The Bacta War (35 page)

“Indeed, those
are
added benefits. While I would hate to have it thought I was cravenly trying to hide information from Antilles, I could affect an air of disdain, as if the whole thing were, like him, beneath my notice.” Isard opened her hands, then pressed them together, fingertip to fingertip. “I approve of your amendments to my plan. We implement it tomorrow.”

Vorru smiled. “I will alert my operatives to be especially attentive to any of Antilles’s activities.”

Erisi mirrored his smile. “And my people will be ready to pit themselves against the Rogues, either here or at their lair.”

“Excellent.” Both of Isard’s hands curled down into fists. “A month. Antilles has a month yet to live. Then, once he is eliminated, the Empire will rise again and the natural order of things will again be established.”

31

Fatigue made Corran’s eyes feel as if Tatooine’s twin suns had settled into his skull. He knocked at the doorjamb of Booster’s office, but refrained from leaning heavily against it, lest he fall asleep on his feet. He and Ooryl had made a run to Thyferra, hitting some interim systems along the way to make it impossible to backtrack them to Yag’Dhul. A direct trip would have taken them twelve standard hours—their course added another twelve to the total. While he had managed to get a little sleep while in hyperspace, the trip left him feeling like he’d spent the last two days in the belly of a Sarlacc.

Wedge, seated in front of Booster’s desk, looked up. “You could have stopped to get a meal before you reported in, Corran.”

Sure, and have Booster presume I can think only of myself when I’ve been on an important mission like this?
“Not hungry, Wedge. The news kind of killed my appetite.”

Booster arched a white eyebrow above his artificial left eye. “You were able to confirm the reports from Thyferra, then?”

Corran nodded. “According to communication intercepts, approximately two weeks ago Iceheart initiated a program
in which she’s gathering up a thousand Vratix a day and is planning to execute them when she has thirty thousand total. At that point, if Ashern resistance to her regime has not ceased, she’ll collect more.”

Wedge’s voice dropped into a low growl. “She finally thinks she’s found a way to draw us out.”

Corran shrugged slowly. “I monitored public announcements and privately coded messages from Iella and Elscol. Everything seems to indicate this program is a domestic one only. There has been no mention of us or what we’ve been doing.”

Booster barked a harsh laugh. “You think she would say anything directly to motivate us? That would make us suspicious of a trap.”

Corran frowned. “So since she said nothing about us, it
is
a trap designed to catch us? You must have a conspiracy theory program working overtime on your datapad, Booster.”

Wedge sat forward and held a hand up to forestall Booster’s reply. “Doesn’t matter what Iceheart intended—though I do think Booster is more right than you are here, Corran—the fact is that we have two weeks to prevent her from slaughtering thirty thousand Vratix. Conspiracy or no, trap or no, we have to act.”

“I wasn’t saying we shouldn’t act, Wedge.” Corran shook his head to clear his mind. “I’m just saying it’s not an obvious attempt to provoke us.”

“CorSec always did miss the obvious.” Booster snorted with disgust, then hit a couple of keys on the datapad centered on his desk. “Do we initiate things?”

“Can we?” Wedge’s brown eyes narrowed. “Where do we stand on the refits?”

“The sensor and targeting units are all in place. If we use the crews from the freighters we have hanging around here, I can have the launchers ready to go inside a week.” Booster looked up. “Karrde even has our last shipment of concussion missiles and proton torpedoes ready to go. An hour after I send him a message via the HoloNet, his convoy should be assembled. We can have it here within a day, with missile
batteries and torpedo magazines fully loaded twelve hours later, if all goes well.”

“What about the gravity well projector.”

“Got it, and it’s being installed now.”

“Good. Let’s get things going. Call Karrde and set up a rendezvous for twenty-four hours from now.” Wedge glanced up at Corran. “Will you be ready to lead a flight out to escort them in by that time?”

Corran hesitated, not certain what he heard was really what Wedge said. “Escort them in?”

“I’ll make it thirty-six hours—let him get some sleep.”

“Fine, Booster, that should work.”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Corran held his hands up. “You really intend for me to lead Karrde’s convoy
here
? We aren’t going to work out some transfer thing?”

