The sled driver gawked at Metallo, whose tall, lithe frame towered over her companions. His passenger, a young lieutenant, appeared impatient as he waited for Metallo and her crew to approach him. Disembarking from the sled, he gave Metallo a cursory glance. Then, with all the authority he could muster, he purposefully addressed Gil. “Captain Metallo?” he asked.
Gil smiled and pointed toward Metallo. Her face wore a sour scowl. Obviously Metallo was used to Imperial officers assuming that Gil was captain of the Star Quest. But Alex could sense she was more amused than angry. She seemed to enjoy the man’s discomfort.
“Lieutenant,” Metallo frowned down at him, slowly running her thumb along the scar on her face, “what’s our schedule going to be on your lovely little iceberg?”
The officer flinched slightly, staring up into her calculating pink eyes. “I am Chief Duty Officer Cdera,” he said. “There are two ships ahead of you. Captain. We have you scheduled for unloading at 0300.”
“Excellent. I think you boys can handle everything without us.”
“I wouldn’t doubt it, Captain,” the lieutenant snickered. He didn’t even bother to hide his distaste for cocky freighter captains.
“Any place for my crew to relax around here?” Metallo asked, glancing around the bay as a second skiff pulled away from the Corellian frigate.
“You are restricted to this level, Captain. There is a lounge,” Cdera pointed toward a hallway that ran beneath the second floor control room. “Perhaps you and your crew,” he grimaced at Alex and Gil, “will find something there to occupy your time.”
“I’m sure we will, Lieutenant,” Metallo replied.
Cdera glared at her, then turned sharply in crisp military fashion and climbed back aboard the sled. He muttered something to the driver as the sled moved away.
Metallo shrugged. She’d put on a fine show, but the lieutenant had been unimpressed.
“I’m impressed, Captain,” Alex replied quietly to Metallo’s unspoken thoughts.
“Huh? How’d you — ”
“Captain,” Alex interrupted, “there’s a computer workstation on the other side of the ship.”
“Two techs unloading the Corellian in bay two, Cap’n,” Gil noted. “Alex should be able to get to those computers for a few minutes.”
“Keep an eye on that stormtrooper, Gil. Kid,” she motioned toward Alex, “you come with me.”
Within a minute, Alex had tapped into the base’s computer system. Displays splashed across the screen showing the layout of the garrison. Alex waded though massive amounts of information as Metallo looked on.
“I hope your friends are aware of the security checkpoints in this facility,” Alex told her.
“Don’t worry about my friends. Did you find your Dr. Barzon?” Metallo asked.
“Level 18, room 14E,” Alex replied, logging off the system.
“Okay,” Metallo said, glancing around the bay. Her eyes came to rest on Gil, and her tough exterior melted away. It was clear that she cared for him, in a motherly sort of way.
“It’s all right, Captain,” Alex said softly, sensing Metallo’s concern. “I’ll take care of Gil.”
Metallo forced down the lump in her throat. She turned back toward Alex, her feelings masked behind a stern expression. “Just remember, kid — you’ve got three hours to get back to the ship.”
Alex studied the older woman’s face. The stern look disappeared, replaced by the trust that had grown between them during the last two days.
“And make sure you don’t trip any alarms,” Metallo added with a sly grin on her face.
Alex smiled. “Right.”
Metallo paused, then nodded confidently. “Good luck, Alex.”
“Captain Metallo?”
“Yeah?”
“The Force will be with us.”
Metallo sat stone-faced, peering at her opponents over the best sabacc hand she’d had all night. Lucky for her, the off-duty tech and the two Corellians were unaware of Riilebs’ polygraphic ability — they might actually accuse her of cheating!
Conversation at the next table had become more animated as the hour grew late, but Metallo concentrated on her game. She gave no indication that she recognized the female freighter pilot who entertained another off-duty tech with one fantastic story after another.
Taking a drink of her ale, Metallo eyed the old Corellian named Sapra, certain that he had a good hand. After the last cards were dealt his heart rate skyrocketed. Checking her own hand again, she smiled to herself. An 11 would give her the points she needed to win the game. Or even better, the Commander would give her a perfect 23.
