Star Wars - X-Wing - Starfighters of Adumar Read online

  Star Wars

  X-Wing Book 9

  Starfighters of Adumar

  by Aaron Allston

  1

  She was beautiful and fragile and he could not count the number of times

  he had told her he loved her. But he had come here knowing he had to hurt her

  very badly.

  Her name was Qwi Xux. She was not human; her blue skin, a shade lighter

  than her eyes, and her glistening brown hair, downy in its softness, were

  those of the humanoids of the planet Omwat. She was dressed for the occasion

  in a white evening gown whose flowing lines complemented her willowy form.

  They sat at a table in a balcony cafe three kilometers above the surface

  of the planet Coruscant, the world that was a city without end. Just beyond

  the balcony rail was a vista made up of skyscrapers extending to the horizon,

  an orange sky threatening rain, and the sun setting beyond one of the more

  distant thunderheads. Breezes drifting across the two of them smelled of rain

  to come. At this early-evening hour, he and Qwi were the only diners on the

  balcony, and he was grateful for the privacy.

  Qwi looked up from her entree of factory-bred

  Coruscant game fowl, her soft smile fading from her lips. "Wedge, there

  is something I must say."

  Wedge Antilles, general of the New Republic, perhaps still the most

  famous pilot of the old Rebel Alliance, breathed a sigh of silent thanks.

  Qwi's conversational distraction would give him at least a few more moments

  before he had to arm his bad news and fire it off at her. "What is it?"

  Her gaze fixed on him, she took a deep breath and held it until he was

  sure she would begin to turn even more blue. He recognized her expression a

  reluctance to injure. He gestured, not impatiently, for her to go ahead.

  "Wedge," she said, her words all in a rush, "I think our time together is

  done."

  "What?"

  "I don't know how to say it so that it doesn't seem cruel." She gave him

  a helpless shrug. "I think we must go our separate ways."

  He remained silent, trying to restructure what she'd said into something

  he understood.

  It wasn't that her words were confusing. But they were the words he was

  supposed to be saying. How they'd defected from his mind to hers was a

  complete mystery to him.

  He tried to remember what he'd thought she would say when he spoke those

  words to her. All he could manage was "Why?" At least his tone was neutral, no

  accusation in it.

  "Because I think we have no future together." Her gaze scanned his face

  as if looking for new cuts or bruises. "Wedge, we are good together. You bring

  me happiness. I think I do the same for you. But whenever I try to turn my

  mind from where we are to where we will be someday, I see no home, no family,

  no celebration days special to us. Just two careers whose bearers keep

  intersecting out of need. I think of what we feel for one another and every

  time it seems 'affection' is the proper word, not 'love.' "

  Wedge sat transfixed. Yes, those were his thoughts, much as he had been

  marshaling them all day long. "If not love, Qwi, what do you think this

  relationship meant to us?"

  "For me, it was need. When I left the Maw facility where I designed

  weapons for the Empire, when I was made to understand what sort of work I had

  been doing, I was left with nothing. I looked for something to tractor me

  toward safety, toward comfort, and that tractor beam was you." She dropped her

  gaze from his. "When Kyp Durron used his Force powers to destroy my memory, to

  ensure I could never engineer another Death Star or Sun-crusher, I became

  nothing, and was more in need of my tractor beam than ever."

  She met his gaze again. "For you, it was a simulator run."

  "What?"

  "Please, hear me out." Distressed, she turned away from him to stare at

  the cloud-mottled sky and the distant sunset. "When we met, I think your heart

  told you that it was time for you to love. And you did, you loved me." Her

  voice became a whisper. "I understand now that humans, in their adolescent

  years, fall in love long before they understand what it means. These loves do

  not usually endure. They are learning experiences. I think perhaps that you,

  shoved from your childhood home straight into a world of starfighters and

  lasers and death, missed having those learning loves. But the need for them

  stayed with you.

  "Wedge, I was the wrong one for you. Whatever your intent, whatever your

  seriousness, I think that all you have felt for me has been a simulator run

  for some later time, for some other woman. One with whom you can share a

  future." Her words became raspy. She turned

  her attention back to Wedge, and he could see tears forming in her eyes.

  "I wish I could have been her."

  Wedge sagged back against his chair. At last her words had become her own

  again.

  "And I am at fault," she continued. "I haveoh, this is hard to say."

  "Go ahead, Qwi. I'm not angry. I'm not going to make this harder for you.

  "

  She flashed a brief smile. "No, you wouldn't. Wedge, when we came

  together I was a different woman. Then, when I lost my memory, I became

  someone else, the woman I am now, and you were therebrave and modest and

  admired, my protector in a universe that was unfamiliar to meand after I

  realized this, I could not bring myself to make you understand..."

