lock, but Corran came in and got it again fairly easily. "You can't escape me,
Iceheart."
Isard's reply came almost languidly voiced. "I've stopped trying, Horn. You're
bluffing. If you had torpedoes, you would have used them already." The shuttle
leveled out and prepared for the run to lightspeed.
"I was hoping to take you alive, Isard. I'll shoot if I have to."
"Please, Horn, do your worst. Know that when we meet again, to you I shall do my
worst!"
She can't get away. I can't let her get away! Corran punched his comm unit with
a closed fist. His mind reeled as fury and a fear of failure raged through him.
My lasers can't get through her shields and I don't have any missiles to batter
them down. There's nothing I can do . . . nothing . . . wait, maybe there's
something . . .
"Quick, transfer all power to the forward shield!" Corran smiled grimly and
reached for the throttle. "Hang on, Whistler, we're going to ram her."
The droid began hooting loudly, but Corran ignored him and focused on the
shuttle. "Your logic boards are fried. There's a chance we can survive, but that
doesn't matter. If we cripple her ship ... we have to cripple her ship . . ."
Before Corran could jam the throttle full forward, two blue darts streaked past
either side of his cockpit. The first exploded against the shuttle's aft shield
and collapsed it. The second drilled through the engine housing, skewing the
ship to port. The proton torpedo detonated inside the shuttle's fuselage. Corran
saw the angular ship puff up and out before fire lanced out the cockpit
viewports, then a golden fireball ripped the ship apart from the inside out.
Corran's X-wing passed straight through the center of the explosion and by the
time he brought his ship around the sparks from debris hitting his shields were
the only indication that the shuttle had been there at all. Consumed by fire.
Somehow fitting.
Corran keyed his comm unit. "Who did that?"
"Seven here, Nine. Thanks for giving me the target lock."
"What?" Corran glanced over at the transponder switch and saw it was lit. When I
punched the console, I must have hit it by accident. The image of Luke Skywalker
came to mind. He'd tell me that wasn't an accident, wasn't luck, just the Force.
Corran slowly nodded. I prefer to believe it was justice.
"It was a great shot, Tycho. If I couldn't get her, well, your claim predated
mine."
"Corran, we got her. That's all that counts." Tycho's X-wing came into view as
Corran headed his X-wing back toward Thyferra. "I don't see any more squints,
Tycho. You got a workout."
"I got my share, but Ten vaped the bulk of them. He accounted for six
Interceptors all by himself." Tycho chuckled lightly. "And it looks like the
Lusankya isn't shooting anymore."
Corran smiled. "A tyrant dead; a traitor dead; a Super Star Destroyer dead; and,
if Elscol, Iella, and the Ashern have done their jobs, a planet liberated. Not a
bad day at all."
41
"Looks different, doesn't it, Corran, when you're walking on the ceiling?"
"Yeah, but not any better." Despite having the lights strung throughout the
Lusankya prisoners' quarters, the warren's rough-hewn walls still pressed in on
Corran. He turned toward Tycho Celchu as he climbed over the low wall into what
had been Jan Dodonna's cell. "It's very strange to have mounted this whole
operation to try to get Jan and the other prisoners out, just to get in here and
find Isard had them shipped out by shuttle to other places months ago. Deep down
she must have known we'd win, so she did this to frustrate us."
"You've got it all wrong, my friend." Tycho patted Corran's right shoulder with
his left hand. "When you escaped from the Lusankya, you ruined it for her. She
could no longer view her little prison without thinking about how you beat her.
Whereas anyone else would have beefed up security, she decided to scrap the
whole facility. And it's just as well, because this section of the ship lost
atmosphereeveryone would have died in here. Had Isard really been on her game,
she would have let them die that way and would have us
blaming ourselves for killing a bunch of the rebellion's heroes."
Corran nodded slowly. In the week since the battle for Thyferra he'd waited for
repair crews to restore atmosphere to the prison area on the ship. To the others
that had seen it, the whole area was just part of a ship where the bulkheads had
been lined with rock. The fact that the primitive latrines had drained into a
zero gravity vacuum, then the waste settled wherever it had drifted when
gravity and atmosphere had been brought back, did not help things. Everyone who
visited the facility could see very clearly why he hated it
But the stink and the crudity of its manufacture wasn't why he hated it. Corran
frowned. "It feels to me as if despair and failure have permeated these walls.
The men who were in here didn't dare try to escape, and yet most of them could
have, I'm certain. Jan could have come with me, but he didn't because he felt a
responsibility to the others. That made him more a prisoner than these walls."
"But what you saw as a prison for him was not what he saw for himself. Jan knew
he was keeping people alive by leading them. He hadn't surrendered, so they
couldn't quite do it themselves." Tycho brushed fingers across the rocky
surface of the walls. "What he was doing, by staving behind, was as much a part
of him as your need to escape was a part of you. I don't remember much of my
rime here, but I felt certain I was going to die here. It's a terrible thing to
come back to your senses after having been out of it, to find yourself in a
place where you think you're going to die. Jan told me I wasn't, and I didn't."
