Wedge's Gamble (7 page)

“Leia, it’s Mon Mothma. If you have a moment, I have some things to discuss with you.”

“On my way.” Leia snapped the comlink off, then leaned over and gave Wedge a kiss on the cheek. “You may be right—we have changed, but I’m thankful that it’s not so much that I can’t sit with an old friend and relax for a minute or two. I’ll see you later, Wedge.”

“Good-bye, Leia.” Wedge stood as she departed.
Change we have, Leia, but change for the better, I think. Seven years is a long time, but I think we can handle seven more
. He smiled.
And maybe another seven after that
.

A man came out onto the patio and turned in Wedge’s direction. Though white hair dominated the red on his head, his green eyes and sharp cheekbones made the resemblance to his son unmistakable. Wedge snapped to attention and saluted.

The man stopped and returned the salute, then offered Wedge his hand. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Commander Antilles.”

“Likewise, General Cracken. Is there something I can do for you?”

The General pointed Wedge back to his chair. “If you have a moment.”

Wedge resumed his place. “Go ahead.”

“I wanted to thank you for taking my son in as a member of your Rogue Squadron.”

“Thank me?” Wedge chuckled. “There are very few parents that would consider their children joining Rogue Squadron a good thing.”

“I think you will find I am rather unlike most parents, Commander.” The elder Cracken had the same general build as his son, though he had thickened a bit in the middle and jowls were just beginning to form on him. “Many other commanders would have rejected him just because of his connection to me. They would assume I was using him as an agent to audit their activity.”

“Are you?”

“Should I be?”

Wedge shrugged. “I don’t think so, but General Salm has concerns over the security of my unit.”

“I’m aware of the Celchu situation but I am not overly concerned by it. I trust you will report any problem in that regard.”

“Of course.”

“I expected nothing less.” Cracken rubbed his hands together. “Pash is a very talented man—I say this as his father and as a New Republic officer. His early success put him in a position where it was difficult for him to do anything else of apparent consequence, which meant he would have to push himself above and beyond his abilities to succeed. While I have no doubt he has not yet found the upper range of his talents, clearly his people could not keep up with him. His desire to do more was tempered by his knowledge that he could easily get them killed. It was a situation that would end up with him hating himself—either for having done nothing, or having gotten his people killed.

“By joining you he will be challenged. You’re a good man, Antilles. You don’t take chances when you don’t need to, but you don’t shrink from doing the jobs that need to be done. You’ve found the balance my son needs to find for himself. I don’t expect you’ll get him killed, but if he does die as a Rogue, I know he’ll have been doing the best
he could to do the best for the Rebellion. I’d hate to lose him, but if he has to go, doing so in that way isn’t bad.”

“I hope Rogue Squadron will live up to your expectations.”

“I’m sure it will.”

The confidence in Airen Cracken’s voice made Wedge’s stomach tighten. “Should it concern me, sir, that the head of Alliance Intelligence has just told me that his son will find his time in my unit
challenging
?”

“ ‘Concern’ you, Commander?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Oh, I should think so, Commander Antilles.” Cracken nodded solemnly. “Very much so, indeed.”

6

Whistler’s warble made Corran look up at the timer on his green and white X-wing’s main display. “Five minutes until we come out of hyperspace, thanks.” The countdown marked the end of a two-leg run from Borleias to Mrisst that took a total of five hours to complete. Taking the precaution of hitting a transit system before arriving at Mrisst struck Corran as unnecessary, if the intelligence they were reacting to was correct.
Our target already knows where we live
.

Mirax Terrik had arrived at Borleias aboard her ship, the
Pulsar Skate
, after a trade run that had included a visit to Mrisst. Being a smuggler of no small amount of skill, she had pulled a copy of the local system traffic reports from Mrisst control to see who was operating in her area and might prove to be competition. One of the ships on the list was a freighter by the name of
Vengeance Derra IV
. When she arrived on Borleias she asked Emtrey for any information he had on the ship, and that resulted in their recon flight.

