by Timothy Zahn
“Yeah.” Klif circled behind him and dropped into one of the seats. “But I don’t think any of them are going to like it.”
Navett shrugged. “They can join the club. It’s going to be awkward for us, too, you know—we’re going to have to delay the delivery date for those three mawkrens. But there’s not a lot any of us can do about it. It was the Bothans’ idea to start keeping their techs locked in the shield building for six days at a time, not ours.”
“Yeah,” Klif said heavily. “I suppose we can’t be expected to send our little time bombs in with the next shift any earlier than the next shift goes on duty.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Navett soothed him. “Our cover is plenty secure, and it won’t hurt Horvic and Pensin to wash dishes for the Ho’Din awhile longer. We can hover an extra six days without any trouble.”
“Maybe not,” Klif said darkly. “Guess who I spotted at the comm center while I was checking for messages.”
Navett felt his eyes narrow. “Not our two New Rep military types?”
“In the skin and twice as pompous.” Klif nodded. “And they had company: some old woman in a hooded cloak who seemed to know her way around better than they did. A fringe type, no doubt about it.”
Navett scratched his cheek. “You think she’s the one who got their wallets back from the Bothan lifters?”
“Well, they had their wallets with them,” Klif said. “So I’d say, yeah, she’s probably the one.”
“Um.” New Rep military types with a fringe lifter. Interesting. “Were they picking up or delivering?”
“Neither,” Klif told him. “They were pulling a list of all outgoing transmissions for the past five days.”
“Interesting,” Navett said, drumming his fingers gently on the countertop. “Analysis?”
“They’re on to us,” Klif growled. “Or at least, they know someone’s here.” He lifted an eyebrow. “And they suspect it has to do with the Drev’starn shield generator, or they wouldn’t have spent so much time hanging around there.”
“Recommendation?”
“We vape them,” Klif said bluntly. “Tonight.”
Navett shifted his eyes past him to the display window across the store, gazing at the hundreds of pedestrians and dozens of vehicles hurrying past. Drev’starn was an immensely busy city, made all the more frantic by the presence of those warships overhead. Humans and aliens rushing around all over the place … “No,” he said slowly. “No, they’re not on to us. Not yet. They suspect something is in the works, but they don’t know for sure. No, our best plan right now is to lay low and not let them draw us out.”
Klif’s lips puckered, but he nodded reluctantly. “I still don’t like it, but you’re the boss. Maybe all they’re trying to do is get a handle on Vengeance; and they’re not going to look for a group that big in a little pet store.”
“Good point,” Navett agreed. “We could even consider staging another riot for their benefit if they seem to be getting too close. If you’re up to another performance, that is.”
Klif shrugged. “Two riots on Bothawui might be pushing our luck,” he said. “But I can get one going if we have to.”
Across the room, one of the animals squawked twice and then fell silent again. Probably one of the pregnant mawkrens, Navett decided, muttering in her sleep. He’d better get those injections started if he didn’t want a mess of tiny lizards running around underfoot six days before he needed them. “I just wish we knew who our opponents were,” he commented.
“Maybe we can find out,” Klif said, pulling out a datapad. “I followed them back to the spaceport and their ship. A surplused Sydon MRX-BR Pacifier, as it turns out.”
Navett grimaced. The Pacifier had been the Empire’s scout vehicle of choice, able to seek out new worlds and deliver a devastating pounding to them if it proved necessary. Considered by the New Republic to be too provocative for the delicate sensitivities of frightened primitives, their use had been summarily discontinued. Just one more reminder, if he’d needed it, of how badly things had been falling apart since Endor. “You get a name?”
“And a registration code,” Klif said, handing him the datapad. “It’s the woman’s ship, unfortunately—she was the one who unlocked it—but we might still be able to backcheck them through it.”
“Excellent,” Navett said as he took the datapad. “The Fingertip Express, eh? Sounds like a lifter’s ship, all right. A smart-mouth name for a smart-mouth lifter.”
He handed the datapad back. “There should be a Bureau of Ships and Services office somewhere in Drev’starn. Find it and see what you can pull up.”
