Free Rebel Dream: Enemy Lines I by Aaron Allston

arrive.
    “Now, let’s think about soft-style fighting. The Yuuzhan Vong are going to hit us here at Borleias. We need to draw them in, give them some success they don’t deserve, so they’ll grow to depend on and anticipate tactics that we can abandon when we need to. I need a me and I need a them.” He turned to Tycho.
    Tycho took a long breath. “Well, I can be them probably as well as I can be you. And, of course, you can be you better than I can be you. But if you’re them and I’m you, everyone is thinking outside the box.”
    Wedge nodded. “Good point.”
    Lando said, “I’m really lost.”
    Wedge grinned. “A game of tactics, Lando. When they decide to send a serious military commander against us—whether it’s right away or after a few engagements—that commander is going to be analyzing our tactics so he can implement the best strategy possible against them. Inother words, to have an idea of what he’s going to be doing, we have to figure out how much of our thinking and tactics he predicts. So if we can give him exactly what he expects from us, reinforce his prejudices about our strategic skills—”
    “You can abandon them later and give him a surprise,” Lando said.
    “Right. So in our planning sessions, Tycho is going to be General Antilles, and I’m going to be whoever the Yuuzhan Vong commander is, and we’ll see just how far astray we can lead him.”
    “I get it,” Lando said. “In fact, I get it better than you realize. You’re playing sabacc.”
    Wedge considered that statement, his expression thoughtful. “I suppose so. And for bigger stakes than I’ve ever seen before.”

FOUR
Borleias Occupation, Days 4–5
    For the first time in years, Luke found himself facing an opponent whose very nature made him waver in courage and resolve: bureaucracy.
    Meetings were among the most ferocious weapons of his opponent. He would spend one hour, two, three discussing anti–Yuuzhan Vong starfighter tactics with Colonel Celchu and a board of military advisers, then rush to a similarly lengthy, tedious, and tiring gathering with scientists pondering yet again the reason the Yuuzhan Vong and their creatures were invisible to the Force. Luke learned to alleviate his frustration by taking charge of the meetings and conducting them along with other activities—exercise, inventories of supplies, training sessions for the Jedi students aboard
Errant Venture
.
    And yet plans progressed as the Inner Circle formulated the structure of a Resistance that could settle deep into hiding as the Yuuzhan Vong came and could then spring up to gut the invaders when the time arrived.
    Similar in structure to the Jedi underground that Leia and Han had been organizing, the Resistance would be broader in nature and greater in numbers. The Inner Circle would land one or more trusted members on every world it could. Those members would set up Resistancecells of personnel. Each cell would set up more cells. No member of a cell would know the identities of more than two Resistance members outside his or her own cell, the better to contain damage if a cell were to be compromised. Each cell would try to establish a base that the Yuuzhan Vong could not find, a place to store vehicles, weapons, tools, droids, anything that the Resistance would need when the time came to return the fight to the Yuuzhan Vong.
    The existence of the Inner Circle was known throughout Wedge’s fleet group and nicknamed the Insiders, but it was commonly believed that it was a board of military advisers. Its true purpose remained a secret.
    Luke offered what knowledge and tactics he could, and it turned out to be more than he’d expected.
    In the years since he’d become a Jedi Master—and for years he’d been the
only
Jedi Master known to the galaxy—he’d searched tirelessly for knowledge about the Jedi as they had been before the rise of Emperor Palpatine to power. Palpatine and his right-hand servant, Darth Vader, Luke’s own father,