almost any outcome of battle, why suddenly turn to smuggling? Why suddenly bet against the Empire?”
Namyr shook her head. “He’s not betting against the Empire now. He’s helping them.”
“No, he’s not. You want to know what he’s doing? What he’s always doing?”
“What?”
Ageless looked back towards the Tibanna Mining & Trade Complex. “He’s calculating. He’s backing one podracer openly, but secretly he’s backing one or two others, as a contingency. He’s got a plan. As much as Calrissian—perhaps more than Calrissian—Lobot’s got a plan. A long-term plan.”
“So, who he is really backing?” she asked.
“He’s backing Calrissian. That was my summation when I helped develop the psych eval on him. And yet he left the Empire. So why back Calrissian now, if Calrissian is suddenly on the Empire’s side?”
Namyr tried to catch up. “You think…maybe Calrissian isn’t really on the Empire’s side?”
“Possibly. Or, if he is, I don’t think Lobot would like it.”
“Do you think Lobot’s open to some kind of trade? Negotiation?”
“There was a saying going around the Kingdom during this time. ‘Who knows the mind of Lobot?’ He’s one odd grig.” Ageless licked his lips, thought for a minute, and nodded. “But I think I have a pretty good idea now. I’m betting he knows what I know. He knows that the Empire, having seen the Rebels hiding out here, will start to look at Cloud City as a secret Rebel sanctuary. Vader will post a garrison here. He’ll claim it’s only temporary, but then he will alter the deal. The Empire always does. Lobot’s not stupid, he has to know that, because he helped the Empire develop such strategies.”
Namyr nodded and waved her hand in a circular gesture, telling him to get to the point. “And so…?”
Ageless suddenly looked her up and down. “Where did you get that uniform?”
“Inside. There’s an exercise room.”
“Think I might need a change of clothes soon, too. After we secure those, let’s find out where Lobot spends his days, and pay him a visit.”
Namyr smiled. “Shouldn’t be too hard to find him. I already have a connection to the complex’s cameras.”
“Then what are we waiting for? Let’s move.”
“What about Kevv?”
Ageless looked at the Duros. “Kevv, you good?”
Kevv gave another weak thumbs-up.
“He’s good.”
* * *
ABOARD THE MIDRA’HARA
ORBITING BESPIN’S NIGHT SIDE
No one spoke. There was an unconscious thought, as ancient as each of their ancestors, that if they made a sound, the predator hiding in the grass would hear them. Fera felt it. Every single member of the Midra’hara’s crew was behaving like they were in a cave, and the predator was passing them by in the night. But their instincts were also beneficial, for silence also brought about total focus. Focus on their scopes, focus on the viewport, and focus on protocol.
When Mynyra finally spoke, it almost made Fera jump from surprise. “Message from Mordenta,” the Bothan said quietly. “It’s somewhat broken up, radiation is scattering it, but it sounds like she says she may have a ticket off-world. Should we respond?” She had to ask, even though she already knew the answer.
“Negative, send no reply,” Fera said. Her voice was also a whisper. “We can’t risk Executor tracing our signal.”
They saw the spearhead-shaped enemy cresting over Bespin’s north pole. As it was coming up over the planet, it began a wider sensor sweep. The Executor had already sent out three squadrons of TIE fighters. Mynyra believed they were Phantom V38s, as they had only appeared briefly as blips, and were no longer showing on passive sensors. TIE Phantoms were unique tri-winged starfighters, with deflector shields and even hyperdrives, but their most stunning feature was something that the Alliance Intelligence Network had yet to fully confirm—that being stygium cloaking devices, technology not seen for decades. AIN believed that’s what made them so difficult to see on scopes.
The Phantoms were reportedly put into production after the Rebel victory at the Battle of Yavin. Grand Admiral Batch had supposedly secured a supply of stygium crystals from an unknown place, but the supply was limited, so the Phantoms were also limited in number.
They’re out here. Sharks swimming in dark waters.
Fera had ordered all guns manned around the clock. They were now waiting for something to happen. Anything. And for each of those contingencies, Fera had worked out a plan with her crew. If a tractor beam locked onto them, the captain and his copilot were prepared with two or three maneuvers to escape the beam’s lock. Should the Phantoms suddenly attack, the gunners had coordinated with the captain on a plan, flying a course close to the planet, using the gravity for another slingshot maneuver while working out targeting solutions. And if the Executor opened fire on them, they were prepared to turn out-system and leave and never come back.
