Star Wars - X-Wing 02 - Wedge's Gamble

by Michael A. Stackpole

  24

  Wedge smiled as the white-haired woman walked through the door Iella had opened. "The Provisional Council must be serious about taking Coruscant. They have you here." He offered her his hand. "It's been a while, Winter—and you'd know exactly how long it's been, right?"

  "I would, Commander Antilles, which is why, like you, I'm here." Winter shook his hand, then greeted Iella. Turning to face Pash, she nodded. "You would be Gen­eral Cracken's son."

  "The legendary Winter. I'm honored." Pash bowed in her direction.

  Mirax stood and shook Winter's hand. "I'm Mirax Terrik."

  Winter nodded. "And the reason I was summoned here." She looked over at Iella. "Nothing in our files in­dicates Imperial involvement with her."

  Pash frowned. "Being my father's son, I have a ques­tion that you may not want to answer, but I have to ask. Commander Antilles and I were with Iella and Mirax the whole time we were coming here and we didn't see Iella make contact. How did you know to come here?"

  Winter's expression became more serious, heightening

  her resemblance to Princess Leia. "The account number Iella used to gain access to the datapad in the dress shop was special. Various things about the dress design se­lected, such as the colors, were sliced into municipal com­puters. At certain points around the city—in this case on a moving sidewalk—a pattern of lights communicated to me enough information that I knew to come here. There are backup systems to handle things if there is no re­sponse, but everything worked well, so it was no prob­lem."

  Wedge nodded appreciatively. "It's nice that you can slice into Coruscant's central computer."

  Winter shook her head. "We can't. The safeguards there are too heavy for us to get in cleanly and out again. The central computer is attached to roughly a dozen aux­iliary computer centers that are intended as backup, but are used primarily for low-level administrative and com­mercial applications. We can get into them and do so on a regular basis, but none of the patches we've tried to in­sert into the central computer have made it."

  Iella sat back down. "If we could bring the central computer down we'd be set because it controls all the im­portant things, like the shields and ground-based fighter defenses."

  "The shields are the key." Wedge perched himself on the arm of the couch next to Mirax. "If they go down I tend to think most of the citizenry would support a change in government."

  Winter sat beside Iella. "Overall security here is not as tight as I might have expected it to be under Ysanne Is­ard's control. That goes for the Imperial Palace, too. I was seated on the promenade nearly four hours drinking espcaf and saw nothing special. We almost had a problem when an Imp Intel officer just happened by. I was afraid one of my companions was going to attack Loor, but he kept his temper under control, just barely, but under con­trol."

  Iella's eyes narrowed. "Kirtan Loor is here, on Corus­cant?"

  Winter nodded.

  Mirax raised an eyebrow. "Sounds like the kind of re­action Corran would have had to Loor."

  Iella's jaw dropped. "You know Corran?" Mirax looked up and stared blankly at Iella for a moment, then blinked with astonishment. Both women then turned to Wedge."

  "Corran's here?" Mirax asked.

  "And he's in Rogue Squadron?" Iella added. "Is Whistler still with him?"

  Wedge held his hands up. "I don't know exactly where he is, but he is on Coruscant. Iella, I know you were his partner in CorSec. I didn't mention his being in Rogue Squadron because you didn't seem to have that in­formation yourself, which means New Republic Intelli­gence didn't let you have it. Operational security and all that."

  Winter nodded. "Corran Horn is here, but he has no droid with him."

  Mirax frowned. "How did you know Whistler was a droid?"

  "Two years ago Corran Horn ran from CorSec taking an X-wing and an R2 unit with him. He was spotted as a prospect then, but we lost track of him. A year and a half later he joins Rogue Squadron, implying he has great skill as a pilot. This implies practice flying while he was on the run. This means he kept his R2 unit, so I decided Iella's question was about a droid, since X-wings have no­toriously little capacity for dragging pets or other people around in them."

  Mirax sat back. "You're good."

  "Thank you."

  Wedge winced. "Corran's here with Erisi."

  Mirax growled. "The bacta queen."

