• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Wedge and his pilots about-faced and made their retreat.

They passed Tomer going the other way. “That was your last chance to do anything positive,” Tomer said. “Now it’s up to me to undo the damage you’ve done.” The diplomat hurried on to join the perator’s retinue.

“So,” Janson said. “What’s it like to be an ex-diplomat?”

Wedge grinned. “I’ve been better.”

“Think they’ll escort us up to Allegiance, or just put us on the business end of a planetary defense laser cannon and blast us up there?”

Tomer had made it to the perator’s side. His eyes, his hand gestures, all said that he was pleading with the ruler. The perator shook his head again and again, then stopped to listen. But when Tomer finally turned away and left the ruler’s retinue, his expression was downcast.

“General Antilles!” the perator called. “No, do not step forward. I do not wish you to be any closer to me than you already are.”

Wedge stood, waiting, ignoring the rebuke implicit in the ruler’s tone.

“I declare you to be an enemy of the state of Cartann,” the perator said. “But I am told by Lord Tomer Darpen that it might cost Cartann friendships to have you executed as you deserve.”

Hobbie murmured, “This has just gotten a lot worse.”

“So I declare you and your pilots exiles. Remove yourself from Cartann, by gauntlet to Giltella Air Base, and never show yourselves before me again.”

Wordlessly, Wedge turned away from the perator and headed toward the chamber’s exit. He felt blood draining from his head. The weight of his failure as a diplomat, anticipated for so long, was finally on him. The moment of failure did not feel good. In fact, he couldn’t remember feeling worse in recent times.

Yes he could. It was worse when he became certain, for those brief moments, that he had lost Iella forever. He’d survived that and overcome it. He’d get through this.

Tomer, walking quickly, reached his side. “You’re in trouble.”

“I thought my troubles were over.”

“No. You’ll probably be dead before you get to your Blades.”

Wedge stopped. “Blades? We’re returning to our X-wings.”

Tomer shook his head. “They’re being impounded.”

“Impound—”

“Even as we speak. They’ll be gone from your balcony before you can get back, hauled off like cargo. You need to be thinking about the gauntlet if you’re to survive.”

Wedge took a look around. No members of the crowd stood nearer than half a dozen meters. Most regarded him with expressions of sympathy—or sudden revulsion. It matched what he was feeling at the thought of the Adumari touching his X-wings, at the realization that he needed answers from this man he wanted so desperately to punch. “All right. What does ‘gauntlet to the air base’ mean?”

“It means you have to get to Giltella Air Base by whatever means you can manage. They’ll have four spaceworthy Blades ready for you. If you can get up to the Allegiance in them, past the Blades that are sure to be gunning for you up in the air, you get to live. But—” Tomer shrugged, helpless—“anyone can kill you, Wedge. It’s legal. From the door out of the perator’s palace to the Allegiance, you’re all fair game.”

“Which means,” Hobbie said, “the longer we wait, the more forces they can organize to bring to bear against us.”

Tomer nodded. “Yes. In theory, you could also use the time to communicate with your friends and array them against your enemies. But you have no friends on-planet to aid you.” He looked apologetic. “I’m sorry. The perator was in such a towering rage. He would have had you killed outright if I hadn’t—”

“We’ll discuss your contribution to this whole mess later,” Wedge said. He felt very cold inside, cold with anger at Tomer and the perator and Adumar in general, cold with the realization that the gauntlet he was about to face was likely to kill him long before he was able to employ his most useful skills.

He turned back to the crowd and raised his voice. “Who’ll offer blastswords to four doomed men?”

For long moments, no one moved.

Then