  "Tell me." Unconsciously, he leaned over to take her hand.

  "Wedge, I feel as though I inherited you. From a friend who passed away.

  You were her choice. I do not know if you would have been mine. I never had

  the chance to find out."

  He stared at her for a long moment. Then a laugh escaped him. "Let me get

  this straight. I look on you as a comfortable old simulator, and you look on

  me as an inheritance that doesn't match the rest of your furniture."

  She started to look stricken, then she laughed in return. She clapped her

  free hand over her mouth and nodded.

  "Qwi, one of the things I truly admire is courage. It took courage for

  you to say what you've said to me. And it would be irresponsible, even cruel,

  of me if I didn't admit that I came here tonight to break up with you."

  She put her hand down. Her expression was not surprised. Instead, it was

  a little wondering, a little amused. "Why?"

  "Well, I don't think I have your eloquence on this matter. I don't think

  I've thought it through the way you have. But one reason is the same. The

  future. I keep looking toward it and I don't see you there. Sometimes I don't

  see we there."

  She nodded. "Until just now I had a little fear that I was wrong. That I

  might be making a mistake. Now I can be sure I was not. Thank you for telling

  me. It would have been so easy for you not to have."

  "No, it wouldn't."

  "Well... maybe it wouldn'
t for Wedge Antilles. For many men, it would

  have been." She turned a smile upon him, a smile made up, he thought, of pride

  in him. "What will you do now?"

  "I've been thinking a lot about that. I've been looking at the two sides

  of my life. My career and my personal life. Except for the fact that I'm not

  flying nearly as much as I want to, I have no complaints about my career."

  That wasn't entirely true, and hadn't been ever since he'd been convinced to

  accept the rank of general, but he tried not to burden her with frustrations

  he was convinced arose from his own selfishness. "I'm doing important work and

  being recognized for it. But my personal life..." He shook his head as though

  reacting to the death of a friend. "Qwi, you were the last part of my personal

  life. Now there's nothing there. A vacuum purer than anything in space. So I

  think, in a few weeks, I'm going to take a leave of absence. Travel a bit, try

  to sneak a visit into Corellia, not think about my work. I'll just try to find

  out if there is anything to me except career."

  "There is."

  "I'll believe it when I see it."

  "Keep your visual sensors turned up, then."

  He laughed. "What about you?"

  "I have friends. I have work. I am acquiring hobbies. Remember, the new

  Qwi is less than two years old. In that way, I'm still a little girl

  experiencing the universe for the first time." She looked apologetic. "So I

  will learn, and work, and see who it is I am becoming."

  "I hope you'll still consider me a friend," he said. "Always."

  "Meaning you can still call on me. Send me messages. Send me lifeday

  presents." She laughed. "Greedy." "Thank you, Qwi." "Thank you, Wedge."

  He packed as though he were still an active pilot. Everything went into

  one shapeless bag, a bag chosen for its ideal fit within the cargo compartment

  of an X-wing fighter. Nothing his life would depend upon went into the bag

  just clothes, toiletries, a holoplayer. More crucial itemsidenticards,

  credcards, hard currency, comlink, a holdout blaster pistolhe kept on him, so

  that a sudden separation from his bag would be an inconvenience rather than a

  crisis.

  He sealed the bag and looked around his quarters. They were spacious, as

  befitted a general of the New Republic, and well situated high in a Coruscant

  skyscraper. He had only to speak a word and the quarters' computer would

  change the polarity of the wall-to-wall viewports to give him a commanding

  view of sky, endless cityscape, ceaseless streams of vessels large and small.

  These quarters were clean and spare as a military man kept them. They

  were

  They weren't home. Neither were the smaller but equally lavish quarters

  he enjoyed on the Super Star Destroyer Lusankya, the seat of his military

  operations though he was still assigned to Starfigh ter Command, the special

  task force he commanded kept him in circumstances and settings more suited to

  a Fleet Command officer.

  Here, as there, the presence of a few mementos, of a framed holo showing

  his parents in a happy embrace, of friends captured at celebrations or launch

  zones, didn't conceal the impersonal nature of the furniture. If he received a

  new posting while he was away on leave, he wouldn't even have to come back

  here. He'd send a short message to the right department and an aide or droid

  would pack everything up and ship it off, and an identical one would receive

  it all and unpack it into a new set of quarters on some other world or

  station, and that would become the place where he lived.

  But not home. Home was a family-owned refueling station, destroyed half

  his life ago with his parents still aboard, and nothing had ever come along to

  replace it.

  He slung his bag over his shoulder. While on leave, maybe he'd be able to

  see in the faces and hear in the words of those he visited what it was that

  had turned their housing into their homes. Maybe

  His door chimed. He set the bag down again. "Come."

