Solo Command Page 12

  The turbolift descended for a few seconds. Then the door opened onto a dimly lit duracrete shelf. Beyond it was a drop­off; a few meters beyond that, a wall.

  They exited cautiously, blasters raised right and left. This was a boarding platform for a railway of some sort, the drop­off being a low roadway.

  "And may I say," she continued, "that 1 always enjoyed your holodramas?"

  "You couldn't say anything that would nauseate me more."

  She smiled, her expression still calm. "Though I liked Tetran Cowall more."

  "That makes me feel better. He's a no-talent bag of bantha droppings." Face gestured right and left. "Which way?"

  They gathered where the big captain had died. Janson was on his feet, supported by Tyria, his right bicep wrapped in a thick bandage already stained through with blood, his arm hanging uselessly. There was blood spilling down his forehead, too, and a matching patch on the wall at head height. His face was al­ready graying with shock. Shalla, too, was up. Runt was sway­ing and breathing hard where he stood; flecks of white spittle decorated the sides of his mouth. Seven stormtroopers and the big captain lay dead in the hall.

  The female civilian, whom Piggy called Dr. Gast, led them back toward the incinerator room. Fire from the chamber had spread out into the hall. The air was becoming smoky and flames licked along the ceiling at the far end. But halfway there, Gast turned a toward blank wall and said, "Gast access over­ride one-one-one."

  The wall section lifted like a high-speed doorway, re­ vealing a small turbolift beyond. Gast gave Face a cool smile.

  As they moved, fast as their ill-treated bodies would let them, they passed hatches allowing access into upper floors, tanks where water was stored and processed, power-cabling termi­nals, and equipment housings that were less easily identified.

  Kell stopped beside a heavy metal beam running from the duracrete ceiling above into the duracrete shelf below. He tapped it with his forearm. His hand was still charred, twitch­ing. "Hey," he said. "This is a main support beam, isn't it?"

  Gast,nodded. "I think so. Why?"

  Face said, "Five, no. We can't bring down this whole building. There may be other innocents, other test subjects up there."

  Kell offered him a smirk. "Boss, I don't want to blow everything up. Listen. We just passed a power station a few me­ters back."

  "So?"

  "So if we can adapt the power from that station to boost the signal strength of Runt's comm unit, and patch the unit's signal through this beam—"

  "Then we use the whole building as an antenna." Face slapped his forehead and regretted it instantly as his palm en­countered burned flesh. "Do it. Do it fast."

  At a dead run, Hobbie charged up to where Wedge and Tycho sat under their camouflage covers. "Signal from the Wraiths, Wedge. They need immediate air support."

  Lara and Elassar had circled around, maintaining fire against the now much more distant stormtroopers, reaching the point on the wall where their fibra-rope rig would give them access to Donos's roof, when they saw and heard the approaching TIE fighters. "Just what we need," she said.

  She gauged the drop to the ground below. Not too far, she might land unhurt, but there was no place within a hundred meters to hide from a TIE. Likewise, the nearest roof hatch, its locks and security restored to keep guards and workers from noticing anything amiss, would take too long to open.

  The pair of TIE fighters roared in from the south, deceler­ ating as they came within easy firing range of the rooftop. They came to a complete halt, floating on repulsorlifts, when they were two hundred meters away. One was aimed directly at Lara and Elassar's position, the other at Donos.

  Lara set her blaster pistol down and raised her hands. Elassar did the same. Across the street, they could dimly see Donos following suit.

  They could hear the remaining stormtroopers approach­ ing from behind—walking up at a casual pace, joking, their voices relieved.

  Then one of the TIE fighters dropped as though it were a puppet with its strings suddenly cut. The other rose a few me­ters and aimed over Lara's head, off to the east—

  There was a flash of blue light and the TIE fighter exploded.

  The blast rained fiery bits of metal and transparisteel over the area. Lara felt a bite as a needle of glowing metal hit her forearm, then heat as the advance wave of the explosion reached her. She saw her Devaronian squadmate tumble to the ground, rolling across his dropped blaster as he did so, and come up on one knee already firing.

