Normal in terms of life, on the other hand, was not so easy to determine. For Mirax, hauling contraband between worlds was normal, yet to someone like Iella or Corran, that was grossly abnormal behavior. For his parents normal life had been owning a fueling depot and raising a family. That version of normal, or some minor variation of it, seemed to fit most folks’ view of what life should be.
But does that mean that anything else is not normal? For him, living the life of a pilot fighting against the Empire seemed normal. Moreover, it seemed to be a life that was based on reality. The Empire, weakened though it was, cast a pall over the entire galaxy and until it was eliminated, the home, job, and family sort of normal would always be in jeopardy. A hint of wrongdoing could shatter the cocoon of normalcy most people tried to spin around themselves and disrupt their lives forever.
Wedge and Pash trailed silently in the women’s wake as they moved on. Iella seemed to move a little more deliberately, and as they emerged from a stairwell onto a promenade that hung out over an urban canyon with a river of shadow filling it, a repulsorlift cab came to a stop. The doors opened and Iella motioned them all into it. Wedge didn’t recognize the driver, but that somehow made him feel better about the situation than not.
Without instructions from Iella, the driver took the vehicle away from the building and down. The route he flew seemed as twisted and circuitous as the one Iella had employed, but the journey ended quickly. The driver dropped them on another walkway, but this one was several kilometers down and away from where they’d been picked up, leaving them submerged in the thick shadows of the undercity.
Iella led them along to an alley, then down it and into a building. Three floors up she opened a door and led them into a sparingly furnished room. Its most impressive features were the two large picture windows that dominated the far walls. They provided a rather panoramic view of the intersection that the apartment overlooked, or underlooked, depending upon one’s perspective.
Iella closed the door, then nodded toward the two couches that faced each other in the center of the room. “Please be seated.”
Mirax sat with her back to one of the windows and let a slight smile play across her lips. “Which do you want first? The story of why I’m here on Coruscant, or how I managed to find you?”
Iella shrugged easily. “Which one will convince me you’re not an Imp?”
Wedge frowned. “Mirax is clean. I’ve known her all my life. She’s no Imp.”
“Convince me.”
Wedge started to say something, but Mirax cleared her voice. “I can handle this, Wedge, honest.” She smiled. “I appreciate the caution, especially here. I’ll start with the museum and work back only as far as needed, that way you won’t know more than you need to.”
Iella nodded. “Coruscant is a world that has billions of people on it. The chances of your being in the right place to spot someone you know are astronomical. Even luck or believing in the Force doesn’t begin to cover those odds,”
“Quite true, but I had a house edge on the wager.” Mirax jerked a thumb toward Wedge and Pash. “They’re snubfighter jockeys. Sooner or later they’d have to go to the Galactic Museum and check the display that talked about Endor. It’s ego and these pilots can breathe vacuum easier than they let slip a chance to see what lies the enemy is telling about them. Corellian pilots are notorious egotists, so staking out the museum seemed natural.”
Wedge arched an eyebrow at Mirax. “You think I’m egotistical?”
“Wedge, I love you like a brother, so it hurts me to say this, but you’re so egotistical you think you can keep your ego under control. Most of the time you do, which is your only saving grace. And the times you don’t, well, I’ve not been on the receiving end of a display, but I imagine there are some Imps who would regret that experience, if they were alive to think about it.”
Despite the slight sting of her words, Wedge knew there was more truth in them than he really wanted to acknowledge. In the second run at Borleias he’d let himself be outraged at the tactics the Imps thought would stop him from completing his mission. That was quite the display of ego and they paid a dear price for letting me indulge myself
He turned toward Iella. “Well, at least you can tell she knows me.”
“From that explanation I can tell she knows Corellian pilots. I had a partner who was a hot hand with an X-wing. If he ever joins the Rebellion, he’ll give you a run for your credits.” Iella looped a lock of brown hair back behind her right ear. “Since you didn’t run Commander Antilles in to Coruscant, you didn’t know he was here. That means you brought more pilots in and were figuring they’d visit the museum. Probably more from Rogue Squadron.”
Mirax inclined her head to the left. “You certainly could conclude that scenario is accurate.”
“Oh, I’m sure it is.” Iella sat down on the arm of the couch opposite Mirax. “Your presence means your exit identity was blown, which means the rest of the pilots could have been compromised somehow.”
Mirax looked up at Wedge. “Are you and I the only folks from Corellia who don’t sound like we were trained in deductive reasoning by CorSec?”
Iella patted Mirax on the knee. “I was trained in deductive reasoning by CorSec.”
“So you were part of CorSec?”
“Yes, why?”
Mirax sighed and held her hand out. “I’m Mirax Terrik.”
Iella’s hand stopped short of sliding into Mirax’s grip. “You’re Booster Terrik’s daughter?”
Mirax’s hand dropped back to her lap. “I bet you liked it better when you thought I was an Imp agent.”
