Star Wars - X-Wing - Iron Fist

by Aaron Allston

  Lara felt Tyria squeeze her and heard her whisper "Con-gratulations." But Lara's mind was racing down pathways far from human contact.

  She'd have to reply to this boob. Somehow break off all family contact forever, and without letting him see a holo of her-of Gara Petothel.

  Then her attention fell on the holos on the table behind Tavin. They showed family scenes. The real Lara Notsil's mother and father sharing a swing tied to a tree behind their farmhouse. A much younger Tavin Notsil swimming in the family pond. And, seated atop a repulsor thresher, her expres-sion cheerful, Lara Notsil-

  Not the real Lara Notsil. Her, Gara Petothel, in farm clothes, with fine blond hair, wearing a sunburn she'd never suffered in life. She froze the picture, looked at it, willing it and its wrongness away.

  The world spun and Lara's knees went weak. She slumped back in her chair and felt Tyria support her. Heard her mur-mur, "Whoa, there. Obviously this is a big shock for you. I'll get Dr. Phanan."

  Lara clung to Tyria's hand, not letting her leave. "No doc-

  tor. I'm all right." Her words were faint in her own ears, but

  she knew she didn't want anyone else seeing her. Not until she had this sorted out.

  She'd never been on the world of Aidivy. She'd never been seated on that thresher. Before a few weeks ago, she'd never been Lara Notsil. Or was that a lie? Was she really Lara, and her memories of Gara Petothel some bizarre dream? The walls still seemed to spin as she tried to force her way through the sense of unreality that possessed her. She unfroze the message.

  Her brother was now looking at a datapad. "Listen, you'll probably find this ironic. Do you remember putting in for a transfer to move to Greenton and transmitting an application to Lachany Foods there? I have your original letter here. 'If I can effect this transfer, would you be interested in employing a technician with my skills and special knowledge? It is my hope that you would.'"

  Lara shut her eyes and resisted the temptation to cover her ears against the barrage of confusing half memories. She knew those words. She'd written those words. And if those were Lara Notsil's words, then she was Lara, not Gara.

  "Well, Lachany Foods wrote back. They apparently didn't cross-index the destruction of New Oldtown with the season's applications before they did that-in other words, they don't know you're dead. I mean, that you're supposed to be dead. Anyway, they're offering you the job you wanted, at the salary you were hoping for. They're really interested in what you have to offer them." Tavin's expression became earnest. "Listen, Lara, I understand you have some sort of job on Coruscant processing data. And if you're happy there, that's fine. But I doubt you are. All those tall buildings-if you want this job, send me the word. I'll let them know. I can even arrange pas-sage for you back to Aidivy. You just let me know."

  Tavin's eyes flickered to something offscreen, then back. "It looks like I'm almost out of time, if I'm going to keep this message affordable. Whether you want this job or not, let me hear from you. Good-bye for now." He half smiled and the picture froze.

  Words popped up on the screen, superimposed over his

  face in white. They were the chronicle of the path the message

  took to reach her-from Aidivy to her former quarters on Corus-

  i.

  cant, then to the main New Republic message authority on Coruscant, then-with the secrecy flag activated-to Tede-vium and Mon Remonda. Finally it had come here, though there was no chronicle of that final bounce; the Wraiths' pres-ence in the Halmad system was still top secret.

  Lara just sat and tried to breathe, tried to sort out what was happening to her.

  Then it came to her. Those had been her words. But she'd written them on Coruscant in a letter to Warlord Zsinj. She, Gara, had written them, not she, Lara, the false identity.

  She felt her breathing relax, as though a belt tied across her rib cage had been suddenly loosened. She knew who she was again.

  Why was Tavin Notsil quoting her a letter she'd written to Warlord Zsinj? Obviously, this was an indirect message from Zsinj. Tavin Notsil was in on it. That made sense. He was sup-posed to be a crook, a confidence man.

