Star Wars - X-Wing 07 - Solo Command

by Aaron Allston

  Melvar gave Zsinj a little theatrical bow. "Allow me to present Doctors Novin Bress and Edda Gast, from our spe­cial operations division of Binring Biomedical on Saffalore. Af­ter due investigation I decided to bring them to speak to you personally."

  Zsinj folded his hands over the imposing swell of his stom­ach. He noted with satisfaction that his white Imperial grand admiral's jacket was spotless, nearly gleaming; it would be in­appropriate to lead two doomed people before a shabby war­lord. "Doctor, Doctor, delighted to meet you." He was charmed to see the first flicker of hope appear in the older man's eyes; this one would be fun to play with.

  "Ask them," Melvar said, "about missing test subjects."

  Zsinj gave him a blank look, as if struggling to recall some-

  thing of little consequence, then said, "Oh, yes. Doctors, tell me where a Gamorrean and an Ewok might obtain the neces­sary skills—and temperament—to fly starfighters."

  Dr. Bress, the male, tried to catch the eye of his younger col­league. Dr. Gast ignored his attempt; she kept her gaze on Zsinj.

  "Well," Bress said, "they might have escaped from our facility."

  "Ah," Zsinj said. He picked up a datapad and brought up his day's schedule. He'd have a massage in an hour, then sit down to a stimulating meal an hour after that. "It says here that I sent out a memorandum asking about possible test-subject escapes some time ago, and that you replied in the negative. Correct?"

  Dr. Bress flinched. "Correct."

  Zsinj slammed the datapad down on the edge of his desk, snapping the device in two. Bress jumped. Interestingly, Gast didn't. Zsinj modulated his voice to a snarl and allowed some color to creep into his face. "May I ask why didn't you tell me then, when I sent out the memorandum? Why do I learn about it now?"

  "Because we weren't sure," Bress said. "We're not sure now."

  Zsinj stared at him a long moment, then turned his atten­tion to Gast. "I'm not sure I understand this man. Perhaps you could explain a little more clearly."

  "I believe I can," she said. "Might I have a chair? We walked some considerable distance to get to your office."

  Zsinj forced himself to mask the genuine surprise he felt. It took a lot of nerve to make such a request when she should have been wondering how best to preserve her life. He took his first really good look at her. Adult human female in the prime of life, not beautiful but with cheekbones that made her strik­ing and would do so throughout her life ... and her eyes, dark, calm, unapologetic, were unsettling.

  He forced a smile. "Of course. General Melvar, where are your manners? Give the doctor a chair."

  Bress spoke up, his voice wavering: "I, too, uh, could use—"

  "Do be quiet, Doctor Bress." Zsinj waited until Melvar situated a chair behind Cast. He gave her a moment to com­pose herself. "Now, you were saying?"

  "My uncle, Doctor Tuzin Gast, was also on this project," she said. "He was the real pioneer on the cognitive-stimulation side of things. But he wasn't really suited to the project emo­tionally. He became rather too close to his test subjects. He de­veloped real affection for them. Not a good idea, considering their intended use."

  Zsinj nodded and gestured for her to continue.

  "One day, a couple of years ago, there was a tremendous ex­plosion in Epsilon Wing. My uncle and several test subjects were killed. Some were so close that their bodies were incinerated."

  "I remember," Zsinj said. "It promised to be a tremendous loss until Doctor Bress told me that the dead doctor's assistant— and niece—was at the very least his intellectual peer and would be able to continue his work, without much loss of time. And he turned out to be right."

  Gast nodded, acknowledging the compliment without smil­ing. "We reported the losses and continued as scheduled," she said. "Although we discovered some interesting things about the accident."

  "Such as?"

  She began counting items off on her fingers. "First, it was suicide. My uncle mixed some volatile chemicals in a purifica­tion tank and set them off. His guilt apparently had eaten away at him until he could not stand to live any longer. Second, most of the test subjects that had died were those who were exhibit­ing the greatest aggressive reactions under our trigger treat­ments. In other words, they were the subjects who were most changed by our treatments, the most violent—"

  "The most promising," Zsinj said.