“You’d lose the bet.” Iella kept her hand held out. “I’d just joined the force when Hal Horn put your father away. Booster was smart enough that I can believe his daughter was sharp enough to stake out the museum. And he was lucky enough that I can believe you succeeded in your long shot. I’m Iella Wessiri.”
Wedge waited for recognition to flash in Mirax’s eyes, but she shook Iella’s hand without any sign she recognized the name or knew of the woman. Perhaps Corran never spoke to her about his partner or never named her to Mirax.
Iella freed her hand from Mirax’s and sat back on the couch. “This all complicates things incredibly, but we’re on top of them right now, so it’s not a crippling emergency. This place is a safehouse. I’ve called in someone who I expected to use to help debrief you and interrogate you, if necessary. We’ll still need the debriefing, of course, but we need it to determine where to start assessing the damage to our operation here. Your problems could have a perfectly innocent explanation, but because they involve the Empire, I doubt that entirely.”
“I don’t know what happened really.” Mirax shrugged. “I made the arrangements as per usual with a broker. That gives me an identity code and a window for an exit vector. I enter three flight plans or so, get clearance on them, then head out. This time, when I tried to use the ID to enter the flight plans from a public datapad, things locked up. I cleared out and Imp Security landed on the place. It was down in Invisec so it created quite the stir. I turned around and burned some favors my father had earned with Black Sun to get my ship and crew taken care of. Since then I’ve been looking for a friendly face.”
Iella’s brown eyes focused on the window behind Mirax for a second. “Sounds like the Imps got the controller who was entering the ID codes. Your broker insulated you from direct discovery, but when you used the code they found you. We can get some slicers backtracking things and see how bad the situation has become. That means bringing in folks who have skills I don’t, and for that, we have to wait.”
Pash sat down beside Mirax. “While we wait I think we’ve a more serious problem to figure out how to handle.”
Mirax frowned. “What can be more serious than the Imps knowing members of Rogue Squadron are on Coruscant?”
Wedge smiled. “If the Imps find out why we’re here, they can take steps to make the conquest of Coruscant impossible. That, my dear Mirax,
is about as serious as it gets.”
22
As unsettled as things were, Corran felt glad when they headed back to the Hotel Imperial. Erisi, Rima, and he made fairly good time through the city. A freak storm over near the museum slowed them down by cutting power to a moving sidewalk. Like most of the other pedestrians they stood around waiting for it to be repaired, contenting themselves with watching the storm or reading the news as it scrolled past on the readers. Corran noted that while public transport could be disrupted by storms, the news and propaganda machine flowed onward without a hitch.
No one spoke very much as they traveled back to the hotel, but Corran caught Erisi watching him and giving him brave smiles to shore up his feelings. He appreciated the effort, but it only served to remind him what sort of fool he’d made of himself. He almost asked her to stop, but somewhere deep down inside he knew the humiliation was good for him, trimming back ego and forcing him to be more thoughtful.
As they walked along, he reached out and rested a hand on Rima’s shoulder. “I do want to apologize for what went on back there.”
A curtain of white hair slid in back of her shoulder, brushing across the top of his hand, as she looked in his direction. “Perhaps I owe you an apology also.”
“Not at all.”
“I do.” Pink, blue, and silver highlights flashed through her hair as a moving sidewalk conveyed them through a tunnel lit with a random pattern of neon lights. “Everyone from my world carries around some survivor guilt. We do not want to be pitied, but at the same time the sacrifice our people paid seems to demand respect. Among us there are those who have lost a great deal more than others …”
“But you have all lost everything.”
“True, but someone who was with his family in service on another planet has lost less than those who had kin die. Sel, in seeing everyone go, his story is tragic.” Rima glanced down at her open hands. “All of us recall where we were when we heard the news and the tragedy’s impact hit us full at that moment. Sel had thought nothing was amiss, then he learned the significance of what he had experienced. The hours in which he considered it nothing mock him and haunt him.”
In the same way does my failure to avenge my father haunt me. “You were right, his life was hard.”
Erisi rubbed her left hand along his spine. “I think what she means to say is that her people are pitied for something over which they had no control. The gulf between pity and respect is vast. When their tragedy is denigrated, and that seemed to be what you were doing, you strip away respect and reduce them to a pathetic state. And while they do not want to be pitied, their actions cannot be judged without bearing in mind the tragedy that underscores their lives.”
Corran slowly nodded. Working in the Rebellion provides two things for Alderaanians: vengeance and a means to earn the respect they desire from others. They seek the vindication I felt when I brought Bossk in for my father’s murder, and they’re fighting to avoid what I felt when Loor let him go.
He smiled. “We were both wrong.”
Rima shook her head. “We were both underinformed and that condition has been corrected.”
“Agreed.”
They got off the moving sidewalk at one of the Hotel Imperial’s middle entrances. Erisi pointed toward the doorway as Rima slowed her pace. “You will join us for dinner, yes?”
“Can’t.” She gestured vaguely back along their line of travel. “There’s something I have to check on. I’ll be in contact tomorrow morning.”