  Lara dropped and scrambled for her blaster. As she swung it into line, she saw that one stormtrooper was already down, the other three aiming. Her shot took one of them in the knee, bringing him down flat on the roof, and her next shot hit the top of his head. He twitched for a moment.

  She looked around. The other two stormtroopers were down. One had a burn mark on his gut. The other had a crater where his chest should be. And over on the roof across the street, Donos had his laser rifle in one hand and was waving with the other.

  Lara heard the other TIE fighter zooming around out in the distance, but it had to be keeping nearly at street level. What had chased it off, destroyed the other? She looked to the east, but could see nothing in the darkness of the night sky.

  "Good shot, Leader."

  "Thanks, Two," Wedge said. It had, in fact, been a profi­cient proton torpedo shot. He'd brought up his targeting com­puter, gotten a targeting lock on one of the enemy TIEs, and fired, all in less than two seconds. Then he led Rogue Squadron on a dive down almost to rooftop level over Lurark, vectoring so that they weren't aimed directly at the Binring complex. There was another TIE fighter out there, keeping buildings be­tween it and the Rogues to stay off their sensor screens, and it didn't pay to be predictable.

  In less than a minute, they'd have more than one TIE to deal with. He took another look at his sensor board. There, at its lim­ its, he could see a cloud of red targets tentatively identified as TIEs coming in from the south. The local Imperial air base, see­ ing the launch of Wedge's X-wings, had dispatched at least a squadron to deal with them. This was going to be complicated.

  "Leader, Seven." That was Ran Kether, the new pilot from Chandrila, handling comm duties. "Signal from the Wraiths.

  They want us to blow up a specific location so they can get out from a tunnel they're in. And to blow up the area bordered by the comm markers they've put up. They say it's a festering pit of evil."

  Wedge laughed. "They shouldn't let Wraith One on the comm like that. His language is too florid. All right, break by flights. One Flight, Three Flight, vector to the south and pre­pare to engage the incoming eyeballs. Two Flight, blow some stuff up for the Wraiths and get them safely out of there."

  He heard a groan, doubtless from Gavin Darklighter, who was part of Two Flight—and reduced to "baby-sitting," as Gavin had feared he would be.

  "Shrike Four to Shrike Leader, I read two incoming targets, class X-wing. They're staying pretty close to building-top level. They're searching for a lock with sensors."

  Shrike Leader, commander of the squad of TIE fighters de­ fending Lurark, nodded. These were tactics he'd seen before. The incoming snubfighters had sent their squadmates on ahead, flanking right and left. The unseen X-wings would be coming back toward the center now, flying at street level to stay off the sensors, timing things so that just at the point the X-wings came within firing range, his TIEs would come within sight.

  Shrike Leader knew better than to give them such an oppor­ tunity. "Reduce speed to two-thirds," he said. That would throw off the enemy's timing. The unseen X-wings would cross before them, having nothing to shoot at, and provide his TIEs with abundant shooting practice. Either that, or they'd break forma­ tion now, popping up out of the trenches of Lurark's streets, and the Shrikes could engage them immediately in dogfights.

  But no X-wings came bouncing up out of the streets, and the two known targets came implacably on. Shrike Leader frowned at that. "Fire at will," he said.


  A second later; one of the X-wings jittered within the brack­ ets of his targeting computer—and dove, even as Shrike Leader fired. His linked laser shot superheated the air just above the enemy starfighter and hit what looked like a residential building.

  His target was suddenly gone, down into the maze of streets below, as was the other oncoming X-wing—and just as suddenly, six more X-wings popped up from other streets, also on oncom­ ing headings, and opened fire.

  Shrike Leader banked hard, so sharply that his inertial compensator couldn't quite make up for the maneuver—he was thrown sideways into the netting of his pilot's couch.

