Star Wars_ X-Wing 09_ Starfighters of Adumar - Aaron Allston [51]
“Meaning?”
“Meaning most of them have been duties where he fights the New Republic. What’s interesting is where his name doesn’t show up. There’s no known association with any operations like the Death Star, or governorship of nonhuman-populated worlds, or projects we later found out are associated with Imperial Intelligence, anything like that.”
“You’re talking about Rogriss?” That was Captain Salaban, entering the conference room with a tray of pastries. He set it down in the center of the table and took the third chair, then put his booted feet up on the tabletop.
“That’s right,” Wedge said. “What’s the opinion of him in Fleet?”
“Wily old so-and-so,” Salaban said. “Loves strategy and tactics for their own sake. An intellectual. Doesn’t much like to stick around for a slugging match.”
“We noticed that in the Zsinj hunt,” Wedge said. “We’re trying to figure out what his commanders might have recently called on him to do that it would send him to some shadowy bar to get seriously drunk. To get belligerent on the subject of honor.”
Salaban, chewing on a pastry, shrugged. “Coo bee anyfing,” he said, then swallowed. “ ’Scuse me. Pound the surface of Adumar flat if they don’t side with the Empire? If the Allegiance weren’t here to keep him in check, he could do that. Eventually and with tremendous losses.”
Janson shook his head. “That’d be a fair fight. He’d enjoy preparing for that, coming up with tactics to swing the battle his way. That wouldn’t offend his sense of honor.”
Salaban nodded. “Well, he is coming up with some sort of tactics, just as I am. There’s going to be a fight here. Allegiance against Agonizer.”
Wedge gave him a curious look. “How do you figure?”
“Well, it’s like this. The Empire can’t afford for Adumar to fall into New Republic hands. They know as well as we do what it means to us to have that explosives production. So if we, I mean you, win over the Adumari and they decide to sign on with us, it’s a certainty that the Imps will break their word. They’ll call in additional ships and attack both the Adumari and the Allegiance, and we are in for one serious furball.”
Wedge and Janson exchanged a glance. Wedge said, “Wait, scan backward a little bit. What ‘word’ will the Imps break?”
“That was—oh, that’s right, you were already on the ground for that little ceremony, weren’t you?”
“I suppose so.”
Salaban put on an expression of annoyance. “Shortly after our arrival in-system—after you notified us that the Imps were here and we confirmed Agonizer’s presence—a representative of the Cartann government visited. He said that in order to ensure the honorable continuance of these negotiations, the government would have to offer its words of honor that if Adumar decided for the Empire, we’d leave system within the hour and not return except under ‘formal banners of truce or war.’ ”
“And did they get these assurances?”
Salaban nodded and speculatively eyed another pastry. “Took a day or so, but they got a formal transmission from the Chief of State’s office. Not from Organa Solo herself; scuttlebutt has it she’s on a diplomatic mission too, to the Meridian sector. Anyway, the Adumari were supposed to notify us if they failed to get the equivalent word from the Empire, and they haven’t notified us, so I assume it’s two-way. I just expect the Empire not to honor their agreement.”
“That’s it,” Wedge said. “Probably. Like you, Rogriss is at the center of that word of honor. And he expects the Empire not to stand by it. But his personal impulse is to do what he’s sworn to do, or at least what he’s had to maintain to Adumar that the Empire has sworn to do.”
“Well, it begs a question.” Salaban stared at a second pastry, sighed to indicate his surrender, and picked it up. “Which is this: So what? We have one more promise about to be broken. If my opposite number is honorable enough to feel some shreds of