Wedge's Gamble (18 page)

Shiel’s hand landed heavily on Gavin’s shoulder. “Time to move, Gavin.”

“I don’t know any Gavin, Shaalir.” Gavin stuffed his clothes into his satchel, tucked the blaster into his belt, and pocketed the identification cards and money. “The name’s Vin Leiger and I’m here to find out what makes this world spin, and then find a way to make it stop.”

17

Wedge Antilles realized that the mission he and Pash Cracken had been given was the most difficult of all to complete. He suspected the other members of Rogue Squadron had been assigned tasks like mapping out power grids or locating shield generation stations. Pinpointing those locations would be vital if any invasion was to succeed, but that data would be useless unless he and Pash succeeded and came away with a positive report.

They had been charged with the duty of assessing the loyalty of the populace on the planet. Iella Wessiri had been able to provide them with her impressions of the general mood of the world’s population, but she freely acknowledged she was more pessimistic than another might be. “Paranoia has a way of coloring your thoughts about the world.”

Wedge smiled as they moved out of the Galactic Museum’s Sith artifact room. “Paranoia may be an effect of the things in that room. Ghastly stuff …”

“But seductively powerful.” Iella glanced down wistfully. “Not as crude as a cubic meter of credits, but those things appeal to something even more base than greed.”

“My thoughts exactly.” Because of his mission parameters Wedge had decided touring the various Imperial facilities open to the public should form the basis of their survey, and in the week since his arrival they had covered a lot of ground. He had expected the Empire to put its best face forward and display things that would denigrate and demean the Rebellion, and he’d not been disappointed. By learning what it was the Empire wanted its citizens to believe about the Rebellion, he could then assess whether or not the Imperial propaganda efforts were successful.

The museum had proved very instructive in this regard. The bottom two floors provided extensive displays of the flora, fauna, and mineral treasures from throughout the Empire. Several displays did provide notations that this plant or that animal had been made extinct on their native worlds by “outlaws and malcontents,” and included among such beasts were Ewoks—and Imperial taxidermists had taken great pains to make them seem helpless and even more cute than they were in real life. However, despite such propagandistic comments, the displays were impressive and reminded Wedge there was much more to the Empire than he’d consciously acknowledged before.

The first two floors were clearly designed to impress and overwhelm visitors with their magnificence, so the next four floors had been put together to capitalize on the favorable impressions made below. Those floors covered the cultural and social developments of the Empire. One whole floor had been given over to the Emperor and his life. Holograms of people who had known him served as tour guides at each display while droids admonished the people to keep moving on. All the displays, from items shown to the descriptions that accompanied them, were slanted toward making the viewers believe everything the Emperor had done had been for their specific good.

The final tableau presented on that floor made this point abundantly clear. It showed the Emperor lying in state upon a bier in a dark room. He looked far younger
and more handsome than Luke had described him, as if the moral rot and evil in him had never been able to ooze out and reveal itself. The Emperor appeared just to be sleeping, ready to rise up if the Empire needed him again.

A holographic image of Darth Vader sizzled to life when Wedge had approached. “Behold my Master and weep. He has been stolen from us by those who embrace hatred. The Emperor learned that the Rebels had stolen plans for an Imperial Planetary Ore Extractor and intended to use the one they were fabricating at Endor on inhabited planets. He assembled his fleet, and heedless of personal danger, he had me take him to Endor. He infiltrated the half-completed extractor, offering these Rebels his forgiveness and a hand in friendship. They rejected him and attacked his fleet. My Master had no alternative but to destroy this Death Star himself, perishing in the process so his citizens could live on. I was slain with him, but my death did not distress me, for it came in service to my Master.”

As Vader spoke, a fanciful holographic simulation of the battle at Endor played itself out against the backdrop of the chamber. An outnumbered and outgunned Imperial fleet drove a dagger into the heart of the Rebel formation. The pinpoint accuracy of Imperial gunners laid waste to the Rebels. As that war raged outside, the Emperor appeared looking beatific as he pleaded with an unseen Rebel host. His expression melted into sorrow and pain, then his eyes blazed and his fists knotted. Suddenly his image exploded, taking the Death Star with it. The explosion tore into the Rebel fleet, leaving only small, weak ships to flee.

