Solo Command (20 page)

Ven smiled. “You’re asking me?” He gestured down to the lower portion of his right leg, the one that had been amputated in Ven’s last mission as a Rogue Squadron pilot.

“I’m sorry. I forgot about that. But, yes, I’m asking. It’s serious. It’s what Tal’dira called me just before he died.”

“Oh.” Ven’s eyes lost focus as he stared back into his memory. “I can’t think of one.”

“Odd. What would cause him—” Wedge’s eyes opened wider. “Cause. Effect. What’s the cause and what’s the effect?”

“I’m not following you—”

“It didn’t matter whether Admiral Ackbar died. Or Mon Mothma. Their assassins were successful.”

“What? No, they weren’t.”

“Yes, they were. Koyi Komad was their first victim.”

Ven’s expression suggested that he was within seconds of calling in the medics to deal with his commander.

“Get the Wraiths together,” Wedge said. “We’re going to conduct one of their insane speculation and planning sessions. Pilots’ lounge. And invite any Rogues who want to attend. As usual, with Zsinj, we have to dig one level farther down.” Wedge was in the corridor before Ven had a chance to rise to his feet.

All the Wraiths were there, except Runt and Janson, whose injuries kept them in bacta-tank treatment for the time being, and so were Tycho, Hobbie, and Corran Horn of the Rogues. Donos decided that Tyria and Horn looked unusually glum, and couldn’t blame them. At least Tyria had someone to offer her support; Kell stayed next to her. The others were keeping a little distance between themselves and Horn; whether it was out of respect for his feelings or because of their own unease at being in the presence of someone who had just killed one of his squadmates, Donos couldn’t tell.

Wedge walked in, his bootheels clattering. “So we know about a sudden rise in terrorist activity by Twi’leks,” he said without preamble. “We’ve determined to our own satisfaction that Zsinj is behind them.”

Ven said, “Though we lack evidence to prove it conclusively.”

“Not important for our discussion. Why is Zsinj doing this?”

“To hurt the New Republic,” Kell said. “Losing Admiral Ackbar and Mon Mothma would be a serious blow.”

Wedge took a seat and nodded. “Sure, it would. And they’d be replaced by people who probably aren’t quite as good as they are at their tasks. If everyone on the Inner Council were murdered, we’d have an Inner Council that was just a little less adept at doing what it does. Not exactly a master stroke on Zsinj’s part.” He leaned forward, still oddly intent. “This morning at six hundred hours I was obliged to relieve every Twi’lek aboard
Mon Remonda
of active duty. And that, I think, is what Zsinj wanted.”

“To be rid of our Twi’leks?” Kell asked.

Wedge shook his head, but it was Horn who spoke up. “Suddenly the Twi’leks are second-class citizens. Rumor has it that Gotals will be next because of the attempt on Mon Mothma’s life and the follow-up shootings.”

Lara said, “Twi’leks and Gotals don’t make up much of a percentage of the New Republic armed forces. They’re not even signatories to the New Republic; there are just a fair number of them in service. I mean, their loss is important, sure … but it’s not going to cripple the fleet.”

“It’ll cripple the entire New Republic,” Wedge said. “Right now, it’s one species making up a fraction of one percent of the New Republic population. But we suddenly have a precedent that divides them from the New Republic. In their eyes, it casts humans as villains. To human eyes, the Twi’leks and Gotals are already starting to look like villains. What if, tomorrow, it’s a species that has been with the Alliance since the start of the Rebellion? An important contributor to the New Republic cause?”

Donos saw the Wraiths and Rogues looking among themselves as the idea took root. He drew a breath. “Until this three-pronged attack on you, sir, and on General Solo and Dr. Gast, we had no real reason to believe that it was Zsinj’s work.”

“Correct,” Wedge said. “It could have been an Imperial project, a criminal action, or an actual species-based conspiracy. But in trying to kill us under the same umbrella of this false conspiracy story, he’s shown his hand.”

“Which does us no good,” Donos said. “We’re not going to be able to convince the Provisional Council of this theory.”

“Why not?” Wedge looked challenged, rather than angry, at the statement.

“Who’s going to convince them of it? Ackbar? He trusted the Twi’lek who almost killed him. Mon Mothma? She’s injured, not capable of leadership at the moment. Princess Leia? Off on some diplomatic mission. Han Solo? He’d have to leave the fleet, and abandoning his task is not the way to make the Provisional Council confident in him. You?” Donos repressed a wince at the words he’d have to say. “You, sir, also trusted the Twi’lek who almost killed you.”

