Shield of Lies

by Michael P. Kube-Mcdowell

“General, before you start, I have some information to pass along to you. Within the hour, the Gol Storn and the Thackery will be en route to Galantos. Jantol and Farlight will be detached from the Third Fleet no later than twenty-two hundred for duty at Wehttam. And the Fourth Fleet will be sending two cruisers to Nanta-Ri by the end of the day.”

  “All welcome news, Madame President. So far, I have no reports of any Yevethan incursions in those systems. I hope we will be able to keep it that way.”

  “Yes,” Leia said. “General, what do you need from us?”

  “That depends entirely on what you want me to accomplish. But before we can even contemplate a course of action, I must have better information about the enemy. Can I assume that Admiral Drayson is not in a position to expand his assistance?”

  “I’m afraid that’s correct. Drayson tells me that his assets inside Koornacht Cluster have been ‘extinguished,’” Leia said.

  “Then I need authorization to send in my own,” A’baht said.

  “Tell me what you propose.”

  “There are eleven members of the Duskhan League. We know of thirteen habitable worlds which the Yevetha may have attacked. I want to put a ship within a thousand kilometers of every one of them, on a flash pass.”

  “Do you have enough drones?” The pilotless ferrets were the first choice for forays into hostile territory.

  “No,” A’baht said. “I have to commit all my prowlers as well—and put X-wing recon fighters out on patrol to replace them. Or I can send the recon fighters themselves into the Cluster. I would prefer to do the latter.”

  “Why is that?”

  “A recon-X is somewhat faster than a prowler, which I hope will increase their chance of survival. And a recon-X has a smaller crew than a prowler, minimizing any losses.”

  “Well—you’ve obviously had your tactical staff working on this already,” Leia said. “Do you have any projections?”

  “The only reasonable way to go is to synchronize all the contacts. Stagger departures so everyone jumps insystem at the same time—five minutes later, everyone jumps out—”

  “Five minutes! That’s a long exposure for a flash pass.”

  “It’s necessary to get maximum coverage of the primaries,” A’baht said. “We have to be able to see what’s in orbit on the back side.”

  “What does the estimate look like, then?”

  “Seventy-five percent getting at least a one-minute partial report out. Forty percent overall mission survival.”

  “My word—”

  “That’s under the least-risk mission profile, without direct return. Most of the scouts would continue more or less straight through to the other side of the Cluster and return the long way around. That’s another reason to use a recon-X instead of a prowler—fewer hours without that detection capacity on our perimeter.”

  “You’re planning to send out twenty-four scouts, and you expect to lose fourteen or fifteen of them.”

  “Based on what we encountered at Doornik Three Nineteen—yes. The losses will probably be heavier among the recon-X’s than the drones, on account of speed and size,” A’baht said. “Do I have your authorization, Madame President?”

  “Have you considered putting this off until we can get some additional drones out to you?”

  “We did consider it. I would be uncomfortable with waiting, Madame President. We need information now. We’re vulnerable without it.”

  Thinking about the pilots of those recon-X fighters, Leia drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Very well. You may proceed, General,” she said. “What else do you need from us?”

  “Replacement fighters,” he said without hesitation. “What’s the status of the first ferry flight?”

  “Assembling now at Zone Ninety East,” Leia said, glancing at the report Ackbar had supplied to her. “Twenty-four E-wings, X-wings, and B-wings to cover the losses at Doornik Three Nineteen.”

  “Don’t hold them up on this account—I wish we had them here already,” General A’baht said. “But you can get ready to send us some more.”

  “How long?”

  “I took the liberty of prepositioning several of the drones,” A’baht said. “We’ll be launching the first scout into Koornacht in ninety minutes.”

  The delta-winged Yevethan fighter banked more sharply than Plat Mallar expected and bore in toward his X-wing’s port side. That quickly, he was trapped. No maneuver he knew—no twisting roll, no amount of climbing or diving—could carry him clear of the Yevetha’s fire zone.

