Rebel Dream: Enemy Lines I by Aaron Allston Read Free Book Online Page B

and your general staff, as soon as possible. They say they’ve brought your orders.”
    Wedge made a face. As if he needed interference from a now-irrelevant group of politicians. “All right. Set up two starfighter squadrons in a circle illuminating a landing field well away from the facility. Tell the Advisory Council that it’s a military honor display. If they ask why they’ve never heard of such a thing, tell them it’s a Rogue Squadron tradition. The starfighters are authorized to attack without further confirmation if this turns out to be some sort of Vong trick. If it’s not, conduct the Advisory Council here, to the conference room, as fast as possible. Begin reprovisioning and repair of their transport immediately—and put some technicians aboard to sweep the ship and make sure it doesn’t have any surprises for us. Got that?”
    “Got it, sir.”
    “Out.” Wedge rose with the uneasy feeling—one that had come to him every time politicians had a surprise for him, one that had almost never been proven false.
    * * *
    When Luke and Mara reached the conference room—he with a cup of steaming chocolate in one hand and a cup of caf for Mara in the other, as her arms were occupied holding Ben—it was already half full of Wedge’s officers and advisers. They occupied seats around two-thirds of the main table and chairs behind; several seats at the table, those nearest the main doors, were being kept conspicuously empty. Wedge sat at the head of the table, facing the door, Tycho beside him; they were huddled in conference, though Wedge spotted Luke as he entered and waved the Jedi Master up to the head of the table again.
    The expressions of most people in the room suggested they’d only recently been roused from sleep. Luke knew how they felt.
    Mara dropped into the seat closest to the chair reserved for Luke, next to Lando. Lando looked pained, his brow creased in a frown, his eyes bloodshot.
    “Hangover?” Luke asked.
    Lando winced. “Stop shouting.”
    “I could whistle you up some caf.”
    “If you were to whistle, my head would explode and there would be brains everywhere.”
    Mara shook her head, deadpan. “No brains. Just skull fragments.”
    Lando shot her a betrayed look. Luke grinned, waited until Mara had settled Ben in her lap, and handed her the caf. Then he joined Wedge and Tycho.
    There was noise from the hall, a clattering of boots, and a group of ten or twelve people turned into the conference room.
    Luke knew several of them by sight.
    Pwoe, first of the council to enter, was a Quarren. Quarren, roughly humanoid in shape, sometimes tendedto unnerve humans and near-humans because of their looks; they were an aquatic species with squidlike heads from which trailed four tentacles where a human’s lower facial features would be. The Quarren as a culture did not deserve this reaction, but, in Luke’s estimation, Councilor Pwoe did; Luke knew him to be a grasping, politically carnivorous being who was no friend of the Jedi. It would not have surprised Luke to find out that Pwoe had something to do, either directly or indirectly, with the formation of the Peace Brigade, the collaborationist forces who kidnapped Jedi and handed them over to the Yuuzhan Vong. Today, Pwoe wore a full-length green robe that contrasted nicely with his leathery orange skin. As he entered the room, his turquoise eyes scanned the chamber, found Luke, fixed on him for a moment, and then moved on. Pwoe sat in the chair directly opposite Wedge.
    Chelch Dravvad of Corellia sat to Pwoe’s right, and Fyor Rodan of Commenor sat beside him. The two human males, both of middle age and with the confident, artificial aura of politicians on display wrapped tightly around them, tended to keep their attention on Pwoe, rather than making eye contact around the room.
    Niuk Niuv, the fourth councilor to enter the room, was a Sullustan. If some long-ago biological engineers had created a race to resemble a child’s stuffed toy,