by Jason Fry
Star Wars
Star Wars Insider
N 132
The Guns of Keldoro-Ai
by Jason Fry,
art by John Van Fleet
uploaded 3.III.2012
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Steniplis Sector, Outer Rim Territories, 17 BBY
All things considered, Shea Hublin didn’t like the planet Kelrodo-Ai very much.
The volcanic world’s thin soil was broken by outcroppings of black rock pitted with holes, the air left an acrid taste on the tongue, and the light was yellow and harsh.
Then there were the Separatist clankers salvaged and reprogrammed by their new masters. The Empire had taken control of the galaxy’s central systems in a quick and orderly fashion, but out here in the spiral’s Western Reaches, troops had been few and authority almost nonexistent. Separatist diehards had fled here to make common cause with pirate kings and slave lords, bringing a wealth of hardware with them. Now. too much of that hardware was here on Kelrodo-Ai, tucked beneath a planetary shield.
Shea and the rest of his squadron had dug in at a hastily assembled forward air base beneath that shield. Their mission was to bring down the generators that powered it-generators hidden in the heart of the mountain that loomed across the plains.
The Kelrodoans called the fortress the Citadel of Axes, and claimed it had been their masters’ stronghold for millennia. Now, it was the key to the sector, protected by innumerable cannon emplacements and fighters. Fifteen of the Imperial 77th Wing’s pilots had already died on Kelrodo-ai. Shea knew more would do so.
No, Shea Hublin didn’t like Kelrodo-Ai at all.
But he wasn’t going to say that now. This moment demanded a different message.
He turned and nodded at the holocam operator and the pretty reporter from Eriadu News Service.
“Ready when you are,” Shea said.
The reporter stood beside him, squinting in the sunlight, and turned to face the holocam. Behind them, the squadron’s V-wing fighters waited on the scrubby Kelrodoan turf, traces of Republic insignia still visible on their fuselages.
“This is Eris Herro of ENS, embedded with the 77th Air Wing at Kelrodo-Ai,” she said. “And this man needs no introduction-Captain Shea Hublin, the hero of Deepspace Cimarosa and Feather Nebula.”
Shea waved that away, embarrassed.
“Captain Hublin, the resistance here has been unexpectedly fierce. Can you update us on your mission objectives?”
Shea pulled at the bottom of his tunic as the holocom operator turned and panned the distant mountain.
“Ma’am, I’ll leave assessments of the overall campaign to Moff Tarkin.
I won’t deny that Kelrodo-Ai is proving a difficult target, but let’s remember this: The Western Reaches Operation has restored security and the rule of law to eight sectors so far, with successful liberation operations on 95 worlds.
We are the best-equipped and trained military force in galactic history. And we are the Emperor’s justice. We may face setbacks, but we will prevail.”
“The Emperor’s justice? What do you mean by that, Captain?”
“This has been a lawless region for far too long,” Shea said. “I’ve seen terrible things here: Separatist gulags, slave camps-things that exist because of Republic corruption and Separatist rebellion. We’re here to shut them down. Because we believe in the vision of men like Emperor Palpatine and Moff Tarkin-in Imperial authority and prosperity.”
“Some note there are no humans on Kelrodo-Ai, Captain. They say reclaiming this alien world is a waste of valuable Imperial lives and resources.”
“Ma’am, those people need to remember that we are one Empire,” Shea said. “One Empire in which every species has a role to play, to the extent that its capabilities allow.”
“My goodness, Captain-you’re starting to sound like one of those alien rights activists we’ve interviewed recently!”
Shea smiled.
“Don’t worry, Mom-I’m not going to be bringing any alien girls home for dinner! But no matter what shape we are, Miss Herro, we all love our children. The Kelrodoans may not have sophisticated technology. They may have primitive customs. But they deserve to contribute to the Empire while enjoying its security-and that’s what we’re bringing them.”
“Inspiring words, Captain Hublin,” said the reporter, turning back to the cam. “This is Eris Herro, reporting from Kelrodo-Ai.”