"And you escaped from the place where she sent you after you left here."
"Right." Tycho smiled. "We have to hope the others will be able to do that,
too."
"It'll be fine if they do, but I'm still on for finding them myself." Corran
smiled. "Zraii's already got my X-wing back to normalwell, as normal as it gets
after a Verpine messes with itso I'm ready to hunt. You with me?"
Tycho nodded thoughtfully. "I am, though I think we're going to have some stiff
competition. One of the first 'repair'
crews in this area was a forensic team from Alliance Intelligence. They are
supposed to have swept this place, pulling fingerprints, hair and tissue
sampleseven samples of some of the solid waste floating around. You know better
than I what that sort of evidence can tell them, but I gather they were able to
confirm the identities of some of the prisoners from what they got."
Corran smiled slowly. "Which is why General Airen Cracken showed up two days
ago. The New Republic is going to hunt for the prisoners, then?"
"That would be my guess. They couldn't do it before because they only had your
word to go onmy identifications were spotty and old. Since you chose to resign
from Rogue Squadron and started all this, they had to disassociate themselves
with our effort. Now they have solid evidence, which changes everything."
"Great, they can race us in finding them."
"Ah, there you are, Corran." Ooryl filled the entryway. "I thought I could find
you here."
What? Corran stared at the Gand. "Ooryl?"
"Did Ooryl say that right?" The Gand's mouthparts snapped open and shut
excitedly. "Ooryl wanted you to be the first to hear."
Corran looked over at Tycho, but the Alderaanian just shrugged. "Yes, Ooryl, you
said that correctly, but I thought Gands didn't use personal pronouns unless . .
."
The Gand's fist clicked off his chest. "I am janwuine. The ruetsavii, they have
declared me janwuine. They have returned to Gand to tell Ooryl's, ah, my story.
What we did here, Ooryl's part in the taking of Coruscant, and the battles
against Iceheart, these will become known to all the Gand. If Ooryl says 'I,'
they will know to whom I refer."
"That's great, Ooryl." Tycho extended his hand to the Gand. "The Gands have
every right to be proud of you."
Ooryl shook Tycho's hand, then Corran's as well. "There is more. Each of you
have been declared hinwuine. This means that when you come to Gand for Ooryl's
janwuine-jika, you may speak of yourselves with personal pronouns and will not
be thought vulgar or rude."
Corran's eyes narrowed. "You mean to tell me that the whole time you've been
here in the squadron you felt the way we talked made us vulgar or rude?"
The Gand shook his head. "Ooryl never assumes vulgarity when ignorance suffices
as an explanation."
"Thanks, I think."
Tycho shot him a sly smile. "That should be 'Corran thinks.' "
"But not often," Ooryl added.
"Corran thinks Ooryl should practice using personal pronouns more regularly
before he tries comedy." Corran opened his arms wide. "Not much better than the
shack we shared on Talasea, is it, Ooryl?"
"The mineral deposits do add some color, but Ooryl, er, / would not like to live
here." The Gand held a hand up. "I would explore this place with you more,
later, for the story of your time here will be vital to my janwuine-jika, but
there are other things we must do right now. Captain Celchu, Commander Antilles
asked Ooryl to tell you he is waiting for you in the Lusankya's staff officers'
mess."
"Last minute things before his party?"
"Ooryl, I mean /, believes this is the case. Captain. And Corran, General
Cracken has asked to speak with you."
/ wonder what that's about? "Where do I find him?"
"Ooryl will take you there."
The trio of pilots carefully picked their way out of the cavern complex and took
the turbolift up. Tycho exited first while the Gand and Corran continued on,
climbing higher and higher in the Lusankya's superstructure. When the turbolift
stopped, Corran found Airen Cracken waiting for him outside the door to the
Captain's ready-room.
He nodded at the Gand as the turbolift's door closed behind him, then turned to
the older man. "What can I do for you, sir?"
Cracken raked fingers back through reddish hair tinged with white. "I need you
to talk some sense to Booster Terrik."
Corran immediately raised his hands. "Got a Death Star you want killed instead?"
"Close." Cracken shook his head. "Booster wants to keep the Virulence."
"And you want him to give it to the New Republic?" Corran laughed aloud. "He
won't listen to me."
"Mirax suggested I get you up here."
"Okay, you have me, but I don't know what I can do."
"Back me up, or we're going to have Booster Terrik in command of a fully
operational Impstar deuce." Cracken sighed. "Terrik was never as bad as some of
the smugglers out there, but now he's hooked up with Talon Karrde and . . ."
"Booster and Karrde are together? Allied? I mean, I knew Karrde had come into
the system, but I assumed it was to work a deal with Thyferra's new government
about hauling bacta. Are you sure Karrde and Booster are working together?"