“Aha,” Moranda said from her ship’s tiny computer alcove. “Well, well, well.”
Sitting in the lounge just off the alcove, Wedge turned his eyes away from the expensive contour sculp on the wall in front of him, and his thoughts away from contemplation of how Moranda might have come into possession of such a prize. “You found something?” he asked.
“Could be,” Corran said. Arms crossed and leaning against the wall, he’d been watching over Moranda’s shoulder for the past two hours. “Three messages, all short and encrypted, have gone out in the past five days.” He looked over at Wedge. “The last one just this morning.”
“What time this morning?” Wedge asked, getting to his feet and crossing to the others.
“About ten minutes before we got there,” Moranda said, peering at the display. “I guess we shouldn’t have lingered over that drink. Too bad.”
Wedge grimaced, a bad taste in his mouth. Too bad wasn’t the half of it. With Corran and his Jedi skills along, they might actually have been able to identify and tag the sender if they’d been there in time.
If. “Where were the transmissions headed?”
“Toward Eislomi sector,” Moranda said. “Specifically, in the direction of the Eislomi III HoloNet relay station.”
Wedge suppressed a sigh. “In other words, a dead end.”
“Looks like it.”
“Still, if they’ve already sent three messages, they might send more,” Corran pointed out. His voice was calm and controlled, without any trace of the frustration and disappointment Wedge knew he must also be feeling over this near-miss. “If worse comes to worst, we could always stake out the place.”
“A waste of time,” Moranda sniffed. “If they’ve got any brains at all, they’ll spot a loiterer upwind from sixty paces away with their eyes closed.”
“That depends on how the loitering is done,” Corran countered stiffly. “And on who’s doing it.”
“What, you?” Moranda scoffed, looking him up and down. “Right. Like you wouldn’t stand out like a storm-trooper at an Ewok roast.”
“I thought it was like a Wookiee at a Noghri family reunion.”
“No, no—you’re versatile enough to do both.”
“Oh, thank you,” Corran growled. “Thank you very much.”
“Both of you simmer down,” Wedge interrupted sternly. “Corran’s right, Moranda—he’s exceptionally good at stakeouts. However, Moranda’s right, too, Corran—we don’t have the time or the troops to cover all outgoing transmissions, even if we were sure they’d use the same center again.”
“At least we now know for sure that someone’s operating here,” Moranda offered. “That’s something.”
“Not much, though,” Corran muttered.
“It occurs to me, though,” Wedge said, raising his voice, “that there’s still one route we haven’t tried. Assuming Vengeance isn’t homegrown—and considering its anti-Bothan sentiment, I think we can assume that—they’ll have to have found some place local to set up shop. Question: where?”
Moranda snapped her fingers. “A business. Has to be some kind of business.”
“She’s right,” Corran agreed, his frustration and miffed professional pride suddenly forgotten. “An apartment wouldn’t work—too risky to have lots of people coming and going at odd hours. With a business, you can always cover it as delive
ries or cleanup crews.”
“And working for someone else doesn’t give you enough privacy when you need it,” Moranda added. “And it’ll have to be something fairly recently set up, and probably as close to the shield generator building as they can get.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Wedge said. “And since we can’t hit the construction records building until later anyway …?”
“What are we waiting for?” Corran demanded, detaching himself from the wall and heading for the hatchway. “Someone in Drev’starn must have a list of all new businesses. Let’s go find him.”
CHAPTER
19
“No,” Captain Ardiff said, jabbing his fork for emphasis. “I don’t believe it. Not for a minute.”
“What about the news reports?” Colonel Bas countered. “Even stuck out here we’ve pulled in, what, five of them? If this thing’s a hoax, it’s a kriffing good one. If you’ll pardon the language, sir,” he added belatedly, looking with some embarrassment at Pellaeon.
“Language pardoned, Colonel,” Pellaeon said, suppressing a smile. Bas had clawed his way up through the TIE pilot ranks to become the Chimaera’s fighter commander; and though he tried hard to fit in with the generally more cultured men who made up the officer corps, the saltier language of his youth did periodically intrude.
