“Oh, that’s right.” Luke turned to Wedge. “Could I trouble you to set your blaster on stun and point it at the other general?”
“No, not really.”
“Please?”
Wedge sighed. “I’m not going to point a blaster at my best friend. Plus, his pilot will be obliged to jump in the way or do something equally noble and foolish. I’m not going to point a blaster at my little girl.”
“Thank you, Daddy.”
Wedge thought about it. “I do have a solution, though.” He pointed his forefinger at Tycho, aligning his thumb straight up. “Imagine that’s a blaster. Wait a second.” He adjusted an imaginary knob on his thumb. “Had to make sure it was on stun.”
Tycho looked at his hand. “I’m imagining that it’s a BlasTech DL-Eighteen.”
Wedge shrugged. “An adequate choice, under these circumstances.”
“Maybe. If we’d all imagined that it was a DL-Forty-four, big and imposing, I might actually be intimidated. A DL-Eighteen is barely worth surrendering to.”
Syal shook her head, her expression sad.
Luke began looking from face to face as he spoke. “Wedge, handpick a starfighter squadron. We’ll use it to chase the shuttle to safety aboard the Anakin Solo, then to support any operation against Centerpoint Station. I’ll lead a unit of Jedi to assault Jacen; our job will be to take him out if possible, and to distract him from the rescue operation in any case. Han, Leia, I want you to lead the expedition to rescue the Chume’da. Master Katarn, I want you in reserve for extraction of the assault and rescue teams. Doctor Seyah and our scientific staff will come up with the best ways to destroy Centerpoint Station. Ben, owing to your experience there, I want you on that mission.”
Ben shook his head. “I’ll be more useful accompanying you aboard the Anakin Solo.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Because with both of us boarding, Jacen will conclude that we’re there to kill him. It will help keep him from guessing that Allana is the mission’s real goal. And he won’t be wondering where I am or what I’m up to.”
Luke gave his son a close look. “And will diversion be your genuine intent? Not revenge?”
“Yes, Grand Master.”
“All right, then.” Luke rose, prompting the others to do the same. He turned to Tycho. “General, I’m sorry about imprisoning you and your pilot. And stealing your shuttle. And exposing you to Ewoks again. And such.”
Tycho shrugged. “I acknowledge that, from your perspective, you have to keep me a prisoner until your operation begins, to keep me from doing my duty and alerting the Alliance…”
“Yes?”
“There’s no reason why you couldn’t take me with you to Colonel Solo’s action against Corellia, put me in the cockpit of a starfighter, and let me make my way home from there. After I fly around getting a good look at everything, that is.”
“Good point.” Luke nodded. “We may do that. And your pilot?”
“Oh, you don’t have to imprison her at all.” Tycho reached into his tunic pocket.
Wedge’s forefinger dug into Tycho’s ribs. “No tricks.”
Tycho grinned and passed Luke a datacard. “In our ongoing effort to maintain cordial relations with the Jedi Order, and thus effect your rapid return to the Galactic Alliance, I present you with our special envoy, Captain Syal Antilles, who will remain with you and communicate with my office whenever you permit.”
Syal’s jaw dropped. “Wait. What?”
Tycho fixed her with a stern look. “This assignment is no milk run, Antilles. This is a tricky diplomatic mission with a lot at stake, and just trying to keep up with the Jedi can get you killed. But if you help keep the Alliance and the Jedi in touch, if you keep them talking, you’ll be making a big difference in this war.”
Wedge looked proud and reflective. “I was years older than you when I became an ambassador for the first time. Remember that, Tycho? How did we get through that assignment, anyway?”
“Pretty much, we opened fire on everyone who disagreed with us.”
Wedge nodded and turned to his daughter. “When all else fails, just do that.”
chapter thirty
SANCTUARY MOON OF ENDOR, JEDI OUTPOST
Jag lay on the medical ward bed. He might have been mistaken for a dead man but for the very slow rise and fall of his chest.
