Star Wars - X-Wing - Rogue Squadron

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Star Wars - X-Wing - Rogue Squadron Page 19

by Michael A. Stackpole


  Ooryl handed the Shistavanen wolfman a carbine. "You know how to use this?"

  Shiel's whispered laugh sounded like a growl. "Death marks don't come with the

  rain."

  Corran stripped off one of his gunbelts and shoved it at Gavin. "You can fire a

  blaster?"

  The youth nodded, his face pale in the light from beneath the door. "Don't know

  if I'll hit anything, though."

  "Point and shoot. And shoot. And shoot." Corran looked over at the two aliens.

  "Since you both can navigate in the dark, and since your coloration makes you

  hard to spot, I think you should

  head out and around to the hangar." He passed Shiel two of the spare clips from

  his belt. "We'll work our way in through the center here and try to attract

  their attention. If you get a clue to where their ship is . . ."

  The hall light went out.

  "Uh-oh." Gavin shucked the pistol from its holster and the power selection

  lever clicked.

  "Leave it on kill, kid." Corran pointed to the window. "Go, you two. Flank

  them."

  Wordlessly Corran turned and scuttled over to the door. Reaching up he turned

  the knob and opened it a crack. He couldn't see anything in the dark, but he did

  hear the squeak of hinges farther along the hallway. He touched the medallion he

  wore once for luck, then pulled open the door, stepped into the hallway, and

  fired a burst.

  Two bolts caught one stormtrooper in the chest and tossed him backward into

  another trooper. The dead man's finger jerked his carbine's trigger, sending a

  line of bolts down the hallway. Corran dove to the right, slamming his shoulder

  into the wall avoiding them. Red light flashed back out of the doorway near the

  head of the hall, reminding Corran of the flare in the eyeplate of the first

  trooper he had killed. In an instant the Corellian

  knew the room contained a third stormtrooper and that at least one of the

  squadron's pilots lay dead

  in bed.

  Corran's second burst knocked down the storm-tooper emerging from beneath the

  Imp corpse. Cor-

  ran thought he went down hard enough to be dead, but the little votive fires lit

  in the floors and walls by the stray blaster bolts didn't supply enough light

  for

  him to be certain. Then the trooper in the room at the head of the hallway

  emerged and, as if the

  trooper's mirror image, Gavin came through the doorway of his room.

  "Gavin, no!"

  The farm boy triggered one shot while the trooper filled the hallway with a

  steady stream of fire. Corran hit his trigger and scythed the muzzle back and

  forth across the hallway. He heard Gavin grunt and fall behind him. His own

  shots cut the legs out from under the stormtrooper. The last bolt blasted

  through the square eyeplate and bubbled the armor at the back of the man's head.

  The doors all along the hallway swung open. Nearest to him Corran saw the

  Twi'lek. "Gavin's down. Help him. Stormtroopers are here in the base."

  Nawara Ven stared at him. "How did they find . . ."

  "I don't know. The place is rigged to blow. Get everyone clear." Corran sprinted

  down the hallway, leaping over the trio of dead stormtroopers. He stripped the

  power pack from the carbine and slapped a new one into it. As he neared the

  hangar he heard plenty of blaster fire. The semitransparent plastic strips hung

  over the doorway showed a lot of shots heading out to converge on two points in

  the darkness, which told Corran that Shiel and Ooryl had attracted plenty of

  attention with their flanking maneuver. Shooting coming from either side of the

  door, too.

  Corran fished one of the explosive cylinders from a belt pouch and set the timer

  for five seconds. He punched his thumb down on the arming button. Glancing up he

  located what he saw as the largest concentration of shots heading out at his

  comrades. Six. Looks good to me.

  Corran stepped through the plastic curtain and

  let the arming button come up, starting the timer. He slid the explosive

  cylinder across the smooth ferrocrete surface toward the knot of commandos.

  Three, two, one!

  The explosion scattered the soldiers, casting two up and over the generator cart

  they'd been using as cover. Before they hit the ground, Corran turned and thrust

  his blaster carbine at the stormtrooper hunkered down to the left of the door.

  The burst of laser fire burned through the torso armor, blasting the man out

  from behind a breastwork of crates.

  Spinning, Corran sprayed scarlet blaster darts over the stormtrooper on the

  other side of the doorway. The shots hit him in the chest and legs,

  somersaulting him back through the plastic sheet and out of the hangar.

  Continuing his spin, Corran snapped shots off at various muzzle flashes, backing

  and turning, picking up speed and allowing himself to drift almost at random.

  He knew he should be terribly frightened, but since he had decided he was as

  good as dead before, fear could find no purchase on his soul. He viewed his

  situation with an emotional detachment that surprised him. It allowed him to

  see his entry into the hangar much as he had seen diving into the cloud of TIEs

  at Hensara. / can shoot at anyonethey have to take care.

  Corran's gun came up and the muzzle tracked strobing laser fire over the

  silhouette of a stormtrooper up on the hangar's catwalk. The trooper

  straightened up and twitched, then slowly began a backward spin toward the floor

  that Corran found incredibly graceful. His landing, which was all broken and

  herky-jerky, ruined the beauty of his fall and brought Corran back to the

  hideous reality in which he was enmeshed.

