The Bacta War

  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.”

  Wedge dropped his hand on top of theirs. “Good. You know, the Imps on Coruscant used to call two Corellians together a conspiracy. Three they’d call a fight.”

  “More fools they, then.” Corran smiled. “Any Corellian knows three of us together is a victory. I
t’s time we remind Iceheart and the rest of Imp holdovers of that very fact.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Corran glanced at the chronographic display on the X-wing’s main monitor. “Whistler, confirm that we’re ten standard minutes past the time for the rendezvous.”

  The R2 unit blatted out an annoyed tone.

  “Fine, so I won’t ask you to confirm how late they are anymore—at least not every minute.” Corran forced himself to exhale deeply and tried to draw in some of the inner peace that Luke indicated such a cleansing breath should bring in its wake. He failed, and that just heightened his frustration. Despite accepting the mission, he had not liked having to be the one to draw Isard’s agent into Yag’Dhul. While he knew the deception Booster and Wedge had planned would certainly make the discovery of their base appear to be serendipitous, every second Karrde’s people were late allowed the image of a Thyferran taskforce appearing to pounce on them grow in his mind.

  It wouldn’t have been so bad, but Corran had not come alone. Gavin, Rhysati, and Inyri flew X-wings to give him a complete flight, and Mirax had come along in the Pulsar Skate. None of them knew how dangerous their mission might be—and Corran granted that the odds of their ending up dead on this mission probably were no greater than they were on any other—but he still would have felt better if he could have told them what was really going on. Of course, that would mean I’d have to know what was going on.

  A light flashed on his communications console. He punched the button beneath it. “Nine here.”

  “Skate here, Nine.” Mirax’s voice sounded good to him and immediately began to take the edge off his frustration. “So, as long as we’re waiting, you want to tell me what you said to my father?”

  Corran frowned. “How do you know about that?”

  “Well, I could say that you talk in your sleep, but you don’t.” The light tone in her voice conveyed the image of her smiling face to him. “When we headed out, my father shot me a private message. Normally he says I should make sure you take good care of me. This time he said I should keep my eye on you and follow your lead. Bit of a difference there.”

  “Yeah, just a bit.”

  “So?”

  “We had a talk.”

  “Are you going to tell me what was said, or am I going to convince Emtrey he needs to spend more time around you?”

  “Hey, no reason to trot out the turbolasers here.” Corran hesitated for a moment, then sighed. “Your father and I had it out. He said I’d abandoned you on Thyferra”

  “What?!”

  “… and I accused him of having abandoned you when he went to Kessel.”

  “What?! You really told him that?”

  “Yeah, then I told him that you were everything he wanted to be and that the last person he should want interested in his daughter was someone who held himself to the same level of morality and responsibility he did.”

  “And you still have your arms and legs intact?”

  “Your father isn’t exactly a Wookiee, Mirax.” Corran forced a laugh. “Besides, it was about that point when Wedge intervened.”

  “Ah, that explains why you’re both still alive.”

  “Right. Wedge pointed out that since you love the both of us, we’ve got a lot more in common than we do in conflict. He said, in essence, that we should grow up and start acting like adults.”

  Mirax laughed lightly. “I bet that went over well with my father.”

  “He listened, and the two of us were prepared to get back into it, but I let things bounce around inside my head and I realized I was disliking your father for the wrong reasons. Somewhere inside I figured it was my duty to my father to continue his rivalry with your father, then I realized my father hadn’t let it get personal. He might have hunted your father with a bit more gusto because your father didn’t make it easy, but he didn’t hate Booster. By allowing myself to do so, though, I was really going against everything my father had tried to teach me.”

  “I can understand that.” Mirax’s voice softened. “And it kind of bothers you that your father never told you who your grandfather really was, doesn’t it?”

  Corran thought for a second, then nodded. “I guess it does, but not in the sense that I would have expected. Part of me thinks I should feel betrayed because he kept that secret from me, but I don’t, really. In keeping it from me, he kept me safe. What I didn’t know I couldn’t reveal. I still don’t know if Grandpa Horn helped other Corellian Jedi families hide, but if one had been found out, more could have been discovered. And my father really did try to instill in me the code of honor the Jedi espoused. He also taught me to trust my instincts and hunches, which are glimmers of whatever talent I have.

