In all his years with the New Republic, and the Rebel Alliance before that, Wedge Antilles had never raised his voice in anger against a superior office. But this time, it was all he could do to keep from screaming.

"You should have told us. We had every right to know. We needed to know," Wedge insisted as he leaned over Cracken's desk, hands balled into fists and planted on the desktop. Cracken and Ackbar watched him stonily from the other side while Fel paced frantically behind his back.

"If we'd told you, what would you have done?" asked Cracken. "Grabbed an X-wing and flown to Coruscant yourself?"

It took Wedge a second to realize he wasn't being facetious. He glanced over his shoulder at Fel; the baron had stopped pacing and fixed the intelligence director with a dark scowl.

"I trusted you to recover my wife," Fel said. "That was my condition for flying for you in the first place."

"We're still working to recover her. Just because the first extraction team failed-"

"They were killed," Fel hissed.

Cracken nodded. "And so was Isard's team. My men protected Syal with their lives and I have more people ready to do the same."

"Tell me, when your first team went silent, what did you do? Did you send another team? Or did you just sit outside and let Isard's people comb the site?"

"My operatives in Imperial City are very… limited right now. When she took power Isard's purge of suspected intel operatives was frighteningly thorough."

"So you're saying we're blind on Coruscant. Did you even know Isard hadn't grabbed her until we got the intel from Boudolayz?"

Cracken's eyes narrowed. Fel hadn't told the general how he'd gotten the Ubiqtorate files related to his wife; he hadn't told Wedge either and frankly Wedge didn't want to know, because however he'd gotten it, it hadn't been above board.

Carefully, the general said, "There's no indication she has been captured."

"But you haven't found her. You don't even have a clue."

Cracken remained silent and stone-faced.

"For all we know, Isard could have grabbed her a couple days later," Wedge said through gritted teeth. "This intel from Boudolayz, it's already almost two weeks old. We have no idea if she's on Coruscant, or if Isard grabbed her, or if she ran all the way to the Rim by now."

"At least tell me you have a plan," Fel growled. "Tell me you haven't just been sitting here doing nothing for a week while you send us off to fight Makati."

"We've been putting together a plan. But it's been delayed, slightly, by difficulty in procurement."

"Procuring what?"

Ackbar cleared his throat and spoke for the first time. "All of General Cracken's agents carry a special, unmarked identicard with them that emits a special isotope that can be used for tracking. Unless the exact isotope is known it is impossible to identify."

"It's a technique we borrowed from ISB," Cracken said.

"Because our resources on Coruscant are limited," Ackbar continued, "We haven't been able to thoroughly search Imperial City for this marker."

"And you think Syal has it with her?" Wedge frowned.

"The report recovered from Boudolayz was very thorough," Cracken said. "The Imperials listed everything they recovered from my agents. The identicard wasn't there."

"So Syal took it when she ran," Fel said impatiently, "But there's no way of knowing she's even on Coruscant."

"No, but our tracker is modified so that each isotope has a longer half-life than what the Imperials use. With the proper techniques and equipment, we can track the movements of that identicard all across Imperial City for the past month. So if she ran to a spaceport, for example, we can find that out and trace her from there."

Ackbar said, "We've been putting together a modified TIE fighter than can track these isotopes while flying in the upper atmosphere over Imperial City. This aerial scan will be by far the most efficient way to track the target's movement."

"Assuming the target still has the identicard," Fel said.

Ackbar held his webbed hands open, as if to say, It's all we have to go on.

"So that's it?" Wedge said "That's all you can do? Send a TIE to fly around Coruscant and hope it finds a trace of Syal?"

"If that fails, there are other options..."

"Other options," Fel repeated bitterly. He leaned over the table and glared at Cracken. "I trusted you people to find my wife. Instead you fail, she slips through your fingers, and you don't even have the decently to tell me the truth."

"Giving you this information right before Bandomeer would have only distracted you," Ackbar said, but it sounded as weak to Fel as it did to Wedge.

"If I'd have known this, I wouldn't have flown for you at Bandomeer," Fel sneered. "And I'm not flying for you again."

He spun around and stalked out of the office. Wedge watched him go, then looked back at Ackbar and Cracken. In another situation he would have uttered some amends to these commanding officers- being he'd known and trusted for years- then chased after Fel until he convinced him to change his mind.

Instead, without a word, Wedge turned and left the room.

