9

Standing at the window of the small bedroom that served as his temporary cell, Wedge watched the Arramsetti sky as it changed from night to earliest morning. Traces of pink and pale yellow had begun to ease their way into the deep blues and purples of the night. It held the promise of a beautiful sunrise, and the thought struck him that he should probably enjoy it, since it might be his last.

Instead, he turned away and moved deeper into the shadows of the room. Looking around, he finally sat down on the barely disturbed bed. He'd been unable to sleep after Heblon had locked him in, and had spent the night replaying the events of the previous days in his mind.

First there was the bizarre situation of his being at a dinner party in a room full of Imperial sympathizers who probably intended to kill him. The food and drink had been delicious and he'd been treated like any other guest, except for the constant watchfulness of the two stormtroopers shadowing his every step.

There had been the polite conversation. He was questioned by some of the guests about his reasons for being a member of the 'criminal' Alliance, and then called a liar for giving his honest answers. And through it all, he'd seen the looks that Turpa gave him. They had become more and more poisonous every time they made eye contact.

There had also been a tour of the monument that the Moff was having built in honor of her sons. It was huge, made from a black granite material and had two heroically posed statues of the slain men, each easily twenty meters high. There were TIE fighters, the Death Star, and a eulogy carved into the stone.

Someone had asked what the purpose was of the large, empty area at the front of the monument. The Moff had smiled mysteriously and said that they'd know within the next few days, that there would be a "special addition" to the work.

Then there was the big Lieutenant who had cared for him since he had been beaten by the stormtroopers and the Admiral. He had never met any active Imperial quite like him before. Heblon was a puzzle that he hoped he had time to figure out before they eventually got around to executing him.

Wedge rubbed his face with both hands and looked around the room again, wondering how much longer he had before they came for him. He hadn't heard anyone stirring yet.

As he glanced at the window again, his thoughts turned to home. He knew that Gate had managed to send some kind of rushed signal, but he didn't know if anyone would receive it and if it was even complete enough for them to figure out where he was. With that thought, he wondered what had happened to his droid and his X-wing.

He knew that Tycho and the squadron would have figured out that he was missing by now and had probably mounted some kind of search for him. How much of one, and how long they'd keep at it, he didn't know. But if Tycho or Corran had any say in the matter, it would be pretty thorough.

He doubted that they'd find him though. He'd been back over the details of his ambush numerous times, and came to the same conclusion each time. He'd simply vanished, leaving no trace, between Thyferra and Coruscant. And he was pretty sure that was Tchlinda's intention. Finding him would be next to impossible.

Hey, impossible is Rogue Squadron's stock in trade, Gavin's voice reprimanded him.

Then he thought of Ajene, and a pang of regret cut through him. He had told her that the reason he remained alone was because he never knew if the person he got close to would be around for much longer. And here he was, a few days later, half a step from being killed.

He almost regretted the fact that they had gotten together before he left. She would be suffering because of his disappearance. At least he liked to think she would be. But she was one strong woman, and he knew that she would get through it. That was just one of the hundred things that attracted him to her.

He remembered their dinner date for the night of his return. Their time together had been brief, but the memory of her kept his spirits up. She'll be looking for me, too.

The clatter of armor down the hall and voices approaching the door brought Wedge out of his reverie. He remembered the bottle that Heblon had slipped into his palm before locking him in for the night. Reaching deep into one of his pockets, he brought out the small glass vial and held it up to the morning light. It contained several grams of a transparent green liquid. He hesitated before opening it, not fully trusting what the Lieutenant had told him. Before they come for you in the morning, swallow this. It'll make things easier on you. It's the best I can do.

It could be a trick to drug him so he'd talk easier, but he didn't get that kind of feeling about the man. From all that Heblon had done for him since his arrival, it looked more and more like he was defying, albeit surreptitiously, his commanders. That may be something that Wedge could use.

He looked down at the small bottle, and decided that if they really wanted to drug him, he doubted he would be able to prevent it. It was a risk worth taking.

He could hear the combination being punched into the pad outside the door, and he hurriedly opened the bottle, downed the contents, then slipped it into a drawer. The liquid was bitter and he had to try hard to swallow it. He felt, not for the first time since his capture, a twinge of fear. He wasn't looking forward to this.

He took a deep breath and stood to wait for them. The door opened and four stormtroopers walked in, followed closely by Admiral Turpa.


Tycho's X-wing screamed through the early morning atmosphere of Thyferra, the only inhabited planet of the Polith System, on a heading given to him by Bror Jace. Much as Wedge probably did three days ago.

