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

by Michael A. Stackpole

  42

  Gavin's stomach began to fold in on itself as he heard Wedge's voice come out of the comlink. "Sorry, Tycho, we're pinned down here. Unless we get some help, we're going nowhere."

  "I copy, Wedge." Tycho looked over at Gavin. "You and I will go see if we can help them out."

  Ooryl raised a three-fingered hand. "Ooryl ..." Tycho shook his head. "I want you here to help Inyri guard Winter. The kid and I will go."

  The Gand nodded, then his mouth parts snapped open. "Ooryl does not question your orders, Captain. Ooryl merely wants to know how this Fex-M3d works." Winter slowly straightened up. "You breathe it in, it gets into your bloodstream and binds to neuroreceptors, preventing nerves from passing information. If you get a strong enough dose your autonomic nervous system shuts down and you stop breathing. You suffocate."

  The Gand's mouth parts closed again. "Ooryl under­stands. If you will all back down this hallway, Ooryl will open the door, open the interior case, and bring you back respirators."

  Gavin's jaw shot open. "But you'll die."

  The Gand shook his head. "Ooryl does not respire."

  Inyri blinked. "What?"

  Ooryl tapped his chest. "Gands do not respire."

  "But you talk."

  "Yes, Inyri Forge, but respiration is not required for speech. Ooryl's body has a muscular gas bladder that al­lows Ooryl to, among other things, draw in gases and ex­pel them at a controlled rate through pieces of Gand exoskeleton that vibrate and approximate speech. Ooryl gets the metabolic ingredients Ooryl needs through inges­tion, not respiration. Fex-M3d will not affect Ooryl."

  Tycho thought for a moment, then nodded. "Here's what we'll do. Ooryl will wait here until we retreat. Inyri, you'll turn the airspeeder around and bring the engine up. Point the exhaust jets down this hallway and we can use them to push the freed Fex-M3d deeper into the build­ing."

  "It will also point the airspeeder in the right direction for our escape."

  "Good point, Inyri." Tycho looked over at Gavin. "Depending upon how many masks there are in the room, you and Inyri may have to wait outside. If there are enough, we all go down and hold the center."

  "Got it."

  Tycho slapped the Gand on the arm. "Wait until we get clear, then go."

  "Ooryl understands."

  Gavin retreated with the others. They sealed them­selves inside the airspeeder. Inyri brought it up and around, giving Gavin a good view of the firefights going on outside. TIE fighters swooped and dove. Green laser bolts flashed through the sky thick and furious. Countless burn marks scored the flanks and front of the construc­tion droid, yet it loomed ever larger as it came on toward them.

  Winter twisted around in the seat. "He's in." Gavin turned to look. The room's door appeared open. A greenish-yellow mist rolled out and carpeted the hallway in haze. The airspeeder's exhaust pushed it far-

  ther down the hallway, but there always seemed to be more of it pouring from the computer center.

  The sharp report of an explosion brought all eyes for­ward again. A pair of blurred Headhunters raced past, flying through a collapsing ball of fire and debris. More laser bolts poured in at the construction droid, but there was no sign they had any effect on the titanic machine. And as bad as things looked in the air outside it, the cold efficiency of the way the droid dismembered the building in front of it was even worse. Their vantage point let the Rogues peer into the construction droid's maw and Gavin imagined what he saw to be the vision seen by billions of Alderaanians before their world exploded.

  A thump on the hood of the airspeeder made Gavin jump and bang his head on the roof. He hunched down and rubbed his head. "Emperor's bones!"

  Outside the Gand looked surprised, then held up four masks. "Ooryl has been successful."

  Tycho reached forward from the back seat and patted Gavin on the shoulder. "Ready to go?"

  "Sure. Maybe I can get a light dose of the gas and it'll slow my heart." Gavin got out of the airspeeder and pulled his mask on. It immediately felt hot on his face, but he tugged on the straps, fitting it tightly to his face. He took his comlink from his jacket lapel and snapped it into the receptacle near his right ear. "I'm set, Tycho."

