Star Wars: X-Wing VI: Iron Fist

by Aaron Allston

  “And predictability,” said Corran Horn, “gets you killed.”

  “Then what should we do?” That was Gavin Darklighter, the Rogues’ pilot from Tatooine, a brown-haired young man whose innocent features and country-boy demeanor belied his combat experience. “Instead of an aerial strike, send flowers and sweets?”

  “It’s better than going in as usual,” Shalla said. “It would confuse them.”

  Asyr, the Bothan flier, who sat beside Gavin with her arm upon his, shook her head, rippling her fur. “But at the first point we don’t respond predictably, we tip Zsinj off that we’re onto him.”

  Wedge smiled at her, and it was a hard-edged smile. “Welcome to the dilemmas of command. You’re right. Now, let’s make the situation even worse. After I received Shalla’s—wait a moment.” He took his comlink from its clip and spoke into it. “Yes?”

  The Rogues and Wraiths heard a murmur from the comlink’s speaker but could not make out the words. Wedge said, “Yes, by all means. A good time for it.” He returned the device to its clip. “After Shalla made her preliminary report on this matter to me this morning, General Solo, Captain Celchu, and I went over the data of Mon Remonda’s mission so far. Intelligence reports are very sketchy, but indicate that in at least five of the sites this task force has attacked in recent sorties, Raptor movements have drastically increased and been quite public immediately after the sorties. Anyone want to hazard a guess?”

  There was no immediate response. Then the Rogues’ executive officer, Nawara Ven, raised a hand.

  “Go ahead.”

  “If Zsinj wants to lead us around and gauge our responses, he has to do so by giving up targets for us to attack. Until a moment ago, I was assuming he was giving up targets he owned or occupied, places that weren’t very important to him. But that wouldn’t necessarily result in more public Raptor activity after the raids.” He frowned in concentration. “But if he were planting evidence that sites that didn’t belong to him actually did …”

  Tyria said, “Then we’d be assaulting sites he wouldn’t particularly mind being hit.”

  Nawara gave her a close look. “Even worse. If they were planets and facilities he’d been trying to add to his empire by diplomacy, but failing, our attacks would have knocked down their defenses drastically. Leaving them open to easier conquest by Zsinj … or at least further negotiation with him, and not from a position of strength.”

  Face put his hand on his head to quell a sudden threatening headache. “You’re saying that the task force has been doing his work for him. All in the name of running down every lead.”

  Wedge nodded. “Very possibly. Further examination of available data on Lavisar’s central library computer indicates that the population has a strong independent streak, which accounts, more than anything else, for its continued lack of interest in joining the New Republic or Zsinj, or rejoining the Empire, which lost control of the planet after the Emperor’s death.

  “So our task is to respond predictably to this ‘stimulus,’ as Shalla puts it, without doing Zsinj’s work for him, and without setting ourselves up for Zsinj’s inevitable trap. Hobbie, this was your idea.”

  The mournful-faced second-in-command of the Rogues stood uneasily. “Zsinj has every confidence that we can penetrate standard planetary defenses and get our snubfighters and support crews to the surface. We generally do. So my idea was to send down a ground crew, plant a bomb on the side of their main sensor station, and set it off … and it doesn’t destroy the emplacement. They keep full sensors.”

  Gavin Darklighter frowned. “Wait a minute, wait a minute. So we go blasting down toward the planet and they’re completely aware of our approach?”

  Hobbie nodded. “And they send up their forces and we turn tail, having been repelled by the mighty defenders of Lavisar.”

  That got laughter from most of the pilots.

  “Rogue Squadron doesn’t run,” said Corran Horn, deadpan. “Unless we really, really have to.” That got more laughter.

  “No,” said Wedge, “this will be Wraith Squadron’s mission.”

  “We don’t mind running,” Face said. “Even when we don’t have to.”

  “More importantly,” Wedge continued, “we need to establish that Wraith Squadron is indeed on Mon Remonda. Every chance we get, we have to support the deception that we’re here all the time. So—hold on, here’s someone I want you to meet.”