Jaina, sitting on a chair near the foot of the bed, had a good sense of how nearly dead Jag had been. He’d had damage to his neck, a fracture to his left elbow, multiple breaks in his left thigh, internal injuries…Since he would never have survived a direct jump from the asteroid system to Endor in the cockpit of a starfighter, they had made a short jump to Bimmiel, transferred Jag to the Falcon, and left his X-wing covered by camouflage sheets and sand in a chilly tundra valley.
But now, after time in a restorative bacta tank, after medicines and rest, the medics said he was much improved; he would soon recover fully.
Jaina wasn’t sure. In the Force, Jag didn’t feel like a man struggling back toward health and vitality.
Jag opened his eyes. He didn’t move, not even to turn his head, until he’d seen everything he could from his position—a survival trait, Jaina decided, possibly one he learned while stranded on Tenupe.
Finally he turned his head and saw her. He offered no smile, but he did speak. “Hello.”
“Hello yourself. Remember much?”
“Yes.” He started to nod, thought the better of it as half-healed injuries pulled. “I remember everything. Except where we are.”
“Endor. You were unconscious when we got here.”
“Ah. And Zekk?”
“Better. He was kind of a mess coming out of the asteroid. He took the same amount of damage you did…but emotional, not physical.”
“Too bad. Physical scars are much better conversation starters at parties.” He turned his attention to the ceiling and studied it for long moments. “Well. Mission accomplished.”
“That’s right, mission accomplished. And you’ve done what you needed to. To help restore your family honor.”
“Yes.” There was no pleasure in that word, just acknowledgment.
Jaina wished she hadn’t brought up the subject of his family. The Fels, though a human family of Corellian ancestry—Jag’s mother was Wedge’s older sister, the first Syal Antilles—now lived in the Chiss Ascendancy, by the rules of that blue-skinned folk.
And those rules dictated that, because of mistakes and decisions made by other people—Jaina among them—Jag could never go home. Hunting down Alema Rar had been the last task assigned to him by his clan. In accomplishing it, he had severed his last ties with them.
In fact—the realization struck Jaina like a blow in combat practice—the act of ending the threat posed by Alema had perhaps severed his last ties with everyone.
She made her voice gentle, an unaccustomed task for her. “What’s next for you?”
He shrugged, wincing as the action pulled at some of his injuries. “There’s a war on. I’m sure someone needs a pilot.”
“Stay with the Jedi.”
“Sure.”
Suddenly she was impatient with him. “I don’t mean as a civilian employee. I mean as a friend.”
He finally looked at her again. “I haven’t done a very good job of making friends. I would rate my success at nearly zero.”
“Zekk looks on you as a friend.”
“Yes. Well, without him, my rate of success would be exactly zero. And truth be told, for reasons I’m sure you understand, he would probably prefer that I not be around too much.”
“I’m your friend.”
“Are you?”
She heaved an exasperated sigh. “Oh, we’re not having this conversation again.”
“No, we’re not. This is a new one. I’m not asking you to set aside your focus, to distract yourself from training for your next mission. I’m not asking you to roll the chrono back fifteen years to when we were teenagers.” Despit
e the discomfort, he pulled himself back so that he could sit up against the pillows at the head of his bed. “I’m asking you to tell me if I have a place in your life. Someone you’d turn to if you’d ever just acknowledge that you needed some help. Someone you’d miss more than occasionally if he went away. Am I your friend?”
Knowing the answer he wanted to hear, the answer that would help him get better, Jaina opened her mouth to offer it. Then she shut up again. He deserved better than that. He deserved the truth. She just wasn’t sure what the truth was.
It took her long moments to sift out her feelings from the bewildering insulating layer of decisions and codes of conduct she’d fabricated for herself. To find it, she had to look past what she had to do and be; she had to find the place where she kept what she wanted to do and be.
But she found her answer. “Yes. I am.”
“Good.” He held out his hand.
She put hers on it.