  The Alderaanian Captain gave him a nod. "Come on, then. Let's go see if we can make it rain."

  As Corran's Headhunter came up through the towers he caught Wedge's message to Tycho. "Hunter Lead here, Commander. Got a problem?"

  "Seems so, Corran. Tower east of us has an E-web trained on us."

  "Collateral targets?"

  "Don't know, but the building should be evacuated except for troops. Get them gone."

  "As ordered. Stand by." Corran throttled the black and gold fighter up and aimed for the stars. Before he got there, but after he had left the towers of Coruscant be­hind, he came up on his starboard wing and started to cir­cle. From up there it was relatively easy to spot the stream of fire coming from a nearby cylindrical tower and lancing out at the construction droid.

  Corran extended his loop and let it take him over and around the computer center. He dove and leveled out, coming in on the tower while running parallel to the con­struction droid's course. He shot past the droid and came up slightly. Heavy blaster fire lanced out at the construc­tion droid from the tower. Corran let loose with a quick burst of fire, raking it across the side of the building.

  His flight took him past his target, so he started to turn around again when fire came at him from the build­ing. The blaster bolts splashed harmlessly against his rear shield, but Corran immediately rolled the Headhunter and turned back away from the side of the building he'd attacked. He leveled out, then dove and came around on a new attack vector. He switched his weapons' control over to concussion missiles, linked two, then climbed up over the construction droid's blocky outline.

  His crosshairs settled on the genesis of the red stream directed against Wedge's droid. He got no target lock—an E-web and stormtrooper crew didn't conform to any tar­get profile in the Headhunter's combat computer. Regard­less, when he hit the trigger, two blue missiles streaked out and hit dead on target.

  An argent explosion blew through that floor of the cylinder. The silvery disk spread out through the entire level and beyond, incinerating most of what was in there and scattering the rest of it out over the city. Yet, even for all that violence, the concussion missiles failed to damage the structural supports, leaving the tower intact above and below the level where little fires burned brightly in the night.

  Corran keyed his comm unit. "Will that do it for you, Commander?"

  "Thanks, Corran. We're leaving to see some friends." "I copy. Want an escort?" "If you've got nothing better to do." Corran smiled. "At your leisure, sir, I live to serve."

  Gavin had positioned himself so he could watch the door and still see what Winter was doing from the corner of his eye. Once they'd gotten into the room she'd plugged her datapad into the computer console and very quickly had a representation of Coruscant floating above her workstation. Her fingers flew over the keys and sud­denly small cubes appeared to float around the world arranged in three rings. One circled the equator while the other two split the distance between the equator and the poles.

  Seeming as insectoid as a Verpine because of the mask she wore, Winter nodded to Tycho. "These are the Orbital Solar Energy Transfer Satellites." She pointed to a glowing red dot riding just above the equator. "This is our target. It's night here now, but several orbital mirrors are high enough to give us what we need."

  More typing and a small label appeared attached to each of the floating cubes. Gavin couldn't read them at that distance but he assumed they were unit designators that would allow Winter to send orders from the com­puter to the station.

  "We'll use OSETS 2711. First step is to have the mirror opaque itself. Then we focus it here and start it re­flecting again."

  Tycho nodded. "Can you also bring up on this dis­play the Golan stations and ships in orbit?"

  She shrugged. "I don't
know, probably, but if I do it might attract some attention. First things first."

  "Go to it." Tycho stood behind her and rested his hands on her shoulders. "This world needs a bath, so start boiling the water."

  Life could have been worse, Lieutenant Virar Needa thought to himself. The Captain Needa who had once commanded the Imperial Star Destroyer Avenger had only been his cousin, and one generation removed at that. Darth Vader had executed Lorth Needa for incompetence after Hoth, while Virar was still at the Imperial Military Academy. His cousins had all vanished, along with his aunt and his grandparents on the Needa side of the fam­ily, but at least he'd remained alive and been allowed to continue in service to the Empire. It could have been worse, I could be dead.