Wedge shook his head. “No. Time is of the essence.”

“But, Wedge, sir, begging your pardon, if we do that, then Isard will know where we are. The
Lusankya
and the
Virulence
could be here just twenty-four hours after we get back with the convoy.” Corran frowned and rubbed a hand over his wrinkled brow. “I thought Booster determined that someone in Karrde’s organization provided Isard with the data to set up the Alderaan ambush. You’re practically inviting Isard here.”

Booster smiled. “No practically about it, Corran, we
are
inviting her here.”

“But you can’t do that! Even if this station were bristling with missile launchers, there’s no way we could take down a Super Star Destroyer and an Impstar deuce.”

Wedge shook his head. “I understand your protest, Corran, but you’re not privy to the plans Booster, Tycho, and I have put together for dealing with Isard and her fleet. You do know we’ve been taking her forces apart bit by bit, which certainly was part of our overall plan, but we had to make decisions about what to do if Iceheart forced our hand, and she has.”

“Then tell me what the plans are so I don’t think you’ve lost your minds.”

“Can’t do that, CorSec.” Booster flipped his datapad
closed with a click. “You’re going to go out and get the convoy and bring it here. If Isard decides to act early and take our pilots hostage, she can’t torture out of you information you don’t have.”

Wedge nodded in agreement. “And I need you to lead the escort flight because Isard and her agent would not believe we were on the level if you or Tycho or I did not bring the flight in. I don’t want to cut you out like this, but the less you know, the less you can reveal.”

Corran felt his flesh tighten around little goose bumps and a wave of weariness wash over him. “I hear what you’re saying, Wedge, but are you certain this is going to work?”

Booster roared with laughter. “Certain? Certain? Of course he’s not certain. The man who would only bet on certainty has no guts.”

“I have plenty of guts, Booster, but I don’t like risking them, or my life, or the lives of my friends, if I don’t have to. Certainty, or as close as I can get to it, is what I want.”

“And you call yourself a Corellian?” The big man snorted derisively as he sat back in his chair. “No wonder you joined CorSec.”

“What’s
that
supposed to mean?”

“I thought it was obvious, CorSec. If you had the guts for life—if you were even to
imagine
yourself worthy of my daughter—you wouldn’t have spent your life in service to the Empire’s puppet. You played it safe when men with real courage were out there defying the government.”

Corran’s fatigue melted as his anger grew. “Oh, you’re going to use the smugglers are really patriots story to excuse your greed? Let me tell you something, Booster Terrik, you can think of yourself as a noble scoundrel if you want, but the fact is you were out for money when you were running shipments, nothing more. The fact that you didn’t pay taxes on what you imported, the fact that you broke laws, might mark you as some sort of protester against the government in the eyes of some, but I know the truth. You were just a criminal—not as violent or bad as some others, but a criminal just the same. And those taxes you didn’t pay were the kind of taxes that build roads, maintain spaceports, and educate kids.
What you did was deny them their due, and provide the contraband that allowed organizations like Black Sun and Hutt bands to thrive on our world.”

Corran thrust a finger directly at Booster. “And as for being worthy of your daughter, I’m the worthiest man you ever met. Every gram of character you think you have, she
does have
. And brains, too, and courage. And even you, Booster Terrik, don’t want to see her hooking up with a man who has your morals and standards.”

Booster rose from behind his desk, his hands balled into fists. “And if you were the man you think you are, Corran Horn, you’d not have abandoned her on Thyferra.”

“Abandoned her?” Corran’s mind flashed back to his mad dash into the refresher station and his fight with the stormtroopers.
I didn’t abandon her
. “You want to talk abandonment? I left for five seconds to save her life. You left her for five
years
, Booster, or have you forgotten your vacation on Kessel?”

“A ‘vacation’ your father got for me, Horn.”

Wedge stood abruptly and posted a hand in the middle of each man’s chest. “All right, stop it. Right now.” He gave each of them a little shove and Corran let himself be propelled back toward the doorway. Wedge turned to Booster, shifted both hands to the larger man’s shoulders, and forced him down into his chair.