Personally, Pellaeon rather liked that. Not the expletives per se, but the fact that the man’s language was an outward sign of honest and straightforward opinions or emotions. Unlike some Pellaeon had dealt with, Bas seldom if ever tried to hide his thoughts or feelings behind polite slip-talk.
“They’re rumors, Colonel—that’s all,” Ardiff said, shaking his head. “Face the facts: Thrawn died. Admiral Pellaeon was there to see it. Now, if that was some trick—”
Pellaeon lowered his eyes to his plate and forked another bite of the braised bruallki, mentally tuning out the discussion. It was the same endless argument, with the same opinions and speculations, that had been playing its way around the ship in the week since Lieutenant Mavron had returned with the story of Thrawn’s supposed appearance in the Kroctar system. Everyone from Ardiff on down had his own opinion on whether or not it was true, none of them could prove their opinion to anyone else, and the entire ship was about as tense as an overwound throwbow.
But the waiting, at least, was about to come to an end. He’d given General Bel Iblis a full month and a half to make his plans, and the Chimaera itself had been here at Pesitiin for two weeks. Clearly, for whatever reason, Bel Iblis wasn’t coming.
And it was time to go home. To return to the Empire, and to Bastion. And, on several levels, to find out what exactly Moff Disra was up to. He would give the order to prepare for departure as soon as he was finished with his meal. If Bel Iblis didn’t arrive in the hour after that—
“Admiral Pellaeon, Captain Ardiff, this is the bridge,” Major Tschel’s voice came from the mess table speaker. “Report, please.”
Ardiff got to the switch first. “Captain here,” he said. “The Admiral’s with me. What is it?”
“A ship’s just entered the system, sir,” Tschel said, his voice tight.
Ardiff flashed Pellaeon a sharp look. “A repeat performance by our pirates?”
“I don’t think so, sir,” Tschel said. “So far, at least, it’s only a single ship: YT-1300 light freighter, minimally armed. They’re transmitting a request to come aboard and speak with the Admiral.”
Pellaeon took a deep breath. “Is there a name attached to the transmission?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” Tschel said. “She claims to be New Republic High Councilor Leia Organa Solo.”
· · ·
With the four TIE fighters riding escort positions on both flanks, the Falcon rose up out of sight of the distant sun, up into the shadow of the Star Destroyer’s hangar bay. “We’re committed now,” Elegos said softly from the seat beside Leia.
“Yes,” Leia agreed, her hands resting on the controls, watching as the Chimaera’s tractor beam reeled them steadily into itself. “We are indeed.”
“Does that disturb you?” the Caamasi asked. “What are you thinking?”
Leia shrugged, a quick movement of tense shoulders. “On one level, of course it disturbs me,” she told him. “Risks are always something a rational being prefers to avoid. But not all risks are bad. All in all, this is a good risk.”
She half turned and tried a smile. “As to the other part of your question, I was just thinking that if Threepio were here, he’d probably be saying ‘We’re doomed’ about now.”
Elegos chuckled, a uniquely Caamasi sound. “Very good,” he said. “I have not known much about you, Councilor, save what I have read and heard from others. This voyage, short though it has been, has been greatly instructive. Whatever happens next, I will always consider myself honored to have had these few days together with you.”
Leia took a deep breath. The words themselves, taken alone, could be construed to have an ominous ring to them. But spoken with the Caamasi’s quiet warmth, all potential threat or fear vanished. What came across instead was courage and hope and resolve; an inspiration and strength that came not so much from Elegos as it did from hidden reserves of her own. Reserves his words and presence were somehow able to draw out of her.
It was small wonder, she thought with a distant ache, that the power-insatiable Senator Palpatine had wanted such a dangerous people destroyed.
There was a lone figure waiting at the foot of the Falcon’s ramp as Leia and the other three started down: a white-haired man of medium height, his face lined with age but with the parade-ground-straight back of a professional military officer. He wore the Imperial uniform well, Leia thought; he wore the chest insignia of a Fleet admiral even better. “Councilor Organa Solo,” he said, nodding gravely as she approached. “I’m Admiral Pellaeon. Welcome aboard the Chimaera.”