  In desperation, he turned away from the enemy fighter and tried to run from it. Twenty seconds later a pinpoint laser bolt blasted through the armor on the tail-plate. The aft end of the fuselage exploded, sending all four stabilizers spinning wildly away. Moments later Mallar’s displays went black.

  Mallar tore off his helmet and mopped the perspiration off his face as the scoring came up.

  SIMULATOR MODULE 82Y—SINGLE COMBAT

  T-65 VS. YEVETHAN D-TYPE

  PILOT: MALLAR, PLAT 9938

  DURATION 02:07

  LASER CANNON SHOTS FIRED: 0 HITS: 0

  PROTON TORPEDOES FIRED: 0 HITS: 0

  OPPONENT SHOTS FIRED: 6 HITS: 3

  COMBAT RESULT: YEVETHAN VICTORY

  As he climbed disgustedly out of the simulator, Mallar found Admiral Ackbar waiting for him at the bottom of the ladder.

  “I see you were trying the new simulation.”

  An embarrassed look crossed Mallar’s face. “Did you watch?”

  Ackbar nodded. “Your last three runs. You’re not alone. Several of our pilots made similar miscalculations at Doornik Three Nineteen,” he said. “It appears the Yevetha have a greater tolerance for g-forces than the pilots for whom New Republic fighters were designed.”

  “Than human pilots, you mean,” Mallar said.

  Ackbar’s mouth worked. “Yes. It is occasionally frustrating to be held back by their limitations.” He nodded toward the simulator. “Are you going back in?”

  “No,” Mallar said, and started down the ladder.

  “I see—”

  “There’s just no way, with an X-wing.” His tone was both annoyed and discouraged. “It’s not quick enough against a D-type. And the operator won’t let me start training on an E-wing yet.”

  Ackbar snorted. “He must belong to that stodgy old order of instructors that believes in mastering one skill before taking on another.” Reaching up toward Mallar, Ackbar held out a data card. “I was in the Mission Planning Office and saw this come up for you,” he said. “I was coming this way, so I signed for you. I think you should look at it now.”

  “What is it?”

  “Your orders,” Ackbar said. “You’ve been placed on alert.”

  “Me? Why?” He fumbled with the data card reader. “Ferry pilot?”

  “Do you have a problem with that?”

  “Problem—no! It’s terrific. I just didn’t expect—”

  “Most of the available pilots went with the ferry flight that just left. Why do you think it’s so quiet here? But another flight will go out in the next fifty hours. You’ll be the last called—but you may be called on all the same, to take a recon-X out to the Fifth Fleet.”

  “Gladly. It’s something,” Mallar said. “It counts for something. Thank you, sir.”

  Ackbar frowned crossly. “Airman Mallar, if you are called, it’ll be because someone with considerably more experience did no better out there against the real thing than you did in here against the simulator. Does that make your orders any more clear?”

  Mallar paled. “Yes, sir.” Slipping the data card and reader back into his pocket, he grabbed the handrail and hastened back up the ladder to the simulator.

  “Eighty-two-Y, please,” he called to the operator as he opened the cockpit hatch. “And put me in a recon-X this time.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Strapped securely in the cockpit of his recon-X fighter, Lieutenant Rone Taggar went through his prepass che
cklist with unusually exacting care.

  His target was N’zoth, the capital of the Duskhan League—the most important objective of the 21st Recon Group’s targets, and quite probably the best defended. But it was not the danger ahead, on the other side of the hyperspace wall, that concerned him. What mattered was gathering the information he had been sent to collect and kicking it back out unjammed to the hypercomm receivers and data recorders waiting in the Fleet.

  The beveled nose of the recon-X concealed six separate flat-scan imaging systems, each with its own independent pan and zoom. The scanning radar, infrared imager, and stereoscopic imagers were programmed to keep the planet centered in the data frame, filling it edge to edge. The other two systems were under the control of the R2-R recon droid, which would evaluate the images in real time and select both particular targets and the best scanning wavelength.

  All six systems were linked to the hyperdrive controls and would begin operating the moment Jennie Lee entered realspace. The hypercomm data relay was automatic as well, even to the selection of alternate channels if jamming signals were detected. The pass trajectory was programmed into the autopilot, which would take over the controls if there was a deviation of more than one percent without pilot inputs.

