matter what Iceheart intended though I do think Booster is more right than you
are here, Corranthe fact is that we have two weeks to prevent her from
slaughtering thirty thousand Vratix. Conspiracy or no, trap or no, we have to
act."
"I wasn't saying we shouldn't act, Wedge." Corran shook his head to clear his
mind. "I'm just saying it's not an obvious attempt to provoke us."
"CorSec always did miss the obvious." Booster snorted with disgust, then hit a
couple of keys on the datapad centered on his desk. "Do we initiate things?"
"Can we?" Wedge's brown eyes narrowed. "Where do we stand on the refits?"
"The sensor and targeting units are all in place. If we use the crews from the
freighters we have hanging around here, I can have the launchers ready to go
inside a week." Booster looked up. "Karrde even has our last shipment of
concussion missiles and proton torpedoes ready to go. An hour after I send him a
message via the HoloNet, his convoy should be assembled. We can have it here
within a day, with missile
batteries and torpedo magazines fully loaded twelve hours later, if all goes
well."
"What about the gravity well projector."
"Got it, and it's being installed now."
"Good. Let's get things going. Call Karrde and set up a rendezvous for
twenty-four hours from now." Wedge glanced up at Corran. "Will you be ready to
lead a flight out to escort them in by that time?"
Corran hesitated, not certain what he heard was really what Wedge said. "Escort
them in?"
"I'll make it thirty-six hourslet him get some sleep."
"Fine, Booster, that should work."
"Wait, wait, wait." Corran held his hands up. "You really intend for me to lead
Karrde's convoy here? We aren't going to work out some transfer thing?"
Wedge shook his head. "No. Time is of the essence."
"But, Wedge, sir, begging your pardon, if we do that, then Isard will know where
we are. The Lusankya and the Virulence could be here just twenty-four hours
after we get back with the convoy." Corran frowned and rubbed a hand over his
wrinkled brow. "I thought Booster determined that someone in Karrde's
organization provided Isard with the data to set up the Alderaan ambush. You're
practically inviting Isard here."
Booster smiled. "No practically about it, Corran, we are inviting her here."
"But you can't do that! Even if this station were bristling with missile
launchers, there's no way we could take down a Super Star Destroyer and an
Impstar deuce."
Wedge shook his head. "I understand your protest, Corran, but you're not privy
to the plans Booster, Tycho, and I have put together for dealing with Isard and
her fleet. You do know we've been taking her forces apart bit by bit, which
certainly was part of our overall plan, but we had to make decisions about what
to do if Iceheart forced our hand, and she has."
"Then tell me what the plans are so I don't think you've lost your minds."
"Can't do that, CorSec." Booster flipped his datapad
closed with a click. "You're going to go out and get the convoy and bring it
here. If Isard decides to act early and take our pilots hostage , she can't
torture out of you information you don't have."
Wedge nodded in agreement. "And I need you to lead the escort flight because
Isard and her agent would not believe we were on the level if you or Tycho or I
did not bring the flight in. I don't want to cut you out like this, but the less
you know, the less you can reveal."
Corran felt his flesh tighten around little goose bumps and a wave of weariness
wash over him. "I hear what you're saying, Wedge, but are you certain this is
going to work?"
Booster roared with laughter. "Certain? Certain? Of course he's not certain. The
man who would only bet on certainty has no guts."
"I have plenty of guts, Booster, but I don't like risking them, or my life, or
the lives of my friends, if I don't have to. Certainty, or as close as I can get
to it, is what I want."
"And you call yourself a Corellian?" The big man snorted derisively as he sat
back in his chair. "No wonder you joined CorSec."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I thought it was obvious, CorSec. If you had the guts for lifeif you were even
to imagine yourself worthy of my daughteryou wouldn't have spent your life in
service to the Empire's puppet. You played it safe when men with real courage
were out there defying the government."
Corran's fatigue melted as his anger grew. "Oh, you're going to use the
smugglers are really patriots story to excuse your greed? Let me tell you
something, Booster Terrik, you can think of yourself as a noble scoundrel if you
want, but the fact is you were out for money when you were running shipments,
nothing more. The fact that you didn't pay taxes on what you imported, the fact
that you broke laws, might mark you as some sort of protester against the
government in the eyes of some, but I know the truth. You were just a
criminalnot as violent or bad as some others, but a criminal just the same.
And those taxes you didn't pay were the kind of taxes that build roads, maintain
spaceports, and educate kids.
What you did was deny them their due, and provide the contraband that allowed
organizations like Black Sun and Hutt bands to thrive on our world."
