The walls were a weary shade of gray, and bare of ornamentation. Stale air whistled through ancient ventilation systems. This place had not seen the light of day in more than a millennia.
Alex Winger propped her elbows on the table, resting her head in her hands. How long had she been here? Four hours? Eight?
Her blue eyes shifted to the vid monitors suspended from the ceiling. She wondered who had been watching the earlier interrogation and her reaction to this isolation. Would they believe her story?
The door slid open. Two men, dressed in uniforms of the New Republic military, entered the room and sat down across from her. The lieutenant fidgeted slightly in his chair, obviously inexperienced in these matters. The major was expressionless, his eyes transfixed on Alex. She could sense that he remained skeptical of her story.
“All right, Miss Winger,” the major said, slowly enunciating each word. “Tell me about this secret Imperial research facility one more time.”
Alex met his gaze, trying to bury her growing impatience. She calmly explained — it had to be at least the fourth time — that her comrade, a research scientist named Carl Barzon, had been taken to the secret base. And that ore, mined on her homeworld of Garos IV, was being shipped there. The location of the base remained shrouded behind a veil of Imperial secrecy that her friends in the Garosian resistance had been unable to penetrate.
The major’s voice was as cold as his icy stare. “And you expect us to believe that the daughter of an Imperial governor works for the resistance on Garos IV?”
“It’s true,” she said, slapping her hand down on the table in frustration.
Suddenly she heard a familiar voice call out to her. “Alex?”
Looking around the room. Alex rubbed her eyes. Computers, communications equipment, and displays of all sorts blinked a rainbow of colors in the dimly lit room. The tap-tap of fingers across a keyboard were the only sounds she heard. She was in the underground operations center — on Garos IV — worlds away from that interrogation room she envisioned on Coruscant.
Her friend, a comm operator by the name of Wink Tasion, frowned as he transcribed an incoming message. The concern on his face couldn’t have been more obvious. But he wasn’t looking at his display. He was staring at Alex.
“Are you okay?” he asked her even before he finished typing the transmission he’d received. “You looked like you were somewhere else.”
Alex sighed, smiling gently at him. “You could say that,” she said, removing her headset. “You won’t believe this, but I dreamt I was being interrogated by someone from New Republic Intelligence!” She shook her head and a broad grin swept across her face. “They were having a hard time with the concept of an Imperial governors daughter working for the good guys.”
Chuckling, Wink remembered his own introduction to freedom fighter Alex Winger in the ops center. He’d held a blaster on her until his comrades convinced him that Governor Tork Winger’s daughter was indeed a member of the resistance movement on Garos. They’d had a lot of laughs over it since then. “Well,” he teased her, “you have to admit it does sound a little far-fetched.”
Alex’s smile faded and she stared blankly at the display on her screen. “How will I ever convince them I’m telling the truth?” she said, ignoring his taunt.
“You’re not in this alone, Alex.” he reminded her.
But Alex didn’t seem to hear him. “There’s just not that much time,” she said quietly. Thoughts of a snow-covered mountainside crashed in upon her senses — two figures, one hand reaching out to another, wind whipping around their bodies, hands ripped apart, falling — No!
“Huh? What do you mean?” Wink asked. He saw that far-off look in her eyes.
She sighed, shaking her head. “It’s just a feeling that I’ve had.”
Wink turned back to his monitor, his forehead creased with furrows. “Maybe that daydream of yours is a sign, Alex. Look at this message I just got.”
Alex leaned toward him to read the display. Her senses tingled with anticipation. One of their operatives at Chado’s Pub was reporting an interesting conversation with a freighter captain whose ship was taking on supplies at the spaceport. “Hmm. Captain of the Star Quest — is that the Suwantek light freighter that’s in docking bay three?” she asked Wink.
“That’s the one,” he told her.
Free-traders had been a more frequent sight at Ariana’s spaceport in the weeks since Grand Admiral Thrawn’s defeat. With the Imperial fleet in disarray, these independents had been hired to transport supplies to the Empire’s secret research facility. Alex and her friends in the underground were hopeful that word of this operation would finally reach the New Republic — perhaps through a contact like this freighter captain.