Wedge nodded. “Correct. But here’s the answer to your question. To convince the Provisional Council, we’re all going to become geniuses.”

“I vote we start with Elassar,” Lara said. “He has the farthest to go.”

The Devaronian pilot winced. “No more. I surrender.”

“What kind of geniuses?” asked Ven.

“Prophetic ones. The kind who can tell the Provisional Council just what’s going to happen next. What’s Zsinj’s next step? If we can predict it, we can convince the powers that be that they’re dealing with a methodical plan of Zsinj’s … not a conspiracy of terror against humankind.” He looked among them. “Otherwise, in six months, a year, the New Republic consists of humans on one side, nonhumans on the other, no possible trust or interdependence between them … and Zsinj can march in and take whatever he wants.”

“I have a thought.” That was Piggy. “A theory. About where I fit into Zsinj’s plan.”

“Go ahead.”

“We know for a certainty that Zsinj has for some time been trying to create very intelligent examples of humanoids not known for their intelligence,” Piggy said. “The question, especially as it relates to your other theory, is why?”

“Obviously,” Tycho said, “to have intelligent agents who could infiltrate those species, and therefore not look out of place in locations where those species are found.”

“Correct.” Piggy nodded in the exaggerated way of Gamorreans. “But that’s only part of the equation. What does a leader require in an agent in addition to intelligence? More important than intelligence?”

“Loyalty,” Lara said. Her voice seemed a little sad. Donos gave her a close look. She saw his sudden interest, shook her head to suggest that her momentary disquiet was nothing.

“Correct,” Piggy said. “Yet I am not loyal to Zsinj. I underwent no indoctrination from youth, nothing like the teaching the stormtroopers receive. Why not? Was I just a laboratory test specimen? Was I to be purged when tests on me were complete?”

Nawara Ven nodded. “Possibly so.”

“Yes. But consider. Zsinj would not have embarked on a process like the creation of me and the other hyperintelligent humanoids without making some provision for loyalty. What if he found a way to instill it by force rather than through training?”

“Like brainwashing.” Tycho’s voice was flat, hard. Donos noticed that the captain now sat absolutely still. Small wonder: Tycho had at one time been suspected of being a brainwashed agent of Ysanne Isard, the former head of Imperial Intelligence. “You think the assassins were brainwashed by this technique.”

“Yes,” Piggy said. “But we know we’re not facing brainwashing as we have experienced it before. The Twi’lek who attacked me and Admiral Ackbar might have been brainwashed, but he was missing only for a week—a possible, but very short—amount of time to do such a thing. From the time he joined Rogue Squadron, what was the longest time Tal’dira was out of sight of the other members? His longest leave?”

Tycho and Wedge conferred, and Tycho said, “About a day at a time. Various leaves on Coruscant.”

“One day.” Piggy nodded. “If we assume that Tal’dira was a victim and not a conspirator, then he was brainwashed in less than a day. Surely such a treatment must leave evidence on the body of the victim. Signs of probes. Blood chemical imbalances from drug treatments. Neurological disorders. Something.”

“Unfortunately,” Wedge said, “we don’t have Tal’dira’s body to examine. Or Flight Officer Tualin’s. We might be able
to put in a request to Admiral Ackbar to see if he can perform autopsies on his attacker and Mon Mothma’s. And the two Gotal shooters.”

“If only Doctor Gast had survived,” Piggy said. “I feel no sense of loss at her passing; in fact, I am met with relief. But in retrospect, I wish we had the knowledge she possessed.”

Wedge and Nawara Ven exchanged a glance. “We’ll have to do without,” Wedge said. “All right, let’s get to work on these theories of ours … and see whether we can have successful careers as prophets as well as pilots.”

It drifted off the bow of
Mon Remonda
, a saucerlike shape with two forward prongs signifying the bow and a small cockpit projecting from the starboard side to give the ship an off-balance look.

To Wedge’s eye, it looked just like the
Millennium Falcon
, except that its top-hull dish antenna was much smaller. A shuttle occupied by Donos, Corran Horn, and the Wraiths’s chief mechanic Cubber Daine, Corellians all, plus Emtrey, the Rogues’s quartermaster, had escorted the battered-looking freighter from a scrapyard in the Corellian system, where such craft were most common … and cheapest to acquire.

