The Bacta War (6 page)

She typed a data request into the datapad, which switched the image of the city for a trio of individuals. “Ysanne Isard was installed as Chief Operating Officer and Head of State for Thyferra in a coup d’etat approximately two weeks ago. Preparations had been made well before that, since the revolution was completed prior to her Super Star Destroyer,
Lusankya
, arriving in orbit. Not much is known about her for certain—rumors abound about her having been one of the Emperor’s lovers, for example; but there is no confirmation of that. We do know her father was the Director of Imperial Intelligence before her, but she turned over to the Emperor evidence that her father was going to join the Rebellion, causing his downfall and her elevation to replace him.”

Nawara Ven raised a hand. “Was her father going to come over to the Rebellion?”

Winter shrugged. “If he was, I have no knowledge of his planned defection. There is no doubt his daughter was ambitious enough to have manufactured evidence against him, so she is very dangerous. Dislodging her will be difficult and probably require a ground assault. She is not, as nearly as we know, a pilot, so the chances of any of you getting to vape her in a dogfight are nil.”

Winter pointed to the next figure. “Fliry Vorru, on the other hand, might well be able to fight you in a ship. He was a former Imperial Moff from Corellia, which this squadron liberated from Kessel. Vorru fled with Isard to Thyferra and is now the Minister of Trade. It is unclear when Vorru began to work with Isard, but the possibility that he struck a deal with her upon planetfall on Coruscant cannot be ruled out. While we put much of our misfortune concerning the operations to take Coruscant down to having Zekka Thyne and other Imperial spies in our midst, it is entirely possible Vorru was working directly for Isard at that point. He certainly was in her employ by the time he was appointed a Colonel in the Coruscant Constabulary.”

She waved a hand at the third individual, a tall, slender woman with black hair worn short. “Erisi Dlarit should be familiar to all of us. She is from a Xucphra family and was the Imperial mole inside Rogue Squadron. Her actual value to the Empire was minimal. At best she was responsible for Corran’s capture, Bror Jace’s death, and the betrayal of the bacta convoy at Alderaan to Warlord Zsinj. While she did provide information on our operations on Coruscant to the Empire, the fact that Wedge allowed no outside contact prior to the final attempt to destroy the planetary shields meant she could not warn Isard of our plans. Short of crashing her Z-95 Headhunter into the construction droid we used, she could do nothing to stop the plan from unfolding. What she did do was transmit the codes that allowed Isard to take control of Corran’s ship and bring him down.”

As Winter dispassionately outlined Erisi’s involvement with the Empire, Wedge watched the faces of his people. Erisi
had been one of them, fighting alongside of them in numerous engagements. She’d been shot out of her X-wing, and Tycho had risked his life to rescue her. Even though her aid to the Empire was, as Winter had indicated, really insignificant, it had been enough to kill people who didn’t deserve to die.

In himself, Wedge found anger mixed with chagrin and a little admiration. Erisi Dlarit had successfully played through some very difficult situations without revealing her role. Until she was fleeing Coruscant, Wedge hadn’t known she was a spy.
Some signs were there, but not all of them
.

Wedge caught Corran looking in his direction and half-smiled. “She played the game well.”

“True, but she’s going to have to play much better when we come to visit.” Corran’s only concession to the emotions he was feeling came in the edge to his voice and the thin-lipped smile he offered. “As a spy she was good, but the next contest is one of pilots, and in that one she’ll lose.”

Winter changed the holographic image again. “If she loses it’s not going to be because she’s lacking the equipment she needs to win. Defending Thyferra are four Imperial warships: a Super Star Destroyer, two Imperial Star Destroyers, and one Victory-class Star Destroyer.
Lusankya, Avarice, Virulence
, and
Corrupter
, respectively.
Lusankya
is the ship that blasted its way out of Coruscant. It was previously unaccounted for, causing us to raise our estimates of how many ships the Kuat Drive Yards and the Fondor Yards produced. Oddly enough, both places claim to have produced Vader’s flagship,
Executor
. It appears two ships were manufactured under that name, with one having been turned into
Lusankya
and buried on Coruscant—probably to serve as the Emperor’s get-away ship. The other
Executor
, the one from Fondor, was destroyed at Endor.”

