Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order_ Rebel Dreams_ Enemy Lines I - Aaron Allston [51]
“Ah.”
“Do you have anything you need repaired?”
The door tried to close again. Tam ignored it.
Danni shook her head. “Not really. I’ve been doing most of my own maintenance.”
“Oh. Right. Well, if you ever get shorthanded, be sure to, you know, contact me.”
“I’ll do that.”
Tam waited there, through one more cycle of the door attempting to close, before appearing to realize that the conversation had probably run its course. “Um, can I get you something? To eat or drink?”
“No, that’s all right. Thank you anyway.”
“Well, then. I’ll be going.”
“Good-bye.”
“Good-bye.” Tam’s expression graduated to perplexed, then pained. He stood back from the door and reached up to rub one of his temples. “There’s that headache ag—”
The door slid shut, cutting off his last word.
Danni slumped. This was the third time in three days that Tam had gone out of his way to talk to her, in his inimitably clumsy fashion. Obviously, he’d developed an interest in her, and that was the last thing she needed.
Oh, it wasn’t that she disliked him. But her duties, analysis of Yuuzhan Vong technology, came first. Then there was her as-time-allowed training in the use of the Force, her occasional missions with the Wild Knights. She had meetings with the Insiders and lengthy consultations with others who were knowledgeable in Yuuzhan Vong technology, individuals such as Cilghal, the Jedi healer from Mon Calamari. She had sleep, now her favorite hobby, appreciated because of its scarcity. She just didn’t have time for the legions of male pilots, officers, technicians, and civilians who thought that she surely must be interested in spending some time with them.
It was even worse with Tam, who stared at her with big, needy eyes filled with an emotion she couldn’t quite interpret. It wasn’t love, or affection, or admiration. It was something like longing, only worse.
If she didn’t know better, she’d have said it was desperation.
She rubbed her eyes in the vain hope that it would allow them to focus, then turned her attention back to her instruments.
* * *
Preparing for bed, Iella asked, “Wedge, do you have any reason to distrust Luke and Mara? Or does Tycho?”
Wedge lay back on the bed and winced in anticipation of the day’s accumulation of aches and pains assaulting him. “Of course not. Why?”
“A couple of days ago, I found a listening device planted in the Skywalker quarters. It was an amateur job, attached with a little patch of duracrete to a water pipe in their refresher. So it would only pick up conversations taking place in that one-person refresher, and only when water wasn’t flowing through the pipe.”
He gave her a curious look. “Sounds like we’re being spied on by someone who hasn’t seen enough holodramas.”
She slid into place beside him. “Today I found the corresponding listening device. In Tycho’s quarters.”
Wedge chuckled. “So you suspect Tycho of wanting to listen to fourteen hours a day of crying baby?”
“Certainly not. But I’m taking it seriously because I don’t know what it represents. I know what to do when I find signs that a competent agent is working against us. This, this is just confusing.”
“Maybe our enemy has two listening devices. One to listen to and one to plant to throw blame on Tycho.”
“That’s a good guess.”
“So what did you do about it?”
“I left the listening device, and told Luke and Mara not to talk in the refresher, and why. I’ll script up some false leads for them to say within its range and see what comes of it.”
“Problem solved.” Wedge reached over to switch off the bedside light.
Borleias Occupation, Day 15
It had been nearly a week since Lusankya’s arrival had smashed the Yuuzhan Vong fleet. Since then, squadrons and even smaller units of coralskippers, now based out of the captured lunar station above Pyria VI, had harassed the New Republic ships in orbit and made some daring runs against the biotics station on the ground, but these attacks