  Iella glanced at her. "The way you said that . . . but you're Booster Terrik's daughter. You and Corran couldn't be ..."

  "We're just good friends."

  Iella laughed. "Not the first time I've heard that said in exactly that way. The stories I could tell you."

  "Without Corran here to defend himself, I don't think that's a good idea." Wedge looked over at Winter. "Mirax's exit identity was blown by the Imps, leaving her stuck here after she dropped off what was probably the rest of my squadron."

  "All of them, even Ooryl. They're in Invisec, or at least that's where I left them."

  "Thanks. What we're trying to determine is if the Imps picked Mirax up at random, or if the security on this operation has been blown. Any problems with Corran and Erisi?"

  "None." Winter thought for a second. "I had a team watching them for the first couple of nights to see if any Imps showed an interest in them, but that turned out neg­ative. Those teams were shifted to monitor Imp sweeps in Invisec. They seem to be picking up Gamorreans and Quarren, but no one is certain why."

  As Winter spoke staccato flickers of color outside prompted Wedge to look toward one of the windows. Bright flashes of red and green blaster bolts lit the thor­oughfare outside. He studied the tableau for a moment, trying to make sense of it, then his jaw dropped as his brain sorted out what he was actually seeing. "Everyone down!"

  Having no time to explain his warning shout, he grabbed on to the arm of the couch and wrenched it over backward. Mirax's hands shot out to both sides as she fought to balance herself, with her left hand locking in a death grip on Pash's shirtfront. She pulled her legs up and in to protect them, inadvertently making it just that much easier for Wedge to tip the couch over.

  Over he went with it. He slipped to the side, ducking in toward Mirax, barely managing to pull his left leg in to safety. His hands came up to cover his head and he ex­pected a nasty bash when he hit the floor, but that was the least of his worries. I hope the couch will be armor enough!

  Outside, the speeder bike he had seen flying toward the window finally hit. It broadsided the wall of trans­paristeel with a solid thump, bursting through to spin into the room. The rider went one way and the speeder bike the other, between them sowing a glittering rain of lethal crystalline shrapnel throughout what was supposed to be, ironically enough, a safehouse.

  25

  Corran let himself sag toward the man on his right. The man jabbed him again with the gun to shove him away. Corran moved to the left but when he could no longer feel the gun in his ribs he took a step backward. The man on his right pulled the blaster's trigger, sending a scarlet bolt of energy into the Trandoshan's belly. It opened a smoking hole there, hurling the reptile back onto a table that collapsed under his weight.

  Corran's left hand dropped over the top of the blaster and pulled. At the same time his right elbow came up and out, catching the shooter between mouth and nose. Twist­ing slightly, Corran pulled the man around between him and Zekka Thyne. He tore the blaster from the man's grip, then gave him a sidekick that propelled him toward Thyne.

  Without waiting to see what happened, Corran spun and ran a zigzag course toward the doorway. The whine of blaster fire filled the room. Bolts burned past his legs and over his head, lighting little guttering fires on either side of the doorway. Remembering what he'd observed on his way in, Corran dove forward into a somersault, then came up to his feet at the base of the shadowed stairs.

  Shifting the gun to his right hand, he brought his arm up and fired back over his shoulder to discourage pursuit.

  Bursting out through the do
orway, he kicked a Rodian off a speeder bike, settled himself in the saddle, and dropped it into first gear. Cranking the throttle, he shot off and headed for the nearest canyonlike intersec­tion that would allow him to lose himself in the city. He instantly regretted not having shot up the other speeder bikes in front of the Headquarters, but a glance back at his pursuit suggested returning to do that now would be suicide.

  If I'm going to die, I'd prefer it on my terms, in my time. Doing what he'd done back in the cantina had been stupid, but that was the only option he had when being faced with death. There had been no doubt in his mind—or the minds of anyone else in that cantina—that Thyne was going to kill him. That knowledge was the reason Corran knew the man on his right would hesitate before shooting—robbing Thyne of his kill would be as fatal as being Corran Horn in that situation.

