Rebel Dream: Enemy Lines I Read online

  Luke frowned. “Then what’s the point to holding it?”

  “It gives the Advisory Council members time to go home and make preparations there. Preparations for war, or preparations so they can make the best deal possible with the Yuuzhan Vong. It gives the surviving members of the Senate the same time. And if they did their job right and convinced Wedge to fight ferociously, the Yuuzhan Vong might even be impressed with this little battle, might offer better terms in their negotiations.”

  Luke gave Wedge a look. “So all he just negotiated for was enough military strength to let us hold out longer.”

  “That’s right.”

  “But everyone who stays here is still dead. Pointlessly dead. Just dead a little later.”

  “That’s right.”

  “I’m sorry I asked.”

  Mara managed a slight smile. “If he’s negotiating, he has a skifter up his sleeve. You know that.”

  The huddled members of the Advisory Council leaned away from one another and Pwoe turned again toward Wedge. Conversation in the chamber immediately died down. “General, I deplore your methods and your arrogance. I don’t imagine you can expect much in the way of a military career once this assignment is done.”

  Wedge nodded. His expression was kind, solicitous—or nearly so. Luke suspected it was actually mockery of those emotions. “But you accept.”

  “Yes. We accept. It is my pleasure to relieve you of command of Fleet Group Three, even if I must leave you your current rank and command of this garrison.”

  “Once your orders confirming the terms I specified have been broadcast over the HoloNet to our armed forces, you can consider me to have accepted, too.” Wedge glanced at Tycho’s datapad. “But I recommend that it be soon. Rogue Squadron has reported sighting what may be a Yuuzhan Vong scout ship. This planet will be a war zone very soon.” He straightened and looked around. “This meeting is over. In five minutes we’ll have a quick operational planning meeting.” He gestured at Luke, Mara, Lando, Booster, and others, indicating that they were expected at that meeting.

  The members of the Advisory Council, suddenly kicked free of the activities at hand, rose, looking a little uncertainly at Wedge, who paid them no further attention. The guard Wedge had called upon earlier opened the door again and Pwoe led them through. Luke could feel both irritation and smugness from the Quarren.

  Luke shook his head. Smugness. Pwoe was smug because he knew Wedge would soon be dead. Luke felt anger rise within him. He shook his head and dispelled the anger—not forcing it from him, simply releasing it, feeling it dissipate.

  Mara smiled. “I felt that.”

  “It’s hard to be the serene Jedi Master all the time.”

  “I don’t want you to be serene all the time, farmboy.”

  * * *

  Gavin Darklighter moved up toward Wedge. He heard the general whispering to Tycho, “What results?”

  Tycho whispered back, “All Fleet Group Three ships within four hours’ travel of Borleias are now in hyperspace on their way here.”

  “Good work.”

  Gavin leaned over his commander and lowered his own voice. “General, none of the Rogues on patrol reported anything to me about sighting a Yuuzhan Vong scout.”

  “Of course they did. Five or six hours ago. In orbit around Borleias.”

  Gavin frowned, remembering. “Wait a minute. That was just the burned-out hulk of a coralskipper. One that we vaped when we arrived.”

  “Correct. And a coralskipper can be used as a scout ship.”

  “Sure.”

  “And Rogue Squadron did report sighting it.”

  “Sure.” Gavin felt his confused expression give way to a rueful smile. He looked across the room, where the last members of the Advisory Council were leaving, haste and nervousness evident in their body language. “Sir, how you can be so deceptive without actually lying is beyond me.”

  Minutes after the Advisory Council’s shuttle left orbit, Wedge had the conference doors locked and guards posted outside. He looked across the faces of those he’d asked to remain behind—Tycho, Luke, Mara, Lando, Booster, Danni, Gavin, Corran. “Is anyone not clear on what just happened?” he asked.

  Luke spoke up. “Are we sure, are we absolutely sure, that we’ve just been thrown to the neks?”

  “Think of it this way,” Wedge said. “Pwoe just handed me the navy’s biggest surviving warship and enough matériel to noticeably diminish the New Republic’s ability to defend itself from the Yuuzhan Vong. From a coldly analytical political perspective, do the Coruscant refugees’ lives or Borleias’s military importance warrant that sacrifice?”