“Ugliest ship I think I’ve ever seen,” said Solo.

Captain Onoma, standing on the other side of Solo at the bridge’s new forward viewport, wrinkled his forehead in a fair approximation of a human frown. “It looks like the
Falcon
to me.”

“Nothing could look less like the
Falcon
,” Solo said. “You could slap a paint job on a desert skiff and it’d look more like the
Falcon
.” He sighed. “Still, with Chewie in charge of dressing her up, she might be able to fool Zsinj for a couple of minutes. What did our crew of Corellians pay for her?”

“They traded that hyperspace-enabled TIE interceptor Shalla Nelprin took off
Razor’s Kiss
.”

Solo looked at him, eyes wide. “That’s crazy. Trade a valuable combat-ready starfighter for that hunk of junk?”

“No. They traded a valuable combat-ready starfighter for a chance to blow Zsinj up.”

Solo’s features settled into calmer lines, though he still looked tired, stressed. “Oh. Well, that makes sense. She’ll never have the
Falcon’
s speed. Without a few years’s head start, Chewie won’t be able to make her insides work like the real thing.”

“We don’t want him to,” Wedge said.

“How so?”

“Because if they count on this new ship being the
Falcon
, our modifications can trip them up. For example, the
Falcon
isn’t packed with high explosives.”

Solo shuddered. “There’s a very good reason for that.”

“Right. But since the
Falcon
isn’t packed with explosives, you’d never send her into a crash dive into the side of a Super Star Destroyer. With this hunk of junk, you wouldn’t feel any such compunctions.”

“Except for not wanting to die.”

“Well, that’s what escape pods are for. You know what I mean.”

“Yeah. Yeah.” Solo returned his attention to the Corellian YT-1300 transport hanging off the bow. “All right. Secure Bay Gamma One to authorized personnel only and direct this flying trash receptacle there. Let’s get to work.”

It drifted off the bow of
Iron Fist
, a nightmare vessel. Her bulk was an irregular oval of wreckage more than three kilometers long held together by thousands of kilometers of cabling. Around the wreckage was a superstructure—a cluster of engines at one end, a wedge-shaped bow at the other, a gigantic spar of metal connecting them and acting as a frame for the envelope of wreckage to hang upon. The name, barely visible on the bow, was
Second Death
.

“Ugliest ship I think I’ve ever seen,” said Zsinj. His face shone with admiration. “Melvar, you have done a magnificent job.”

The general gave him a little bow. “There are a dozen explosive pockets within the body of the wreckage; they will send the components of
Razor’s Kiss
out in all directions. There are more explosives in the engines and bridge, sufficient to remove most evidence that these extra components ever existed. It
should be convincing. Unfortunately, she’s slow. She can’t be expected to keep up with
Iron Fist
or other elements of our fleet.”

“Pity. Still, we’ll do what we can. How does the crew escape?”

“Both bow and stern are equipped with a
Sentinel
-class landing craft. The crew has a chance not only to evacuate, but to fight their way out of pursuit.” Melvar offered a little sigh. “The crew doesn’t know that if a capital ship approaches within a kilometer before they’ve engaged the hyperdrive, they, too, will detonate. The crew will not be captured, will not be able to betray your secret to the Rebels.”

“Excellent. Fine work, as usual. Give her a station in the fleet, outside of visual range of any of the other vessels. I am so pleased.” Zsinj smiled. He hoped he’d never be forced to utilize the hideous amalgamation that had earned his approval and praise. Using it meant failure on his part—meant he’d been beaten and needed to hide to lick his wounds. But he liked to keep his options open. “Oh. What about the Nightcloak function?”

“Working … mostly. Would you like a demonstration?”

“Please.”

Melvar held up his comlink. “
Second Death
, this is General Melvar. Activate and initiate Nightcloak.”

“Yes, sir,” came the tinny voice from the comlink. “Deploying satellites.”

Tiny flares erupted from
Second Death
, four from the bow and four from the stern, deploying at precise angles so they suggested the corners of a wire-frame box surrounding the junkyard vessel. After a few moments of flight, the satellites ceased their acceleration; their burn trails vanished and they became all but invisible in the starfield.

“Nightcloak engaging,” said the comlink.