"See for yourself." Cracken opened the door to the ready-room and allowed Corran
to precede him in. Corran found Booster at the far end of an oval table, with
Mirax seated on his right and a handsome man he took to be Karrde seated on his
left. Corran went over to Mirax's side of the table and gave her a kiss on the
cheek. "Booster, you're looking fit."
"Captaining a Starship agrees with me."
Corran extended a hand across the table to the other man. "Talon Karrde, I
presume. Pleased to make your acquaintance."
"Better now than when you were with CorSec." Karrde seemed to be watching him
very closely. "The resemblance to your father is unmistakable."
"Thanks." Corran sat down, fighting to conceal a shiver. He didn't know why, but
he gained the impression that Karrde knew more about him than perhaps even Airen
Cracken did, and that disturbed him. I think I'm happy I didn't meet him when I
was with CorSec as well. He would have been to me what Booster was to my father,
but I don't think I would have been sending Karrde to Kessel.
Booster looked up at Cracken, then jerked a thumb at Corran. "Did you think he
could convince me to give up my ship?"
Great, this is off to a good start. Corran glanced at Cracken and shrugged.
"Booster, I just thought Lieutenant Horn here could sup-ply you with some more
perspective on why you're not going to be able to keep the Virulence. That ship
presents a rather major danger . . ."
"Right, a danger to anyone who tries to take it away from me."
"Let me see if I can rephrase thisthe only people with that sort of firepower
at their disposal are Warlords and other Imperial renegades. The New Republic
its allies to be an immediate threat to the New Republic's stability."
"Fine, General, fine. I'll just take the Virulence, conquer some planet with it,
have the planet become one of the New Republic's allies."
Mirax shook her head. "That's pretty much what they're afraid of, Father."
Booster winked at his daughter. "Okay, then try this I'll make the Virulence
herself a nation. We'll just move from system to system, trading here and there,
and we'll be sovereign and even join the New Republic. Think of a!! the guns as
ground-based defenses."
Cracken's breath hissed in between his teeth. "No, I don't think that will work.
That would constitute quite a large threat to peace in the galaxy. Such a threat
would have to be dealt with."
Booster's artificial eye's light seemed to flare for a second. "I think there
are several different degrees of threat, General, and I'd have to say, right
now, you're acting more threatening than I've ever contemplated being. The
Virulence is mine. She was surrendered to me."
"But only after three squadrons of New Republic A-wings appeared in the Yag'Dhul
system, giving Captain Varrscha the impression she had been trapped by New
Republic forces." Cracken pressed his hands flat against the white tabletop.
"She thought she was surrendering the ship to
the New Republic, and you know that's true. Your representations to her did not
dissuade her of this fact."
Corran looked over at Booster and shook his head. "You let Isard's conviction
that we
were a covert New Republic operation trick Varrscha into believing we
actually were part of the New Republic? Not bad, Booster."
Mirax's father smiled proudly. "She was looking for any excuse to get out of
trouble, so I just used the one she gave me."
Corran winced. "Unfortunately, that means you've given the New Republic a claim
on the Virulence."
"What?!"
"Mirax, tell him. It's the same as a partnership for salvaging hulks. Just
because one partner is ceded ownership, he doesn't own itthe partnership does."
"Corran's right, Father."
"Nonsense. I've never heard of such a thing."
Mirax laughed. "No? As I recall, that's how you got your share of the Pulsar
Skate."
Booster frowned heavily. "That's not the same thing at all, not at all. But, for
the sake of argument here, let's say Captain Varrscha was mistaken about my
connection with the New Republic. I still possess the ship, and if they have a
share, so do I."
Cracken nodded. "You do. We will justly compensate you for it, of course, and
you'll earn our undying gratitude. Even a pardon for any indiscretions you might
have committed . . ."
"You can stop there, General. Unless you want to give me back the five years I
spent on Kessel, I'm not interested in any judicial rewards, thanks. How much?"
The New Republic's representative hesitated. "The current situation is such
that an immediate payment is out of the question, but I think we could
compensate you with five million credits."
"Ha! This is an Imperial Star Destroyer Mark II we're talking about. It doesn't
have a scratch on it. It is worth billions and billions of credits. I'll settle
for a billion credits, payable in two hours, or I'm flying it out of here."
"Ah, Booster, you're dreaming that if you think that ship is going anywhere."
Cracken smiled confidently. "As you know, Thyferra has voted to join the New
Republic. Because of this, all ships in the system are subject to New Republic
law. In accord with said laws, your navigation and engineering section crews
have been taken planetside for debriefing."
"That's piracy."
"No, it's actually a security concern. As Lieutenant Horn can attest, a number
of prisoners who were on this ship are missing. We want to question anyone who
might have been used to move them to other locations, and your astronav crews