Wedge's Gamble (25 page)

Someone in an upper gallery shouted down, “We were there at Endor. A Mon Cal led the fleet at Endor. We have contributed to the war against the Empire.”

“He’s right,” Asyr crowed. “We were there at Endor—without Bothans, Endor would not have happened. A Sullustan piloted the
Millennium Falcon
and it killed the second Death Star. Your points are for naught.”

Nawara smiled slowly. “Yes, we were there at Endor, but Men fired the shots that destroyed that Death Star. Men killed the Emperor. Even so, the point you bring up to protest mine makes my case for me. We would
not
have been at Endor except that the Men who began the Rebellion, the Men who bled and died for its first victories, the Men who allowed us in, brought us in, welcomed us with open arms. You accuse this Man of bigotry because he felt relief when you left him alone, yet you are willing to treat him as a loyal son of the Empire when you already know that to do so is to discard any possibility that he hates the Empire just as much as you do.”

Dmaynel shrugged casually. “If he hated the Empire that much, he would be out fighting it, not here hiding at its heart.”

Nawara hesitated for a second and Gavin shook his head.
Don’t blow mission security. It’s better they kill me and our mission remain secret than to let the Empire know we’re here. Too many people would hear the explanation for us to be safe
.

The Twi’lek stroked his chin. “And what if his loyalty to the Rebellion can be demonstrated?”

Dmaynel shrugged. “The Rebellion is far away. It will be years before I have to deal with them, and by then, this one will be forgotten. Right now he can serve notice on the Empire that we will no longer tolerate their predation upon us. Kill him.”

The Gotal took careful aim with his blaster, but before he could pull the trigger, earsplitting explosions and bright flashes buckled the metal door to Gavin’s left. The metal ribbon flopped down over the Twi’leks and Rodian standing guard. A cylindrical Ubrikkian HAVr A9 Floating Fortress cruised forward. The repulsorlift field pressed the door flat against the floor causing dark fluids to gush out from beneath it. The blaster cannon turret atop the vehicle spun to the right and the two spotlights on either side pinpointed the Devaronian. In the vehicle’s wake two dozen armored stormtroopers poured into the warehouse.

Light from the machine’s cockpit control panel revealed an image of the Fortress’s Commander holding a comlink up to his mouth. “This is an unlawful assembly. You will lay down your weapons and disperse peacefully when given leave to do so. If you do not, my orders are clear. So are my fields of fire.”

24

Wedge smiled as the white-haired woman walked through the door Iella had opened. “The Provisional Council must be serious about taking Coruscant. They have you here.” He offered her his hand. “It’s been a while, Winter—and you’d know exactly how long it’s been, right?”

“I would, Commander Antilles, which is why, like you, I’m here.” Winter shook his hand, then greeted Iella. Turning to face Pash, she nodded. “You would be General Cracken’s son.”

“The legendary Winter. I’m honored.” Pash bowed in her direction.

Mirax stood and shook Winter’s hand. “I’m Mirax Terrik.”

Winter nodded. “And the reason I was summoned here.” She looked over at Iella. “Nothing in our files indicates Imperial involvement with her.”

Pash frowned. “Being my father’s son, I have a question that you may not want to answer, but I have to ask. Commander Antilles and I were with Iella and Mirax the whole time we were coming here and we didn’t see Iella make contact. How did you know to come here?”

Winter’s expression became more serious, heightening
her resemblance to Princess Leia. “The account number Iella used to gain access to the datapad in the dress shop was special. Various things about the dress design selected, such as the colors, were sliced into municipal computers. At certain points around the city—in this case on a moving sidewalk—a pattern of lights communicated to me enough information that I knew to come here. There are backup systems to handle things if there is no response, but everything worked well, so it was no problem.”

Wedge nodded appreciatively. “It’s nice that you can slice into Coruscant’s central computer.”

Winter shook her head. “We can’t. The safeguards there are too heavy for us to get in cleanly and out again. The central computer is attached to roughly a dozen auxiliary computer centers that are intended as backup, but are used primarily for low-level administrative and commercial applications. We can get into them and do so on a regular basis, but none of the patches we’ve tried to insert into the central computer have made it.”