  It was said, jokingly, that all a recon-X pilot was really needed for was to keep the R2 unit company, and that a pilot could have a heart attack in hyperspace and still fly a perfect mission. The unit’s second-in-command, Sleepy Nagelson—who was flying the Wakiza intercept—had gotten his nickname when cockpit monitors recorded him sleeping through a recon run, back during the Thrawn affair.

  But Taggar shrugged all that off. In heart and mind both, he believed what he had told his pilots before they set off on the mission: that the irreplaceable quality the pilot brought to the cockpit was caring about the outcome. A pilot would keep trying when a machine would quit, because he understood the concept of failure, and the consequences mattered to him.

  “There are no great stories told about drones that fought their way home with vital information, or rose above themselves to complete a perilous mission,” he had told them. “You’re there because you can make a difference. That’s what I’m asking of you—make a difference, and make sure the job gets done. That’s why there is a Twenty-first Recon Wing. Pilots—to your ships! I’ll see you all on the other side.”

  The mission synchronization clock was counting down toward zero. For a moment Taggar paused to picture the other pilots, in other claustrophobic cockpits, nearing other targets scattered halfway across the Cluster. Even though 21st Recon had been newly formed to serve the Fifth Fleet, he had flown with several of them before in other units, other wars. He could picture all their faces, guess at all their moods.

  00:15

  Good recon, he thought, sending the wish at them. And good luck.

  Taggar’s nose had begun to itch, and he wrinkled it up in an unsuccessful attempt to salve it. He licked lips that had gone dry, flexed hands that had begun to stiffen from being held too tensely, checked systems that he had already checked three times.

  00:05

  Taggar’s mother, a Y-wing pilot, had died attacking a Star Destroyer in the frightful clash at Endor. His own good-luck ritual, performed before the start of every mission, was to rub his thumb left to right across his mother’s wings, which were taped above the navicom.

  Mother, I hope I make you proud today.

  00:00

  The universe suddenly expanded around Taggar’s recon fighter. Ahead lay a gray-green marble frosted with swirls of pale yellow clouds. The mission timer started to count upward as the imaging systems stirred in their mountings. Taggar flew a steady line as he read the reports from R2-R on his cockpit display.

  IDENTIFIED: ARAMADIA-CLASS THRUSTSHIP

  IDENTIFIED: ARAMADIA-CLASS THRUSTSHIP

  IDENTIFIED: VICTORY-CLASS STAR DESTROYER

  IDENTIFIED: ARAMADIA-CLASS THRUSTSHIP

  IDENTIFIED: IMPERIAL-CLASS STAR DESTROYER

  IDENTIFIED: EXECUTOR-CLASS STAR

  DESTROYER

  The list grew longer as N’zoth grew larger ahead. Rone Taggar wanted to be afraid, but he did not have that luxury. He told himself he could be brave for five more minutes. In five minutes—perhaps less—it would be over.

  Taggar tried to whistle past the graveyard, but his mouth was suddenly too dry.

  There had been a tug-of-war between Leia and Ackbar over who would be invited to be in the War Hall at Fleet Headquarters when the data from the Koornacht recon incursion came in.

  “This is not the time to repay favors or curry favor,” Ackbar had said, holding out for keeping the list as short as possible. “You cannot control information that’s already been freely distributed. We will need time to evaluate the data and place it in context.”

  “Everyone on that list has a legitimate right to know what’s going on in Farlax,” she had argued. “They’re all going to have to be part of the decisions to come—Defense Council, Security Council, the rest of the Ruling Council, Rieekan from NRI. It’s not as though I’m trying to bring in outsiders.”

  “No,” Ackbar said. “You are only bringing in a senator who just tried to have you removed from office, and another who is likely to try in the near future. They are part of the same government as you, Leia, but they are not your allies.”

  Behn-kihl-nahm’s opinion had settled the question in favor of Leia’s side. As the intercepts neared, the room was full of extra bodies, and there was more than enough to occupy them.