Corran thrust a finger directly at Booster. "And as for being worthy of your
daughter, I'm the worthiest man you ever met. Every gram of character you think
you have, she does have. And brains, too, and courage. And even you, Booster
Terrik, don't want to see her hooking up with a man who has your morals and
standards."
Booster rose from behind his desk, his hands balled into fists. "And if you were
the man you think you are, Corran Horn, you'd not have abandoned her on
Thyferra."
"Abandoned her?" Corran's mind flashed back to his mad dash into the refresher
station and his fight with the stormtroopers. I didn't abandon her. "You want to
talk abandonment? I left for five seconds to save her life. You left her for
five years, Booster, or have you forgotten your vacation on Kessel?"
"A 'vacation' your father got for me, Horn."
Wedge stood abruptly and posted a hand in the middle of each man's chest. "All
right, stop it. Right now." He gave each of them a little shove and Corran let
himself be propelled back toward the doorway. Wedge turned to Booster, shifted
both hands to the larger man's shoulders, and forced him down into his chair.
"Listen to me, Boosterand you'll listen because you don't want to find yourself
in the situation of having Mirax say this to you Corran Horn here is one of the
smartest, skilled, and courageous men it's been my privilege to know. He escaped
from a prison that makes Kessel look like a resort world with hourly shuttles in
and out. He's gone and done things on missions that put him at risk because
those things save the lives of others. If not for him, Coruscant would still be
in Imperial hands and I, as well as your daughter, would be dead or Isard's
slaves.
"When you arrived on this station, you said you thought I would have protected
Mirax from the likes of Corran." Wedge shook his head. "The real story is that I
was overjoyed when they became friends. Mirax needed someone as stable
as Corran because she's never really sure where you are or what's happened to
you. And Corran, he needed someone with Mirax's curiosity and fervor for life
because he'd been cut off from everyone he knew and trusted. Both of them were
gyros that needed to be spin balanced, and they did that for each other."
Before Corran could begin to grin triumphantly, Wedge whirled and stabbed a
finger into his chest. "And you, my friend, need to get some perspective here.
You're seeing Booster as your father's old enemy, and your father isn't here to
put him in his place. Well, you aren't your father. Their fight isn't your
fight, and you can't stand in for your father in it. And you should be smart
enough to know Booster doesn't have a problem with you because you were Hal
Horn's son he's got the same problem with you that every father ever had with
any man romancing his daughter. She's the best thing that ever happened to him."
Corran nodded. "She's the best thing that ever happened to me, too."
"Right, which means the two of you have more in common than either one of you
would admit. Now the both of you better think on this Mirax loves both of you,
so unless you think she's got no taste or character judgment at all, you better
figure you both are worthy of each other's respect." Wedge folded his arms and
positioned himself so he could see both of them easily. "I don't expect you'll
ever get to the point where you actually like each other, but, when you're both
acting like adults, you'll be above this sort of bickering."
Corran looked up and met Booster's stare openly. Waiting to see if I break,
aren't you? Waiting to see if I knuckle under. In a nanosecond Corran resolved
never to give in, never to change his opinion of Booster. While all Wedge had
said was trueand made damned good senseCorran had been raised with his
father's rivalry with Booster Terrik. If I do give in, I've betrayed my father.
Or have If Corran frowned as he thought about his father and the life his
father had led. Hal Horn had lived for years with the knowledge that he was
really the son of a Jedi and subject to the extermination policy the Empire had
put in
place concerning Jedi. His father could have done anything to make himself safe.
He could have retreated to the hinterlands of some backwater world and become a
hermit, but he chose not to absent himself from the duty his fatherfathers,
reallyhad acquitted. A Jedi helped maintain the peace and uphold the law. Hal
Horn did the same thing as best he could by working with CorSec, no matter that
his duties might expose him to the Emperor's Jedi hunters.
Corran suddenly realized that his father's rivalry with Booster Terrik had not
been personal. Hal Horn had pursued Booster because Booster broke the law. Yes,
the fact that Booster evaded him repeatedly did frustrate him, but the basis of
his pursuit was always the same. He didn't let it get personal. I have and in
that I've betrayed my father. He glanced down for a moment and thought about
some of the exercises Luke Skywalker had urged him to try out. By making things
personalKirtan Loor and Zekka ThyneI have betrayed the Jedi traditions my
father, in his own cautious way, tried to instill in me.
Corran's head came up as he stepped forward and extended his hand to Booster.
"You're not my enemy. Never have been. I'm not yours. For the sake of your
daughter, the people we've got to save, and the memory of my father, I don't
want to fight with you anymore. Doesn't mean we won't disagreeperhaps even
violently at timesbut you don't deserve my ill-will."