  The door at the back of the briefing chamber finished hissing up and open. In walked a woman in standard New Republic pilot’s uniform, still carrying her helmet and bag of possessions. Face recognized Lara, despite the bandage she wore on her left cheek. He waved her over and she headed his way.

  Wedge continued, “Rogues, Wraiths, I’d like to introduce you to Lara Notsil, newest pilot in Wraith Squadron. She hasn’t seen any action yet, but she’s already brought down a black-market ring operating on a New Republic training frigate. That’s a pretty good start.”

  Over the other pilots’ applause, Lara settled in beside Face. He decided that she looked weary, probably from her long flight in, but alert. “Thank you,” she said. “But before anyone feels that his own sideline business is threatened, let me just say that I am susceptible to bribes.”

  That got a chuckle, and Wes Janson drew a hand over his brow as if relieved.

  Wedge waved to return everyone’s attention to him. “Back to Lavisar, the subject at hand … we will be sending down an Intelligence team, to plant our dud of a bomb … and to stay there after our task force leaves the area. We’re going to take Shalla’s analyses and present them to the planetary governor. Try to persuade him that Zsinj was setting him up and that we, in our pragmatic mercifulness, let him go. Maybe he’ll be grateful. Maybe he’ll side with the New Republic. Second best would be him remaining with the Empire … but as a confirmed enemy of Zsinj.”

  Face said, “That’s pretty dangerous for our agents on the ground, isn’t it?”

  Wedge nodded. “Only one member of the team will make contact with the governor. It’ll be a volunteer from our Intelligence pool. If he or she doesn’t return … the rest of the team will transmit the bad news and decide whether to stage a rescue operation or just try to get offworld.”

  “He likes sunfruit liqueur,” Lara said.

  Wedge stared at her. “Come again?”

  “Governor Carmal of Lavisar. He likes sunfruit liqueur. I mean, just having some as a present for him might help a little bit.”

  “How do you know this?”

  She shifted, a little uncertain under the directness of Wedge’s stare. “When I was making my living on Coruscant, I worked for a shipping company, processing data for them. Lavisar was in their records as ‘lost by separation,’ a term meaning the company had trade relations with them before Coruscant fell to the New Republic but not afterward. There was a lot of data on worlds and companies ‘lost by separation,’ including information that the New Republic doesn’t have because it’s trade-specific, so the company representatives might have a slightly easier time resuming relations once contact was made again.”

  “Good to know. Do you have some sort of perfect memory?”

  “Well, a trick memory. Miscellaneous facts, trivia, statistical information, they all get pulled into my head and stay there forever. I’m not so good with faces, but I can tell you all the official holidays of more than fifty worlds, and some holidays from another five hundred or so.”

  “Interesting.” Wedge turned to Squeaky, the 3PO unit with mismatched gold and silver body parts, who lurked, as was his custom, at the back of the briefing hall. “We—”

  “You don’t need to say it,” the droid said, his tone admonishing. “We need sunfruit liqueur. And, doubtless, some of the good stuff from a tropical world that knows how to turn it out, not one of the Coruscant synthetics. I’ll get to work on it with my customary efficiency.”

  “Well, in that case, let’s wrap things up with our customary efficiency. The squadrons’ senio
r staff will be putting together the mission profile, but anyone who wants to earn some extra points can work up his own version of this approach-balk-and-run mission, and we’ll take the best parts of what we get. Questions? No? That’s all.”

  “A moment of your time, sir?” Tyria Sarkin stood in the doorway to Wedge’s quarters. She looked distinctly unhappy.

  “Of course. Come in.”

  She declined to sit, instead standing at ease—though her tense pose suggested that relaxation was impossible for her. “Sir, there are lots of rumors about Flight Officer Notsil and that black-market ring.”

  “Yes?”

  “And I think you ought to know …” An expression of dismay struggled across her face, but she managed to banish it. “No, you should have known some time ago, and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. But you need to know that you might lose me as a pilot.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Notsil wasn’t the first pilot candidate Major Rep—Colonel Repness came to with this starfighter-stealing scheme.”

