Starfighters of Adumar (16 page)

7

An hour later, Wedge and Janson were in their flight suits, sitting in a small conference office on the
Allegiance
, with steaming cups of caf on the table beside them, datapads open, and scrolling data before them. “So my question is,” Janson said, “why me? Why didn’t you bring Tycho up with you? He’s your wingman. And he’s better with records.”

“I need someone to be in charge on the ground when I’m up here. For example, if there’s a diplomatic emergency.”

“I can be in charge on the ground.”

“Oh, that’d be good. You and Hobbie running through the streets of Cartann, leaving destruction in your wake, taking charge when a delicate political disaster strikes. Here’s an example. A noble of Cartann comes to you and says, ‘I know we have no diplomatic relations yet, but I’m here to request asylum in the New Republic.’ What do you say?”

“Is she good-looking?”

“Thanks for making my point.” Wedge gestured at Janson’s datapad. “What have you got on Rogriss?”

Janson sighed and returned his attention to the screen. “Wife dead. Two children surviving. Daughter Asori, twenty-eight, status unknown, which could mean anything. Son Terek, twenty-four, in the Imperial Navy.” He shrugged. “Nothing helpful. You?”

“Maybe.” Wedge shook his head over Admiral Rogriss’s career record—what of it was known to the New Republic, anyway. “His postings—after he was of sufficient rank to have an influence on them—seem to be awfully unambiguous.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning most of them have been duties where he fights the New Republic. What’s interesting is where his name
doesn’t
show up. There’s no known association with any operations like the Death Star, or governorship of nonhuman-populated worlds, or projects we later found out are associated with Imperial Intelligence, anything like that.”

“You’re talking about Rogriss?” That was Captain Salaban, entering the conference room with a tray of pastries. He set it down in the center of the table and took the third chair, then put his booted feet up on the tabletop.

“That’s right,” Wedge said. “What’s the opinion of him in Fleet?”

“Wily old so-and-so,” Salaban said. “Loves strategy and tactics for their own sake. An intellectual. Doesn’t much like to stick around for a slugging match.”

“We noticed that in the Zsinj hunt,” Wedge said. “We’re trying to figure out what his commanders might have recently called on him to do that it would send him to some shadowy bar to get seriously drunk. To get belligerent on the subject of honor.”

Salaban, chewing on a pastry, shrugged. “Coo bee anyfing,” he said, then swallowed. “ ’Scuse me. Pound the surface of Adumar flat if they don’t side with the Empire?
If the
Allegiance
weren’t here to keep him in check, he could do that. Eventually and with tremendous losses.”

Janson shook his head. “That’d be a fair fight. He’d enjoy preparing for that, coming up with tactics to swing the battle his way. That wouldn’t offend his sense of honor.”

Salaban nodded. “Well, he
is
coming up with some sort of tactics, just as I am. There’s going to be a fight here.
Allegiance
against
Agonizer
.”

Wedge gave him a curious look. “How do you figure?”

“Well, it’s like this. The Empire can’t afford for Adumar to fall into New Republic hands. They know as well as we do what it means to us to have that explosives production. So if we, I mean you, win over the Adumari and they decide to sign on with us, it’s a certainty that the Imps will break their word. They’ll call in additional ships and attack both the Adumari and the
Allegiance
, and we are in for one serious furball.”

Wedge and Janson exchanged a glance. Wedge said, “Wait, scan backward a little bit. What ‘word’ will the Imps break?”

“That was—oh, that’s right, you were already on the ground for that little ceremony, weren’t you?”

“I suppose so.”

Salaban put on an expression of annoyance. “Shortly after our arrival in-system—after you notified us that the Imps were here and we confirmed
Agonizer
’s presence—a representative of the Cartann government visited. He said that in order to ensure the honorable continuance of these negotiations, the government would have to offer its words of honor that if Adumar decided for the Empire, we’d leave system within the hour and not return except under ‘formal banners of truce or war.’ ”

“And did they get these assurances?”