Iella sat back down. “If we could bring the central computer down we’d be set because it controls all the important things, like the shields and ground-based fighter defenses.”

“The shields are the key.” Wedge perched himself on the arm of the couch next to Mirax. “If they go down I tend to think most of the citizenry would support a change in government.”

Winter sat beside Iella. “Overall security here is not as tight as I might have expected it to be under Ysanne Isard’s control. That goes for the Imperial Palace, too. I was seated on the promenade nearly four hours drinking espcaf and saw nothing special. We almost had a problem when an Imp Intel officer just happened by. I was afraid one of my companions was going to attack Loor, but he kept his temper under control, just barely, but under control.”

Iella’s eyes narrowed. “Kirtari Loor is here, on Coruscant?”

Winter nodded.

Mirax raised an eyebrow. “Sounds like the kind of reaction Corran would have had to Loor.”

Iella’s jaw dropped. “You know Corran?” Mirax looked up and stared blankly at Iella for a moment, then blinked with astonishment. Both women then turned to Wedge.

“Corran’s here?” Mirax asked.

“And he’s in Rogue Squadron?” Iella added. “Is Whistler still with him?”

Wedge held his hands up. “I don’t know exactly where he is, but he
is
on Coruscant. Iella, I know you were his partner in CorSec. I didn’t mention his being in Rogue Squadron because you didn’t seem to have that information yourself, which means New Republic Intelligence didn’t let you have it. Operational security and all that.”

Winter nodded. “Corran Horn is here, but he has no droid with him.”

Mirax frowned. “How did you know Whistler was a droid?”

“Two years ago Corran Horn ran from CorSec taking an X-wing and an R2 unit with him. He was spotted as a prospect then, but we lost track of him. A year and a half later he joins Rogue Squadron, implying he has great skill as a pilot. This implies practice flying while he was on the run. This means he kept his R2 unit, so I decided Iella’s question was about a droid, since X-wings have notoriously little capacity for dragging pets or other people around in them.”

Mirax sat back. “You’re good.”

“Thank you.”

Wedge winced. “Corran’s here with Erisi.”

Mirax growled. “The bacta queen.”

Iella glanced at her. “The way you said that … but you’re Booster Terrik’s daughter. You and Corran couldn’t be …”

“We’re just good friends.”

Iella laughed. “Not the first time I’ve heard that said in exactly that way. The stories I could tell you.”

“Without Corran here to defend himself, I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Wedge looked over at Winter. “Mirax’s exit identity was blown by the Imps, leaving her stuck here after she dropped off what was probably the rest of my squadron.”

“All of them, even Ooryl. They’re in Invisec, or at least that’s where I left them.”

“Thanks. What we’re trying to determine is if the Imps picked Mirax up at random, or if the security on this operation has been blown. Any problems with Corran and Erisi?”

“None.” Winter thought for a second. “I had a team watching them for the first couple of nights to see if any Imps showed an interest in them, but that turned out negative. Those teams were shifted to monitor Imp sweeps in Invisec. They seem to be picking up Gamorreans and Quarren, but no one is certain why.”

As Winter spoke staccato flickers of color outside prompted Wedge to look toward one of the windows. Bright flashes of red and green blaster bolts lit the thoroughfare outside. He studied the tableau for a moment, trying to make sense of it, then his jaw dropped as his brain sorted out what he was actually seeing. “Everyone down!”

Having no time to explain his warning shout, he grabbed on to the arm of the couch and wrenched it over backward. Mirax’s hands shot out to both sides as she fought to balance herself, with her left hand locking in a death grip on Pash’s shirtfront. She pulled her legs up and in to protect them, inadvertently making it just that much easier for Wedge to tip the couch over.

Over he went with it. He slipped to the side, ducking in toward Mirax, barely managing to pull his left leg in to safety. His hands came up to cover his head and he expected a nasty bash when he hit the floor, but that was the least of his worries.
I hope the couch will be armor enough!

Outside, the speeder bike he had seen flying toward the window finally hit. It broadsided the wall of transparisteel with a solid thump, bursting through to spin into the room. The rider went one way and the speeder bike the other, between them sowing a glittering rain of lethal crystalline shrapnel throughout what was supposed to be, ironically enough, a safehouse.

