Star Wars: X-Wing I: Rogue Squadron (37 page)

Mirax killed the desire to haul off and smack the smug grin from Erisi’s face.
She was adrift in space and isn’t on a mission with her squadron—she’s bound to be muddy in her thinking
. “I’ll take that under advisement. Even
if
I felt something more for Corran, well, I make my living selling all sorts of things I might like for myself. In fact, I should be seeing to business right now. If you will excuse me.”

“Of course.” Erisi smiled sweetly, but it failed to cut the venom in her eyes. “We’ll speak again.”

Mirax mirrored her smile, then stalked off toward the
Pulsar Skate
. She headed up the gang-ramp and sniffed the air for traces of coolant. She smelled nothing, which should have made her happy, but the abbreviated conversation with Erisi left her uneasy.
And
, she realized,
it’s because of more than the imperious way she spoke to me
.

Mirax had learned to handle all manner of client attitudes toward her, but that had been easy since it was business, not personal. Erisi was giving her orders concerning her personal life. She even threatened business pressures to make Mirax change her personal life. While what Erisi offered was indeed very tempting, the practical result would be that Mirax would be selling a piece of herself and that was something she had long ago vowed never to do.

She wanted to convince herself that her upset came from the principle of the whole thing, but she couldn’t dismiss the nascent feelings she had for
Corran. It wasn’t love—of that she was pretty certain—but it
could
have moved toward it. At the very least Corran represented something from her past that provided an illusion of constancy to life.

She knew she could have hated him as easily as liked him, and she’d expected more negative feelings for him, but they just weren’t there. In bringing him the
ryshcate
and the black-market goods she’d expected an angry reaction from him. That would have been reason enough to think poorly of him, but he’d been gracious in accepting the gifts. She’d started to soften toward him that night, which is why she fled.

Mirax admitted to herself that she’d accepted Ooryl’s offer to get another shot at kindling negative feelings. She’d been prepared to sleep with Corran, and hate him in the morning if he’d seduced her with some “and tomorrow I may die” line. The fact that he hadn’t tried to seduce her, and had deftly sidestepped invitations to keep her warm in the night, confirmed what she had known all along—he was a bit more complex than the stereotypical CorSec officer.

She shivered.
I don’t need or want involvement with
anyone,
much less the son of the man who sent my father to Kessel. I also don’t want some bacta queen ordering me around
.

Her head came up as she realized her Sullustan pilot had spoken to her. “What?”

Liat Tsayv, the mouse-eared pilot, chittered at her again.

“No, I don’t know where we’re going because I don’t know what we’ll be hauling.”

The Sullustan canted his head to the side and muttered reprovingly.

“Well, for your information, I
didn’t
sleep with a pilot,
and
even if I
had
slept with him, he isn’t the
unit’s quartermaster. Have you thought of pulling a unit want list from Emtrey? No?” She pointed at the communications console. “Do it now.”

Liat punched up a comm frequency, then squeaked and squealed through a headset. Mirax hit another button and a holographic list featuring icons and dual buy/sell prices grew up from the holoplate in the middle of the
Skate’s
cockpit. She scanned the list quickly and saw most of it was military equipment, which was paid for with promises and brought a very low profit margin into the equation. Still, she was willing to bring it in provided she had some high-value cargo to make a run worth her time.

The consumer goods list began and she found it much more promising than the military list. Then some odd products started showing up. “Liat, ask for confirmation on the prices for fifteen through twenty-five inclusive.”

The Sullustan complied with the order, then nodded and rubbed his hands together greedily.

“Damn, this is not good.” Mirax smacked her hands together. “Tell the droid we’ll buy
all
he has of fifteen through twenty-five. Yes,
all
.”

Liat chirred angrily.

“I know we can’t fit it all in here. Negotiate an exclusivity contract with him. Give him whatever he wants. A partnership even. Just do it.” She snatched a comlink from the recharging port in the cockpit wall. “When you have it locked, call me. I’ll be out looking for Wedge’s XO. We have a problem, a big problem, and if I can’t head if off, I’ve got friends who are on their way to die.”