  Luke shook his head. “No.”

  “Then the only thing we can conclude from this is that the so-called Advisory Council has given up on the New Republic. That band of connivers has already concluded that we’re going to lose, that the Yuuzhan Vong are going to become the dominant force in this galaxy. They’ve given up. And considering how much political power they hold, their giving up could well doom the New Republic.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Now, back to the subject of Borleias. We’re worse off than we thought we were,” Wedge continued. “Before, we thought we’d be able to blast off this rock, rejoin bel Iblis and Kre’fey, and lay in plans to help the New Republic rebound. Now, we can’t. I would very much like to hear any ideas about what we can do to counteract the damage the Advisory Council seems very prepared to do to our chances for survival—both here on Borleias and in the galaxy as a whole.”

  “Before we do that …” Luke frowned at his old friend. “Wedge, if there’s no good to come out of it, why did you accept this assignment?”

  “Well, because in a sense, the council is right. Pyria does have to be held. The Yuuzhan Vong have to be slowed. And if you’ll permit me a little ego here, I don’t think they’d appoint someone as skilled as I am to replace me here. It would be some commander who followed their orders with blind loyalty and nothing but the death of this garrison at the hands of the Yuuzhan Vong.” Wedge shrugged. “I don’t plan to die here, Luke. And while I don’t think I can hold Borleias, I might be able to make it a name that causes little Vong children to whimper.” He returned his attention to the room in general. “So, back to my original question.”

  No one spoke at first. Then Luke cleared his throat. “There are two basic styles of fighting, hard and soft. Back in the Rebel Alliance days, we fought soft. The New Republic fought hard. You’re expected to stay here and fight hard. But, ultimately, hard obviously isn’t going to work.

  “I think that the model extends into our politics, too. If we continue to devote ourselves to the hard style, we’re going to doom ourselves.”

  Wedge nodded.

  Lando said, “So what you’re saying—what are you saying?”

  Mara said, “What we’re saying is that you should stop attacking the Yuuzhan Vong with the New Republic. Attack them with the Rebel Alliance instead. Both here and in the wider theater of war.”

  “But the Rebel Alliance is gone,” Danni said. “It became the New Republic.”

  Luke nodded. “Correct. What I’m proposing …” He took a deep breath. “I’m proposing that it’s time for a new Rebel Alliance. Something that’s unbounded by the traditions and the shortsighted thinking of the current government of the New Republic. Something different.”

  “That’s treason,” Booster said. “I like it.”

  “A resistance force,” Wedge said. He gave Luke a sharp look. “But it would have to be a secret resistance. We can’t just declare independence from the New Republic and march off to fight the Yuuzhan Vong. Secret units in hidden locations. Operations not discussed with the New Republic High Command.”

  “That’s right,” Mara said. “Which, if we decide to do this, makes you the weak link, Wedge.”

  Tycho frowned at her. “Perhaps you’d better explain that comment.”

  “Because in the legal sense, it is treason, Tycho. Wedge has alread
y demonstrated that he’s willing to bend the rules—misappropriating a sizable fraction of the New Republic’s armed forces and using them in a manner inconsistent with his orders. This goes well beyond that. He’d be misappropriating munitions and matériel and giving them, not loaning them, to a private force. Even if we win, he could end up with the stamp of traitor in all the historical records. So could you. Can you do that, Wedge?”

  Wedge looked troubled and did not respond at once. The others kept silent.

  Finally, Wedge met her gaze, then looked at the others. “I think that we’re right at the edge of annihilation. Not just the government. Our entire culture, our history. If the Yuuzhan Vong win, they won’t necessarily wipe us out … but they’ll ingest us. Digest us. We’ll become the Yuuzhan Vong, and everything we stood for, everything we aspired to, will vanish. It would be as if we were a hologram and the power was suddenly cut off. Gone without a trace.” His voice hoarsened. “I’m not going to let that happen to my daughters, or to your children. So here’s what I propose.”

