The minister nodded, his smile fixed, and turned away, immediately speaking to his own entourage, something about the courtesy and attentiveness of New Republic pilots. Once he was a couple of meters away and still moving, Wedge gestured for his pilots.
They stepped in. So did Cheriss and Tomer.
Wedge looked at the two of them. “Shoo,” he said.
“I thought perhaps you needed some advice,” Tomer said.
“I am here if you need interpretation of some word or action you do not yet understand,” Cheriss said.
“Tell you what,” Wedge said. “From now on, when I gesture with two hands for people to move in, it means everybody. When I gesture with one hand, it means just the pilots. Will that work?”
They nodded.
Wedge gestured with one hand. Reluctance evident on their faces, the two of them backed off and hovered a few meters away at the edges of the crowd.
“What’s up?” Tycho asked.
“I’m going to allow Cheriss to put on whatever show it was she was talking about. I’m going to pay a lot of attention to it.”
Tycho offered a confused frown. “Why?”
“Because the hangers-on seem mostly to be concentrating on me right now. If I do this, it’ll give you some freedom to act.” Wedge turned to Janson. “Wes, at exactly ninety degrees to your right, about twelve meters, there’s a table with a woman at it.”
“Oh, good.”
“I want you to wait until the crowd is on me and Cheriss’s demonstration. Then break free and approach her. Tycho, Hobbie, make sure his actions aren’t being noticed. If they are, give him a double-click on the comlink to warn him off.”
Janson smiled. “Thanks, Wedge, for looking after me. You know, you’re one of the most considerate commanders, not like Tycho here—”
“Wes, she’s Iella Wessiri.”
Janson’s eyes widened. “What?”
Iella Wessiri was a New Republic Intelligence agent, a former partner and long-time friend of Rogue Squadron member Corran Horn. She had been very helpful to the Rogues during the taking of the world Coruscant from the Empire. Her husband Diric, an unwilling traitor brainwashed by Imperial Intelligence head Ysanne Isard, had died during those events. Corran and Wedge had both helped her through the trying times to follow, and Wedge had eventually grown interested in her himself, until things had conspired to separate them for good. His career. Hers. Ultimately, his relationship with Qwi Xux. After that began, he’d almost never run into Iella.
“If it’s really her,” Wedge continued, “she’s probably here on an Intelligence assignment. Don’t do anything to blow her cover—just be your usual obnoxious self and let her shoot you down.”
“I resent the implication that she would. That any woman would.”
“But suggest to her that your commander finds her interesting and would like to see her at some time. I’d like to know what she’s up to. Whether she’s here to support us. Whether we can help her. That sort of thing.”
Janson nodded. “Understood. And if it’s not actually Iella?”
“You’re on your own.”
Janson’s grin returned.
Wedge spoke to Cheriss, and she spoke to some sort of functionary, and moments later that man drew a blastsword. He thumbed it on and waved it in a circle over his head. Wherever the tip moved through the air, it traced a glowing yellow line, so his motion created a shining circle above him. As soon as he ceased his motion, it began to fade.
This attracted the attention of the crowd and conversation quelled. “We have a non-title ground challenge,” he said. “Lord Pilot Depird ke Fanax challenges Cartann Ground Champion Cheriss ke Hanadi, vengeance for her defeat of Jeapird ke Fanax at the last championship.”
There was applause from the crowd, which withdrew from the speaker, forming an open circle in the middle of the chamber.
Wedge turned to Tomer. “Wait, wait. I thought she was going to put on some sort of show or demonstration.”
Tomer’s expression was serious. “She is. To entertain you, she offered to accept a combat challenge. As the ground champion, she receives a lot of them. And you told her to go ahead.”
“I didn’t know that’s what she meant. I’m putting a stop to this.” Wedge took a step forward, but Tomer’s hand fell on his shoulder and restrained him.
“Don’t,” Tomer said. His voice was a plea. “It’s too late. The challenge was accepted. You’re out of the loop. All you can do now is embarrass Cheriss and look like an idiot—you’ll be demonstrating weakness.”
