Star Wars: X-Wing VI: Iron Fist

  LETHAL ODDS

  Their arc was nearly complete, and it was obvious that Dia’s report was correct: The landing platform was solidly in place, and the Hawk-bats’ sensors now showed shielding protecting the facility.

  Then TIE fighters and interceptors came up out of the trees, easily a score of them, from points all around the Hawk-bats and the landing platform.

  More than a score. The second flight of TIEs emerged. Wedge checked the sensor board. Thirty-six unfriendlies, three full squadrons.

  Shalla spoke next, her voice subdued even in its distorted form: “We are so dead.”

  STAR WARS: IRON FIST

  A Bantam Spectra Book / July 1998

  SPECTRA and the portrayal of a boxed “s” are trademarks of Bantam Books, a divsion of Random House, Inc.

  ®, TM & © 1998 by Lucasfilm Ltd.

  All rights reserved. Used under authorization.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  For information address: Bantam Books.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-79650-9

  Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words “Bantam Books” and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.

  v3.1

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks go to:

  Steven S. Long, Beth Loubet, Bob Quinlan, Luray Richmond, and Sean Summers, my “Eagle-Eyes,” who valiantly hurl themselves between me and the incoming artillery of my errors;

  All the Star Wars fiction authors from whose work I have been able to draw details, most especially Michael A. Stackpole and Timothy Zahn;

  Drew Campbell, Shane Johnson, Paul Murphy, Peter Schweighofer, Bill Slavicsek, Bill Smith, Curtis Smith, and Dan Wallace, for the invaluable resources they have written;

  Sue Rostoni and Lucy Wilson of Lucas Licensing, for their help; and

  Denis Loubet, Mark and Luray Richmond, my roommates, for keeping me in realspace whenever my brain threatened to make the jump to hyperspace.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Acknowledgments

  Dramatis Personae

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  About the Author

  Also by this Author

  Introduction to the Star Wars Expanded Universe

  Excerpt from Star Wars: X-Wing: Solo Command

  Introduction to the Old Republic Era

  Introduction to the Rise of the Empire Era

  Introduction to the Rebellion Era

  Introduction to the New Republic Era

  Introduction to the New Jedi Order Era

  Introduction to the Legacy Era

  Star Wars Novels Timeline

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  The Wraiths

  Commander Wedge Antilles (Leader, One) (human male from Corellia)

  Lieutenant Wes Janson (Three) (human male from Taanab)

  Lieutenant Myn Donos (Nine) (human male from Corellia)

  Lieutenant Garik “Face” Loran (Eight) (human male from Pantolomin)

  Lieutenant Kell Tainer (Five) (human male from Sluis Van)

  Hohass “Runt” Ekwesh (Six) (Thakwaash male from Thakwaa)

  Ton Phanan (Seven) (human male from Rudrig)

  Voort “Piggy” saBinring (Twelve) (Gamorrean male from Gamorr)

  Tyria Sarkin (Eleven) (human female from Toprawa)

  Castin Donn (Two) (human male from Coruscant)

  Shalla Nelprin (Ten) (human female from Ingo)

  Dia Passik (Four) (Twi’lek female from Ryloth)

  Lara Notsil (Thirteen) (human female from Aldivy)

  Rogue Squadron Support Personnel

  Cubber Daine (human male from Corellia, squad mechanic)

  Chunky (Tyria’s R5 unit)

  Gate (Wedge’s R5 unit)

  Squeaky (3PO unit, squadron quartermaster)

  Tonin (Lara’s R2 unit)

  Vape (Face’s R2 unit)

  New Republic Military

  Colonel Atton Repness (human male from Commenor)

  Captain Onoma (Mon Calamari male from Mon Calamari)

  Captain Valton (human male from Tatooine)

  Zsinj’s Forces

  Warlord Zsinj (human male from Fondor)

  General Melvar (human male from Kuat)

  Captain Todrin Rossik (human male from Coruscant)

  Captain Vellar (human male)

  Captain Netbers (human male)

  Captain Raslan (human male)

  Lieutenant Bradan (human female)

  The Hawk-bats

  General Kargin (human male)

  Captain Seku (Twi’lek female from Ryloth)

  Lieutenant Dissek (human male from Alderaan)

  Lieutenant Kettch (Ewok male from Endor)

  Qatya Nassin (human female)

  Morrt (human male)

  1

  He made no pretense at being fully human. He had probably been born human, but now mechanical limbs—obvious prosthetics with no skinlike cover concealing their artificial nature—replaced his right arm and both legs, and the upper-right portion of his bald head was a shiny metal surface with a standard computer interface.

  He made no pretense at being friendly, either. He approached the members of Wraith Squadron as they sat, crammed into their booth, and with neither threat nor comment he snatched a wine bottle from the next table over and brought it down on Runt Ekwesh’s head.

  The bottle didn’t break. It offered a musical toonk sound and coughed up a little wine from its open neck, and Runt, the furred alien with the long, big-toothed face, slumped in his seat, his eyes rolling up in his head.

