"Whistler, get me the Delight again."

"Nootka here, X-wing."

"Captain, this guy on me is good. Kill your shields and tell your gunner to shoot high."

"We just got our shields back."

"I know. Kill your shields."

"I do not understand."

"You will."

Corran rolled the fighter out to port, then kept a light hand on the stick. Nudging it left and right, up and back, he made the X-wing dance almost unpredictably. After every third or fourth move, when the ship had drifted to port, he'd push the stick down, then up right and right again. He'd level out and fly straight for a couple of seconds, then after that the random pattern would begin again.

When he saw the TIE begin to anticipate his pattern, corran pulled the X- wing back through a big loop and dove straight in on an intercept course for the Delight. "Full shields aft, Whistler." Corran dipped and jerked the fighter through its pattern. Laser fire came in from the Delight, passing over his ship, but only by a margin of decimeters.

The TIE kept to Corran's tail as the X-wing turned and swooped down into a run that took it from bow to stern on the Delight. The TIE came in tight and sank below the level of the ship's fire. He's low enough to strike sparks! This Imp's very good. Corran smiled. I gotta hope I'm better.

As Corran's pattern ended, the X-wing drifted into a gentle glide along the Delight's spine. The TIE dropped in behind him and lined up for a shot. The first laser blasts hit the X-wing's aft shield and rocked Corran in the cockpit. Now or never!

Corran killed his thrust and cut his repulsorlift drives in at full strength. Acceleration jammed him down in the cockpit couch as the X-wing bounced up and away from the freighter's mass. The TIE starfighter shot through beneath the X-wing, pulling up abruptly to miss the freighter's engine cowling.

Punching the throttle forward and killing the lift drives, Corran sailed in on the TIE's aft. His targeting box went green. He pulled the trigger and filled the last TIE with laser fire.

The scarlet energy darts shredded the ship, puncturing the cockpit and melting their way through the twin ion engines. The TIE exploded brilliantly. The glittering plasma sphere burned like a star going nova, then im-ploded, leaving the void in its wake.

"X-wing, this is Delight. May we put our shields back up?"

"Affirmative, Delight." Corran smiled. "Captain Nootka, have you got a course plotted out of here?"

"We have a course, X-wing."

"If you don't mind, I'll slave my navigation to yours and tag along.

After all, I still owe you for the debris extractor."

"Consider the debt paid, X-wing, but come on along."

Corran heard gratitude in the Duros captain's voice.

"This adventure will be a tale to tell, and I would have you there when I first tell it."

Prefect Mosh Barris bowed graciously amid the applause from his guests.

The series of bright explosions and the spectacular light show of debris streaking through the upper atmosphere had been far more than he expected. If you arranged that on purpose, Eamon, I shall give you rewards in excess of what I had already planned.

He held a hand up. "Thank you, thank you all. I am pleased you have enjoyed how we have eliminated the Rebel threat to Garqi." Bards smiled proudly. "I was the architect of this event, but another carried it out. My aide, Eamon Yzalli. Eamon, where are you?"

"Indeed, where is he?"

Bards' head came up as a sharp voice asked the question from the balcony doorway. "Who are you?"

A tall, hatchet-faced man stooped slightly to make it through the door, then fixed Bards with a harsh stare. "I am Kirtan Loor, Imperial Intelligence. You have been expecting me?"

"Of course." Barris gestured up at the sky, spraying choholl from the glass in his hand. "You came too late to see what happened to the Rebels."

"Oh, I think I already know what happened to them."

The Imperial officer's lip curled in a sneer. "As I came into the system, I was sent a report by this Eamon Yzalli. It indicates you arranged for the escape of the local Rebel organization on the Stars Delight. The report indicates this action was the preliminary gambit in your bid to usurp Governor Tadfin and transfer Garqi to the Rebel Alliance."