  She felt wobbly again. That meant Zsinj had penetrated

  her Lara Notsil identity. It was no longer a haven for her. She

  felt tears welling up, and for once she could not contain

  them-her legendary ability to start and stop crying at will

  abandoned her. She buried her face in her hands and cried.

  "It's all right," Tyria said. "Even good news can be a big shock. Are you sure you don't want to see the doctor?"

  "No doctor." What was she going to do? Just days ago, she had abandoned her plan, her desire to serve Zsinj. She had decided to stay here, to belong here. And now Zsinj had denied her the future she'd stumbled upon.

  She rose, the motion made difficult by her suddenly shaky legs, and turned an uncertain smile on Tyria. "I think I just need to walk for a while."

  "I understand. Later, if you need to talk-"

  "Thank you."

  Outside her habitation module, she turned right on the Trench, heading deeper into the mine shaft that served the Wraiths as home. Deeper tended to mean away from people.

  Face, again at his favorite "patio" table, making some final notes on tomorrow's mission, saw Lara exit her bunk module and walk away. He returned his attention to his work, then looked at her again. There was something odd about her movement...

  She was angry, no question of it. But that wasn't all. All of a sudden, her carriage was appropriate for Coruscant- shorter steps, hunched shoulders, the posture of a woman who lived within the imposing and paranoia-inducing canyons of the Imperial throneworld for many years.

  Or, perhaps, Admiral Trigit had taught her to walk this way when she'd been his drugged captive. That made more sense; a man like that might be offended at the long, rangy stride of an Aldivian farm girl and have modifications to her physical mannerisms on the list of things to change when he broke her spirit.

  Face sighed. He suspected that the mind of Lara Notsil was a deeper mess than anyone had realized before now. With luck, she'd turn to her fellow Wraiths when she realized she was in trouble. Until that happened, all he could do was watch and be ready.

  A little troubled, he returned his attention to his planning.

  One "block" from her module-a block being one uninter-rupted series of cargo modules-Lara ran into Kell Tainer. The big lieutenant was working out against a combat dummy, a human-shaped object made of materials tough and malleable enough to withstand the fist, foot, elbow, and knee blows Kell was raining upon it. When he saw her watching, he stopped.

  "Is that how you get rid of tension?" she asked.

  "That's right."

  "What do you do when you just want to scream?"

  He pointed farther down the shaft. "Two blocks down,

  there's a powered door to the left. It leads to a cross tunnel. It has lights and gravity until you get to the boundaries marked in yellow, about a hundred meters. Don't go beyond those boundaries."

  "Thank you."

  He was right. Once the door to that cross tunnel shut be-hind her, she could feel that she was cut off from the Wraiths, from all contact with people. She was surrounded by the reas-suring solidity of stone walls and metal doors.

  She screamed, an expulsion of anger and confusion that stripped her throat raw. Her cry echoed down the half-lit corri-dor and was lost in the distance. She did it again and again, un-til she had almost no voice left. Almost no bewilderment left. Just tiredness. Then she put her back against the rough stone wall and slid down to sit, her face in her hands.

  Her little vacation was over. It was time to think analyti-cally again.

  First, Zsinj was about to consume the future that she'd just decided she wanted. What could she do about that?

  Second, she'd just had a crisis of identity she should never have suffered. She never should have felt any confusion about who she'd been. Where she'd come from. M
uch as she wanted to be Lara Notsil, there should never have been any doubt that she'd originally been Gara Petothel. What was that all about?

  All right. First problem.

  Possible solution Return to original plan and join Zsinj.

  She shook her head over that. At Lavisar, she'd decided, once and forever, that Zsinj was unworthy. Not just unworthy of her, unworthy of any aid, of any success. He was dishonorable. She would never join him.

  Possible solution Confess all to her c ommanding officer.

