[Book] [X-Wing] The Bacta War

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X – W I N G

THE BACTA WAR

MICHAEL A. STACKPOLE

T H E B A C T A W A R / 1

Somehow the dead of night amplified the lightsaber's hiss,

allowing it to fill the room. The blade's silvery light frosted

the furniture and gave birth to impenetrable shadows. The

blade drifted back and forth, prompting the shadows to

waver and shift as if fleeing from the light.

Much as criminals would flee from the light.

Corran Horn stared at the blade, finding the argent energy

shaft neither harsh nor painful to his eyes. He lazily wove the

blade through joined infinity loops, then, with the flick of his

right wrist, snapped it up into a guard that protected him from

forehead to waist. Relic of a bygone era, it still can conjure

up images and feelings.

He hit the black button under his thumb twice, and the blade

died, again plunging the room into darkness. The lightsaber

did conjure up images and feelings in him, but Corran

doubted they were at all the images and feelings commonly

felt by most others on Coruscant. To everyone, including

Corran, Luke Skywalker was a hero and was welcomed as

heir to the Jedi tradition. His efforts at rebuilding the Jedi

order were roundly applauded, and no one, save those who

dreaded the return of law and order to the galaxy, wished

Luke anything but the greatest success in his heroic quest.

2 / S T A R W A R S : X – W I N G

As do I. Corran frowned. Still, my decision has been made.

He'd felt it the greatest of honors to be asked by Luke

Skywalker to leave Rogue Squadron and train to become a

Jedi. Skywalker had told him that his grandfather Nejaa

Halcyon had been a Jedi Master who had been slain in the

Clone Wars. The lightsaber Corran had discovered in the

Galactic Museum had belonged to Nejaa and had been

presented to Corran as his rightful inheritance. Mine is the

heritage of a Jedi Knight.

But that was a heritage he had only heard of from Skywalker.

He did not doubt the Jedi was telling the truth, but it was not

the whole truth. At least not the whole of the truth with which

I grew up.

Throughout his life Corran Horn had come to believe his

grandfather was Rostek Horn, a valued and highly placed

member of the Corellian Security Force. His father, Hal Horn,

likewise was with CorSec. When it came time for Corran to

choose a career, there was really no choice at all. He

continued the Horn tradition of serving CorSec. His

grandfather had always admitted to having known a Jedi who

died in the Clone Wars, but that acquaintance had been given

no more weight than having once met Imperial Moff Fliry

Vorru or having visited Imperial Center, as Coruscant had

been known under the Empire's rule.

Corran found it no great surprise that Rostek Horn and his

father had downplayed their ties to Nejaa Halcyon. Halcyon

had died in the Clone Wars; and Rostek had comforted,

grown close with, and married Halcyon's widow. He also

adopted Halcyon's son, Valin, who grew up as Hal Horn.

When the Emperor began his extermination of the Jedi order,

Rostek had used his position at CorSec to destroy all traces of

the Halcyon family, insulating his wife and adopted son from

investigation by Imperial authorities.

Since exhibiting any interest in the Jedi Knights could invite

scrutiny and my family would be very vulnerable if its secret

were discovered, I probably heard less about the Jedi Knights

than most other kids my age. If not for various holodramas

that painted the Jedi Knights as villains and later

T H E B A C T A W A R / 3

reminiscences by his grandfather about the Clone Wars,

Corran would have known little or nothing about the Jedi.

Like most other children, he found them vaguely romantic

and all too much sinister, but they were distant and remote

while what his father and grandfather did was immediate and

exciting.

He raised a hand and pressed it to the golden Jedi medallion

he wore around his neck. It had been a keepsake his father

had carried and Corran inherited after his father's death.

Corran had taken it as a lucky charm of sorts, never realizing

his father had kept it because it bore the image of his own

father, Nejaa Halcyon. Wearing it had been my father's way

of honoring his father and defying the Empire. Likewise, I

wore it to honor him, not realizing I was doing more through

that act.

Skywalker's explanation to him of what his relationship to

Nejaa Halcyon was opened new vistas and opportunities for

him. In joining CorSec he had chosen to dedicate his life to a

mission that paralleled the Jedi mission: making the galaxy

safe for others. As Luke had explained, by becoming a Jedi,

Corran could do what he had always done but on a larger

scale. That idea, that opportunity, was seductive, and clearly

all of his squadron-mates had expected him to jump at it.

Corran smiled. / thought Councilor Borsk Fey'lya was going

to die when I turned down the offer. In many ways I wish he

had.

