BTW: I have more. I'll back up a tiny bit so I give you a full chapter.
Chapter 26: Establishing Contact
I decided it was time that I attempted to contact Winter again. I returned, this time, to my own hotel room. If I couldn’t find anything through the hotel desk, perhaps a more direct approach would work. Using the terminal in my room, I was able to communicate with other hotels and other rooms. I connected to the Winter’s hotel, asked the front desk to be connected with her room, and bingo, I was set.
“Hello.” I heard on the opposite end of the line. No picture for some reason.
“Hello. Am I speaking with Winter, connected to the Organa family of Alderaan?”
“Yes. Who is this?” I was asked.
“A friend of Viceroy Bail Organa. I met him several months ago and he was kind enough to help my planet and me with some trouble we had. There are some things I wish to discuss with you in person, if you are not to busy.”
She replied quickly. “I recall him mentioning helping someone, but he never said who, and anyone could have learned about it. How am I to know that you are who you claim to be?”
”If you wish to confirm my identity, I’ll give you my name, and you can contact Alderaan. If Bail does not recognize the name, remind him about Luke Skywalker. It’s a name from a little story I told him, from my world. I will be here in my hotel room for the next couple hours, which should hopefully be enough time for you to contact them and get back to me.”
With that, I gave her my name, and severed the connection. The next couple hours would be long.
It was about an hour and a half later when my terminal started to glow. It said ‘Incoming Connection’. I allowed the connection. This time I got a visual.
“Hello. This is Winter,” said the striking face on the screen. She did look a lot like Leia.
“Hello. I trust you were able to confirm my identity?”
“Yes I was. The Viceroy seemed most pleased to hear about you. He hopes all is well on your planet.”
“Good. I hope all is well there, too. I’ve not spent a lot of time there recently. I was very interested in exploring the galaxy. Now, as I was saying in our earlier conversation, there is something I wish to discuss with you. Because of the topic matter I wish to discuss, it would probably be best if we met in person, rather than speak over the Cloud City communication system.”
She thought for a moment. “I sense that meeting in a casino or restaurant would be too insecure as well. Have you got a ship here on Cloud City, or did you arrive on a transport? I came via an Alderaanian ship, but I would be unable to get access to it.”
”I came on board my own ship. Given the circumstances, it would probably be the best spot for us to talk. My ship is currently in a repair shop getting some special modifications. I do not know how soon they will be completed, but I can check on it. Here’s what I’ll do. When the ship is finished, I’ll contact your room from the terminal at my landing pad. We can talk there.”
“That would be fine. I’ll see you then.”
“Good-bye.”
Excellent. It would appear I was slowly and surely working my way into that meeting.
I had one errand to run before I went to the repair shop to hopefully pick up my ship. As it stood, I was planning on betting a large sum of money on Han Solo to win that tournament. However, I had no idea how large that large sum would be. I had 5 dragon pearls, but no idea of their value. The first thing I did was to see if I could determine their value through the Cloud City computer system, but I was unable to find anything.
My next stop was to check in one of the casinos. It was a short walk to find one. I quickly found the front desk.
“Excuse me, I require some assistance with something.” I said to the human behind the desk.
“Of course. How may I help you?” he replied.
“I have a number of Krayt Dragon Pearls, and I was wondering what the most current value was per pearl.” I said.
“Well,” he began to type on a keyboard I couldn’t see behind the desk. “It would appear that current values are as follows: blue pearls are worth roughly 125,000 credits each, green are 100,000, white are up at 150,000 and black, black are always worth a premium price, at 200,000 credits.”
I knew that they’d be valuable, but I had no idea the value would be that high.
“Fine. I wasn’t planning on selling them today, do values tend to change very much?”
He responded, “Not a great deal. Values may change by as much as a few thousand, but the prices I told you are about normal.”
“Excellent. Thank you very much. Since I’m thinking about it, could I get the odds on 2 of the players to the sabacc tournament? I’m looking for a Lando Calrissian and a Han Solo.”
”Let’s see. Calrissian is a highly ranked player, with odds of 7-to-1 that he wins and 5-to-2 that he finishes in second place. That other name, Solo, hmmm, oh, here it is. He’s a late entrant, almost didn’t make the cut-off. My, he’s not ranked very high at all. He’s got 75-to-1 odds of winning, and 70-to-1 that he finishes second.”
”I’ve never been 100% sure on odds and such. That means that for every 1 credit I bet on Solo to win, I’d make 75 if he does, right?” I asked.
”Yes, that’s right.”
“Thank you for your help. You’ve been most informative.” I said as I started to walk away.
I had all the information I would need. If my bills at the repair shop were as low as Han had helped me get, I wouldn’t need to use the pearls for betting. I also didn’t want to wager too much on Han and Lando, and skew the odds. I would probably put about 10,000 on Solo to win, and 5,000 on Lando to take second.
Now it was time to head to the shop and pick up my ship.
I had left B0B at the hotel room while I went to the casino, just in case Winter called back. I returned to get him and we left together for the shop. Upon our arrival, Ray met us.
“Welcome back. I just finished up with your ship a few minutes ago. We were able to get everything set for you. She’ll hit 1.15 in hyperspace and 87mglt at sublight based on our calculations. Shields were increased by about 35% and those splitters are all set in place.”
”Great.” I replied. “Now, how much do I owe you for all this?”
”Let’s see, the splitters were about 250 credits each for 1000 credits. Power cables ran about 400. 4000 credit should cover everything.”
This was great. I paid him; giving him a little extra because I’m a nice guy, entered the ship, did a quick look over and sat down in the cockpit. The weapons, laptop and pearls were still secure. B0B reported no anomalous readings from any of the ships systems.
Power up was fine and we took off. I turned on the shields quickly to see that yes, shield power was about 35% better than before. In a few moments I was landing on platform 463. I disembarked and found my way to the nearest computer terminal.
“Hello, Winter? The ship is all set. Meet me at landing pad 463.”
It took about 20 minutes, but she found her way to the pad. We walked back to the ship and went inside. We sat down on the acceleration couch in the cargo hold.
“I wanted to tell you that I know why you’re here on Bespin, to attend a special meeting.”
I wanted to be as direct and to the point about this, as I could.
“How do you know about this meeting? I was told that only the people attending knew about it.”
This was going to be tough. Winter’s memory meant that if I told her how I knew, there was no way she was forgetting about it. I knew that the Empire would never capture her, but could I trust her to also not say anything to the Alliance? Part of why I told Bail was that I knew he’d be gone in a few years.
“I really wish I could tell you why, I re