Cruising around a corner, Corran saw bikes closing from above and behind, trapping him in a wide alley that ended in a solid wall a hundred and fifty meters on. It had no other outlets save up and what appeared to be a closed loading gate at the base of the wall toward which he sped. This is it, my run ends now. The only choices open to him seemed to be slamming into the wall and dying, or fighting and dying.
He thought about slowing to fight, but the whistling pod behind him reminded him of the folly of that idea. It'll go through me faster than . . . hey, that's an idea! Corran pointed the speeder bike directly at the loading gate and kicked the throttle up to full. Twenty meters out, he cranked the vector-shift back, nosing the speeder bike toward the sky, and reversed thrust. The combination pitched him forward, then brought the front of the bike up to bash him back into his seat. As the bike inverted and the pod sailed through beneath it, Corran grabbed the blaster pistol and dropped a dozen feet to the ground.
The pod hit the loading gate's roll-up door with enough force to cave in the metal barrier toward the middle and rip it from the tracks on which it hung. The speeder bike, with the suicide-cruise switch engaged, slammed into the falling ribbon of metal, then flew on over the crest of it and on into the building's interior. It tugged on the pod, but the pod had become trapped by
the door, so the cord parted, freeing the speeder bike to careen farther on.
With blaster bolts raining down around him, Corran dove for cover inside the building. Speeder bikes swooped past him as he twisted around and got just inside the doorway. Bringing his blaster pistol up, he tried to pick out targets, but found far too many to choose from. This confused him for a moment because while he distinctly remembered being chased by Zekka Thyne's Black Sun villains, he could see no way stormtroopers could have anticipated his journey and set up the ambush into which he had ridden.
26
The peal of metal striking metal and the scream of the door being torn from its rails snapped Gavin's head around to his right. Beyond Asyr he saw the door opposite the Imperial Fortress come crashing down, then a riderless speeder bike flew into the warehouse. Blaster bolts stippled the door and scarlet energy darts shot from incoming speeder bikes toward the stormtroopers.
As shock faded and the stormtroopers began to return fire, Gavin dove to the right and tackled Asyr Sei'lar. She snarled and clawed at his back as they went down, but he held on and rolled her toward the edge of the circle and behind debris. A dying Duros—his chest featuring a blackened hole at the center with flames burning around it—collapsed on top of them. Gavin shrugged him off and filled his hands with the blaster pistol the Duros had dropped.
Gavin came up on one knee and triggered two shots at a stormtrooper. One glanced off the man's thigh armor, scoring it with a black stripe, and the other passed between the man's knees. The stormtrooper came around, leveling his blaster carbine at Gavin. Oh, no, just like on Talasea.
A hand grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him down. The stormtrooper's fire scythed up through where Gavin had been and one bolt passed through the hem of Gavin's coat, but didn't draw blood.
Having released her grip on his shoulder, Asyr leaned out around the ferrocrete blocks shielding them and snapped off two shots at the stormtrooper. Both hit him in the torso, turning him around and dropping him to the floor. There he twitched and slapped his hands at the holes in his armor, but he did not rise up again.
Red and green energy bolts crisscrossed in the air, filling the warehouse with the stink of ozone, melted armor, and burned flesh. The Fortress's heavy blaster cannons pumped out bolts that methodically blasted into the lower levels of the makeshift dwellings. Shadowed interiors flared scarlet for a moment, then exploded in smoke and dust. The upper floors would collapse on the lower, burying people alive.
Gavin came up to fire again, but Asyr yanked him back down as a speeder bike just missed clipping him.
"Keep your head down unless you want to lose it."
"A minute ago you were planning to have me killed."
She flashed him a smile. "A bigot wouldn't have saved me."
Gavin shoved her aside with his left hand and triggered a line of shots at a stormtrooper peeking out from behind cover. "We can't stay here."
"C'mon, run to the open door." Nimbly she rolled up onto her feet and started off. She scattered shots in the direction of the Fortress. He couldn't see what she was shooting at because of the dust and the smoke, but he ran right along behind her and shot in the same direction she did. Blaster bolts sizzled back through the pall at him, but nothing came within a meter of hitting him.
