Star Wars_ X-Wing 09_ Starfighters of Adumar - Aaron Allston [56]
“You know we’re not together anymore. Qwi and I.”
She nodded, but her expression did not lighten. “Wes Janson told me the first night he ran into me, at the perator’s court.”
“And?”
“And what? And she’s gone, and so maybe we can start all over again?”
Surprised by the heat and anger in her voice, Wedge drew back. “Something like that.”
“Wedge Antilles, I don’t care how much it hurts. I will not be number two to some feather-brained—”
A small explosion next door vibrated the wall and burned a hole, the diameter of a finger, in it. Wedge grabbed Iella’s sleeve and pulled her down to the rug with him. He drew his own blaster.
Iella grabbed the barrel, kept him from swinging it into line. “Don’t,” she said. “It’s—”
Another shot penetrated the wall at about eye level. From the other quarters Wedge could hear shouting, the sound of pottery shattering.
“—just my neighbor, Garatty ke Kith—”
There was the familiar crack of a blastsword going off, and a yelp of pain.
“—and his feud with—”
“Irasai ke Voltin,” Wedge said.
“You know him?”
“You meet a lot of people when you’re an ambassador.”
There was one final crash, something like a hundred kilos of meat being violently slammed the floor, and quiet fell again.
“That will probably end the feud,” Iella said.
Wedge rose and offered her a hand up. He holstered his sidearm. He was surprised at how much energy the motion took. Suddenly his endurance seemed to have abandoned him. “Back to the subject. So what you’re saying is that I hurt you so badly that we can never be anything to one another again.”
Iella looked as though she were reviewing something—the last several things she’d said, perhaps the last several years of her life. Finally she said, “I suppose that is what I’m saying.” She looked on the verge of tears again. “I’m sorry, Wedge. I am. But I think you’d better leave.”
“It’s not leaving that’s hard anymore,” he said, scarcely recognizing his own voice. “It’s finding somewhere to go.” He turned toward the door.
Adrenaline jolted through him. The shock that hit him was that of a man realizing that he was about to step into a trap or a firefight, something that could end his life in a second.
It couldn’t be a precognitive warning. Outside of a cockpit, his pattern recognition skills didn’t afford him warnings like that … and besides, had there been danger beyond the door, Janson would have communicated with him.
No, the danger was more personal. It was indeed a matter of Step through that door and your life is over, but in a very different way. “Just how stupid do you think I am?” he asked.
“What?”
He turned to face her again. His energy was back. He felt it burning within him. And he now knew the nature of the one last barrier standing between the two of them: Her injured pride, shielding her from further harm … but also shielding her from him. “How big an idiot would I have to be to walk out that door?”
“I don’t understand, Wedge. I just wish you’d go.”
“Yes, it would be easier that way. Less risk of humiliation.” He moved to stand before her again. “Now, listen. For years, even when we didn’t see one another for ages, I knew that you were a part of my life. Until a few nights ago, when you said we weren’t friends anymore. Since then, I’ve been in mourning. Not just missing a friend, but grieving for a lost part of my life.
“It took me a while to figure that out, and to understand just how much I need you to be in my life. As my friend, and more than my friend, for good. Now you tell me it can’t happen. Because of mistakes. I made some, you made some, and now our chances are all behind us?” He shook his head vehemently. “No, Iella. That would be another mistake, and the older we get, the less time we have to bounce back from them. I’m tired of making mistakes.”
He put one hand behind her neck, the other around her waist, and drew her to him. She looked at him, surprise in her