[Legacy Of The Force] - 01(25)

“As the Master of the Jedi order, he has taken oaths to support the Galactic Alliance.” Leia let a little sternness creep into her voice. “And don’t pretend this is a simple situation, where everyone on one side is smart and sensible and everyone on the other side isn’t. It’s more complicated than that. It’s more complicated than that for me.”

Han reached over to hold her for a moment. “Yeah. I’m sorry. It’s just-it’s just like he hit me when I wasn’t looking.” He buried his face in her hair, took a deep breath. “All right. It’s time for us to go.”

In the foremost passenger seat, Wedge sat up, startled, as his shuttle came in for its landing and a familiar-looking Corellian YT-1300 leapt up past his viewport, headed for the skies. “That,” he announced, “was the Millennium Falcon.”

“If you say so, sir.” Across the aisle between seats, Captain Barthis looked dubious. “There are thousands of those old Corellian transports still flying, though.”

“Oh, that was definitely the Falcon. I’m intimately familiar with her lines … and her rust spots. I had to replicate them once on a decoy vehicle, decades ago. No matter what Han does, paint the hull, anodize it, those rust patches come back after a few months or years.”

Barthis cocked her head, a whatever-you-say gesture that left no doubt in Wedge’s mind that she was humoring him, and returned her attention to her datapad.

Half an hour later the two of them, Titch, and a droid porter swept into the government facility Barthis had said would be Wedge’s home for the next several days at least. It was deep within a gray pyramidal building at the edge of what had once been the Imperial government district. The dark corridor from the turbolifts led into a large outer office laid out in rows of monitoring stations; most of the stations were empty, their viewscreens unlit, but Wedge could see two that were active, both showing holocam views of long rooms with dormitory-style accommodations for four at one end and office equipment at the other.

Barthis led Wedge and the others to a door, which whooshed upward and thumped into place with the speed, air displacement, and echoing sound of an armored portal. The chamber’s overhead lights flickered on as they entered, revealing a room very much like those shown on the monitors: closest to the door were four desks, facing one another, laden with computer material; the far side of the room held four bunk beds and oversized equipment lockers. Wedge could also see a door that he presumed led into a refresher.

The porter droid moved in to drop Wedge’s bags on the nearest of the bunk beds. Barthis and Titch stayed near the door and gestured at the accommodations. “A bit plain,” Barthis admitted. “I’m sorry”

“They’re luxurious compared with some of the places I’ve been quartered.” Wedge glanced over the computer equipment, noting brand names and designs. “These terminals have to be thirty years old.

Barthis nodded. “Almost. This facility was installed by Intelligence just after the New Republic conquered Coruscant and drove Ysanne Isard into exile. The equipment is original … but it has been serviced and upgraded.”

“What’s the facility for?”

“It was what we called a pressure cooker,” Titch said. “The idea is that in times of crisis, you get teams of civilian coders, technicians, and specialists together in combined living and work quarters. They’re the sort of people who are going to be working sixteen, twenty hours a day anyway. More convenient for them to be packed in together, exchanging ideas, keeping one another’s spirits up, and so forth, rather than in separate offices and with quarters minutes’ or hours’ travel time away.”

“Ah.” Wedge grabbed the rolling chair before the nearest desk, swung it around, and sat. “So. You wouldn’t tell me on Corellia, you wouldn’t tell me on the shuttle trip-now, in the heart of your own secure facility, maybe you can tell me what this is all about? What am I supposed to be doing?”

Barthis and Titch exchanged a look. Their faces remained impassive, but Wedge read it as a here-we-go exchange. Barthis returned her attention to Wedge. “Just, um, waiting, General.”

Wedge blinked. “Waiting for orders?”

“No.” Barthis looked regretful, and waved for the porter droid to leave the chamber, which it did. Wedge noticed that, though his posture looked relaxed, Titch was ready for action, and had positioned himself in the doorway so that he could draw the blaster at his hip and fire without endangering Barthis.

“No,” Barthis continued, “you have no orders. Our orders are to keep you as comfortable as possible during your stay here.”