The ENS crew had departed and Shea found a stool, staring across the plain at the mountain and its hidden fortress. Lieutenants Kaal and Starks, his fellow flight leaders, ambled over as one of Sword Squadron’s Kelrodoan grooms shuffled forward, keeping his eyes on the ground.
“Thank you, Fara,” Shea told the alien, extending his foot. “Excellent job shining these.”
The Kelrodoan grunted, black eyes fixed on the ground. Kaal-Scimitar Flight’s leader-eyed Fara with barely concealed distaste, then clapped Shea on the back.
“Good show, Hublin!” he said. “You actually sounded like you believe that One Empire poodoo.”
Shea looked around, worried one of the minders from the new Imperial Security Bureau might be nearby. Kaal was too careless about what he said-and too certain that he knew what Shea thought.
“I do believe that poodoo,” he said.
“Did you know Fara here was a warrior chieftain? Maybe he’s never fired a blaster or been aboard a Star Destroyer, but he got to be a chieftain somehow. Doesn’t that suggest he has something to contribute?”
“We’ve got enough problems without handing blasters to the likes of him,” Kaal grumbled.
Before Shea could reply, Starks jumped in to keep the peace.
“After this next hop, I’m gonna be the holostar,” he said with a grin. “You know, I think that Miss Herro likes you, sir. And she’s not the only one-any more heroics and you’ll be up for a commendation from Moff Tarkin himself.”
“Not likely.” Shea said. “We’re a small part of a very big operation. Moff Tarkin has a lot more to worry about than us.”
“Oh, I bet he’s watching,” Starks said.
“And others too. I could see Imperial Center making you a clone template, sir.”
“Don’t even say that,” said Shea, scowling.
“You’d refuse?” Kaal asked. He looked genuinely surprised.
Shea looked around, and was relieved to see that none of the squadron’s clone pilots were nearby. Only then did he answer Kaal. “They did something to their brains-made them more obedient,” he said. “It’s creepy. Or maybe there’s just something about the idea of other me’s out there that I don’t like.”
Kaal frowned, but Starks was grinning. “Imagine a whole squadron of Starks!” he said. “Hey Fara, you making that porridge for lunch?”
“You don’t even know what’s in that alien slop,” Kaal said.
“Whatever it is, it’s good.” Starks said with a shrug.
“Eggs,” the Kelrodoan said. “Fara must harvest more.”
Before Starks could say something, klaxons started wailing and the pilots looked up.
“Look sharp, gentlemen,” Shea said.
“Briefing in five minutes. Fara -“
The Kelrodoan was already bringing Shea’s boots, scuffing irritably at a theoretical spot of dust.
“I hope Kaal didn’t offend you. Fara,” Shea said.
“Fara did not listen,” the Kelrodoan said, fitting a boot onto Shea’s foot. “You Empire-men are strange warriors.”
“How’s that?”
“You kill without looking your enemy in the face.” Fara said, looking at the sky. “It is a new path to hon
or.”
Shea frowned, but the Kelrodoan had turned away, and the briefing awaited.
“Bandits incoming!” crowed Starks to his wingmen. “Dibs! Rocket! Time to bump!”
As Sword Squadron’s nine remaining V-wings roared across the parched plains of Kelrodo-Ai. Starks couldn’t resist a gleeful barrel roll.
“Don’t go fangs out now, Dagger Leader - you can flat-hat on the way home,” Shea said from behind the gargoyle mask of his flight helmet. “Scimitar Leader, does your flight have objectives logged?”
“Copy that, Blade Leader.” Kaal sounded annoyed. Shea knew Kaal had been at the briefing and read the intel, well aware that knowing it backwards and forwards could save his life and those of his wingmen. Stilt, as squadron chief, it was Shea’s job to make sure no one had missed something obvious. Repeating the objectives so they wouldn’t be forgotten once the shooting started was one way to ensure this.
“Intel pegs the emissions source as a near-vertical pipe behind the dorsal weapons emplacements,” he said. “Confidence level that it leads to the main reactor tops 82 percent. The pipe is 25 meters wide - not much room to maneuver. Scimitar Flight, you’re in rotation for first sortie. You good with that? My flight’s happy to take it.”
“Afraid I’ll steal your close-up, Captain?” Kaal asked.
