"Easy, friend," Wedge grunted, struggling to regain his balance. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Janson step to the tall man's other side and put a supporting arm around him—
"Easy sounds good to me," the man murmured, the slurring abruptly gone as his arm tightened around Wedge's shoulders. "All four of us—nice and easy now, let's help the poor old drunk out of here."
Wedge stiffened. Tracked, blindsided, and caught . . . and in the flip of an X-wing they had suddenly gone from a simple night on the town to serious trouble. With him and Janson tangled up like this, only Hobbie was left with a clear gun hand. And their assailant surely hadn't forgotten to have some backup around.
The tall man must have felt Wedge's tension. "Hey—play it smooth," he admonished quietly. "Don't remember me, huh?"
Wedge frowned at the face practically leaning against his. It didn't look familiar; but on the other hand, at this range he probably wouldn't recognize his own mother. "Should I?" he murmured back.
The other did a little more staggering. "I'd have thought so," he said in an injured voice. "You go up against a Star Destroyer with someone, he ought to remember you. Especially out in the middle of nowhere."
Wedge frowned a little harder at the face, dimly aware that the whole group had started walking. In the middle of nowhere . . . ?
And suddenly, it hit him. The Katana fleet, and Talon Karrde's people coming out of nowhere to lend their assistance and firepower against the Imperials. And afterwards the brief, preoccupied introductions aboard the Star Cruiser . . . "Aves?"
"That wasn't so hard, was it?" the other said approvingly. "Told you you could do it if you tried. Come on, now—nice and easy and don't let's draw any more attention to ourselves than we need to."
There didn't seem to be any real option other than to comply; but even as Wedge continued toward the exit, he kept his eyes moving, looking for something they could use to get them out of this. Karrde and his people had supposedly agreed to funnel information back to the New Republic, but that was a far way from being allies together. And if the Empire had threatened them . . . or just bought them outright . . .
But no opportunity for escape presented itself before they got out the doors. "This way," Aves said, abandoning his drunk act and hurrying down the dimly lit and sparsely populated street.
Janson caught Wedge's eye and raised his eyebrows questioningly. Wedge shrugged slightly in return and set off after Aves. It could still be some sort of trap, but at this point the vague fears were being rapidly overtaken by simple curiosity. Something was going on, and he wanted to find out what.
He didn't have long to wonder about it. Two buildings down from the Mumbri Storve, Aves turned and disappeared into a darkened entryway. Wedge followed, half expecting to run into a half-dozen blaster muzzles. But Aves was alone. "What now?" he asked as Janson and Hobbie joined them.
Aves nodded toward the street outside the entryway. "Watch," he said. "If I'm right—here he comes."
Wedge looked. A walrus-faced Aqualish strode quickly by, throwing a quick glance into the entryway as he passed. His stride broke, just noticeably; then he caught himself and picked up his pace. He passed the other side of the entryway—
There was a muffled thud, and suddenly the Aqualish was back in the entryway, his slack and obviously unconscious form being supported by two grim-faced men. "Any trouble?" Aves asked.
"Naw," one of the men said as they dropped the Aqualish none too gently to the ground near the back of the entryway. "They're a lot meaner than they are smart."
"This one was smart enough," Aves said. "Take a good look at him, Antilles. Maybe next time you'll recognize an Imperial spy when you pick one up."
Wedge looked down at the alien. "An Imperial spy, huh?"
"A free-lancer, anyway," Aves shrugged. "Just as dangerous."
Wedge looked back at him, trying to keep his expression neutral. "I suppose we ought to thank you," he said.
One of the other men, busy searching the Aqualish's clothing, snorted under his breath. "I'd think you should, yeah," Aves said. "If it hadn't been for us, you'd have been a juicy little item in the next Imperial Intelligence report."
"I suppose we would have," Wedge conceded, exchanging glances with Hobbie and Janson. But then, that had been the idea of the whole charade. To do their bit to convince Grand Admiral Thrawn that Tangrene was still the New Republic's intended target. "What are you going to do with him?" he asked Aves.
"We'll take care of him," Aves said. "Don't worry, he won't be making any reports anytime soon."
Wedge nodded. One evening, shot completely to flinders. Still, it was nice to know Karrde's people were still on their side. "Thanks again," he said, and meant it this time. "I owe you one."
Aves cocked his head. "You want to pay off the debt right now?"
"How?" Wedge asked cautiously.
"We've got a little job in the works," Aves said, waving a hand vaguely toward the night sky. "We know you do, too. It would help a lot if we could time ours to go while you're keeping Thrawn occupied."