Wedge glared, then fell back. “You could have told me.”
“You spoke with such confidence. I thought you understood.”
Cheriss took off her belt, handing it to the man who’d made the announcement, and drew her blastsword and knife. She held the latter in a reverse grip, the blade laid back along her forearm, and took an experimental thrust or two with the blastsword. It was not powered up and left no glowing lines behind. Her smile was no longer cheerful; hers was the delight of a predator that had run its prey to ground.
Into the circle stepped a young man. He was perhaps a year or two older than Cheriss, lean and graceful, his clothing all in blacks and yellows, his mustache stylishly trim. He whipped his hip cloak from his shoulders and threw it into the crowd, then reached to the belt held by someone at the edge of the crowd and drew a blastsword and knife. He held his knife in a more conventional grip than Cheriss did. “I am here to correct the results of an accident,” he said, his voice light and unconcerned, “and to demonstrate what we all know—that wherever a ground-pounder can merely achieve, a flier can excel.”
There was applause at his words. He thumbed on the power of the blastsword and twirled it before him, leaving a figure-eight pattern that glowed redly in the air.
Wedge saw Hallis trying to move through the crowd to get to the leading edge. Farther around the rim of the crowd, he saw the perator standing, his retinue giving him a little pocket of space.
“To the perator,” the announcer said. Both Cheriss and the challenger, Depird, bowed to the perator and flourished their blades in an identical pattern, a circle bisected by a cross; Cheriss’s blade was now powered up and the symbol of her flourish glowed blue for a moment before fading.
“Honor or death,” the announcer said, and took a step back, putting him at the edge of the open space.
Depird wasted no time. He moved forward, not a rush but a fast stalk, until he was almost within range of a thrust from Cheriss’s long blade, and raised his blastsword to a high guard, well above his head, its point unerringly aimed at Cheriss’s head; as he advanced, Cheriss took a pose with her knife hand forward, her blastsword hand back, her predatory smile still in place.
Depird took a step in and thrust with his dagger, inviting a counterblow from Cheriss’s blastsword, but she swept the attack away, striking the back of his hand with her own dagger hand. Depird followed through with a thrust of the blastsword, which she took on the curved guard of her sword. When his point hit her guard, there was a crack like a blaster rifle firing, and smoke rose from a darkened patch on her guard.
With a flick of arm and wrist, Cheriss disengaged her blastsword from Depird’s, then swung her guard up in a punch that caught Depird full in the jaw. He staggered back, his expression outraged, and Wedge could see that a patch on his jaw was blistered—doubtless from the heat the guard had absorbed from his attack.
The crowd reacted, some members applauding, some murmuring in a disapproving tone. Tomer said, “Cheriss is considered a gutter-fighter, vulgar by the standards of the blastsword art. With this court, the fact that she wins most of the time is her primary saving grace.”
Depird shook his head as though to clear it, then began to circle Cheriss. She waited for only a quarter circuit before attacking, a step forward followed by a thrust from her blastsword—and then it was on in full, Depird catching her assault on his blade and attempting a riposte, Cheriss blocking that move wi
th the guard on her dagger and returning a full-extension thrust that caused Depird to leap back nearly into the leading edge of the crowd. Every motion of the swords was accompanied by an arc of light from their tips; every impact of a sword tip hitting a weapon guard or blade was accompanied by the sharp crack of energy emission.
“It’s a very pretty sort of competition,” Tomer said.
Wedge didn’t bother to glare; Tomer’s attention was fully on the fight. “You mean, it’s a very decorative way to get killed. You’re awfully unconcerned.”
Tomer shrugged. “This is their planet, Wedge. Their way of life. It’s for me to understand it… not to try to change it.”