And so now all there was left to do was sit.
And wait.
* * *
CLOUD CITY
THE CLOUD CITY MINING OPERATIONS ANNEX, GAMMA WING [LOGISTICS]
The building where Cloud City conducted its main mining operations was situated at the center of the city. All skylanes lead to Gamma Wing, went the saying. Because that’s where Lobot sits. Ageless discovered this little axiom while chatting casually with various Cloud City residents on their way to Gamma Wing. Namyr had already located Lobot on one of the cameras, walking away from the room where Han Solo and Princess Leia had been captured and heading into the logistics center. But Ageless wanted more intel before they approached him, and chatting up the locals was usually the best source for that kind of thing.
“Don’t go near him when his eyes are closed,” one Twi’lek had said when asked. “I hear he goes into a ‘shutdown mode,’ kind of like meditating, but not. He calls it collating. Never knew him to brawl or fight anyone, but I’ve heard he’ll slap you silly if you disturb his collating.”
A female Trandoshan advised, “He is unlikely to even speak to you, unless you’ve been sent by either his master Calrissian, or one of his associates.”
“The guy only talks business,” another Twi’lek said, while rushing to catch a turbolift before its doors closed. “It’s the only language he understands. Small-talk is likely to get you nowhere. Heard he was in love once, but that ended badly, so…yeah, he doesn’t have the patience for chit-chat.”
Ageless absorbed all this and more, including one story by a Human male that claimed to have worked alongside Lobot for years. The guy was reticent to talk, but once Ageless tossed him a few hundred of Zumter’s credits, that greased his lips and the fellow told how Lobot had once loved a woman named Cha, and how, once she had a falling out with Calrissian, Lobot had had a decision to make: go with Cha, or stay with his boss. “Lobot never hesitated,” the man said. “He said goodbye to Cha, and walked straight back to his desk to sign some delivery papers for Calrissian. His loyalty is with our dear Baron Administrator, and nowhere else.”
Then it was as Ageless feared. A tough nut to crack. And yet it also meant that his hunch had a strong chance of being right. Everything he was hearing about Lobot was conducive with the profile he had worked up on the man. And if he was right about that, Ageless figured he had a better chance at working him.
Ageless stopped by a high-end clothing store that was built into the Operations Annex—something for the high-ranking executives and admins. He used more of Zumter’s credits to buy himself an expensive jerkin and half-cape, with gray pants and tall black boots. He wore the half-cape slung over one shoulder in the modern Cloud City fashion. Namyr bought an elegant white dress, embroidered in gold, with spiraling purple designs that were a throwback to Alderaanian trends during the Clone Wars.
Having changed their silhouettes, they felt a bit better moving freely through the concourses of the Operations Annex that wound through buildings. Arm-in-arm, they walked, and sat at tables in expensive restaurants, with balconies overlooking the zipping air traffic, and discussed their plan of approach to Lobot while also looking for the right opportunity.
Ageless used something the Nest had called “splatter-vision,” the practice of defocusing of the mind by slowly panning the eyes around, taking in everything, analyzing even what was usually dismissed in the peripherals. Namyr seemed to have had similar training, for he saw that faded look in her eyes, too. But it was Ageless who spotted it first.
“To my left,” he said. “Two tables over. See them?”
“Yes,” Namyr said, without having to look directly at them. It was a trio of security guards, all of them coming off their shift. At least, that’s what it looked like, because they removed their hats and laid them on their tables. They sat there, drinking and laughing, their postures saying they were glad to be off the clock.
They followed the trio away from the restaurant. Ageless and Namyr pretended to laugh and flirt, and at times it was an easy pattern to fall into. Too easy. They waited for their moment. The officers split up in a public concourse, each one headed home for the evening. Wordlessly, Ageless selected one target, and Namyr selected another. Ageless followed his target down a narrow corridor, then into a parking garage, and just when the guy got into his airspeeder, Ageless set his WESTAR-34 for stun and knocked him out. He slid into the airspeeder and switched clothes with the guard. He then used one of his other fake ID slates and scanned the guard’s credentials, marrying them to his new identity, that of Jarabo Kesh of Nal Hutta.
Twenty minutes later, he met up with Namyr, likewise dressed in a security guard’s uniform. “Hope you didn’t hurt him too badly,” he muttered.
Namyr smiled. “I chatted him up. Easy enough to get myself invited into his home. He’ll be asleep for a while. What now?”
