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Corran’s head came up as he stepped forward and extended his hand to Booster. “You’re not my enemy. Never have been. I’m not yours. For the sake of your daughter, the people we’ve got to save, and the memory of my father, I don’t want to fight with you anymore. Doesn’t mean we won’t disagree—perhaps even violently at times—but you don’t deserve my ill-will.”

Surprise slowly blossomed on Booster Terrik’s face. He started to say something, then stopped. His hand came up and engulfed Corran’s. “Normally I’d be angry that I had misjudged you so badly, but you’ve reinforced just how good a judge of character my daughter really is. And you’re right, we’ll disagree and I can guarantee it’ll be violent, but that’s okay. We’re Corellians. We can do that.”

Wedge dropped his hand on top of theirs. “Good. You know, the Imps on Coruscant used to call two Corellians together a conspiracy. Three they’d call a fight.”

“More fools they, then.” Corran smiled. “Any Corellian knows three of us together is a victory. It’s time we remind Iceheart and the rest of Imp holdovers of that very fact.”

32

Corran glanced at the chronographic display on the X-wing’s main monitor. “Whistler, confirm that we’re ten standard minutes past the time for the rendezvous.”

The R2 unit blatted out an annoyed tone.

“Fine, so I won’t ask you to confirm how late they are anymore—at least not every minute.” Corran forced himself to exhale deeply and tried to draw in some of the inner peace that Luke indicated such a cleansing breath should bring in its wake. He failed, and that just heightened his frustration. Despite accepting the mission, he had not liked having to be the one to draw Isard’s agent into Yag’Dhul. While he knew the deception Booster and Wedge had planned would certainly make the discovery of their base appear to be serendipitous, every second Karrde’s people were late allowed the image of a Thyferran taskforce appearing to pounce on them grow in his mind.

It wouldn’t have been so bad, but Corran had not come alone. Gavin, Rhysati, and Inyri flew X-wings to give him a complete flight, and Mirax had come along in the Pulsar Skate. None of them knew how dangerous their mission might be—and Corran granted that the odds of their ending up dead on this mission probably were no greater than they were on any other—but he still would have felt better if he could have told them what was really going on. Of course, that would mean I’d have to know what was going on.

A light flashed on his communications console. He punched the button beneath it. “Nine here.”

“Skate here, Nine.” Mirax’s voice sounded good to him and immediately began to take the edge off his frustration. “So, as long as we’re waiting, you want to tell me what you said to my father?”

Corran frowned. “How do you know about that?”

“Well, I could say that you talk in your sleep, but you don’t.” The light tone in her voice conveyed the image of her smiling face to him. “When we headed out, my father shot me a private message. Normally he says I should make sure you take good care of me. This time he said I should keep my eye on you and follow your lead. Bit of a difference there.”

“Yeah, just a bit.”

“So?”

“We had a talk.”

“Are you going to tell me what was said, or am I going to convince Emtrey he needs to spend more time around you?”

“Hey, no reason to trot out the turbolasers here.” Corran hesitated for a moment, then sighed. “Your father and I had it out. He said I’d abandoned you on Thyferra …”

“What?!”

“… and I accused him of having abandoned you when he went to Kessel.”

“What?! You really told him that?”

“Yeah, then I told him that you were everything he wanted to be and that the last person he should want interested in his daughter was someone who held himself to the same level of morality and responsibility he did.”

“And you still have your arms and legs intact?”

“Your father isn’t exactly a Wookiee, Mirax.” Corran forced a laugh. “Besides, it