moving in conjunction with the pirates and did not acknowledge his initial hail,
so he considered it hostile and destroyed it. Such decisiveness was the sort of
thing Isard appreciated, but the loss of a bacta freighter was a high price to
pay for it.
The hatch to the small wardroom closed behind Vorru, trapping him in there with
Isard and Convarion. Vorru moved to the end of the room far from the door and
seated himself at the corner of the rectangular black duraplast table that
dominated the room. Convarion hovered closest to the far narrow end of the
table, ready to take his place at the head of it if Isard did not wish that
position for herself.
Isard remained standing just inside the hatchway and stared at Convarion. "Your
discovery of the deception concerning the freighters was impressive,
Commander."
"Thank you, but it was no more than should be expected from any of our
personnel. I chose to wait for all of my ships to be away because the Rebels
used the tactic of mis jumping ships in the case of the bacta convoy that
Warlord Zsinj ambushed at Alderaan. I had to assume that same tactic might be
used again. Because of Corrupter's speed, I could arrive in synch with my ships
at their destination even if I delayed leaving. I had my navigators plot the
outbound vectors for my ships and noticed three were off course. We plotted
possible stopping points along that route and proceeded after them. It was a
fairly basic pursuit operation."
Irritation flared in Isard's molten left eye. "And destroying the Alazhi, was
that no less than I should expect from our personnel?"
"As I explained in my report"
"As you lied in your report." Isard's eyes narrowed. "Analysis of your ship's
data records show your gunners opened fire three seconds after reversion. A
signal went out to Alazhi five seconds after reversion, and the volley of shots
that destroyed Alazhi came eight seconds after reversion. You chose to shoot
regardless of their response."
Convarion's face constricted, pulling flesh taut over his cheekbones. "I shot in
response to contingencies I had
worked out prior to our arrival. Alazhi was alone, which meant the other ships
had already been captured and moved. Alazhi had been disarmed and damaged.
Because it was surrounded by hostile snubfighters and was moving in
conjunction with them, I had to assume it was under their control. I was aware
of your policy of punishing collaborators, and I chose to implement it
immediately. Punishment delayed is punishment stripped of connection with the
crime that triggered it. While Xucphra Alazhi's crew will not have a chance to
learn from their mistake, other crew of other ships know the policy is not an
idle threat."
"So you chose to implement a policy without asking my permission?"
Convarion nodded. "I did."
"And you are prepared to take full responsibility for doing so?"
A slight hesitation marked Convarion's reply. "I am."
The down-turned corners of Isard's mouth rose. "Then you will execute the
families of those crewmen on the Alazhi. We brought them with us in the
shuttle."
Color drained from Convarion's face. "If that is your wish."
"What I wish, Captain Convarion, matters not." Isard strode toward him and
plucked the rank cylinder from the right side of Convarion's tunic. "What I
order is all that matters. What initiative you take must be within your mission
parameters, it must not exceed them. Do you understand me?"
The naval man nodded, but Vorru detected a stiffness to his motion signifying
resistance. Elements of the Imperial mil-itary had never accepted Isard's de
facto running of the government, which was why many of them
proclaimed themselves Warlords and created their own little empires.
Those who had remained loyal, either to her or the concept of the Empire, still
could bristle when she gave orders.
Convarion's head came up. "It is your order, then, Madam Director, that I
kill the families of the crew of the Alazhi?"
Isard's head briefly flicked toward Convarion, but Vorru
doubted Convarion caught her slip. "That situation has been dealt with already
and does not need your attention. I have another task for you. Minister Vorru,
your briefing."
Vorru pointed to the chair at the head of the table. "Please be seated, Captain
Convarion. As you know, bacta is a precious fluid that is produced in limited
amounts and only available from us, here, on Thyferra. All bacta in the galaxy
is produced under our license and is sold with our approval. If you need bacta,
there is only one place to get it.
"At least, that was the situation until Antilles and his people pirated the
first convoy. What do you think they did with that bacta?"
"It is rather clear they didn't sell it, since that is the obvious answer to
the question." Convarion shrugged reluctantly. "I have no idea what they did
with it."
"They gave it away. Much of it went to Coruscant, but we anticipated that."
Vorru pressed his hands flat against the tabletop. "Because they used our ships
and our crews to transport the bacta, we know where it ended up. We have shorted
future allotments to various worlds to make up for the bacta they were supplied
by Antilles, and we have charged them for that bacta."
Convarion's expression eased. "And they have paid?"
"Some have. Some have refused to do so." Vorru smiled. "This presents us with a
problem."
