Specter of the Past

by Timothy Zahn

  “We try to slow them down,” Wedge said. “The Peregrine’s on its way, and the general’s got two Star Cruisers coming from Haverling. Until they get here, we’re on our own.”

  The three X-wings and the yacht rose above the curve of Morishim’s horizon; and there they were: the awe-inspiring bulk of the Imperial Star Destroyer with the Corvette leading it toward the planet.

  And then Lando frowned. “Wedge?”

  “I see it,” Wedge murmured. “Rogue Seven, give me a fast analysis.”

  “No mistake, Rogue Leader,” Tycho’s voice came promptly. “Those aren’t accidental misfires—the Star Destroyer’s definitely targeting the Corvette. The Corvette’s running flank speed, with full aft deflector shields. She’s being chased, all right.”

  “They’re jamming her transmissions, too,” Janson added. “Course projection shows she’s making straight for the edge of the base’s energy shield. Looks like we’ve got a theft-and-defection on our hands.”

  “Could be,” Wedge said cautiously. “It could also be a trick to get us to let an unexamined ship in under the energy shield.”

  “So what do we do?” Janson asked.

  “Let’s try running a little interference,” Wedge said. “Rogue Two, Rogue Five: cut in around the Corvette’s starboard side and see if you can draw some of the Star Destroyer’s attention. I’ll take the other side. Watch out for tractor beams—they may try to pull the Corvette in.”

  “Copy, Rogue Leader.”

  The two X-wings swerved smoothly away from Wedge and Lando. “What about me?” Lando asked.

  “Better stay back here,” Wedge told him, putting on a burst of speed of his own. “That yacht isn’t designed for this sort of maneuvering. Anyway, we may need you to act as relay between us and our reinforcements.”

  The words were barely out of his mouth when there was a sort of muffled flash from the Corvette, accompanied by a cloud of debris. “Topside sensor group’s been hit,” Janson reported. “Internal fire—probably going to have to shut down the main reactor core.”

  Which meant no drive, no shields, and no hope of escape. Lando swore under his breath, keying his secondary comm system to scan across the channels. Static hissed out at him at each of the frequencies the Imperials were jamming.

  “Tractor beam activated,” Tycho said tightly. “Making connection … they’ve got her.”

  “Incoming to aft,” Janson cut in. “The rest of Rogue Squadron, plus three wings of A-wings and two of X-wings. ETA, about four minutes.”

  Wedge’s sigh was a softer echo of the jamming hiss. “Too little, too late,” he said reluctantly. “Break off. There’s nothing we can do to help them now.”

  Lando looked out at the Corvette, tapping a frustrated fist gently against the edge of his control board. Muzzled and helpless both, the Corvette would be taken or destroyed without anyone knowing who they were or what they were doing here.

  Unless …

  “Wedge?” he called. “I’ve got an idea. Fire up all the transmission frequencies the three of you can handle—full power, with all the encryption you can put on them. Maybe we can dilute their jamming enough to at least get something out of the Corvette.”

  “Worth a try,” Wedge said. “Let’s do it, Rogues.”

  Lando swiveled around to the comm board, keying in one of those exotic add-ons he’d spent all that good money for. This probably wouldn’t work. Almost certainly wouldn’t work, in fact; and the effort alone might easily irritate the Imperials into taking a lethal swipe at him. But at least it was doing something. He stared at the comm readings, holding his breath …

  And then, to even his gambler’s amazement, there was a flicker of something through the static. “Keep it up,” he shouted to Wedge and the others, keying madly at the board. The flicker strengthened, faded, strengthened again …

  It cut off suddenly. Lando looked up just in time to catch a final glimpse of pseudomotion as the Star Destroyer vanished into hyperspace. “Well, that’s that,” Tycho said.

  “I wasn’t watching,” Lando said. “Did they take the Corvette with them?”

  “Pulled it into the bay and took straight off,” Wedge told him. “You get anything?”

  “I don’t know.” Lando keyed for replay. “Let’s see.”