Ageless adjusted his security guard’s belt, making sure it was a snug fit. “I imagine it’ll be easier to get close to Lobot in these. But there’s no guarantee what he’ll do once he finds out we’re a couple of fakes. But I think I know what to say to him once we get there. Just follow my lead.”
“Copy. Following you.”
It was not easy getting to Lobot, despite their efforts to look official. When they stepped into the Offices of Delivery & Trade, a protocol droid simply told them that Lobot, the Chief of Logistics, was busy at the moment. “Will you tell him it’s urgent?” Ageless asked, flashing his ID. The droid read the credentials and saw that he was indeed annex security. “Tell him we have word from a friend of his. Her name is Cha, and she told us to give him a private message. His ears only.”
The droid imbibed that a moment, standing perfectly still, then turned and spoke in low tones into a commlink. After a moment, it turned around and said, “Lobot will see you now.”
That easy? Ageless had expected to be shuffled off at least once more, or have to insist he could not wait for an appointment. His senses were on high alert.
A door hissed open on their right, and Ageless and Namyr stepped through, into a room empty save for a single occupant. Lobot stood at the center of a series of computer consoles that were designed to be in concentric rings. His hands were clasped behind him, like he was at parade rest. His eyes were shut, even as they approached him.
The door shunted closed behind them.
Namyr looked over at Ageless. Your show, that look said.
Ageless cleared his throat, but before he could even utter a word, Lobot said, “Cha did not send you. So who are you?” His eyes remained closed. “Answer. And do not deny it. I have already called security to take you impostors away, they are standing outside. If you’ve come to kill me—”
“You two had a passphrase, didn’t you?” Ageless said. “That’s how you knew we weren’t sent by her.”
“Yes,” Lobot said, opening his cold blue eyes and staring at the two intruders.
Ageless nodded. “Should’ve known. Man of your reputation, you would have thought of that.” Inwardly, he kicked himself for missing that little detail. “But no, we didn’t come here to kill you. We came with a warning.”
“What warning?”
“That you and your employer are making the biggest mistakes of your lives. By trusting the Empire, you have invited an ash-hound into your gundark nest.” Ageless turned and looked around the room, taking in all the computer screens. “This where you ‘collate,’ huh? Taking in all the logistical data of Cloud City’s mining operations and maximizing output and profits. So, I think you already know what the score is.”
“What do you know of our arrangements?”
Ageless knew it had begun. The test. A calculating mind like his, Lobot would need answers to very specific questions, and then take those answers and add them to the unfolding mathematical formula constantly fluctuating inside his head, telling him which way to go, what path to take, which way to live his life. But he has loyalty to Lando Calrissian, and him alone. He gave up love for Calrissian. Whatever the reason, whatever that means, it leaves us only one path to take with him.
“Your boss is going to be destroyed,” Ageless said, stepping to the center of the room.
Lobot tilted his head fractionally. “You will elaborate.” It was a command, not a question.
Ageless looked around the room. “Do the math. Take a look around this room. Everything that you’re monitoring, all of your boss’s business records and exchanges between the mining admins, the arrangements for the visiting Imperials, the threats from the Mining Guild. And let me guess, those protests happening out there,” he jutted a thumb towards the door, “those are being stirred up by the Guild themselves, aren’t they? Or you suspect as much. And let me take another guess. Lord Vader has offered to back off on Imperial oversight of your operation here, and will also guarantee that the Empire will force the Mining Guild to stay away, if you just help them root out all Rebel cells on Cloud City. Sound about right?”
Lobot didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Didn’t even flinch. But Ageless read him loud and clear.
“You served in the Empire for years,” he went on. “You helped them on the battlefield. You’ve seen them when they’re on campaign, you know their tactics. So have I. My name is Ageless Void. Have you ever heard that name before?” This was a pivot point in the conversation. The negotiation would either go one way or the other, depending on his answer.
“I have heard of you,” Lobot said. “You are a child of the Kingdom.”
Ageless nodded. “I figured you might know. I read your operational report. Half of it was classified.”
“I see. So what are you doing here, and why did you use Cha’s name to get in?”
“I apologize for that. I needed to get your attention.”
“You have it. For the moment.”
“Right. Well, to cut to it, she is with the Rebel Alliance,” he said, pointing to Namyr. “And I am…well, I’m like you. Formerly of the Galactic Empire. We are here on Bespin on an operation that will help restore the Republic. Or bring about a new one.” Ageless shrugged. “In any case, we need to get off Bespin before we are caught. We tried to get here ahead of the Empire and be done with our mission, but then they showed up and now…like I said before, they’re not leaving. They’re never going to leave. I think somewhere deep in your mind, you know that.” He smiled. “You’re just waiting for the final numbers to slide into place, a few hidden figures to make it all make sense, to give the final analysis.”
