by James Luceno
“And correcting it won him fame, glory, and Princess Organa.”
“True, but what’s important is that he knows honor exists inside you and can only radiate out. What goes on outside can’t change it or kill it unless you abandon your honor. Too many folks give it up too easily, then do whatever they can to fill the void in their hearts.” Tycho shook his head. “Forgive me this little lecture. I’ve had an unfortunate amount of time to think about this sort of stuff.”
Two Alliance Security officers walked over to where Corran and Tycho stood. The female Lieutenant spoke with a calm, even voice. “Captain Celchu, are you ready to return to your quarters now?”
The taller man suddenly looked very fatigued, as if his skeleton had just become one size smaller so his flesh hung loosely from it. “Yes, I believe so. Thank you for this conversation, Mr. Horn.”
“You’re welcome, sir.”
Tycho nodded to the woman. “After you.”
“No, sir,” she said, “after you.”
Her tone struck Corran as all wrong. He had assumed she had been offering to escort Captain Celchu to his quarters as a courtesy, but the edge in her voice transformed her words into an order. Why would they be forcing him to return to his quarters? I don’t understand. She’s treating him like a criminal.
He stared after them, trying to reconcile the Security officer’s action with a need to protect Tycho from some threat. He couldn’t imagine anyone in the Alliance base who would begrudge Tycho actions taken before he joined the Rebel cause. Becoming a Rebel was like starting over—the datascreen was wiped and the past forgotten. Yet I still have reservations about Han Solo. Even so, I don’t want to murder him, so he doesn’t need protection.
He realized he was attempting to rationalize why Tycho was being escorted by armed guards, and the most simple answer was because Tycho presented a threat to the Alliance in some way. The obvious ludicrousness of that idea shone like a supernova because if Tycho was a threat of any sort, no one would trust him to be teaching pilots how to fly. Then again, he is assigned a Headhunter Trainer.
“There you are.”
Corran’s head came up at the sound of the woman’s voice. Just a bit taller than he was, but slender and walking on very shapely long legs, she entered the hangar from the corridor and stared right at him. Corran turned and looked behind himself to see who she was addressing, but when he looked back at her, she had stopped right in front of him. “I was wondering where you were.”
“Me?” Corran raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure you were looking for me, Erisi?”
She nodded confidently. Sympathy played through her big blue eyes. “I was sent to find you. The rest of us are in DownTime, going over what happened out there.”
“Not enough laughs, so you wanted me to join you?” He shook his head. “Thanks anyway, some other time.”
“No, now.” Erisi took firm hold of his left elbow. “We do want you there. So we can apologize.”
Corran hesitated, covering his surprise. She sounded sincere, but she was from Thyferra and almost always in Bror Jace’s company. He tried to figure out if she was setting him up, but the gentle way her short black hair lay against the nape of her long neck distracted him. “I’m not sure I’d be good company.”
“You must come.” She tugged him gently toward the corridor. “Look, we all used your data because Commander Antilles told us our exercise involved doing just that. It wasn’t until we made our runs that he told each of us what had happened—what he had done to you. He ordered us to say nothing to you except to report our scores. None of us felt good about what happened and we want to make it up to you.”
He nodded and started walking with her. “So how did you get the job of coming after me? You pick the sabacc card with the lowest value?”
Erisi smiled at him, her eyes dominating a delicately sculpted face with high cheekbones and a strong jawline. “I volunteered. Nawara Ven and Rhysati Ynr are trying to talk some sense into Bror and I had to walk away.”
“You’d abandon a fellow Thyferran to a conversation with a Twi’lek lawyer?”
Her laughter echoed faintly through the dim corridor. Strip illumination ran along the edges of the tunnel where the floor met the walls and gave them enough light to travel by, but most of the people in front of them were shadowed silhouettes.
“Bror Jace is from a family that owns a significant portion of stock in Zaltin. His people are known for being rather haughty and obstreperous.”
“I hadn’t noticed.”
“I would have thought you a keener observer than that.” She gave his arm a squeeze. “Besides, Bror has noticed you. He sees you as his chief rival for supremacy in this squadron.”