  Of course, service on an Orbital Solar Energy Trans­fer Satellite was about as close to death as someone could get in the Imperial Navy without having shots fired at him. Others, including the rest of the six-man crew, saw OSETS service as punishment, but Virar Needa saw it as noble duty. After all, he was entrusted with the care of a facility that made life on Imperial Center possible. With­out OSETS 2711, Imperial Center would be just that much more uncomfortable, and if the people who ran the Empire were uncomfortable, well, then things would just begin to fall apart entirely.

  A mild tremor shook the station. The others looked up from their sabacc game in the lounge. He saw fear in their eyes because they had no idea what was happening. He did because of his four years of experience with OSETS 2711. That's why he was a Lieutenant and in command.

  He raised a hand. "Don't worry, that's just the mirror panels rotating to opaque the surface."

  One of the cadets looked up. "Why would they be doing that, sir?"

  Needa smiled at him. "Well, Pedetsen, I would guess it is because another station is off-line for repairs and we're going to take over its duty. We'll have our direction adjusted ..." He held a hand up, then cocked his wrist and pointed his index finger just as the altitude adjust­ment jets started a burn. "There you go."

  "Thank you, sir."

  Needa nodded and went back to looking out the viewport. Below him he saw the dark face of a sleeping Imperial Center. It scintillated with a variety of lights that ran like phosphorescent blood through shadowy flesh. He smiled and tried to burn the vision of the planet into his brain. It always looks so pretty from up here—a potential it fails to live up to when I am down on the ground.

  The jet burn went on a bit longer than usual and this disturbed him. Not because he realized anything was wrong, after all, the care of OSETS 2711 was what kept him alive, so nothing could go wrong. He couldn't and wouldn't conceive of that possibility. No, the longer than normal burn, he decided, meant they had built a new re­ception facility for the energy OSETS 2711 was sending down. That he'd not heard of the plans to do this meant they were top secret. The use of OSETS 2711 to power this top secret, vital, new site meant someone down there had finally decided to reward his unswerving and unfail­ing loyalty.

  The tremor again coursed through the station and Needa smiled. "That's the mirror reflecting again, boys. We're giving them everything they want. Our contribu­tion to this day will never be forgotten."

  43

  Corran Horn snapped the Headhunter up on its star­board S-foil and pulled back on the stick. He feathered the throttle back, slowing his fighter, and pulled it through a tight turn. Leveling off he triggered two blaster bursts that blazed through the air in front of a TIE starfighter. The eyeball broke off its run on Wedge's airspeeder. The black vehicle slid into the gaping cavern marking what had once been a fifth-floor office.

  Corran rolled the ship left, dropped into a dive, then came back up and over the computer center. "Hunter Lead here, anyone need help?"

  Asyr's voice came back through the comm. "I show six more interceptors vectored in on us. Estimated time of arrival, five minutes."

  "I copy, Five." Corran glanced at his scanner and saw the group she was indicating. "See if you can pull the fight more in this direction."

  "As ordered, Lead."

  Leveling out, Corran began a slow loop to the east. All of a sudden a golden dagger of sunlight stabbed down through the night. The wedge of light focused on an os­tentatious building fitted with columns and a cascade of

  ever broadening steps. The building grew in brilliance un­til it shone like a beacon. For the barest of moments it even rivaled the exalted edifice of the Imperial Palace.

  Then the building began to melt.

  Window casings began to smoke and glow, then the pressure from the superheated air inside the building blew them out. Pennants flying from the top of the building burst into flame. Huge iron doors went from black to or­ange, red, and finally white before they began to waver and collapse. Columns began to wither and the building's sharp edges softened.

  The building began to sag in on itself, then it swelled at the center. The roof rose up volcanically, then an explo­sion shook the building. Half-molten granite blocks split apart and sloughed to the side like rotting vegetable mat­ter as a gout of steam shot skyward. It billowed out and thickened as it hit the layer of cooler air above it. The ex­panding vapor darkened precipitously, then Corran saw golden highlights illuminate it from within.