The Provisional Council was due to meet in one hour, but Leia wanted to see Mon Mothma first. The woman was as accommodating as ever, and met Leia in her personal quarters deep within Home One's most secure section. Like everything else about Mon Mothma, the cabin had a simple understated elegance; its pale walls were adorned only with a few precious items gathered during the woman's long life: a shimmersteel crest bearing the seal of the Old Republic given to all newcoming senators, a boquet of hand-picked flowers from Chandrila, a faintly glowing Mon Calamari water-sphere. Leia been here before, and every time she saw the two-dimensional, oil-painted portrait of Bail Organa hanging on the bulkhead across from the entrance, she felt a tightness in her chest.

Mon Mothma, though, bade her to sit down across from her at the humble kitchen table. Leia wanted to take out her data-pad and start showing all the notes she'd taken over the past evening as she discussed, again and again, the planned negotiations with Borks Fey'lya and later with Winter. But she knew she'd get to lay all those out at the Council meeting. Right now, she had to speak from the heart.

"Well, Leia?" she asked, hands folded in her lap. "Have you come for one last-ditch effort to convince me to stop negotiations?"

Leia wasn't entirely sure why she was here. She'd just felt she had to talk to this woman: her mentor, her father's friend. She said, "I've spent the past day talking this over with Fey'lya. I'm still not convinced it's the right thing to do."

"But you're no longer convinced it's the wrong one?"

The woman was as perceptive as ever. Leia allowed a slight smile. "I guess not. I can see advantages to negotiating with the CSA. I know we could use their resources, and if our intervention really can help liberalize it, then we'd be doing good for billions of beings."

"But you still have doubts."

"Of course I do. I've never been to the Corporate Sector but I've heard enough about it, especially from Han. They might have some good people working for them but they won't reform easily. The CSA doesn't care about principles, only profit. But then, it could be argued that even if the CSA can't be reformed, then it would still be better, morally, if their resources went to help us instead of the Empire."

"Yes, Borsk made that argument to me when he was starting his secret talks. I take it you don't find them convincing?"

Leia didn't speak, but her expression must have said it all. Mon Mothma laughed softly and said, "Leia, do you know why I keep Borsk Fey'lya as close as I do?"

Leia blinked. "I didn't mean to-"

"Of course you did. This isn't the Empire, Leia. You don't just have a right to question your leaders' judgment, you have a duty. And I'm sure you've wondered. I know Admiral Ackbar has, even if he's too much of a good soldier to say it aloud."

"Then why?"

"Borsk is a patriot, just like you, even if he shows it differently. He wants the New Republic to succeed and he's willing to use whatever political tools he has to ensure it does. I find his honesty refreshing."

"Honesty…. That's not a word I usually associate with Fey'lya."

"He's quite honest, in his way, as honest as Ackbar. It's why they're constantly butting heads."

"The way he plays politics isn't the way my father did. Or you."

"No." She glanced across the room at Bail Organa's portrait. Some distant memory made her expression soften. "Leia, I remember one of the worst arguments I ever had with your father. The Alliance was still in its infancy, and when we were trying to put together a fighting force, we asked ourselves question: What should we do with former Separatists? The Clone Wars weren't long over then, and there were still a lot of hold-outs who were fighting the Empire just as they'd fought the Republic. Were they allies or not? I had so many debates about it with Bail and Garm..."

Her expression softened again. After an acrimonious split, Garm Bel Iblis, another Old Republic senator turned Rebel like Mon Mothma and her father, had taken a small band of followers to fight a solo war with the Empire. Leia had hoped that Palpatine's death would bring him back into the fold, but she'd heard nothing on his fate. She frankly assumed he was dead.

"Garm wanted to take any fighting help, assuming they hadn't committed war crimes. Bail was furious about that. He thought we should only work with people who also wanted to reestablish the Republic."

"Practicality versus principles," Leia said. That sounded like Garm and Bail.

"I was worried about perception, Leia. Welcoming former Separatists might discredit our movement to potentials supporters and justify Imperial propaganda. But we did need help. So in the end I forced a compromise. Only Separatist leaders who denounced their former positions and declared support for a New Republic would help us." A wry smile touched her face. "Though on Garm's insistence, we did lend a helping hand to some others. Just to give Palpatine more trouble."

"So that's what you're saying I should do, then? Try to make a compromise out of all this?"

"Leia, out of everyone on the Council, I can think of no one more fit to do it than you."

Leia knew it was a compliment, but the thought of all that responsibility was terrifying. She swallowed and said, "Then I guess I should get ready to go with Fey'lya to the Corporate Sector, shouldn't I?"

Mon Mothma smiled, reached out, and placed a hand on Leia's. "I think that would be best."

Leia snorted, shook her head. "Shame you sent Han off to Kashyyyk with Lando and Chewie. I could use some tips about his old stomping ground."

"Even without it, Leia, I think you'll be just fine."