  There was a burst of static; and then, almost buried beneath the hissing, a few faint words could be heard. “—is Colo. . . . . . . . zh Ver. . . . . . . . ecial envoy fro . . . . miral. . . . . . . . on, sent here. . . . . ontact Gen. . . . . . . el Iblis concern. . . . . . . . . . . . ego. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ce tre . . . . be . . . . . . . . . . . . Empire and New Repub. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . under atta. . . . . . . traitorous ele. . . . . . . . . . . the Empire. . . . . . . . . do not expect. . . . . urvive. If the New Re. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . to hold su. . . . . . . . . . . . ions, Adm. . . . . Pel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . at the aban. . . . . . . . . . . . mining cent. . . . . . . . . . . itiin in. . . . . . . . nth to meet wi. . . . . . . . . . . . peating: This is. . . . . nel Me . . . . Vermel. . . ”

  The recording ended. “Not much there,” Wedge commented.

  “No,” Lando conceded. “What now?”

  “You’d better head back and get that recording to General Bel Iblis,” Wedge said. “I think we’ll stay out here a little while longer.”

  “In case this was just the first act?” Lando suggested.

  “You never know.”

  Lando gazed out at where the Corvette had lost its race for safety, an unpleasant chill running up his spine. The whole thing was very similar—disturbingly similar, in fact—to the race Princess Leia Organa’s consular ship had lost to Darth Vader’s Star Destroyer above the planet Tatooine nearly two decades ago. It had been a pivotal point in the struggle against the Empire’s tyranny, though no one had known it at the time.

  And now, here over Morishim, the same scene had just been played out again. Could there have been something of equal consequence behind it? “Wedge?”

  “Yes?”

  “There weren’t, by any chance”—Lando hesitated, afraid this was going to sound silly—“any escape pods jettisoned from the Corvette?”

  “Actually, that’s the first thing I thought of,” Wedge told him soberly. “But no, there weren’t.”

  “Didn’t think so,” Lando said, shaking away the memories of the past. History never truly repeated itself, after all. Odds were that Janson had already called it: a simple theft-and-defection.

  The odds also were that none of them would ever know for sure.

  Officially, the planet was named Muunilinst; unofficially, it was known to many as Moneylend. And if Bastion was the political center of the Empire, Muunilinst was its financial core.

  The reasons for its status were many and varied, a long history that dated back well into the days of the Old Republic. The fact that it still retained its role in these darker times was as much a triumph of inertia and habit as it was the two Golan III Defense Platforms tracing their lazy orbits high overhead.

  Standing at the conference-room window, Pellaeon glanced up as one of the platforms passed in front of Muunilinst’s sun, momentarily dimming its light. Back when the Imperial capital was moved to Bastion, he remembered, Moff Disra had tried to get those two Golan Ills transferred there as well, arguing that the Empire’s governmental center deserved the protection more than the credit shufflers did. It had been one of Disra’s rare miscalculations, and one of his most embarrassing political defeats.

  Behind Pellaeon, someone coughed discreetly. “Yes?” Pellaeon asked, turning again to face the table.

  All six of the senior officers gathered around the table were looking back at him. “I presume, Admiral,” High General Sutt Ramic said quietly, “that this is not simply a trial suggestion. You and the Moffs have already agreed on this offer, haven’t you?”

  For a moment Pellaeon studied the other’s face. General Ramic, commander of one of the Golans up ther
e, was the senior man of the Muunilinst defense setup, in experience and respect as well as in rank. If he chose to resist the proposed peace agreement, the others would most likely fall in line behind him.

  But no. The question hadn’t been a challenge, merely a question. “The Moffs have approved it, yes,” he said. “For what it’s worth, they were no more pleased by the idea than any of the rest of us are.”

  “I thought you were the one who made the proposal,” General Jaron Kyte put in, his voice and eyes dark with suspicion. “How can you say now that you oppose it?”

  “I didn’t say I opposed it,” Pellaeon corrected him. “I said I didn’t like it. But in my professional judgment, we simply have no other options left.”

  “I was under the impression we had revolutionary new systems and equipment ready to come on-line,” Ramic said.