Gil winked slyly at Metallo from across the room and took Alex by the hand. The final cards were dealt to the sabacc players. Bets were placed, and the dealer pushed the randomizer. The card values materialized. Metallo had gotten the Commander! She let out a shrill screech and all heads in the room turned to stare. Sapra threw his cards across the table in disgust as the scorekeeper announced the point total. The timing couldn’t have been better if it had been planned that way — which it was. No one had noticed the departure of the two young people.
Across the corridor from the lounge, past the closed door that led upstairs to the control room. Alex and Gil slipped unnoticed into a storage room. Alex located the access panel in one corner of the room that she’d seen when studying the computer schematic of the garrison.
Silently they crawled through the ventilation system. Distant voices echoed over the hum of machinery in the artificial tunnel. The hum grew to a dull roar as they neared the turbolift shaft that served the garrison’s upper levels.
“We’re in luck,” Gil whispered, pointing to the liftcar that had stopped a half meter below them. “Ready?”
Alex nodded, grabbing his hands. Gil lowered her onto the lift then carefully jumped down beside her. His gloved hands worked feverishly attaching a time-delay charge to the roof of the turbolift — this explosion would coincide with ones that Page’s team were planning in other parts of the garrison.
Alex watched as he set the timer for 48 minutes, watched as the seconds began to tick away. Taking a deep breath, she tried to relax. Forty-seven minutes. A chill crawled up her spine. “Someone’s coming,” she said, though several more seconds passed before Gil heard any footsteps.
The door below them whooshed open, and two passengers climbed aboard. The turbolift zipped upward, surrounded by walls of rock in the tunnel drilled through the mountain. Steel walls replaced rock as the lift entered the garrison. Gil tried to count the levels they passed. But one level blurred into the next until the turbolift finally jerked to a halt.
As the door slid open below them. Alex climbed off the lift into a horizontal shaft. “C’mon,” she whispered to Gil.
Gil found himself hanging halfway out the shaft as the turbolift disappeared beneath him. “I could use a hand here,” he called quietly.
Alex held out her hand, and for just an instant recalled the vision she’d had — a hand reaching out to save her, just as she reached out to help Gil now. Could Gil be the man from her visions? Gil, with his dark hair and eyes, looked nothing like the man she’d envisioned. But if not Gil, then who could he be? Would she find him here?
With Gil safely inside the shaft, they continued their crawl. “Any idea where we are?” he asked her.
“We need to get up a couple more levels. And I think,” Alex said, pointing toward a vertical maintenance crawlway, “I just found the way.”
Twenty-five meters up, they entered level 18 through a supply room. Silently they moved down the corridor toward Dr. Barzon’s room.
“Here it is,” she told Gil. There was no security code on the door’s access panel — which was unexpected, though not surprising. The mountain and Sarahwiee’s harsh climate served as a deterrent to anyone who might ever think about escaping from this place.
Alex pressed the panel and the door slid open. Cautiously they entered the darkened room.
“Who’s there?” a man called from the shadows. The chill is his voice matched the temperature in the small living quarters.
“Dr. Barzon?” Alex called quietly. “It’s me, Alex.”
A light flicked on. “Alex?” Carl Barzon scratched the beginnings of a gray beard in disbelief. “How in the worlds did you get here?” he asked looking past her toward Gil.
“We’ll explain all that later,” she told him. “This is Gil, a friend of mine who’s here with the New Republic.”
“We don’t have much time. Doctor,” Gil said. “We need to get out of here.”
Barzon looked away, trying to hide the haunted expression on his face. “I can’t leave,” he said. “They will kill my son.”
Outside, the wind cried. The room seemed colder than before. Alex took Barzon’s hands into hers. Memories of that fateful day on Garos stampeded her senses. “Cord is dead, Doctor. We tried to get word to you before you were arrested — ”
“Before I was arrested? What do you mean?”
