Isard's Revenge (43 page)

“And I am of him.” Mirax smiled and kissed him again as Fey’lya began to speak. “After all, he’s my ally in keeping you safe and that’s a job we intend to continue for a very long time to come.”

Iella slipped into her small cabin on
Lusankya
and inserted her comlink into the room’s comm unit holoprojector. “This is Iella Wessiri calling
Starweb
.”

The image of the disk freighter she’d seen from the reception hung above the projector pad for a second, then it shifted to Asyr Sei’lar’s head and shoulders. “I left a message for you and for Mirax to let you know I’m leaving.”

“You don’t have to, Asyr.” Iella glanced out the room’s viewport and saw the freighter hanging off the starboard bow. “You can come back, we can explain things.”

“No. I’m better off dead.”

“But, Gavin, he’s … you can tell he hurts inside.”

The Bothan looked away from the holocam for a moment, then sniffed and turned back. “I know, Iella. I know how much he must hurt, but he will get over it. He’s a strong man. He will mourn, then recover and thrive. I know it. You have to remember what I told you from the start, when you recovered me at Distna, about why you had to tell no one I lived.”

“Borsk Fey’lya isn’t the Emperor.” Iella opened her arms wide with exasperation. “You said he told you he’d never allow the two of you to marry and adopt, and that he would make your lives miserable. That’s a gross abuse of power. He can’t be allowed to get away with that.”

“I know that, Iella, and I won’t let him.” Asyr’s lips peeled back in a smile that revealed sharp white teeth. “I’ll go to one of our colony worlds and assume a new identity. I’ll work to make changes within Bothan society that will guarantee politicians like Fey’lya cannot ruin other lives. If I come back to life now and expose what he’s done, I will take one individual down. The system still fosters that sort of power, and I need to work to change it.”

“Gavin would be a great help to you in all that.”

“I know, but it will be a dirty battle, fought the way only Bothans can fight.” She blinked her violet eyes. “It will consume my life, but I won’t have it consume his. Gavin is a good enough man that he would devote himself to helping me, but I can’t do that to him. He deserves better. Help him through it.”

“I will, we will.”

Asyr nodded. “Thank you. And I apologize for putting you and Mirax through the pressure of keeping my survival hidden. Spouses shouldn’t keep secrets from each other.”

Iella raised an eyebrow. “Never been married, have you?”

Surprise showed on Asyr’s face, then she laughed. “No.
Perhaps someday. Well, I’m clear on a vector to hyperspace. Let Booster know this ship will be waiting for him at Commenor, as we discussed. Good-bye, Iella, and thank you.”

“Bye, Asyr, until we meet again.”

The Bothan’s image blinked out as the freighter shot into hyperspace. Iella brushed a tear from her right cheek, then took her comlink and headed toward the door. It slid open, with a man standing there, his hand poised over the door buzzer button.

“Wedge!”

“Iella, good, I did find you.” The leader of Rogue Squadron gave her a sloppy, boyish grin. “I saw Corran and Mirax. They said you’d come down here.”

“And you came to find me.” Iella grinned. “Looking to have me recommend to General Cracken that we make you an intelligence operative based on this tracking experience?”

“Ah, um, no.” He raised his head. “I was wondering, I mean, I thought of this before, but never got a chance to ask you … They said they would be saving a place for you at their table, but I’m having to sit with a bunch of Senators who I don’t know …”

“And you want someone on your wing?”

“Yeah, someone on my wing.” He extended his arm to her. “Interested in the job?”

“Sounds like a dangerous assignment.” She squinted at him for a moment. “Think I can handle it?”

“Definitely, Iella. You’re Rogue material.” Wedge smiled as she slipped her hand on his arm and laid his left hand over hers. “We both eliminated a Ysanne Isard from the galaxy and, after that, together, there’s nothing that can beat us.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Michael A. Stackpole is an award-winning author, editor, game and computer game designer. As always, he spends his spare time playing indoor soccer and now has a new hobby, podcasting. Mike will publish
A New World
, the sequel to
Cartomancy
, this July, and is currently at work on ideas for a half-dozen other novels.

To learn more about Mike’s podcasting, please visit www.tsfpn.com (the website of The SciFi Podcast Network).

BOOKS BY MICHAEL A. STACKPOLE

THE WARRIOR TRILOGY

Warrior: En Garde

Warrior: Riposte

Warrior: Coupé

THE BLOOD OF KERENSKY

TRILOGY

Lethal Heritage

Blood Legacy

Lost Destiny

Natural Selection

Assumption of Risk

Bred for War

Malicious Intent

Grave Covenant

Prince of Havoc

Ghost War

THE FIDDLEBACK TRILOGY

A Gathering Evil

Evil Ascendant

Evil Triumphant

Eyes of Silver
^*

Dementia

Wolf and Raven

Once a Hero
^*

Talion: Revenant
^*

STAR WARS
^®
X-WING SERIES

Rogue Squadron
^*

Wedge’s Gamble
^*

The Krytos Trap
^*

The Bacta War
^*

Isard’s Revenge
^*

Star Wars
^®
: I, Jedi
^*

Star Wars
^®
: Dark Tide

Star Wars
^®
: Onslaught

Star Wars
^®
: Ruin

THE DRAGONCROWN

WAR CYCLE

The Dark Glory War
^*

Fortress Draconis
^*

When Dragons Rage
^*

The Grand Crusade
^*

THE AGE OF DISCOVERY

A Secret Atlas
^*

Cartomancy
^*

*
published by Bantam Books

STAR WARS—
The Expanded Universe

You saw the movies. You watched the cartoon series, or maybe played some of the video games. But did you know …

In
The Empire Strikes Back
, Princess Leia Organa said to Han Solo, “I love you.” Han said, “I know.” But did you know that they actually got married? And had three Jedi children: the twins, Jacen and Jaina, and a younger son, Anakin?

