Melvar gave him a polite nod and shrug, neither agreeing to nor denying Face's assertion. Dia and Kell handed over their own blasters in a less dramatic fashion.
"The second part of this unfortunate protocol," Melvar said, "is that you must tie scanned for additional weapons you might have forgotten to hand over, because of your habitual wearing of them almost as clothing rather than weapons.
Please."
Obligingly, Face and the others raised their arms and let a stormtrooper specialist run a handheld scanner around them. Face came up clean, then Dia.
Then it was Kell's turn. His accoutrements also failed to trigger the weapons scanner, but the stormtrooper behind him obviously thought his arms needed to be a little higher ; with the barrel of his blaster rifle, he tapped the underside of one of Kell's arms to raise it.
Kell stepped back so that the stormtrooper's barrel pro-truded beneath his right arm. He clamped his right arm upon it, then twisted, simultaneously yanking the blaster out of the man's hand and bringing his elbow up under the storm-trooper's helmet. A slight change to the angle of his attack and the blow would crush the man's windpipe, but Kell instead brought his elbow up into the man's chin. Everyone heard the crack of the man's jaw snapping shut.
The stormtrooper dropped to the floor, his armor clattering. The other stormtroopers aimed at Kell. With admirable aplomb, Kell slowly reached over to switch off the blaster ri-fle's power, then lowered the weapon onto its fallen owner. "Is there a problem?"
General Melvar's mouth twitched into what looked like an amused smirk. "You appear to be punishing one of my men."
"Punishing?" Kell looked down at the stormtrooper as if seeing him for the first time. "Oh, I assure you, no punishment was intended. That was simply reflex. If I'd intended to punish him, he'd be begging you to kill him now."
Face turned back to Melvar. "My apologies."
The general shook his head. "No need to apologize. The
trooper was not instructed to behave this way toward honored
guests. I think a little experience with electricity will do him
some good." He gestured for another stormtrooper to attend
to the unconscious man, then for Face to fall in step beside him. "How much do you pay for this man Dissek's services?"
"I'll never tell," Face said. "If you want to try to hire him away, you'll have to offer him a bribe without knowing my own economies."
Melvar offered a little sigh of vexation.
They landed in a grove of fruit trees less than a kilometer from the charred oval of dirt that now lay where the community of New Oldtown had once stood. It was night, and only the cres-cent of a single moon afforded Lara and Donos any light.
Together, they approached the area of char from the east, where a rise overlooked the destroyed town. Lara assured Donos that a farmhouse had once stood there; she didn't tell him that she knew this only from publicly available informa-tion taken from the community's main computer shortly be-fore Admiral Trigit bombarded the town out of existence. At the summit of the rise, they got down on hands and knees to crawl until the ruined area was beneath them.
What had been New Oldtown was as black as cloudy night. What she could see of the terrain suggested that the onetime community and outlying farms were now a series of charred fur-rows and craters-certainly, the nearest terrain was like that.
In the midst of it all, though, was a house-a prefabricated brick-shaped dwelling of an incongruous blue, cheery lights in the windows. It looked like a cheap dollhouse.
Donos sighted in on it with his sniper rifle, adjusting the range on his sight. He did not speak, but worked with confi-dence and precision. Lara could tell he'd done this many times in similar circumstances.
"They'll probably scan for large life-forms when I arrive," she said. "In case I brought allies. Which I have."
"We're nearly a kilometer out," Donos said. "They might have a scanner that could find me, but probably not. Have you got your comlink to broadcast continuously?"
"No. They're sure to check for that. I'm going in with it off, and I'm leaving it off."
He looked at her, one eye visible in the shadow of his face.
"That's not a good idea. If you get in trouble-"
"If I hold up a fist, it means I'm in trouble. Come to the rescue. If I don't, i have the situation under control."
He sighed, obviously unhappy. "All right. But call for help the instant you feel the situation spin out of control."