“I — I’m so sorry. I was at the mining center. I sabotaged the shuttle platform,” Alex told him. struggling to find a way to tell her friend what had happened. “I — ” she paused again, and tears filled her eyes. “I saw them take Cord to the turbolift. I had no idea they were going to move him off-planet — ”
Carl Barzon hung his head, and took Alex into his arms. “Oh, Alex!” he cried out.
“I could have stopped them, Doctor.”
Barzon looked into her eyes. He wasn’t blind to the anguish that she had known. “No, Alex, I don’t think so.” He gently wiped a tear from her cheek. “I know you well, Alex Winger. Saving Cord would have compromised everything you and I, and our friends in the resistance, have fought for.”
She nodded. Freedom had never been won without sacrifice. She’d told herself that a thousand times since Cord’s death. But hearing it from Cord’s father, her friend, finally put her mind at peace.
Gil, who’d been listening quietly, swallowed hard. His eyes grew wide. “Winger?” he asked. He recognized that name from the mission briefing. “Did I hear you say Winger? As in Imperial Governor Tork Winger!”
Alex didn’t say a word. She didn’t need to. Gil’s eyes shifted nervously from Alex to Barzon, then back to Alex where he fixed an accusing glare.
“You should have told us, Alex!”
“Gil, everything I told you was true. Does it really matter that I left out one little detail?”
“One little detail! That is not a little detail, Alex!” He turned away, throwing his hands up in disgust. “Good skies! I thought you were kidding when you said you’d introduce yourself as the Imperial governor’s daughter,” he groaned sarcastically.
“I’m sorry, Gil,” she said, sensing he was more hurt than angry. “I should have trusted you.”
“Yeah, right,” he nodded. “You got any more surprises? Nevermind,” he interrupted before she had a chance to speak. “I don’t wanna know right now. We’ve got to get out of here,” he said softly.
“Yes,” Barzon agreed, “I have no reason to stay here now. In fact, Gil, I have information that your people should he quite interested in. But I must retrieve some files from the lab.”
“That’s probably not a good idea, Doctor,” Gil said. “It’s too dangerous and we’re runnin’ short on time.” He looked at Alex. “You heard what Cap’n Metallo said, Alex. Get the doc and return to the ship.”
Alex looked from Gil to Barzon. “Can we access the files from here?” she asked the doctor.
“No, they’re my private notes. Research I didn’t dare enter into the Imperial database,” Barzon said.
Gil shook his head. “Alex, if we run into the commando team up in the lab — ”
“It’s all right, Gil.” Something tugged at the back of her mind. “I have to go there,” she said quietly but with such intensity that it caused Gil to stare. “You take Dr. Barzon back to the Star Quest.”
Gil regarded her silently, then finally nodded his agreement.
A few minutes later, they parted company. Gil gave her a thumbs up before disappearing after Dr. Barzon into the supply room where they’d come in earlier. Alex turned, walking swiftly down the corridor toward the turbolift. She pressed the call button and checked her chronometer. Time was running out.
Even before the turbolift doors opened on level 23, Alex sensed someone was waiting for her. As she stepped off the lift, she saw a man standing in a doorway halfway down the corridor. Silhouetted by light from the lab, his face was hidden in shadows. But she could sense that he seemed to recognize her.
“I felt your presence,” he said quietly, stepping into the dimly lit corridor.
Alex nodded and walked toward him, confident that this was the man she’d been destined to meet. “I’ve seen you in my visions of this place,” she told him.
He smiled, a gentle sort of smile. “Mountain climbing?”
So he had had the same vision. “Yes,” she said, as one of his comrades emerged from the lab.
“We’re done here, Luke,” the man said. “Lieutenant Page just signalled from the warehouse. He and Lilla are headed back to the landing bay.”
“Good. Thanks, Korren,” Luke said. “You and the others go ahead. Alex and I will be right behind you.”
Luke? Alex’s eyes grew wide. “Luke Skywalker?” she asked.
Luke nodded.
Alex never had placed a name on that face from her visions, never associated the feelings she’d had with the powers of the Force. Was her destiny somehow linked with his?
“There’s so little time now, Alex,” he said.