Cheriss, backing away from an especially aggressive advance, caught Depird’s blastsword blade centimeters below the tip with her dagger. She swung it out of line and brought her own blastsword point to bear in a single, beautifully fluid motion. Depird tried to check his forward motion but couldn’t—his body arched away from her blade but he ran upon it anyway. There was a sharp crack, a shriek of pain from him, and he was thrown to the floor on his back. He lay there writhing, a blackened patch on his tunic at the center of his chest, smoke rising from it.
Cheriss, barely winded, set her dagger on the floor. She turned to smile at Wedge, then extended her hand toward him, palm up; a moment later, she turned it palm down.
“You get to choose,” Tomer whispered. “Palm up means she spares him. Palm down means she kills him. Palm up will suggest excessive sentimentality on your part—not something the Adumari hope to see in a fighter pilot.”
Wedge stared at him. “You think I should let him die?” he whispered.
Tomer shrugged. “I’m not expressing an opinion. Just analyzing actions and consequences.”
Wedge put on his sternest face, his offended officer face, and stepped out into the open ring. He moved to stand over Depird, who writhed in obvious agony. The duelist was unable entirely to keep quiet; each of his breaths emerged as a moan.
Wedge studied him critically for several seconds, then raised his gaze to Cheriss’s. He spoke loudly enough for all to hear. “This boy needs to learn to handle pain, so that when he does die, he does not embarrass his family.” He held out his hand, palm up.
Cheriss shrugged and nodded, not apparently bothered. Some applause broke out from the audience, and some murmuring; but Wedge could see the perator nod agreeably, and suddenly all the courtiers around the ruler were applauding, and the applause spread from there to the rest of the crowd.
Wedge returned to his place in the audience. As he approached, Tomer, too, applauded. “A good solution,” Tomer said, his voice barely audible over the crowd. “Credible.”
“We’re going to talk about this later,” Wedge said. “And you’re not going to enjoy it.” He looked around for his pilots and spotted them, all three together, standing toward the back of the audience ring.
The crowd broke up, its members drifting away, and Wedge saw the perator’s personal retinue move toward a side exit. Two men dressed in the featureless brown livery worn by the door guards collected Depird, hauling him unceremoniously to his feet and helping him toward the main exit. Janson caught his eye and grinned uninformatively.
“Did you like it?”
Wedge turned. Cheriss, her weapons once again sheathed, stood before him. Her smile was, oddly, just a little uncertain.
“He certainly did,” Tomer said.
“I thought it was a very impressive, skillful display,” Wedge said truthfully. “With an interesting aesthetic component. Do I understand right that his objection to you was that you’d beaten his brother in a tournament?”
She nodded. “In the finals of the last Cartann Ground Championship. Depird’s brother, unlike Depird, was one of the few pilots who really knew how to handle a blastsword. Almost a pity that he died of his injuries.”
“Pity. Um, Cheriss, what purpose did the ground championship serve, other than to establish you as the new ground champion?”
She smiled. “Well, none, I suppose.”
“Entertainment,” Tomer said. “And continuation of a tradition dear to the hearts of the people of Cartann.”
“That, too,” Cheriss said.
Janson appeared beside Wedge. “News,” he said.
Chapter Four
They were on foot in the streets of the city of Cartann, but nearly anonymous—the people on the street accorded them not a second glance. Wedge supposed it was because they were in native dress; had they been in their New Republic flight suits or dress uniforms, he was certain they’d be mobbed. Cheriss moved on ahead of them, politely banished from the current conversation as she led them back to their building.
“You don’t speak for me,” Wedge said. “Ever.”
The words originated in a cold spot deep in Wedge’s gut, but Tomer seemed oblivious to Wedge’s emotion. The diplomat merely shrugged. “I understand. But you have to understand that sometimes I can’t let you say the first thing to pop out of your head. Until you know a lot more about the way things work in Cartann, you’re likely to precipitate an interplanetary crisis with an ill-thought-out remark.”
“Tomer, I direct your attention to the word ‘let.’ You’ve misused it. You don’t ‘let’ me, or ‘not let’ me, anything. Understand?”