  With perfect timing one of the lights on Pellaeon’s comm blinked on. “Some of those systems haven’t proved as workable as their designers had hoped,” Pellaeon said, stepping to his seat and leaning over to tap the confirmation button. “As for the equipment, some of it has been tainted by decidedly treasonous activity.” Across from Pellaeon the conference door slid open—

  And a lean man wearing the traditional Muunilinsti banker’s shawl and pendant stepped inside.

  His reaction to the roomful of officers might have been interesting, but Pellaeon wasn’t watching him. His eyes were instead on the officers themselves, as their expressions of surprise or indignation at his veiled accusation were interrupted by this unexpected intrusion. They turned, most of them obviously irritated, to see who it was who had presumed to intrude on Fleet business.

  And midway down the left side of the table, General Kyte twitched.

  It wasn’t a big reaction, little more than a twitch of the head and a flicker of shock across his face before he got himself back under control. But set against the backdrop of the others’ more or less indifferent curiosity, it stood out like the guidelight on a landing bay.

  “Ah, Lord Graemon,” Pellaeon said, focusing on the banker at last. “Thank you for coming. If you’ll wait in the other room there, I’ll be with you shortly.”

  “As you wish, Admiral Pellaeon,” Graemon said. His eyes, Pellaeon noted, flicked once to Kyte as he crossed to the inner chamber and disappeared inside.

  “And what was that all about?” Ramic asked.

  The man was shrewd, all right; clearly, he’d recognized that the banker’s interruption wasn’t entirely a coincidence. “I was speaking of treason,” Pellaeon said, waving a hand toward the inner chamber. “Lord Graemon is one of the threads in that web.”

  A fresh ripple of surprise ran around the rest of the table, but Ramic himself didn’t even twitch. “You can prove this?” he demanded.

  “Enough of it,” Pellaeon said. “He’s one of the money men helping funnel Imperial funds to a consortium that’s building the Preybirds that are now supplementing the more traditional TIE-class starfighters aboard our ships.”

  “I don’t see any treason in that,” someone snorted. “Seems to me that the Empire’s getting its money’s worth with those Preybirds.”

  “The treason is in the fact that the deal has been made outside proper channels,” Pellaeon said. “And in the fact that certain high Imperial officials are siphoning off a significant percentage of those funds for their own personal gain.”

  Deliberately, he turned his gaze on Kyte. “And in the fact that the deal includes the supplying of Imperial equipment and personnel to various pirate gangs.”

  Kyte held his gaze without flinching, but his face paled just noticeably. Pellaeon knew, all right; and now Kyte knew that he knew.

  “And how do you expect your treaty with the New Republic to stop this?” Ramic asked.

  “Cooperation and open lines of communication would enable us to track down the participants more efficiently,” Pellaeon said. “And those participants would no longer be able to pretend they were merely doing the Empire’s business in their own, shall we say, creative way.”

  “Then you suspect some in the Fleet are involved?” one of the others asked.

  “I don’t suspect,” Pellaeon said. “I know.”

  For a long moment no one spoke. Pellaeon let the silence linger and harden, then gestured to the datapads in front of them. “But that’s not the issue here today. The issue is the proposed peace treaty, and whether you will support it. I suggest we adjourn for an hour so that you’ll have time to consider all the ramifications. Discuss it among yourselves if you like; I’ll be here if you have any questions you wish to ask privately.”

  He looked at each of them in turn. “At the end of that hour we’ll reconvene, and I’ll expect your answers. Any final questions? Very well, then; dismissed.”

  He turned again to the window, his back to the table, as they gathered their datapads and datacards and exited quietly from the room. The door slid shut, and Pellaeon took a careful breath. “Your comments?” he asked, turning around again.

  Ramic hadn’t moved from his seat. “I disagree completely,” the high general said bluntly. “The New Republic is going to self-destruct—you know it and I know it. The only questions are how violent the explosion will be and whether the trigger will be this Caamas thing we keep hearing about or something else. There’s no need for us to humiliate ourselves in front of aliens and alien-lovers this way.”

  “I understand your position,” Pellaeon said. “Is that your final word?”