“He’s forgetting the Commander and Captain Celchu.”
She shook her head. “No, he’s not, he’s just ignoring them. As Commander Antilles said, those who have served with Rogue Squadron before are legends, and Bror doesn’t think it’s possible to defeat a legend. Become one, yes, but best one, never.”
“Erisi, I appreciate your candor, but I’d hardly expect you to be speaking of a friend in such uncomplimentary terms.”
“What gave you the impression we were friends?”
“Perhaps the fact that you spend a lot of time with him.”
“Oh, that?” Erisi chuckled politely. “Better the Moff you know than the Emperor’s new Envoy. I could never truly be friends with anyone who grew up in the Zaltin corporate culture. My people are with Xucphra, the true leader in bacta production and refinement. My uncle was the person who discovered the contamination the Ashern introduced into Lot ZX1449F.”
“Really?”
The woman glanced sidelong at him, her face frozen for a millisecond, then she smiled and playfully slapped his left shoulder. “You! I know Thyferran corporate politics is boring, but it’s the lifeblood of my people. Though there are thousands of Vratix who actually grow alazhi and refine bacta, the ten thousand humans who run the corporations are really the people who make bacta available to the galaxy. Since we’re such a small community—and, I’ll admit, a fairly affluent one—we set great store in the accomplishments of our relatives.”
Corran nodded as they stepped onto an escalator that took them down deeper into the heart of Folor. “Choosing one of you from each corporate family was meant to keep things even?”
“Were that possible, of course.” Erisi winked at him. “More of us would have been sent, I suspect, but strong involvement with the Alliance is a thing of fierce debate on Thyferra. Benign neutrality seems to be the course our leaders are choosing.”
Playing both ends against the middle means big profits for the Bacta Cartel. “But you felt strongly enough about the Rebellion to volunteer to join it?”
“There are times one must place higher ideals over personal safety.”
At the bottom of the escalator they stepped off and walked across a small chamber to a dark opening carved in smooth-melted stone. Beyond it lay a noisy stone gallery with next to no visible light—unless the bright colors of strobing neon tracery were to be considered adequate for lighting. Voices from dozens of alien throats croaked below or shrieked above the booming din of human conversation. The heavy, moist air stank of sweat; acrid, cloying smoke; and fermented nectars from hundreds of Alliance worlds and not a few Imperial strongholds.
Corran paused on the threshold of the makeshift tapcafe the Rebels had named DownTime. If I were still in CorSec, I’d be calling for backup before setting foot in a place like this.
Erisi, taking his hand in hers, led him into the room. As if she could see things he could not, she guided him between hologame light tables and knots of pilots and techs. Back in the corner a holoprojector had been set up. It appeared to be projecting a sporting event being broadcast down on Commenor, but the exoskeleton padding the players wore and the curiously spiked ball they tossed back and forth weren’t from any game Corran recognized. Aside from a quartet of Ugnaughts sitting right at the edge of th
e projection ring and staring up at the towering figures, no one appeared to care about the game.
The rest of Rogue Squadron had gathered in a corner of the tapcafe. Corran spotted Gavin first—both because of his size and his nervousness. The youth stared at all the different aliens as if he’d never seen them before. That surprised Corran because he thought, with Mos Eisley being on Tatooine, Gavin would have had his fill of aliens. Then again, I doubt the kid spent much time there. He’s as green as the foam on Lomin-ale.
Over on the right Bror Jace and Nawara appeared to be deep in conversation. Shiel slipped past Corran and handed Gavin a mug full of a steaming liquid that smelled sweet. Lujayne, seeing Corran, smiled at him and rapped the heel of her mug on the table around which they stood.
“Corran’s here.”
The Bothan’s reaction to his arrival appeared to be relatively apathetic, but everyone else seemed to be pleased to see him. The Twi’lek pointed toward Corran with the tip of a head tail and Bror Jace managed a tight smile. Stepping forward, the Thyferran pilot offered Corran his hand. “I want you to know I would not have flown with your data had I known. I’ll be the first to sign the letter of protest to General Salm.”
