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Luke grinned and stepped forward to embrace his two friends. The other four pilots, two men and two women, he recognized as well. “Thanks for coming, Wedge. Good to see you, Wes. What news from Corellia?”

Wedge looked around, noting the presence of Jedi medics and workers in this hallway. “Maybe somewhere more private.”

Three minutes later, a ground-level security door slid open before them, revealing shaded sunlight—as well as a pair of Ewoks in leather caps, stone-headed spears in hand, creeping their way a few meters beyond. As the door slid open, the Ewoks jabbered in surprise, turned, and fled back into the tree line twenty meters away.

Wedge snorted. “Good neighbors, if you can stay out of their stew pots.”

“C’mon.” Luke led him out into the fresh air, heavy with the scents of blooming flowers and forest decay. The door rumbled shut behind them. “How are Iella and the kids?”

“Iella’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