Salaban nodded and speculatively eyed another pastry. “Took a day or so, but they got a formal transmission from the Chief of State’s office. Not from Organa
Solo herself; scuttlebutt has it she’s on a diplomatic mission too, to the Meridian sector. Anyway, the Adumari were supposed to notify us if they failed to get the equivalent word from the Empire, and they haven’t notified us, so I assume it’s two-way. I just expect the Empire not to honor their agreement.”

“That’s it,” Wedge said. “Probably. Like you, Rogriss is at the center of that word of honor. And he expects the Empire not to stand by it. But his personal impulse is to do what he’s sworn to do, or at least what he’s had to maintain to Adumar that the Empire has sworn to do.”

“Well, it begs a question.” Salaban stared at a second pastry, sighed to indicate his surrender, and picked it up. “Which is this: So what? We have one more promise about to be broken. If my opposite number is honorable enough to feel some shreds of guilt as he breaks it, so what?” He bit into the pastry as fiercely as if taking a chunk out of his Imperial counterpart.

“It’s a fluctuation gap in their shields,” Wedge said. “A weakness the Imps may not be aware of in their plan to take Adumar. It’s not even relevant if the Adumari side with the Empire in the first place. But if they don’t, it’s something I might be able to use. I also ought to forward these little notions to General Cracken, and some questions I have about how much the Chief of State knows about policy on this operation. Set me up for a holocomm transmission, would you?”

Salaban shook his head. “Caw bappoug. Awm assageg—”

“Chew your food, Captain.”

Janson grinned. “These kids.”

Salaban swallow his mouthful. “We’re in a comm blackout. All messages have to be cleared through the local Intelligence head before being sent on. Record what you want and I’ll put it through his office for review.”

Wedge kept his smile on his face, though his mood had just gone dark again. “Never mind. Some other time.” He rose. “Come on, Wes, back to Cartann. Thanks, Captain.”

“Anytime.”

Janson snagged a handful of pastries. “Can’t let Salaban have all these. They’ll kill him.”

In the corridor, Wedge said, “When you found out Iella’s Cartann identity, did you get her address?”

Janson nodded. “Her name, address, everything.”

“I need to see her. Tonight. As soon as we get back to our quarters and change into native dress.”

Janson winced. “Am I going to get any sleep tonight?”

“Sleep when you usually do. During pilot briefings. During missions.”

“Oh, that’s right.”

The quarters of Iella Wessiri—or Fiana Novarr—were some distance from Wedge’s quarters, in a part of Cartann where buildings seldom rose over six stories, where balconies sometimes sagged in the middle, where the glow bulbs illuminating the streets and flatscreens mounted on building exteriors were often burned out or flickering their way to uselessness. Still, the clothing on pedestrians—showy and colorful, if often a trifle worn—indicated that the residents of this area were far better off, financially, than the drones and drudges Wedge had seen in the missile manufacturing facility.

Iella’s building was a shadowy five-story rectangle situated between two taller constructions, with a single entrance leading to the ground-floor foyer. There was no security station, no building guards, not even an ascender. They took four flights of steps up to Iella’s floor, Janson switching off power to the flatscreen panels on his cloak in order that he not glow at an inopportune moment.

There was no answer to their knock at her door. Wedge waited half a minute, knocked again, waited a while more, and shrugged. “We wait,” he said. He surveyed the hallway they were in. Iella’s door was near to the stairwell; on the far side of the railings that guarded the stairwell was a corridor leading into blackness. “There,” Wedge said.

They were in luck. The corridor led to no more rooms, but to a curtained-off window overlooking the street. They could wait just around the corner, keeping an eye on Iella’s door, exposing themselves to very little danger of being seen while they watched.

“I know a game to help us while away the time,” Janson said.

“Sure.”

“First, let’s go back out and meet a couple of women.”

“Wes.”

“Well, it was a thought.”

Minutes later, a silhouette, a cloaked figure, approached Iella’s doorway … and then bypassed it, moving on to the next door. It knocked quietly, waited, determined that the door was locked, and then looked around. Finally, it came creeping in the direction of Wedge and Janson.

When it was a few meters away, the figure apparently realized that two men already waited in that shadowy nook; it stopped and put its hand on its belt. Even in the dimness Wedge could see the handle of an Adumari pistol. Wedge drew, but heard the rasp of metal on leather from beside him and was not surprised to see Janson’s blaster leveled first.