  Most of the members of Wraith Squadron were pinned in place—with nine pilots crammed into a circular booth built for five, they had little room to move. But Kell Tainer, seated at the opposite end of the ring from Runt, scrambled to his feet.

  Instead of diving toward his wingmate’s attacker, instead of charging with a fist cocked back to punch the man, he slid sideways toward his target, then came up in a side kick that caught the cyborg under his chin and lifted him clean off the floor, slamming him to the bar’s floor.

  Most of the members of the squadron slid out of the booth in Kell’s wake. Other patrons of the bar, human and otherwise, also rose, their expressions suggesting they were unclear on whether to join in this traditional form of bar entertainment.

  Commander Wedge Antilles, the squadron’s leader, stayed put. He turned toward the squadron medic, Ton Phanan—the man with the mocking manner, well-trimmed beard and mustache, and prosthetic plate over the left side of his head. “How is he?”

  Phanan shook his head as he delicately moved his fingers across Runt’s skull. “I don’t think anything’s cracked. He’s probably just concussed. You knew he had a hard head.”

  The cyborg was up now. He and Kell were an odd contrast. Th
e cyborg looked like a fatal skimmer-and-pedestrian accident whose remaining parts had been cobbled together by an insane mechanic, while Kell, with his classic blue eyes and sculpted features, his formidable height and obvious conditioning, looked like a holoposter for military recruitment. But their smiles were identical: humorless, cold, threatening.

  The cyborg reached into the next booth, past bar patrons who shrieked and ducked away, and yanked free the table bolted to the floor. He hauled it backward, then swung it faster than any human could manage, but Kell ducked forward, rolled under the table, came up on his feet a mere hand span in front of the cyborg, and planted one-two-three blows in his attacker’s gut. The cyborg staggered backward and Kell lashed out with a foot, kicking the table from his fingers with an ease that made the move look casual.

  The other bar patrons seemed to settle on a consensus: They held back and began putting down bets. Wedge nodded over the wisdom of that choice. Though the Wraiths were in civilian clothes, it was obvious they were in good condition, and for all the patrons knew, Kell might be only typical of their fighting skill rather than one of their best hand-to-hand fighters.

  Piggy, the Gamorrean pilot, leaned back against the Wraiths’ table to watch the proceedings—to the extent that the semipermanent smoky haze hovering at chest level and above permitted easy viewing. He glanced over his shoulder at Runt. “Is he hurt?” His voice emerged both as incomprehensible grunts and as electronic words, the latter being emitted by a nearly invisible speaker implanted in his throat.

  “Everybody asks that,” Phanan complained. Through with his examination of Runt’s skull, he now shone a small light into Runt’s eyes one by one. “Nobody ever says, ‘What a mess! I hope the doctor is not emotionally harmed by having to deal with it.’ He’s coming around. He’ll probably be dizzy for a few days. I need to look up information on how his species deals with concussions.”

  The cyborg’s next punch, the second part of a skillful one-two combination, connected with Kell’s midsection. The big man spun as he was hit, diminishing the punch’s power, and used that spin to add force to his reply, a snap kick. The cyborg took it in the sternum and staggered back, looking outraged. Kell bent over, holding his stomach where hit, and then straightened, obviously in pain.

  Then the bar was filled with uniforms—a stream of men and women pouring in the main entrance, dressed in the distinctive outfit of New Republic Military Police.

  Wedge sighed. “As deep as we are, they arrived pretty quickly.”

  Phanan held a small rose-colored vial full of liquid under Runt’s broad, flat nose. The nonhuman’s nostrils flared and he jerked, reflexively trying to get away from the smell. “Easy, Runt,” he said. “We’re about to go somewhere you can relax for a few hours. In the company of some charming people, too, I’ll bet.”

  Wedge grinned.

  The military police led them out of the smoke-filled bar into the only slightly less oppressive atmosphere of street-level Coruscant. It was raining, a steady spray of liquid that felt like three-quarters rainwater and one-quarter vehicle lubricant. Wedge looked up, trying to spot some distant speck of color representing Coruscant’s sky, but all he could see were clifflike building sides rising to infinity. Awnings, high roads, bridges between skyscrapers, and other obstacles blocked out any glimpse of clouds far above, yet still the rain came down, much of it probably runoff from rain gutters, vents, and flues far above.

  Tyria Sarkin, the slender woman with the blond ponytail, grimaced. “It would be nice to be posted to a clean world next,” she said. Then she saw the military policemen gesturing toward the waiting skimmer, a slab-sided model without viewports, used to transport prisoners, and she obligingly followed the other Wraiths in that direction. Phanan, supporting the still-dizzy Runt, fell in behind her, and Wedge and the cyborg who had caused all the trouble brought up the rear.

  Toward the front, Face Loran, the once-handsome actor whose face was now creased by a livid scar from his left cheek to his right forehead, noted the nameplate on the nearest MP. “Thioro,” he said. “That’s a Corellian name, isn’t it?”

  The officer nodded. “I’m from Corellia. Born and bred.”

  Face turned back toward Wedge and smiled. “Ah. Just like our reception committee back on M2398, eh, Commander?”