“Letter of protest?”
Nawara looked a bit exasperated. “Some members of the squadron feel that a protest of Commander Antilles’s treatment of you is in order.”
Corran looked Nawara in the eyes. “You don’t think so?”
The Twi’lek slowly shook his head. “I don’t think it will be effective and I believe, quite honestly, that this incident is really fairly minor.”
Corran smiled. “I’m glad to see someone hasn’t lost a sense of perspective here.”
Bror’s blue eyes narrowed. “What do you mean by that?”
“I mean, my friends, we’re part of a military unit involved in an illegal insurgency against a government that controls the vast majority of planets in this galaxy. We’re all volunteers here, and we’ve all come because we expect to win freedom and liberty for all sapient species by overthrowing the government. We’re all willing to make the ultimate sacrifice if it comes to that, yet we’re going to protest how one of the most decorated and revered leaders conducts training exercises? I don’t think so.”
Gavin gave Corran a wide-eyed look of confusion. “But what he did to you wasn’t right. It was nasty and cold and meant to hurt you.”
“I’ll agree it was nasty and cold, but it wasn’t meant to hurt me.” He looked around at the rest of the squadron. “Commander Antilles had a point to make with me, and he made it. And he made one with you. Your being here like this, your discomfort with what happened, and your desire to protest my treatment means I know you’re going to be there when I need you to be. And you know I’m willing to do what I need to do to make sure our squadron can do its job. If that means I go in alone or with Ooryl or whatever to get information, I do it.
“The thing we all have to remember is this: There’s nothing Commander Antilles can do to us that will be worse than what the Empire has already done on hundreds of worlds. They destroyed Alderaan. They destroyed the Jedi and they’ll destroy us if they can. Because of what he did today, Commander Antilles knows he can count on me, and I hope the rest of you do, too.”
Erisi raised Corran’s left hand above his head. “I think Corran’s correct. He might not have been the best pilot on the course today, but he’s probably the one who learned the most.”
Lujayne stood and gave Corran a firm hug. “As the second worst pilot today, I say thanks—both for your skill and your wisdom here.”
Corran blushed slightly, freed his left hand from Erisi’s grip, and extricated himself from Lujayne’s hug. “Thanks to all of you, but just so you don’t think I’m this cool-headed all the time, I have to admit that I had a discussion with Commander Antilles in which he pointed out most of these insights.”
The wolfman growled in a low voice. “Yelling? Punches?”
“No. Just some clear and concise conversation.”
Shiel bared his teeth and Gavin laughed. Lujayne fished into her flight suit’s thigh pocket and produced a handful of oddly shaped credit coins. She held them out to the Twi’lek who cupped them in both hands and smiled avariciously. He flicked at a couple with taloned fingers, then looked up and froze as if caught bloody-handed.
Corran knit his fingers together and let them rest against his belt buckle. “And those credits are for?”
“Winning the pool.” Nawara carefully slipped them into his pocket. “I said you’d be reasonable.”
Rhysati elbowed him. “You took reasonable because you got the best odds with that wager.”
The Twi’lek looked offended. “I hold opinions, I don’t bet them.”
Corran laughed. “Who had ‘will challenge Commander Antilles to an X-wing death duel’?”
Erisi raised her hand. “It was an even-odds bet, too.”
“Nawara won by betting what was in my brain, but you bet what was in my heart.” Corran pointed to the bar. “In honor of your insightfulness, I will buy you that which your heart desires.”
She took his left hand again. “And if it doesn’t have a price?”
“Then I’ll buy you a drink and we’ll talk about how else to make you happy.”
Bror Jace bowed from the waist in Erisi’s direction. “To make her happy you would have to make her family’s corporation yet more profitable.”
“And to do that means I’d have to be boosting the use of bacta, right?” Corran opened his hands and took in the whole of the squadron. “And since the Empire buys bacta and we’ll be shooting at their pilots, I don’t think that’ll be hard to do at all.”
10
The shuttle’s pilot looked back over his left shoulder. “Agent Loor, you’ll probably want to strap yourself in. We’re coming out of hyperspace.”