As nearly as Gavin could tell, the volume of blaster fire heading in at the stormtroopers grossly exceeded the amount coming back from them. What the Imperial fire lacked in volume it made up for with accuracy and power. Through the smoke Gavin could see bolts from
pistols and carbines glancing off the Fortress's armor whereas its return fire stained the smoke with the color of blood and exploded whatever it touched. People ran screaming, others staggered and fell. He looked for anyone he could recognize, but saw none of the other Rogues among the refugees.
He reached the street outside and found himself abruptly dragged out of the river of fleeing people and to the left. He pulled his right arm free from the other man's grasp, then smiled. "Corran?"
"Good to see you, too, Gavin."
Asyr, who was standing next to Nawara and Rhysati, frowned. "Gavin?"
"Long story." Gavin looked at the others gathered beside the door. Between them, Shiel and Ooryl supported the Devaronian, Dmaynel Kiph. His black blood oozed like oil from a wound in his right thigh. Everyone else looked fine. "Where's Aril?"
Nawara shook his head. "Don't know."
Corran glanced at the people running from the warehouse. "She's small. We could have missed her."
Rhysati nodded. "There have been a lot of Sullustans running away."
Gavin brandished his gun. "We can't leave her."
Another explosion rumbled from within the warehouse. Corran shied away from the opening. "The Fortress is moving up. We can't go back in."
Bits of masonry debris pitter-patted over Gavin's coat and stung his face. He wanted to go diving back into the fight, but his belly began to throb where he had previously been gut-shot by a stormtrooper and that made him hesitate. Guilt immediately assailed him because he had been the cause for the Rogues to be in the warehouse. Part of him knew the Imperial operation had to have been one that was planned long before he was dragged down for a trial, but logic couldn't defeat the fear he felt for Aril and the others inside.
Two speeder bikes shot back out of the warehouse, followed by a third and then a fourth. After them came
two Imperial stormtroopers on speeder bikes of their own. The lead Imp bike fired a shot from its laser cannon and melted half the control surfaces on a Starhawk. The speeder bike went down hard, spilling the rider to the ground. The second bike swooped low toward the downed driver.
More smoothly than Gavin would have thought possible, Corran's blaster pistol came up and around. He snapped off three quick shots. One missed the second Imp speeder, but the other two hit and boosted the driver up out of the saddle. The armored figure fell ten meters to the ferrocrete street, rolling up in a lifeless heap next to his prey. The speeder bike glided to a hover in midair above him, out of reach and benign.
Nawara pointed up as a half-dozen stormtroopers on speeder bikes dove down through the alley. "Reinforcements, let's move."
Asyr pointed to a doorway set flush with a wall off to the right. "This way."
Corran waved them on, then darted out and ran toward the downed bike driver. Gavin followed him, directing a scattered pattern of covering fire back into the warehouse. He reached the rider a moment after Corran did and realized the rider was a woman. She tugged her helmet off, spilling brown hair over her shoulders. A blue forelock had been pasted to her forehead by sweat.
"Leave me alone!" she snarled at Corran.
"No way, Inyri." Corran grabbed her by the shoulder of her jacket to pull her along, but just ended up keeping her off the ground when her step faltered.
"My knee," she gasped, "I can't."
Gavin handed Corran his blaster, then swept her up in his arms. "Let's go."
Inyri struggled against Gavin for a moment, then hung on as stormtroopers started shooting at them from all directions. The Rogues who had gone over to the doorway Asyr had pointed out returned fire on the stormtroopers emerging from the warehouse, momentarily driving them back. Corran, with a blaster in each
hand, triggered a flurry of shots at the first speeder bike as it came around to make a pass at them. He didn't hit the pilot, but he made the man shy off and slam his speeder into the alley wall.