Barris' stomach slowly wriggled into a knot. Kirtan Loor reminded him of a young Grand Moff Tarkin, and the resemblance did nothing to stop the fear flooding Barris' mind. "This is wrong. This cannot be.

Eamon must have planned this. Ask him, the accusations are not true."

"I would ask him, but I cannot find him." Loor's blue eyes narrowed.

"An appendix to his report said he feared for his life at your hands.

When I arrived here I read that you had ordered and carried out his elimination. That message came from you, directly, I've checked."

"Yes, but it was all part of the plan, don't you see?"

Kirtan Loor shook his head solemnly. "I don't see what you want me to see. What I do see is a Rebel collaborator with much to tell me about the enemy."

"But I know nothing about them."

"I doubt that very sincerely, Barris." Loor smiled with a cold superiority that weakened Barris' knees and sent his glass crashing to the floor. "By the time your interrogation is barely started, you will wish you knew even more, so you could tell me everything. You will be surprised how much information there truly is in your nothing-and you will learn to dread your punishment whenever you seek to feign ignorance as a shield."

Corran had fully expected the look of surprise on Dynba Tesc's face when she first saw him. "Greetings, Dynba. I'm glad you made it.

I apologize for the rough time the Delight had."

The war between horror and joy in her expression even proved entertaining, though the ultimate victor in the struggle proved to be a stunned look. "Y-you're dead... at least you said you were dead.

You're Eamon Yzalli, but you can't be."

Corran winced as hurt entered her voice. He scratched at his beard for a second, then shrugged. "I'm sorry for the deception. I intended for you to assume Barris had killed me and take off. I knew the TIEs would head out after you. I wanted to use you as a diversion one more time, so I could get away while the TIEs were busy with you."

A Twi'lek walked up behind Dynba and draped a head tail over her shoulder protectively. "The TIEs almost did us in because you disabled the shields. You tried to have us killed."

"Not my intention at all." Corran sighed. "I meant to have a message sent to you that would give you the code to bring the shields back up.

I wanted to blame the shield tampering on Burris and have you protected, but the old fool went and deactivated my message account when he entered his death declaration about Eamon."

Dynba dug a gentle elbow into the Twi'lek's midsec-tion.

"Arali, if he wanted us dead, he'd not have come after the TIEs and given us the code. He still could have gotten away."

"Right." Corran nodded. "Exactly."

"So what did you mean about using us as a diversion 'one more time'?"

"Setting up the Star's Delight's escape allowed me to get the spare parts I needed for the X-wing. I told Barris they had been stolen from storage, but I really just had the guys who helped me load the things put them in the back of my speeder. They were the TIE pilots, so now we're the only ones who know where the parts ended up."

Dynba smiled. "The parts, of course. The phantom X-wing flights ended about a month before the Delight showed up and was taken."

"I needed a debris extractor."

"So, then, you're Xeno. You got us together to eventually steal those parts for you."

"No, I'm Corran Horn, late of the Corellian Security Force." He smiled as Whistler came rolling up and patted the droid affectionately on the dome. "The droid here was Xeno."

Arali's head tails twitched with surprise. "A droid organized our little group?"

Whistler chirped emphatically and corran beamed.

"He worked with me in CorSec. In addition to astrogation programming, he's a fairly good codeslicer and had a facility for putting together sting operations. He was grooming you to get the parts for me, but he didn't men tion it because he knows I don't really want anything to do with the Rebellion and the New Republic."

"It is a little late for that." Captain Nootka came walking over with two Republic officers in tow. "Helping us escape will lead Barris to figure out who you were, and you will be branded a Rebel."

"I don't think so. Barris is in plenty of trouble himself."

Corran smiled broadly. "I once worked with Kirtan Loor, the Imperial Intelligence agent heading in to Garqi. This beard and dye job wouldn't have fooled him, so I had to move. That's the reason this whole operation got put together and involved you and your friends, Dynba. I would have kept you out of it, but I couldn't."