  He drew his blaster and shoved it, spinning, to the center of the conference table. “Anyone need a blaster? That’s mine. I’m willing to put it out there because there’s no one in this room I’d hesitate to give it to, or to put my life in the hands of. And that’s how I propose we build this Resistance. For the time being, don’t bring in anyone you wouldn’t trust your life to, or your children’s lives. We’ll set up contacts, bases, and cells the old Rebel Alliance way. While the New Republic hits the enemy where they’re strong, we’ll figure out how to hit them where they’re weak. And if—or when—the New Republic finally falls, we’ll be here to hit the Yuuzhan Vong both ways, mixing hard and soft styles.

  “Are we in agreement?” He caught the eye of each of the others in turn.

  Each person nodded or raised a hand, all but Booster, who drawled, “I suppose so.” The others laughed.

  “All right.” Wedge leaned back. “From now on, we’re the Inner Circle. Things said here don’t go outside. People outside will think it’s my own group of advisers, rather than the start of a resistance movement. If there’s someone you think can hear the treason we’re plotting, tell the rest of us … and we’ll vote to bring him or her into the Inner Circle, or not. Others we know we trust and need, like the Solos, will join us when and if they arrive.

  “Now, let’s think about soft-style fighting. The Yuuzhan Vong are going to hit us here at Borleias. We need to draw them in, give them some success they don’t deserve, so they’ll grow to depend on and anticipate tactics that we can abandon when we need to. I need a me and I need a them.” He turned to Tycho.

  Tycho took a long breath. “Well, I can be them probably as well as I can be you. And, of course, you can be you better than I can be you. But if you’re them and I’m you, everyone is thinking outside the box.”

  Wedge nodded. “Good point.”

  Lando said, “I’m really lost.”

  Wedge grinned. “A game of tactics, Lando. When they decide to send a serious military commander against us—whether it’s right away or after a few engagements—that commander is going to be analyzing our tactics so he can implement the best strategy possible against them. In other words, to have an idea of what he’s going to be doing, we have to figure out how much of our thinking and tactics he predicts. So if we can give him exactly what he expects from us, reinforce his prejudices about our strategic skills—”

  “You can abandon them later and give him a surprise,” Lando said.

  “Right. So in our planning sessions, Tycho is going to be General Antilles, and I’m going to be whoever the Yuuzhan Vong commander is, and we’ll see just how far astray we can lead him.”

  “I get it,” Lando said. “In fact, I get it better than you realize. You’re playing sabacc.”

  Wedge considered that statement, his expression thoughtful. “I suppose so. And for bigger stakes than I’ve ever seen before.”

  FOUR

  Borleias Occupation, Days 4–5

  For the first time in years, Luke found himself facing an opponent whose very nature made him waver in courage and resolve: bureaucracy.

  Meetings were among the most ferocious weapons of his opponent. He would spend one hour, two, three discussing anti–Yuuzhan Vong starfighter tactics with Colonel Celchu and a board of military advisers, then rush to a similarly lengthy, tedious, and tiring gathering with scientists pondering yet again the reason the Yuuzhan Vong and their creatures were invisible to the Force. Luke learned to alleviate his frustration by taking charge of the meetings and conducting them along with other activities—exercise, inventories of supplies, training sessions for the Jedi students aboard Errant Venture.

  And yet plans progressed as the Inner Circle formulated the structure of a Resistance that could settle deep into hiding as the Yuuzhan Vong came and could then spring up to gut the invaders when the time arrived.

  Similar in structure to the Jedi underground that Leia and Han had been organizing, the Resistance would be broader in nature and greater in numbers. The Inner Circle would land one or more trusted members on every world it could. Those members would set up Resistance cells of personnel. Each cell would set up more cells. No member of a cell would know the identities of more than two Resistance members outside his or her own cell, the better to contain damage if a cell were to be compromised. Each cell would try to establish a base that the Yuuzhan Vong could not find, a place to store vehicles, weapons, tools, droids, anything that the Resistance would need when the time came to return the fight to the Yuuzhan Vong.