“You can have it,” Shea said. “Okay, boys, we’re going in-and we’re going in full throttle.”
Shea’s astromech, Cutie, squalled a warning and Shea’s board lit up with the red dots of incoming fighters.
“I count 30 bandits,” Starks said. “Dagger Flight, let’s latch!”
“Remember we’re flying in goo, so maneuverability will be hampered,”
Shea warned.
Laser blasts streaked past his cockpit as the first wave of bandits shot overhead. Shea’s heads-up display showed a motley mix of craft-Vulture droids rebuilt for organic pilots, battered Z-95 Headhunters, and snubfighters he’d never seen before. Sword Squadron’s pilots vaporized four of the enemy craft on their first pass. The others turned sluggishly, wobbling as they pursued the streaking Imperial craft.
“Dagger Leader, splash this vapebait while we cover Scimitar Flight,” Shea said.
“Copy that,” Starks said gleefully. He and his wingmen peeled off to port, racing back to engage the bandits, while Shea and his wingmen drew alongside Scimitar’s trio of fighters.
“Three klicks and closing,” Shea said. “Check your telemetry, Scimitar Flight.”
“It’s all good,” Kaal assured him.
Ahead of them, the guns of Kelrodo-Ai opened up, the concussive blasts of heavy laser cannons shaking the V-wings’ hulls.
“Dial up your SA, boys,” Shea said. “Those are anti-capital-ship cannons - they track slow but they’ll melt your shields in a nanosecond. Take it down to the deck.”
A moment later Shea and his wingmen were meters above the grass, the exhaust from the fighters ripping the thin soil from the rock and leaving massive plumes of dust in their wake. The vertical face of the mountain rose up before them, then shot past in a blur as the V-wings banked sharply upwards. They rocketed past the pinnacle of the Citadel of Axes, then corkscrewed back down through a withering pattern of laserfire. Shea’s life-support systems pumped air into his flight suit to keep him from blacking out, and he grunted with the effort to keep his hands on the stick.
“Objective dead ahead,” Shea said. “Looks like there’s some kind of grating over the shaft. Take it out, Blade Flight.”
“Copy that, Blade Leader,” said Blade Two -a clone whose callsign was Amp.
Shea opened up with his wing cannons and the grating vanished in a blinding flash. So did Blade Three, who’d strayed into the sights of one of the tower’s heavy guns.
“Lost Ahrens,” Shea said with a grimace. “Scimitar Flight, target shaft is clear. Stay with me Amp - we’re their covering fire.”
“We’re inbound, Blade Leader,” Kaal said.
Shea shoved his protesting V-wing through a tight loop, raking the citadel’s gun towers with fire. He had no hope of doing any real damage, but wanted to keep them busy. Below them, Scimitar Flight’s three fighters arrowed through the web of defensive fire and vanished into the open mouth of the shaft.
“We’re in the pipe,” Kaal said coolly. “Any bandits on our six?”
“That’s a negative,” Shea said. In fact, his scope showed a quartet of enemy fighters pulling up and away from the shaft. “What are they
And then Kaal screamed.
LOSS OF SIGNAL, reported Cutie.
“Could it be a sensor gripe, sir?” asked Amp.
Shea cycled grimly through his scans.
“Negative.” Shea said. “They’re gone.”
A pitted Vulture cut across his field of vision, forcing Shea into a loop that ended with the bandit disintegrating.
“Blade Two, Dagger Flight: abort,” Shea said. “Scrub the hop.”
An hour later Shea, Amp, Starks, Dibs, and Rocket were crowded around a datapad, staring at the recording from Kaal’s prow camera. Nearby. Fara sat atop a outcropping, slowly lowering a sharp stick into the rock.
About 30 meters into the shaft, Kaal’s recording showed the gray walls of the tunnel changing to a mottled pink and red, spotted with black dots.
“Rewind.” Shea said. “And slow down the playback. ”
Now he could see it clearly. The walls were covered with long, ropy appendages-appendages that erupted in a sudden spastic fury, filling Kaal’s viewscreen before the transmission terminated.