Corran fought to clear his mind and focus on the mission. That was not an easy task because of two bits of information the squadron had received a couple of hours
prior to the mission being planned and launched. The first was confirmation by Thyferran officials of Bror Jace’s death. He had been the hottest Rogue pilot in the squadron’s first five missions, amassing twenty-two kills to eclipse Corran’s mark by one. Upon his return from his last mission, he was called back to Thyferra because of a relative’s impending death, but he had never arrived at his destination. Everyone had feared the worst, but until Thyferran officials backtracking his intended route had found debris from a destroyed X-wing, everyone had hoped for the best.

Though Corran and Bror had been rivals, they had also understood each other. Without that understanding, Corran probably would have accepted news of his death as easily as the others did. The Thyferrans reported that an Imperial Interdictor cruiser had been working in that general area, so the scenario appeared to be that Jace had been pulled out of hyperspace a bit prematurely and jumped by TIEs and destroyed. It seemed plausible to Corran except that no one reported finding any TIE fighter debris.

If I got jumped, I would have taken some of them with me
. Corran did admit to himself that Bror could have been surprised and killed with a lucky shot or two, but that struck him as unlikely. If his ship had malfunctioned or something else had gone wrong, then Bror would have been helpless. The problem with that theory was that the unit’s chief tech, a Verpine named Zraii, kept the X-wings in prime condition. Unless someone had tampered with the ship, the chances of a malfunction were slim and none.

The Interdictor cruiser had been reported to be the
Black Asp
. It might have been coincidence, but the Rogues had fought against that ship in their first engagement. Corran had come as close to dying in that fight—one where they had been dragged out of hyperspace by accident—as he ever wanted to get again. If not for Tycho Celchu’s intervention he would have been dead or, worse yet, a guest at some Imperial penal colony.

He would have been inclined to let the
Black Asp’
s appearance pass for coincidence except for the second bit of information that came through to him. Emtrey had been trying to locate information on Gil Bastra, the man who had been Corran’s superior at CorSec. Gil had been the one to fabricate the identities under which Corran, his human partner, and her husband had fled from Corellia. Corran had asked the droid to look for information because of a spurious report indicating that Gil had been caught and killed by Imperial authorities.

Emtrey had found a report that confirmed the original death notice, but this one elaborated on the cause of death. Gil had been killed during a botched interrogation by Intelligence Agent Kirtan Loor. Loor had been the Imperial Liaison to Corran’s CorSec division and no love had been lost between them.
I never liked him even before he let my father’s murderer walk free
.

A lump rose in Corran’s throat. He rubbed at it with his right hand, the heel of which pressed his medallion against his breastbone. His father had kept the medal as a lucky charm. It was the only memento of his father he had left since he fled from Corellia and Mirax had identified it as a commemorative medal struck to mark a Corellian Jedi Knight’s elevation to the rank of Master. The feel of the gold medallion helped him remember the good times with his father, and that eased the tension in his throat.

Corran knew it was a fallacy to think that two facts linked by time had a causal relationship, but he could not shake the gut feeling that Kirtan Loor had been involved somehow with Bror Jace’s ambush and death. The report about Gil’s death had indicated Loor had been summoned to Coruscant and assigned “new duties.” Corran had no doubt that no matter what Loor was supposed to be doing, he would continue to look for a way to get back at Corran for eluding capture at Corellia.
If Loor found out that I was with Rogue Squadron, he’d do anything he could to strike at me, even if he could only kill my friends
.

Corran bounced his helmet back against the ejection seat’s headrest. “Think about Loor later, now you have a mission to run.” He glanced at the cockpit chronometer. “Ten seconds to reversion to realspace. Hang on, Whistler, we’re going in hot.”

The wall of light outside the cockpit exploded into a million pinpoints of light as Rogue Squadron burst into the GaTir system. Their jump had been plotted with spectacular precision—exceeding even that for which Sullustans were renowned—so they appeared below the planetary plane, heading in toward Mrisst via the south pole. Pash Cracken had suggested that approach since the austral-polar continent was known to be too geologically unstable for the Mrisst Trade and Science Academy to have set up any astronomical observation posts.

