Star Wars: X-Wing I: Rogue Squadron (29 page)

“I would never do that, General Kre’fey, but two weeks to prepare for an assault is a very short time.”

“If your pilots are not up to it, General, there are other Y-wing squadrons in the fleet.”

“My people will be ready.”

No love lost between those two
. Wedge raised his hand. “If I might, I do have some questions about the operation.”

The Bothan opened his hands indulgently. “Please, proceed, Commander.”

“The deflector shields—your report shows them vulnerable to bombardment when they are projected far enough to cover nonessential satellite facilities on the ground. What if the commander just shrinks the diameter of the coverage?”

“It would not matter. The base has insufficient generating capacity to bring up shields that could withstand our bombardment.”

“Even if the ion cannons are not on-line?”

That question brought a moment’s hesitation before it was answered. “It would make no difference.”

Wedge didn’t like the faint confidence in Kre’fey’s voice. The success of the operation was predicated on bringing the shields down. While Wedge didn’t want to think General Kre’fey was being stupid, his reliance on bombardment from space seemed remarkably shortsighted. The Imps had chosen to use a ground assault on Hoth to bring the shields down. While bombardment had worked elsewhere in the past, the Hoth solution seemed to work the best. And the presence of ion cannons on the ground meant the ships doing the bombarding could be disrupted, slowing their schedule and raising the
specter of help coming in from another system in time to beat back the assault.

He raised his hand again.

“Yes, Commander Antilles.”

“I don’t see a breakdown of the TIEs on Blackmoon. Are they eyeballs, squints, dupes, or brights?”

The Bothan’s eyes hardened. “I beg your pardon?”

General Salm translated. “He wants to know if the fighters are TIE starfighters, Interceptors, bombers, or advanced models.”

“Ah, starfighters mostly, and some others.” Kre’fey looked around the room for other questions, but no one had any. “To maintain operational security you will not be given the actual coordinates of your destination until you head out. The simulation packages you are given will fill your needs for detailed information. Ysanne Isard has stepped up her counterintelligence efforts against us and without surprise, this mission will suffer.”

Without surprise
, our
people will suffer
. Wedge shook his head. “I don’t like this.”

The Bothan General’s eyes narrowed to golden crescents. “Your likes and dislikes are immaterial, Commander. The Provisional Council has approved this plan, and that is enough.”

The Corellian pilot bristled at the rebuke. “They may approve of it, but they’re not going to be flying this mission, General.”

“But
I
will be there, Commander, in the first transport, leading the way down to take Blackmoon.” Kre’fey’s nostrils flared as if he were sniffing about for prey. “I trust you do not doubt Bothan courage.”

How could I when you Bothans take every opportunity to remind all of us that
your
people captured
the location of and information about the second Death Star?
“No, sir, I do not. I trust you do not doubt the courage of my people. They’ll do the mission, but I feel I have an obligation to them to make sure they’re going to come home from it.”

Kre’fey’s lip curled in a sneer. “An obligation you have acquitted so well in the
past
, Commander Antilles.”

Wedge felt a fist tighten around his heart. The faces of all the friends and comrades he had lost throughout the Rebellion flashed through his mind. It struck him that each one of them had become posthumous heroes specifically to allow idiots like Kre’fey the opportunity to make
more
Rebels into
posthumous heroes
. The ranks of the dead seemed endless, and inside a heartbeat the fire Wedge would have turned on Kre’fey was snuffed by the void that had claimed those he remembered.

Ackbar stood abruptly. “I believe, General Kre’fey, that Commander Antilles’s concerns are valid. I am surprised your normally painstaking precision in matters of intelligence gathering has been allowed to flag here. If you will, you have told us the hour the tide will be high, but some of us need to know the minute and the second. You have it within your ability to provide us this information and you will.”

The Bothan glared at the Mon Calamari. “Or?”

“Or I will see fit to cancel the operation.”

“But the Council approved it.”

