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The consumer goods list began and she found it much more promising than the military list. Then some odd products started showing up. “Liat, ask for confirmation on the prices for fifteen through twenty-five inclusive.”

The Sullustan complied with the order, then nodded and rubbed his hands together greedily.

“Damn, this is not good.” Mirax smacked her hands together. “Tell the droid we’ll buy all he has of fifteen through twenty-five. Yes, all.”

Liat chirred angrily.

“I know we can’t fit it all in here. Negotiate an exclusivity contract with him. Give him whatever he wants. A partnership even. Just do it.” She snatched a comlink from the recharging port in the cockpit wall. “When you have it locked, call me. I’ll be out looking for Wedge’s XO. We have a problem, a big problem, and if I can’t head if off, I’ve got friends who are on their way to die.”

33

Wedge keyed his comm as the squadron came out of hyperspace and prepared for the second and final leg of their run into the Pyria system. He adjusted the power output for the comm so the signal would become weak and garbled outside the kilometer sphere in which the ships moved. Even though the comm would scramble the transmission and make it all but impossible for the Empire to decrypt, he wanted to take the further precaution of making the signal all but impossible to pull in.

“This is Rogue Leader. There is one final refinement to our plans that you should know about. There is no system codenamed Phenaru. We’re going back to Blackmoon.” Wedge waited for comments and protests, but only silence came in over his headset. He took that as a vote of confidence in him by his people and that brought a smile to his face.

“The mission as simulated was exact with the following exception—the simulated run through the asteroid belt to get into the planet was based on a run through the canyons on Borleias’s sole moon. We come in to the system behind it, swing around on its surface, and take a direct shot at the nightside of the world. The moon is what will make leaving tough, but coming in it will shield us from unfriendlies on the world. Cometary fragments are causing meteor showers, so planet-based detection stations should have a hard time picking us up. Any questions?”

Bror’s voice growled through the speakers. “You’re saying, Commander, we’re getting another shot at the squints who escaped us last time?”

I was under the impression we were the ones who escaped last time … “That’s about the size of it. And there will be friendlies in the area, but not in fighters and they’ll be mute. Our mission is to hit the conduit and get back out. The fuel limitations are exactly what they were in the simulator.” Wedge hit a button on his console. “Speed and coordinates for the jump to hyperspace sent now. We’ll be three hours to Borleias, so use the time to review the run.”

The squadron went to light speed and Wedge checked his fuel level. Given mission parameters, distance from the moon to target, and expected fuel consumption rates he was in fine shape. On the run from the moon to Borleias he would begin burning fuel directly from the belly pod and begin to use it to refill what little fuel the escape from Noquivzor and the hyperspace jumps had burned from his main tank. The double duty would allow him to drain the pod more quickly and jettison it shortly after the end of the run to the target. The others would be following the same procedure, though the second and third flights would ditch their pods before they began valley runs.

Wedge felt confident his people would succeed in destroying the tunnel. That would allow the commandos, who were arriving in the system from a different direction and at a different time, to get in and do their jobs before Defender Wing arrived. The exact timing of the commando operation had been kept from him, though Ackbar had said that if his people could help, it would be appreciated. He took that to mean the commandos and their arrival would overlap with Rogue Squadron’s operation, but the only help the Rogues could realistically offer would