Wedge keyed his comm as the squadron came out of hyperspace and prepared for the second and final leg of their run into the Pyria system. He adjusted the power output for the comm so the signal would become weak and garbled outside the kilometer sphere in which the ships moved. Even though the comm would scramble the transmission and make it all but impossible for the Empire to decrypt, he wanted to take the further precaution of making the signal all but impossible to pull in.

“This is Rogue Leader. There is one final refinement to our plans that you should know about. There is no system codenamed Phenaru. We’re going back to Blackmoon.” Wedge waited for comments and protests, but only silence came in over his headset. He took that as a vote of confidence in him by his people and that brought a smile to his face.

“The mission as simulated was exact with the following exception—the simulated run through the asteroid belt to get into the planet was based on a run through the canyons on Borleias’s sole moon. We come in to the system behind it, swing around
on its surface, and take a direct shot at the nightside of the world. The moon is what will make leaving tough, but coming in it will shield us from unfriendlies on the world. Cometary fragments are causing meteor showers, so planet-based detection stations should have a hard time picking us up. Any questions?”

Bror’s voice growled through the speakers. “You’re saying, Commander, we’re getting another shot at the squints who escaped us last time?”

I was under the impression
we
were the ones who escaped last time
 … “That’s about the size of it. And there will be friendlies in the area, but not in fighters and they’ll be mute. Our mission is to hit the conduit and get back out. The fuel limitations are exactly what they were in the simulator.” Wedge hit a button on his console. “Speed and coordinates for the jump to hyperspace sent now. We’ll be three hours to Borleias, so use the time to review the run.”

The squadron went to light speed and Wedge checked his fuel level. Given mission parameters, distance from the moon to target, and expected fuel consumption rates he was in fine shape. On the run from the moon to Borleias he would begin burning fuel directly from the belly pod and begin to use it to refill what little fuel the escape from Noquivzor and the hyperspace jumps had burned from his main tank. The double duty would allow him to drain the pod more quickly and jettison it shortly after the end of the run to the target. The others would be following the same procedure, though the second and third flights would ditch their pods before they began valley runs.

Wedge felt confident his people would succeed in destroying the tunnel. That would allow the commandos, who were arriving in the system from a different direction and at a different time, to get in and
do their jobs before Defender Wing arrived. The exact timing of the commando operation had been kept from him, though Ackbar had said that if his people could help, it would be appreciated. He took that to mean the commandos and their arrival would overlap with Rogue Squadron’s operation, but the only help the Rogues could realistically offer would be to scatter the local fighters, and that was something he knew he could not possibly prevent his people from doing anyway.

“We’re good, we’re trained, and we know we have to succeed.” Wedge smiled and brought up a visual simulation of the valley run. “With a little luck and a lot of heart, there’s nothing that can stop us from succeeding.”

“But, Captain Celchu, you
must
tell me where they are.” Mirax waved a datapad at him. “I think the mission has been compromised.”

Tycho shook his head. “It’s impossible.”

She jerked a thumb at the door to his quarters. “Sure, and the Security officers standing guard over you told me it was impossible for me to speak with you, but I’m here aren’t I?”

“There are degrees of impossible, I guess.” Tycho raked fingers back through brown hair. “The thing of it is that I can’t tell you where they’re off to—I don’t know.”

“How’s that?” Mirax watched him carefully. “You’re the unit’s Executive Officer. You
must
know.”

“Sorry.”

“Who does know?”

“Here? Emtrey.”

“Get him here.”

“Ms. Terrik, I know you’re a friend of Commander
Antilles, and I know he sets great store by you, but …”

Mirax held a hand up. “Look, I wouldn’t be here except that I think their mission has been compromised and they may be walking into a trap. Get the droid here, because I think he’s part of it. I’ll explain by the time he gets here, and if you don’t like the explanation, kick me out and send him on his way. Please. I don’t want your friends and mine to die.”

“All right. Please, sit down.” Tycho fished a comlink from his pocket. “Captain Celchu to Emtrey, please report to my quarters. This is urgent.”

“On my way, Captain.”