“Thank you, Admiral,” Leia said, nodding back. “It’s been a long time.”
His forehead wrinkled. “I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage,” he said. “I wasn’t aware we’d met.”
“It wasn’t a formal introduction,” Leia told him. “But I remember my father pointing you out to me as one of the Fleet’s most promising officers during the annual Grand Alderaanian Gathering at the Royal Pavilion when I was ten.”
Pellaeon’s lip twitched. “I remember those days well,” he said quietly. “In some ways, I’d prefer not to.”
His eyes shifted to Elegos, standing at Leia’s left. “Perhaps you’ll introduce me to the rest of your delegation?”
“Certainly,” Leia said, passing over for the moment the distinctly unofficial status of the group. “This is Elegos A’kla, Trustant for the Caamasi Remnant.”
Pellaeon smiled faintly as he nodded. “Trustant A’kla.”
“Admiral Pellaeon,” Elegos said, lowering his head in a Caamasi bow.
“On my right is Sakhisakh clan Tlakh’sar,” Leia continued, gesturing to the Noghri beside her.
Pellaeon’s smile remained, but Leia could sense a new brittleness behind it. “Of course,” the Admiral said. “Alderaanian, Caamasi, and Noghri. Three beings with the most reason to hate the Empire.”
Sakhisakh stirred—“We hold no anger toward you personally, Admiral,” Elegos said calmly before the Noghri could speak. “Nor have we animosity toward the people of the Empire. Each of our worlds was destroyed by the hand of Emperor Palpatine, and he too is now dead. Continuing to nurture the fires of hatred would gain us nothing.”
“Thank you, Trustant,” Pellaeon said. “I appreciate your generosity and your wisdom.” His eyes flicked briefly to Sakhisakh, then turned to Ghent, standing nervously at Elegos’s other side. “And what particular grievance do you represent, sir?”
“Me?” Ghent asked, starting. “Oh, no, I’m not part of this group. I mean—I’m just the slicer who reconstructed Vermel’s message for General Bel Iblis.”
The last hint of a smile vanished from Pellaeon’s face. “What do
you mean, reconstructed?” he demanded. “Didn’t the colonel present his message in person?”
“I’m afraid he didn’t get that far,” Leia said. “According to General Bel Iblis, his Corvette was intercepted by a Star Destroyer while on approach to Morishim.”
Pellaeon’s eyes had gone deadly. “Intercepted and destroyed?”
“No, or at least not at that time,” Leia said. “The Star Destroyer brought his ship into its hangar bay and then escaped.”
“I see.” For a long moment Pellaeon stood there, his eyes gazing at nothing, his face hard and almost cruel, his emotions edged with simmering anger. Leia stretched out to the Force, trying to read past the emotion and wondering if she should break the silence or wait for him to do so.
Elegos took the decision out of her hands. “I take it Colonel Vermel was a close friend,” he commented quietly.
Pellaeon’s eyes and attention came back. “I will hope that he still is,” he said. “If not, someone will pay heavily for his death.”
He exhaled. “But you came to talk peace, not vengeance. If you’ll follow me, I have a room prepared for us off the hangar bay.”
“I’d prefer to hold our discussion aboard my ship, if you don’t mind,” Leia said. “I’m afraid my bodyguards insist on that.”
For a fraction of a second there was a flicker of uncertainty, even fear, in Pellaeon’s emotions. But then the fear faded, and he again smiled. “You have more Noghri aboard, of course,” he said, glancing up at the Falcon looming over them. “No doubt watching even now with weapons at the ready.”
“There will be no danger to you, Admiral,” Elegos spoke up. “Not unless you yourself bring it aboard.”
Pellaeon waved a hand at the ramp. “In that case, Councilor, I accept. Please; lead the way.”
A minute later Leia, Pellaeon, and Elegos were seated around the Falcon’s game table—a distressingly informal place for such a momentous occasion, Leia thought with some embarrassment, but the only place on the ship where they could all sit comfortably together. Sakhisakh, without comment, had taken up a guard position where he could watch both their discussion and the entrance ramp. Ghent, also without comment, had gone over to the tech station and was busying himself with the Falcon’s computer.