He looked over his left shoulder and caught sight of the Pulsar Skate about a hundred meters behind and fifty meters above him. Beyond the Skate was the green and black outline of Corran's snubfighter. The rest of the squadron would be coming in to Thyferra in eleven hours for some sleep and then return to the search grid that he had set out for them.

That is unless we find something here that gives us a new destination.

Corran's voice broke into Tycho's thoughts. "I sure hope Bror has managed to dig something up on this end. Not finding any kind of clues is really starting to annoy me."

Tycho could hear the frustration in Corran's voice and felt some of it himself. "Agreed. The longer it takes to find a lead, the less chance we have of finding Wedge. But I guess we'll know soon." Tycho tried to sound optimistic, but underneath, there was a great deal of tension in his voice that only someone who knew him well could recognize.

The Skate, flanked by her X-wing escort, circled then settled onto the ferrocrete landing field in the Thyferran city of Sandosta. They cut their repulsors almost in unison, but Tycho was first out of his ship. He didn't wait for a tech to put a ladder up against the side of the fighter. Instead he slipped up and over the lip of his cockpit, hanging over the side and dropping easily to the ground a few meters below. Corran was soon at his side, glancing behind him to see if Mirax and Ajene were within sight yet.

Bror Jace emerged from the hangar to the right and jogged over to them. Bror had flown with Rogue Squadron when Wedge had reformed it three years earlier. He had returned to his home planet when a member of his clan was reported to be fatally ill, but his X-wing was ambushed and destroyed by one of Ysanne Isard's ships and he was presumed dead. In actuality, he had gone underground on Thyferra and was helping the Ashern Rebels to overthrow Isard.

When he came back from the dead, he had briefly flown again with his former squadron in the Battle of Thyferra. After that, he had been assigned by his government to head the formation of the Thyferran Aerospace Defense Force.

He greeted Corran and Tycho both with back slapping hugs and Mirax with a gentler hug. Corran shook his head and pointed to Jace's short pants, grinning. "They're still not letting you shop in the adult department, I see."

"No, this is a pair of your hand me ups."

The two men, who had once been rivals in the squadron, laughed. Bror gave Corran a friendly punch to the shoulder. Tycho looked over at Ajene, who had just joined them after emerging from the Skate. She was shaking her head. "They do this all the time," he explained with a smile.

"Oh. Friendly rivals, huh?"

"Exactly. Bror?" Tycho motioned to the woman standing next to him. "This is Major Ajene Tuvora, of the New Republic Special Forces. Ajene, this is Major Bror Jace of the Thyferran Aerospace Defense Force."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Major." He shook her hand then turned back to Tycho and Corran. "We've made some headway on our end of the investigation. Come into the Operations Center and I'll tell you what we've managed to find."

The group entered the Ops Center and they were lead directly to Jace's office. He closed the door behind them and motioned the two women to the seats in front of his desk. Corran remained standing behind Mirax's chair as Tycho leaned against the wall on the opposite side of the small room.

"When Nawara contacted us, we began checking to see if anything unusual happened while Wedge was here that may have had some bearing on his disappearance. Basically we found that it was a pretty short and straightforward visit. He came to give a lecture about fighter cover for convoys that the New Republic and Thyferra were putting together. It was a well-publicized visit, no big secret."

"After his lecture, we had dinner together and visited a while. He spent the night in the guest officer's quarters at the base here. Next morning, we met for breakfast, and then he raised ship."

"That doesn't tell us anything we didn't already know." Tycho frowned. "What was the headway you mentioned?"

"In questioning the people here at the landing zone that were in a position to observe his ship while it was here, we came across something suspicious. Several of our people had noticed a ground crewman hanging around Wedge's ship for longer than usual. They didn't think anything of it at the time, but now, we decided to take a closer look."

Corran raised an eyebrow. "And?"

"We started a search for him based on the descriptions of our own ground crew, but he seemed to have disappeared. Then we got lucky. He tried to leave Thyferra and was caught at customs." Bror smiled. "We've got him in custody."

"In custody. Two of my favorite words." Corran rubbed his hands together, a devilish grin on his face. Mirax nudged him in the ribs and he looked down at her. "What?"

She gave him a dirty look and turned away from him. "You don't have to look so happy about it. If you were a smuggler, you wouldn't like those words at all.

"I thought you'd like them, Corran." Bror smiled at him.

"Would it be possible for us to question him?" Tycho asked. "I mean, he's a Thyferran citizen, I presume?"

"He is. But that won't be a problem. Only two or three of my people know that we even have him and why he's in custody." Bror made sure to say 'in custody' very slowly and deliberately. Mirax looked vibroblades at him.

"Wedge is important enough for us to bend some rules. And since this is a military base and not a local Security Outpost, we have a certain amount of...let's call it leeway." He came around his desk and clapped Corran on the shoulder. "Want to play a little CorSec?"