  "Yes. The most promising. He deliberately brought them together so they would die with him."

  "You said most of the test subjects ..."

  "There was one exception. A Gamorrean. It had been through the intelligence series but not the aggression series."

  "Its name?"

  She shrugged. "I never met it. It was officially logged as Subject Gamma-Nine-One-Oh-Four."

  "And this subject was supposed to have died in the explosion."

  "Yes," she said. "But the only cellular material we found of it was blood plasma."

  "Which your uncle could have extracted from the creature and distributed prior to the explosion."

  "Yes."

  "Was there only blood plasma found of your uncle?"

  She shook her head. "We found his head and several other parts."

  "How about Ewoks?"

  "Two of the test subjects theoretically destroyed in the blast were Ewoks. They'd both been through intelligence and aggression treatments. We found body parts of two different Ewoks, so we had reason to believe both had perished."

  Zsinj took a long breath. "Well. There's little doubt that Voort saBinring, a Rebel pilot of Wraith Squadron, is your uncle's pet Gamorrean. There is also reason to believe that Lieutenant Kettch, a pilot with a pirate group called the Hawk-bats, is a similarly enhanced Ewok from the program. Tell me, why would both of them become pilots?"

  Gast said, "We found fragmentary records indicating that my uncle had tested the Gamorrean on flight simulators as one way to measure his temperament and intelligence. He could have done so with an Ewok, too. I just don't see how an Ewok could have escaped . . . unless it was a test subject that he had never entered into the records."

  He fixed her with an angry stare. "You could have told me all this back when I circulated my first query. It would have saved me a lot of difficulty."

  "No, I couldn't." She returned his stare calmly, unapologeti­cally. "I never saw your query. I have done my job satisfactorily."

  "That's for me to decide."

  "With apologies, warlord, but you're not qualified to evaluate my performance."

  Zsinj stared at her a moment, then barked out a laugh. "Very good last words, Doctor Gast. But, now, it's time for a reckoning. Your division has failed me and blood must be shed if I'm to feel better."

  He held out both hands and the guards leaned in to place a blaster pistol in each hand. These Zsinj set before the two doc­tors. "I'd be happy for you two to accomplish the task your­selves. That would save me some mental anguish, I assure you."

  Bress looked with genuine fright at the weapons. "Sir, everything you've asked me I've done—"

  "Yes. And now I'm asking you to do one final thing."

  Gast picked up her pistol and checked its settings to make sure it was charged. Zsinj watched her with real interest. She was very cool and might decide to remove him from the uni­verse to avenge her own death.

  Bress, his voice climbing into a wail, said, "Please, sir, so much of the project's success is my doing, my mistakes have been so few—"

  Gast set the barrel of her pistol against Bress's ribs and pulled the trigger. The sound of the blast filled the room, fol­lowed by the smell of seared flesh. Bress staggered sideways and fell against the office wall.

  Gast held up her pistol and allowed Melvar to take it from her. "Now," she said, "will someone be killing me?"

  Zsinj looked at her, forcing his expression into one of rea­sonability. "Shouldn't we? You've been part of a team that has covered up critical errors in judgment. Coming before me as a penitent, you've been insubordinate, even arrogant
. You couldn't even carry out a simple request to kill yourself."

  She shook her head. "Nobody asked me to kill myself. Your unstated request could have been that we kill one another."

  "Nor did you show enough courage to try to kill me when you had the chance."

  At last, she smiled—a lopsided smile full of sarcastic cheer. "Please don't insult me if you're going to kill me, too. I'll bet every credit I own, every one I've hidden away, that if I'd pointed that blaster at you and pulled the trigger, it would not have gone off." She leaned forward and her smile evened out, became more genuine. "Well?"

  He regarded her steadily. "Well, you're correct in assum­ing that I didn't ask you to kill yourself. Why would I? You're blameless. Had you killed yourself, or allowed Doctor Bress to kill you, you would have proven yourself to be stupid and blameless, but fortunately that's not the case. How would you like to do me a favor?"