Luke Skywalker was trained as a Jedi by Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda. But did you know that, years later, he went on to revive the Jedi Order and its commitment to defending the galaxy from evil and injustice?

Obi-Wan said to Luke, “For over a thousand generations, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic. Before the dark times. Before the Empire.” Did you know that over those millennia, legendary Jedi and infamous Sith Lords were adding their names to the annals of Republic history?

Yoda explained that the dreaded Sith tend to come in twos: “Always two, there are. No more, no less. A Master, and an apprentice.” But did you know that the Sith didn’t always exist in pairs? That at one time in the ancient Republic there were as many Sith as Jedi, until a Sith Lord named Darth Bane was the lone survivor of a great Sith war and created the “Rule of Two”?

All this and much, much more is brought to life in the many novels and comics of the
Star Wars
expanded universe. You’ve seen the movies and watched the cartoon. Now venture out into the wider worlds of
Star Wars
!

Turn the page or jump to the
timeline
of
Star Wars
novels to learn more.

1

She was beautiful and fragile and he could not count the number of times he had told her he loved her. But he had come here knowing he had to hurt her very badly.

Her name was Qwi Xux. She was not human; her blue skin, a shade lighter than her eyes, and her glistening brown hair, downy in its softness, were those of the humanoids of the planet Omwat. She was dressed for the occasion in a white evening gown whose flowing lines complemented her willowy form.

They sat at a table in a balcony café three kilometers above the surface of the planet Coruscant, the world that was a city without end. Just beyond the balcony rail was a vista made up of skyscrapers extending to the horizon, an orange sky threatening rain, and the sun setting beyond one of the more distant thunderheads. Breezes drifting across the two of them smelled of rain to come. At this early-evening hour, he and Qwi were the only diners on the balcony, and he was grateful for the privacy.

Qwi looked up from her entree of factory-bred Coruscant game fowl, her soft smile fading from her lips. “Wedge, there is something I must say.”

Wedge Antilles, general of the New Republic, perhaps still the most famous pilot of the old Rebel Alliance, breathed a sigh of silent thanks. Qwi’s conversational distraction would give him at least a few more moments before he had to arm his bad news and fire it off at her. “What is it?”

Her gaze fixed on him, she took a deep breath and held it until he was sure she would begin to turn even more blue. He recognized her expression: a reluctance to injure. He gestured, not impatiently, for her to go ahead.

“Wedge,” she said, her words all in a rush, “I think our time together is done.”

“What?”

“I don’t know how to say it so that it doesn’t seem cruel.” She gave him a helpless shrug. “I think we must go our separate ways.”

He remained silent, trying to restructure what she’d said into something he understood.

It wasn’t that her words were confusing. But they were the words
he
was supposed to be saying. How they’d defected from his mind to hers was a complete mystery to him.

He tried to remember what he’d thought she would say when he spoke those words to her. All he could manage was “Why?” At least his tone was neutral, no accusation in it.

“Because I think we have no future together.” Her gaze scanned his face as if looking for new cuts or bruises. “Wedge, we are good together. You bring me happiness. I think I do the same for you. But whenever I try to turn my mind from where we are to where we will be someday, I see no home, no family, no celebration days special to us. Just two careers whose bearers keep intersecting out of need. I think of what we feel for one another and every time it seems ‘affection’ is the proper word, not ‘love.’ ”

Wedge sat transfixed. Yes, those were his thoughts, much as he had been marshaling them all day long. “If not love, Qwi, what do you think this relationship meant to us?”

“For me, it was need. When I left the Maw facility where I designed weapons for the Empire, when I was made to understand what sort of work I had been doing, I was left with nothing. I looked for something to tractor me toward safety, toward comfort, and that tractor beam was you.” She dropped her gaze from his. “When Kyp Durron used his Force powers to destroy my memory, to ensure I could never engineer another Death Star or Suncrusher, I
became
nothing, and was more in need of my tractor beam than ever.”

She met his gaze again. “For you, it was a simulator run.”

“What?”

“Please, hear me out.” Distressed, she turned away from him to stare at the cloud-mottled sky and the distant sunset. “When we met, I think your heart told you that it was time for you to love. And you did, you loved me.” Her voice became a whisper. “I understand now that humans, in their adolescent years, fall in love long before they understand what it means. These loves do not usually endure. They are learning experiences. I think perhaps that you, shoved from your childhood home straight into a world of starfighters and lasers and death, missed having those learning loves. But the need for them stayed with you.