"Oh, I'd love to."

"Good officer, bad officer?" Tycho pointed first to Corran then to himself.

Corran shook his head. He pointed to Tycho. "Bad officer," then to himself, "worse officer. With a couple of not too happy ladies thrown into the bargain." He looked over at Bror. "We need to get out of these flightsuits."

"No problem. You can change in there." He pointed to an adjoining room.

"Good. I'll go get our gear." Corran winked at Mirax and Ajene as he headed out the door.

Mirax smiled at Ajene. "This is going to be interesting. Corran is very good at this."

Ajene's face remained serious. "I just hope it works. For Wedge's sake."

Once Corran and Tycho had changed into their New Republic uniforms, the group followed Bror down to the lowest level of the Ops Center and to an interrogation room at the very end of a long hallway. It was the kind of place that was very familiar to Corran. As a member of the Corellian Security Force, he had performed hundreds of interrogations in places just like this.

He felt a tremendous amount of relief at finally being able to do something to get the situation back under his control. Ever since they found out that Wedge had been attacked, he had felt the situation spiral out of his hands. And it wasn't a feeling he enjoyed.

The two guards at the door came to attention just before they reached them. Corran looked at Jace with raised eyebrows.

Bror pointed at the two of them. "You don't know a thing about the prisoner, do you, fellas?"

"About what, sir?" One of them smiled.

"What prisoner, in where, sir?" the other one echoed.

Corran gave them a crooked grin then turned to the group behind him. "Okay. Everybody ready? You all know your roles and what's expected of you."

There were nods all around. Even though Tycho was in charge of the squadron and all of its missions, he had let Corran do all the planning for the interrogation because he knew that it was his area of expertise. Not for the first time, Corran's respect for Tycho grew. It took a great man to know when to step aside and let others take over. His father had been like that. And Wedge, too. "All right. Let's go."

Bror opened the door, and everyone filed into the room. The man within stood up and immediately started whining. "What's going on here? I ain't done nothin' wrong, and I'm being treated like a criminal. I demand to know what I'm being charged with."

Tycho walked over and shoved the man roughly back down into the chair he'd vacated. "Sit down and shut up, Frew. If that'is your real name. You're not in any position to demand anything."

"Who are you?" He looked at Tycho's New Republic uniform, then at Bror. "I'm a Thyferran citizen, they have no jurisdiction over me. You can't let them-"

"I can let them do whatever they want. And if I were you, I'd cooperate with these people, because you really don't want to get on their bad side. So, why don't you just tell them what they want to know about the disappearance of Wedge Antilles."

Frew studied them for a moment, then leaned back in the chair. Corran had seen this kind of reaction before. Since Frew knew that he had information that they needed, he felt like he had something to bargain with. "I might answer some questions, if those two honeys ask them." He leered at the two women, who'd leaned against a table in the corner of the room.

"Hey!" Corran gave him an open-handed slap on the back of the head. "That dark-haired 'honey' is my wife, you slime-trailing Hutt."

Tycho leaned in close to the man, his hands on each of his shoulders. "You're not off to a very good start here, Frew." He nodded at Corran. "You see, his wife and Wedge were raised together. He's like a brother to her. And she's not happy about him being missing. Neither is her father, Booster Terrik. Ever hear of him?"

The man paled visibly at the mention of the ex-smuggler's name. He thought about it briefly then seemed to get some of his nerve back. "Yeah? Who's the other one? His mother?"

"Wrong again, little man." Ajene moved across the room so quickly that Tycho just managed to get out of her way. She leaned over the man in the chair, smiling sweetly. She caressed his cheek with her left hand, lifting his face so he looked up at her and not at her cleavage. Her right hand moved suddenly in a flicking motion and the unmistakable hum of a vibroblade sounded near the man's exposed throat. "I'm a good friend of his. And if you think you need to worry about what Booster Terrik might do to you, you don't know the half of it. Compared to what I have in mind, you'll enjoy dealing with him."

"Ahem." Jace cleared his throat and Ajene backed off a couple of meters. "In case you didn't notice, Frew, those three pips she's sporting on her uniform means that she's a Major in the New Republic Special Forces. She could fillet you with that blade in time for you to show up on the supper menu at the nearest Shistavanen tapcafe." Bror smiled coldly. "And the two gentlemen present both spent time at a charming little place called Lusankya, as guests of the late Ysanne Isard. So they know all sorts of interesting techniques for 'information retrieval,' which I'm sure they'd love to share with you."

What little restraint Frew had quickly dissolved at the mention of Isard. "You guys have made a mistake. I don't know n-nothin' about nobody disappearing." His voice developed a nervous squeak. "I ain't done nothin' wrong!"