  A laser bolt caught him in the right breast and pitched him into the shadows. He

  landed hard against a wall of wooden crates and stars exploded before his eyes

  when his head hit something solid. He heard wood and glass break and a gurgle of

  a vessel emptying. He hoped it wasn't his body emptying of blood, but the

  shooting pains in his chest and the fire radiating out from the wound all but

  guaranteed he was the source of the sound. A sickly sweet scent mixed with the

  stink of burned flesh and Corran knew he was dying.

  That smells like Corellian whiskey. His mind flashed back to the endless rounds

  of drinks at his father's wake. Each one punctuated a toast or a testament to

  his father by members of CorSec, from the Director on down to Gil and Iella to

  the rookies his father had taken under his wing. At that time Corran had thought

  having such a wake would be the grandest sendoff possible. And now I hallucinate

  the smell of it.

  A jolt of pain left him a moment of lucidity in its wake and Corran clung to it.

  His vision cleared and he saw laser bolts burning in all directions through the

  darkness. He tried to lift his own carbine, but he couldn't feel its weight in

  his hand. He decided to draw the blaster pistol, which was when he discovered

  his right arm wasn't working so well.

  That realization came a second or two before the laser fire silhouetted a

  stormtrooper seeking cover nearby.

  Corran willed his body to sink into the ferrocrete, but nothing happened.

  The stormtrooper swept something
aside with a foot and Corran heard the clatter

  of the carbine against an unseen crate. He tried to lever himself up with his

  left arm, but the pain in the right side of his

  chest stopped him. He found himself short of breath. My lung. Collapsed.

  The stormtrooper lowered his carbine, giving Corran a good view of the muzzle.

  "It's over for you, Rebel scum."

  "You, too, little stormie." Corran raised his left hand but kept his thumb

  pressed on the end of the explosive cylinder he'd eased from the pouch on his

  belt. "I die and it blows."

  The stormtrooper hesitated for a second, then shook his head. "Nice try. You're

  holding the wrong end."

  Blaster whine filled the crate-lined cul de sac and Corran flinched

  involuntarily. He thought flinching was a bad way to die, then he realized that

  the dead are seldom that vain. Above him the stormtrooper's body wavered, then

  buckled at the knees and crashed down beside him. The hole in the back of his

  armor sparked and smoked.

  Wedge came running up and dropped to one knee beside Corran. "How are you doing,

  Mr. Horn?"

  "Parts of me don't hurt that much."

  Wedge smiled. "Hang tight. The stormies are withdrawing. Medic!"

  "Bombs."

  "I know. We're finding and disarming them."

  Corran smiled and tried to take a deep breath. "Gavin?"

  "Bad, like you. We're already getting set to evacuate."

  "I'm as good as dead." He winced. "I'm so far gone I smell Corellian whiskey."

  "You do smell Corellian whiskey, Corran. You're lying in a puddle of it." Wedge

  frowned. "The crate that broke your fall is full of Whyren's Reserve."

  "What? How?"

  Wedge shook his head as Emdee droids toddled over. "I don't know. Consider

  solving that mystery your assignment while you recover from your wounds."

  19

  Wedge Antilles watched as Gavin Darklighter and Corran Horn floated all but

  lifeless in bacta tanks. Seeing them there brought back memories of the time he

  had spent in such a tankit hadn't been aboard the Reprieve but on Home One,

  Admiral Ackbar's flagship at Endor. He'd been barely conscious during his time

  in the tank, which he saw as a blessing. Being awake and thinking while being

  able to do nothing would have driven him insane.

  "Your pilots have improved, Commander Antilles?"

  Wedge turned and blinked his eyes in surprise. "Admiral Ackbar? What are you

  doing here, sir?"

  The Mon Calamari clasped his hands at the small of his back. "I read your report

  and found it disturbingly clinical. I decided I wanted more information."

  Wedge nodded. "There wasn' t much time to prepare the report."

  "And you have never really liked datapadding."

  "No." Wedge rubbed a hand over his face and discovered a fair amount of stubble

  on his chin and

  jaw. How long has it been since I slept? "You could have requested a

  supplemental report, or asked me to report to you aboard Home One and saved

  yourself the trip."

  "I thought of that, but I knew another report from you would be light in bytes

  and that you would refuse to leave your people, so I chose to save myself the

  annoyance." Ackbar stared through the viewport at the two men in the tank.

  "Besides, the tone of the Provisional Council meetings is beginning to wear on

  me. The fate of Rogue Squadron is important enough that I was able to slip away

  without being accused of running."

  The Corellian looked over at his commander. "Are things that acrimonious?"

  "I probably exaggerate. Politicians tend to view soldiers like their pet

  Cyborrean battle dogs."

  "And soldiers don't like to be considered pets."

  Ackbar's barbels twitched slightly. "Since we are the ones who get bitten and

  bleed and die, we tend to resist plans that are politically expedient but

  militarily suicidal." He tapped his hand against the viewport. "Is the picture

  of what happened there any more clear?"

