“lella’s great. She’s spending her time doing holonews analysis and passing her conclusions on to me, to Booster, to Talon Karrde. I’ll have her add you to the distribution list if you like.”
“Please.” Luke gestured, and the two of them headed, in a different direction from that taken by the fleeing Ewoks, into the cover of deep forest.
“I don’t hear much from Syal, of course. We’re certainly not estranged, but since she’s serving with Alliance forces, still on the Blue Diver, and I’m an official enemy of the Alliance and an unofficial target of the Confederation, I don’t get much news of her. Myri is still on the Errant Venture, gathering information to pass along to us … and making a fortune gambling.” He shook his head in mock distress. “She’s going to be the first rich Antilles, and not from following an honest career. I don’t know what to think of it. How’s Ben?”
“Better than I have any right to expect.” They were deep enough in the trees to be out of hearing range of anyone at the outpost, though still close enough to see bits of it through the screen of hanging branches and vines. “So.”
“So, Corellia. A good friend of mine, a space navy lifer with the Corellian Defense Force-he’s ninety, been retired for a few years-was just returned to active duty and assigned a recommissioned Carrack-class cruiser.”
Luke offered Wedge a dubious expression. “A Carrack? What’s next? Are the Corellians going to start throwing cans of food at the Alliance fleets?”
“Yes. It sounds like they’re shoring up depleted units with increasing desperation. But there’s more to it. My old friend is going to be part of a special diplomatic mission to talk to the GA, a hush-hush negotiation that General Phennir, Supreme Commander of the Confederation military forces, wasn’t informed of beforehand. Scuttlebutt has it that when he inquired about it with the Corellians, they told him that it was just a delaying tactic, something to distract Colonel Solo for a few days. Now Phennir’s people don’t know if that’s the truth, or if the Corellians are going to try to spring some sort of trap and kill Solo so they can claim the glory and have a bargaining advantage to give them even more influence within the Confederation… or whether they’re thinking of switching sides.”
Luke frowned. “Where does the scuttlebutt come from, in this case?”
Wedge ticked numbers off on his fingers. “One, the granddaughter of my old friend. She got in touch with me by backdoor means to find out if there was any way I could talk her grandfather out of accepting the reactivation of his commission. Two, a pilot formerly under my command, now on Phennir’s staff, querying me about what the Corellian Prime Minister is up to, since I’m obviously a neutral party. Three…”
“So it all amounts to this guy I know.”
Wedge nodded. “The fate of galactic civilization might someday hang on an intelligence network consisting of this guy I know.”
“Thanks for scaring me.” Luke opened himself to the Force for a moment, but the future remained impossibly distant and unclear. All he could detect was the abundance of life around him, including the two Ewoks creeping in his direction. Their emotions consisted largely of curiosity and nervousness, rather than malice or hunger, so he concluded that attack was not on their minds. “If this guy I know could figure out where Jacen is going to be, and when, it could prove very valuable to us. We have a means to track his movements, but that leaves us very reactive-he goes, and if we respond in time, we can follow him. To anticipate his movements would be ideal.”
“Two days until the meeting with the Corellians. Two days, at a halfway point between Corellia and Coruscant-but that’s still a lot of space to cover.” Wedge frowned, calculating. “In two days, if you could have a StealthX shadow the Anakin Solo out of the Coruscant system, that might give us the exact coordinates. Her course, plus knowledge that the destination will be identical in distance from there to Corellia, as well.”
“Right-if we’re lucky and he doesn’t send the Anakin Solo through an elaborate, multiple-leg course.”
“I doubt he will. Whether it is one or not, he has to suspect that it’s a trap. Why worry about elaborate routing when you’re going directly to the adversary anyway?”
“True.” Luke nodded. “I’ll send out a StealthX immediately.” He turned back toward the outpost and led them in that direction. “Wedge, it’s good to have you here.”
“Speaking of which…”