He relaxed. “So, what’s next for you?”
“A mission. Simple stuff. Rescue a princess—a Solo family tradition. Blow up a big space station.”
“Also a Solo family tradition.”
“You can get in on it, if you can get yourself back in shape in time.”
“I will. And if you ever need someone to dress up in a black costume and beat you up—”
Jaina smiled. “Just shut up.”
CORELLIA, CORONET, COMMAND BUNKER
This late at night, with no enemy forces in orbit, the command bunker was nearly deserted, and usually the hum of atmosphere conditioners was the only thing to be heard on most floors, in most chambers.
But in the primary communications chamber—not the elegant studio where most transmissions were initiated or received, not the secure Prime Minister’s chamber where Sadras Koyan did so much of his talking—the banks of holocomm equipment were alive, adding their own hum to the ambient noise.
Minister of Information Denjax Teppler looked up for the thousandth time, making sure that the door into the chamber was still secure, that there were no warning diodes lit on the devices he had patched in to subvert the holocam over the door. Then he returned his attention to his task at hand. One of the holocomm control banks was open before him, and it was the work of just a few more moments to finish wiring in the bypass card he’d brought—the device that would keep the communication he was about to receive from being copied to the offices of Corellian Security.
For he was about to commit yet another act of treason, and he needed to do it properly.
His task finished, he stepped to the primary control panel, checked his chrono, and activated the device. He moved to stand against the chamber’s one blank wall, an auxiliary transmission spot that had not been used in years.
Thirty seconds later, a glow appeared in the air before him and resolved into a holographic shape—General Turr Phennir, scarred and imposing…and just a bit over a meter tall. “Good afternoon, Minister Teppler.”
“Night, where I am, but I reciprocate.” Teppler frowned. “How tall—never mind, there’s something wrong at my end. Hold on.” He moved back to the control panel, noted that the received-image scale preference was set to 60 percent for this transmission origin, and overrode it temporarily, setting it to 100 percent.
Phennir flickered, then instantly assumed Teppler’s own height.
Teppler returned to the wall and now could look the general eye-to-eye at the same altitude. “That’s better.”
“Another symptom of your leader’s mental deficits.”
Teppler waved that subject away. “I didn’t ask for this communication to discuss the Prime Minister’s eccentricities. I asked for it so we could talk about your unofficial embargo of Corellia. You’re holding back supplies and matériel we desperately need.”
“And I agreed to this exchange because Koyan’s incompetence must be our main topic of discussion. Because that incompetence is the reason for the embargo.”
Teppler grimaced. “We’re an ally, and you’ve left us dangerously vulnerable.”
“Allow me to explain why. Because you’re a politician, I will use similes and other conversational aides.”
“Not to mention insults.”
Phennir paused. “You’re right. My anger at the Prime Minister has spilled over to you. I apologize. Still, imagine you’re a mighty warrior. You would be less mighty if you lost one of your arms.”
“True.”
“It would behoove you not to lose one of your arms. Yet you’re walking in the jungle and are bitten on the wrist by a venomous animal. The venom will spread from your arm and fatally poison the rest of you in less than a minute. What do you do?”
“Well, if you’ve prepared properly for this expedition, you break out the antitoxin and inject it.”
“Correct. But in this instance, you have no antitoxin. You have only a large vibroblade.”
“Then you tie off a tourniquet, cut your own arm off…and hope you can inject the painkillers before you black out.”
“Also correct. Because to be a mighty warrior, you need one thing more than you need to have both arms.”
“Your life.”
“Yes.”
Teppler thought it through. “You’re saying that the Confederation is the warrior, and Corellia is the arm.”
“Yes. And Sadras Koyan is the venom. His use of Centerpoint Station struck almost as deadly a blow to us as it did to the enemy, in terms of morale, of ensuring cooperation between our armed forces. And it’s clear that if we win this war—and I mean if, not when—his first act will be to point the station at one of his allies and begin to dictate the terms of peace and postwar prosperity.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“Remove him from power.”