-{}-

"The Corporate Sector," Dey'rylan said as he stared across Admiral Drayson's desk.

"Word just came down from the Provo Council. They voted and made it official. They're sending Councilors Fey'lya and Organa. Plus a small teams of aides and bodyguards, of course."

"The Corporate Sector," he repeated.

"Would you prefer they go somewhere else?"

"The Corporate Sector."

"I'm sorry, Reyan, but did your brain just freeze?"

"You know what this means as well as I do," Dey'rylan scowled. "They just gave us a great opportunity."

Admiral Drayson put his hands behind his head and tipped his chair back. "An opportunity for what, pray tell?"

"Don't play coy, Admiral. The Corporate Sector is Makati's stomping ground. He was the official Imperial Advisor there for two years."

"True enough, but what do you expect that to get you?"

"There's only one way to find out." He leaned in over Drayson's desk. "You have to send me or Kasck, maybe both. We can be late additions to Fey'lya's diplomatic staff. Or have you already picked someone to send?"

"Not me, but Councilor Organa's aide Winter already works for Cracken. I'm sure she'll tag along."

"NRI isn't in charge of hunting grand admirals. We are." Dey'rylan stabbed a claw at his chest. "Send me, at least. Where are they meeting, anyway?"

"Etti IV, I believe. Apparently at the personal estate of a sympathetic Viceprex."

Dey'rylan was disappointed they weren't meeting at Bonadan, the Corporate Sector's most populous world, and the one where Makati had been based out of. Still, he pressed, "You can send separate teams. Send me with Fey'lya. Karr and Torr can go to Bonadan, humans fit in everywhere. Kasck and Ekrhine wouldn't stand out much either, not on a planet like that."

Drayson drummed his fingers on the tabletop. "What exactly do you think you can get on Makati that we haven't gotten already?"

Dey'rylan took a deep breath and wondered how far he should go. The moment Drayson had told him the news, the possibility had been in the back of his mind, trying to wiggle its way to the front.

"Well? What's really worth sending all of you to the Corporate Sector for?"

Dey'rylan took a breath and locked his eyes on Drayson's. "If Isard thinks there's trouble in the Corporate Sector, she'll send Makati."

He didn't say the rest of it. Drayson wanted him to. The admiral raised a black eyebrow.

"If she sends Makati, he might come with a fleet, but he'll still want to see things on the ground. Probably talk with the Prex or the new Imp Advisor, see if he can't find some solution that doesn't involve vaping all Bonadan."

"Bonadan?"

"Yes, Bonadan," Dey'rylan hissed. He was all in it now. "It won't be hard. You can leak info to Isard, make it look authentic. She'll get wind that a couple New Republic Councilors- we can even say Fey'lya and Organa- are meeting with CSA officials on Bonadan in secret talks. And then she'll send Makati to sort things out."

"With or without a massive fleet?" Drayson said sarcastically.

"It doesn't matter," Dey'rylan waved a paw. "The point is, we can feed her fake intel, but it'll be real enough for her to take the bait. And when Makati comes to Bonadan, we can get him there."

"You mean assassinate?"

"I mean assassinate." It felt good, being able to say that word aloud.

"You know Bonadan doesn't allow weapons. They have gun-detectors everywhere."

"I know. But there's other ways. Jekk's great with explosives and Kasck can hit a flitgnat with one of his throwing needles from across the room. Sir, we can do this."

Drayson watched his carefully but didn't speak. They both knew this conversation bordered on treason. No, they wouldn't actually be telling the Imps where Fey'lya and Organa would be, but they'd certainly be pointing them in the right direction. If this were anyone but Drayson, Dey'rylan wouldn't have dared suggest it.

After a while, Drayson said, "What happens if you can't get him on Bonadan? What if he really does decide to stay on Steadfast and pound the planet from orbit?"

"He won't. He's not the indiscriminate slaughter type. He's got lots of old allies on Bonadan from his time as Imp Advisor there and he'll want to talk to them."

"What if he brings a whole fleet with him, and then somehow finds out about the meeting on Etti IV?"

Only an idiot didn't plan for worst-case scenarios, especially when going against grand admirals. Dey'rylan said, "We watch Makati carefully. We'll have a fleet standing by to evac the councilors. He won't pound Etti IV either. Fey'lya and Organa are too valuable. He'll want them alive if he can."

"That can get messy. We tried to extract Pestage on Ciutric and it was a nightmare."

"We were caught by surprise then. We won't this time. We'll keep a bunch of ships on standby and be prepared."

"And you think I can just get a whole rescue fleet to wait for something that might happen for reasons I can't explain? Because you know Ackbar's never going to approve of this."