  Then he felt something like a hammerblow as his left wing was hit, penetrated—

  Abruptly the world outside his viewport was spinning, starry sky, nighttime city lights, over and over, and he could see the laser-heated stump of his left wing falling mere meters away.

  He felt a sickness rise in his stomach, but knew that his discomfort would last only for another fifteen hundred meters.

  One thousand.

  Five hundred.

  Wedge checked his sensor board and smiled thinly at what he saw. The maneuver had been more successful than he'd hoped. Scotian of One Wing and Qyrgg of Three Wing had skimmed along at rooftop level, feeding their sensor data to the other Rogues, who had lined up their opening shots based solely on the transmitted data. As soon as Scotian and Qyrgg had de­tected targeting locks on them, they'd dived to cover among the streets, and the other six Rogues had jumped up and taken their shots. Suddenly the enemy squadron of TIEs had been re­duced by five—three destroyed, two badly damaged and wing­ing away—and the odds were now in the Rogues' favor.

  The numerical odds, he told himself. The odds were already in our favor. "Break by pairs," he said. "Engage and eliminate. Keep your eyes open for additional incoming units." He arced to port, Tycho tucked in tight behind him.

  Lara accepted a hand from Donos and swung from the crawler to his rooftop. Elassar stood on guard, his back to them. "Thanks," she said.

  "Welcome. Any word from the others?"

  She shook her head.

  A shrill whine rose behind them—and, like a landspeeder, an X-wing nosed around the building corner to their north, turning their way, riding on repulsorlifts. It-climbed as it came until it was at rooftop level. The cowling rose and Rogue pilot Tal'dira nodded at them, his face serious as ever.

  "That'll be the lunch I ordered," Lara said, under her breath. She heard Donos snort, saw him struggle to keep his face straight.

  "Prepare to pick up your squadmates," Tal'dira shouted. "South face of the building complex. Don't get too near before we blow it."

  "Understood," Donos said. "Thanks."

  The Twi'lek grimaced, his expression speaking eloquently of how he'd prefer to be halfway across the city where star­fighters were engaged in combat, rather than here chatting to ground-pounding commandos. He lowered his X-wing's cowl­ing and goosed the snubfighter forward.

  Dia leaned in close to Face, so that only he could hear, and asked, "Who is Tetran Cowall?"

  "What?"

  "That Gast creature said she liked Tetran Cowall more than you."

  "Oh." He laughed. "She can have him. He's an actor from Coruscant. We're the same age. We competed for everything. Doth wanted to be pilots. Tested for the same roles. Chased the same girls. He had no perceivable acting skills."

  She managed a slight smile. "He was the one Ton Phanan was going to leave his money to. If you didn't get the operation to clear the scar from your face."

  Face nodded, rueful.

  "I haven't heard of him. Is he still making holodramas?"

  "No." Face smiled. "That was one competition I definitely won. He was a good-looking kid, but as he grew up he got sort of homely and couldn't find work. He hasn't made a holo in years."

  The tunnel rocked and a section of it, seventy meters and more away, collapsed, sending dust and large chunks of du­ racrete rolling down the tunnel toward the Wraiths. "I think," Face said, "that our ride has arrived."

  The Wraiths rode out of Lurark in the back of Donos's new stolen flatbed speeder, lurking beneath blankets that smelled of feathers and avian manure. They lay as comfortably as they could—not comfortably at all for most of them, given the place­ ment and severity of their burns. The city around them was alive with noises—distant explosions, occasional siren wails.

  Lara, handling the comm unit while Elassar bandaged Runt, relayed information back. "Rogue Six and Rogue Five are rid­ing guard over us, staying below sensor level. The commander and the rest of the Rogues are strafing the military base now. They're going to lead off pursuit from the next base out. That means we'll probably be able to climb out of the atmosphere at a fairly easy pace."

  "Good," Face said. "Is everybody fit to fly?" He shined a glow rod from face to face to get responses.