“It’s not as easy as that. We have a coalition government whose representatives jockey for power endlessly.”
“I’m not telling you who to put in power. I’m telling you to remove Koyan, which is as easy as that. It can be done with a small group of specialists who spirit him away in the night and return him when the war is done. It can be done with a hold-out blaster pressed to his kidney and fired. It can be done with planted evidence that does nothing more than prove that he’s the idiot he is.” Phennir leaned close. “I’m not playing kingmaker here. I don’t want to decide who governs Corellia. I just need you to choose a ruler I can work with. Until you do, Corellia stays outside the comfort of our campfire.”
“I’ll think about what you’re saying.”
“Good.” Phennir actually fidgeted, and his tone became conspiratorial. “Listen. I’ll admit that I don’t understand you Corellians. You place the value of freedom so far above that of duty that you’re incomprehensible to me. I’ve flown with and against the best, most disciplined pilots Corellia has offered—Soontir Fel, Wedge Antilles—and I don’t even understand them. Perhaps that’s my failing, but the Confederation will fall apart if Koyan remains in charge. Get me someone who can understand me.”
Teppler nodded. “Understood.”
Phennir gave him a half bow. Then his hologram disappeared.
Moving fast, Teppler pulled out the card he’d meticulously wired into the holocomm. He pressed a button on it, sending an electrical charge through the frail device—burning out its memory and circuits, destroying most of the evidence of his actions here.
Phennir was right. But Teppler, though he had briefly been Five Worlds Prime Minister, didn’t know if he’d be better than Koyan in that role in this time of war. Nor did he know if any military officer could cope with the nearly carnivorous needs for attention and status that characterized the Corellian planetary Chiefs of State he’d have to deal with.
He slapped shut the panel on the holocomm and got to work around the chamber, using a chemical-soaked felt cloth to wipe down every surface he had touched. Fingerprints and genetic evidence were simultaneously destroyed with each stroke.
Wait—the Alliance now had a Chief of State office shared by two
collaborators, one originally civilian, one originally military. The same structure might work for Corellia.
Admiral Delpin was intelligent, reasonable, and, unlike Koyan, honorable. She could bring the support of Corellian Defense while Teppler wrangled the civilian chiefs.
It could work. If they could be rid of Sadras Koyan, and soon.
Teppler paused at the doorway into the chamber and surveyed his handiwork. There was nothing to see suggesting he had ever been here—nothing but the wires leading from his holocam subversion device to the recording device above the door. He grabbed the device and gave it a yank, pulling its data wire free of the holocam. He put the rig in his pocket with the burned-out card.
Yes, Admiral Delpin. Perhaps, despite her bearing and reputation, she was willing to become as big a traitor as Teppler himself.
chapter thirty-one
CORUSCANT SYSTEM, ABOARD THE ANAKIN SOLO
At peace with himself, Caedus stared through the bridge viewports at the stars, at the trails of running lights indicating the presence of ships arriving at or departing Coruscant.
Allana was no longer afraid of him, and had accepted him—instantly, with boundless affection—as her father. The Hapans were still behaving well enough, now staging raids on critical Confederation sites and resources. Caedus himself felt healthy again, fully healed for the first time since his fight with Luke. And right up to the day of Caedus’s operation to capture Centerpoint, Corellia’s defenses had been growing weaker, more lax. Caedus was certain this was no ploy on the part of the Corellians—GA Intelligence believed that Confederation supply lines were being taxed past their limits, and Corellia was not being adequately reprovisioned.
In a day, he would own Centerpoint. In a week, the major allies of the Confederation would have surrendered. This war was almost done.
“Sir?” Lieutenant Tebut approached from the stern end of the bridge. Today, Caedus recalled, her duty station was ship security.
She presented him with the duty datapad for her station. “All ship sections report secure. Anomalies and unresolved incidents are at a record low.”
Star Wars: Legacy of the Force: Fury Page 24