She circled a finger through the hologram, encompassing the trio of smaller ships.
“Avarice
,
Virulence
, and
Corrupter
have hardly had sterling careers, but the crews are competent. I’m in the process of assembling files on all the staff officers, but the most dangerous of them, Captain Ait Convarion, commands the smallest ship.
Corrupter
has done very well in
the Outer Rim hunting down pirate groups which, for better or worse, we resemble.”

Wedge stood as Winter shut the holoprojector down. “As you can all see, we’re dealing with a fairly formidable foe that is well armed. One of the things we have to face is that we may be unable to accomplish our goals in this operation. Unseating Isard may, in fact, turn out to be impossible.”

Seated behind Gavin, Corran reached out and tapped the younger man on the head. “Gavin, this is where you’re supposed to tell us that unseating her isn’t tough and relate the whole thing to varminting on Tatooine.”

Gavin blanched. “I didn’t hear anyone mention a trench or canyon or womp rats. Taking a planet is beyond me.”

Wedge smiled. “It’s beyond most of us. I’ve sent communications out to some individuals who might be able to help. The problem is enormous. First we have to eliminate the ships, then take the world. The key to nailing the ships is to get them spread out so they can’t support each other. We can do that by forcing Isard to use them to cover bacta convoys, but to kill the ships we need weapons, and a lot of them.”

Riv Shiel, the Shistavanen wolfman, curled his lips up in a snarl. “It sounds as if we need the Katana fleet.”

“That would be nice.” The legendary ghost fleet of warships was supposed to be skipping through hyperspace, just waiting for someone to come and claim it. Wedge frowned. “We could also hope that the Outbound Flight Project finally produces results, with a host of nonhuman Jedi Knights coming from outside the galaxy to help us, but I don’t think it’s likely.”

Gavin raised a hand. “What about that ship that Alderaan loaded all of its weapons on when it demilitarized? I can’t remember the name, but I thought it was supposed to go through space and return if needed. Maybe Princess Leia has a way to summon it or something.”

Winter shook her head. “You are thinking of
Another Chance
. While it is not as much of a legend as the Katana fleet, or Jorus C’baoth’s mission outside the galaxy—the ship
did
exist—it is not the solution to our problem. The
Another Chance
was actually recovered by Rebel sympathizers prior
to the debacles at Derra IV and Hoth. The weapons recovered were all of Clone Wars vintage and suited for use by infantry. They were useful in filling the gap caused by the loss of the convoy at Derra IV.”

Gavin’s shoulders slumped. “Oh, I never knew all that.”

“Not that you should have, Gavin.” Winter smiled. “Aside from the individuals who found the ship, a few smugglers who helped transport the merchandise, and higher-ups in the Rebellion, no one does. The Empire devoted resources to trying to find and take it, diverting them from pursuing us.”

“Finding a miracle ship is not our only hope, people.” Wedge held a hand up. “One of the things Winter has done for the Rebellion is locate old Imperial supply dumps. Most of them have been thoroughly stripped, but not everything is accounted for. We’re going to go back over some of those sites and see what we can find. In fact, we have one mission that will be heading off tomorrow. Mirax will be taking Corran and you, Gavin, to Tatooine. One of the arms caches we found a couple of years ago had been plundered by Biggs Darklighter’s father.”

Gavin raised an eyebrow. “Uncle Huff?”

“The same. He said at the time he used some of the cache to arm his own security force then sold the rest off. But I don’t buy it for a moment. There is no way he would have gotten rid of
everything.
” Wedge smiled. “So, you’re going to go home, Gavin, and talk your uncle into sharing the wealth with us.”

“I don’t know if he’ll listen to me.”

“That’s why we’re sending Corran, too. Your uncle has secrets to hide, and I expect Corran can ferret them out. That will help.”

Gavin’s face froze for a moment, then he began to smile. “I can get behind this. Serves him right for always seating me at the children’s table at family gatherings.”

“Gavin, he did that because you were a kid. Big, but a kid.” Corran scruffed up Gavin’s blond hair, then looked at Wedge. “While we’re on the world that water abandoned, what are the rest of you going to be doing?”