  Corran clutched and shifted with his feet, then gave the bike more throttle with his right hand. Using his thumb he hit the suicide-cruise button, keeping the throt­tle constant, then shoved the blaster down onto a pair of snap-clips that held it perfectly at the muzzle and trigger guard. With his left hand he rotated the vector-shift back, canting the forward directional vanes up, and hung on as the speeder bike climbed toward a hovering skyhook.

  I don't remember the Incom Zoom II being this re­sponsive, but it looks like the Rodian had this one all tricked out. Good thing for me, I guess. He hunkered down and rotated the speeder bike to put its bulk be­tween him and the blaster bolts being shot by his pursuit. The Incom speeder bike didn't have any weaponry built onto it. The small data display between the throttle and vector handles constantly had stuff scrolling across it, but it was all in Rodian, which meant Corran had no idea what was going on. As long as I go fast, does it really matter?

  Rolling the bike and playing with the vector-shift, he straightened it out and sent it screaming along through one of the upper canyons. He aimed the speeder bike well away from the mountainous Imperial Palace and cut around a skyhook tether. Shifting his weight and giving the vector-shift nudges now and again, he kept the speeder bike juking and bouncing as the wind tugged at his hair and blaster bolts streaked scarlet past him. Some of them were heavier than those a handheld blaster could produce, letting him know that some of the machines were military surplus and in good working order.

  He glanced back, but in the darkness all he could see was blaster bolts coming at him. The riders coming up behind were getting better with their shots and Corran re­alized that flying up high and in the open was playing to their strength. I need a tight course with few shots avail­able. That means down!

  Hanging on tightly he inverted and cranked the vector-shift back. The speeder bike dove through the night, flashing past level after level of apartments, malls, offices, and grand promenades. Chopping the throttle back, Corran threw his weight to the left and hooked the bike around and back up through a narrow space be­tween two towers. Leaning back to the right, he came around the cylindrical tower and shot off down an alley.

  A scattering of blaster bolts scored the walls around him. Corran broke left, then cut the throttle back and shifted into neutral. A tug on the vector-shift brought his bike around in a flat spin that he killed by goosing the thrust to kill his momentum. Hanging there in the air, he filled his hand with the blaster and braced his hand on the speeder bike's chassis.

  Two speeder bikes cut into the alley, racing full bore after him. Corran's first two shots hit the rightmost bike on the nose. The bike's control panel exploded in a silver shower of sparks. The blast lifted the driver and pitched him head over heels off the speeder bike's rear end. The bike itself immediately began a smoking dive toward the

  planet below and the driver slowly tumbled down in its wake.

  He shifted his aim to the second bike, but the driver had already begun to pull up. Corran's two shots hit his target, one on the driver's leg and the other on the con­nector post fixing the sidepod to the speeder bike. The ve­hicle did not split apart and the driver veered away as if he'd had enough, so Corran rehomed the blaster and set off again.

  Something on the data monitor squawked at him. He knew it was Rodian but he could no more understand the spoken tongue than he could read the written language. The guys on the bike and sidepod are comlinking with the others. They'll coordinate and they know this city better than I do. His hand snaked up to where he usually wore his good luck charm but he felt nothing. On my own.

  He refused to despair and instead set the speeder bike at a moderate pace and took it down farther and farther into the lower reaches of Coruscant. He had no idea where he was, but that did not matter to him as much as being aware of where his pursuit was. Fortunately for him they tended to announce themselves with blaster shots that sizzled past close, but never seemed to tag him.

  With three on his tail, he dove into a black hole at the bottom of a canyon, then came around and shot back against his previous line of travel. Trimming his speed he ducked and dodged his way through a tangle of support girders, then dove back out of them and came up and around through a hole in the roof of a passage. Cutting back on his throttle, he locked the speeder bike in a gentle circling pattern that flew around the hole. He drew the blaster and waited. One has to be coming soon.

  One of the three did jet up through the hole, but he came out riding a rocket. Corran snapped a quick shot off at him but missed. The way he came out means he was warned.