Surprise slowly blossomed on Booster Terrik's face. He started to say something,
then stopped. His hand came up and engulfed Corran's. "Normally I'd be angry
that I had misjudged you so badly, but you've reinforced just how good a judge
of character my daughter really is. And you're right, we'll disagree and I can
guarantee it'll be violent, but that's okay. We're Corellians. We can do that."
Wedge dropped his hand on top of theirs. "Good. You know, the Imps on Coruscant.
used to call two Corellians together a conspiracy. Three they'd call a fight."
"More fools they, then." Corran smiled. "Any Corellian knows three of us
together is a victory. It's time we remind Iceheart and the rest of Imp
holdovers of that very fact."
32
Corran glanced at the chronographic display on the X-wing's main monitor.
"Whistler, confirm that we're ten standard minutes past the time for the
rendezvous."
The R2 unit blatted out an annoyed tone.
"Fine, so I won't ask you to confirm how late they are anymoreat least not
every minute." Corran forced himself to exhale deeply and tried to draw in some
of the inner peace that Luke indicated such a cleansing breath should bring in
its wake. He failed, and that just heightened his frustration. Despite
accepting the mission, he had not liked having to be the one to draw Isard's
agent into Yag'Dhul. While he knew the deception Booster and Wedge had planned
would certainly make the discovery of their base appear to be serendipitous,
every second Karrde's people were late allowed the image of a Thyferran
taskforce appearing to pounce on them grow in his mind.
It wouldn't have been so bad, but Corran had not come alone. Gavin, Rhysati, and
Inyri flew X-wings to give him a complete flight, and Mirax had come along in
the Pulsar Skate. None of them knew how dangerous their mission might beand
Corran granted that the odds of their ending
he still would have felt better if he could have told them what was really going
on. Of course, that would mean I'd have to know what was going on.
A light flashed on his communications console. He punched the button beneath it.
"Nine here."
"Skate here, Nine." Mirax's voice sounded good to him and immediately began to
take the edge off his frustration. "So, as long as we're waiting, you want to
tell me what you said to my father?"
Corran frowned. "How do you know about that?"
"Well, I could say that you talk in your sleep, but you don't." The light tone
in her voice conveyed the image of her smiling face to him. "When we headed out,
my father shot me a private message. Normally he says I should make sure you
take good care of me. This time he said I should keep my eye on you and follow
your lead. Bit of a difference there."
"Yeah, just a bit."
"So?"
"We had a talk."
"Are you going to tell me what was said, or am I going to convince Emtrey he
needs to spend more time around you?"
"Hey, no reason to trot out the turbolasers here." Corran hesitated for a
moment, then sighed. "Your father and I had it out. He said I'd abandoned you on
Thyferra . . ."
"What?!"
". . . and I accused him of having abandoned you when he went to Kessel."
"What?! You really told him that?"
"Yeah, then I told him that you were everything he wante
d to be and that the
last person he should want interested in his daughter was someone who held
himself to the same level of morality and responsibility he did."
"And you still have your arms and legs intact?"
"Your father isn't exactly a Wookiee, Mirax." Corran forced a laugh. "Besides,
it was about that point when Wedge intervened."
"Ah, that explains why you're both still alive."
"Right. Wedge pointed out that since you love the both
of us, we've got a lot more in common than we do in conflict. He said, in
essence, that we should grow up and start acting like adults."
Mirax laughed lightly. "I bet that went over well with my father."
"He listened, and the two of us were prepared to get back into it, but I let
things bounce around inside my head and I realized I was disliking your father
for the wrong reasons. Somewhere inside I figured it was my duty to my father
to continue his rivalry with your father, then I realized my father hadn't let
it get personal. He might have hunted your father with a bit more gusto because
your father didn't make it easy, but he didn't hate Booster. By allowing myself
to do so, though, I was really going against everything my father had tried to
teach me."
"I can understand that." Mirax's voice softened. "And it kind of bothers you
that your father never told you who your grandfather really was, doesn't it?"
Corran thought for a second, then nodded. "I guess it does, but not in the sense
that I would have expected. Part of me thinks I should feel betrayed because he
kept that secret from me, but I don't, really. In keeping it from me, he kept me
safe. What I didn't know I couldn't reveal. I still don't know if Grandpa Horn
helped other Corellian Jedi families hide, but if one had been found out, more
could have been discovered. And my father really did try to instill in me the
code of honor the Jedi espoused. He also taught me to trust my instincts and
hunches, which are glimmers of whatever talent I have.
"Where it bothers me is that, knowing my father, he had to have been
inordinately proud of our heritage. He must have wanted to share it with me and
would have, I suspect, after the Emperor died, but Bossk killed him before that
happened. I would have thought he'd have come up with a way to get me the
information if anything happened to him."