Read Online Razor's Edge: Star Wars (Empire and Rebellion) by Martha Wells - Free Book Online Page B

contact with the Alliance, that they were going to join it, to fight the Empire. My crew discussed it, and …” Her expression hardened. “We felt it was Alderaan’s association with the Alliance that led to its destruction.”
    She spoke the words as if she expected an argument. Leia said, “That is certainly true. Is that why you decided not to join the Alliance?”
    â€œYes.” Metara lifted her chin. Leia’s failure to argue the point had clearly thrown her off her prepared speech, and her tone turned defensive. “We wanted to fight the Empire on our own terms.”
    Leia wanted to ask how attacking traders with no Imperial affiliations qualified as fighting the Empire, but she managed to refrain. “This was a decision you all agreed with?”
    She wanted to find out if there had been any dissent among the crew at that point. From the way Terae and Kelvan both looked at Metara to see what their response should be, she felt the answer was probably no.
    Terae said, “If Alderaan had kept to its principles of peace and neutrality, the Empire would not have attacked.”
    And if the Empire had not been corrupt, venal, and determined to destroy any hint of resistance, the Empire would not have presented a threat to Alderaan’s peace in the first place,
Leia thought. This was not an argument she wanted to have again, but she seemed perpetually doomed to repeat it. Her punishment for surviving, perhaps. “Alderaan was too powerful, too influential. Sooner or later, the Empire would have found a reason to attack us, no matter how peaceful and neutral we claimed to be.”
    She met Metara’s gaze. “And becoming a pirate is an odd way to embrace the principles of peace and neutrality.” She added deliberately, “Pirates are one of the chief suppliers of the slave trade currently flourishing under the Empire.” She had been trying to halt the trade in sentient species since she had first become a Senator, and she probably knew more about it than the soulless bastards who profited from it. If Metara thought she could operate as a pirate and somehow keep her hands clean of the slave trade, she was a fool.
    Terae bristled. “We would never stoop to that! That’s not what we’re—”
    Metara stopped her with a glance. She told Leia, “We have never sold crews into slavery. We do not take captives.”
    â€œThen what do you do with the people left alive on the ships you target?”
    The question hung in the air a moment. Then Metara said, “We leave them aboard. After we’ve gone, they can call for assistance if their systems are too damaged to repair. All we’re interested in are the cargoes.”
    It was naïve at best, and Leia was sure Metara must be aware of that on some level. There were bound to be casualties; the crews of the targeted ships would believe they were fighting for their lives and freedom, and they wouldn’t hold back. And there had to be ships too damaged to repair, for whom help didn’t arrive in time. Not to mention the loss of property that could send small shipping concerns and merchant companies into financial ruin. “It’s a hard way to make a living,” Leia said, an edge of irony in her tone.
    Leia meant that it was hard on the victims, but Metara said, “Believe me, we’re all too aware of that. At first all we were concerned with was survival.”
    Han said suddenly, “There are a lot of jobs you could take on with a ship like this. Hauling freight or guarding merchant trade routes in backwater systems is boring, but you can live on it.”
    Leia didn‘t glance at him. She knew that pirates often preyed on smugglers the same way they preyed on legal shipping, and that it was likely that Han had had personal experience with their depredations. And Han had had to scramble to make a living in the murkier margins of the galactic trade routes;