The speeder exploded, spilling fire down the wall and into the alley. It sparked a momentary lull in the shooting that Gavin used to complete his run to the doorway. He got inside quickly and stumbled forward, but kept his feet. The backlight of blaster fire from the other Rogues provided him with enough light to find his way a bit deeper into what appeared to be a cluttered stockroom of some sort. Despite the smoke in the air, Gavin detected a heavy chemical scent.
Up ahead Asyr cracked a door open, letting a sliver of dim yellow light slice through the gloom. Janitorial supplies filled the shelves in the room, though dust covered all of them. As he moved out into the corridor with Inyri, he saw enough grime to confirm that the supplies were seldom used in the building.
Asyr cut across the corridor to a stairwell and led them down. Ooryl and Shiel followed with Dmaynel, leaving Nawara, Rhysati, and Corran to form the rear guard. Though no one seemed to be pursuing the group, Corran and the other two gave the wounded folks a good head start before they followed.
Gavin didn't recognize any of the tunnels or passages they took, nor the buildings they cut through, though they all looked pretty much like those he and Shiel had seen in their survey of Invisec. Finally they moved up a few levels and were admitted to an apartment where an Ithorian led them through a fairly conventional room to a thickly overgrown, junglelike area of heavy humid air, dripping water, rainbow-colored plants, and artificial lighting.
Asyr pointed Ooryl and Shiel toward a bluish-green mossy patch and they deposited Dmaynel there. "Houlilan, take care of Dmaynel. This other one is hurt, too, but not badly."
Inyri shifted a bit in Gavin's arms. "You can let me down. I can stand. I just banged my knee up when I fell."
Gavin eased her onto her feet and supported her as she balanced on her left foot. "Are you going to be okay?"
She nodded, wincing only slightly as she tried to put weight on her right leg. "I guess you think I should be grateful."
Asyr looked surprised. "They saved you from death or worse at Imp hands. Thanks are warranted."
Inyri shrugged. "Thank them? Never. They're the reason I'm here. If they'd not interfered with my life, I wouldn't have been in trouble."
Corran frowned from the doorway. "You had a choice. You didn't have to leave Kessel."
Asyr pocketed her small blaster and folded her arms. "There's definitely something going on here that I don't know about. Do I want to?"
Gavin shook his head. "Probably not."
"For your own sake," Nawara added.
Inyri smiled cruelly. "These are the people who brought Black Sun back to Coruscant."
The Bothan covered her surprise well, then stared right at Gavin. "True?"
He shrugged. "I'm afraid so."
Asyr frowned. "Freeing folks from Kessel explains why you've got no love for the Imps, but I don't think the Rebels will think much of your doing that either. Makes the galaxy kind of small for you. That's a big problem."
"Not really, not at all." Corran handed Gavin back his blaster. "As things go, that's really a minor problem."
"A minor problem?" Asyr's frown deepened. "Do I even want to know you people?"
"Probably not." Gavin smiled at her. "We're Rebels—pilots in Rogue Squadron."
"And you're here on Coruscant?" Asyr's amethyst eyes widened. "I begin to see your perspective on things."
Corran nodded. "Let me help you get the full hologram. We're here to figure out how to liberate Corus-
cant. In comparison with our mission, any other problem is a minor problem."
Aril Nunb had decided to feign unconsciousness when they dragged her from the rubble, but the cracked ribs on the right side of her chest were painful enough to make her squeal when a stormtrooper pulled on her right arm. He hauled her to her feet, then shoved her toward the group of cut and bleeding refugees standing behind the Floating Fortress.
Aril didn't think she'd blacked out when things started happening, but she couldn't be certain. She remembered the stormtroopers arriving, then the far door going down. She'd broken for the exit along with the other Rogues, but a blast from the Fortress had exploded part of a hovel to her right. She thought only the shock wave had knocked her down, but the ache in her ribs suggested she'd been hit solidly by flying debris. Then she'd seen a Sullustan toddler begin to scream and thrash in a midden. She'd bent to help him out when the rest of the building came down.
She glanced back at the pile from where they had pulled her, but she saw no child. Aril turned to look forward again, but she saw no child among the hollow-eyed survivors. Those that could cry did, others licked their wounds; many stared off into space.