“I’m going to check this out,” Alex said.
“I’ll inform Paca.”
Alex shook her head, cocking it toward the chronometer that read 0200. “No. don’t bother him,” she replied. “It’s probably another false lead.”
“Okay,” he said as she got up to leave. “Hey, Alex?”
“Yeah?” She saw him studying her face.
“Good luck,” he said. “May the Force be with you.”
Alex wondered if Wink suspected that she planned to do more than just “check out” the crew of that freighter. She’d never told anyone about her visions of the snowy mountainside that harbored that secret Imperial base. Something, or someone, was drawing her to it. She had to go there. It was part of her destiny.
Nodding to her comrade. Alex headed into the underground tunnel system. She had a feeling about that freighter in docking bay three. A feeling that it wasn’t just another ship hired by the Empire to move supplies.
Pink eyes and perked antennae studied displays on a dozen different panels in the Star Quest’s cockpit. Satisfied that they were at the correct location, Captain Tere Metallo pulled back on the hyperdrive levers and watched starlines form into distinct points of light. Three hours earlier their freighter had departed Garos IV loaded with supplies. With orders from the Imperials to proceed to these coordinates, their instructions were to wait for another contact.
Picking up her datapad, Metallo quietly scanned the virus program she’d be releasing into the Imperial computer network on Sarahwiee — her little contribution as backup to Page’s Commandos. She smiled to herself, thoughtfully tracing the jagged scar that tore across her pasty gray face.
Gil Crosear, Metallo’s first mate, slipped unobtrusively into the cockpit. Metallo had decided long ago that his uncanny ability to move about unnoticed was a talent the wiry young man had acquired from nature. After four years of working with Gil, there were times even she could not spot him in a crowd.
Scanning the emptiness all around them. Gil tapped impatiently on one of the ship’s long range sensors. “Well, where are they?” he finally asked. His dark eyes shifted rapidly between the boards and the space beyond the viewport.
Metallo settled back into her seat, calmly twirling slender fingers around the meter-length silver braid that protruded from her otherwise hairless head. Her “scantennae,” as Gil called her stamen-like sensors, picked up his increased pulse rate. Patience was one virtue Gil still had not mastered. “Relax, Gilly,” she gently chided him. “They’ll be here.”
Gil took a deep breath and pushed a loose shock of dark hair from his eyes. “How far ahead is the other team?” he asked.
“One point three hours.”
“So,” Gil pointed at the datapad in Metallo’s hand, “you think this virus will wipe out whatever
Page and his bombs don’t take care of?”
Metallo nodded. “No doubt about it.”
“This is one strange supply run, Cap’n,” Gil said, skillfully punching keys on one board to modify his sensor scan. “Sittin’ out here in the middle of nowhere.”
Eyeing her partner, Metallo’s antennae twitched slightly. Though he tried to hide it, Gil was a bit more on edge than on their previous missions.
“According to reports Command briefed us on, this is standard procedure,” she reassured him.
“Command?” a voice questioned from the rear of the cockpit.
Metallo and Gil turned at the same instant. Two blasters came to bear on the young stowaway. Then all of a sudden, an alarm began to blare on the Star Quest.
“Is that who you’re waiting for?” Alex asked calmly, pointing toward the Imperial Strike-class cruiser that emerged from hyperspace about 1,000 kilometers off their port bow.
“Who the krazsch are you!” Metallo demanded, falling back into her native Riileb tongue.
“I’m Alex,” she told them. “Don’t you think you’d better answer their hailing signal?”
Gil stared wide-eyed, his blaster trained on Alex, as Metallo silenced the proximity alarm. Flicking a switch on her comm board, she called. “This is Tere Metallo. captain of the Star Quest.”
“Transmit the recognition signal, Star Quest,” an authoritative voice responded over the comm channel.
