Star Wars: X-Wing I: Rogue Squadron (33 page)

Derricote returned the smile. “Your visit was not as onerous as you might imagine, Agent Loor.” The older man held a bottle out to him. “A memento of your visit.”

Kirtan took it. “Corellian whiskey, Whyren’s Reserve, no less.” He looked closely at the cap and the holographic tax seal. “It looks genuine. Is it, or have you prepared this so I can poison myself and eliminate a problem for you?”

Derricote opened his hands. “If you want to open it and lumguzzle, I’ll join you. It is genuine,
and quite costly, but I have connections that make it possible for me to obtain it. It’s not poisoned because it is given by way of thanking you. Had you not come here the Rebels might have taken me by surprise. I think the result would have been much the same as it actually turned out to be, but one can never know. Your use of influence to transfer a squadron of TIE starfighters from the
Eviscerator
until my fighters can be replaced was also appreciated.”

The General’s openness surprised Kirtan. “You do not feel my being ordered back to Imperial Center is a threat to your operation here?”

Derricote shrugged. “I am too much a realist to imagine I could keep this operation secret forever. I trust you will use your knowledge of it to your own gain, which means I will not be sacrificed casually. This operation, of course, has uses. I would think that Ysanne Isard would find it more valuable than any object lesson she could provide others by destroying it and me.”

The man’s eyes hardened. “Besides, if I saw you as a threat, you would have died during the Rebel attack.”

Truly spoken
. Kirtan nodded slowly. “I accept your gift in the spirit in which it is given.”
But I will have it tested before I drink
.

“I hope, also, you will view this invitation in the spirit in which it is given.” Derricote spread his arms wide to encompass the planet. “The Empire is dead. What will rise to replace it, I don’t know, but the Core will be heating up and Imperial Center is going to be roasted alive. Rebels, warlords, either could do the job. Old Borleias here, it’s been through its time of fire. I’ll be here when Imperial Center isn’t. If you need a haven when things break apart, remember that I’m here.”

Kirtan brought his head up. “Thank you, General. I
shall
remember you. I hope I won’t have to avail myself of your invitation, but if I do, I know where to find you.”

“Have a good trip to Imperial Center, Agent Loor.”

Kirtan raised the bottle in a salute. “Until we meet again.”

Wedge felt a giddy anticipation in his belly the like of which he’d not known since Endor. He glanced over at General Salm. The man sat on the other side of the briefing table with his eyes closed, nodding to himself as he rehearsed what he would say to Admiral Ackbar. The plan they’d concocted over the last week
could
work, but it was risky and highly time-dependent.

The door to the briefing room opened and Ackbar entered the room. He nodded to both men, then settled down in the chair at the head of the oval table. “What have you woven together?”

Salm smiled and punched keys on his datapad. The small device fed information to the holographic projection disk in the center of the table and a starfield began to sparkle and slowly spin above it. “We have found a way to take Blackmoon.”

The Mon Calamari sat back. “I do not recall your having been told which world Blackmoon was.”

Wedge shook his head. “We weren’t. As per orders, coordinates were downloaded to and erased from all of our astromechs and navigational computers before and after the operation. Unfortunately for operational security, one of my unit’s astromechs has a special criminal investigation and forensics circuitry package. It gathers evidence and, in this case, included a star chart of the area in it.”

Ackbar’s barbels quivered. “Something will have to be done to correct that situation.”

“Agreed, Admiral, but this droid in Commander Antilles’s squadron has provided us with invaluable information that points out why we lost the fight and how we can take Borleias.”

“And more, sir.” Wedge pointed at the starfield. “Computer, isolate the triad.”

The starfield grew and stars bled out of the edges of the image. In the center three stars intensified in radiance and faint green lines stretched out to link them. A small arrow pointed down and away from the lowest point of the triangle indicating the direction of the Core and Coruscant.