Wedge frowned at him. "What, you want me to tell you when our operation is starting?"
"Why not?" Aves said reasonably. "Like I said, we already know it's in the works. Bel Iblis's repeat performance, and all that."
Wedge looked at his pilots again, wondering if they appreciated the irony of this as much as he did. Here they stood, an evening's worth of subtle hints gone straight down the proton tubes; and now they were being asked for an outright confirmation of the whole operation. Colonel Derlin's decoy team couldn't have set things up better if they'd tried. "I'm sorry," he said slowly, putting some genuine regret into his voice. "But you know I can't tell you that."
"Why not?" Aves asked patiently. "Like I said, we already know most of it already. I can prove that if you want."
"Not here," Wedge said quickly. The goal was to plant hints, not to be so obvious that it aroused suspicion. "Someone might hear you."
Janson tapped his arm. "Sir, we need to get back," he murmured. "There's a lot of work yet to do before we leave."
"I know, I know," Wedge said. Good old Janson; just the angle he'd been searching for. "Look, Aves, I tell you what I'll do. Are you going to stick around here for a while?"
"I could. Why?"
"Let me talk to my unit commander," Wedge said. "See if I can get a special clearance for you."
Aves' expression showed pretty clearly what he thought of that idea. "It's worth a try," he said diplomatically instead. "How soon can you get an answer?"
"I don't know," Wedge said. "He's as busy as all the rest of us, you know. I'll try to get back to you one way or the other; but if you haven't heard from me in about twenty-eight hours, don't expect to."
Aves might have smiled slightly. Wedge couldn't tell in the dim light. "All right," he said, grumbling a bit. "I suppose it's better than nothing. You can leave any messages with the night bartender at the Dona Laza tapcafe."
"Okay," Wedge said. "We've got to go. Thanks again."
Together, he and the other two pilots left the entryway and crossed the street. They were two blocks away before Hobbie spoke. "Twenty-eight hours, huh? Pretty clever."
"I thought so," Wedge agreed modestly. "Leaving here then would get us to Tangrene just about on time for the big battle."
"Let's just hope he's planning to sell that information to the Empire," Janson murmured. "It'd be a shame to have wasted the whole evening."
"Oh, he'll sell it, all right," Hobbie snorted. "He's a smuggler. What else would he want it for?"
Wedge thought back to the Katana battle. Maybe that was indeed all Karrde and his gang were: fringe scum, always for sale to the highest bidder. But somehow, he didn't think so. "We'll find out soon enough," he told Hobbie. "Come on. Like Janson said, we've got a lot of work to do."
Chapter 23
The last page scrolled across the display and stopped. SEARCH SUMMARY ENDED. NEXT REQUEST?
"Cancel," Le
ia said, leaning back in her desk chair and looking out the window. Another dead end. Just like the last one, and the one before that. It was beginning to look like the Research librarians had been right: if there was any information on the old Clone Wars cloning techniques still in the Old Senate Library, it was buried away so deeply that no one would ever find it.
Across the room, she caught a flicker of returning consciousness. Standing up, she crossed to the crib and looked down on her children. Jacen was indeed awake, cooing to himself and making a serious effort to study his fingers. Beside him, Jaina was still asleep, her pudgy lips hanging open just enough to whistle softly with every breath. "Hi, there," Leia murmured to her son, picking him up out of the crib and cradling him in her arms. He looked up at her, his fingers momentarily forgotten, and smiled his wonderful toothless smile. "Well, thank you," she said, smiling back and caressing his cheek. "Come on—let's go see what's happening out in the big world."
She carried him to the window. Beneath them, the Imperial City was in full midmorning mayhem, with ground vehicles and airspeeders buzzing along in all directions like frantic insects. Beyond the city, the snow-tipped peaks of the Manarai Mountains to the south were dazzling in the morning sunshine. Beyond the mountains, the sky was a deep and cloudless blue; and beyond the sky—
She shivered. Beyond the sky was the planetary energy shield. And the Empire's invisible, deadly asteroids.
Jacen gurgled. Leia looked back down at him, found him studying her with what she could almost imagine to be concern. "It's all right," she assured him, holding him a little closer and bouncing him gently in her arms. "It's all right. We'll find them all and get rid of them—don't you worry."
Behind her, the door opened and Winter came into the room, a hover tray floating along in front of her. "Your Highness," she greeted Leia in a soft voice. "I thought you might like some refreshment."
"Yes, I would, thank you," Leia said, sniffing at the gentle aroma of spiced paricha rising from the pot on the tray. "Anything happening downstairs?"
