Star Wars_ X-Wing 08_ Isard's Revenge - Michael A. Stackpole [118]
Booster smiled as he sat up. He stretched again, then walked around and usurped Cracken’s place at the table. “Okay, ladies, we’ve examined Isard’s history of atrocities. We’ve gone through her Hierarchy of Hate. There’s only one thing left for us to look at. We have to examine her dream ladder.”
Iella shook her head and bolted another slug of caf. “I must be dreaming myself, because that made no sense. Her ‘dream ladder’?”
Mirax held a hand up. “I think I know where he’s going with this. Care to open the help files for us?”
“It’s simplicity itself, ladies.” Booster hefted the remaining full mug in a salute. “We look at her sense of greed. If control of the galaxy is her goal, we know where she’ll get when she scales that ladder. Starting from the top, then, we go down, rung by rung, looking at how she’ll have to plan her ascent. Eventually we’ll work down to the lowest rung she has access to right now, and that’s where we’ll have her.”
Iella exhaled slowly. “That will take forever and we have, at best, a week.”
Booster flicked a finger against her card. “Let’s order more caf then. If you’re right that we missed something before, this is the way we’ll find it. And when we do, we’ll spill Ysanne Isard and her dreams into a black hole she’ll never escape.”
Wedge Antilles kept his gloved right hand on his thigh, beneath the level of the table at Shine Astara, one of the premiere restaurants in Ciutric’s capital, Daplona. Wedge realized the place would require his best behavior, since the first word of the name was pronounced “sheen” with an Imperial lilt that required the speaker to press his teeth together as he said it. Given that I’ve already sent the message that will bring Admiral Ackbar and Isard’s people down on this world inside a week, being on my best behavior is the least I can do for my host.
Keeping teeth clenched together that way did make it easier to sneer, a trait that his host, Colonel Lorrir, had perfected. Lorrir struck Wedge as being an Imperial’s Imperial. Tall, slender, angular, and very proper, Lorrir almost seemed to have been put together from a kit. The fact that he only had a white fringe of hair on his head indicated this wasn’t true, since a full head of black hair would have made him the perfect image of an officer. Lorrir made up for that defect by being very demanding, which meant working with him had been tough for Wedge.
But shooting him down in sim wasn’t that tough. Wedge suppressed a smile.
Colonel Lorrir nodded in his direction. “You are to be congratulated, Colonel, for how well your troops are trained. You are very formidable in combat.” He looked around at the others gathered at the table. “If you can believe it, Colonel Roat even shot me down.”
The other dinner guests gasped in astonishment, then looked at Wedge. “How ever did you manage that?” asked one officer’s plump wife.
“Colonel Lorrir is too kind. He made shooting him down very difficult.” Wedge nodded to his host. His reliance on sideslipping to evade a following ship made me sure he was luring me into a trap. I was far too cautious because he’s just not that great a pilot. “Colonel, you clearly have superior flying skills. You have many combat kills under your belt, I imagine.”
Lorrir’s bald head glowed golden in the restaurant’s muted light. “Yes, well, before I was transferred to the Prince-Admiral’s ship Reckoning, I spent some time in the One Eighty-first Imperial Fighter Group. That was back when Baron Fel was in command. I was a mere Lieutenant, but a Lieutenant in that unit was the equal of a Major in any other.”
Wedge tuned the man out as a waiter came over with two bottles of wine. “Since I am having the braised nerf, I’ll have the green, if you don’t mind.”
The waiter hesitated and Wedge quickly caught the curling of Lorrir’s lip into a sneer.
“Of course, I meant I would prefer the emerald.” Wedge shook his head. “Back where I came from the wait-beasts were hardly discerning