A Too-Onebee glanced in her direction, then pointed off to the left. Aril mutely followed the directions and found a group of Sullustans huddled together, segregated from the other refugees. A number of children clung to adults, hiding behind legs or burying their faces in a parent's neck. Aril couldn't see the child she had gone after. She had a hard time actually recalling the child's face, which told her she'd probably been concussed.
Instead of letting herself think she'd failed, she arbitrarily picked out one child and decided he had been the one she had tried to help. She nodded in his direction, but he just hid further behind his father's leg.
Someone grabbed her left arm. Aril looked up into the jowly face of a man who stood a good forty centimeters taller than she did. He was quite heavyset, yet his brown eyes shone with a cunning that removed him from the class of man she would have called bovine. He wore his thinning black hair in a short military style cut, which was in keeping with his General's uniform.
"You seem healthy. A good specimen."
Aril lightly tapped the right side of her chest and winced.
The man dropped his thick-fingered hand to her flank and probed her ribs. She squeaked out a protest. His touch, while clinical, was also forceful and hurt. "Cracked ribs maybe, probably just bruised." He looked down into her eyes and turned her head to the left and right. "You look fine. Don't worry, I'll take care of you."
He straightened up. "Diric!"
An older, dull-eyed man in a bloodstained orderly's uniform spun on his heel. "Yes, General Derricote?"
Derricote patted Aril on the shoulder. "This is one we're taking with us. Put her with the others."
"She makes a dozen and a half, sir."
"Good." Derricote pointed to the orderly. "Go with him. You will have the best of care. In fact, I daresay, you will have the best medical care available for the rest of your life."
27
Admiral Ackbar closed his eyes for a second, then nodded to his aide. "I suppose the tide is high, so I cannot escape it. Please show Councilor Fey'lya in."
The human aide departed, giving Ackbar a moment of silence in which he could prepare for the coming confrontation. No, Ackbar, if you assume bitter water, you'll not taste the sweet. The Admiral refused to consider the Bothan a rival for power, primarily because Ackbar himself had no desire for power in any political sense of the word. He had risen to his position at the head of the Alliance military because of his intimate knowledge of Imperial doctrines—learned while he was Gran
d Moff Tarkin's slave—and because the Mon Calamari had contributed their considerable fleet to bolster the Rebel Navy for the battle at Endor. Once the Empire was defeated and his services were no longer needed, he would happily retire to Mon Calamari and spend the rest of his days living through tide cycles.
He realized his refusal to see Borsk Fey'lya as a rival probably was shortsighted, but he could not afford the distraction. With the death of General Laryn Kre'fey at Borleias, the Bothans had lost their most celebrated mili-
tary leader. The Bothans had no other candidate to offer as viable for running grand operations like the taking of Coruscant.
Which meant any Bothan agenda had to go through Ackbar.
Which is why Fey'lya has come to me now.
The hatch to Ackbar's cabin on Home One opened and Borsk Fey'lya entered the dimly lit office. Ackbar started to adjust the lighting upward, but the Bothan shook his head. "Be comfortable, Admiral, I can see well enough in this light."
The subdued tones of Fey'lya's voice, and the conciliatory nature of his words, immediately put Ackbar on his guard. "You honor me with your visit, Councilor."
Fey'lya held a gold-furred hand up. "Please, the formality of titles is unnecessary between us. We have not always been on the same side, nor do you probably consider me a friend, but you do acknowledge the bond we share within the Rebellion."
"Of course." Ackbar nodded slowly. "You came to speak to me about Noquivzor."
"Indeed. The reports I have gotten were sketchy."
Ackbar sat back in his eggshell repulsorlift chair. "You have the basics: one standard day ago Warlord Zsinj showed up in the system with the Iron Fist, launched a wing of TIEs, and proceeded with a planetary bombardment. Our base there was hit hard, though since most of it was underground, the damage was not as extensive as Zsinj undoubtedly would like to think."
Star Wars - X-Wing 02 - Wedge's Gamble Page 20