Star Wars_ Legacy of the Force 07_ Fury - Aaron Allston [72]
“Our stealth craft in the Coruscant system report the Anakin Solo reaching planetary orbit. How do you conclude that Solo is dead?”
Koyan felt his stomach sink, as though he’d unwittingly stepped onto a turbolift and it had suddenly plummeted forty stories. He tried to keep his dismay from his face. “Our starfighters reported all Alliance capital ships in the engagement zone destroyed.”
“The Anakin Solo had apparently withdrawn from the engagement zone by the time the weapon was fired. So in your effort to eliminate the forces besieging Corellia, and one, only one, of the Alliance’s important strategists, you’ve given away the secret of the station’s functionality, tipped the balance of power by a few percentage points, and otherwise accomplished nothing. Whereas if you’d worked with me and my office, we could have put together a much more telling stroke. One that genuinely would have turned the tide of the war.”
Koyan shook his head. “We were lucky to have rooted out all spies who might have gotten the information about the station’s repairs to the GA. Add your people to the mix…it becomes too complex to keep secrets.”
“I don’t say this often, Koyan, but I’ll say it now. You’re an idiot.”
“Which makes you an even more exceptional idiot, for saying it to the man with the most destructive weapon ever created.”
“As you have the most destructive weapon ever created, you are clearly capable of defending the Corellian system without aid from the rest of the Confederation. No need for synchronized fleet movements. For sharing intelligence with the other worlds. For food, medicines, supplies.”
That brought Koyan up short. Until the station was operational again, those resources were incalculably valuable.
Common sense dictated that he take a step back, offer some appeasement, play nice. As an experienced politician, he knew this.
But his next words surprised even him. “Don’t threaten me, General. You wouldn’t like the results.” He gestured to his technicians, invisible outside the glow of the hologram, and the image of Phennir disappeared, plunging the chamber into blackness.
Gulping, Koyan turned toward the chamber exit. He probably shouldn’t have done that. On the other hand, it was important to show the Confederation which world held the controls, and which ruler was boss.
The answers were Corellia, and Sadras Koyan.
chapter twenty-two
KASHYYYK, MAITELL BASE, HANGAR HOUSING THE MILLENNIUM FALCON
Jaina trotted into the hangar office—a set of improvised rooms, set off from the rest of the building by sheets of corrugated durasteel, that now served as headquarters and workshop for the Alema hunters—and paused just inside the door. The main office was dark. “Jag?”
His voice floated through the curtain separating this chamber from the next. “Workshop.”
She moved to and through the curtain. “We have some preliminary results from Talon Karrde on the data from Jacen’s shuttle—” Seeing what stood in the center of the workshop, she stopped short, staring.
Surrounded by tables and shelves piled high with metal parts and electronic components was a man—probably a man, though he could have been some new variety of battle droid. Most of him was covered in a jumpsuit of crinkled, reflective silver-gray material. Over this were attached a helmet, metal gauntlets, boots, a mechanical rig held against his back by two straps crossing in an X-pattern across his chest, and a broad belt holding pouches and a holster carrying an oversized blaster pistol. All these accoutrements had similar metallic surfaces resembling brushed silver.
The helmet was the one Jag had worn aboard Love Commander during the last engagement with Alema Rar, and the gauntlets were the crushgaunts sent by Boba Fett.
Jaina scowled. “Why is it I always catch you playing dress-up?