  The existence of the Inner Circle was known throughout Wedge’s fleet group and nicknamed the Insiders, but it was commonly believed that it was a board of military advisers. Its true purpose remained a secret.

  Luke offered what knowledge and tactics he could, and it turned out to be more than he’d expected.

  In the years since he’d become a Jedi Master—and for years he’d been the only Jedi Master known to the galaxy—he’d searched tirelessly for knowledge about the Jedi as they had been before the rise of Emperor Palpatine to power. Palpatine and his right-hand servant, Darth Vader, Luke’s own father, had systematically destroyed the Jedi and tried to eradicate all knowledge of their existence. Luke had sought to recover that knowledge. He’d searched out the remaining traces of the Jedi, finding scraps here and rumors there, and had learned to run those trails to ground. Most had led nowhere—as the Jedi he’d sought had either successfully vanished or had disappeared temporarily, only to be found, at last, by Palpatine’s minions and expunged.

  In learning how Jedi who had survived the initial sweeps of the Emperor’s Purges had done so—how they’d gone to ground, erased their official identities, concealed their Force powers, smuggled their lightsabers, and eluded their hunters—Luke had, without knowing it, accumulated a tremendous, if only theoretical, knowledge of those techniques. Now, in meetings and recording sessions, that information poured from him and was added to the Intelligence training of Mara and others, becoming part of the handbook of establishing Resistance cells, as it had when he and his allies had begun setting up the Jedi underground across the galaxy.

  Eventually, realizing what good they might do for the Resistance’s cause, Luke became resigned to, even comfortable with, the meetings. And they kept his mind away from the worry and ache he could feel growing within him.

  More than twenty-five years ago, when Luke’s Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru had died on faraway, insignificant Tatooine, Luke had found himself alone—surrounded by new friends, but possessing no family. Then, over time, he’d gathered a family about him. His father had not been among those gathered; Anakin Skywalker had died months after the revelation of his true identity. But in Leia, Luke had found his true sister; then his friend Han Solo had become his brother-in-law. Their children, Jacen, Jaina, and Anakin Solo, had followed. Then Luke’s relationship with Mara, which had evolved from a murderous hatred on her part to love on both their parts�
��love, and a bond, expressed through the Force, that blurred the edges between them, between their thoughts and hopes—had culminated in their marriage. Finally there had been Ben, born mere months ago, and Luke’s family numbered eight, all calling Coruscant home.

  Now “home” was a conquered battlefield. His family, gathered after so much sacrifice and effort over so many years, was scattered. Young Anakin Solo was dead, and all the hopes Luke had invested in him were gone. Jacen was missing; most were convinced he was dead as well. Jaina had not come to Borleias; she was off on a personal quest of vengeance, and such quests often led to ruin, the dark side of the Force, or death … or all three. Han now recuperated from an injury at a secret Jedi base, and Leia waited with him. The only ones Luke could hold to him each day were Mara and Ben, and the three of them lived surrounded by enemies.

  Each time this realization hit Luke, he gently moved it away from his conscious thoughts and meditated, focusing himself on his purpose, his tasks, those he loved. But these Jedi techniques merely put off his worries for a while longer. The worries endured, waiting patiently to claim his attention and erode his confidence. They were the Yuuzhan Vong of his own mind.

  Luke found himself surrounded by foliage and thought for an instant that he was on foot patrol in Borleias’s jungles. But he realized within an instant that the air here was even danker than was customary on Borleias, and the precise nature of the plants and trees around him was wrong for that world. Here, the trees were darker, larger, their limbs drooping, while opaque pools of ground-water concealed furtive movements of their occupants.

  Dagobah. It was the world where he had trained with Yoda, a lifetime ago.

  So this was a dream. He shook his head. No, in dreams he was not usually so lucid. It was a vision, then, a vision through the Force.

  He turned and faced the opening into the cave. It was there that he had confronted a vision of Darth Vader—of himself in Vader’s distinctive dress. Now, there was no Yoda to warn him against taking weapons into this place of evil and confrontation, and Luke felt sad that this vision would not give him even the momentary pleasure of seeing his old Master again in the one context where his presence was appropriate.