  The full-wall display in the War Hall had been divided into twenty-four identical rectangles. Each contained an intercept chart, with a blank circle representing the target planet and a red line marking the expected path of the scout. As the contacts proceeded, the charts would change to show the position of the ships and the progress of the scans.

  Beside each chart was space for a flat-screen feed from the scout’s imagers. At the moment the name of the target world and the type of scout assigned to it were displayed in that space.

  Ackbar, Leia, and Han stood together at the back of the room, leaning on the railing at the edge of the raised observer’s platform and watching twenty-four timers counting down in synchrony.

  “It kind of reminds me of a tout board I saw at a million-credit betting parlor on Bragkis,” Han said, “and everyone standing around waiting for the race to begin. ‘Who’s got a favorite?’ ‘What odds will you give me on Wakiza?’”

  Leia usually found Han’s irreverence refreshing. But she had no patience for it just then and walked away after shooting him a hot sidewise glare. Han’s first instinct was to follow, but Ackbar stayed him with a touch.

  “Let her be,” he said. “This is a hard time. She does not have much water under her.”

  The room quieted dramatically in the last seconds, as everyone working attended to the console before them, and everyone watching turned away from their conversations and looked up toward the display. As zero turned to plus-1, the entire wall came alive with moving images as the charts began to change and the first images arrived.

  It almost seemed to Han as though the wall were a squirming mass of tiny creatures made of light. Unless he focused his attention on just one area, the effect made his stomach turn and his nerves jangle.

  Ackbar raised a hand and pointed to the lower right corner of the wall. “One casualty already,” he said. Number 23, a pilotless ferret, had missed its rendezvous at Doornik 207, which at last report had been host to a nest of Corasgh. But all the other charts were beginning to fill in—the flight tracks changing from red to green, the faces of the planets beginning to be shaded in.

  The early images from N’zoth caused a buzz in the room. They showed the unmistakable shapes of Star Destroyers, singled out by the R2-controlled imaging systems on Rone Taggar’s Jennie Lee. After leaving Han, Leia had gone to stand by Ayddar Nylykerka, who was busily capturing individual frames from the data into a collage of ship portraits. She listened in wh
ile the intense little analyst from the Asset Tracking Office talked aloud to himself.

  “That could be the Redoubtable,” he muttered, consulting his lists. “It’s definitely early Imperial-class, despite the modifications to the forward superstructure—”

  The buzz turned into a dark murmur a few seconds later, when the view from Number 1 changed and another, sleeker dagger shape snapped into focus. There was hardly a person in the room who could not identify that profile, and the exceptions quickly learned the significance in a hasty whisper from a companion: there was a Super Star Destroyer in orbit around N’zoth.

  From the beginning, the New Republic had opted to build a larger number of smaller vessels—Fleet carriers, Republic-class Star Destroyers, battle cruisers—rather than adopt the Imperial design philosophy. Mon Mothma had given orders to scrap rather than repair or make a museum piece of the sole SSD captured from the Empire. Consequently, the eight-kilometer-long behemoth circling N’zoth had anything in the New Republic Fleet badly outgunned.

  “Now, that, that can only be Intimidator,” Nylykerka pronounced. “All of the late-production Super-class had that additional shield tower located on the centerline—”

  Shocking as that discovery was, the attention of the audience in the War Hall was quickly drawn elsewhere. As the counters approached the two-minute mark and the scouts raced toward the midpoint and closest approach of their passes, the display wall was filling with images of warships, until it resembled a larger version of the collage at Nylykerka’s station.

  There were Star Destroyers at Wakiza, at Zhina, at New Brigia and Doornik 881, where the Imperial factory farm had been. The Yevethan fleet at Morning Bell now numbered at least sixteen vessels, including four Star Destroyers, six Aramadia-class thrustships, and a queer-looking Dreadnaught-scale ship, which Nylykerka excitedly identified as a long-missing Imperial testbed, the EX-F. Other thrustships seemed to be everywhere—orbiting all the other Duskhan League worlds, at Polneye and the former Morath mining operation on Kojash.