“We’re moving to our new home.” Wedge held his hands up to calm the sudden buzz of voices. “This move is a covert op, so we’ll be taking a lot of precautions to get there. There’s no chance we can keep the location secret from our enemies forever, but as much time as we can get up to that point is what we want. Pack your things and get ready to move. The Bacta War is about to begin.”

6

Corran Horn sneezed violently, initiating a wave of dust rippling across the cantina table toward Mirax. “How can anyone live on this infernal world? Even the dust has dust.”

Mirax stretched languidly. “It’s really not that bad, Corran, as worlds go. On Talasea things would mildew from plate to mouth.”

“Sure, but there you had ovens to bake things, not a whole world to do it.” Corran swiped a hand across his forehead, then shook the perspiration from it in a spray that spattered a pair of hooded Jawas, who themselves stank of ronto sweat. “I hate this.”

She looked at him over the lip of her Corellian whisky glass. “At least it’s a
dry
heat.”

“So’s a blast furnace, but that doesn’t make it any less hot.” Corran arched an eyebrow and tapped the stained and patch-welded top of the round table where they sat. “And why are we here? This table has seen more combat than most of the squadron’s X-wings. The patrons here make this place look like a maximum security compound at Akrit’tar.”

“Keeping up appearances, dear heart.” Mirax shifted to the left to give her a full view of the t’bac-smoke-choked bar.
“Chalmun’s cantina is known as
the
place that hotshot pilots hang out. I certainly qualify on that count, as do you. Right now I don’t need work, but it could be that some of these folks need cargoes hauled, and those cargoes might be the kind of thing we want. Can’t hurt to be here. Besides, Gavin recommended it as our rendezvous.”

“Right. That’s because he’s never been in here before and didn’t want to come in alone.” Corran allowed disgust to pour through his words, but he mitigated it with a smile. “If I’d been asked to raid a place like this, my plan would have begun with the phrase, ‘After the strafing runs are completed …’ ”

Shock rode freely on Mirax’s face, but was exaggerated enough that Corran figured she was really only mildly horrified at his suggestion. “This might not be the most savory bunch of characters ever gathered together in the galaxy, but they’re not that bad. My father used to bring me in here all the time when I was a kid. Some of these hard cases may be crusty on the outside, but they were very kind to me. Wuher, the bartender over there, used to synth up a sweet fizzy drink for me, and more than one of these guys would bring me little trinkets from the worlds they’d visited.”

Corran shook his head. “I’d have loved to see those Immigrations forms. ‘Purpose of the visit to our world?’ ‘Murder, mayhem, glitterstim smuggling, and purchase of a gift suitable for a small Corellian girl.’ ”

Mirax giggled. “Yeah, I imagine there are a couple like that in databanks somewhere.”

The sound of her laughter managed to cut through the dulled buzz of conversation in the cantina. Corran sat up in his chair as he noticed two individuals turn from the bar and look in their direction. One was a Rodian and the other was a Devaronian, yet they both shared a lean, hungry look that made Corran feel antsy. They started toward the table, and Corran took it as significant that they abandoned full drinks at the bar, primarily because that left their hands empty.

The Devaronian nodded curtly. “You are sitting at our table.”

Seated with his back to the alcove’s wall, Corran had
protected himself against ambush from behind, but it also allowed the two ruffians full view of the blaster he wore.
No way I can draw it and shoot them before they get me
. It seemed obvious to him that the simple way out of the situation was to graciously offer them the table and buy a round for them. “We were unaware of the situation here …”

“And we couldn’t care less.” Mirax jutted her chin forward and poked her left index finger into the Rodian’s middle. “If a pair of gravel-maggots like you are sandsick enough to think we’re moving just because you mistake us for Jundland dew-pickers, you better get used to careers as Sarlacc bait.”

Corran’s jaw dropped. “Mirax?”

The Devaronian thumbed his own breastbone. “Do you have any idea who I am?”

“Do you have any idea how little we care?” Mirax jerked her head to the left. “Tell it to the Jawas so they get your name right when they bag your body.”

The Rodian began buzz-squawking, but the loud
thwap
of a street club being pounded on the bar stopped him.

The human bartender pointed a finger toward the alcove. “Hey!”

His horns gleaming in the half-light, the Devaronian waved his protest off. “We know, ‘No blasters.’ ”