“Some kind of biological entity,” Shea muttered. “Amazing reaction time.”
“Can’t we drop bombs down the shaft, sir?” asked Dibs. “Or send missiles?”
Shea shook his head. “It takes pretty precise shooting to crack a reactor even when you can see it.” he said. “As for missiles, what if it’s a nonstandard reactor? Or there are jammers?”
“So we land ground forces,”
Starks said. “Take it from the outside.”
“That will take forever,” Shea said.
“And we don’t have forever.” He looked at the other pilots. “Right now it’s a stalemate. We can outfly most everything they’ve got, but we can’t breach their defenses.”
Starks, he realized, was looking off
“Say, Fara, what have you got there?” Starks asked.
“Amp, play it again,” Shea said, annoyed at how easily Starks got distracted. “Maybe we’ll see something. Those black dots on the walls, could they be-“
“Eggs,” said Fara.
“Exactly-wait. What did you say. Fara?”
The Kelrodoan had pierced a row of lumpy black spheres with his stick, and was using his long fingers to transfer them to a bowl.
“Eggs,” he said. “For porridge.”
Shea’s eyes leapt from the outcropping to the distant mountain.
“Where did you get those eggs, Fara?” he asked. “I need you to show me - right now.”
Fara blinked and pointed to the outcropping. Shea clambered on top, followed by Starks, and shined his light down one of the holes. It was lined with pink and red flesh, studded with black dots.
“Stang.” Starks said with a whistle.
“To harvest, you must be slow.” Fara said. “To not disturb the colony.”
“How slow?” Shea asked.
Fara poked the stick into the rock, moving very deliberately. The pilots crowded around him. Fara looked up and suddenly the tube’s lining shivered. A moment later Fara was holding a broken stick.
“Slower than that,” the Kelrodoan said with a shrug.
Shea nodded. “Prep for immediate launch,” he said.
“Starks, you’re with me and Amp on the insertion,” Shea said as the mountain loomed ahead once more. “Dibs, Rocket-splash any bandits who try to follow us.”
Shea yanked on the joystick, stone and sky trading places as he spun the starfighter up the cliff face.
“
Once we hit the pipe, kill throttles and fire brakes,” Shea said. “Repulsorlifts only, all the way down. We’ll have to crawl-best estimate is it’s about 250 meters.”
“Sir, what if there are defenses besides the colony?” Amp asked.
“That’s why we have guns,” Shea said.
“Insertion point’s coming up.”
Their astromechs cut the engines and fired retro-rockets a split-second after the V-wings passed through the pipe’s fringe of twisted, ruined grating. They crept forward on repulsoriifts at a half-meter per second. The eerie silence was unnerving, but the agonizing pace was worse-Shea felt like he was bracketed in a dozen enemy gunsights.
The edge of the colony crept closer. Ahead of them, gelatinous black eggs nestled among pink tentacles. Shea heard Starks murmuring a prayer, and realized he himself was holding his breath. The nose of his fighter passed the first strands. Shea waited for them to whip forward and kill him.
Nothing happened.
He forced himself to exhale. Sweat was running down his face, impossible to reach inside his helmet.
“Cutie, anything so much as twitches, kill the repulsorlifts.” he said. “I’ve got the reactor’s central matrix. Starks, hit the north power regulator. Amp, hit the south.
After impact, the overload spiral should reach criticality in two and a half minutes.”
“We’re gonna have to crawl back out,” Starks objected. “What if that takes more than two and a half minutes?”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t,” Shea said.
The three V-wings crept farther down the shaft.
“I can see the colony’s edge!” Amp said.
“Make sure you’re clear before you throttle up,” Shea warned. ”Cutie, how long did it take to transit the colony?”
All three pilots saw the response:
137 SECONDS.
They were silent for a moment. Then Starks sighed.
“One Empire,” he said.
“One Empire,” Shea agreed. “We’re clear-punch it!”
Acceleration shoved him back in his seat as the engines propelled his V-wing into a low chamber hewn out of the rock, its floor cris-crossed with conduits. To Shea’s relief, they converged on the familiar bulb of a hypermatter reactor, twin towers bristling with circuitry on each side.