"Sir, without risk-"

"I know. But Ackbar won't go for it, I promise. He's given us approval to go after Makati, but using the councilors as bait will cross a line."

"Then another admiral. Burke. Convince Burke and he can come up with a way to spin it for Ackbar."

"Why Burke?"

"Because he's a feisty battle-dragon. He'll want another shot at Makati. And because he's not afraid to break some limits to make sure things get done."

"Maybe. Or he could bring the whole plan to Ackbar."

"He won't do that, sir. Not unless he thinks we'll do it without him, which we won't."

Drayson leaned back in his chair. His scowl relaxed into something like a wry smile.

"What?" Dey'rylan frowned. "What's so funny?"

"I wanted to hear how convincing you could be."

"Meaning what?"

"Meaning I'll set up a talk with Burke, in this office. And you're going to be here too, Reyan. Then we'll see how you'll do against someone who doesn't already have the same idea as you."

-{}-

According to Home One's shipboard chronos it was 2330 hours, at the very end of the evening, and the ship's recreation center was shut down, its rooms dark and empty. Wedge Antilles, however, had enough authority to argue his way past security, which was why he and Soontir Fel both had spent the past fifteen minutes pounding, punching, and kicking their anger away.

Wedge seemed to have gotten most of it out of him, but Fel was still raging. When his knuckles were staring to hurt, even through the padded gloves, he started beating the punching bag with a mix of forward kicks and snapping elbows.

It was only when he tried a roundhouse kick that he threw himself off-balance. He fell against the dangling, swaying punching back and hugged his arms around it for stead. He suddenly realized how breathless and exhausted he was, and he lowered himself to the deck. Wedge was sitting on a bench two meters away, guzzling water. In the low ambient light his face gleamed with sweat.

When he'd satisfied his thirst, Wedge rolled his water-bottle across the floor to Fel. The other man took it and drank. They'd barely said anything to each other since stalking out of Cracken's office hours ago.

Finally, when Fel screwed the cap back on the bottle and placed it beside him, Wedge asked, "What are you going to do?"

Such a vague, open question. It could have meant anything. Fel stared at him for a while before he said, "What are you going to do?"

Wedge didn't answer either. He looked down at his shoes and said, "Cracken and Ackbar, they're not trying to be unfair. They're trying to do the best they can."

"It's not good enough. And they should have told us both."

"What would you have done? If you'd known, before Bandomeer?"

Fel scowled. He didn't have a good answer for that, or for anything else. He looked back on everything he'd done since Brentaal and he didn't know what things he could have done to make things turn out different. He only knew that what he had done wasn't enough. It might have even cost Syal her life.

"Tell me," Wedge said, with a touch of pleading, "Do you think Syal could… I don't know, make it? With all those ISB agents after her, right on her tail, could she… handle it?"

"Your sister was always resourceful. She ran away from Corellia when she was a teenager and started a new life, all by herself."

"I know that. I just..." Wedge paused, hesitated, then said, "What is my sister like?"

The pain in his voice, the desperation, made Fel looked away. In the past six months, Wedge had never asked that simple question. He'd probably been ashamed to.

Fel thought a moment, then said, "In a life like mine- like ours- there isn't much room for simple pleasures. We're always behind shipped from one spaceship to another, always getting into a fighter cockpit never knowing if we'll make it out alive. My parents on Corellia are farmers. This isn't the life they imagined for me. This isn't the life I ever thought I'd have."

"I know," Wedge said softly. "My parents ran a fuel station."

But Wedge's parents were dead, and Fel's were still alive, not that he ever expected to see them again. Still, it made a difference. He continued, "Even when we're not fighting, or getting ready to fight, everything is still about the war. We have to meet admirals and politicians and talk about the fate of the galaxy and the best relief we can hope for is a couple hours' drinking with other pilots who will probably be dead in a month."

He paused and thought of Rone Tearling. Then he said, "When I was with your sister, I never thought about any of that."

Wedge raised his head. "Is she what you thought you'd have, growing up?"

"I never thought I'd marry a holo-star. Even as a boy, I never dreamed it. Farmer's children have to be… practical." Fel smiled softly. "But a warm face, a home to come back to. A place that has nothing to do with his war. Of course that's what I wanted. Didn't you?"

Wedge looked down again. His hands tightened, clasped his knees. He gave a very, very long sigh. Finally, when he picked his head up again, his face was hard with determination.

"I'm going to go see Cracken in the morning," Wedge said. "I'll be the one to fly that TIE fighter over Coruscant. Whatever happened to her, I'll find out. I promise."