She had, in short, no excuses left.
From the next room over came the faint sound of a door opening and closing: Karrde, returned from his meeting. Turning from the window, glad of an excuse to drop this line of thought, she headed toward the door connecting their rooms.
Karrde got there first. “Mara?” he said, opening the door and poking his head through. “Come in here, please.”
He was standing by the room’s computer terminal when she arrived. One look at his face was all she needed. “What’s gone wrong?” she asked.
“I’m not entirely sure,” he said, pulling a data card from the terminal’s copy slot. “That Bothan on the Council put up a surprising amount of resistance to our offer. He basically forced Mon Mothma to hold off on any serious retrieval mission until the location’s been checked out. He’s getting a ship set up now for a morning flight.”
Mara frowned. “A double-cross?”
“Possibly, but I can’t see any point to it.” Karrde shook his head. “Thrawn already has Hoffner. He’ll get to the fleet soon enough. No, I think it more likely Fey’lya’s playing internal politics here, perhaps connected to his campaign against Admiral Ackbar. But I’d rather not take any chances.”
“I’ve heard stories about internal Bothan politics,” Mara agreed grimly. “What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to leave tonight for the Trogan system,” he said, handing her the data card. “Best guess is that’s where Aves will have holed up. Make contact and tell him I want everything we have that can both fly and fight to rendezvous with me at the Katana fleet as soon as possible.”
Mara took the card gingerly, her fingers tingling at the touch of the cool plastic. There it was, in her hands: the Katana fleet. A lifetime’s worth of wealth or power … “I may have trouble persuading Aves to trust me,” she warned.
“I don’t think so,” Karrde said. “The Imperials will have reinstated the hunt for our group by now—that alone should convince him I’ve escaped. There’s also a special recognition code on that data card that he’ll know, a code the Grand Admiral couldn’t possibly have extracted from me this quickly.”
“Let’s hope he doesn’t have a higher opinion of Imperial interrogation methods than you do,” Mara said, sliding the data card into her tunic. “Anything else?”
“No—yes,” Karrde corrected himself. “Tell Ghent I’d like him to come to Coruscant instead of going to the Katana fleet. I’ll meet him here after all this is over.”
“Ghent?” Mara frowned. “Why?”
“I want to see what a really expert slicer can do with that suspicious lump in Ackbar’s bank account. Skywalker mentioned a theory that the break-in and deposit happened at the same time, but he said that so far no one’s been able to prove it. I’m betting Ghent can do so.”
“I thought this involvement in New Republic politics was supposed to be a one-shot deal,” Mara objected.
“It is,” Karrde nodded. “I don’t want to leave an ambitious Bothan at my back when we leave.”
“Point,” she had to concede. “All right. You have a ship for me to use?”
There was a tap at the door. “I will in a minute,” Karrde said, crossing to the door and pulling it open.
It was Skywalker’s sister. “You wanted to see me?” she asked.
“Yes,” Karrde nodded in greeting. “I believe you know my associate, Mara Jade?”
“We met briefly when you arrived on Coruscant,” Organa Solo nodded. For a moment her eyes met Mara’s, and Mara wondered uneasily how much Skywalker had told her.
“I need Mara to go on an errand for me,” Karrde said, glancing both directions down the corridor before closing the door. “She’ll need a fast, long-range ship.”
“I can get her one,” Organa Solo said. “Will a reconnaissance Y-wing do, Mara?”
“That’ll be fine,” Mara said shortly.
“I’ll call the spaceport and make arrangements.” She looked back at Karrde. “Anything else?”
“Yes,” Karrde said. “I want to know if you can throw together a tech team and get it into space tonight.”
“Councilor Fey’lya’s already sending a team,” she reminded him.
“I know that. I want yours to get there first.”
She studied him a moment. “How big a team do you want?”
“Nothing too elaborate,” Karrde told her. “A small transport or freighter, perhaps a starfighter squadron if you can find one that doesn’t mind risking official wrath. The point is not to have Fey’lya’s presumably handpicked crew the only ones there.”
