by James Luceno
Saxan looked back over her shoulder at the CorSec officer. He stepped out of the shadows in a curtained corner of the chamber. “Thoroughly,” he said. “And there were some. Of considerable vintage. The sort a hotel security office might plant for purposes of blackmail or peacekeeping. I removed them.”
“Thank you,” the female visitor said. She reached up to unhook one side of her veil, letting it drop away from her face—the face of Leia Organa Solo.
To his credit, the CorSec officer made no noise of surprise or recognition. He simply returned to his shadowy nook.
The presumed Tusken Raider, less graceful or delicate of motion than his companion, pulled the sand-mask from his face and tossed back his hood, revealing the craggy, somewhat flushed features of Han Solo. “Yes, thank you, Your, uh—”
“Excellency,” Leia supplied.
“Right, Excellency.”
“For one of Corellia’s most celebrated heroes, of course, an audience is in order at any time … in any place. Though I’ll admit that your requests for secrecy are unusual. Please, come with me.” Saxan led her visitors into an adjacent chamber, a windowless dining room by the look of it—but the dining table, a massive thing topped with black stone inlaid with gold wire, had been rolled against the shimmering blue wall, leaving behind only well-padded chairs arranged in two semicircles. Saxan sat in the central chair of one semicircle, with her CorSec man taking up position behind her; Han Solo took the seat opposite her, with Leia sitting to his right.
Interesting, Saxan thought. So this is to be Han Solo’s speech, or request.
“I’ll get right to the point,” Han said. His features were returning to their normal color; out from under the Tusken Raider mask, he had to be cooling down. “I believe that the Galactic Alliance is going to take military action against Corellia within the week, maybe within the day.”
“Why would they?” Saxan asked, keeping her voice controlled, impersonal. “Negotiations between us and Coruscant are still cordial. Still in developing stages.”
Han shrugged. “I don’t know why. Just that they are. There are political, financial, military movements going on that all point to action here, and soon.”
Saxan considered. Could the Galactic Alliance have finally uncovered the Kiris shipyards? It seemed unlikely. She had been Prime Minister a full year before her budget auditors discovered that the secret appropriations authorized by Thrackan Sal-Solo and his political allies were being used to build a secret assault fleet. Her auditors had had direct access to the Corellian budgetary records; the GA investigators, impeded by Corellia’s formidable counterintelligence service, should not have been able to uncover the same facts.
It seemed more likely that the GA’s premature action had been prompted by the reactivation of Centerpoint. Despite everything, all the vetting and counterspying that had taken place at that facility since the Galactic Alliance had reluctantly surrendered its control to Corellia, some word must have reached Coruscant of the facility’s status.
She said nothing of this. Instead, she asked, “And why are you telling me this?”
“Well, let’s just say it galls me,” Han said. “If Corellia wants to be independent, I’m all for it.”
“Would you be willing to say that publicly?” Saxan asked. “In speeches to the Corellian people?”
“Sure,” Han said. “If you resign as Prime Minister and Thrackan resigns as Corellian Chief of State.”
This time, Saxan couldn’t keep the surprise off her face, out of her voice. “I should resign? Why?”
“I don’t like the game you’re playing,” Han said. “Whining ‘independence’ out one corner of your mouth and ‘benefits’ out the other.”
“That’s just strategy,” Saxan assured him.
“No, it isn’t. Not when a lot of people are listening to you and agreeing. People who don’t have the time or energy or brains to think it through. People who trust you because your father was famous or because you’re good looking.” Han finally looked disappointed, perhaps even faintly disgusted. “You need to be showing Corellians the lives they’ll be living if they do become independent. Planetary pride is one thing, and I’m all for it. Planetary pride with an assumption that the economy’s going to thrive and everyone’s going to love us is another thing. It’s a lie.”
Saxan kept the anger and, yes, hurt she felt at Han’s rebuke from showing. She turned to Leia. “And what about you? You’re a Jedi Knight. The Jedi are sworn to defend the Galactic Alliance. In coming here, aren’t you committing treason?”