“Listen to me, Booster—and you’ll listen because you don’t want to find yourself in the situation of having Mirax say this to you: Corran Horn here is one of the smartest, skilled, and courageous men it’s been my privilege to know. He escaped from a prison that makes Kessel look like a resort world with hourly shuttles in and out. He’s gone and done things on missions that put him at risk because those things save the lives of others. If not for him, Coruscant would still be in Imperial hands and I, as well as your daughter, would be dead or Isard’s slaves.

“When you arrived on this station, you said you thought I would have protected Mirax from the likes of Corran.” Wedge shook his head. “The real story is that I was overjoyed when they became friends. Mirax needed someone as stable
as Corran because she’s never really sure where you are or what’s happened to you. And Corran, he needed someone with Mirax’s curiosity and fervor for life because he’d been cut off from everyone he knew and trusted. Both of them were gyros that needed to be spin balanced, and they did that for each other.”

Before Corran could begin to grin triumphantly, Wedge whirled and stabbed a finger into his chest. “And you, my friend, need to get some perspective here. You’re seeing Booster as your father’s old enemy, and your father isn’t here to put him in his place. Well, you aren’t your father. Their fight isn’t your fight, and you can’t stand in for your father in it. And you should be smart enough to know Booster doesn’t have a problem with you because you were Hal Horn’s son—he’s got the same problem with you that every father ever had with any man romancing his daughter. She’s the best thing that ever happened to him.”

Corran nodded. “She’s the best thing that ever happened to me, too.”

“Right, which means the two of you have more in common than either one of you would admit. Now the both of you better think on this: Mirax loves both of you, so unless you think she’s got no taste or character judgment at all, you better figure you both are worthy of each other’s respect.” Wedge folded his arms and positioned himself so he could see both of them easily. “I don’t expect you’ll ever get to the point where you actually
like
each other, but, when you’re both acting like adults, you’ll be above this sort of bickering.”

Corran looked up and met Booster’s stare openly.
Waiting to see if I break, aren’t you? Waiting to see if I knuckle under
. In a nanosecond Corran resolved never to give in, never to change his opinion of Booster. While all Wedge had said was true—
and made damned good sense
—Corran had been raised with his father’s rivalry with Booster Terrik.
If I do give in, I’ve betrayed my father
.

Or have I?
Corran frowned as he thought about his father and the life his father had led. Hal Horn had lived for years with the knowledge that he was really the son of a Jedi and subject to the extermination policy the Empire had put in
place concerning Jedi. His father could have done anything to make himself safe. He could have retreated to the hinterlands of some backwater world and become a hermit, but he chose not to absent himself from the duty his father—fathers, really—had acquitted. A Jedi helped maintain the peace and uphold the law. Hal Horn did the same thing as best he could by working with CorSec, no matter that his duties might expose him to the Emperor’s Jedi hunters.

Corran suddenly realized that his father’s rivalry with Booster Terrik had not been personal. Hal Horn had pursued Booster because Booster broke the law. Yes, the fact that Booster evaded him repeatedly did frustrate him, but the basis of his pursuit was always the same.
He didn’t let it get personal. I
have
and in that I’ve betrayed my father
. He glanced down for a moment and thought about some of the exercises Luke Skywalker had urged him to try out.
By making things personal—Kirtan Loor and Zekka Thyne—I have betrayed the Jedi traditions my father, in his own cautious way, tried to instill in me
.

Corran’s head came up as he stepped forward and extended his hand to Booster. “You’re not my enemy. Never have been. I’m not yours. For the sake of your daughter, the people we’ve got to save, and the memory of my father, I don’t want to fight with you anymore. Doesn’t mean we won’t disagree—perhaps even violently at times—but you don’t deserve my ill-will.”

Surprise slowly blossomed on Booster Terrik’s face. He started to say something, then stopped. His hand came up and engulfed Corran’s. “Normally I’d be angry that I had misjudged you so badly, but you’ve reinforced just how good a judge of character my daughter really is. And you’re right, we’ll disagree and I can guarantee it’ll be violent, but that’s okay. We’re Corellians. We can do that.”