He shook his head, realizing that thought was unworthy of

himself and really wasted on Borsk Fey'lya. Corran was

certain that, on some level, the Bothan Councilor believed

he—not Corran—was right and his actions were vital to

sustain the New Republic. Re-creating the Jedi order would

help provide a cohesive force to bind the Republic together

and to drape it in the nostalgic mantle of the Old Republic.

Just as having various members of nation-states placed in

Rogue Squadron had helped pull the Republic together,

having a Corellian become a new Jedi might influence the

Diktat into treating the New Republic in a more hospitable

manner.

4 / S T A R W A R S : X – W I N G

Skywalker had asked him to, and Fey'lya had assumed he

would, join the Jedi order, but that was because neither of

them knew of or realized that his personal obligations and

promises exerted more influence with him than any galactic

cause. While Corran realized that doing the greatest good for

the greatest number was probably better for everyone in the

long run, he had short-term debts he wanted to repay, and

time was of the essence in doing so.

The remnants of the Empire had captured, tortured, and

imprisoned him at Lusankya, which he later came to realize

was really a Super Star Destroyer buried beneath the surface

of Coruscant. He had escaped from there—a feat never

before successfully accomplished—but had gotten away

only with the aid of other prisoners. He had vowed to them

that he would return and liberate them, and he fully intended

to keep his promise. The fact that they were imprisoned in

the belly of the SSD that now orbited Thyferra made that task

more difficult, but long odds against success had never

stopped him before. I'm a Corellian. What use have I for

odds?

His desire to save them had increased with a chance dis-

covery that embarrassed him mightily when he made it. In

Lusankya the Rebel prisoners had been led by an older man

who simply called himself Jan. Since his escape, Corran had

caught a holovision broadcast of a documentary on the he-

roes of the Rebel Alliance. First and foremost among them

had been the general who led the defense of Yavin 4 and

planned the destruction of the first Death Star, Jan Dodonna.

The documentary said he'd been slain during the evacuation

of Yavin 4, but Corran had no doubt Dodonna had been a

prisoner on Lusankya. If I hadn't thought him dead, I might

have recognized him, too. How stupid of me.

Dodonna's celebrity had nothing to do with Corran's desire to

save him. Jan, like Urlor Sette and others, had helped him

escape. They had risked their lives to give him a chance to

get away. Leaving such brave people captives of someone

like Ysanne Isard not only failed to reward their courage but

repaid them by leaving them in severe jeopardy of death or

T H E B A C T A W A R / 5

worse—conversion into a covert Imperial agent under Isard's

direction.

"Couldn't sleep?"

Corran started, then turned and smiled at the black-haired,

dark-eyed woman standing in the bedroom doorway. "I guess

not, Mirax. I'm sorry I woke you."

"You didn't wake me. Your absence awakened me." She

wore a dark blue robe, belted at the waist with a pale yellow

sash. Mirax raised a hand to hide a yawn then pointed at the

silver cylinder in his right hand. "Regretting your decision?"

"Which one? Refusing to join the Jedi Knights or"—he

smiled—"or hooking up with you?"

She raised an eyebrow. "I was thinking of the Jedi decision.

If you have reservations about the other decision, I can

relearn how to sleep alone."

He laughed, and she joined him. "I regret neither. Your father

and my father may have been mortal enemies, but I can't

imagine having a better friend than you."

"Or lover."

"Especially lover."

Mirax shrugged. "All you men who've just gotten out of

prison say that."

Corran frowned for a moment. "I imagine you're right, but

how you came by that information, I don't want to know."

Mirax blinked her eyes. "You know, I don't think I want to

know that, either."

Corran laughed, then crossed the room and enfolded her in a

warm hug. "After my escape, Tycho expressed his regrets

concerning your death to me. He told me how Warlord Zsinj

had ambushed a convoy at Alderaan and destroyed it,

including your Pulsar Skate. Everything inside of me just

collapsed. Losing you just ripped the emotional skeleton out

of me."

"Now you know how I felt when I thought you'd been slain

here on Coruscant." She kissed his left ear, then settled her

chin on his shoulder. "I hadn't realized how much you had

become part of my life until you were gone. The hole the

Lusankya created blasting her way out of Coruscant was

6 / S T A R W A R S : X – W I N G

nothing compared to the void I had inside. It wasn't a ques-

tion of wanting to die, but of knowing my insides were dead

and wondering when the rest of me would catch up."

"I had it luckier than you. When he got the chance, Gen-

eral Cracken pulled me aside and told me how you'd gone on

a covert mission to Borleias to deliver ryll kor, bacta, and a

Vratix verachen. Zsinj's ambush conveniently covered your

disappearance so the Thyferrans didn't know what you were

setting up on Borleias with their bacta."

