Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order_ Rebel Dreams_ Enemy Lines I - Aaron Allston [103]
“My orders stand,” Tsavong Lah said.
His father’s features assumed an expression that all but said, I expected better of you. It was an expression Czulkang Lah wore whenever a student had failed him for the last time. It had never before been directed at Tsavong Lah, and the warmaster took an involuntary step back.
But Czulkang Lah said nothing aloud, no words that would shame his son. Instead, he said, “It will be done.”
“May the gods smile upon your actions,” Tsavong Lah said. He gestured at one of his officers, who stroked the villip. It inverted.
The warmaster stood, his breathing heavy. His father’s final disapproval, so implacable, was like a physical blow to him.
When he was under control again, he turned to Maal Lah. “Issue this directive. When Borleias falls to us, it will no longer be the home of the Kraal. Instead, it will be given to the priests of Yun-Yammka, a haven for their order, in thanks to the god for the gains he has brought us.”
Maal Lah nodded. He, too, said, “It will be done.”
That, the warmaster thought, should send the priests of Yun-Yuuzhan into a fit, and if there truly are conspirators within their orders and the shapers are against me, I will soon know it. He glanced down at his left arm. I will soon feel it.
Borleias Occupation, Day 48
“It has all the characteristics of a major push,” Tycho said.
He, Wedge, and Iella stood before the control chamber’s hologram display. It showed the compiled readouts from all the garrison’s ground-based sensors, including the gravitic sensors Luke’s Jedi had planted in the jungle beyond the kill zone, and incorporated live feeds from starfighters out on patrol.
At the center of the display was the large friendly signal marked “Base.” Out at a distance of a few hundred kilometers, in every direction of the compass, were masses of red blips; Iella counted sixteen separate groups. “What are they doing?” she asked.
“One or two groups are landing personnel, vehicles, everything an invasion force needs,” Wedge said. “The others are distractions. We’re supposed to divide up our attention among them in a desperate attempt to figure out where their landing zone is, and we’re supposed to become nervous because we’re not succeeding.”
“ ‘Supposed to,’ ” Iella said. “Meaning that you’re not? Not doing either one?”
Wedge shook his head. “Oh, we’re sending out scouts to all these sites, but they’re under orders to show up, stay alert, and then make a run for it if anything comes after them. We don’t want to lose pilots acquiring information we essentially don’t need.”
“So you don’t care where their landing zone is?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Why?”
“Because, sometime in the next day or two, they’re going to attack us here—and that’s exactly what we want them to do.”
“And when they do,” Iella said, “who are you going to face them with? The New Republic or the Rebel Alliance?”
Wedge and Tycho exchanged a look, and both grinned.
“Neither,” Wedge said. “We’re going to face them with an enemy they’ve never had the displeasure of fighting. We’re going to hit them with the Empire.”
“They’re not going to like the Empire,” Tycho said.
And they told her about Operation Emperor’s Hammer.
Borleias Occupation, Day 48
This time, when the Millennium Falcon arrived on Borleias, it did so in the middle of the night, to no fanfare, no welcoming committee other than a handful of refuelers. Leia saw Han breathe a sigh of thanks, celebrating the absence of ceremony.
Han took Tarc to find him some quarters—the rooms that had been assigned to the underaged Jedi students, where Tarc had previously been staying, would have been reassigned by now, and Han, though he liked the boy, didn’t want him in their own quarters. Leia went in search of her daughter.
Jaina’s X-wing was in the special operations docking bay, a mechanics