Leia blinked at her. “How’s that again?”
“Your husband wants me to commit to a politically dangerous position. And yet here you are, straddling two positions, too. I think perhaps you and your husband should stay here in Corellia and lend us your support. It would be safer for you. If Coruscant learned you’d come here on your errand, it could do irreversible damage to your reputation.”
Leia smiled, showing teeth. “I am a Jedi Knight. And I am sworn to defend the Galactic Alliance. Even from itself, sometimes. But coming here with my husband and listening to him speculate on the future of political relations isn’t treason. It’s just something you do when you’re married.”
“Speculate?”
Leia nodded. “Speculate.”
“Meaning that you won’t have any hard data to hand me supporting his speculations.”
Han smiled, the knee-weakening, cocky smile Saxan had seen so often on holonews and occasionally in person. “What data?”
“Of course ”
“And, by the way”—Han lost his smile—“it wouldn’t do for Coruscant to learn we’d been here speculating. We’d take it personally. You might think about going through the historical records and seeing what happens when we take things personally.”
Saxan didn’t ask whether that was a threat. Of course it was. And it was the sort of threat they’d proven again and again they could make good on.
Well, this meeting was still a success. She’d learned two important things: that the Galactic Alliance probably knew about developments at Centerpoint Station, and that Han Solo could be just as hard and ruthless as his cousin, Thrackan Sal-Solo.
Saxan let a gracious smile return to her face. “Never fear, Corellia knows who her friends are,” she said. “By the way, how long will you be staying insystem?”
Leia shrugged. “A few days.”
“Excellent. Perhaps you will do us the honor of paying us an official visit sometime. Whether it’s wartime or peacetime, your husband is one of Corellia’s favorite sons.”
“That would be most agreeable.” Recognizing Saxan’s words as a conclusion to the audience, Leia rose and pinned her veil back in place. Han followed his wife’s lead and began wrestling his sand-mask into place.
“Oh, Han …” Saxan smiled as she saw the tiniest of frowns mar Leia’s brow, reaction to her inappropriate use of Solo’s first name. “If I see Thrackan, do you have any message for him?”
Mask in place, Han pulled his hood up. “Sure. How about, ‘Look out!’ ”
“I’ll pass that along.”
OUTER SPACE, CORELLIA TRADE SPINE,
PASSING YAG’DHUL
The passenger-seating compartment was not ideal. It was, in fact, a cargo container, the sort used to transport bulk goods from one port to another. But it had been fitted with reclinable seats from decommissioned passenger shuttles. Every row was a different color, and some of the seats smelled bad.
Jaina’s smelled bad. If she’d been in a self-destructively contemplative mood, she might have speculated that at some time in the distant past, it had been occupied by a Hutt with a digestive disorder. Every so often, an injudicious movement on Jaina’s part would compress the padding she was sitting on and an odor, half bitter, half sweet, all repulsive, would cause her nose and the noses or equivalent equipment of the other passengers in the vicinity to twitch.
Those passengers were an interesting collection, Jaina deci
ded. Most looked and acted like beings on the run, eyes alert to anyone who might be giving them too much attention, clothes bulky enough to conceal the blasters tucked away underneath, bags and satchels containing who-knew-what always close at hand. Some were humans, some Bothans, some Rodians. Jaina spotted one Bith at the rear of the compartment. It appeared that one passenger was a beaten-up YVH 1 combat droid traveling without a companion.
And of course there were Jedi, though they didn’t look like Jedi. Jaina was dressed in a fashion that would have let her fit in with her father’s old friends—tight-fitting trousers and vest of black bantha leather, a red silk shirt with flowing sleeves and a matching hair scarf, a blaster holster on her belt. Half her face bore an artificial tattoo, a red flower on her cheek with green leafy tendrils spreading across her jaw and up to her forehead, and her hair was blond, a temporary dye job.
Next to her, Zekk, eyes closed in sleep, wore a preposterous tan jacket of fringed leather. Beneath it was a bandolier holding eight vibroblades. Two false scars marked his face, one a horizontal gash across his forehead, the other down from the forehead to the right cheek; an eye patch with a blinking red diode covered that eye.