Ackbar’s chin came up. “The Council is a political body that makes political decisions. Unlike a battle where the outcome cannot be reconsidered, political decisions can be recalled and revised endlessly. The Council did decide that a move toward Coruscant needed to be made, and your assault met
the parameters they set forth. This does not mean it is the
only
plan that might do that.”

“We shall see whether or not this assault goes forward, Admiral. I will distribute simulator packages to all the commands so they may begin training.”

The Mon Calamari rested his fists on his hips. “You’ll get that data, or I shall destroy all your simulator packages myself.”

The Bothan nibbled his lower lip, then nodded to his staff. “Fine, we will get you the information you want,
if it is obtainable
.” He snapped an order in Bothan to his aides and they trailed him from the room.

The room emptied rather quickly, leaving Wedge, Salm, and Ackbar alone before the illuminated podium. The Mon Calamari lowered his head and peered down into Wedge’s face. “You have my sympathies. That was uncalled for.”

Wedge still felt like he’d been gutshot. “Why is it that everyone gives the Bothans credit for locating the second Death Star and announcing the Emperor would be on it? Has everyone forgotten the Emperor lured us to Endor to exterminate us? The Bothans were had, yet they wear their deception like a badge of honor.”

The Mon Calamari nodded slowly. “I have heard others voice your opinion—mostly those in the Council who have found themselves between a Bothan and some mote of power. Bothans would tell you that the Emperor only conceived of the ambush
after
the information was stolen and he became suspicious. We only have the Emperor’s word that he fooled the Bothans and while Luke would never knowingly lie to us, I cannot trust the Emperor in anything.”

Wedge sat forward and scrubbed his hands over
his face. “I’m sure you are correct, Admiral. I guess I just see that doubt as the shadow lurking behind the unbridled self-confidence the Bothans exhibit. They may have been right about the Death Star, and Kre’fey may be right about this Blackmoon, but if he isn’t, lots of people will die.”

“I share your concern, Commander. You will get your information.”

The Corellian nodded. “Can you tell me where this Blackmoon is anyway?”

Ackbar hesitated. “Need to know, Commander, and right now you don’t need to know. Before you go, however, you will have all the data you need. The Blackmoon system is located in a dense sector, with limited ways in and out. Computing astronav solutions will be simple since there are so few. It makes ambushes easier, too, so the information will be provided when you need it, not when you want it.”

Wedge mulled that over, then nodded. “I do understand the need for security. I don’t like the limitations it imposes, but I understand them.”

The Mon Calamari’s mouth opened in a low chuckle. “We have progress. You’ll be moving from the fleet to a world called Noquivzor and you will stage from there. Several other units will join you there, including Defender Wing.” He clapped his hands together. “So, I imagine you would like to discuss the charges General Salm will bring against Corran Horn?”

Wedge sat back up. “If we’re going to be living together I think it would be for the best. Do you concur, General?”

Salm nodded his head. “I agree, but let’s save the trouble. Forget the charges.”

“Excuse me?”

The balding bomber pilot held his hands up. “If
I push for a court-martial of Horn for his actions, I’d be a fool and he’d sit out this assault on Blackmoon.” Salm’s brown eyes contracted with disgust. “I still think the whole of Rogue Squadron is out of line, but I think things are going to go badly at Blackmoon. With Horn and the rest of your pilots there, maybe things won’t end up becoming the nightmare that I’m afraid is going to haunt me for the next two weeks.”

That General Derricote managed to refrain from sweating in the steamy atmosphere of Borleias did not surprise Kirtan Loor too terribly much. The good General was toadlike enough in his demeanor that the Intelligence officer imagined it saved him from melting in the heat and humidity. The bloated, lumpen commander of Imperial forces in the Pyria system fitted his face with a smile—the abrupt curve of his mouth imitated by the sweep of the two chins jiggling beneath it.

“I am pleased to see, Agent Loor, that the past week and a half here on Borleias have not appeared to have taken their toll on you.” The man pressed stubby-fingered hands against the dark wood of his desktop. “You found everything you needed for your survey of our defenses?”