"Nothing interesting," Winter said, pushing the tray over to a side table and starting to unload it. "The search teams haven't found any new asteroids since yesterday morning. I understand General Bel Iblis has been suggesting they may already have cleared them all out."
"I doubt Admiral Drayson believes that."
"No," Winter agreed, holding out a steaming mug and waiting as Leia shifted Jacen to a one-armed grip. "Neither does Mon Mothma."
Leia nodded as she accepted the mug. To be honest, she didn't really believe it herself. No matter how expensive these cloaking shields might be to produce, she couldn't see the Empire going to this much trouble for anything fewer than seventy cloaked asteroids. And there could easily be twice that many. The twenty-one they'd found hardly even scratched the surface.
"How is the research going?" Winter asked, pouring a mug for herself.
"It's not," Leia had to admit. From one insoluble problem to another, it seemed. "Though I don't know why that should surprise me. The Council Research specialists have already been all through the records, and they didn't find anything."
"But you're a Jedi," Winter reminded her. "You have the Force."
"Not enough of it, apparently," Leia shook her head. "At least, not enough to guide me to the right archive. If there is a right archive. I'm not sure anymore that there is."
For a minute they sipped in silence. Leia savored the soft flavor of the hot paricha, acutely aware that this could easily be her last taste of it for a while. All supplies of the root from which the drink was made had to be imported from offplanet.
"I was talking to Mobvekhar yesterday," Winter said into her thoughts. "He said you'd spoken to him about a clue of some sort. Something that Mara Jade had said."
"Something that Mara said, coupled with something Luke did," Leia nodded. "Yes, I remember; and I still think there's an important key in there somewhere. I just can't figure out what it is."
At her waist, her comlink beeped. "I knew it couldn't last," Leia sighed, putting her mug down and pulling the comlink out. Mon Mothma had promised her a complete morning off; obviously, that promise was about to be bent a little. "Councilor Organa Solo," she said into the device.
But it wasn't Mon Mothma. "Councilor, this is Central Communications," a brisk military voice said. "There's a civilian freighter called the Wild Karrde holding position just outside the sentry line. The captain insists on speaking with you personally. Do you want to talk to him, or shall we just go ahead and chase him out of the system?"
So Karrde had finally come to pick up his people. Or else had been listening to rumors and had decided to poke around Coruscant a little for himself. Either way, it was trouble. "Better let me talk to him," she told the controller.
"Yes, Councilor."
There was a quiet click. "Hello, Karrde," Leia said. "This is Leia Organa Solo."
"Hello, Councilor," Karrde's cool, well-modulated voice replied. "It's nice to talk to you again. I trust you received my package?"
Leia had to think back. Right—the macrobinocular record of the Ukio attack. "Yes, we did," she acknowledged. "Allow me to express the New Republic's gratitude."
"Your gratitude has already been amply expressed," Karrde said dryly. "Were there any unpleasant repercussions over the payment arrangements?"
"On the contrary," Leia said, bending the truth only a bit. "We'd be happy to pay equivalent rates for more information of that quality."
"I'm glad to hear that," Karrde said. "Are you by any chance also in the market for technology?"
Leia blinked. It wasn't a question she'd been expecting. "What sort of technology?" she asked.
"The semirare sort," he said. "Why don't you give me clearance to come down and we'll discuss it."
"I'm afraid that won't be possible," Leia said. "All nonessential traffic in and out of Coruscant has been restricted."
"Only the nonessential traffic?"
Leia grimaced. So he had been listening to rumors. "What exactly have you heard?"
"Assorted whispers only," he said. "Only one of which really concerns me. Tell me about Mara."
"What about Mara?" Leia asked guardedly.
"Is she under arrest?"
Leia threw a look at Winter. "Karrde, this isn't something we should be discussing—"
"Don't give me that," Karrde cut her off, his voice suddenly hard. "You owe me. More to the point, you owe her."
"I'm aware of that," Leia countered, letting her own voice cool a degree or two. "If you'll let me finish, this isn't something we should be discussing on an open channel."
"Ah. I see." If he was feeling any embarrassment over his mistake, it didn't show in his voice. "Let's try this. Is Ghent available?"
"He's around somewhere."
"Find him and get him on a terminal with comm system access. Tell him to program in one of my personal encrypt codes—his choice. That should give us enough privacy."
Leia thought about it. It should at least filter out casual eavesdropping by other civilian ships in the system. Whether any Imperial probe droids lurking out there would be fooled was another question. "It's a start, at least," she agreed. "I'll go find him."
"I'll be waiting."
The signal went silent. "Trouble?" Winter asked.