Star Wars_ X-Wing 06_ Iron Fist - Aaron Allston [53]
Wedge smiled at her, and it was a hard-edged smile. “Welcome to the dilemmas of command. You’re right. Now, let’s make the situation even worse. After I received Shalla’s—wait a moment.” He took his comlink from its clip and spoke into it. “Yes?”
The Rogues and Wraiths heard a murmur from the comlink’s speaker but could not make out the words. Wedge said, “Yes, by all means. A good time for it.” He returned the device to its clip. “After Shalla made her preliminary report on this matter to me this morning, General Solo, Captain Celchu, and I went over the data of Mon Remonda’s mission so far. Intelligence reports are very sketchy, but indicate that in at least five of the sites this task force has attacked in recent sorties, Raptor movements have drastically increased and been quite public immediately after the sorties. Anyone want to hazard a guess?”
There was no immediate response. Then the Rogues’ executive officer, Nawara Ven, raised a hand.
“Go ahead.”
“If Zsinj wants to lead us around and gauge our responses, he has to do so by giving up targets for us to attack. Until a moment ago, I was assuming he was giving up targets he owned or occupied, places that weren’t very important to him. But that wouldn’t necessarily result in more public Raptor activity after the raids.” He frowned in concentration. “But if he were planting evidence that sites that didn’t belong to him actually did …”
Tyria said, “Then we’d be assaulting sites he wouldn’t particularly mind being hit.”
Nawara gave her a close look. “Even worse. If they were planets and facilities he’d been trying to add to his empire by diplomacy, but failing, our attacks would have knocked down their defenses drastically. Leaving them open to easier conquest by Zsinj … or at least further negotiation with him, and not from a position of strength.”
Face put his hand on his head to quell a sudden threatening headache. “You’re saying that the task force has been doing his work for him. All in the name of running down every lead.”
Wedge nodded. “Very possibly. Further examination of available data on Lavisar’s central library computer indicates that the population has a strong independent streak, which accounts, more than anything else, for its continued lack of interest in joining the New Republic or Zsinj, or rejoining the Empire, which lost control of the planet after the Emperor’s death.
“So our task is to respond predictably to this ‘stimulus,’ as Shalla puts it, without doing Zsinj’s work for him, and without setting ourselves up for Zsinj’s inevitable trap. Hobbie, this was your idea.”
The mournful-faced second-in-command of the Rogues stood uneasily. “Zsinj has every confidence that we can penetrate standard planetary defenses and get our snubfighters and support crews to the surface. We generally do. So my idea was to send down a ground crew, plant a bomb on the side of their main sensor station, and set it off … and it doesn’t destroy the emplacement. They keep full sensors.”
Gavin Darklighter frowned. “Wait a minute, wait a minute. So we go blasting down toward the planet and they’re completely aware of our approach?”
Hobbie nodded. “And they send up their forces and we turn tail, having been repelled by the mighty defenders of Lavisar.”
That got laughter from most of the pilots.
“Rogue Squadron doesn’t run,” said Corran Horn, deadpan. “Unless we really, really have to.” That got more laughter.
“No,” said Wedge, “this will be Wraith Squadron’s mission.”
“We don’t mind running,” Face said. “Even when we don’t have to.”
“More importantly,” Wedge continued, “we need to establish that Wraith Squadron is indeed on Mon Remonda. Every chance we get, we have to support the deception that we’re here all the time. So—hold on, here’s someone I want you to meet.”
The door at the back of the briefing chamber finished hissing up and open. In walked a woman in standard New Republic pilot’s uniform, still carrying her helmet and bag of possessions. Face recognized Lara, despite