  Wedge managed not to stiffen. The “reception committee” on the moon of System M2398’s third planet had not been made up of Corellians. It had, in fact, been a trap, an invitation to land that turned out to be a fatal ambush. Wedge nodded. “Just like it, Face. And just like then, I’m your wing.”

  Wedge saw casual little glances exchanged between the Wraiths and knew they had all just become alert and ready—except, perhaps, the dazed Runt. Face hadn’t been Wedge’s wingman at the time. Face now knew Wedge was waiting for his move.

  Face walked a little faster within the crowd of Wraiths, until he was at the front of the double line of prisoners, immediately behind the first pair of military policemen. He reached the rear of the prisoner skimmer, nodded at their gesture to board—and struck, slamming his fist into the throat of one MP, jumping on the other.

  Wedge saw Kell strike out almost instantly, his side kick connecting with the side of his guard’s knee—and saw that joint bend sideways, a direction it was never meant to take. That guard screamed and fell.

  No time to watch things unfold—Wedge heard blaster pistols clearing leather behind him. He grabbed the cyborg and swung around, hauling the startled assailant into position between him and the guards.

  The guards fired, their blasters converging on the cyborg’s chest, charring it black. Steam and the smell of scorched flesh rose from the wound. Wedge shoved the fatally wounded cyborg into the guards, continued pushing, bowled them over—and saw one guard’s blaster go skidding across the duracrete of the sidewalk. He dove after it.

  Noises he knew well: the whuff Piggy the Gamorrean made whenever he struck at someone in practice, followed by the impossibly loud, meaty noise his fist always made when it hit. Two blaster shots in quick succession. A howl from Runt. The man with the broken leg still screaming. Shrieks from passersby and the clatter of their feet as they retreated from the danger zone.

  Wedge got his hand on the blaster, swung around, snapped off a quick shot that took his other guardsman, now rising, in the throat and threw him back to the grimy duracrete. That gave Wedge a clear view of the impromptu battlefield, Wraiths struggling with military policemen.

  “Nobody move!” That was Ton Phanan, miraculously unharmed, holding the blaster rifle previously owned by one of their captors—that man, Wedge saw, was staggering away, his eyes glassy, his hands clutching his own throat, trying futilely to arrest the tide of blood seeping between and around his fingers.

  The MPs paused, saw the gun aimed at them … and, one by one, relaxed to drop their arms or ceased struggling with the Wraiths.

  Face Loran, his voice in a reasonable tone Wedge knew to be forced, answered, “He didn’t walk like a Corellian.”

  They were now in a debriefing room in Starfighter Command Headquarters, a room as spotlessly white and clean as the bar and street had been filthy. A colonel Wedge didn’t know was conducting the interview, but Admiral Ackbar, commander-in-chief of New Republic military operations, was also seated at the interrogators’ table. Though Ackbar was a Mon Calamari, a species with huge, rubbery features that seemed more fishlike than humanlike, he was a friendly presence in Wedge’s estimation.

  “That’s not enough justification to attack someone with proper credentials,” the colonel said.

  Face stiffened. “Respectfully, sir, it is when I’m correct.”

  “Don’t be preposterous. You can’t classify a man’s homeworld just by looking at him.”

  “Yes, I can, sir.”

  The colonel, a middle-aged man with a face creased by too many years of waging war against the Empire, looked dubious. But without speaking, he stood, walked backward from the table, and then walked back and for
th a half-dozen paces.

  “Hard to say,” Face said. “If you had any distinctive walking mannerism from your homeworld, you erased it with military training. At Vogel Seven, if I’m not mistaken. I’d say that you were injured at some time in the past and had to learn to walk again—or maybe it was a disfigurement at birth, corrected by surgery? I can’t really tell.”

  The colonel resumed his seat. Surprise was evident on his face. “Correct on both counts. How do you do that?”

  “Well, I was an actor. On top of that, I’m trained to recognize, analyze, and assume physical mannerisms—just as I am with vocal mannerisms and a dozen other things. More importantly, I lived several years on Lorrd, where my family is originally from. The Lorrdians practically invented the art of conscious communication through body language.”

  Ackbar finally spoke up, his voice a not-quite-human rumble. “You admit, Colonel, that Lieutenant Loran is capable of recognizing when someone’s physical mannerisms do not match his professed planet of origin?”

  The colonel considered. “Well, it’s low for a statistical sampling, but I’d say he demonstrates considerable skill in that regard.”

  “Between that,” Face said, “and the speed with which the MPs reached the bar—which, I remind you, is close to bedrock level, and not a place sensible New Republic military personnel are usually near—I concluded that it was a deception. The cyborg was trotted out to start the trouble and make an MP arrest look legitimate; many pilots have been run into jail while on leave exactly this way.”

  The colonel ignored the statement and turned to Phanan. “You defused the situation by putting down one of the ersatz military policemen and seizing his weapon.”

  Wedge saw Phanan struggling with a reply—probably something to the effect of the colonel being able to recognize simple facts when they played out under his nose—but restraining himself. Phanan merely said, “Yes, sir.”

  “That man died. Trachea cut, carotid artery cut. Yet the commander here says the MPs disarmed you before leading you out of the bar. What did you use?”