Star Wars_ X-Wing 09_ Starfighters of Adumar - Aaron Allston [87]
“Makes sense,” Wedge said. He turned to Iella. “You know that you’re next.”
She nodded.
“I don’t understand,” Janson said.
“Tomer set things up to kill us,” Wedge said. “Accomplishing a lot of things. It scored points with the perator by making him think that we pilots had been with him all along, just thwarted by bureaucratic orders, so the perator doesn’t think we opposed him. And it scrapes us out of the way so I can’t file my report, my conclusions on the way he set up this whole diplomatic mission—conclusions I now have to assume were largely correct. He wants everyone who can offer up a comprehensive report to the Chief of State to be dead. That means that Tomer’s subordinates here, including Iella, will eventually end up facedown in an alley.”
“It’ll take me just minutes to pack,” Iella said. “Which begs the question: Where do we go? I wasn’t in charge of setting up safe houses.”
“I know where,” Cheriss said. “General Antilles—”
“It’s about time you called me Wedge.”
She didn’t smile, but she did offer him a little nod of acknowledgment. “Wedge, there are some men and women who want to meet you. When I returned earlier tonight and made myself known at the perator’s palace, they tracked me down and told me so.”
Wedge frowned. “What sort of men and women?”
“Political leaders. From nations not controlled by Cartann. From nations soon to be smashed by Cartann.”
“Do you think they’d be willing to offer us use of a spaceworthy craft to get us to Allegiance?”
She nodded. “I think they would. But I don’t think that is what is foremost on their minds. I think they want to ask a favor of you.”
“I’d be happy to listen. All right, everybody. Tycho and I need to get cleaned up, and everybody is to get dressed up—nicely as we can. They’re scouring the streets looking for four downed pilots hiding from their eyes, not seven upstanding citizens out for a late night of carousing.”
“You’re issuing orders to Intelligence,” Iella said, her voice mild.
“Just to my pilots—and making some assumptions. Care to come along?”
“Anywhere,” she said.
11
By dawn, Wedge and the other six refugees were in the passenger/cargo compartment of a Farumme-class hauler, an aircraft Wedge suspected was constructed about the time he was being born. Air whistled through holes in the hull. Rings were imbedded in the compartment’s framework, the better to allow for cargo to be lashed down securely, but the only thing being transported now was Wedge’s party, seated on padded benches that ran the length of the compartment. The Yedagon Confederacy agent who had met them, a lean, very fair man of few words, rode with the pilots in their control compartment.
Wedge glanced around the compartment. Janson, Tycho, and Hobbie were all asleep. He was as tired as they were, in as great a need of sleep, but he had things to think about.
Cheriss sat alone on a bench on the other side of the craft. She had seldom looked at Wedge since their departure from Iella’s quarters, and seemed lost in her thoughts.
Hallis was on the same side of the craft, alone, all the New Republic personnel’s datapads piled up beside her. She had, at Wedge’s request, copied the recording of Tomer Darpen’s treachery to each datapad. Now she was struggling with the most sophisticated of the datapads available to her, Iella’s, to edit that and some other recordings into a portion of her documentary. Her occasional bouts of muttering and swearing suggested that it wasn’t going well.
And Iella—Iella was tucked under Wedge’s arm, her eyes closed, her expression serene.
Wedge smiled, knowing his was probably an idiot’s grin but not caring. He was on the run, a death sentence on his head, on a world where his enemies and admirers alike would be happy to kill him, unable to get in touch with his superiors. But for this moment he was carefree, happy in a way he hadn’t been in years.
Iella’s eyes opened. She looked at him