She sucked in a quick breath. This man was too smooth and handsome for his own good. And she wasn’t at all pleased that she felt a slight flush of pleasure to be the center of his attention. From the corner of her eye she saw Jaina clap a hand over her mouth to suppress a giggle.
“Ummm, Lando Calrissian, this is Anja Gallandro,” Jacen said, flushing as well. “Anja, meet Lando Calrissian, one of my father’s oldest and best friends. Lando used to be a pretty big gambler, and he’s a former smuggler, too.”
At these words Anja stiffened and snatched her hand from Calrissian’s grasp. Her gaze turned frosty, and her lip curled back in an involuntary sneer. “What a shame. I kind of like smugglers. But I’ve always found people who call themselves former smugglers to be sort of… self-righteous.”
Rather than being offended, as Anja had hoped, Lando Calrissian raised his eyebrows as if he’d found her statement interesting. “Well, we’ll just have to see if we can’t correct that impression,” he said. “I’ll wait for you three down at the Lady Luck. The others are already there.” He gave an enigmatic nod and left the room with a swirl of his cape.
As Anja turned back toward the twins, she saw disapproval in Jaina’s brandy-brown eyes.
“That was pretty rude.”
Anja blinked at her with feigned innocence. “Oh, really? Was it?”
Tension crackled in the air between them until Jacen intervened. “Lando has been like an uncle to us since we were born. He’s risked his life more than once for every member of our family. I know it’s hard for you to trust people, Anja, but Lando’s one of the best. Give him a chance.”
Jaina pointed out, “After all, he was nice enough to invite you along to Bespin, even though he doesn’t know you.”
Anja nodded and the tension broke. “Sure. I’ll give him a chance.”
“Just try to relax—and try not to insult anyone,” Jacen added.
Jaina grinned the lopsided grin that made her look like her father, Han Solo. “Fortunately for you, Lando Calrissian doesn’t insult too easily.”
Jaina nodded to Lando from the copilot’s position in the Lady Luck. “Ready for jump to hyperspace.”
“Hang on, everybody,” Lando said. He flipped a few switches and the twinkling lights outside the front viewport stretched into brilliant starlines around them.
“Too bad we couldn’t have brought the Rock Dragon,” Jaina said.
“Or the Lightning Rod,” Zekk spoke up from behind her in the crew cabin.
Lowie gave a noncommittal rumble.
“Come on, now,” Lando said, “we didn’t need to bring a whole fleet!”
“It was unnecessary,” Tenel Ka agreed.
“Indeed, and the Lady Luck is certainly quite a fine ship,” Em Teedee said.
“And she’s big enough for a crew twice this size. Anyhow, I promised your families and Luke that I’d keep an eye on all of you. You know, not let anything happen. How could I do that if you were off in some other ship?” Lando turned his most charming smile on Jaina. “Besides, don’t tell me it’s a hardship to practice your copiloting skills in the Lady Luck.”
Jaina laughed. “No, I enjoy flying more than I could possibly enjoy any ride in your new amusement park, and you know it.”
Lando’s face shone with childish excitement. “I don’t know about that. SkyCenter Galleria is fantastic. I can’t wait to show it to you. My friend Cojahn and I are sparing no expense in making it the best entertainment complex in the galaxy. If you can’t find something to enjoy in our galleria, you’re probably dead. Cojahn’s putting everything into it. He spends every waking hour there. He takes his wife and daughters with him at least once a week just to show them the progress.”
“You said he’s another former smuggler?” Anja asked from the back of the cockpit. “I suppose that means he’s respectable, too?”
“He had a pretty tough time of it up until the past few years, but things have really turned around for him. This is his biggest break. I tell you, since we started working on this new project I’ve never seen him so happy.” He grinned over his shoulder. “You’ll like him. He’s a nice guy … like me.”
The white metropolis was like an island in the sky, with towers and turrets and transparisteel windows that gleamed in the light from Bespin’s brilliant sun. All around them the soup of clouds swirled in a rainbow of pinks and oranges from airborne micro-algae and plankton that lived on the winds. A flurry of tiny ships circled like moths around the lights of the docking bays.
“Dazzling,” Zekk said.
“I never get tired of looking at her,” Lando said quietly.
Lowie gave an enthusiastic rumble as the Lady Luck touched down on a landing platform on the outskirts of Cloud City. “Goodness, yes!” Em Teedee agreed. “It is rather high, isn’t it?”
Cloud City’s altitude suited Lowie just fine. Being so high reminded him of the great wroshyr trees on his home planet of Kashyyyk. It gave him a feeling of home and safety. He was always most comfortable when he was up high, and the young Wookiee couldn’t wait to get out and explore, maybe climb some of the highest towers or just hang out on some of the external hover-scaffolding.
With Em Teedee clipped firmly to his syren-fiber belt, Lowie was the first to bound down the Lady Luck’s landing ramp. Eager to see the view, Lowie strode to the edge of the landing platform to get a better look at the layered clouds below.
Aside from the floating cities, Tibanna gas refineries, and storage tanks that drifted in Bespin’s atmosphere, the planet had no habitable landmasses. The view was exhilarating, and Lowie gave a contented sigh. It was so high up! His friends from the Jedi academy joined him.
“Ah,” Tenel Ka said. “Aha. An interesting sensation.”
Zekk said, “Whoa—and I thought the trees you liked to climb were high!” He gave Lowie an admiring look and stepped back from the edge of the platform. “I sure wouldn’t want to fall.”
“Hey, they’ve got some neat indigenous animals,” Jacen said, pointing at a flock of small creatures flying below them in the clouds. “Bespin has life-forms different from any place else in the galaxy.”
Anja seemed completely at ease with the height and moved up close beside Lowie at the edge of the platform, standing with one hand cocked on her hip. “Nice view,” she commented.
As Lando and Jaina emerged after shutting down the Lady Luck’s systems, a small and somber group of Exex, the city officials, marched across the docking platform toward the space yacht. At first Lowie thought it might be a small committee to welcome home the former Baron-Administrator of Cloud City—but he could sense immediately that something was wrong.
Lando raised a hand in greeting. “Good to be back. How ya doing?” He looked at them, perplexed. “This is all the fanfare you could manage?”
But the tiny group of officials converged around Lando and all began speaking at once in hushed voices.
“What? Wait a minute, now! One at a time.” Lowie, hearing Lando’s voice rise in alarm, moved closer so he could hear. His sensitive Wookiee ears picked up the words, and he froze as one of the female officials spoke in a low firm voice.
“It’s true, sir. I saw him fall myself. The Wing Guard has ruled it a suicide. Your partner Cojahn is dead.”
4
When the Young Jedi Knights accompanied Lando into the sprawling construction site of his high-tech entertainment complex, Jaina looked around in amazement.