  The door slid up. Beyond was a man, muscular, graying, a bright and often

  cheerless intelligence in his eyes. He wore the uniform of a New Republic

  general.

  Wedge approached, hand extended. "General Crac-ken! Come in. Have you

  come to see me off? I wasn't expecting a military escort."

  Airen Cracken, head of New Republic Intelligence, entered and took

  Wedge's hand. His expression did not brighten; he looked, if anything,

  regretful. "General Antilles. Yes, I'm here to see you off."

  Something in his tone sounded a quiet alarm in Wedge's mind. "Should I be

  going evasive?"

  That brought a faint smile to Cracken's face. "Probably. I have an

  assignment for you."

  "I'm on leave. It's already begun."

  Cracken shook his head.

  "General Cracken, you're not in a position to issue assignments to me. So

  what you're saying is you have something you'd like me to volunteer for."

  "I have something you're going to volunteer for."

  "I don't think so."

  "The following information is for your ears only. You're not to discuss

  it outside these quarters until you reach your rendezvous point."

  "That explains it."

  Cracken frowned. "Explains what?"

  "When I was packing this morning. Why things seemed a little different.

  As if a cleaning detail had been through and picked up everything, putting it

  back almost exactly where it was before. Your people were through here when I

  was out, weren't they? Making sure there were no listening or recording

  devices present."

  Cracken didn't reply to that. He just looked a little surly. He

  continued, "The world of Adumar is on the near edge of Wild Space. It was

  colonized as long as ten thousand years ago by a coalition of peoples who had

  staged a rebellion against the Old Republic, been defeated, and been spared...

  so long as they went far away and never caused any more trouble."

  Wedge just stared. Perhaps if he demonstrated continued indifference

  Cracken would go away. That wasn't usually the way it worked, of course.

  Cracken said, "According to what we've been able to gather, their spirit

  of rebellion and divisiveness didn't end when they found a world worthy of

  settling. Their history suggests they fought among themselves a number of

  times, eventually reducing themselves to poverty and barbarismnot once, but

  twice at least. Though apparently their ancient teaching-recordings survived

  for thousands of years; their language is recognizably a dialect of Basic." He

  paused as if anticipating questions from Wedge.

  "I'm not curious."

  "Anyway, they were completely forgotten by the Old Republic. There is no

  mention of them in Imperial archives, either. We were fortunate that one of

  our deep-space scouts stumbled across them when returning from a mapping

  mission into the Unknown Regions."

  "If you continue to map the Unknown Regions, you'll have to call them

  something else."

  Cracken blinked, his expression suggesting that he didn't know whether to

  interpret that comment as humor or not. "Adumar is heavily industrialized, and

  a large portion of its industrial development is
military. Their weapons are

  oriented around high-powered explosives. Our analysts suggest that it would be

  a simple matter to convert a portion of their industry over to the production

  of proton torpedoes. General, how would you like it if the New Republic's X-

  wings never had to face a shortage of proton torpedoes again?"

  Wedge suppressed a whistle. Lasers were the most often-used weapons of

  starfighters, the means by which they shot one another down... but it was

  proton torpedoes that gave some starfighters the punch necessary to damage or

  even destroy capital ships. "That would... be helpful."

  "You've pushed for years for increased production of proton torpedoes.

  Since you made the rank of general, people have even been listening. But the

  New Republic has so many demands on its resources that efforts to boost

  production of the secondary or tertiary weapon of choice among all

  starfighters tends to get lost in the shuffle. It wouldn't keep getting lost

  if we could bring Adumar into the New Republic; then, it would just be some

  industrial retooling."

  "So send a diplomatic mission and work things out with them."

  "Ah, that's the trouble." Cracken rubbed his hands together. "The people

  of Adumar have no respect for career politicians. A very sensible attitude, in

  my opinion though if you tell anyone I said that, I'll merely have to deny

  it. Do you know what sort of individual they hold in highest regard?"

  "No."

  "Fighter pilots. The Old Republic had its Jedi; Adu-mar has its fighter

  pilots. They love them, a case of hero worship that spans their whole culture.

  Their entertainments revolve around them. Social promotion, properties,

  titles, all accompany military promotion in their pilot corps."

  "That sounds like a reasonable arrangement. Let's implement it in the New

  Republic."

  "And so they'll talk with a diplomat. But only if he's also a pilot. Our

  best."

  Wedge sighed. "I'm no diplomat."

  "We'll assign you an advisor. A career diplomat, already on station at

  Adumar, named Darpen. By the terms by which the Adumari are allowing our

  diplomatic mission, you'll be accompanied by three other pilots, your choice,

  a crew of aides, including that advisor, and one shipyou'll be in command of

  the Allegiance, an Imperial-class Star Destroyer"

  "I remember her. From the Battle of Selaggis."