  Wedge regarded her steadily. A number of puzzle pieces suddenly clicked into place. Face’s and Phanan’s personal involvement in this Repness matter. Phanan had talked of a former trainee who’d spilled the story of Repness’s black-market activities to him … but had hinted that this trainee had washed out and had met Phanan on Coruscant.

  He wondered if Tyria had been part of Phanan and Face’s plan all along. No; she was unskilled at deception, an honest spirit who took no satisfaction in lying. A refreshing change from most of the other Wraiths.

  “You didn’t—”

  “No, sir. I didn’t steal anything for him. But I did something just as bad. I let him blackmail me into keeping quiet. I could have turned him in, opposed him the way Notsil did … but I didn’t.” Her shame was evident in her expression. “Repness was an obsessive record keeper, sir. He has records of my scores. He can prove that he doctored them to let me pass. And when that happens, they’re going to vape my flying career.”

  Wedge sighed. “In the face of evidence like that, I doubt I’ll be able to offer you much protection.”

  “I’m not here to ask for protection, sir. There is no protection. But I thought you ought to know—so you can prepare for it—that there’s a possibility that I’m going to be yanked from the squadron.”

  “I understand. But let’s say Repness doesn’t accuse you. That he gets in touch with you privately and says, ‘I can torp your career, but I won’t. All you have to do is send me a few creds to help pay my legal team for my defense.’ ”

  She took that hurdle without hesitation. “If he asks for one credit, sir, he doesn’t get it. Let him turn me in and be damned.”

  “You’re sure.”

  “I’m positive. I’m not going to let him have even the most tenuous of leashes on me. No more. Not ever.”

  He was silent a long moment. A shame she hadn’t come to him right away upon joining Wraith Squadron’s training program. If she had done so, he could have—

  Could have? No, perhaps he had done so. Just after joining the Wraith Squadron, Flight Officer Sarkin had come to him, not knowing who, further up along any official channels, might be part of Repness’s organization. Wedge had assigned Face and Phanan to find someone to act as bait, and within weeks they’d done so, in the hospital on Borleias. It was his plan, as well as Face and Phanan’s, that had sent Lara Notsil to Tedevium and Colonel Repness.

  The one thing that made him uncomfortable about this altered history was that he would be taking credit for initiating a plan actually brought into being by two of his subordinates … but the results would be worth this little deception.

  “Flight Officer Sarkin.”

  She heard the change in his voice and snapped to attention. “Sir.”

  “You’re too good a pilot for the squadron to lose you this way.”

  “I’m at the bottom of the squadron rankings, sir.”

  “No longer true. One of the new pilots has taken over that singular honor, at least temporarily. And even if it were true, the so-called worst Wraith is one of the galaxy’s most dangerous opponents by any standard, else he or she wouldn’t be in the squadron.”

  “Um—”

  “That didn’t call for a response. Now, this is a direct order: If anyone comes to you with questions about your dealings with Repness, you will give no answers. Instead, tell him you are under orders, from me, not to discuss the matter—until he has come to talk to me. Do you understand?”

  “I understand the order, sir, but not what it means.”

  “What it means is that you’re going to be with the Wraiths until you die or you decide to transfer—not until someone outside the unit decides you’re not one of us. Now, dismissed.”

  Startled, she saluted and fled.

  Wedge sat back. His story would survive interrogation up until the time anyone involved was called on to testify, but his gut feeling was that it wouldn’t go that far. If it did, neither he nor his subordinates would commit perjury, and so they’d be in for punishment from the investigators.… But they’d all endured such punishment before. And would again, to retain the skills and loyalty and comradeship of a pilot like Tyria Sarkin.

  Lara Notsil paused just inside the broad opening to Mon Remonda’s port hangar doors. Just stepping into the hangar was entering a different world.

  The high-pitched whine of repulsorlift engines being tested cut into her. It was a welcome noise now, one she’d come to appreciate. Less welcome was the cold that accompanied it. The great doors at the hangar’s far end were open, the chamber’s atmosphere held in only by its magnetic containment field, and magcon was not an insulator—heat fled through the field into the vacuum of space. Outside the atmosphere, fighter hangars tended to be chilly places.