  "Not yet. The basics are the samethree pilots seriously wounded, one dead, and

  all six sentries dead. A number of others have cuts and scrapes. It should have

  been much worse but it looks as if the stormtroopers wanted to plant the

  explosives, withdraw, then arm and detonate them by remote. Had they just put

  them on timers we would have lost equipment and people before we found them all.

  A full platoon was operating on Talasea. We got all of them and captured the

  Delta DX-9 Transport they came in on."

  "Hardly worth the cost, but a good thing, nonetheless."

  Wedge nodded. "The ones we capturedtwo stormtroopers and all five of the

  transport's crew refuse to talk. I have them in detention, isolated from each

  other. I've had an Emdee-oh and Emdee-one droid engaged in postmortems of the

  troopers we killed. With luck something will give us an idea where they came

  from."

  "And Talasea was evacuated?"

  "Yes, sir. We expect Imperials to come looking for whatever got their people, so

  we set up some booby traps and other surprises for whoever follows us in there."

  Wedge sighed heavily. "I have a list of what we left behind in case we ever have

  cause to go back."

  The Mon Calamari nodded slowly. "What is the mood of your unit?"

  Wedge turned and pressed his back against the cool transparisteel. He just

  wanted to close his eyes and go to sleep, and he feared he'd do just that if he

  did close his eyes. "We're all stunned and exhausted. Losing Lujayne came as a

  shock. She wasn't the best pilot in the unit, and not one to take chances, so

  none of us had her pegged as someone who would die first. Corran or Bror or

  Shiel were easy to picture going out in a blaze of gloryand Corran almost

  did. Lujayne was a fighter, so having her die in her sleep was, well, it just

  made it worse. She was murdered, not killed in combat, and I guess I thought we

  were somehow immune to that sort of ignominious death."

  He shook his head. "That makes no sense, of course."

  Ackbar patted him on the shoulder. "It does make sense. We know war is barbaric,

  but we try not to be barbaric in waging war. We hold ourselves to a high

  standard that demands we only attack legitimate military targetsnot civilians,

  not medical

  frigates. We would like to see this honor we demand of ourselves reflected in

  the actions of our enemies."

  "But if they were as honorable as we are, we'd not be fighting this war."

  "And in that, Commander Antilles, you have the core of the whole problem." The

  Mon Calamari paced away from the viewport. "When will your people be out of the

  tanks?"

  Wedge glanced down at his chronometer. "Twelve hours more for Horn and

  Darklighter, another twenty-four to forty-eight for Andoorni Hui. I've been told

  it has something to with her metabolism, but she was hurt worse than they were,

  too. I want to hold a memorial for Lujayne fairly soon." He rubbed his eyes.

  "Gavin will be crushedshe's been helping him sharpen his astronavigation

  skills."

  "It seems, then, nothing can be done until at least twelve hours from now."

  Wedge shook his head. "Nope, we just have to wait."

  "No, you just have to sleep."

  The Corellian turned and looked at
Ackbar. "I can rest later."

  "But you will rest now. Consider that an order, Commander, or I will order a

  Too-Onebee droid to sedate you." Ackbar's chin came up as he spoke and Wedge

  knew he'd carry out his threat. "In fourteen hours I want to see you and your XO

  on Home One. General Salm will have arrived by then."

  "If I'd known I could look forward to a dressing down by him, I'd have let the

  stormtroopers shoot me."

  "Yes, he can have that effect, can't he?" Ackbar's mouth hung open in a silent

  laugh at his joke. "The purpose of this meeting is not a reprimand, however."

  "No?"

  "No." Ackbar's voice became calmer, yet more intense. "Someone in the Empire

  struck at one of my forward bases. If we don't strike back, and strike back

  hard, they might feel emboldened to continue such activity. I don't want this to

  happen. General Salm's bomber wing should be sufficient for exacting

  retribution."

  "If you want Rogue Squadron to fly cover for such a mission, you have us."

  "That was the reaction I expected from you, Commander. Now, go get some sleep."

  "Yes, sir." Wedge saluted. Sleep it is, and dreams of retribution will be very

  pleasant indeed.

  Corran wasn't certain what was worse the sour taste of bacta in the back of his

  throat or feeling like he was still bobbing up and down in the tank. To him

  bacta tasted like lum that had gone flat, gotten stale, and been stored in the

  sort of plastic barrel that lent it an oiliness that slicked his tongue.

  Because the blaster bolt had punctured his right lung and collapsed it, a

  little bacta had been circulated through the lung, bringing the fluid's cloying

  bouquet to his nose every time he exhaled.

  Other than that, he felt pretty good. He still had a reddish spot on his chest

  where he had been shot. The mark on him was about half the size of the mark on

  Gavin. Corran realized that armor had saved his life by absorbing some of the

  power of the bolthow Gavin survived taking a shot to the naked abdomen he

  hadn't a clue.

  Gavin rolled onto his side on the next bed over. "Never done that before."

  "Blunder into a lightfight or spend time in a bacta tank?"

  "Neither." The youth frowned. "I didn't think I was blundering ..."

  "You weren't." Corran shook his head and swung his feet around so he could sit

  up. "I should have realized you didn't know to wait until I signaled the hall

 

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