Mara opened her mouth; closed it again without speaking. If Karrde wanted Organa Solo to know that his own people would also be coming, he would tell her himself. Karrde glanced at her, back at Organa Solo. “Can you do it?”
“I think so,” she said. “Fey’lya has built up a lot of support in the military, but there are enough people who would rather have Admiral Ackbar back in charge.”
“Here are the coordinates,” Karrde said, handing her a data card. “The sooner you can get the team moving, the better.”
“It’ll be gone in two hours,” Organa Solo promised.
“Good,” Karrde nodded, his face hardening. “There’s just one more thing, then. I want you to understand that there are exactly two reasons why I’m doing this. First, as gratitude to your brother for risking his life to help Mara rescue me; and second, to get the Imperials off my back by eliminating their chief reason to hunt me down. That’s all. As far as your war and your internal politics are concerned, my organization intends to remain completely neutral. Is that clear?”
Organa Solo nodded. “Very clear,” she said.
“Good. You’d better get moving, then. It’s a long way to the fleet, and you’ll want as much head start on Fey’lya as you can get.”
“Agreed.” Organa Solo looked at Mara. “Come on, Mara. Let’s get you your ship.”
The comm beside Wedge Antilles’ bunk buzzed its annoying call-up signal. Groaning under his breath, he groped in the darkness and slapped in the general direction of the switch. “Come on, give me a break, huh?” he pleaded. “I’m still running on Ando time.”
“It’s Luke, Wedge,” a familiar voice said. “Sorry to drag you out of bed, but I need a favor. You feel like maybe getting your people into some trouble?”
“When aren’t we in trouble?” Wedge countered, coming fully awake. “What’s the deal?”
“Get your pilots together and meet me at the spaceport in an hour,” Luke told him. “Docking Pad 15. We’ve got an old transport; we should be able to fit all your X-wings aboard.”
“It’s a long trip, then?”
“A few days,” Luke said. “I can’t tell you any more than that right now.”
“You’re the boss,” Wedge said. “We’ll be there in one hour.”
“See you then. And thanks.”
Wedge keyed off and rolled out of bed, feeling a stirring of old excitement. He’d seen a lot of action in the decade he’d been with the Rebellion and New Republic; a lot of flying, a lot of fighting. But somehow, the missions he remembered as being the most interesting always seemed to be the ones where Luke Skywalker was also involved. He wasn’t sure why; maybe Jedi just had a knack for that.
He hoped so. Between politics on Coruscant and cleaning up after Imperial raids across the New Republic, things were getting more and more frustrating around here. A change would do him good.
Keying on the light, he pulled a fresh tunic out of his wardrobe and started getting dressed.
There was no problem getting the midnight transport off Coruscant; Leia’s authorization guaranteed that. But a freighter with a cargo consisting of a dozen X-wings was unusual enough to spark comment and speculation … and it was inevitable that the speculation would eventually reach the ears of one of Fey’lya’s supporters.
By morning, he knew everything.
“This goes well beyond internal political infighting,” he snarled at Leia, his fur rippling back and forth like short stalks of grain caught in a succession of dust devils. “It was blatantly illegal. If not treasonous.”
“I’m not sure I’d go quite that far,” Mon Mothma said. But she looked troubled. “Why did you do it, Leia?”
“She did it because I asked her to,” Karrde put in calmly. “And since the Katana fleet is technically not yet under New Republic jurisdiction, I don’t see how any activity related to it can be considered illegal.”
“We’ll explain proper legal procedure to you later, smuggler,” Fey’lya said acidly. “Right now, we have a serious breach of security to deal with. Mon Mothma, I request an executive order be made out for Solo’s and Skywalker’s arrest.”
Even Mon Mothma seemed taken aback by that one. “An arrest order?”
“They know where the Katana fleet is,” Fey’lya bit out. “None of their group has been cleared for that information. They must be sequestered until the fleet has been entirely brought into New Republic possession.”