Mirax sat in a simple canvas campaign chair and cleared a stack of datacards from the proton torpedo crate Tycho used as a low table. She set her datapad down. “Do you have a holoplate to project data?”

He shook his head and scooped another pile of datacards from the table to the foot of his bed, then sat down beside them. “I’ve got a good imagination. What have you got?”

She glanced at the datapad and organized her thoughts. “Right after they jumped out of this system, I had my pilot pull a trade list from Emtrey. It has a lot of military items and some black market stuff. There were new additions to the normal list and all of those products were native to Alderaan. They’ve become quite rare over the last five years, but all had ridiculously low sell prices.”

Tycho’s blue eyes narrowed. “It’s not like they’re being made anymore.”

“Right.” She leaned forward for emphasis. “Get this—none of them had
buy
prices. I’ve seen enough people price their goods over the years that this pattern tells me Emtrey has uncovered a source for
these materials that means he’s getting them for little or nothing. Now since no one in Rogue Squadron has mentioned finding or recovering some lost trove of Alderaanian goods, and this list is current, I’m thinking the droid is projecting the availability of products following this mission.”

Tycho sat back and scowled. “I can see how you made that assumption, but …”

“Couple it with this: There’s been a rumor floating around about a new source for Alderaanian goods, but the prices have been prohibitively high. I assumed the Empire was releasing stockpiles to soak up credits being held by Alderaanian expatriates, denying the Rebellion a source of needed money. If there
is
a source, be it an Imperial storehouse or something else, I think Rogue Squadron is headed toward it. And it doesn’t take much brains to see such a place would be a prime target for the Alliance, given how many Alderaanian nomads would love another piece of their world.”

“Count me among their number. Such a storehouse would be an inviting target for a raid, and a logical site for an Imperial trap.” Tycho rubbed his hands over his face and sighed heavily. “This doesn’t look good, does it?”

“I’ve arranged to take all of these items that Emtrey can provide, so the list is clear right now. No one else can get access to it. No one else knows of it, as nearly as I know, so the leak should have stopped there.”

“Still, there
is
a chance that the information could have gotten out.”

“Exactly.” Mirax popped up out of her chair as the door opened and Emtrey came in.

“Good morning, Captain Celchu, Ms. Terrik. How may I be of service?”

Mirax grabbed the droid’s left arm. “You have to tell me where Rogue Squadron is going.”

“I’m afraid, Ms. Terrik, that information is classified. Neither you nor Captain Celchu are authorized to know that information. To provide it to you would be to compromise …”

“Emtrey, that list you gave me this morning already compromises the location.”

“I’m afraid that’s impossible.”

Tycho boosted himself up off the bunk. “Where are you getting the Alderaanian goods you’re offering for sale?”

The droid twitched and the tone of his voice shifted slightly. “If I reveal my sources, you’ll cut in on my action. No way.”

Mirax stared incredulously at the droid, then turned back toward Tycho. “Can you believe this?”

“No, in fact, I can’t.”

“I’m just protecting my profit margin here.”

“Emtrey, this is a matter of life and death.”

“Sure it is, Ms. Terrik, the death of my business.”

Tycho stood abruptly. “Emtrey, shut up.”

The droid looked at him strangely, tilting his head. “I wasn’t saying anything, sir.”

“His voice has changed.”

“I notice.” Tycho’s eyes narrowed. “Shut up.”

“I beg your pardon, sir.”

“Shut up.”

The droid’s arms snapped to its sides so quickly that Mirax lost her grip on him. The clamshell head canted forward, making the droid bow its head until its chin touched its chest. At the top of its neck, previously hidden by the head, Mirax saw a glowing red button.

“What’s going on, Captain?”

Tycho half shrugged. “I’m not certain, really, but the droid is in a wait-state, it seems. I discovered
this little trick when I was ferrying him to the Talasea system and we came across your ship. We were in combat and he wouldn’t stop nattering. I ended up yelling at him to shut up and after the third time, this happened. He remains like this until roused. What’s important right now is that until we hit the red button and reset him, he’s little more than a remote with access to all Emtrey’s memories.”