Star Wars (Legends):The Friend of my Enemy. Book:1

Chapter 17 (Between A Rock And The Hard Facts)

Chapter 17

Location: Tendrando Arms Tower on the planet Coruscant.

Within a half hour of Dena being detained by Tendrando employees, Chief Dorvan and Master Horn were standing before Lando in his head office. That is, in one of his head offices. Lando and Tendra owned several mega corporations, so in turn they owned several Corporate towers. Lando wasn't on Coruscant often but when he was he liked to do business face to face, one on one. So all his Corporate buildings included a room like this one. When Lando was in the house he was in full control of his house.

"Well this has gotta be big if you two are here" was Lando's greetings.
He continued: "And Corran do you mind explaining to me why Dena Yus is down in security, lookin like a damn Pantoran? Last I checked, she was taking orders from YOU!"
Corran looked at Wynn, and Wynn in turn gave him a nod. Corran rallied his inner strength for what was about to happen next.

Last week Lando was a Victim. A man who's heart had been crushed. That man, didn't seem to be in the room with them at the moment. A transmutation had occurred, and... a disturbing one at that. On the outside, Lando didn't seem to be much different from his old self ,the Lando from before the tragedy, albeit a bit darker. On the inside, however, his sorrow was resting upon a bed of burning coals. He wasn't exactly on the knife's edge of Self destruction/Causing destruction, but if he was not careful he would be drifting into that territory.

A brief scan around the room was enough to visually confirm Lando's change. On either side of the door stood 2 YVH Battle Droids. Behind Lando stood 8 YVH's. With a recent assassination attempt, beefed up security was to be expected. But this... this was different. Corran had never felt intimidation from Lando, but now... Now he thought it would be wise for himself to hold his tongue.

There was no right way to begin this conversation so Corran just started with:
"Lando...we know who did it."

Lando's whole body tensed and he had to fight a growing rigidity in his limbs as he got up from his chair and leaned forward with both arms propping him up over his desk.
In a deadly quiet and low voice he said: "It was Dena... wasn't it!"
Then he exploded: "WASNT IT! THE JEDI SHOULD HAVE VAPED HER A YEAR AGO! BUT NOOOOO! YOU GAVE HER A KARKIN JOB! ...I CANT..."
Corran had no choice but to firmly interrupt him: "LANDO!... Lando! It wasn't Dena Ok! Dena... Dena just saved the mission today that will let us track the killer."

Lando's mind was trying to process too much information and so he just stood there, stunned.
After a few silent moments his mind kicked into gear: "Wait... wait... you mean the Killer was just here?" "Actually...BOTH killers were..."

Lando grabbed a handful of his own hair with his left hand and bit down on his other hand which had turned into a fist.

He then fell backward into his chair, and with a shortage of breath he asked: "Who?"
Again Corran and Wynn shared a look between themselves. With that Wynn placed a small flat holoprojecter on Lando's table. With a faint buzzing noise, signalling the holograms activation. a glowing logo of the GA Justice Department appeared above the table. That image was replaced be a couple sitting beside each other at some kind of bar. A small glowing blue box formed around each of their faces. Along side the main image of the bar couple, Both of the individual's I.D's appeared along with an abbreviated dossier of relevant information. Everyone in the room watched in silence as the recording played out. The sound had been amplified, of course, so even their whispers came across, loud and clear.

As the recording's playback progressed, Corran could sense Lando's inner feelings dip and peek. He was struck by surprise then anger, then horror and then extreme grief. That grief mutated back to anger but this time the anger wasn't a hot burst of flame.
It was a cold malevolence that was in for the long run. "I can't believe... that piece of Hutt slime was right here less then an hour ago! I... I just shook hands with that creep...I should have been strangling him. Tell me he's going down for this!"