25

Corran let himself sag toward the man on his right. The man jabbed him again with the gun to shove him away. Corran moved to the left but when he could no longer feel the gun in his ribs he took a step backward. The man on his right pulled the blaster’s trigger, sending a scarlet bolt of energy into the Trandoshan’s belly. It opened a smoking hole there, hurling the reptile back onto a table that collapsed under his weight.

Corran’s left hand dropped over the top of the blaster and pulled. At the same time his right elbow came up and out, catching the shooter between mouth and nose. Twisting slightly, Corran pulled the man around between him and Zekka Thyne. He tore the blaster from the man’s grip, then gave him a sidekick that propelled him toward Thyne.

Without waiting to see what happened, Corran spun and ran a zigzag course toward the doorway. The whine of blaster fire filled the room. Bolts burned past his legs and over his head, lighting little guttering fires on either side of the doorway. Remembering what he’d observed on his way in, Corran dove forward into a somersault, then came up to his feet at the base of the shadowed stairs.
Shifting the gun to his right hand, he brought his arm up and fired back over his shoulder to discourage pursuit.

Bursting out through the doorway, he kicked a Rodian off a speeder bike, settled himself in the saddle, and dropped it into first gear. Cranking the throttle, he shot off and headed for the nearest canyonlike intersection that would allow him to lose himself in the city. He instantly regretted not having shot up the other speeder bikes in front of the Headquarters, but a glance back at his pursuit suggested returning to do that now would be suicide.

If I’m going to die, I’d prefer it on my terms, in my time
. Doing what he’d done back in the cantina had been stupid, but that was the only option he had when being faced with death. There had been no doubt in his mind—or the minds of anyone else in that cantina—that Thyne was going to kill him. That knowledge was the reason Corran knew the man on his right would hesitate before shooting—robbing Thyne of his kill would be as fatal as being Corran Horn in that situation.

Corran clutched and shifted with his feet, then gave the bike more throttle with his right hand. Using his thumb he hit the suicide-cruise button, keeping the throttle constant, then shoved the blaster down onto a pair of snap-clips that held it perfectly at the muzzle and trigger guard. With his left hand he rotated the vector-shift back, canting the forward directional vanes up, and hung on as the speeder bike climbed toward a hovering skyhook.

I don’t remember the Incom Zoom II being this responsive, but it looks like the Rodian had this one all tricked out. Good thing for me, I guess
. He hunkered down and rotated the speeder bike to put its bulk between him and the blaster bolts being shot by his pursuit. The Incom speeder bike didn’t have any weaponry built onto it. The small data display between the throttle and vector handles constantly had stuff scrolling across it, but it was all in Rodian, which meant Corran had no idea what was going on.
As long as I go fast, does it really matter?

Rolling the bike and playing with the vector-shift, he straightened it out and sent it screaming along through one of the upper canyons. He aimed the speeder bike well away from the mountainous Imperial Palace and cut around a skyhook tether. Shifting his weight and giving the vector-shift nudges now and again, he kept the speeder bike juking and bouncing as the wind tugged at his hair and blaster bolts streaked scarlet past him. Some of them were heavier than those a handheld blaster could produce, letting him know that some of the machines were military surplus and in good working order.

He glanced back, but in the darkness all he could see was blaster bolts coming at him. The riders coming up behind were getting better with their shots and Corran realized that flying up high and in the open was playing to their strength.
I need a tight course with few shots available. That means down!

Hanging on tightly he inverted and cranked the vector-shift back. The speeder bike dove through the night, flashing past level after level of apartments, malls, offices, and grand promenades. Chopping the throttle back, Corran threw his weight to the left and hooked the bike around and back up through a narrow space between two towers. Leaning back to the right, he came around the cylindrical tower and shot off down an alley.

A scattering of blaster bolts scored the walls around him. Corran broke left, then cut the throttle back and shifted into neutral. A tug on the vector-shift brought his bike around in a flat spin that he killed by goosing the thrust to kill his momentum. Hanging there in the air, he filled his hand with the blaster and braced his hand on the speeder bike’s chassis.