  Ramic’s thin lips compressed briefly. “I don’t support your treaty, Admiral,” he said, standing up. “But I’m an Imperial officer, and I will obey my superiors. You and the Moffs have agreed; if and when the order to cease hostilities is given, I will obey it.”

  Some of the weight on Pellaeon’s shoulders eased a bit. “Thank you, General,” he said quietly.

  “Thank my family and its history of proud service,” Ramic countered. “They’re the ones who installed the sense of duty and loyalty in me.” He dropped his gaze to the table and set about gathering together his datacards. “Do you think the New Republic will accept your offer of a meeting?”

  “We’ll find out soon enough,” Pellaeon said. “Colonel Vermel should be reaching the Morishim system just about now.”

  “Yes,” Ramic murmured. He started for the door; paused and turned back. “You’re certain there are pirate gangs involved in all this?”

  “There’s no doubt at all,” Pellaeon assured him. “From what I’ve been able to piece together, they’re being hired to attack specified New Republic shipments. They get the booty; the Empire gets a degree of confusion and consternation in the New Republic; and the shadow partners, knowing which shipments are going to be hit, make money on the business and commodity exchanges.”

  Ramic shrugged. “Aside from that last, it sounds like perfectly reasonable privateer activity.”

  “Perhaps,” Pellaeon conceded. “The problem is that the ultimate decisions on which shipments are to be hit are coming from the shadow partners, not the High Command or Imperial Intelligence. And there are also strong indications that the sleeper cells Grand Admiral Thrawn set up are being raided to provide crewers for the gangs.”

  “If those alleged sleeper cells really exist,” Ramic rumbled. “I’ve never been convinced of that myself.”

  “If the troopers aren’t from the sleeper cells, then the conspirators are getting them from somewhere else,” Pellaeon said. “The only other choice is that they’re siphoning them off from the regular line forces.”

  Ramic’s face hardened. “If they’re doing that, I’ll personally help you flay the perpetrators. We don’t have enough troopers and crewers as it is.” His eyes narrowed slightly. “And which of us do you suspect of being in on it with Lord Graemon?”

  “General Kyte was the only one who reacted to his entrance,” Pellaeon said. “As such, he’s my prime suspect. With luck, he may panic and lead my Intelligence team to some of the others involved.”


  “Kyte won’t panic,” Ramic said. “But he might think it wise to alert them.”

  “Either way will suit me,” Pellaeon said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to spend a few minutes with Lord Graemon.”

  “Pulling on another thread of the web?”

  Pellaeon smiled grimly. “Something like that. I’ll see you and the others in an hour.”

  “Very well, sir.” For a moment Ramic studied his face. “I’d advise you to be careful, though. Every web has something nasty in the middle … and whoever’s in the middle of this one could well decide that with a peace treaty in the works the Empire doesn’t need a Supreme Fleet Commander anymore. Especially one who’s pulling pieces out of his web.”

  Pellaeon looked over at the room where Lord Graemon waited. “Yes,” he said quietly. “That thought has occurred to me.”

  The secret door slid open, and Disra looked up as Tierce strode into the room. “Well?” he demanded. “Did you get through to Dorja?”

  “Finally, yes.” Tierce nodded. “He reports the mission was more or less successful.”

  “ ‘More or less’?”

  Tierce shrugged. “Dorja said he had full-spectrum jamming going from the moment he emerged from hyperspace, but that some of Colonel Vermel’s signal might have gotten through before they took his Corvette aboard.”

  Disra hissed between his teeth. “Sloppy.”

  “That observation has already been expressed to him by our Grand Admiral,” Tierce said. “Apparently there were some X-wings and an unidentified yacht off Morishim that happened to be hanging around the Corvette’s incoming vector when he dropped out of hyperspace.”

  Disra snorted. “In my experience, X-wings don’t just ‘happen’ to hang around places.”

  “I agree,” Tierce said. “My guess is that they spotted the incoming ships somehow and went out to take a look. Possibly using the old Imperial spy center we abandoned on the surface, though how they would have located it I don’t know.”

  “Did Dorja have any idea how much of Vermel’s message might have gotten through?”