Vision of the future

He twisted his neck to look down at the top of her head. 'Oh,' he said. 'Really.'

'It was for a good cause,' she hastened to add. 'Really it was.' Han smiled, stroking her hair. 'I believe you, sweetheart,' he assured her. 'Okay, I'll get right on it. You're docked over on the other side, right?'

'Yes.' Leia drew partway away from him. 'One other thing. There's a passenger aboard, who we're also sort of keeping out of local politics for the moment. Elegos A'kla, a Trustant of the Caamasi Remnant.'

Han lifted his eyebrows, then shook his head. 'I can't leave you for a minute, can I?' he said. 'I take off from Pakrik Minor on a simple little trip; and the next thing you know you're consorting with high-level Caamasi.'

Leia smiled up at him. But the smile had a disturbing brittleness to it. 'You don't know the half of it,' she said, reaching up to stroke his cheek.

'So tell me.'

Reluctantly, Leia shook her head. 'We don't have time right now. Maybe after Gavrisom and I get back from the Predominance, I can tell you the whole story.'

'Okay,' Han said. 'Sure. I'll just get to work on the Falcon, then, okay?'

'Okay.' Leia hugged him again and gave him a quick kiss. 'I'll see you later.'

'Yeah,' Han said, frowning. Something had just occurred to him— 'Leia?' She paused at the door. 'Yes?'

'You said a minute ago that history would judge Carib's activities today,' he reminded her. 'Why today?'

'I did say that, didn't I?' Leia murmured, her eyes focused on nothing. 'I don't know.' Han felt something cold creeping up his back. 'One of those Jedi things?' Leia took a careful breath. 'It could be,' she said quietly. 'It could very well be.' For a few heartbeats they gazed at each other in silence. 'Okay,' Han said, forcing a casual nonchalance into his voice. 'Whatever. I'll see you later, right?'

'Yes,' Leia murmured, still looking troubled. 'Later.' She turned and left the room. For a moment Han stayed where he was, running the implications of what had just happened through his mind. There were a whole bunch of them, all of them as muddy as swamp water, none of them anything he really much liked.

But there was one thing clear here, as clear as the fact that his wife was a Jedi. One way or another, this looked like it was going to be one very busy day.

Scooping up the Caamas Document datacard, he stuffed it securely into a pocket. And if this was going to be a busy day, he added sternly to himself, there was no way he was going to be left out of it. No way at all.

Heading out into the corridor, he turned toward the docking bay where the Falcon was moored. Whatever the speed record was for replacing an ion flux stabilizer, he was going to break it.

* * *

The Errant Venture's briefing room was comfortably crowded by the time Wedge and Corran arrived. Bel Iblis was standing behind the holo table, his eyes flicking to each ship captain or squadron commander as they arrived, measuring him or her with that single glance. To everyone else, Wedge supposed, he probably looked perfectly calm.

With his and Rogue Squadron's longer history with the man, though, Wedge knew better. Predictably, Booster Terrik was the last to arrive. Ignoring the few remaining seats, he took up a standing position alongside the first row directly in front of Bel Iblis and crossed his arms expectantly.

'This will be the final briefing before we arrive at our destination,' Bel Iblis began without preamble. 'Our target, for any of you who haven't already guessed, is the Imperial Ubiqtorate base at Yaga Minor.'

From the ripple of surprise that ran around the room, Wedge decided, a whole lot of them had not, in fact, guessed correctly. 'Before you start counting our ships and matching them against Yaga's defenses,' Bel Iblis went on, 'let me reassure you just a bit. We're not trying to take out the base, or even soften it up particularly. In fact, aside from the Errant Venture itself, the rest of you will be mostly staying on the outside as a diversion.'

He pressed a key, and an image of the Ubiqtorate base appeared over the holo table. 'The Errant Venture will drop out of hyperspace, alone, at this point.' A flashing blue light appeared just beyond the ring of outer defenses. 'We'll be transmitting a distress signal indicating that we're running from a large New Republic attack force—that's you—and need shelter. With luck—and assuming the false ID fools them—we'll be allowed to penetrate the outer defenses at this point.' Booster snorted loudly enough for the whole room to hear. 'You must be joking,' he rumbled.

'An Imperial Star Destroyer, running from a motley collection of scrap like this? They'll never believe that.'