The two compartments directly aft were sectioned into small, claustrophobic sleeping berths. The compartment aft of that held luggage.
And they were surrounded by containers holding Tibanna gas, harvested on Bespin, where this cargo vessel had begun its journey. If the vessel was attacked, incoming damage could ignite the cargo, and Jaina and all her Jedi friends would be vaporized.
This was, despite its size, a smuggling vessel. The Tibanna gas it carried boosted the destructive power of blasters. Its mining and export was carefully limited by the Galactic Alliance government, which was why a daring smuggler with a large cargo of the stuff could make a substantial profit by taking it to a system whose industries wanted it—for instance, Corellia, this vessel’s destination. And since the cargo was intended for weapons manufacturers receiving the tacit blessing of Corellia’s government, this vessel would, upon reaching the Corellia system, be ignored by customs inspectors … meaning that its passengers, many of whom were lightsaber-carrying Jedi, would also be unmolested. Mara, Jaina’s former Master, had prevailed on her oldest friend, smuggler Talon Karrde, for a way by which a unit of Jedi could enter Corellia with their lightsabers and other gear unnoticed, and he had offered the name, flight route, and departure time of this vessel.
And its smelly seats.
Zekk’s eyes opened. “Are we on Corellia yet?” His voice was pitched as a whisper.
Jaina shook her head. “Not for several hours.”
His eyes closed. Then they reopened. “Are we on Corellia yet?”
Despite herself, Jaina grinned. “Why don’t you go play outside for a while?”
CORUSCANT
There was a lot of open floor space between the office and dormitory portions of the room, and Wedge made use of it, taking his rolling chair there and playing a new game. Sitting facing one wall, he would suddenly stand, propelling his chair backward with his knees, and then turn to see how close he’d come to placing the chair near a mark he’d made on the floor.
At exact six-hour intervals, Titch came in with Wedge’s meals. When at the office desks, Wedge habitually sat at the one closest to the outer door, with his back to the door; he thought of it as the number one desk. Every six standard hours, morning, noon, and evening, Titch brought Wedge’s food and drink to the next desk to the left, the one Wedge thought of as the number two desk, and set the meal down there.
The first time Titch entered while Wedge was playing his rolling-chair game, Titch paid him no special attention. This was exactly what Wedge expected; Titch, Barthis, and possibly more security officers had to be watching his activities on hidden holocams, and so were already aware of Wedge’s new preoccupation. Titch merely set Wedge’s meal down in the usual place, then gave the older officer a condescending, pitying shake of the head before walking out the door and letting it slide shut behind him.
Wedge grinned after him.
Six hours later, minutes before the evening meal was due to arrive, Wedge sat at his usual desk, the terminal alive before him. Of course, it didn’t give him access to the worldwide datanet; that would defeat the purpose of his captivity. But it did apparently sample the datanet once or twice a day, allowing Wedge to follow Coruscant and galactic news, and offered a wide variety of thirty-year-old games and battle simulation programs. Now he brought up one of those simulations—this one allowing him to recreate, at squad-action level, the ambush of Rebel Alliance ships at Derra IV, an action that had taken place before either of his captors had been born—and began playing it through from the Rebel side.
The little chron at the top right of the terminal screen told him that he had five minutes to wait before his next meal would arrive.
He took a sip from his tumbler of water, untouched since his noon meal arrived. It was still almost full. Slowly, his attention still apparently full on the battle simulation before him, he lowered the hand with the tumbler to his lap. He positioned it under the lip of the desk until it was beneath desk number two, and then, with excruciating, silent care, poured most of the water out onto the floor there. It broadened as a slowly spreading, all-but-invisible pool.
Three minutes left. He couldn’t cut things too close. Titch might vary his schedule by a few seconds. Young officers weren’t that dependable.
