[Legacy Of The Force] - 01(26)

Wedge refused to allow the alarm that was beginning to well up within him to show on his face. “The duration of my stay?”

Barthis shrugged. “Unknown.”

“Its purpose?”

“Can’t say.”

Wedge closed his eyes and offered up a slow, silent sigh. Then he looked at the two of them again. “I said no, you know.”

They looked confused.

“When officers of the Corellian military came to me and said, ‘There could be trouble between us and the GA,’ I said, ‘Sorry, fellows, I’m retired. You can get advice as useful as mine, and much more up to date, by looking at other Corellian officers.’ And so they left me alone. Why didn’t you?”

Barthis opened her mouth, evidently realized that she could offer no answer without somehow compromising her orders, and closed it again.

“Because, you see …” And this time Wedge couldn’t quite keep the pain he was feeling from being reflected in his voice, as a hoarseness he could not control. “You see, that way I’d be with my family if something happened. And now, someone, somewhere, at the GA end of things has decided I need to be out of the way for what’s going to happen. And has separated me from my family.” He fixed Barthis and Titch with his stare.

Barthis actually leaned back. She shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she said-not an admission that she or her team was doing what Wedge was speculating, but her voice carried emotion, and it sounded genuine. She turned away and walked into the outer office.

Titch seemed unaffected. “You approach this door anytime it’s open, it closes,” he says. “Meaning it won’t do you any good to make a sudden dash for the door when we bring you food or drink. Besides, if you do make an attempt to escape, I get to kill you.” He patted the blaster pistol at his side. “This model can be set to stun or burn. I always leave it on burn.” He nodded as though he thought the gravity of that action would impress Wedge.

He also glanced after his partner, apparently making sure she was out of earshot. He turned back to Wedge. “Let me add this,” he said. “I’m sick of hearing the Rebel Alliance generation brag about how they stomped the Empire and then whine about how the galaxy owes them a living, or special favors. The Empire would have kicked the Yuuzhan Vong in the teeth, and I wouldn’t have lost almost everyone I knew when I was a kid, if you hadn’t ‘won.’ Well, the higher-ups seem to think they owe you a little dignity, so here it is. Eat your meals, get in some quiet exercise, keep your mouth shut, and when all the shouting’s done, you can go home and finish your self-serving memoirs about how you single-handedly won half a dozen wars. That’s the deal. Got it?”

Wedge studied him. “If you’d been a little smarter, I might have left you some shred of a career when I leave here. But I won’t. You’ll be cleaning refreshers for the rest of your life.”

Titch snorted, unimpressed. He backed out of the doorway, and the door slid shut.





Chapter Seven


OUTER SPACE, NEAR THE CORELLIA SYSTEM

A FEW LIGHT-YEARS FROM THE STAR CORELL, A VESSEL DROPPED out of hyperspace, winking back into existence in the physical universe.

In design it was something like the old Imperial-class Star Destroyers, and was just as long, though where the ISDs looked more like narrow, armor-piercing arrowheads, this ship was broader, massing half again what an ISD did.

It was the Galactic Alliance Space Vessel Dodonna, the second capital ship named for the Rebel Alliance-era military leader who had plotted and executed the destruction of the first Death Star, and it was the first completed vessel of its type, the Galactic-class battle carrier-a designation chosen to avoid unpleasant reminders of the old Star Destroyers, of which this new ship was little more than an elaboration and update.

On the bridge, on the broad walkway that looked over technicians’ pits and stations, Admiral Matric Klauskin, commander of Dodonna and leader of this operation, stood staring out through the high viewports into space. In his peripheral vision, to starboard, another vessel of war, one of the Mon Calamari star cruisers with hull designs that suggested a successful blend of technology and organic design, popped into existence.

Over the next several hours, many elements of the Galactic Alliance’s Second Fleet would be arriving here to form up with Dodonna. Once everything was in position, Klauskin would give the word and send this operation into motion.

He knew that, on the surface, he appeared calm, rock-steady. Had there been a course at the academy in maintaining appearances of coolness, he would have placed first every time. But inside, his guts knotted.