“I understand completely. You’re the one who doesn’t understand. You shot your mouth off tonight and precipitated a duel you immediately wanted to stop. Should I step aside, keep quiet, and let you do that again? Or something worse?”
“No.” Wedge fumed for a few moments. “We have to work out a way to do this. To work together. But I’m not going to blindly follow your lead.”
“It would be better for everyone if you did.” Tomer caught sight of Wedge’s expression. “Well, on another matter, what’s this news Janson brings us?”
“Pilot news,” Wedge said. “Results of some Red Flight betting. And rather than compromise myself with the diplomatic corps by letting you know just how badly I lost, I’m going to ask you to go on ahead. We’ll be along to our quarters after a while.”
Tomer frowned, obviously trying to figure out how to phrase a refusal, then shrugged. “Contact me by comlink if you need me.” He increased his pace, said a word or two to Cheriss as he passed her, then disappeared into pedestrian traffic ahead.
“It’s Iella, all right,” Janson said. “She wants to see you. I mean, it didn’t seem to be an urgent thing. I think she was happier to see me, of course. She even asked about Hobbie.”
Hobbie brightened. “She did?”
“Oh, yes. ‘How’s old Bugbite?’ she asked.”
Hobbie’s shoulders slumped. When first he’d met Iella, years ago, on a covert mission to Corellia, he’d been stung in the face by a local insect. Iella’s partner Corran Horn, both of them then investigators with Corellian Security, had shot him down with that nickname. “She did not.”
Janson’s grin deepened, but he returned his attention to Wedge. “And she did want to talk to you. Underneath the shortest of the flat displays around the plaza where we landed, at midnight tomorrow. You have to make sure that you’re not being shadowed. You can’t compromise her cover identity.”
“What is her cover identity?”
“She’s some sort of computer slicer. Hired a while back to develop programs to translate and interface between Cartann computers and New Republic and Imperial computers.”
“Define ‘a while back,’” Wedge said.
Janson shrugged. “I’m not sure. At least several weeks, possibly several months.”
Wedge looked between his pilots. “There’s something very odd going on here. I had the impression from General Cracken that a mapping ship accidentally discovered this planet—which had been cut off from the rest of galactic civilization for thousands of years—a short time ago. Immediately afterward, the New Republic was supposed to have dispatched a diplomatic delegation, which immediately discovered that they preferred dealing with pilots, which imme
diately resulted in our being sent here. Quick, quick, quick.
“But now I find that the Adumari people have hyper-drives; they even have some hyperdrive-equipped fighters. They’ve brought in specialists to link up their computer systems with ours. They’ve contrived to bring in pilots from the Empire at the same time we’re here, and even set things up so that the two opposing groups of pilots wouldn’t know about one another until we bumped into one another tonight. What do you want to bet that we haven’t been brought here chiefly because they love pilots? We’ve been brought here to duel with our opposite numbers.”
“It’s worse than that,” Hobbie said.
The others looked at him. “You know,” Janson said, “whenever the name of Derek ‘Hobbie’ Klivian comes up, the words ‘It’s worse than that’ ring in my ears. Sometimes I hear them when I’m dreaming.”
Hobbie ignored him. “Wedge, while Janson was politely asking Iella about her love life—”
“I wasn’t!”
“—I was talking to people about things. Asking questions instead of answering them. And I found out that Adumar doesn’t even have a world government. The perator of Cartann doesn’t represent the whole world.”
“That would certainly explain why they all seem to identify more with this nation than with their world,” Wedge said. “What do they have?”
“Well, remember that all the answers I got were from Cartann loyalists.” Hobbie shrugged, apologetic. “But if you read past the text stream to the data stream, it looks as though Cartann is the biggest of a large number of nations, and it controls several other nations besides. Through tradition and military. It controls something like more than half the planet. So they could set up trade treaties, that sort of thing, for Cartann, but they couldn’t negotiate to bring all of Adumar into the New Republic.”
“You’re right,” Wedge said. “It was worse than I thought.”
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