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“Not sure, Red Leader. A lot of traffic from the perator’s palace. Now surrendering—wait.” She was off the comm waves a few seconds. In that time, Wedge and Tycho surpassed the waiting Blades’ altitude and looped over lazily for a return descent. Then Iella was back. “Surrenders confirmed. The palace is commanding air forces to surrender. And they’re surrendering to you. Less honor lost than giving up to the ‘lesser nations.’ ”

“Understood.”

“Holdout requests your immediate presence at the perator’s palace.”

Wedge growled to himself and switched back to the general frequency. “This is Antilles. I accept the surrender of Skull-Biters and Lords of Dismay. Red Three and Red Four now authorized to accept surrenders in my name, during my absence.” He switched back to squadron frequency. “Come on, Tycho. We have a royal appointment.”

13

No laser installations fired on them as they crossed the city again. Small-arms fire from balconies all around struck the X-wings as they descended toward the perator’s palace outer yard, but that stopped as soon as the snubfighters were below the level of the walls.

In the outer courtyard, laser battery crews stood beside their pop-up emplacements with their hands up and behind their heads. Soldiers stood in similar positions. There were Blades, many of them damaged, on the grounds; their pilots stood by in attitudes of surrender. Wedge saw two men he thought were members of the elite Halbegardian invasion force keeping at least two hundred men and women under cover with nothing but their blaster rifles. And those two Halbegardians took the time to salute him as he slid out of his cockpit and dropped to the courtyard surface. A woman in the same uniform beckoned them from the steps up into the palace.

The Outer Court of the palace was not the place of festivities, or even gentility, it had been during previous visits. The air was thick with the smell of burned flesh, and the bodies of liveried guards still lay where they’d fallen. Courtiers were packed against one wall, held at bay by the blasters of invaders—members of the Holdout team and Halbegardian elites.

The perator, stripped of his retinue, stood with captors around him. Wedge saw, with relief, Cheriss among them. The flatscreens on the walls were bared and active; one showed Escalion, the perator of the Yedagon Confederacy, surrounded by advisors in the planning room at Yedagon City, while the other was broken into numerous smaller squares, some of which were blank and some of which showed scenes similar to the broadcast from Yedagon; the only difference was in the furnishings and the people staring out from the screen.

As he approached with Tycho, Wedge heard running feet approaching from behind. He turned to look, alert against some new attack, but it was Hallis who rounded the doorway and ran into the room; she skidded awkwardly to a halt, looked around, and then moved off to stand before a column from which she could record with the ordinary holocam she held in her hands.

“So you’ve brought the alien general,” the perator said. There was mockery to his tone. “Why bother? It doesn’t take a famous pilot to pull the trigger on me. Any of you could do it as well.”

“That’s not what we want to do.” That was Tomer Darpen, standing among the captors present. “We’d really prefer—”

“I wasn’t aware,” Wedge said, “that you held a post with the united Adumari forces involved in this operation.”

Tomer blinked. “Well, that’s not relevant. We have to—”

“Be quiet, Tomer. Or I’ll authorize Colonel Celchu to shoot you.” Wedge approached Cheriss. “What’s the situation?”

Her expression was an interesting study, a mix of exultation and guilt. “We hold the planning chambers and have compelled his senior officers to surrender—and to signal surrender to the flightknives.”

“That’s done.”

“But the perator won’t surrender.”

The perator, clad in spotless white as if to suggest he had never taken an action to mar his reputation, moved forward, ignoring the blasters aimed at him,