Star Wars_ X-Wing 02_ Wedge's Gamble - Michael A. Stackpole [151]
The only one who is missing is Tycho. Wedge frowned. Captain Tycho Celchu was a long-standing member of Rogue Squadron who had served as the squadron’s executive officer. He’d surreptitiously joined the mission to Coruscant at Wedge’s request and had been instrumental in bringing the planet’s defenses down. His action was the latest in a string of heroic missions Tycho had carried off during his Rebel career.
Unfortunately, Alliance Intelligence had developed evidence that indicated Tycho was working for the Empire. They blamed him directly not only for Corran’s death, but for the death of Bror Jace, another Rogue Squadron pilot who had died early on in the Coruscant campaign. Wedge had not been fully apprised of what the evidence was that they had against Tycho, but he did not doubt the man’s innocence for a second. Still, his innocence might mean nothing in the long run.
In spite of the liberation, Coruscant was not a pleasant or stable world. A hideous epidemic—the Krytos virus—was ravaging the non-human population of the planet. It had struck at the non-humans in the Rebellion and was hard enough on some species that even coming down to the planet was an act of extreme bravery. Bacta, as usual, could cure the virus, but the Rebellion’s entire store of bacta was insufficient to cure everyone. This resulted in panic, and resentment against humans for their apparent immunity to the disease.
The memorial service had become an important event because Coruscant’s population needed something to unite them and to get their minds off their suffering, even if only for a moment. The fact that Rogue Squadron had humans and non-humans working together in it showed the strength of unity that had allowed the Rebellion to prevail. Non-humans coming together along with dignitaries from various other worlds to mourn a dead human acknowledged the debt the Rebels owed humans. Speakers devoted themselves to exhorting their fellows to labor together in building a future that would justify the sacrifices made by Corran and others. Their words raised things to a philosophical or metaphysical level meant to soothe away the anxieties and worries of the citizens.
Those were noble messages, to be certain, but Wedge felt they were not the right messages for Corran. He tugged on the sleeves of his uniform jacket as a Bothan protocol subaltern waved him forward. Wedge stepped up to the podium and wanted to lean heavily upon it. Years of fighting and saying good-bye to friends and comrades weighed him down—but he refused to give in to fatigue. He let his pride in the squadron and his friendship with Corran keep him upright.
He looked around at the crowd, then focused on the mound of pseudogranite rubble before him. “Corran Horn does not rest easy in that grave.” Wedge paused for a moment, and then another, letting the silence remind everyone of the true purpose of the ceremony. “Corran Horn was never at ease except when he was fighting. He does not rest easy now because there is much fighting yet to be done. We have taken Coruscant, but anyone who assumes that means the Empire is dead is as mistaken as Grand Moff Tarkin was in his belief that Alderaan’s destruction would somehow cripple the Rebellion.”
Wedge brought his head up. “Corran Horn was not a man who gave up, no matter what the odds. More than once he took upon himself the responsibility of dealing with a threat to the squadron and to the Rebellion. Heedless of his own safety, he engaged overwhelming forces and by sheer dint of will and spirit and courage he won through. Even here, on Coruscant, he flew alone into the heart of a storm that was ravaging a planet and risked his life so this world would be free. He did not fail, because he would not