Vision of the future

'So the workers are out,' Moranda said. 'What about the various underground conduits that bring in power and water?'

'There aren't any water conduits,' Wedge said thoughtfully. 'Water and food are supposedly brought in from outside and triple-scanned for contaminants.' He looked at Corran. 'Power, though, is another matter entirely.'

'You might be onto something,' Corran agreed, frowning as he drummed his fingers softly on the table. 'Each shield generator is supposed to have its own self-contained power supply. But it's referred to as a backup supply, which implies the primary power source comes in from the outside.'

'Where are you getting all this stuff from, by the way?' Moranda asked. 'Not Bothan propaganda, I hope.'

'No, we pulled it from New Republic military files,' Wedge told her. 'Unfortunately, what we had was a little skimpy on details.'

'Typical Bothan paranoiac closemouthness,' Moranda grunted. 'I don't suppose you'd have any idea where exactly the conduits are located.'

'Not even a guess,' Wedge told her.

'Well, that's our second order of business, then,' Moranda said. 'Getting the complete schematics of that building.'

Corran cocked an eyebrow. 'I hope you're not expecting the Bothans to just give them to us.' Moranda snorted. 'Of course not,' she said. 'That's why it's our second order of business. We can't very well go visit the construction records building during the day.' Wedge exchanged looks with Corran. 'The building's only open during the day,' he pointed out carefully.

'That's right,' Moranda said, smiling encouragingly. 'You catch on fast.' Wedge looked at Corran again. 'Corran?'

The other made a face, but then he shrugged. 'We do have our orders,' he reminded Wedge.

'And this isn't just to protect the Bothans, remember.'

'I suppose,' Wedge said reluctantly. So much for the mystique of command; so much for command at all. Still, Moranda was making sense. Unfortunately. 'So if that's the second order of business, what's the first?'

'I thought we'd go pull the records for the last few days' worth of outgoing transmissions,' Moranda said. 'If Vengeance is plotting something, their group here probably has to report in every now and again.'

Wedge felt his mouth drop open. 'You want to go check message traffic? Do you have any idea how much of that there is from this planet?'

'That's exactly why they won't worry about it,' Moranda said cheerfully. 'They'll figure no one would be crazy enough to bother sifting through it all.'

'Present company excepted, obviously.'

'Well, of course.' Moranda held up a hand. 'Now, wait a minute, it's not as bad as it sounds. We can cut out all transmissions from major or established corporations—even if one of them was involved, they wouldn't send out anything under their own name. We can also cut out any nonencrypted messages, and we can cut out any message over, say, fifty words. That ought to give us something manageable.'

Wedge frowned. 'Why everything over fifty words?'

'The shorter the message, the harder it is to decrypt,' Corran explained, sounding as dubious as Wedge felt. 'One of the things I learned in CorSec. My question is, if we aren't going to be able to read it, why bother looking for it in the first place?'

'To find out where it's going, of course,' Moranda said, draining the last of her liqueur. 'The guys at this end can be as cagey as they want; but if they've got a sloppy contact down the line, we can still nail them. All we need is a likely system and I can call Karrde's people down on them from that end.'

'It still sounds crazy,' Wedge declared, looking at Corran. 'What do you think?'

'It's no crazier than breaking into the construction records building after hours,' Corran pointed out.

'Thanks for the reminder,' Wedge sighed. 'Sure, let's give it a try. I just hope the computer on our shuttle is up to a job like this.'

'If not, the one on my ship can handle it,' Moranda assured him, getting to her feet. 'Come on, let's get moving.'