Corran and Erisi bid Rima farewell and took a lift down to their room. They said nothing to each other, but Erisi stood a bit closer to Corran than she normally did. He didn’t mind that terribly much because her obvious concern told him he wasn’t alone and had, in her, a friend upon whom he could rely. He also read other confusing things in her eyes and posture, but his emotional state was chaotic enough that making sense of much of anything was impossible.
He opened the door to the room and preceded her in. Hitting a light switch he saw no one and confirmed that things had been left the way he positioned them in the morning before they headed out. The triangular nub of a black sock was still caught in the edge of a drawer and the closet’s slide door had been left open to a point that was even with a pair of Erisi’s ecru slacks.
The door clicked shut behind him, then the lights went out. He turned and felt Erisi’s hands slide along either side of his chest, then close gently around his back. Corran felt her body press against his and the feather-light brush of her lips on his forehead, nose, and lips. She pulled him close and again dropped her mouth to his, kissing him with the fierce passion they’d shared in the Grand Hall.
Making no conscious decisions to do so, he let his arms enfold her. His left hand slipped beneath the hem of her jacket and gently stroked her back. His right hand came up and held the back of her head. He breathed in deeply, filling his nose with the spicy scent of her perfume. As she broke off their kiss, arching her head back, he traced his tongue from the hollow of her throat to her earlobe.
Erisi lazily pulled him along with her as she slowly drifted toward the room’s bed. Corran understood her intention and realized he should have resisted the temptation she offered. Rational arguments tried to trip a circuit breaker in his brain, but they all failed. Operational security wasn’t important because if the Imperials decided to take them there was no way for them to elude capture. Sleeping together or separately would not save them if the Empire knew enough about them to know where to find them.
Both of them being members of Rogue Squadron was no bar to involvement. Nawara Ven and Rhysati Ynr had fallen in love and that had not proved an impediment to their skills and performance. Corran and Erisi were of legal age, sound mind, and both consented to what they were about to do. Even the fact that the two of them were from different worlds and different cultures had no bearing on what they were going to do. That we are here, now, is all that matters.
The word “now” began to ricochet around in his skull, releasing all sorts of memories. When he’d been in CorSec he’d heard his father or Gil Bastra or himself tell rookies that most criminals were stupid because they lived for now. Living for now meant they didn’t look ahead to the consequences of their actions. They didn’t take precautions, didn’t plan, and as a result, what they did fell apart on them.
Things went deeper than just that as well. He remembered his father weeping on the anniversary of the death of Corran’s mother. “One of the reasons she was a good woman, wife, and mother was because she didn’t think about herself first. Not a selfish bone in your mother’s body. Everyone else came first and what she wanted was saved for later because we needed her now. And now she has no more later, and there seems little reason in having a later without her.”
Erisi stopped moving backward and Corran felt the foot of the bed against his shins. She slowly sank back on the bed and drew him down with her. He resisted slightly, lowering her softly onto the quilted coverlet. He saw her in soft shades of grey from the dim light splashing in through the window. She was a seductive vision, a dream made real and warm and he fought to use that image to quiet the thoughts raging through his mind.
Powerful though that image was, a feeling of disaster dissolved it. Corran remembered his own relief at not sleeping with Iella back when he was with CorSec because, aside from destroying her marriage, the affair would have changed forever their relationship. The friendship and trust they had developed working together could have never been reclaimed. It was true that they might have stuck together and been stronger for getting together, but their attraction had been as much circumstantial as it had been real, which made for a poor foundation for any permanent relationship.
And this is circumstantial, too. Corran heard Mirax on Noquivzor telling him that Erisi would not be good for him and he’d seen how truly different they were as they came into Coruscant. He’d developed doubts about any relationship with her then, and this situation now did not invalidate those doubt
s. She’s attractive and I’m attracted, but something is not right here.
Something inside him felt very wrong. His father had told him countless times to trust his feelings and to play his hunches. Corran had taken his father’s advice and had learned to live by what he felt, or to later regret going against those feelings. He had gone against his gut feelings before, and with much less in the way of inducement to do so, but those situations had never turned out right in the end.
Corran let himself fall forward, but he kept his elbows locked and held his chest and head above Erisi. “I can’t.”
Erisi flashed him a shadowed smile. “I think you’re doing fine.”
“Seriously, I can’t.” He bent his right arm and flopped down on his flank beside her. “It isn’t going to work.”
Rolling up on her side, she reached over and stroked his cheek. “What’s wrong? What did I do wrong?”
“It’s not you.” He took her hand and kissed her palm. “It’s not that I’d like nothing better than to be here with you, but …”
“This is just now, Corran. I need this, you need this. It won’t change who we are. No obligations. No recriminations. No regrets.”
Her words poured soothingly into his ears. He had no doubt she meant them and that they would be true for her. “I hear you, Erisi, and I believe you, but I don’t know that I’d be able to leave it in the past. It might not change who we are or what we mean to each other, but I’d bet against it given my past history. As I said, it’s not you, it’s me.”
He rolled onto his back, then sat up. “You have to figure I’m an idiot. We’ve gotten very close a number of times and I keep pulling back.”