  “Where it bothers me is that, knowing my father, he had to have been inordinately proud of our heritage. He must have wanted to share it with me and would have, I suspect, after the Emperor died, but Bossk killed him before that happened. I would have thought he’d have come up with a way to get me the information if anything happened to him.”

  “What about your grandfather, Rostek Horn?”

  “He’s on Corellia, under the Diktat. I haven’t had a chance to communicate with him. Perhaps when this is all over, that’s an option. Still, I would have liked to hear my father talk about his father.”

  Whistler tootled.

  Corran glanced at his monitor. “Whistler, what do you mean by ‘All you have to do is ask’?”

  The droid hooted at him.

  “Okay, so the statement is self-explanatory. What will happen if I ask?”

  Whistler piped a triumphant tune.

  “What’s Whistler saying, Corran?”

  “Just a second, Mirax.” Corran reached out and ran a finger beneath the letters glowing on his monitor. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am. My father encrypted a holographic file and loaded it into Whistler. Apparently he did this back when I joined CorSec—though Whistler says the message was recorded well before that—in case anything happened to him. Whistler says he was instructed to play the file for me at any point where I asked about it and could provide the encryption key. I’m going to assume the key is either Nejaa Halcyon or my father’s true name, Valin Halcyon.”

  Even as Corran explained to Mirax what the droid was telling him, a chill puckered his flesh. He felt as if his father were reaching back out of the grave to touch him, and he marveled how his father had anticipated Corran’s eventually learning enough about his heritage to find the file of value. Before he had ever heard of Nejaa Halcyon, Corran would have put his father’s foresight down to luck or even coincidence, but he knew the Jedi believed in neither. My father knew that someday I would want this information, so he prepared a way for me to get it.

  That realization opened a whole new den of Hutts, with every one of them a criminal kingpin. He thought of Luke Skywalker’s invitation to join him and train to become a Jedi Knight. Did my father create this file in hopes that I would do just that? Because the file had been created well before the Jedi’s reemergence had been confirmed, Corran knew his father couldn’t have anticipated the Jedi’s invitation to him. Or could he? Regardless of that, had his father intended his message to inspire Corran to learn more about his heritage?

  The droid chirped out a question.

  “No, Whistler, save the message. Now’s not the time to look at it.”

  “Why not, Corran? We’ve got time to kill.”

  “Because, Mirax, I don’t have time to consider all of the questions it might raise.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as making me reconsider my answer to Luke Skywalker. Perhaps what my father has to tell me in this message will make me realize I should be learning to become a Jedi Knight. That decision would force other decisions, and some of them I don’t want to make—primary among them a decision to leave you to go off and study the ways of the Force. My other responsibilities—to the squadron and the prisoners we’re going to free—likewise make such a decision difficult. R
ight now I need to be able to focus on what I’m doing.”

  “So you won’t play the message?”

  Corran shook his head. “Not right now, certainly not until the Thyferran situation is over.”

  “What I hear in your voice, Corran, is that you might not ever play it.”

  “You know me very well, love.” Corran closed his eyes for a moment and swallowed against the lump in his throat. He reached up with a hand and pressed the gold Jedi Credit against the flesh of his breastbone. “This hologram is the last thing my father has left me, but he never would have done it if he thought it would completely disrupt my life.”

  “Can you be sure of that?”

  “Yeah. If it was something I had to hear, for my own good, Whistler would never have been instructed to wait until I asked to hear it.” Corran laughed, and that eased the tightness in his throat. “My father trusted me to make my own decisions and deal with the consequences.”

  “That trust, Corran, is the last thing your father left you. It’s a most precious gift indeed, and one well suited to you.”

  “Thanks, Mirax.” Whistler shrilled a warning, prompting Corran to look at his monitor. A dozen ships popped in from hyperspace in an arrow formation and headed straight for the Rogue escort. “Whistler, pull manifests from each of the ships, then see if stated mass and performance profiles match.” He hit a switch on his comm unit, bringing him online with the Rogue’s tactical frequency. “Three, Five, and Six, fan out and pull life scans on the ships. If any of those ships are packed with more crew than we expect, I want to know about it.”

  Corran waited five minutes for the other X-wings to gather the data and for Whistler to crunch it all down. The various freighters appeared to be massing about as much as they should for their stated cargoes, and none of them was loaded down with troops, so Corran assumed the convoy was legitimate. “The convoy is secure from my standpoint, Mirax.”