Star Wars_ X-Wing 07_ Solo Command - Aaron Allston [160]
Tycho’s voice poured through the comm unit. “Lead, Two here. I show the Imperial formation breaking up.”
“What?” Corran stabbed a button and shifted the display on his primary monitor over to a system-wide scan. The Imperial bowl, which had been contracting around the Rebel cone, was beginning to come apart. The Storm-hawk and the Nemesis were moving to secure an outbound vector for the fleet, while Thrawn’s flagship, the Chimaera, swung about to discourage pursuit of the fleet’s smaller ships.
Disbelief threaded through Wedge’s voice. “Be careful, Rogues. Thrawn’s got something up his sleeve.”
Janson laughed lightly. “Looks like a full-fledged retreat, Lead. They’re recovering their fighters.”
Corran studied his readout. The Rebel cone began to blossom from the widest end, coming forward to the tip. The New Republic’s ships kept a respectful distance from the Imperial ships and moved to begin recovery operations. The Imp pull-back left a couple of their own stricken ships still hanging in space. And it leaves the Bilbringi shipyards to us, which Thrawn never would have wanted.
A shiver ran up Corran’s spine. “What happened here, Lead?”
“I don’t know, Nine.” Wedge’s voice came through solemn and with a hint of hesitation. “Just got a recall order from Admiral Ackbar. We’re to rendezvous with Home One.”
“And then he’ll tell us what happened?”
“Could be, Corran, but I doubt it.” Wedge’s X-wing looped out in front of the other Rogues and began the trip back toward the fleet. “For now, let’s just be glad that, for whatever reason, Thrawn discovered he had better things to do, and let’s be ready for when he decides to come back at us again.”
THE OLD REPUBLIC
(5,000–33 YEARS BEFORE STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE)
Long—long—ago in a galaxy far, far away … some twenty-five thousand years before Luke Skywalker destroyed the first Death Star at the Battle of Yavin in Star Wars: A New Hope … a large number of star systems and species in the center of the galaxy came together to form the Galactic Republic, governed by a Chancellor and a Senate from the capital city-world of Coruscant. As the Republic expanded via the hyperspace lanes, it absorbed new member worlds from newly discovered star systems; it also expanded its military to deal with the hostile civilizations, slavers, pirates, and gangster-species such as the slug-like Hutts that were encountered in the outward exploration. But the most vital defenders of the Republic were the Jedi Knights. Originally a reclusive order dedicated to studying the mysteries of the life energy known as the Force, the Jedi became the Republic’s guardians, charged by the Senate with keeping the peace—with wise words if possible; with lightsabers if not.
But the Jedi weren’t the only Force-users in the galaxy. An ancient civil war had pitted those Jedi who used the Force selflessly against those who allowed themselves to be ruled by their ambitions—which the Jedi warned led to the dark side of the Force. Defeated in that long-ago war, the dark siders fled beyond the galactic frontier, where they built a civilization of their own: the Sith Empire.
The first great conflict between the Republic and the Sith Empire occurred when two hyperspace explorers stumbled on the Sith worlds, giving the Sith Lord Naga Sadow and his dark side warriors a direct invasion route into the Republic’s central worlds. This war resulted in the first destruction of the Sith Empire—but it was hardly the last. For the next four thousand years, skirmishes between the Republic and Sith grew into wars, with the scales always tilting toward one or the other, and peace never lasting. The galaxy was a place of almost constant strife: Sith armies against Republic