Star Wars_ X-Wing 04_ The Bacta War - Michael A. Stackpole [3]
His desire to save them had increased with a chance discovery that embarrassed him mightily when he made it. In Lusankya the Rebel prisoners had been led by an older man who simply called himself Jan. Since his escape, Corran had caught a holovision broadcast of a documentary on the heroes of the Rebel Alliance. First and foremost among them had been the general who led the defense of Yavin 4 and planned the destruction of the first Death Star, Jan Dodonna. The documentary said he’d been slain during the evacuation of Yavin 4, but Corran had no doubt Dodonna had been a prisoner on Lusankya. If I hadn’t thought him dead, I might have recognized him, too. How stupid of me.
Dodonna’s celebrity had nothing to do with Corran’s desire to save him. Jan, like Urlor Sette and others, had helped him escape. They had risked their lives to give him a chance to get away. Leaving such brave people captives of someone like Ysanne Isard not only failed to reward their courage but repaid them by leaving them in severe jeopardy of death or worse—conversion into a covert Imperial agent under Isard’s direction.
“Couldn’t sleep?”
Corran started, then turned and smiled at the black-haired, dark-eyed woman standing in the bedroom doorway. “I guess not, Mirax. I’m sorry I woke you.”
“You didn’t wake me. Your absence awakened me.” She wore a dark blue robe, belted at the waist with a pale yellow sash. Mirax raised a hand to hide a yawn then pointed at the silver cylinder in his right hand. “Regretting your decision?”
“Which one? Refusing to join the Jedi Knights or”—he smiled—“or hooking up with you?”
She raised an eyebrow. “I was thinking of the Jedi decision. If you have reservations about the other decision, I can relearn how to sleep alone.”
He laughed, and she joined him. “I regret neither. Your father and my father may have been mortal enemies, but I can’t imagine having a better friend than you.”
“Or lover.”
“Especially lover.”
Mirax shrugged. “All you men who’ve just gotten out of prison say that.”
Corran frowned for a moment. “I imagine you’re right, but how you came by that information, I don’t want to know.”
Mirax blinked her eyes. “You know, I don’t think I want to know that, either.”
Corran laughed, then crossed the room and enfolded her in a warm hug. “After my escape, Tycho expressed his regrets concerning your death to me. He told me how Warlord Zsinj had ambushed a convoy at Alderaan and destroyed it, including your Pulsar Skate. Everything inside of me just collapsed. Losing you just ripped the emotional skeleton out of me.”
“Now you know how I felt when I thought you’d been slain here on Coruscant.” She kissed his left ear, then settled her chin on his shoulder. “I hadn’t realized how much you had become part of my life until you were gone. The hole the Lusankya created blasting her way out of Coruscant was nothing compared to the void I had inside. It wasn’t a question of wanting to die, but of knowing my insides were dead and wondering when the rest of me would catch up.”
“I had it luckier than you. When he got the chance, General Cracken pulled me aside and told me how you’d gone on a covert mission to Borleias to deliver ryll kor, bacta, and a Vratix verachen. Zsinj’s ambush conveniently covered your disappearance so the Thyferrans didn’t know what you were setting up on Borleias with their bacta.”
“Yeah, they would not have liked it if it were known we were using the Alderaan Biotics facility there to make rylca and, eventually, enough bacta to dent their monopoly.” Mirax shivered. “I would have preferred the original plan working, because as much as I didn’t look forward to being reviled and hunted down for stealing bacta from the convoy, I would have rather endured that than having all those other people killed.”
“Nothing you could do about that.”
“Nor was there anything you could do about your fellow prisoners being whisked away by Isard when she escaped in the Lusankya.” Mirax