"If it does." She hesitated, at a loss for what to say next. His tone suggested that he wasn't just being professionally methodical-he actually cared about what happened to her. She wasn't used to that and didn't know how to respond. No words suggested themselves, so she simply rose and headed down the hill toward the ludicrous blue house.
Castin Donn watched Zsinj's scanner team go over the interior of Narra. The picture on his handheld screen wasn't good-a flickery blue and white, limitations imposed by the micro-miniaturized holocam lens he had set up to observe the shut-tle's cabin-but it did allow him to see which of the cockpit's control panels they popped open so as to install the machinery they'd brought with them. A tracking device, probably. They brought up the shuttle's master control program, too, but didn't spend much time with it-probably just erasing the record of their entry and exit. Not that such a tactic would work; Castin had done considerable work on Narra's systems, so that now what appeared to be the standard interfaces to all shuttle pro-grams were actually a false layer. Code-slicers could adjust those layers all they wished, but their modifications would be trapped and later presented to the shuttle's authorized opera-tors for confirmation or deletion.
The scanning team departed and the boarding ramp rose into place. It was time to get moving.
Castin switched off the holocam and gingerly set the
screen down beside him. Every move had to be precise and
careful. He lay on his back in full stormtrooper armor, the hel-
met tucked in beside his head, and could still occupy only half
of the smuggling compartment. He'd arranged to extend a
holocam lead and a breathing tube out through the scanner
shielding-turning them off while scanning was actually tak-ing place-but the compartment had no other comfort condi-tioning, and he'd been sweating in here for hours. He stank like a bantha in mating season.
Tape held the mirror in place beside him. The mirror was a long strip of reflective material set up to adhere to the bottom and top surfaces of the smuggling compartment at a forty-five-degree angle so that anyone looking in would see the compart-ment's top surface instead of the back. It was carefully situated so that it covered him but led anyone looking in the compart-ment to believe that it was empty at the rear.
Now he went through the actions that had gotten him here, but in reverse order. He detached the tape that held the mirrored material to the compartment's ceiling and lowered it in place beside him. He carefully moved aside the supplies he'd loaded into the compartment, giving him a narrow channel for escape. He flipped the switch that popped the compartment door open, and then wriggled out into Narra's main compart-ment-and into comparatively fresh air. He lay there on the floor for a few moments, gulping in air, then retrieved his hel-met and other gear from the compartment and sealed it back up.
His plan was under way. He had to get out of the shuttle and hangar without the hangar guards noticing, find his way to a full-function computer coupler, slice his way in through ship security, and upload his program-then get back and wait. It would be tough, but he was a Wraith. He could do it.
And days from now, when Iron Fist was a glowing ball of superheated gas or a prize vessel in the hands of the New Re-public, Commander Antilles would be forced to acknowledge that Castin had been right all along.
General Melvar and the Hawk-bats swept into a bridge that was a riot of activity.
A narrow but full-length dinner table, large enough to ac-
commodate twenty people, was set up on the command walk-
way and more than half-filled with diners. Seated at the head of
the table, his back to the viewports now showing the swirl of
hyperspace travel, a vast area of brightness in his spotless
white grand admiral's uniform, was Zsinj. His hands were clasped over his expansive belly, his mustachios drooped rak-ishly, and his expression was one of great contentment.
The officers assembled at his table were engaged in vigor-ous conversation, but as the Hawk-bats entered the chamber they could hear none of it-it was drowned out by the din from the crew pit below.
There, uniformed bridge officers stood their watches with a startling unconcern for military decorum. Some monitored their screens while leaning back with their feet up on their con-soles. Others stood in groups of three or four, eyes on their screens but their attention on their fellows. Several crewmen were huddled close to their screens, absorbed in low-grade TIE-fighter simulators. At one point toward the bow, two stormtroopers were engaged in a vibroblade duel, apparently a friendly one, but their blows still caused deep scores in their white armor.
They were all talking, a jumble of noise that made the chamber sound like a conference hall rather than a ship's bridge.