Rogue Squadron had not expected to arrive unnoticed, but they wanted as little data about them collected for as long as possible. If
Vengeance
was monitoring the same sort of traffic control reports that Mirax had pulled, the arrival of eight X-wings would attract attention. The arrival of eight mongrel snubfighters—for that was what Rogue Squadron’s navigational beacons proclaimed them to be—would barely be noticed.

Data collection from stations on the planet would eventually be collated with the traffic data and point out that the “Uglies”—to use the Corellian nickname for such rebuilt craft—were performing like X-wings in good repair. With sufficient luck this anomaly wouldn’t be noticed until after the mission was over. Corran was willing to settle for it being overlooked until they’d found
Vengeance
.

The X-wings swept up and around the fringes of Mrisst’s atmosphere and caught their first glimpse of
Vengeance
glinting in sunlight. “Whistler, what’s the ship next to
Vengeance?
”

The droid chittered for a moment, then displayed the answer on Corran’s secondary monitor. The ship was a medium-sized transport calling itself
Contruum’s Pride
. Whistler appended to his identification a criminal behavior
code that Corran recognized as meaning the ships were moving in tandem, remaining steady to facilitate the transfer of cargo.
This is just like spotting smugglers back with CorSec
.

Before Corran could key his comm unit and let the others know
Pride
was in league with
Vengeance
, Pash Cracken’s voice filled the comm channel. “Twelve,
Pride
is bad.”

“How do you know that, Four?” Captain Nunb asked.

“Contruum’s my homeworld. Naming conventions for ships restrict virtues to capital ships. Transports are named for beasts of burden and rivers.”

Corran keyed his comm unit. “Four is correct, Twelve.
Pride
is transferring cargo to or taking it from
Vengeance
.”

“We have two for the taking, then. S-foils in attack position.”

Corran reached up and hit the appropriate switch. The fighter’s stabilizers split and locked into the position that gave the X-wing its name. Off to the starboard side of his ship he saw the four fighters in Two Flight move out under Cracken’s command. Corran served as Captain Nunb’s wingman, with Rhysati Ynr and Erisi Dlarit in Rogues Seven and Eight completing One Flight.

Captain Nunb’s voice filled the comm channel. “Starships
Vengeance Derra IV
and
Contruum’s Pride
, this is Captain Aril Nunb of Rogue Squadron. You have violated New Republic space. Stand down. Drop your shields. Prepare to surrender your vessels.”

Corran’s green eyes narrowed as the ships began to move apart. “Be alert, Rogues. They’re moving and the one thing we know
Vengeance
needs more of is TIEs.”

As if summoned by his words, a dozen TIE starfighters and interceptors boiled out of the gap between the two ships.

“They needed pilots, too, Nine.”

“Which they apparently got, Four.”

“Cut the chatter. Two Flight, take
Vengeance
. One Flight, we have cover.”

“As ordered, Twelve.” Corran flexed his right hand, then took firm hold on the flightstick. He thumbed his lasers over to dual-offset mode that fired them in pairs. Doing that meant each shot packed less power, but he got a faster rate of fire. In the sort of wheeling, twisting dogfight the eyeballs and squints promised, rapid fire was devoutly to be desired. “I have your wing, Twelve.”

No sooner had he said that than Nunb’s ship sideslipped to port, then dove toward the planet. Corran had no idea why she’d done that, but he followed her as best he could, remaining off her starboard stabilizer and back a bit. As he started to follow her as she pulled up and out of the dive, he saw her lasers flash and the lead eyeball exploded.

“Nice shooting, Twelve.”

Her only reply came in a snap-roll up onto her port stabilizer that she quickly reversed. The stern of her ship slid to starboard as she applied rudder, swinging the nose of her craft to port. It tracked along the course of the TIE that had taken her snap-roll feint. Nunb’s quad shot clipped the port wing on the eyeball and sent it spinning off into space.

“You have lead, Nine.”

“As ordered, Twelve.” Corran glanced at his scanner and found a pair of Interceptors angling in from above. He pulled back on his stick, rolled, and acquired his first target. He set up for a head-to-head pass, then cut his throttle back. Bringing the port stabilizer up, he let the fighter sideslip to the right, then he applied port rudder and repeated Nunb’s tracking shot on the lead squint.