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He nodded and started walking with her. “So how did you get the job of coming after me? You pick the sabacc card with the lowest value?”

Erisi smiled at him, her eyes dominating a delicately sculpted face with high cheekbones and a strong jawline. “I volunteered. Nawara Ven and Rhysati Ynr are trying to talk some sense into Bror and I had to walk away.”

“You’d abandon a fellow Thyferran to a conversation with a Twi’lek lawyer?”

Her laughter echoed faintly through the dim corridor. Strip illumination ran along the edges of the tunnel where the floor met the walls and gave them enough light to travel by, but most of the people in front of them were shadowed silhouettes.

“Bror Jace is from a family that owns a significant portion of stock in Zaltin. His people are known for being rather haughty and obstreperous.”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

“I would have thought you a keener observer than that.” She gave his arm a squeeze. “Besides, Bror has noticed you. He sees you as his chief rival for supremacy in this squadron.”

“He’s forgetting the Commander and Captain Celchu.”

She shook her head. “No, he’s not, he’s just ignoring them. As Commander Antilles said, those who have served with Rogue Squadron before are legends, and Bror doesn’t think it’s possible to defeat a legend. Become one, yes, but best one, never.”

“Erisi, I appreciate your candor, but I’d hardly expect you to be speaking of a friend in such uncomplimentary terms.”

“What gave you the impression we were friends?”

“Perhaps the fact that you spend a lot of time with him.”

“Oh, that?” Erisi chuckled politely. “Better the Moff you know than the Emperor’s new Envoy. I could never truly be friends with anyone who grew up in the Zaltin corporate culture. My people are with Xucphra, the true leader in bacta production and refinement. My uncle was the person who discovered the contamination the Ashern introduced into Lot ZX1449F.”

“Really?”

The woman glanced sidelong at him, her face frozen for a millisecond, then she smiled and playfully slapped his left shoulder. “You! I know Thyferran corporate politics is boring, but it’s the lifeblood of my people. Though there are thousands of Vratix who actually grow alazhi and refine bacta, the ten thousand humans who run the corporations are really the people who make bacta available to the galaxy. Since we’re such a small community—and, I’ll admit, a fairly affluent one—we set great store in the accomplishments of our relatives.”

Corran nodded as they stepped onto an escalator that took them down deeper into the heart of Folor. “Choosing one of you from each corporate family was meant to keep things even?”

“Were that possible, of course.” Erisi winked at him. “More of us would have been sent, I suspect, but strong involvement with the Alliance is a thing of fierce debate on Thyferra. Benign neutrality seems to be the course our leaders are choosing.”

Playing both ends against the middle means big profits for the Bacta Cartel. “But you felt strongly enough about the Rebellion to volunteer to join it?”

“There are times one must place higher ideals over personal safety.”

At the bottom of the escalator they stepped off and walked across a small chamber to a dark opening carved in smooth-melted stone. Beyond it lay a noisy stone gallery with next to no visible light—unless the bright colors of strobing neon tracery were to be considered adequate for lighting. Voices from dozens of alien throats croaked below or shrieked above the booming din of human conversation. The heavy, moist air stank of sweat; acrid, cloying smoke; and fermented nectars from hundreds of Alliance worlds and not a few Imperial strongholds.

Corran paused on the threshold of the makeshift tapcafe the Rebels had named DownTime. If I were still in CorSec, I’d be calling for backup before setting foot in a place like this.

Erisi, taking his hand in hers, led him into the room. As if she could see things he could not, she guided him between hologame light tables and knots of pilots and techs.