"Yeah, they would not have liked it if it were known we were

using the Alderaan Biotics facility there to make rylca and,

eventually, enough bacta to dent their monopoly." Mirax

shivered. "I would have preferred the original plan working,

because as much as I didn't look forward to being reviled and

hunted down for stealing bacta from the convoy, I would

have rather endured that than having all those other people

killed."

"Nothing you could do about that."

"Nor was there anything you could do about your fellow

prisoners being whisked away by Isard when she escaped in

the Lusankya." Mirax backed up a half-step and held Corran

at arm's-length. "You do realize that, don't you?"

"Realize, yes. Accept, no. Tolerate, no way." Corran nar-

rowed his green eyes, but the hint of a smile tugged at the

corners of his mouth. "You know, if you keep hanging

around with me, you're going to get into a lot of trouble."

"Trouble?" Mirax batted her brown eyes. "Whatever do you

mean, Lieutenant Horn?"

"Well, I precipitated the mass resignation of the New

Republic's most celebrated fighter squadron and vowed that

we'd liberate Thyferra from Ysanne Isard's clutches. So far,

toward that end, we have a squadron's worth of pilots, my

X-wing, and if you're really in this with us, your freighter."

Mirax smiled. "Versus three Imperial Star Destroyers and a

Super Star Destroyer, not to mention any sort of Thyferran

military forces that might oppose us."

Corran nodded. "Right."

Mirax's grin broadened. "Okay, so get to the trouble part."

T H E B A C T A W A R / 7

"Mirax, be serious."

"I am. You forget, dear heart, that it was an X-wing and a

freighter that lit up the first Death Star."

"This is a little bit different."

"Not really." She reached out and tapped his forehead with a

finger. "You and I, Wedge and Tycho, and everyone else

knows what it takes to defeat the Empire. It's not a matter of

equipment, but of having the heart to use that equipment. The

Empire was broken because, for the good of the galaxy, it

had to be broken. The Rebels were given no choice, and

because of that, they pushed themselves further than the

Imperials did. We know we can win and that we must win,

and Isard's people know nothing of the kind."

"That's all well and good, Mirax, and I agree, but this is a

massive undertaking. The sheer amount of equipment we'll

need to pull this off is staggering."

"Agreed. I don't think this will be easy, but it can be done."

"I know." Corran massaged his eyes with his left hand. "Too

many variables and not enough data available to begin to

assign them values."

"And three hours before dawn isn't the time you should be

wrestling with such things. As bright as you might be, Corran

Horn, this is not an hour when you do your best work."

Corran raised an eyebrow. "I seem to recall you singing a

different tune last evening about this time."

"At that time you weren't concerned with Ysanne Isard, you

were concerned with me."

"Ah, and that makes the difference?"

"From my perspective, you bet." She took the lightsaber

from his hand and set it atop his dresser. "And I think, if

you're willing to work with me, I can share that perspective

with you."

He kissed her on the tip of the nose. "It would be my

pleasure."

"That, Lieutenant Horn, is just half the objective here."

"Forgive me." Following her toward the bed, he stepped over

the silken puddle her robe made on the floor. "You know, I

just got out of prison."

8 / S T A R W A R S : X – W I N G

"For that I won't forgive you but perhaps"—she smiled up at

him—"I will make some allowance for good behavior."

T H E B A C T A W A R / 9

Wedge Antilles felt decidedly uncomfortable out of uniform.

Actually, I feel uncomfortable out of the service. During the

covert mission to Coruscant, he'd not been in hailing distance

of an Alliance uniform, and he'd even worn Imperial uni-

forms a couple of times, but that had not bothered him. He'd

spent most of his adult life as part of the Rebel Alliance and

now he had chosen to leave it.

There was no doubt in his mind that the decision to leave was

the right one to make. He fully understood why the New

Republic couldn't attack Thyferra and bring Ysanne Isard to

justice. Since she was installed as the Chief of State through

an internal revolution—as opposed to an invasion—her

holding office was not a case of Imperial aggression, but of

self-determination. If the New Republic rejected that idea in

this one case, plenty of other nation-states would think long

and hard before joining the New Republic or would consider

leaving.

Wedge forced himself to smile and looked up at the

light-brown-haired man with bright blue eyes sitting across

the table from him. "Have we bitten off more than we can

chew?"

Tycho Celchu shrugged. "It's a mouthful, but with some

more teeth, we might be able to choke it down. There is some

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