  A speeder bike swooped at him from above. Some­thing bright flashed at the front of the sidecar, then he felt a thump on the aft end of his bike. The whole speeder

  bike jolted, then started flying backward. Because of the way he'd locked his controls, the bike began spinning through an awkward spiral that almost pitched him to the ground.

  Dropping back into the saddle—literally willing him­self back into it—Corran shifted to neutral and adjusted the vector control to kill the roll. They've got a line on me. He twisted himself around and tried to see the line so he could shoot it, but it was too slender for him to spot in the darkness. Given no choice, he shifted his aim to­ward the main body of the Ikas-Ando Starhawk and trig­gered three shots at the lump a meter or so below a fist that had been thrust victoriously into the air.

  The Starhawk's pilot slumped forward over the front of the speeder bike and Corran immediately felt his bike begin to slow. Dropping back down into the saddle, he shifted the Zoom II into gear and punched the throttle forward. Coming around to his right, he sailed on past and below the hovering Starhawk. Twenty meters out from it he felt a tug and his bike slowed.

  Damn, the sidecar guy didn't release me. All speeder bikes came with a deadman switch that returned the throttle to zero thrust if it was released. That prevented the speeder bike from racing along if the person at the controls died, fell off, or somehow could no longer pilot the bike. It was a safety precaution built into the ma­chines, but as with the one Corran had stolen, it was pos­sible to put in a suicide-cruise switch that would keep the throttle set despite having no hands on it.

  Corran cranked his throttle up full, but the drag from the Starhawk was making him far too slow. The trio of bikes that had chased him down were pacing him, but their drivers had clearly decided to call in other help to box him in. I have to get rid of this thing. I have to cut that line.

  Corran sent the Zoom II into a dive, hauling the Starhawk after it. He sped on through level after level, then came out into a huge intersection of canyonlike airroads. Damn, back out in the open. His pursuit began

  to close, shooting again. Corran tried to make the bike dance as before, but with an air-anchor attached to it, he was having no luck at all.

  Snarling with frustration, he pointed the speeder bike straight at the building on one corner of the intersection. He aimed at a lit rectangle on one of the lower levels, in­tending to whip the trailing Starhawk into the illuminated sign there. It would be poetic justice if it were an ad for Starhawks. He expected the impact would batter the bike to bits. If it didn't, well, there
are plenty more walls.

  It wasn't until he got close enough to see people sit­ting in the room move that he realized it wasn't an adver­tising billboard but a window. He wanted to veer off, but blaster bolts on both sides bracketed him. He thought for a second about going straight through and out through the other side, but he knew the transparisteel would rip him apart. Get out of the way!

  At the last moment Corran hauled the speeder bike around in a sharp left turn. The Starhawk trailing around after him hit the window. He felt a hard jolt, then his speeder bike shot off across the intersection and parallel to another building's front. He glanced back and thought for a moment that he was free of the Starhawk, then a slight tremble in the bike's frame matched sparks on the building wall.

  Of all the luck! Instead of the transparisteel severing the cord that bound him to the Starhawk, the sharpness of the turn had snapped the weakened connectors be­tween the sidepod and the Starhawk itself. The pod's oc­cupant had vanished, but Corran couldn't see where he'd gone. The pod itself trailed after him like a balloon after a child in a stiff wind, but the advent of a half-dozen more speeder bikes into the intersection gave him no chance to try to shuck it off.

  The trailing pod gave him all sorts of trouble because of the potential it had for anchoring him to pillar or post. He tried to keep his turns crisp, but he had to avoid nar­row alleys and keep his speed under control. If he went too fast the pod would whip around, bashing into walls

  and throwing the aft end of his speeder bike around. If he slowed, the pod still shot forward. The elasticity of the line connecting it with his bike meant it shot it toward him unless he broke from his line of flight.

  The trailing speeder bikes and swoops kept him hemmed in. He knew he was being herded toward a spe­cific point, and he desperately wanted to avoid going there, but he didn't have many choices. He did dive and sideslip to smash the pod against walls and break it loose, but it stayed with him. If I survive this perhaps I'll send the Ikas-Ando people a testimonial on the durability of their sidepods . . .