The newcomer, his pistol in hand but not aimed, leaned forward. Wedge saw glints of his eyes beneath the hood of his cloak. “You are not here for me, Irasal ke Voltin?”

Wedge shook his head, slowly, not taking his attention from the man’s pistol.

With his blaster, the newcomer pointed toward the doorway whose knob he had tried. “You wait for him?”

Wedge again shook his head. Wedge pointed to Iella’s door, the only other doorway visible from their position. He dared not speak; his accent would give him away as a non-Adumari.

“Ah. She of the glorious hair. Are you here from rage—” he touched his fingers, still wrapped around the pistol butt, to his heart—“or from love?” He touched them to his lips.

Wedge touched his own fist to his lips.

“Ah. Then we do not conflict. Frothing disease to your foes, then.” He turned his back on the two pilots and stalked away. Wedge and Janson watched him ascend to the floor above, and occasional creakings from that floor suggested that the man had taken up position at the stairs’ edge, where he could look down upon the doorway of his target.

“You know,” Janson said, “how I really sort of liked this place when we got here?”

Wedge nodded.

“Well, it’s worn off.”

Wedge grinned. “I thought you liked high romance and skulking and impossibly shallow love affairs and everything they have here in such abundance.”

“I do. I just don’t like all the competition. Really, Wedge, when you can’t even do a stakeout without bumping into six or eight other guys in the same corridor, on the same mission—”

“Hold it.”

Another figure climbed the dimly lit stairwell, emerging onto their floor, heading unerringly toward Iella’s door. It was another silhouette, but Wedge estimated that it could correspond to someone of Iella’s build wrapped
in a bulky hooded cloak. Again he cursed the Adumari fashion sense.

Signaling for Janson to remain where he was, Wedge moved quietly forward along the railing. The person had paused at Iella’s door, and Wedge could now hear a series of low musical notes emanate from the door or nearby—possibly a sonic cue for a lock, he concluded.

He was only a couple of meters away when the person at the door shoved it open and triggered a switch within, blinding Wedge with unaccustomed light. He blinked against the glare, raising one hand to shield his eyes from it—and discovered that the person at the door was now facing him, blaster pistol in hand, held in a very professional-looking grip.

“State your business,” Iella said. “Or keep quiet and I’ll just shoot you.”

Wedge pulled the preposterous lavender mask away from his face.

He still couldn’t see Iella’s face, but her voice certainly didn’t soften. “Oh. You. Once and for all, I’m not going to tell you any more offworld stories. Go home.” She put away her blaster and beckoned him forward. Once he was close enough, she whispered, “Don’t say a word.” Then she grabbed him by his tunic’s ornate collar and dragged him into her quarters.

Inside, he had an impression of a small outer room lined with shelves loaded with electronic equipment; beyond was a larger, darkened chamber, the air within it warm and musty.

After closing the door and resetting her lock, Iella reached up to the top of one of the shelves, reaching over a decorative rim well above eye level, and drew down a device that looked like a datapad but with a series of sensor inputs at one end. She waved this slowly along all four sides of the door, and various digital notations appeared on the screen. Then she pointed it into the darkened
portion of her quarters and hit a button; the screen filled with data. She nodded, cleared the screen, and set the device back up where she found it.

“All clear,” she said. “No new listening devices. Wedge, you can’t be here. You’ll compromise my identity.” Her tone was pleading, not angry.

“I need your help,” Wedge said. “Help I can’t get from channels. Help I can get only from you.”

She led him into the next chamber and triggered the light switch. This was some sort of receiving room. The floor, ceiling, and walls were all brown wood, perhaps comforting and warm at some time in the past, now slightly warped and occasionally stained. A woven circle lay on the floor as a rug; the room’s other furniture consisted of a flatscreen on the wall, a sofalike object that seemed to have been fashioned like the wing of an old model of Blade aircraft, and what Wedge recognized as an inexpensive computer terminal desk of Corellian make.

Iella slid out of her cloak. Today, she was not dressed in garments suited to social affairs; she wore trousers and boots in brown and the standard Adumari flare-sleeved tunic in a subdued rust-red. She sat at one end of the sofa. “All right, Wedge.”