[Hand Of Thrawn] - 01(37)

“I wouldn’t get too overconfident if I were you,” Janson warned. “The Empire isn’t exactly dead yet. They could still deliver a pretty good punch if they wanted to.”

“And they’ve looked like they were ready to throw in their cards before,” Lando added. “Remember what things were like just before Grand Admiral Thrawn came back from wherever it was he’d been hiding?”

“Wedge?” a voice called over the din. “Hey-Wedge!”

Wedge peered over the crowd, caught a glimpse of tousled light brown hair, and lifted a hand. “Over here.”

“Who’s that?” Lando asked, craning his neck to peer over the crowd.

“His name’s Tycho Celchu,” Wedge told him. “One of my Rogue Squadron people. I don’t know if you ever met him.”

Tycho reached them. “Hey, Wedge, you’ve got to come hear this guy,” he said, his voice and face dark. “Come on-he’s over here.”

He led them through the marketplace to a small booth with a wizened Morish hunched over it. “Here he is,’) Tycho said, gathering the others in front of the booth. “W’simip’rotou?”

“M’rish’kavjsh f’oril,” the Morish wheezed. “M’shisht C’aama’ por kri’vres’ymj B’oth.”

Janson whistled softly. “What is it?” Wedge asked.

“He says new information’s just been dug up about the destruction of Caamas,” Tycho said grimly. “And that it was the Bothans who were responsible.”

Wedge stared at Tycho. “You must be joking,” he said.

“Do I look like I’m joking?” Tycho bit out, a fire in his blue eyes. “Figures, doesn’t it? Endor, Borleias, and now this.”

“Take it easy,” Wedge said, putting some parade-ground steel into his voice. “Borleias wasn’t really the Bothans’ fault.”

Tycho’s shoulders shifted uneasily. “Not all of it, anyway,” he conceded grudgingly.

Wedge looked at Lando. “Have you heard anything about fresh Caamas information?”

“Not a whisper,” Lando said, eyeing the Morish suspiciously. “Ask him where he heard it.”

“Right.” Tycho spoke to the Morish again, got an answer. “He says it came from the Old Recluse,” he translated. “He lives up in a cave in the high Tatmana. Apparently knows everything about what goes on in the galaxy.”

Wedge turned and looked up at the Tatmana Mountains, rising in a saw-toothed crest in the distance on the opposite side of the city from the New Republic base, On the face of it, it was absurd to think that some old native hermit would have any idea what was even going on in the city down here, let alone in the larger galaxy above his mountains.

But on the other hand, Wedge had hung around Luke Skywalker long enough to know that there were a lot of unexplainable things in the galaxy. Maybe this Old Recluse was one of those latent Force-users Luke was always trying to find.

And it wasn’t like they were exactly busy right now, anyway. “Ask him where we can find this Old Recluse,” he instructed Tycho.

“You going up there?” Lando asked as Tycho began talking to the Morish again. “What in the worlds for?”

“Curiosity,” Wedge told him. “We’ve got time&mdashthe general won’t be needing us for at least a few more hours. You coming?”

Lando sighed. “Lead the way.”

***

Leaning slightly into the steady wind, the three X-wings settled smoothly onto the bluff overlooking the city. “Easy for you,” Lando muttered under his breath, mentally gauging the chunk of space they’d left him to put the Lady Luck down onto. It would be tight, but pride alone dictated he not back out now. Muttering some more, he eased the yacht down toward the bluff.

It was indeed a tight squeeze, made all the trickier by the wind. But he managed it without too much trouble and, more important, without any embarrassment. Dropping the engines into their standby settings, he climbed down the ladder just aft of the cockpit bridge and headed for the yacht’s hatchway.

Wedge, Janson, and Tycho were waiting for hint at the foot of the Lady Luck’s ramp. “Chilly up here,” he commented, gripping the edge of his cloak to keep it from flapping. “I hope the Old Recluse’s cave is heated.”

“At least it’ll be out of this wind,” Janson agreed, pointing toward a narrow, two-meter-high crack in the cliff face. “That must be it. Let’s go.”

The cave was much deeper than Lando would have guessed from the relatively small size of the entrance. It was also surprisingly warm. “Looks like a glow up ahead,” Wedge said, his voice sounding odd in the enclosed space. “Around that bend.”