He reached over and picked up a glass and a pitcher of water from a tray at the center of the table. He poured a little of the water into the glass with a shaking hand. He had just brought the glass to his lips when Corran slapped it out of his grasp and it shattered against the far wall. Corran grabbed the man's shirtfront and jerked him half out of the chair.

Although he wasn't as tall or as well built as Bror, Corran knew that he could be very intimidating if he wanted to be. And he had played this role so many times that he could do it in his sleep. "That's it, I've heard enough." He pulled his blaster from its holster and aimed it between Frew's legs. "I think you better start answering some questions, or you're going to start losing some parts. I'm sure we could learn as much from an autopsy if we had to."

"Wha...whadda ya mean? You can't d-d-do that." Frew looked wildly at Jace. "You...you can't let him do that. Tell him he can't do that!"

Bror looked at Corran with feigned disapproval. "You can't do that," he almost sang the words. He wagged his finger at the Corellian.

I never gave Bror enough credit. He's really good at this. Corran fixed Bror with a glare. "The hell I can't! Just watch me." Corran's green eyes danced, wild with rage.

"I tried reasoning with him, Frew," Jace shrugged. "You know how difficult these Corellians can be."

Corran prodded with the blaster. "Do you know how easy it would be to make you disappear? Slice a few records here; change a few words there. We load what's left of you in the hold of our ship and once we get off world, dump you out the airlock. Poof! No more Nored Frew. End of story." Corran leaned closer to the man. "You get the holo?"

"Okay...All right...W-whadda ya wanna know?"

"Who hired you, and what have they done with General Antilles?" Ajene moved closer, a foreboding look on her face.

"Oh man...I don't know." Sweat poured down Frew's face.

"Wrong answer. Start with his elbow, Corran." Ajene pointed with the vibroblade, then put it back to the man's throat. "We can work our way down."

"Good idea," he said, and moved the barrel of the blaster. He was impressed with Ajene's additions to the character that he had given her to play. The only thing was that he wasn't entirely sure she was acting.

"No! No! Please, don't. I...I really don't know. It was a contract. The word was put out to be on the lookout for Antilles' ship at the spaceport. Who-whoever found it was to put a tracker on it. The client even supplied the tracker."

"How'd you collect the money? Who was the contact?" Tycho asked.

"I left word at a local bar as soon as I planted the tracker. The bartender gave me my money."

"What bar? What was the bartender's name?"

"It was The Nightside in the Eastern District. His...his name was Marth."

"You better not be lying about this." Ajene increased the pressure of the vibroblade ever so slightly underneath the man's chin, and a drop of blood appeared from the resulting nick.

"I'm not. Really, I'm not." The man was near collapse. "I-I swear!"

Corran released the man's shirt and shoved him back into the chair. "If you're lying, she and I are coming back, and you won't be happy to see us." He backed away, never breaking eye contact with the prisoner.

Tycho moved back in front of Frew. "How much?"

"Huh?"

"I said how much? How many credits did they pay a piece of rancor bait like you for the life of a man like him?"

"Fif-fifteen thousand credits." He shrank back into the chair, away from the look in Tycho's eyes.

"You'd better enjoy it while you can and hope that we find Wedge alive. Because if we don't, I'm giving her father your name, and believe me, there won't be a corner of this galaxy dark enough for you to hide in."

Corran moved over to Tycho and put a hand on his shoulder. He could feel him trembling with barely controlled fury. He had never seen him like this before. He physically moved Tycho away from the prisoner, and Ajene moved in to take his place. "Remember. If you're lying, he and I will be back."

In one effortless move, she took the top four buttons off the front of Frew's shirt with the vibroblade. She turned her back and walked out the door, followed by the others.

Bror Jace was the last to leave. "I think we'll keep you here a while longer, Frew, just so we know where to find you if necessary." He patted Frew on the head. "But it won't be necessary, will it?"

"N-no, s-sir!"

"Good."

Once outside, he closed the door and turned to Tycho and the others. "Well?"

"Well, it looks like we go to The Nightside and have a little talk with Marth." Tycho said. "And we had better get some answers."

Mirax looked over at Tycho when she heard his tone of voice. "Are you all right?"

He visibly sagged as the anger left him all at once. "Yeah, I guess so. But not knowing what's happened to Wedge is really starting to eat at me. He stood up for me when no one else would. He's saved my life countless times. I just hope I can do the same for him this time."

Corran thought of the man that they were desperate to find. "He's done so much for the New Republic, how can we do any less for him? We will find him, Tycho. I know it. We just have to keep looking. Let's find out where that bar is and get some answers." Corran took Mirax's hand and led the group down the long hall.