Star Wars_ X-Wing 09_ Starfighters of Adumar - Aaron Allston [94]
“Name it.”
“I want you to go up to Allegiance, and beg, bribe, and bully your way aboard, and get a copy of our Tomer Darpen recording into their hands.”
“Did that already.”
“What?”
Heads raised all across the room at Wedge’s shout. He waved people’s attention away, then took Iella’s arm and led her a few steps from the table. “How is that again?”
She smiled at him, her enjoyment at his discomposure very evident. “While you were sleeping. I asked Escalion for a spaceworthy Blade and a pilot. She flew me up to Allegiance.”
“I wish you’d waited.”
“For you to ask me to do exactly what I was going to do? What I was obliged by my duties as an Intelligence officer to do?”
“That’s right.” He grinned. “All right, so it’s illogical. How did it go?”
“Strange,” she said. “Allegiance’s officers, I found out later, were not happy with the no-communications order from Tomer. All we knew is that the ship wouldn’t respond to our hails. So, very carefully and slowly, we flew up to her and into the main starfighter bay. There were a lot of soldiers there, a lot of blaster rifles there pointed at us … but things relaxed a lot when I identified myself, and I spoke with Captain Salaban. He’s as frantic and resentful as a fighter pilot in a tractor beam with the orders he’s under.”
“What did you tell him?”
“Well, it was obvious that he intended to obey his orders no matter how hateful they were to him. Which is nothing more than what I expected. And even if I’d told him the whole story, it would have been my word—and a juicy bit of corroborating recorded evidence—against anything Tomer Darpen told him, just enough to cause Salaban distress but not enough to cause him to violate his orders, in my opinion. So I decided not to hang him on the hook of that dilemma. I told him about the war that was brewing, and how it came about—not including Tomer Darpen’s role in it. I gave him a copy of the recording with a request that he forward it to General Cracken’s office at the point the communications blackout was lifted. I also left a copy mislabeled as my will, and broadcast encrypted copies with a time-based decryption order to the R5 and R2 units of the X-wing squadron aboard.”
“I would say you’ve done more than I could ask you to.” He added, a growl to his voice, “Other than helpfully being out of harm’s way when the shooting starts.”
“I’m going to be in one of their reconnaissance craft,” she said. “Doing unit coordination. Well away from the battlefront.”
“Battlefronts tend not to have fixed lines, and missiles don’t acknowledge what lines there are.”
“That’s the best you’re going to get, Wedge. Don’t push.”
He sighed, exasperated. “Were you always this way?”
“No,” she said. “I was pretty stubborn when I was younger.”
“Just don’t feel you have to stay close if things go bad,” he said. “Our chances are still pretty low, even with all those new people and resources flooding in …” His voice trailed off as a new thought occurred to him.
“What is it?”
“I’ve commanded large forces before. The Lusankya has more combined firepower than the entire force I’ll be leading today. But until now all the forces I’ve led have been assigned to me, routine unit assignments, with a healthy dose of volunteers. This is the first time that such a large group, so many recruits, have come in just on the strength of my name. It’s disconcerting.”
“Don’t let it go to your head, Wedge. You won’t be able to fit into your helmet.”
“Thanks for the reassurance.” He swung her back toward the planning table. “Back to work.”
In the hours before dawn, Wedge stood on the ladder to his Blade’s cockpit, a spotlight on him, a comlink on his collar to broadcast his words, and prepared to address the troops.
He’d never really understood the pre-mission pep talk—or, rather,