Kirtan began to fumble with the restraining harness, then brought his head up quickly, embarrassed that his lack of coordination betrayed his nervousness. “Thank you, Lieutenant, but I’ve traveled this way before.”
“Yes, sir,” came the pilot’s oily reply, “but I’d bet this is your first time to Imperial Center.”
Kirtan wanted to snap some sharp reply that would sting the man, but a sense of utter and complete disaster washed over him. He had waited for two full weeks before reporting Gil Bastra’s death to his superiors. In that time he furiously analyzed and tried to expand upon any leads Bastra had offered during his interrogation. They all seemed to be dead ends, leading nowhere, but he knew, he just knew, they would put him on Corran Horn if he had enough time to figure out their greater significance.
In his report he had tried to stress the positive, but within hours of the report being sent on up the line, he had received his summons to Imperial Center, formerly known as Coruscant. He was ordered to make his way to the Imperial capital as quickly as possible. As luck would have it—luck he in no way saw as benign—passage had been arranged on a series of ships with a minimum of difficulty. This last ship, a shuttle on loan from the Aggressor, effortlessly carried him to his doom.
The wall of light visible through the viewport dissolved into a million million points of light as the ship left hyperspace. Imperial Center, a clouded grey world ringed by Golan defense platforms, seemed even more forbidding than he had imagined. He had expected to see that the world that had become a city would be as dead and cold as the Emperor who had ruled from it. Instead, with boiling clouds burned white by flashes of lightning, the planet’s true nature lay cloaked and hidden, as did his future.
“Imperial Center, this is shuttle Objurium requesting clearance for entry on the Palace Vector.”
“Transmit clearance code, shuttle Objurium.”
“Transmitting now.” The pilot turned back toward Kirtan. “This code better be good. We’re well within the range of the two nearest Golan stations.”
“It is good.” Kirtan blanched. “I mean, it is the code I was given with my orders.” He
started to go on to explain further, but saw the pilot and copilot exchange a quick wink and realized he was being teased.
“Don’t worry, Agent Loor, the days of the Empire blasting one of its own shuttles apart to kill an Intelligence agent are long past. Can’t spare the ships right now, which is what makes me a bit more secure.”
Kirtan forced an edge into his voice. “And how do you know, Lieutenant, that I am not here solely to monitor and report on your attitudes?”
“You’re not the first man I’ve ferried to his death, Agent Loor.”
“Shuttle Objurium,” the comm squawked, “clearance granted. Align course for beacon 784432.”
“Understood, Control, Objurium out.” The pilot punched the beacon number into navigation computer, then gave his copilot a more somber glance.
“What?” Kirtan tried to stop himself from blurting the question out, and began to brace for some stinging jibe from the pilot, but he got none.
“We’re heading to Tower 78, level 443, bay 2.”
“And?”
Kirtan saw the pilot’s Adam’s apple bob up and down. “Sir, the only other time I’ve been given that vector is when I had the pleasure of shuttling Lord Vader to the Emperor. It was after the disaster at Yavin.”
Kirtan felt a chill slowly pour into him and move up his spine bone by bone. Did Lord Vader fear retribution for his actions as I do? Perhaps the Emperor had meant to kill him, but Vader redeemed his life by bringing news of the existence of another Jedi to his master. Kirtan’s fist hammered his right thigh. If I had just a little more time I could have delivered my quarry.
Ahead of the shuttle Kirtan saw lightning flare from the clouds upward toward space. It hit and spread out, faintly illuminating a hexagonal area hanging above the clouds. “What is that?”
“Defense shield.” The pilot punched a couple of buttons on his command console. A miniature model of the world materialized between pilot and passenger, then two spheres made up of hexagonal elements engulfed the world. The spheres moved in opposite directions around the world, constantly shifting, with the hexes in the upper layer covering more area than those below. “Imperial Center, for obvious reasons, has the most sophisticated system of defense shields in the Empire. A small portion of it will come down to let us in, then that section will be reinforced behind us, while another one will open below.”