The whole presentation had sent a shiver through Wedge. He had been at Endor—he had fired the shot that helped destroy the Death Star—yet this telling of the story felt as compelling to him as the true history of what had happened. It suggested a benign purpose for the Death Stars and made the Rebels out to be monsters for thinking to use one on an inhabited planet. By doing so, and by suggesting the Emperor had gone there to prevent that
sort of perversion, the fear that lingered in everyone’s heart concerning the destruction of Alderaan was shifted into fear directed at the Rebellion. The Emperor had sacrificed himself to save everyone else, so only the most boorish of louts would not show gratitude of some sort toward him.

As he moved on to the Hall of Justice with Iella he found himself amazed at how easily the Empire had been able to warp the truth into a story that sustained the realm. “The people who create these exhibits are very good at what they do.”

“That was never more evident as it is with this area concerning the Jedi.” Iella linked her arm through Wedge’s as they strolled on. “Were it not for the Emperor, we would be slaves to a tyrannical Jedi state.”

The history of the Jedi Knights was presented in a linear fashion, moving from right to left around the room. The thousand-generation saga had been condensed such that it gave emphasis to the legendary Jedi Masters of old, then suggested a gradual deviation from that noble tradition as the Knighthood grew. The corruption had begun—Wedge gathered by implication—when human Jedi Masters had taken on nonhuman disciples. The Jedi Knights went from being the guardians of the Old Republic to the secret masters of its future. They used their powers to manipulate and direct the Republic’s leaders.

After the resolution of the Clone Wars, the Jedi began to move toward an open grab for power. Senator Palpatine circumvented them and deposed their puppet. In overthrowing the corrupt Old Republic, the Emperor stripped from the Jedi their political power and laid their evil bare for all to see. The Jedi denied the truth he revealed, all except one of their number. His fellows tried to murder him, but he survived their treachery and rose to assist the Emperor in rooting out the evil that had ruined the Knighthood. He was Darth Vader and, said the display, never had there been a greater champion for the high ideals of the Empire than he.

Wedge smiled. “At least that last bit is true—Vader was Imperial through and through.”

“Notice how they have the true line of Jedi Knights dying with Vader at Endor? No mention of Luke Skywalker, but the implication is that he is heir to the corrupt tradition.” She shook her head. “I wonder if that is too subtle?”

“Appeals that play to fear can be subtle and still very effective.” Wedge turned and looked back toward the far corner of the room. “It looks to me as if this chamber once opened onto another one, but the entrance has been sealed up.”

“I’ve seen an old version of a holographic museum tour—we have people who archive those sorts of things just to see what’s been changed. Once upon a time, back in the days of the Old Republic, there were three more chambers that extended back there with mementos of famous Jedi Knights and their exploits.” Iella shrugged. “It’s been sealed up for over thirty standard years. Rumor has it that most of the things in there now are memento mori, and the descriptions of some are enough to make the Sith artifacts look absolutely benign.”

Pash Cracken met them outside the Jedi exhibit carrying a small sack. “Are you two interested in getting out of here?”

Wedge didn’t answer immediately because his attention was drawn to something beyond Pash. The museum had been constructed in such a way that the circular foyer rose all the way up to the roof, giving each floor a crescent-shaped opening onto it. The northern wall, through which the public entered the building, had been constructed of transparisteel, providing a commanding view of the Imperial Palace and the walkway that linked the Museum with the Imperial Justice Court.

A vicious dark, roiling cloud was coalescing in the kilometer or so between the museum and the Palace. Golden lightning shot through it, then arced up into the air. A brilliant energy thread linked the cloud with the lowest of the planetary shields, then seconds later an explosive
rumble of thunder sent a tremor through the building. More lightning flashed at the heart of the cloud’s dark depths and the cloud began to drift toward them.

Wedge looked over at Iella. “That’s a nasty-looking storm. Are we safe here?”

“Sure,” she said, taking her hands off the steel railing. “A compressor probably blew in one of the buildings down there. Water vapor escapes into the air, condenses, and starts spitting energy. There’s lightning rods all over the place on these towers and skyhooks, so we should be safe. You’ll know it’s a really bad storm when the skyhooks detach their tethers and move off.”