Alex heard the despair in his voice. She searched his blue eyes, eyes that seemed filled with fatigue. And beyond the fatigue, she sensed a forboding in Luke’s mind. Something seemed to haunt him. Something, or someone, that he had to face. Darkness beckoned, and Alex stepped back, frightened by the swirling black clouds that threatened to swallow him.
Luke held his gloved hand out to her. “Remember, Alex, the dark side of the Force breeds on our fears. Be calm. Be at peace,” he said quietly. “That is the way of the Jedi.”
His words were familiar to her. She’d heard them in her visions. They had always been a part of her. “I understand,” she nodded, firmly grasping his hand.
“You are strong in the Force. Alex — ”
Whoosh! The turbolift door opened at the far end of the corridor. Two stormtroopers exited the lift, assigned what normally was a routine check of the labs.
“… and the lieutenant said that — ” The stormtrooper stopped short, catching sight of Luke and Alex. “Hey, what are you doing in here!” he shouted, bringing his blaster rifle to bear on the intruders.
Alex whipped her blaster up and fired, hitting one stormtrooper. Luke’s lightsaber hummed to life as the other stormtrooper peppered the hallway with blasts from his rifle. Blaster fire arced off the greenish-white blade as Luke deflected each shot. Sparks ricocheted off every wall, illuminating the corridor in a miniature display of fireworks. The trooper retreated toward the turbolift as Alex got off a second shot. The burst from her blaster sent him crashing into the wall.
“I don’t think they had time to call security,” Luke told her as he shut down his lightsaber. “But we’d better get out of here.”
“Wait! I’ve got to get Dr. Barzon’s files,” Alex said. Rushing into the lab, she passed tables laden with scientific equipment and banks of computers while Luke kept a watchful eye on the corridor.
A half dozen cabinets lined one wall. But following the doctor’s instructions, Alex keyed open the one on the far right. Reaching for Barzon’s files, the vision of the mountain suddenly filled her senses again. Whatever happened — no matter which version played out here now — she knew Carl Barzon was safe with Gil headed toward the Star Quest. She had accomplished her mission.
“I’m ready to go,” she called to Luke.
“C’mon, this way,” he said, leading her down the hallwa
y to a turret stairwell.
Seconds later they were outside standing on the battlement looking over a waist-high stone wall into the darkness. Far below on the mountainside, the shield doors of the two landing bays stood open — the lights would be their beacon.
The wind howled like a wild animal in the final throes of death. Swirling snow stung their faces. They worked in silence, securing themselves to rappelling gear the commandos had left behind. Jumping backwards from the top of the wall, they began their descent down the side of the garrison.
Every few meters Alex pushed off the wall, propelling herself down. She sensed Luke’s calm presence nearby as they moved through the black void. At the base of the fortress they paused to adjust their ropes.
“Everything all right?” Luke asked, shouting above the shrieking wind.
“No problem,” Alex called back.
All of a sudden, a gale-force wind knocked Alex backwards. Sliding uncontrollably down the mountainside, she quickly lost sight of Luke. She slammed into a rocky crag that protruded from the snow-covered slope. It knocked her breathless, but didn’t break her fall. Searing pain shot through her body. Like an ominous shadow, memories of the vision clouded her thoughts with fear.
Calm. She heard Luke speak to her through the Force. You must be calm.
In her mind’s eye, Alex saw Luke. She could see her rope flailing violently in the wind. Luke called out to it, and the rope flew into his outstretched hand. It went taut, abruptly jerking her bruised body to a halt. Shaken, she struggled to gasp for breath.
Alex?
Alex felt Luke’s touch. She tried to relax, to envelop herself in his calm. Summoning what strength she had left, she fought to hold on long enough for him to reach her. Her arms ached as she clung to the icy slope. Her legs felt numb. But finally, above the winds deafening roar, she heard him calling her name out loud.
“Alex, take my hand!” Luke was just above her, perched on a small rocky ledge. He leaned down, stretching his hand over the snow-white slope.
Star Wars - The Adventures of Alex Winger 7 - Rendezvous with Destiny Page 2