He held the tumbler over desk number two, inverted it as close to instantly as he could, and set it down rim-first. To observers, it would—well, should—look as though he were merely setting aside an empty drink container. Water began pooling out from under the rim and spread out in all directions—toward that desk’s chair, toward the lip adjoining Wedge’s desk. Like the water on the floor, it should be all but invisible to the sort of low-resolution holocams used to monitor prisoners.
Wedge typed in the next turn’s series of commands to the simulation program and leaned forward to watch the turn’s results. While locked in that pose, he groped around carefully under the desk and located the power cable that ran from the system’s main processor up to the monitors around the desk.
Two minutes left. He watched the Imperials on the screen slaughter the Rebels at Derra IV, as they had more than thirty years before. He made an exasperated noise. With his free hand, he powered down the terminal. Then, with his other hand, he pulled the power cable loose and drew it to him, gathering all the slack he could obtain. Only then did he lean back in his chair.
The door behind him slid open. Titch entered—Wedge recognized him by the sound of his heavy, confident stride—and asked, “Not going so well, is it?” Then the man moved into view, Wedge’s meal in his hands, and walked up to desk number two. He set the tray down. For a brief moment, he looked confused as his fingers contacted water on the desktop.
Wedge powered up his monitor and tossed the power cable onto desk number two.
Titch jerked and began to shake, trapped in the spasms of electrocution. The overhead lights dimmed.
Wedge stood quickly, propelling his rolling chair back and away from him. He glanced behind him. The chair came to a halt a hand span from where he’d aimed it, dead in the center of the open doorway.
Wedge watched the security man being electrocuted. It was now a waiting game, duration measured in seconds. If Barthis did not act before Titch suffered irreparable damage, Wedge might have to—
Finally it came, Barthis’s voice from the next chamber: “Power down Block Forty-five-zero-two. Do it now!”
Nothing happened. Wedge waited. He heard running footsteps, a single individual approaching—Barthis. He could imagine her with a blaster pistol in her hand, and he was still armed with nothing.
Then the lights went out. Wedge heard a gasp from Titch, a metallic thud as the man hit the floor. This was followed within half a second with a whoosh as the depowered door slid down and slammed into Wedge’s rolling chair.
; Wedge located Titch by touch. The man moved feebly. Wedge found his belt, removed the blaster from its holster, and switched it from its burn setting to its stun setting. He said two words: “Remember, refreshers.”
Then, on hands and knees, he scooted over toward the chamber doorway. Just before he reached it, he could feel air flow into his makeshift prison, and then his free hand encountered one wheel of his rolling chair. Carefully, quietly, he slid past the chair, which creaked under the weight of the door it held.
He listened and could hear Barthis’s voice, a few meters away: “Send a security detachment to Forty-five-zero-two. The prisoner was contained when the power cut dropped the door, but he has Lieutenant Titch as a prisoner. No, for the moment, we’re secure.”
Then the emergency lighting, dim orange glow rods installed where the ceiling met the walls, came on. Wedge could now see the desk stations here in the outer chamber, could see Barthis where she stood a few meters away, a comlink in her hand.
And she could see him, too. Her eyes widened.
He shot her. Nerveless, she hit the floor with a much less resounding noise than Titch had.
He appropriated her comlink, blaster pistol, identicard, and other effects, stuffing them in his pockets. In seconds, he hauled her over to the door to his prison, shoved her through, and then kicked at his chair until it was forced back out of the doorway. The powerless door slid down into place with a thump.
Beginning on the far side of the chamber, beside the door by which they’d entered this complex of offices, Wedge methodically smashed the emergency glow rods with the butt of Titch’s blaster. Completing the circuit of the room, he smashed the last rod, then situated himself under a desk beside the exit.
Sixty seconds later, there was a whine from that door as the temporary power supply someone had attached outside was activated and lifted it out of the way. Four armed and armored security officers rushed in. The first shouted, “Captain Barthis?”
Sliding quietly out from his desk, Wedge eased out through the doorway and into the dimly lit hallway beyond. He grabbed the temporary power supply now attached to the doorway control console and yanked it free. That door came down with a thud, trapping the security detail within.