General Melvar led the Hawk-bats toward the head of the table and had them sit before offering introduction. "Warlord, allow me to present you General Kargin, Captain Seku, and Lieutenant Dissek, honored representatives of the Hawk-bats. General Kargin, your host, the warlord Zsinj." Face offered a seated half bow.
Zsinj finally turned his attention to the new guests and smiled. "Good to meet you at last. Welcome aboard Iron Fist."
Face said, "A formidable vessel. I trust we did not do her too much damage."
"Certainly not. Oh, several such explosions would have been most inconvenient, but our capacity for repair is unparalleled."
Face drew a hand across his brow, an exaggerated demon-stration of relief. "Well, that's cause for us to celebrate. I have no quahns about preying on ground-pounders like the people of Halmad, but-and it costs me no honor to say it-I would avoid earning the prolonged enmity of Zsinj."
The warlord's smile became broader. "It was already obvi-
ous that you were an intelligent pirate-else you would not
have enjoyed the success you did. But before we get to our main subject of conversation for the evening, let us dine."
"Please." Face knew he'd kept all tension from his voice and ma nner, but it was still there, and the meal was one more opportunity for Zsinj to visit some new difficulty upon them- such as poison. If they'd read the man correctly, there would be no such subterfuge here. But they could always have made a mistake in their evaluation.
Lara drew to a stop a dozen steps from the house. She surrepti-tiously touched the butt of her blaster, reassurance that it was still at hand. "Hail the camp," she called out, a standard Aldi-vian greeting from arriving visitors-even when arriving at a vast government building or a rich villa, tradition insisted it be called a camp. "Tavin, are you there?"
The front door slid open and he was there, the human com-plication from her mail message, dark and good-looking, the sort of man who knew his handsomeness was a tool and used it at every opportunity. He beamed. "Lara." He approached her, arms up for an embrace.
She put her palm against his chest and kept him at bay.
"Nothing like that. I don't feel that close to you right now."
His face fell. "I'm sorry. Maybe you will later. Come inside?"
"No. I spend too much time cooped up as it is. I like the breeze out here."
He shrugged. "Well, let's have some light." He returned to his door and switched something just inside it. A floodlight mounted above the door illuminated the charred blackness be-fore his house. "I have someone to introduce you to." "I imagine so."
He beckoned, and a moment later was joined in the door-way by another man. This one was rail lean, dressed in a brown Aldivian farmer's garments... but the fineness of his blond hair, the fact that there were no calluses on his hands, the autocratic expression on his face, and-not least of all-the blaster on his belt made it clear to Lara that this was no Aldi-vian farmer.
"Lara, let me introduce you to Captain Rossik. He has been most anxious to speak to you."
The blond man smiled, an expression that was both beau-tiful and manifestly insincere, and advanced to shake Lara's hand. "I have indeed. Lieutenant Petothel, allow me to con-gratulate you on all you've accomplished."
She took the compliment with a frosty little smile and nod. That was why she had declined to have her comlink broadcast back to Donos; she couldn't have her fellow Wraith hear her being addressed by a different name. "I'm so happy you were at last able to reach me," she said.
"Tavin, go fetch us some chairs and drinks." Rossik re-turned his attention to Lara. "How long can you stay without eliciting suspicion?"
"A couple of days. I received special leave because of Tavin's sudden reappearance, but it's only for a few days."
"Well, your record demonstrates that you're a smart one. It shouldn't take you too long to learn to use the equipment we're going to give you." "Equipment?"
"A special transmitter. It sends very small information packets via the old Imperial HoloNet. Yet it's only about thirty kilos. Costs more than a TIE interceptor. We can use it to track Mon Remonda and put an end to her." "With me aboard."
"No, certainly not. You'll plant it, then on your next mis-sion just vanish and come to us. Then, and only then, do we wipe out that ship."
Lara appeared to think about it, long enough for a surly-looking Tavin to reemerge from the house with chairs for them all. He plopped them down in a semicircle and went back in.