  "I'd like that."

  "Return to Saffalore. Dismantle the operation without let­ting anyone—and that means anyone at Binring—know you've done so. Send everything to Iron Fist; we'll consolidate the two laboratories. Set up the Binring facilities to detect and then an­nihilate anyone breaking in. Because at some point Voort saBin­ring's squadron mates are going to get permission to return to the land of his birth . . . and that will be a good time to elimi­nate them. Setting all this up guarantees your continued em­ployment within my organization; each dead Wraith brings you a sizable bonus. Deal?"

  "Deal." With her characteristic insolence, she extended him her hand to shake.

  When she, the guards, and the still-smoking body were gone, Melvar returned to stand before his warlord. He looked curious.

  "What?" Zsinj asked.

  "You've instructed her to kill all the Wraiths. One of the Wraiths is an unknown quantity. Gara Petothel."

  "I know. But since the mission to Aldivy went to pieces, she hasn't communicated. Our agent dead, her ersatz brother dead, and no word from her since then ... I'd be happy to arrange for her protection. She has to give me a reason first."

  "Understood."

  "And how goes Blunted Razor?"

  "The operation continues moving. Every day, we retrieve more tonnage of the wreck of Razor's Kiss." Melvar didn't add, "And only you know why we're wasting all this energy gathering up the wreckage of a destroyed Super Star Destroyer." He didn't have to. Both men knew he wanted to say it. Both men knew he wouldn't.

  Zsinj smiled. "Dismissed."

  4

  Flight Officer Lara Notsil leaned in close to hear every word of the briefing, to see everything that floated on the holoprojection.

  She hadn't always been Lara Notsil. She'd been born with the name Gara Petothel, and had worn many others since her adolescent years.

  She hadn't always had downy blond hair cut short, or a near-flawless complexion. Nature had provided her with dark hair and a beauty mark on her cheek. Makeup and trivial surgery performed when she'd created the Lara Notsil identity had rid her of them. The delicacy of her features and build re­mained from her true identity, but little else did.

  She hadn't always been a pilot with the New Republic's Fleet Command. Since her earliest years, child of two of the Empire's loyal Intelligence officers, she'd been groomed to be an officer of Imperial Intelligence. In that role, she'd infiltrated the lower ranks of New Republic Fleet Command, had trans­mitted vital data back to her Imperial controllers and then to Admiral Apwar Trigit. She'd provided Trigit with information he'd later used to destroy Talon Squadron, an X-wing unit led by Myn Donos.

  And now she fought beside the Rebel pilots who'd once been her enemies. It had originally been a deception, another infiltration, but was so no longer; it was where she wanted to be, what she wanted to do. But she also fought against the growing certainty that someday her fellows would learn her true identity, learn what she had done before she'd come to ac­cept their outlook on the way the galaxy's sapient species should determine their destinies. When they learned who she was, they would reject her, and they would probably kill her.

  Until then, she'd do whatever she could to keep them alive. To help them win. Soon, she'd confess all to her commander, Wedge Antilles, and he'd use her knowledge to help bring Zsinj to ruin.

  Soon.

  She shook away these distracting thoughts and forced her­self to listen to her commander's words.

  "Wraith Squadron," Wedge said, "has an admirable his­tory of executing missions on its own, with minimal support... or no support at all. Let's assume that Zsinj has come to this realization. What we're going to do is change the rules on him. The Wraiths will be going in with their usual tactics . . . but they'll have a little support standing ready. By which I mean Rogue Squadron."

  Several of the Wraiths made appreciative comments, but Gavin Darklighter of the Rogues made a face. "Now we're baby-sitters," he said.

  Face shot him an amused look. "What if we light up a tar­get for you baby-sitters to hit?"

  "A real target," Gavin said. "Not just some defenseless motor pool or repair facility."

  "A real target," Face said. "Something that shoots back."

  Gavin schooled his face into an expression resembling dig­nity. "Then I'll be content to baby-sit. This time."