“Transmitting now,” Metallo replied, glancing back toward Alex. Her antennae moved imperceptibly, sizing up the young woman who peered intently over Gil’s shoulder. She picked up no sign of distress, only a calm resolve. And it struck her as odd, that instead of feeling worried that their cover had been blown, she found herself thinking about that name — Alex. She’d only heard it used one other time for a Human female. Her former first mate, a man named Matt Turhaya, had talked of a young daughter he’d lost in an Imperial raid. Her name had been Alex, too.
“Stand by to receive new coordinates, Star Quest.”
The harsh voice interrupted Metallo’s musings. “Ready when you are,” she called.
“Transmission commencing.”
Metallo checked the display as their new destination was fed into the ship’s nav computer. “Transmission received, Star Quest out,” she replied. Clicking off the comm, Metallo diverted all her attention to their unwelcome guest. She could tell there was more to this young woman than met the eye. “What are you doing on my ship?”
“I’m a member of the resistance on Garos IV,” Alex told them.
Gil’s eyebrows disappeared behind his dark locks. He threw a sidelong glance toward Metallo. Her eyes remained riveted on Alex.
“We’ve been waiting for someone like you for so long,” Alex continued.
“Waiting for us?” Metallo asked.
“For the New Republic — ”
“Hold on now! Who said anything about the New Republic? We’re gettin’ paid to transport supplies for the Empire,” Gil insisted, painfully aware from the expression on Alex’s face that any attempt at subterfuge was in vain.
“You may be getting paid by them,” Alex replied, “but I overheard enough of your conversation to know where your loyalties lie.”
Metallo remained indifferent. “Keep talking,” she told Alex.
“Let’s see — ” Alex said, “Command said this was standard procedure, the other team is just ahead, bombs, computer viruses — sounds like you’re planning to drop off more than just supplies.”
“That still doesn’t explain to us why you’re here,” Gil said.
“One of my colleagues was arrested on Garos. He’s being forced to work at the research facility,” Alex said, watching Metallo closely. “Please, Captain, I just want to get him out.”
Metallo concentrated her scan on Alex — heart rate normal, blood pressure normal — the girl seemed to be telling the truth. Recalling the briefing the commando teams had concerning Garos IV, Metallo knew a previous scout had reported resistance activity on the planet. “Did your leaders authorize this little escapade?”
Alex avoided Metallo’s eyes. “Not exactly.”
Gil shook his head in disbelief, and Metallo noticed he was more relaxed than he’d been in hours. “You mean, you decided to do this on your own?” he asked.
Alex looked from Gil to Metallo. “I had this feeling. I can’t really explain it.” She gazed out the viewport. “It just seemed that time was running out,” she said quietly.
Metallo stared at the young woman, struck by the urgent tone in Alex’s voice and that look in her eyes. Something about it reminded her of Luke Skywalker’s expression at their mission briefing. There had been something in his eyes, too — that sense of urgency, the dread of uncovering another of the Emperor’s secrets. Even after all he’d been through in recent weeks, all he’d said was. “We must go there.”
“You took a big chance, kid,” Metallo said. “What if we’d been loyal to the Empire?”
“Well,” Alex hesitated, “then I guess I would have introduced myself as the daughter of the Imperial governor.”
Metallo’s pink eyes narrowed. “Cute, kid,” she grimaced. “Real cute.”
“Not a bad idea,” Gil chuckled softly. “Just a rebellious teen out for a joyride, eh?”
“Yeah,” Alex said, breathing a sigh of relief, “something like that.”
“So — you have a plan for rescuing this friend of yours?” Metallo asked.
“Well, I’ve got a few ideas for getting around Imperial security,” Alex told them.
Gil chuckled again, a broad grin crossing his face. “One thing’s for sure, she’s not short on guts!”
Alex smiled for the first time. Metallo frowned, but Gil was right. You had to admire the girl’s spirit. She stared down at the nav computer. They had to get moving. “Gil, do a cross check on these coordinates.”
