Star Wars_ X-Wing 09_ Starfighters of Adumar - Aaron Allston [3]
He sealed the bag and looked around his quarters. They were spacious, as befitted a general of the New Republic, and well situated high in a Coruscant skyscraper. He had only to speak a word and the quarters’ computer would change the polarity of the wall-to-wall viewports to give him a commanding view of sky, endless cityscape, ceaseless streams of vessels large and small.
These quarters were clean and spare as a military man kept them. They were—
They weren’t home. Neither were the smaller but equally lavish quarters he enjoyed on the Super Star Destroyer Lusankya, the seat of his military operations—though he was still assigned to Starfighter Command, the special task force he commanded kept him in circumstances and settings more suited to a Fleet Command officer.
Here, as there, the presence of a few mementos, of a framed holo showing his parents in a happy embrace, of friends captured at celebrations or launch zones, didn’t conceal the impersonal nature of the furniture. If he received a new posting while he was away on leave, he wouldn’t even have to come back here. He’d send a short message to the right department and an aide or droid would pack everything up and ship it off, and an identical one would receive it all and unpack it into a new set of quarters on some other world or station, and that would become the place where he lived.
But not home. Home was a family-owned refueling station, destroyed half his life ago with his parents still aboard, and nothing had ever come along to replace it.
He slung his bag over his shoulder. While on leave, maybe he’d be able to see in the faces and hear in the words of those he visited what it was that had turned their housing into their homes. Maybe—
His door chimed. He set the bag down again. “Come.”
The door slid up. Beyond was a man, muscular, graying, a bright and often cheerless intelligence in his eyes. He wore the uniform of a New Republic general.
Wedge approached, hand extended. “General Cracken! Come in. Have you come to see me off? I wasn’t expecting a military escort.”
Airen Cracken, head of New Republic Intelligence, entered and took Wedge’s hand. His expression did not brighten; he looked, if anything, regretful. “General Antilles. Yes, I’m here to see you off.”
Something in his tone sounded a quiet alarm in Wedge’s mind. “Should I be going evasive?”
That brought a faint smile to Cracken’s face. “Probably. I have an assignment for you.”
“I’m on leave. It’s already begun.”
Cracken shook his head.
“General Cracken, you’re not in a position to issue assignments to me. So what you’re saying is you have something you’d like me to volunteer for.”
“I have something you’re going to volunteer for.”
“I don’t think so.”
“The following information is for your ears only. You’re not to discuss it outside these quarters until you reach your rendezvous point.”
“That explains it.”
Cracken frowned. “Explains what?”
“When I was packing this morning. Why things seemed a little different. As if a cleaning detail had been through and picked up everything, putting it back almost exactly where it was before. Your people were through here when I was out, weren’t they? Making sure there were no listening or recording devices present.”
Cracken didn’t reply to that. He just looked a little surly. He continued, “The world of Adumar is on the near edge of Wild Space. It was colonized as long as ten thousand years ago by a coalition of peoples who had staged a rebellion against the Old Republic, been defeated, and been spared … so long as they went far away and never caused any more trouble.”
Wedge just stared. Perhaps if he demonstrated continued indifference Cracken would go away. That wasn’t usually the way it worked, of course.
Cracken said, “According to what we