"I want them to go back without Mon and without the stolen DEMP generators. I want them to have to admit to all that - losing Mon; giving her away - then wasting the generators trying to get her back. I want the people who were here to try to work out what happened because the reasonable conclusion is to think they had at least one informer onboard who gave away their identity and location on Bothawuii- and if they do, they'll believe them to be highly-placed. I want to make them look to each-other and wonder."
Mara grinned in the darkness; he was always setting fireworks beneath the Rebels and standing back to watch the show. "Lighting the blue touch-paper again?"
She could hear his smile in his words, "It's my only entertainment Mara- give me that one."
"What about sabacc?"
She heard his mock indignation, "Sabacc's not an entertainment; it's a life-lesson."
"I'll remember that the next time you want your winnings."
"I didn't say it was free." he countered, humour in his voice, which was growing ever more distant as he backed away, and she snorted as she turned again, heading down to the aft docking bay.
.
.
"How close are we to completing the evacuation of the Sol?" Madine asked of Leia Organa, having just entered the bridge of the Arcturus.
"Maybe fifteen minutes." Leia assured. Madine had been uncomfortable with Han's insistence on using the DEMP generators but this far, it seemed to be going to plan. The only problem they'd encountered was that residual currents from the surge were causing patchy communications from the assault team onboard the crippled Star Destroyer.
It had been a bold move and Leia's backing of it had no doubt upset the General; were Mon in charge, under similar circumstances she would have taken Madine's advice and surely gone for a more conservative response. Leia could only hope she'd made the right decision; in truth there was no right or wrong here given the circumstances, but she knew that the Captain of the Fury would no doubt have come up against the combination of Mothma and Madine before, so hoped that her distinctive response would at least have the edge of surprise.
"How long since we fired the generator?" she asked of her Ops officer.
"Twenty-seven minutes." The pike-thin Utapan replied, a lisp in her voice.
The DEMPs - the precious DEMP generators which had bought them this opportunity - the first was blown beyond repair, unprotected from the second discharge, and the second was in bad shape. The 'tech who had run all the way to the bridge after he and his companions had finally risked returning to the hold, had chased Madine down as he prepared to board the shuttle to the Arcturus, quoting between gasps that the URG superconductors, which they'd had neither the time nor the technology to calibrate before its discharge, had suffered a 'catastrophic failure ' of their own.
Getting any more information at this point was useless; it tied personnel up running between the hold and the bridge and any description containing the words 'catastrophic' probably meant they weren't getting it back on line any time soon - certainly not in time to turn on another Star Destroyer if it appeared - which also assumed that the Arcturus would somehow be able to escape the discharge itself.
A team were now in the Sol's hold, hoping to secure the badly-damaged DEMP and get it onboard a shuttle to the Arcturus, but if it came to the crunch, Leia wouldn't exchange lives for hardware. The Sol was already being set with charges to cover the origins of the two DEMPs and if she had to, if another Destroyer came in... another Destroyer....
Something was scratching at Leia's thoughts, like a distant whisper that she couldn't quite make out, like a shadow at her shoulder... she half-closed her eyes in concentration, trying to track down the hunch, to see into that indistinct shadow...
The though t- the realisation when it finally coalesced and hit her - took her breath away, spinning her about, "Where's the Peerless!?"
"The last known location was close to Nubia Ma'am, with the Dauntless."
"Do we have a contact on-board?" Leia turned to the Intel officer, regretting not having Tag Massa in attendance; the razor-sharp Intel Chief would have known immediately. As it was, there was a pause before the Intel Officer stated, "I believe so. We can check?"
"Do so. Ask Home-one to send out a constant message; we urgently need contact. We need to know where Skyw..." she paused, correcting herself; it was a long time since she'd made that slip out loud. "Whether The Heir is still onboard the Peerless."
She turned back to Madine, hazel eyes wide, voice low so as not to be overheard, "What if he's aboard the Fury?"
Madine frowned, alarmed, "No. he never leaves the Core Systems- you know that."
"What if he did."
Madine was still shaking his head, very sure. "That's impossible. He never leaves the Core Systems."
He said it like a mantra, Leia knew. For all his strengths, Madine always worked on the evidence at hand, and all previous intelligence stated that The Heir wouldn't leave the Core or the old Colony Systems, the latter now officially swallowed up by the former. It gave Palpatine's Wolf a big arena to play in and the Alliance a well-defined 'danger zone'... but what if the parameters of the hunt had changed? What if he'd finally been given permission to range further afield?
"The operation to catch Mon wasn't headed up by Vader." Leia said, very sure. It had none of his trademark behaviour; he was accustomed to having the massed power of the Imperial fleet to back him up and tended to use it in force. This had been too subtle; disguised freighters and small units, relying on subterfuge and surprise rather than brute force. That was why it had worked; they were doing as they always did; watching for Destroyers, watching for a fleet. No-one had thought to look for anything less - why should they?
They'd all been watching the sky for dragons and a snake had slithered up and bit them on the foot. This was creative and Vader didn't do creative; he went for the jugular, he took the shortest route between two points. He had superior firepower and he had superior numbers and he threw them against the Alliance without hesitation. This- this had been...
"Think about it-" Leia said urgently to Madine, "That was a hit-and-fade attack against us at Bothawuii- minimal troops, civilian starships; make your move then get clear of the field of battle. It was an action planned by someone who was used to having few resources, someone used to using any method to gain the advantage. Someone who learned to lay low, make the sting then get out... someone who was a Commander in the Alliance..."
Madine considered the alarming consequences, eyes skipping about the deck before him as she spoke, "Even if that's true, if we accept the possibility that it was The Heir who planned this, there's still no reason to assume that he would be onboard the Fury."
He's on that ship! Leia knew it as certainly as she knew that Madine was stood in front of her right now- she didn't know how or why she knew and she certainly couldn't explain it in rational terms but... he was on the Fury.
And she knew something else as well; he knew they were coming... and he wasn't concerned. In fact - he was looking forward to it.
Leia turned back to viewscreen, attention held completely by the hulking, silent shadow of the supposedly defenceless Fury. Suddenly it didn't seem nearly so vulnerable.
She had to go with her gut on this- she had to. She walked quickly over to the comm station, leaning in to murmur, "Contact Commander Solo- tell him The Heir's on board the Fury."
"I'm sorry, Ma'am; communications are down again." The comm officer replied; "Last we heard, our units were on the Fury and close to the Detention Bay. I'll keep trying."
.
.
For an instant, Han thought the soldier beside him had simply tripped in the poor light and fallen heavily headfirst toward the wall, making an incredible amount of noise as he did so- but as he spun about to try to catch him, Han realised that the ten other commando's who had been close on his heels were also down, collapsing into still, crumpled little heaps in the near-darkness, illuminated by the limited glow of the pinlight set into his earpiece which flitted around as his head moved, their own headlights pointing randomly this way and that as they fell.