Lobot said nothing.
“You left the Empire because some calculation told you to. You saw something. Something in the Faith-index, perhaps? Or something you discovered on your own. Doesn’t matter. What you saw drove you away. You can’t be comfortable that the Empire is here, now.”
Lobot said nothing.
“I imagine it happened like this—stop me when I’m wrong. Your boss, Calrissian, conferred with you when the Imperials first arrived. You told him not to admit them, or to dissuade them somehow, but he didn’t listen. He didn’t listen because he was already being annihilated by public opinion over the Mining Guild. He said he couldn’t afford another enemy and he could use the Empire’s help. Your loyalty to him, though I don’t understand it, demanded that you go along with his decision.”
Lobot said nothing.
“Which means you see something in Calrissian. A podracer worth backing all the way. But like any good leader, he needs guidance, a navigator to help him course-correct from time to time. That’s how you see yourself, the navigator. And now, at the back of your mind, an old calculation must be returning. The same one that told you to leave the Empire; it’s telling you to leave Cloud City. It’s telling you to defy the Empire. But you need help doing it. Your station security just isn’t gonna cut it. You need professionals.”
Lobot said nothing.
Ageless splayed his hands out. “Look, it’s not hard. Just look at your position. You have two major leaders of the Rebellion, Solo and the princess, and you also have Darth Vader himself, second-in-command of the Empire. Cloud City just became a turning point in the War. What happens here now can change everything.” He pointed at Lobot. “But you know something. Something most people don’t. You know that the Rebellion is going to win. At least, that’s where your calculations are leaning. So you need to figure out how to back that podracer without getting destroyed.”
Lobot said nothing. Then, at last, he spoke. “What are you offering?”
“We’ll coordinate with you and your teams. We’ll help you get Solo and his friends out of here, and we’ll take a ride with them in the Millennium Falcon, along with our own cargo. And we’ll use our Sentinel-class stealth ship we have in orbit to create the necessary diversion to help your people evacuate.”
Namyr stepped forward, and spoke for the first time. “And I can promise you, if you return Princess Leia Organa and Captain Solo to us, you will be forgiven for any aid you gave the Empire here. You were under duress, you had little choice at the time. But now you do have a choice.”
Ageless said, “You left the Empire to back a different side. You tried being on your own, without friends in government. But I’m asking you to look at backing another side. Put your faith in the future of the Rebellion. You already suspect they’re going to win. I know you do. So why not speed that victory along, and set yourself up to be in an excellent position with a New Republic?”
Namyr nodded. “Republics work much better as business partners than dictatorships, especially when that dictator is prone to destroying whole worlds on whimsy.”
Ageless felt the momentum of their argument was working. He didn’t know how, but he sensed it. “Do the math. The Death Star’s destroyed. It took a whole fleet of Imperials to track down Princess Leia and her friends. Their incompetence and lack of imagination are showing. And look at us,” he said, pointing to Namyr. “Just us and a handful of friends made it this far, avoiding their detection. For all of Darth Vader’s vaunted powers and all of the Emperor’s terrifying legions, here we are. There are cracks in the Empire. Flaws. And they will continue to split, because whereas a Republic can sway like a willow in the wind, an Empire is too rigid to survive strong winds. They snap when the storm comes. Wasn’t that your calculation?”
Lobot stared at them both for a long, long time. At last, he called out, “Have you been listening, sir?”
Ageless turned suddenly when a device switched on beside him, and the blue hologram of Lando Calrissian materialized to his right. “Yes, I heard everything,” he said.
Ageless looked at the Baron Administrator. “And?”
Calrissian ran his fingers smoothly over his mustache. “As an administrator and protector of my people’s interests, I appreciate you coming to us with your concerns.” He turned to Lobot. “Confiscate their weapons. Search them top to bottom, then put them in the holding tower. And keep it quiet. I don’t want our Imperial friends knowing they’re here.” He gave Ageless a cold stare just before his hologram fizzled out.
The door opened, and seven security guards with blaster pistols came in, aiming menacing glares at Ageless and Namyr.
Lobot said, “Thank you for your concern. We will take your offer under advisement. Now, if you please…” He gestured to the door. It was the first time he had moved.