Isard leaned forward, posting her arms on the table. "If some do not pay, we
appear weak and others might balk at paying us. If they do not pay, they are as
much thieves as Antilles and his people."
"So you have a policy you are going to order me to implement."
"How perceptive of you, Captain." Vorru nodded solemnly. "We have a list of the
worlds that received stolen bacta. We have eliminated those worlds that have
paid us, have made arrangements to pay us, or have sufficient resources to be
able to pay us. We are left with a handful of target worlds that are too poor to
afford the gift Antilles gave them. You will select one of them and take our
bacta back."
"And if there is no bacta to recover?"
Isard straightened up and smiled mostly coldly. "If the bacta is used up, it
will have granted them health. You will take it back again."
Convarion nodded. "It will be done."
Vorru raised a hand. "Not so quickly, Captain, there are some special caveats
for what we want you to do. First and foremost, you will be taking along with
you two companies of the Thyferran Home Defense Corps and one squadron of their
fliers to carry out the work that needs to be done."
"But my Imperial troops will be much more efficient . . ."
"Indeed, but we want the Thyferrans to see the crimes of these worlds as crimes
against them, not against Director Isard. We want the Thyferrans to get their
hands dirty. If they are acting with us, they become complicit in our
activities. They will make themselves targets for Antilles, which will bind them
more tightly to us. By making them administer the punishment to these worlds, we
/> give them an even greater stake in seeing that we remain here to help defend
them, and we give them a reason to defend themselves."
Convarion's eyes narrowed. "You sound as if you truly think Antilles and his
rabble can actually topple you."
"Nonsense!" Isard dismissed that supposition with a wave of her hand. "There
will come a point, however, when the New Republic considers what it is going to
do about us and our control of the bacta supply. They have refrained from
causing trouble so far because they are reluctant to dabble in the internal
politics of worlds. To do so would split their Republic, since a number of
worlds that declared independence and have joined them still have their
Imperial offi-cials in place running things. Warlord Zsinj has further
distracted the New Republic, but once he has been dealt with, they will again
consider us."
Conv arion nodded. "If our client states are afraid of losing their bacta
supply, they will not press for the Republic to do something about us. And if
the Thyferrans back us fully, the New Republic would have to stage an invasion
of Thyferra to oust us."
"Precisely."
Vorru let Isard's comment echo in his ears, but he was not as confident of it as
her voice suggested she was. Discounting Antilles entirely was a mistake, and
one Isard should have known better than to make. While Vorru believed the
Antilles threat could be controlled and minimized, the only way it could be
eliminated was by killing Antilles and destroying his power base. The network of
contacts Vorru had in place to gather information about Antilles was just
beginning to report data to him, but so far it had been useless in trying to
locate Antilles or figuring out what his long-term intentions were.
Vorru opened his hands and smiled at Convarion. "So, will you follow orders and
punish a world for dealing with Antilles?"
"Shoot me the datafiles on the target worlds and I will get back to you with
plans for dealing with them in two days." Convarion stood. "You may select the
final target or leave it up to me, at your discretion. I would ask only one
thing in return."
Isard arched an eyebrow at him. "And that is?"
"As you said before, my initiative is limited by my mission parameters."
Convarion half-smiled. "If you want the lesson to be learned by the maximum
number of people, do me the favor of defining my mission as broadly as
possible."
18
In many ways Iella Wessiri could not believe she had decided to come along on
the mission after all. She understood how important it was to undertake, and how
much good it might do for the Ashern cause, but at the most basic level she
opposed it. It's murder, nothing less.
When Elscol had proposed the operation, she'd used the euphemism sanction to
describe what they would be doing to one of Xucphra's higher-ups, Aerin Dlarit.
Dlarit, an older man, had been appointed a General in the Thyferran Home Defense
Corps. In the day-to-day operation of the THDC he deferred to Major Barst Roite,
but Dlarit strutted about in his uniform at a host of social functions. Local
media had shown
him any number of times assuring his fellow Xucphrans that
the Ashern were under control and that happy days were on the way.
"He's made himself an obvious target." Elscol had opened her arms to emphasize
her, point. "If we take him out
we will rock Xucphran society to its foundations."
Iella had protested the whole idea. "Dlarit is hardly a
military target in any real sense. He's a fop. We can undercut him by hitting
other targets and making his assurances lies."
"We could, but hitting such sites still doesn't bring the nature of war home to
the people. We need to frighten them, deeply."
"And hitting military targets won't do that?"
"Eventually. This will be faster."
Iella frowned. "Wouldn't just shooting random people accomplish the same thing?"