  The first silvery lightning bolt slashed down at the Imperial Palace. Corran laughed aloud. "Even the ele­ments want the Empire dead!"

  He keyed his comm unit. "I hope you can hear me, Wedge. You've got one fantastic storm brewing out here. Keep it going."

  The image of Coruscant floating in front of Captain Uwlla Iillor on the bridge of the Corusca Rainbow began to change. Beneath the twin shields the datastream began to sketch in an angry red storm centering itself over the Palace district. Gold pinpoints marked lightning strikes and quickly became so numerous that flecks of red floated like islands in a golden sea.

  Jhemiti inclined his head toward the image. "The storm appears to be fierce."

  "The worst Coruscant has seen in generations, I would imagine." She leaned forward and studied the im­age through half-closed eyes. "Rogue Squadron must

  have caused this storm somehow. It becomes a weapon of fantastic power, but it is very difficult to direct."

  The Mon Calamari nodded. "Perhaps the Jedi Knight ..."

  "Can control it? I doubt the Emperor could have con­trolled a storm of this magnitude. This I take as a good thing because it means the Empire cannot stop it."

  The inner shield sphere flickered and went dark. Jhemiti pointed at the holographic projection. "There, the shields are coming down."

  "Perhaps." Iillor looked at the chronometer. "We have five minutes until the fleet comes through. Begin ini­tial power up of the gravity well projectors."

  Jhemiti's eyes half shut. "But the shields."

  "The shields still exist." Captain Iillor gave her First Officer a cold stare. "We'll give Rogue Squadron time to finish their mission, but if they cannot, we will finish ours."

  Wedge came around the corner and into the computer center after getting an all-clear from Gavin. Because the construction droid had the same anti-intruder system in­stalled on it, Mirax, Iella, and he had been able to appro­priate breathing gear from it before they made the run to the center. He immediately crossed to the workstation where Winter sat while Iella and Mirax took up defensive positions near the door.

  "How are things going?"

  Tycho looked over at him while Winter typed furi­ously on her datapad. "Good and bad. The storm is fierce enough that skyhooks are detaching and moving off. Bet­ter yet, the inner shields have come down. Unfortunately, it appears their collapse has resulted in a shift of resource allocation programs within the computers. The storm is taking some power plants off-line, but others have been directed to shunt their output through previously unused conduits."

  Wedge frowned. "You're telling me that the destruction of one layer of shields has diverted power through backup systems to reinforce the remaining shields?"

  Winter nodded. "No one knew the ba
ckup system of conduits existed—no power ran through them so folks scouting for places to tap the grid never found them. In essence, this is a whole new power grid. It allocates power to essential services, of which this center is part, but it means that main shield isn't coming down."

  This is not good. Wedge leaned with one hand on the workstation. "Can you pull a map of this grid up?" "Not available."

  Emtrey tottled over. "If I might suggest, sir . . . ?" "Please do, Emtrey."

  "Lightning will travel along the easiest course from the ground to the clouds and vice versa. The new grid, and especially its substation transfer points, will leak a certain amount of power. Lightning strikes will cluster at these points, so a plot of strikes should show you where the grid is."

  Winter's fingers played quickly over the datapad's in­put surface. The globe flattened out and golden pinpoints started to dot the resulting grid map. The image became localized to the Palace district and enlarged, but the strikes still bled together into a golden network. Wedge saw dark spaces fill in on the map with each staccato thunderclap from outside.

  Tycho pointed to a solid cluster that appeared to be the hub from which many gold spokes spread. "That's likely a substation. The whole purpose of this storm was to hit and knock out power stations. This one looks in­vulnerable to lightning. So much for our plan."

  Wedge shook his head. "The grounding that will protect it from lightning won't help it against missiles. Winter, can you pinpoint that substation?" "Done."

  Tycho looked over at Wedge. "You're going to send someone in at that target with the storm raging above it?" "The airspeeder I came in doesn't have missiles or I'd go."

  "Yes, but you're a Corellian. You have no respect for how truly hopeless some tasks really are."