  "Are you through?" Wedge asked. There was no censure in his voice, but side conversations quieted. Gavin nodded.

  "Good," Wedge said. "Now, the Wraiths have a general agenda. Acquire information on what Zsinj might be doing at Binring Biomedical. We suspect a connection because his fa­cility on Xartun was constructing the exact sort of cell Piggy essentially grew up in on Saffalore, at Binring. When Face, act­ing as Kargin of the Hawk-bats, had dinner with Zsinj, the warlord expressed considerable interest in the story of Lieu­tenant Kettch, a fictitious Ewok pilot with a story identical to Piggy's. This also suggests that the warlord has ties to facilities that perform modifications on humanoids. The Wraiths are to find out what they can about this modification program and Zsinj's ties to it.

  "Piggy hasn't bothered to hide his background. Once he joined Starfighter Command, he became the most conspicuous Gamorrean serving the New Republic, and it became futile to hide where he came from. So our enemies may know we're coming. They probably don't know when. If there's anything left to find, it will probably be protected by standing defenses that have been geared for Piggy's squadmates. Which is one more reason to change tactics when appropriate. I'll hand this over to Wraith One."

  He sat and Face stood. The younger pilot looked very sure of himself these days, Lara decided. Not arrogant, but at ease with what he was being called on to do. That was a good sign.

  "We're going to take our mission in stages," Face said. "Mon Remonda support crews are going to make a visit to an asteroid belt around one of the planets in the Saffalore system and divert several waves of small and mid-sized asteroids toward Saffalore. These will simulate a series of natural meteor show­ers. The Rogues and Wraiths, in our respective starfighters, will be accompanying the third, largest, shower into the planet's atmosphere, which will hit—if our mathematicians get their numbers right—in their polar ice cap, where their sensors are less substantial. We'll fly in ground-following mode from our arrival point to a site near Lurark, the center of their planetary government. There the Rogues will set up base camp and the Wraiths will head on in to Lurark.

  "Our initial goal is to find out where on Saffalore is the fa­cility where Piggy was altered. The way Piggy has explained it, the circumstances under which he was smuggled out prevented him from knowing where he'd been held, though he suspected that it was within a few hundred kilometers of Lurark, if not in the city itself. A good guess would be the main Binring Bio-medical facility in the city. But our first step there will be to try to find out what name Zsinj is using at the business end of Bin-ring Biomedical. A simple check on their planetary net or a visit to whatever they use for a central business registry office ought to do it."

  "No," Lara said.

  Face lo
oked at her expectantly.

  "I mean, no, sir," she said, and was annoyed to feel herself blush. Genuine embarrassment—how long had it been since she'd felt that?

  "Don't worry about it. Why no?"

  She said, "You've suggested that we need to operate on principles of maximum paranoia. Well, you don't just march in to their records center—or access it via a terminal—and say, 'Who owns this company?' Let's assume they're as paranoid as we are. They might have set things up to flag queries like that."

  'Well, I was thinking more about an anonymous check, or something using an intermediary. Are you recommending that we slice the network and try to steal the information?"

  Lara shook her head. "No, save that tactic for critical in­formation. What I'm suggesting is that we find out whether the information you're talking about is flagged; that fact itself would be valuable to know. We just lead with a safe question— from a different questioner—so we have a standard of com­parison for behavior. For instance, let's say you, Face, decide to make the Binring query. Before you do, I go in, find out the name of a corporation we think is completely straight and above board, and ask the same question about ft. I note what they do and how long it takes them to answer that question, and report that back to you. Then, when you go in—"

  "I have a standard of comparison." Face nodded. "I get what you're saying. If they take a lot of extra time or vary their routine in some substantial way, we know they've been alerted."

  "We also tail you on your exit, in case they decide to do the same thing. We can slip their tail or take him out, but we don't let him follow you."

  "Right. You make a lot of sense. Anyone tell you you're a natural for intelligence work?"

  Lara shook her head, not trusting herself to speak. "All right," Face continued. "If we get that piece of infor­mation, we pursue it to see what else Zsinj might own on Saf­falore—"