“Looks like we’re headed for the right place. Cap’n,” he said, verifying their heading. “Our star charts show empty space. But, knowing the Empire, I bet we’re gonna find us a secret research facility.”
Metallo nodded.
Alex gently tapped Metallo’s shoulder. “Captain?”
“Yeah?”
“I won’t get in the way,” Alex told her. “And I won’t interfere with your mission.”
“Sure, kid,” Metallo replied. “Now let’s get out of here. We’ve got a job to do.” She turned her gaze from Alex to the stars in the distance. “And our little underground friend from Garos has a lot more questions to answer.”
Only three planets orbited the white dwarf the Imperials called Bseto. Bseto I and Indikir were uninhabited. The Lweilot Asteroid Belt stretched 90 million kilometers wide in an orbit once occupied millennia ago by their sister planet. And then there was Sarahwiee. It was an ice-covered world from pole to pole. Frozen continents rising above frozen oceans — a truly inhospitable place.
But even from several thousand kilometers out the Imperial presence was not hard to miss.
“Star Destroyer,” Alex said, pointing off their starboard bow.
“There’s our Strike-class cruiser friend off to port,” Gil indicated as the Star Quest was scanned by sensors. A few tense seconds passed before they were cleared to approach the planet. With the coordinates locked in, the ship plunged through the upper atmosphere of Sarahwiee.
“Would ya’ look at that,” Gil said.
“Gorgeous,” Metallo whispered.
The last sparkles of sunlight glinted off a glacier as the Star Quest crossed the terminator into night. Canyons of ice rose majestically thousands of meters into the sky. Here and there, chunks of the ice wall broke off, crashing toward a frozen riverbed that shimmered in the moonlight.
Alex stared, awestruck by the magnificent vistas. Then her grip tightened on the top of Gil’s co-pilot seat. She saw the mountain — that same snow-covered mountain she’d rappelled down in her visions —
“Alex, take my hand!” The man with san
dy brown hair and blue eyes shouted above the shrieking wind. His hand reached out to hers —
Sighing, Alex closed her eyes, not wanting to know how it would end this time. For a brief moment she sensed a calming presence. But it disappeared when she opened her eyes and caught Metallo staring at her. Alex smiled, nodding to the captain — in their two-day journey, they’d spoken of a thousand different things. But she’d never revealed her visions of this place.
“Okay. Cap’n, I’m takin’ her in,” Gil reported.
Through thin wispy clouds, the Imperial garrison loomed atop the mountain. Lit only by moonlight, its shadow painted one side of the mountain in darkness, hiding snow-covered crags and one New Republic commando team.
“Okay, everybody ready for the party?” Metallo asked as the Star Quest landed gently inside one of two landing bays that were carved into the mountainside several hundred meters below the garrison.
“Ready,” Alex nodded.
“Lets go.”
As they headed down the ramp, a supply skiff pulled away from the ancient Corellian freighter parked next to the Star Quest. The skiff moved deeper into the bay toward the cargo lift where a stormtrooper stood guard, his blaster rifle hugged to his armored chest. On the far side of the bay, with its forward section barely jutting out beyond the Corellian ship, a Kazellis light freighter was clocked. Alex noticed the fleeting exchange between Metallo and Gil, the flash of recognition in Gil’s face as he spied the ship — the other team’s ship, she decided.
Massive shield doors groaned shut behind them. Tugging at the collar of her jacket, Alex tried to ward off the cold blast of air that swept the cavernous room.
“Look up,” Gil whispered under his breath.
Alex nodded, casually glancing in the direction he’d indicated. Overlooking the entire bay, two technicians occupied the transparisteel-enclosed control room even at this late hour.
On the other side of the Kazellis freighter, a turbolift door slid open. An Imperial officer climbed aboard a waiting repulsor sled, waving the driver on. Moving past parked supply skiffs, the sled finally stopped midway between the Star Quest and the Corellian freighter.
Star Wars - The Adventures of Alex Winger 7 - Rendezvous with Destiny Page 1