24
Wedge smiled as the white-haired woman walked through the door Iella had opened. “The Provisional Council must be serious about taking Coruscant. They have you here.” He offered her his hand. “It’s been a while, Winter—and you’d know exactly how long it’s been, right?”
“I would, Commander Antilles, which is why, like you, I’m here.” Winter shook his hand, then greeted Iella. Turning to face Pash, she nodded. “You would be General Cracken’s son.”
“The legendary Winter. I’m honored.” Pash bowed in her direction.
Mirax stood and shook Winter’s hand. “I’m Mirax Terrik.”
Winter nodded. “And the reason I was summoned here.” She looked over at Iella. “Nothing in our files indicates Imperial involvement with her.”
Pash frowned. “Being my father’s son, I have a question that you may not want to answer, but I have to ask. Commander Antilles and I were with Iella and Mirax the whole time we were coming here and we didn’t see Iella make contact. How did you know to come here?”
Winter’s expression became more serious, heightening her resemblance to Princess Leia. “The account number Iella used to gain access to the datapad in the dress shop was special. Various things about the dress design selected, such as the colors, were sliced into municipal computers. At certain points around the city—in this case on a moving sidewalk—a pattern of lights communicated to me enough information that I knew to come here. There are backup systems to handle things if there is no response, but everything worked well, so it was no problem.”
Wedge nodded appreciatively. “It’s nice that you can slice into Coruscant’s central computer.”
Winter shook her head. “We can’t. The safeguards there are too heavy for us to get in cleanly and out again. The central computer is attached to roughly a dozen auxiliary computer centers that are intended as backup, but are used primarily for low-level administrative and commercial applications. We can get into them and do so on a regular basis, but none of the patches we’ve tried to insert into the central computer have made it.”
Iella sat back down. “If we could bring the central computer down we’d be set because it controls all the important things, like the shields and ground-based fighter defenses.”
“The shields are the key.” Wedge perched himself on the arm of the couch next to Mirax. “If they go down I tend to think most of the citizenry would support a change in government.”
Winter sat beside Iella. “Overall security here is not as tight as I might have expected it to be under Ysanne Isard’s control. That goes for the Imperial Palace, too. I was seated on the promenade nearly four hours drinking espcaf and saw nothing special. We almost had a problem when an Imp Intel officer just happened by. I was afraid one of my companions was going to attack Loor, but he kept his temper under control, just barely, but under control.”
Iella’s eyes narrowed. “Kirtari Loor is here, on Coruscant?”
Mirax raised an eyebrow. “Sounds like the kind of reaction Corran would have had to Loor.”
Iella’s jaw dropped. “You know Corran?” Mirax looked up and stared blankly at Iella for a moment, then blinked with astonishment. Both women then turned to Wedge.
“Corran’s here?” Mirax asked.
“And he’s in Rogue Squadron?” Iella added. “Is Whistler still with him?”
Wedge held his hands up. “I don’t know exactly where he is, but he is on Coruscant. Iella, I know you were his partner in CorSec. I didn’t mention his being in Rogue Squadron because you didn’t seem to have that information yourself, which means New Republic Intelligence didn’t let you have it. Operational security and all that.”
Winter nodded. “Corran Horn is here, but he has no droid with him.”
Mirax frowned. “How did you know Whistler was a droid?”
“Two years ago Corran Horn ran from CorSec taking an X-wing and an R2 unit with him. He was spotted as a prospect then, but we lost track of him. A year and a half later he joins Rogue Squadron, implying he has great skill as a pilot. This implies practice flying while he was on the run. This means he kept his R2 unit, so I decided Iella’s question was about a droid, since X-wings have notoriously little capacity for dragging pets or other people around in them.”
Mirax sat back. “You’re good.”
“Thank you.”
Wedge winced. “Corran’s here with Erisi.”
Mirax growled. “The bacta queen.”
Iella glanced at her. “The way you said that … but you’re Booster Terrik’s daughter. You and Corran couldn’t be …”
“We’re just good friends.”
Iella laughed. “Not the first time I’ve heard that said in exactly that way. The stories I could tell you.”
“Without Corran here to defend himself, I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Wedge looked over at Winter. “Mirax’s exit identity was blown by the Imps, leaving her stuck here after she dropped off what was probably the rest of my squadron.”
“All of them, even Ooryl. They’re in Invisec, or at least that’s where I left them.”
“Thanks. What we’re trying to determine is if the Imps picked Mirax up at random, or if the security on this operation has been blown. Any problems with Corran and Erisi?”
“None.” Winter thought for a second. “I had a team watching them for the first couple of nights to see if any Imps showed an interest in them, but that turned out negative. Those teams were shifted to monitor Imp sweeps in Invisec. They seem to be picking up Gamorreans and Quarren, but no one is certain why.”
As Winter spoke staccato flickers of color outside prompted Wedge to look toward one of the windows. Bright flashes of red and green blaster bolts lit the thoroughfare outside. He studied the tableau for a moment, trying to make sense of it, then his jaw dropped as his brain sorted out what he was actually seeing. “Everyone down!”
Having no time to explain his warning shout, he grabbed on to the arm of the couch and wrenched it over backward. Mirax’s hands shot out to both sides as she fought to balance herself, with her left hand locking in a death grip on Pash’s shirtfront. She pulled her legs up and in to protect them, inadvertently making it just that much easier for Wedge to tip the couch over.
Over he went with it. He slipped to the side, ducking in toward Mirax, barely managing to pull his left leg in to safety. His hands came up to cover his head and he expected a nasty bash when he hit the floor, but that was the least of his worries. I hope the couch will be armor enough!
Outside, the speeder bike he had seen flying toward the window finally hit. It broadsided the wall of transparisteel with a solid thump, bursting through to spin into the room. The rider went one way and the speeder bike the other, between them sowing a glittering rain of lethal crystalline shrapnel throughout what was supposed to be, ironically enough, a safehouse.