“These three systems are, in descending order, Mirit, Venjagga, and Pyria. The center one, Venjagga, is home to the
Eviscerator
. It is using Jagga-Two as a base and is there to protect the concussion missile production facilities. While the output is considered small by Imperial standards, the fact that the world is actually producing missiles makes it worth protecting.”

Salm indicated the uppermost system, the one on a virtual straight line with Borleias. “The Mirit system is home to Ord Mirit. The Empire abandoned that base shortly after Endor and shifted the garrison all the way over to Corellia to help hold the shipyards there. Ord Mirit is really too far away from anything substantial for us to use it as a base, as we have done with Ord Pardron. Still, it is part of the sector the
Eviscerator
is tasked to defend.”

“Finally we have Borleias.” Salm hit a button on his datapad and the starfield dissolved into the image of the planet. “When we were there before we discovered the estimates of power generation for the planet were low by at least half and two squadrons of fighters—Interceptors no less—showed up without
warning. All of the data we had about the planet had been stolen from Imperial files by Bothan slicers. Unfortunately for us, that information was incomplete.”

Wedge nodded. “We went back and pulled old data files on Borleias and they’ve provided the answers to questions that were never asked before the first operation. Back before the Empire existed, Alderaan Biotics set up a research facility on the far side of the planet. It included a geothermal generation station
and
a local spaceport. Because everything was located in the northern part of the planet, the facilities were built underground to avoid complications from the harsh winters. A series of scan surveys of the planet would be required to locate the sites from space.”

“What Commander Antilles says is true, sir—and the effort to locate these bases from space would have revealed our interest in the planet to the Empire.”

The Mon Calamari acknowledged Salm’s comment with a nod. “Why was there no information about this place in the Imperial files, General?”

“The facility was shut down years ago. We suspect that the current base commander, Evir Derricote, refurbished it and has it operating to produce goods—foodstuffs mostly—that are sold to the refugee Alderaanan population via the black market. At the very least his Imperial superiors would see this as giving aid and comfort to the enemy, so hiding knowledge of it from them makes sense.”

“So you suspect this facility and its generator was the source of the power used to reinforce the base’s shields?”

“Yes, sir.” Wedge pointed to a faint red line linking the military base and the Biotics facility. “A tunnel that runs about one and a quarter kilometers
beneath the surface of the planet links the two facilities. There is a rift valley where a ferrocrete conduit links the tunnel one side to the other. This is the weak link—the generator is too deep to blow with proton torpedoes and destroying it makes no sense if we intend to take the planet.”

Ackbar nodded, then tapped his lower lip with a flipperlike hand. “If you sever the connection with the military base, you bring us back to the original Bothan estimates of the defenses. If we bring our ships back in, we should be able to bring the shields down as we did before. We could take the base, but then the
Eviscerator
would come and destroy it.”

Salm shook his head. “Not if the
Eviscerator
arrives too late. Our plan in this—we stage a feint at Jagga-Two. The
Emancipator
and the
Liberator
arrive in-system, just at the outer edge of the gravity well created by the seventh planet, a gas giant. They deploy my Defender Wing and another wing of fighters, matching the
Eviscerator’s
complement of TIEs. The
Eviscerator
will deploy its fighters and move out behind their screen to engage our ships.

“Even at full speed, it will require two hours for our ships to engage each other. Our snubs won’t be traveling at full speed, and our Star Destroyers will be pulling back. It will appear to the
Eviscerator
that we’re running from it or, at the very least, are reluctant to engage it. When the
Eviscerator
moves into position within the system to engage us, our ships will go to light speed. The Star Destroyers will head for Ord Mirit while the fighters will head for Borleias. The
Eviscerator
will be unable to follow our Destroyers immediately because of its position in the system and the presence of planets that act as natural Interdictor cruisers.”

Ackbar’s eyes half shut. “Then the
Eviscerator
goes to Borleias.”

“Without her fighters?” Salm shook his head. “The TIEs cannot enter hyperspace by themselves the way our fighters can. They will have to be recovered and that will take time. Borleias can take care of itself, and the feint at the Venjagga system will be obviously intended to keep the
Eviscerator
away from Ord Mirit.”

