Free Starfighters of Adumar by Aaron Allston Page A

were on foot in the streets of the city of Cartann, but nearly anonymous—the people on the street accorded them not a second glance. Wedge supposed it was because they were in native dress; had they been in their New Republic flight suits or dress uniforms, he was certain they’d be mobbed. Cheriss moved on ahead of them, politely banished from the current conversation as she led them back to their building.
    “You don’t speak for me,” Wedge said. “Ever.”
    The words originated in a cold spot deep in Wedge’s gut, but Tomer seemed oblivious to Wedge’s emotion. The diplomat merely shrugged. “I understand. But you have to understand that sometimes I can’t let you say the first thing to pop out of your head. Until you know a lot more about the way things work in Cartann, you’re likely to precipitate an interplanetary crisis with an ill-thought-out remark.”
    “Tomer, I direct your attention to the word ‘let.’ You’ve misused it. You don’t ‘let’ me, or ‘not let’ me, anything . Understand?”
    “I understand completely. You’re the one who doesn’t understand. You shot your mouth off tonight and precipitated a duel you immediately wanted to stop. Should I step aside, keep quiet, and let you do that again? Or something worse?”
    “No.” Wedge fumed for a few moments. “We have to work out a way to do this. To work together. But I’m not going to blindly follow your lead.”
    “It would be better for everyone if you did.” Tomer caught sight of Wedge’s expression. “Well, on another matter, what’s this news Janson brings us?”
    “Pilot news,” Wedge said. “Results of some Red Flight betting. And rather than compromise myself with the diplomatic corps by letting you know just how badly I lost, I’m going to ask you to go on ahead. We’ll be along to our quarters after a while.”
    Tomer frowned, obviously trying to figure out how to phrase a refusal, then shrugged. “Contact me by comlink if you need me.” He increased his pace, said a word or two to Cheriss as he passed her, then disappeared into pedestrian traffic ahead.
    “It’s Iella, all right,” Janson said. “She wants to see you. I mean, it didn’t seem to be an urgent thing. I think she was happier to see me , of course. She even asked about Hobbie.”
    Hobbie brightened. “She did?”
    “Oh, yes. ‘How’s old Bugbite?’ she asked.”
    Hobbie’s shoulders slumped. When first he’d met Iella, years ago, on a covert mission to Corellia, he’d been stung in the face by a local insect. Iella’s partner Corran Horn, both of them then investigators with Corellian Security, had shot him down with that nickname. “She did not.”
    Janson’s grin deepened, but he returned his attention to Wedge. “And she did want to talk to you. Underneath the shortest of the flat displays around the plaza where we landed, at midnight tomorrow. You have to makesure that you’re not being shadowed. You can’t compromise her cover identity.”
    “What is her cover identity?”
    “She’s some sort of computer slicer. Hired a while back to develop programs to translate and interface between Cartann computers and New Republic and Imperial computers.”
    “Define ‘a while back,’ ” Wedge said.
    Janson shrugged. “I’m not sure. At least several weeks, possibly several months.”
    Wedge looked between his pilots. “There’s something very odd going on here. I had the impression from General Cracken that a mapping ship accidentally discovered this planet—which had been cut off from the rest of galactic civilization for thousands of years—a short time ago. Immediately afterward, the New Republic was supposed to have dispatched a diplomatic delegation, which immediately discovered that they preferred dealing with pilots, which immediately resulted in our being sent here. Quick, quick, quick.
    “But now I find that the Adumari people have hyper-drives; they even have some hyperdrive-equipped fighters. They’ve