Elscol shrugged. "Probably. It's a backup plan."
"You can't be serious." Iella looked at the smaller woman in utter disbelief.
"That would be murder. This is murder, for all intents and purposes. You can't
kill innocent people."
"Look, Iella, there are no innocent people here." Elscol planted fists on her
hips. "Over the years I've helped dozens of worlds liberate themselves from the
Imps, and part of each fight is making the populace wake up to what's really
going on. People assume that if they say nothing and do nothing they're not
involved in the fight, but the fact is that their apathy is a tacit vote of
support for the status quo. They have to be made to see that by making no choice
they have indeed made a choice. When they understand that, they begin to think
about those choices, and we make choosing the Imps out to be a very bad choice."
lella's head came up. "Black Sun used to use that same rationale to justify
murdering all sorts of folks."
"There's a difference between Black Sun and us."
"Oh, do tell."
"Black Sun was all about greed and selfishness." Elscol looked around at the
humans and Vratix gathered in the room. "We're fighting for freedom, for the
right to live the way we want to live. We're fighting for the only thing worth
fighting for."
"And if these people want to be ruled by the Empire?"
"They can consider our action an eviction notice." El-scol's brown eyes
narrowed. "You come from a law-enforcement background where you were out to
protect the innocent from the ravages of the criminals. You could do that
without resorting to this drastic an activity because you had the weight of the
government behind you. You had a justice sys-
tern that would reinforce the will of the people. I understand that and respect
it. By the same token, I also know that you saw criminals out there that you
knew could only be stopped by a blaster bolt.
"That's what we're up against here. Dlarit might seem harmless, but he's helping
prop up a system that keeps the Vratix in virtual slavery. He's propping up a
system that means billions of individuals suffer needlessly from diseases
because they cannot afford the cure. He's got the blood of everyone who died
because of a lack of bacta on his hands, as well as that of the families of the
Alazhi's crew."
Iella had nodded. "I can't deny the validity of what you're saying about Dlarit.
Add to it the fact that his daughter spied on the Alliance for the Imps and got
Corran captured. The problem still is that I'm uncomfortable with assassinating
him, especially in his home."
"The act has much more impact there. We'll make a hologram of the execution and
start circulating it. That will get our point across, and fast, too."
"And it will make us into ghouls. What about Dlarit's staff and his family? What
do we do if they find us there?"
The muscles at the corners of Elscol's jaw bunched. "Blasters do have stun
settings."
Iella had raised an eyebrow. "You sound as if you would kill his children, too."
"Erisi's his daughterHuttlings grow up to be Hutts."
"But leaving his minor children alive would show us to be c
apable of mercy for
those who realize the error of their ways, correct?" Iella had looked hard at
her. "Correct?"
"It'll make the operation more difficult, but it can be done." Elscol had looked
around the briefing room. "Any other philosophical objections, or can we get to
planning?"
There were none, so Elscol immediately moved into plan-ning the assault. And
what a job she did. Her experience in planning and executing operations showed
through in how she broke down the Dlarit estate's security setup. Iella had
attended countless CorSec Special Operations briefings about
raids on criminal strongholds, and Elscol's presentation was
the equal of any of them in detail and foresight.
To everyone's surprise, including her own, Iella agreed to join the group of a
dozen Ashern commandos volunteering for the operation. Elscol, Sixtus, and three
of his Imp Special Naval Operations comrades formed the core of the group.
Iella, two Vratix, and four humansall four of them Zaltin refugeesfilled out
the rest of the team. Each commando was issued a blaster, a blaster carbine,
dark clothing, a comlink, and a light armored vest with armored plates that
covered them from throat to groin, front and back. Iella knew the armor would be
almost useless for stopping a blaster bolt, but even deflecting it from the
body's midline meant the wound might be survivable.
Iella hunkered down behind the bole of a huge akonije tree. The humidity in the
air helped retain the day's heat, and the vest made her none too comfortable.
Even so, the slight whisper of a breeze helped cool her. But it also hides some
noises and creates others, keeping me on edge. She blew a wisp of her light
brown hair back out of her face and peered ahead into the darkness.
Barely visible as hulking shadows, Sixtus and his companions worked their way
forward through the rain forest that sheltered the Dlarit estate. The estate
itself was set on a small knoll at the foot of high mountains that had once been
part of an extinct volcano. Holograms of the estate taken in daytime looked
incredibly beautiful, with the natural stone building rising up out of the
surrounding jungle like a small volcano itself. Huge waterfalls cascading down
the mountainous backdrop added the last element to transform the estate into a
paradise.