The Admiral gave Salm a wall-eyed stare. “Why would the captain of the
Eviscerator
believe there was anything of value at Ord Mirit?”

Wedge smiled. “We were thinking that there are some Bothan slicers who seriously want to redeem themselves. We want them to plant information in the Imperial networks that suggest a newly discovered, previously secret facility on Ord Mirit may possess the key to finding the
Katana
fleet.”

He felt a shiver run down his spine as he saw the effect of his words on Ackbar. The
Katana
fleet had once been real enough, but back before even the Clone Wars it had passed into legend. Over a hundred ships that were slave-circuited together, the fleet had jumped into hyperspace and had never been seen again. With the Empire crumbling, possession of that fleet would make its owner
the
power in the galaxy. If the Alliance found it, the New Republic would become invincible. If an Imperial officer found it, a new Emperor would be born.

“No sane officer could truly believe the
Katana
fleet could be found.” Ackbar’s mouth gaped open in a grin. “But no sane officer could refuse to take the chance that it could be found. The
Eviscerator
would have to go to Ord Mirit and Ord Mirit is, what, twelve hours at flank speed to Borleias?”

“Add the four from Venjagga to Ord Mirit and we have sixteen hours at the very least to take Borleias.” Wedge nodded solemnly. “The beginning of the raid on Borleias will be very simple. Rogue
Squadron goes in and blows the conduit. Going in and coming out we expect to attract a lot of attention because while we’re fighting, Lieutenant Page and his commandos, as well as a number of similar units, are going to use the conduit to get into the Borleias base and disable it. They’ll also hit the Biotic station’s spaceport. If they do it right, the TIE pilots sent up to engage us won’t know there’s been a change in ownership until they come home. Once the commandos are down and in, my people head out home.”

“The arrival of my Defender Wing and the other fighters from Venjagga will provide the Borleias base with enough of a distraction that Page’s people can take things down in short order, without having to damage anything we’ll need to use to defend the base.”

Ackbar’s barbels twitched. “Security will need to be very tight for this return to Blackmoon.”

“Yes, sir, but we have some advantages here. Derricote won’t think we’ll be coming back because the moon is in position to block our escape route. We are preparing a simulator package that hides the identity of our target. The run across the lunar surface will be disguised as a run through an asteroid belt, leading our people to believe we’re moving against a ringed planet.” Wedge smiled. “This time our pilots will not know where they’re going, but they won’t be in the dark about that they will face when they get there.”

The Mon Calamari nodded. “You will have to hide your location from your XO.”

“I know, so does he. He’s not part of the operation, so he accepts not knowing.”

The Mon Calamari stood slowly. “I think this plan is a good one, and can be made better. I do have one concern, however. It concerns your
Rogue Squadron, Commander Antilles, and the commandos.”

“Sir?”

“If the operations are launched simultaneously—and I must assume they will be so an alarm raised by the
Eviscerator
will not put Borleias in a heightened state of alert in time to disrupt your effort—there will be at least four hours before we have more forces arriving at Borleias. Flight suit life support lasts for three hours. Anyone left behind will die.”

“I know that, sir.”

“Do your people know that?”

Wedge shook his head. “They will before they go. I’ve got six operational ships. This will be a volunteer mission.”

“And a very bold one.” Admiral Ackbar nodded solemnly. “Let us go over it again and guarantee the gain will be worth the likely cost. Right now I believe I could sell it to the Provisional Council, but some modifications will make this a certainty. And if things go well, the way to Coruscant will finally lie open to us.”

Corran half hid his face behind his left hand, daring only to stare that the floating hologram of the mythical world of Phenaru Prime with his left eye. Aside from the addition of an asteroid ring, an ocean where the southern continent was, and some adjustments to the coastlines, it looked exactly like Borleias. The computer-projected world slowly spun above the cylinder in the well of the pilots’ briefing room. It looked calm and almost peaceful, especially without the air-current overlays Whistler used to project onto it.