  The hangar was occupied by twenty-one X-wings, and they’d been settled in tight to one another. Taking off without grazing an adjacent snubfighter would be a minor challenge. But that appeared to be characteristic of Commander Wedge Antilles—never letting his pilots grow complacent, even with such a simple task as taking off for a mission.

  She headed toward her X-wing. As the last squadron pilot to land, she was in the rear of the packed formation, nearest the magcon shield, so she’d be among the first to take off. She waved at various Wraith and Rogue pilots, who acknowledged her with waves of their own, shouts of encouragement, or mock disparagement.

  She didn’t know what to make of them or how they were reacting to this mission.

  The mission itself made perfect sense. Go in, stage a failed assault, try not to kill anyone—but defend yourself with all necessary force—and then get out safely. Let Zsinj jump to the wrong conclusion, that they’d fouled up and been driven off.

  What was different, what was wrong, was the lack of disappointment among the Wraiths. Admiral Trigit’s TIE-fighter pilots would have accepted such a mission with just as much discipline, but they would have been relentlessly unhappy about the restrictions against unnecessary elimination of the enemy. How can you reach the rank of ace, establish a name, gain fame as a fighter pilot, without killing the enemy? And the very prospect of leaving an armed enemy alive would have been repellent.

  But these Rebel pilots took the restriction in good grace, and their relaxed attitude about it seemed to be genuine.

  That, more than anything, bothered her about this unit. The Rebel pilots were supposed to be barely restrained mad dogs. Sure, she’d met several at the hospital on Borleias who didn’t match that profile, but those were men and women recuperating from injuries, anxious to have some rest and recreation. But these Wraiths and Rogues were gearing up for combat. Their desire to eliminate the enemy should have been strong in them.

  Perhaps Imperial evaluations of Rebel pilots were simply wrong. Not even accidentally wrong—just distorted to provide the Imperial pilots with more and better motivation to fight fiercely. Imperial pilots were, in fact, kept at a honed edge of ferocity, held at a barely contained level
of fury that sometimes boiled out into violence at inappropriate times—in their quarters, with their families, on leave. By comparison, these X-wing pilots seemed emotionally quite healthy.

  She shook her head. That had been a treasonous thought, dangerous to a woman who would be once again working for Imperial forces in the near future. She tried to banish it.

  She climbed the ladder to her snubfighter’s cockpit. A Mon Remonda mechanic was up there on the fuselage, making sure the R2 unit tucked in behind the cockpit was securely attached. “You’ve got a beauty here,” the man said.

  The R2 unit emitted a chirpy series of musical notes, acknowledgment of the compliment.

  She stepped up into the cockpit and settled into her pilot’s couch. “Brand-new from the factory.” It was true; Colonel Repness could requisition new gear whenever a shipment was delivered to his training squadron, and apparently did. Her R2 unit, nicknamed Tonin, “Little Atton” in the Basic dialect of Aldivy, since she’d had its memory purged, was brand-new and unscathed, its base color a pretty silver white, its trim color an arterial red. It was loaded with several bells and whistles of top-of-the-line units. Warlord Zsinj’s quartermaster would doubtless feel a little flicker of gratitude when she handed it over to him.

  “Best of luck, pilot.”

  “Thanks.”

  Moments later, she had her helmet on and canopy down and was going through her power-up checklist. Four engines showing green, full power—Repness had made sure his personal X-wing was in tip-top shape, too. She still needed the mechanics to move the pilot’s couch forward; it was adjusted as far forward as it would go, and she had to extend herself a little uncomfortably when handling rudder pedals. Repness had been a tall man.

  Her comlink crackled into life. It was Wedge’s voice: “All right, Rogues, Wraiths. Call ’em out in order.”

  “Rogue One, ready.”

  “Rogue Two, four lit and in the green.”

  “Rogue Three, ready to dance.”