She shook her head. "You may think that, Corran, and may even want to believe it, but I think you couldn't leave us behind to face Barris' wrath if you weren't around to moderate him."

Maybe you're right, Dynba, but there is no true way of knowing.

He nodded slowly. "Loor isn't the brightest of Imperial agents, but he can solve a case when it's handed to him in a package, and the package I left behind neatly implicates Mosh Barris in treason and Eamon Yzalli's murder. I should be clear."

One of the New Republic officers pointed at the X-wing. "That fighter just burned down four TIEs?"

Nootka tapped Corran on the shoulder. "He had the kills, Captain Dromath. "

The other Rebel whistled. "They never got through your shields."

Corran shrugged. "Recharging shields is easier than finding paint to match."

The first officer nodded. "Look, Horn, I heard you say you don't want anything to do with the Rebellion or New Republic, but we need fighters like you."

"I'm not a joiner, Captain." corran shook his head, then frowned down at Whistler when the droid jeered.

"All I want is to be left alone. Your fight isn't my fight."

Dromath shrugged. "Perhaps not, but you're smart enough to know the Empire won't leave you alone. You will fight them, just as you did in getting these folks out of Garqi. If you have to fight them, doing so with allies is a lot better than doing it alone."

"He's right, Corran." Dynba reached out and gave Corran's left hand a squeeze. "The New Republic needs yOU."

"I don't know."

"Not an easy decision to make, true." Dromath smiled.

"Think about this, though-orders came through letting us know Rogue Squadron is being reformed and brought back to active duty. Any pilots who think they're good enough to join are encouraged to apply.

From what Nootka said, you're good enough to at least look into it."

Whistler squawked derisively.

Corran rapped a knuckle on the droid's dome. "I'm better than that, and you know it. I could be one of the hottest pilots they've got. Of course, I'd need a new R2 unit."

The droid's blatted reply prompted laughter from everyone.

Corran suddenly realized, as he heard their voices all mix together, that he'd not heard good, honest laughter in all the time he'd been on the run and in service on Garqi. Among the Imperials and their citizenry there was always something held back, a hedge against self-betrayal. People couldn't let themselves go for fear someone might think ill of them and report them to the authorities.

He thought for a moment. He knew all he really wanted was to be left alone, but Dromath had been right-the Empire would never leave him alone. Even if they were not there directly, even if Loor wasn't hot on his tail, the Empire's shadow would touch him except in places where it could not survive.

Among the Rebels.

In the New Republic.

"As being left alone isn't an option, I guess I might as well choose the folks with whom I have to co-exist." Corran slowly smiled and extended his hand to Captain Dromath. "If I heard you correctly, I think Whistler and I just might have an interest in joining Rogue Squadron."

"It won't be easy, Mister Horn."

"From what I've heard, Captain, it wouldn't be Rogue Squadron if joining was easy. But easy I don't want." Corran winked at Nootka and smiled at Dynba. "Remember, I've just left a backwater world where my droid led a Rebel cell and I helped evacuate enemies of the state, all the while plotting to bring down the military prefect. After that, the only place I'll find enough excitement to suit Whistler here is with the folks who have two Death Star kills to their credit. If I were willing to settle for anything less, I'd be joining the Imperial Navy and thinking it was a good career move."

It occurred to Barris, as guards dragged him toward the interrogation chamber, that his ears had been as deaf to Dynba Tesc's protests of ignorance as Loor's would be to his. It struck him as ironic that his descent had begun when he had done nothing on a world far away, and it would end because he knew nothing on a world far away.

He sought to share this insight with the men beside him, but it would only leave his throat disguised as hesitant laughter, punctuated by sobs.

And, somehow, he knew they understood.

Retreat from Coruscant

by Laurie Burns

Taryn Clancy idly watched a comm clerk notarize acceptance of the datacards piled on the repulsorlift cart beside her.

Suddenly, the background murmur of the old Imperial Palace's message center disappeared under the hooting of alarms.