For once, Han spent a few moments considering his reply. A flip answer would have come easily to him, but good government and a stable galaxy were important to his wife, and he couldn’t casually dismiss them. “Leia, there’s got to be room in this galaxy for independence. For chaos. In a galaxy as tidy, as sanitary, as controlled as you’re talking about, I never could have happened. I’d really prefer to live in a galaxy where there’s room for someone like me.”
Leia looked away from him, and in her expression Han could see the dawning of a regret that amounted to mourning. Once again, she was mourning the loss of a system, a government that had always existed only in the abstract-one so fair and reasonable, it could never endure when implemented. “Then the thing to do is warn Corellia,” she said. “Preferably without alerting the GA that you’re doing it. Because it would be nice for you not to be thrown in jail.”
“You’d just rescue me. If I took too long to escape on my own, that is.”
She smiled sourly, still keeping her attention on the viewport and the sliding door out onto the balcony.
“I need your help, Leia. I can’t do this alone.” It took an effort to speak those words. Admitting that he couldn’t perform some ordinary task-such as saving a world from invasion or conquest-all by himself was painful enough. It was worse to ask a woman devoted to order and lawfulness to set those considerations aside for him.
“I know.” Leia looked back at him. “I’ll do it, Han. But only if you’ll help me. Corellia can’t play both sides of the field. If the system is going to be independent, it has to be independent. It can’t continue to accept all the benefits of GA membership and defy GA law. If you tell them the GA is coming in to compel them to obey, you have to tell them to stop playing games. They have to grease the whole bantha.”
Han blinked at her. “They have to grease-they have to what?”
“To grease the whole bantha. It’s an expression. From Agamar, I think.”
“Sure it is.”
“It is. And you’re just trying to keep from responding to what I just said.”
“No, I’m not. You’re right, Leia. No more games for Corellia.”
“Then I’ll help.”
“And more grease for the bantha.”
“Don’t make fun of me, Han. There are consequences.”
“We could grease the protocol droid.”
“Han, I’m warning you …”
Chapter Six
CORONET, CORELLIA
WEARING ONLY SHORTS AND A BLUE UNDERSHIRT BEARING THE symbol of the original Rebel Alliance in black now fading to gray, Wedge Antilles moved to the front door of his quarters and activated the security panel on the wall beside it. The screen flickered to life and showed a man and a woman standing in the hall outside. Both were young, in their midtwenties, and despite the fact that they were in the gray jumpsuits and overcoats that constituted one form of anonymous street dress on Corellia, their haircuts-military short rather than slightly shaggy-and an indefinable quality about their body language and facial expressions marked them as outsiders.
They shouldn’t have been able to reach the front door of Wedge’s quarters without him knowing about it. His housing building was given over to military retirees such as himself Some were retired from the New Republic, some from CorSec-Corellian Security-some from other Corellian armed forces. There were very basic security measures in place at all the entrances into the housing complex, so if these two were here without having been announced by complex security, it was because some other resident had let them in.
Wedge shrugged. The complex’s security was designed to keep ordinary folk out of their building, not to prevent agents with contacts from getting in.
He glanced over his shoulder. His wife, Iella, stood in the doorway to their bedroom. She wore a simple white robe and her hair, normally a wavy, gray-brown cascade, was a tousled mess, including one tuft protruding almost straight up. She had one hand cupped over her mouth as she yawned; the other held a full-sized blaster pistol at her side. Yawn done, she gave him a questioning look, one eyebrow raised.
He shrugged, then turned back to the door and activated the exterior speakers. “What is it?”
The female visitor, a well-muscled blond woman who looked to be at least as tall as Wedge-not that this was unusual, as Wedge stood slightly shorter than the average human male-said, “General Wedge Antilles?”
“He moved,” Wedge said. “I think he’s over in Zed Block. He left the carpets a mess, too.”
It was a test, of course. If the visitors showed confusion or retreated, then they were simply admirers, or children of colleagues, people who could stand to contact him through ordinary channels and during daylight hours. If they didn’t —