Down below Wedge saw all sorts of people streaming into the foyer as the storm approached. Beneath the dark cloud he saw a shimmering sheet of rain scourging the buildings. “Such quickly developing storms must make weather prediction here very tough.”

“I’ve heard it said that any meteorologist who is right thirty percent of the time here on Coruscant is barred from shipping on the submarine gambling vessel
Coral Vanda
or from any other casino because she’s just too lucky. In reality, though, no one has any reason to actually go outside, so the weather matters little.”

A bolt of lightning struck very near the museum and the lights dimmed for a moment. Pash smiled.
“That
could be an inconvenience.”

“True,”

Wedge pointed at the sack Pash had in his left hand. “I take it you found something interesting in the museum’s souvenir mart?”

“I have here the most popular items, as indicated by a very friendly salesclerk.” Pash peered down into the bag. “I have a statue of the Emperor made from cold-cast Corusca Stone resin—if you project a laser through the base it will give you a series of pictures of the Emperor displayed on your wall. I promised my father I’d bring him something, and that’s it.”

Wedge nodded solemnly. “He’ll love that.”

“I hope so. I also got two holopad display disks that will project the two most popular segments of the Emperor’s life story: the Clone Wars and the one titled ‘Sacrifice at Endor.’ I was assured they were the hottest sellers and especially popular with tourists who would be heading back into the outlier worlds.”

“Interesting.” In their early discussions of how best to accomplish their mission, Pash had suggested to Wedge that one way to determine the beliefs held by others was to watch what they spent money on. The popularity of the statue suggested that a good number of people did revere the Emperor, though the image of Pash’s father displaying it like a trophy in his office suggested that even the Emperor’s detractors would find a use for such a thing. The holopad disks, on the other hand, suggested an interest in the events that happened before and around the founding of the Empire and the events that marked its decline. The ‘Sacrifice at Endor’ piece was significant in that it confirmed the Emperor’s death and could be brought to distant worlds to lay any doubts to rest. The fact that it showed the Rebel fleet as having been broken, and suggested evil motives on the part of the Rebels themselves, was not that great a concern to Wedge. While Imperialists could use the program to show how the Emperor cared for his people, the chances of it convincing anyone that the Rebellion had died at Endor with it were slim indeed.

Well, this is a start. It would seem that people are beginning to come to grips with the fact that the Emperor is dead. How ever he died
—
by his own hand or through Luke’s intervention
—
the fact is that the Rebellion was sufficiently strong to put him in mortal danger. To a greater or lesser extent everyone on this planet must wonder how much of the Rebellion has survived and how it will come to affect their lives
.

Wedge smiled. “I think those will do just fine. Everyone will be happy with them.”

“I hope so.” Pash jerked his head back toward the
building’s central core and the lift tubes. “The storm will be past shortly. Shall we head down and out?”

Wedge nodded and started toward the lifts when a woman grabbed his elbow. He turned with a polite smile on his face and she launched herself into his arms. “Darling,” she shouted, then kissed him full on the lips. “I’m so glad I caught up with you!”

Wedge got his hands on her shoulders and pried himself loose of her embrace. He started to sputter, then he saw who she was and a chunk of Hoth settled itself in his guts.
Mirax!
“Yes, love, we were just getting ready to look for you. Where have you been?”

“I missed some connections and couldn’t get out when I wanted to.” Mirax forced a light laugh and smiled at Pash and Iella. “You know me, I always push my luck with my travel plans. Things just fell apart this time, and I don’t have a clue as to what I shall do now. Perhaps, my dear, you do.”

18

Though the week he’d already spent wandering through the upper precincts of Coruscant had allowed him to become accustomed to constant observation, Corran could not shake the background sense of being watched. Of course there were reasons for people to watch him. He sat at a tapcaf table on the edge of a promenade in the Imperial Palace’s Grand Corridor accompanied by two strikingly beautiful women. Erisi with her short black hair and Rima with her longer white hair proved enough of a contrast to each other that eyes were naturally drawn to them. That he, a lone man, should be blessed with their company made him the object of a certain amount of envy, as did the apparent leisure with which all three of them sat at the table and chatted away idly.