  Dia nodded. Her broken arm was now in a cast made of fast-hardening paste from Elassar's backpack.

  Piggy said, "Ready to go home."

  Shalla and Kell gave him tired nods.

  "Fit to fly," Tyria affirmed. She wasn't kidding; when Face had gotten a good look at her, he found that the only damage she'd suffered was burns that hadn't quite penetrated her boot soles and some charring to the butt of her blaster rifle. When he asked how she'd gotten away unmarked, she'd merely shrugged.

  Janson said, "Just try to stop me." He hadn't cracked a smile since the incinerator, and Face could finally see, in his grim expression and the anger deep in his eyes, the man Janson had to be when flying against an enemy.

  Runt was slow to answer. Then he said, "We can fly. But we are groggy from what Eleven has given us."

  "Just tuck in behind me," Kell said. "I'll get you there."

  "We are your wing."

  "All right, then," Face said. He didn't really believe they could all fly, but their experience and determination made it possible, and he didn't have much in the way of options. "We have one other problem. Cargo." He shined his light into the face of their prisoner, Dr. Edda Gast. She lay on her side, her arms bound behind her, expression perfectly serene.

  "Put her in with me," Shalla said. "Beside me in my TIE. She's not big, I'm not big. We'll dump everything out of my cargo area to lighten up."

  "And if she gets feisty?" Face waved his glow rod at Shalla's right side, which was decorated with bandages.

  Shalla's face set. "Then I'll kill her."

  "You have nothing to fear from me," Gast said. "The worst I plan to do to any of you is negotiate with you."

  "Negotiate?" Face said.

  "For what I know."

  "I think I'll let Nine kill you now."

  Gast shook her head, not apparently offended by his sug­ gestion. "No, you won't. The Rebels—excuse me, the New Republic—doesn't do things that way. That's what I've always liked about you. And you do want to know where Voort saBin­ring came from. Why he exists at all. Don't you, Voort?" She twisted to look at the Gamorrean.

  Piggy merely stared back at her, his expression unreadable.

  "So start talking," Face said.

  "No. You, personally, can't give me what I want. Elimina­ tion of any charges the New Republic might see fit to press against me. Enough money to start my life over again. Protec­tion from Zsinj. I don't think I'm asking too much—"

  "Gag her," Face said. He lay back against the side of the speeder's bed and tried to quell his stomach, which threatened to rise against him.

  7

  They returned to Mon Remonda's X-wing bays, twenty-three starfighters. Some of them now showed new battle damage. Others were flown as though their pilots were drunk or worse. Medical crews were on station in the bays to help ease pilots out of cockpits and carry them on repulsorlift stretchers to the medical ward.

  Two hours later, against his doctor's orders, with his back heavily swathed in bacta bandages underneath a white hospi­tal shirt, Face returned to his quarters.

  Solo quarters. A captain, even a breve
t captain, warranted decent-sized accommodations all to himself. Face felt a tinge of the old guilt, the old feeling that he didn't deserve any such spe­ cial consideration, given the good he'd done the Empire back when he was making holodramas . . . but he suppressed that feeling, burying it under a surge of anger. Ton Phanan had shown him that he needed to leave such thoughts behind. If only knowing what he needed to do were the same as doing it.

  A scritch-scritch-scritch noise reminded him of duties he needed to perform. He took a pasteboard box from a drawer and moved to the table where the cages rested.

  Two cages, each about knee height, each contained a translucent arthropod that stood and walked on two legs. The creatures were about finger height, with well-defined mandibles and compound eyes. Storini Glass Prowlers, they were called, from the Imperial world of Storinal. Ton Phanan and Grinder Thri'ag had each secretly come away from the Wraiths's Stori­nal mission with one of the creatures. Face had found Grinder's when it had been placed in his cockpit as a prank, and had given it to Phanan. Then Phanan, too, had died, and Face had inherited them. But both creatures were male, more likely to kill one another than coexist peaceably, and Face kept them in side-by-side cages.