At Rossik's gesture of invitation, Lara sat. "I'm sorry, that won't work." "Why?"
"Security is very high on Mon Remonda. When we return from any leave, anywhere, we get a thorough search of belong-ings. And they never let us know where we are. All mission briefings use code names. We are kept completely in the dark."
Rossik's eyebrows rose. "I wasn't aware that the Rebels
had adopted such sensible security precautions. All their talk
of individual freedoms-"
Lara waved his words away. "A lie. I was never under such close scrutiny on Implacable as I have been on the Rebel ship."
"Well, is there any way to transmit using Mon Remonda's communications systems ?"
"Yes, that could be done." I could lead you right to the as-sembled fleet and watch as Iron Fist is blown out of space. "That's probably our best approach."
Rossik's pocket beeped at him. From it he drew out a data-pad. He glanced at its display and his shoulders tightened up. "Nobody react. I'm getting a signal from the life scanner inside the house. There is someone a little less than a kilometer to our east. That would put him on the first hill that way."
Lara tried to remain nonchalant. "That's my wingman.
He accompanied me here for security's sake."
Rossik gave her a cool look. "Funny you didn't mention it before now."
"It wasn't relevant, was it? He stayed behind to service the X-wings while I came to visit my dear brother."
"Well, the problem is, he's now close enough that he might have seen me. We can't have that. The Rebels have holos of me in their records. You two keep talking. I'll go back into the house, exit the rear way, and circle around to get behind him. I'll need ten or fifteen minutes if I'm to do it quietly."
"No," Lara said.
"What did you say?"
"I said, no. I can't show up on Aidivy with my wingman
and then go back to the Wraiths without him. They'd be curi-ous." She did little to sacrifice the sarcasm in her voice.
Rossik considered. "Very well. New plan. I go and kill your wingman, and then we take you and your two X-wings back to Iron Fist. Right now."
15
Face was actually enjoying his main course, some
sort of fowl in a sunfruit marinade, and idly hoping it wasn't poisoned, when Zsinj asked a question he wasn't prepared for. "Am I mad, General Kargin, or do you have an Ewok pilot in your unit?"
Face froze. He swallowed and hastily cleared his throat.
"What leads you to that conclusion, sir?"
"Intercepted transmissions. Analysis of the vocal charac-teristics of your pilot, Hawk-bat One, suggests that he was probably, though not definitely, an Ewok. But I don't under-stand how that could be possible."
Face shrugged and ran through a mental list of a dozen different possible responses. "Well, he is an Ewok. Mostly an Ewok. Lieutenant Kettch. My most ferocious pilot, actually. He can't really reach the controls, but a somewhat crooked prosthetics expert on Tatooine built him a set of hand-and-leg extensions he can wear, so his height has not limited him in the least."
"Obviously. But I thought Ewoks were far too primitive to handle complex machinery or astronautics theory and prac-tice. Too primitive even to learn an adequate vocabulary in Basic."
"They are. But Kettch was... modified. We don't know where or why it happened. He was taken from the sanctuary moon of Endor as a cub, reared in a laboratory somewhere, and fed chemicals that apparently increased his ability to learn. He's a genius, especially with mathematics." That was, in fact, the true background of Piggy, and Face was suddenly very glad to have it on hand as a resource.
Zsinj and Melvar exchanged a glance and Face suddenly felt his heart race. There was something in their expressions, as brief as that glance was, that told Face this subject was of vital interest to them. What did it mean?
"Anyway," Face contiuued, "he has a very nasty disposi-tion. I wouldn't care to bring him to you even if you'd asked about him in your earlier colnmunication. He bites strangers. I'd hate to have him tear away a mouthful of Zsinj and for the rest of us to be spaced for his bad manners."
Once again jovial, Zsinj turned his smile on Face. "Very amusing. Still, I hope to see him fly sometime. Perhaps even a practice run against our best pilot."
Star Wars - X-Wing - Iron Fist Page 22