Kirtan nodded once, then froze and stared down at the Imperial officer for a second without saying anything. He waited, silent and unmoving, until the corners of the man’s smile began to quiver. “My security review proved satisfactory. Everything is as it should be here at the installation. Your shield generators
are in good repair, your two squadrons of TIE fighters are being maintained at a high level of readiness, and your training schedule has your pilots logging enough time for
twice
their number.”

“Preparation is the price for constant vigilance, Agent Loor.” Derricote’s voice remained blasé, but his bovine, brown eyes began blinking a bit more rapidly than they should have normally. “We are here to stop the Rebellion, so we must be prepared.”

Kirtan smiled easily, then leaned forward on the man’s desk. “And you are prepared. You have done very well to keep this base secure, and in fact, your computer security is tighter than anything I have seen outside Imperial Center itself. You also work harder than any other officer I have seen since the Emperor’s death.”

“I am all for the Empire.”

“You are all for
yourself.
” Kirtan tapped the datapad built into the man’s desk. “I took the liberty of visiting your office when you were not here and I pulled the secret files from your datapad. You truly are an artist. You duplicate requisitions, append intricate routing tags to them, and send them off to multiple commands, each of which believes you are under its care. You have successfully drawn enough fuel and ordinance to maintain
four
squadrons of TIE fighters. Since only two are here, I have to assume the others are at the Alderaan Biotics site.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I sincerely doubt that, General. I have read your file. You studied at the Imperial Naval Academy, but concentrated on biological and botanical subjects. While you are fully qualified to oversee a military installation such as this, you are
uniquely suited
to making the Biotics site operational again.” Kirtan smiled. “And profitable?”

Derricote’s face became ashen, but his smile did
not fully erode. “This has not been unanticipated, Agent Loor. I
do
have resources.”

Kirtan raised himself to his full height, then looked back down at Derricote. “This does not surprise me, General. The Alderaan Biotics hydroponic facility was barely more than a tax loss for the parent corporation before the tax laws changed. It was abandoned to the care of maintenance droids and forgotten. Then Alderaan was
disciplined
and the market for goods from Alderaan blossomed. My conservative estimate, based on data about twelve months old, is that if you’ve been operational for two years you should have cleared two million credits.”

“We have been at our fullest production capacity for only fifteen months, but our overhead is low, so we have actually made 2.75 million credits—though much of this is tied up in inventory maintained off-world.”

“Your overhead is low because the Empire is subsidizing your operation.”

The General steepled his fingers. “Think of it as
our
operation.”

“I could think of it as
my
operation, General.” Kirtan folded his arms across his chest. “I do not think I could hold it for long, however. In going back over your security system I noticed evidence of what could have been Alliance tampering with holonet messages.”

Derricote’s eyes grew hard and he sat up straighter at his desk. “Bothans. They make runs at all holonet communications. I feed them data and it keeps them happy.”

The edge in the man’s voice surprised Kirtan, as did the physical transformation. Just by sitting up and raising his chin, Derricote had shifted from being a noodle-spined sycophantic failure to the
sort of man who could engineer the deception that made his covert agricultural enterprise possible.
He showed me what I wanted to see so I would underestimate him
.

Derricote touched the screen on his datapad. “Frequency of hits and length of contact is up. Should I correlate that to your visit, Agent Loor, or shall I just assume the Alliance and Empire taking an interest in my little home is a coincidence?”

Kirtan’s eyes narrowed. “The Pyria system is one of a number that fits a profile for being a conduit into the Core for the Alliance.”

“It fits because they don’t know about my defenses.”

“Two more squadrons of TIE fighters will mean little to them.”

“Ah, so there are some things you
don’t
know about Borleias. Imagine that.” Derricote smiled. “I tell you what, son: You leave the defenses here to me. You’re an Intelligence officer, not a military genius.”

Kirtan pointed to the General’s private datapad. “I saw nothing in there to indicate you’re a military genius, sir.”

Derricote tapped the side of his head with a thick finger. “That’s because I’m smart enough to know that the only data that is safe is the data stored up here. I’ve anticipated a move against Borleias ever since I found the Biotics station in working order, and I’ve planned accordingly.”