  No, that would solve only some of her problems. Wedge An-

  tilles might accept her aid in the continued campaign against

  Zsinj, but he would never trust her again. No one would. That

  trust, she'd found, was more addictive than spice was sup-

  posed to be. She could not live without experiencing it again

  and wondered how she'd lived so long without it. And on a

  more pragmanc note, Lieutenant Myn Donos was a member of

  Wraith Squadron. Before he'd been a Wraith, he was the com-

  mander of Talon Squadron. And during the time when Gara

  had been a deep-cover operative working for Admiral Trigit,

  she'd blithely obeyed orders and spliced some false informa-

  tion about the security designation of a specific world into the

  New Republic database; Talon Squadron, later relying on that information, had been annihilated. All but Donos. If he knew what she'd done, he might kill her.

  Possible solution Put Zsinj off, delay him, perhaps feed him false information, and ride out this campaign against him. Once he was destroyed, he could no longer expose her. That was possible. With delicate handling, that might work. She de-cided on that approach for the time being.

  Now, her emotional crisis of a few minutes ago.

  You must become your role.

  The voice was male, silky. Its tones caressed. A casual lis-

  tener might think that the speaker cared about the person he was talking to. Lara knew better; he was simulating affection.

  But whose voice was it? She couldn't remember. She sup-posed it was one of her teachers when she was training to become an Imperial Intelligence agent. Context made that clear.

  Plant your triggers deep in your mind. When they are acti-vated, come back to yourself. Achieve your objectives. And then bury everything beneath your role again.

  She couldn't quite see the face; it was a man silhouetted by lights behind him. Peering into those lights made her eyes water.

  Let Gara go. All today, you'll be Kirney.

  That jolted her, brought her eyes open. She'd forgotten

  about Kirney Slane. Her first role, her practice role. A Corus-

  cant student of economics, daughter of a hotelier who had

  never existed. Within the mind of Kirney Slane, Lara had

  walked among the middle society of Coruscant, fluent in the small talk of officers' spouses. She'd flirted, promoted herself like so many whose goal began and ended with marrying a promising officer.

  Lara shook her head to clear the memories. Kirney was distant, Kirney was dead. Once her usefulness as a training tool had ended, she'd been forbidden to assume that name, that manner, that mentality again.

  If it has practical application, retain it. If it has only senti-

  mental attraction for you, abandon it. He, her mystery teacher;

  was not just talking about details of false identities. He meant

  emotional attachments. Even memories. She was supposed to

  scrape away everything that did not pertain to her profession, to her current mission.

  She missed being Kirney. So carefree.

  Before her service with Admiral Trigit under her true

  name, she'd spent some time as Chyan Mezzine, a communica-tions officer for the New Republic frigate Mother Sea. Lara re-membered, almost word for word, the secret communiqus she'd passed on from the frigate to her Imperial controller, then to Admiral Trigit. Yet she couldn't remember her life as Chyan Mezzine. What had she done? Who had she known? Had she had friends?

  There was something very wrong in her head, something her teachers had done to her starting when she was just a child. She wanted that wrongness out. But she had no idea where to begin to look for it.

  She belatedly realized she was looking at a pair of booted feet. She looked up into the face of Myn Donos. The lieutenant was in a pilot's suit and had a rifle case slung over his back.

  "Are you all right?" Donos extended a folded handker-chief to her.

  She took it and looked at it stupidly.

  "For your eyes."

  "Oh. Thank you." She dabbed away tears she hadn't re-membered crying.

  "I heard you had some happy news. But you don't look happy." He shrugged. "Not my business. But if you want to talk..."

  She did. It was wrong, she knew. Her trainers would never approve. But she had to talk. "I heard from my brother. He was supposed to have been killed when my town was de-stroyed by Implacable. But he survived."

  Donos set his case down and sat against the wall opposite from Lara. "And that's not good news?"

  "Not really. I . . . really don't care for my brother," she

  said. "He was a criminal. He should have been in jail when

  New Oldtown was destroyed, but he'd managed to sneak off

  under an assumed name. That's the sort of man he is. So, I sup-

  pose I'm glad he's alive, but if you knew him the way I did,

  you'd know that his letter to me... well, it dripped with sarcasm

  and irony that no one but me could have seen. He wants to drag me back into his habits of deceit, into his confidence games. He has no other reason to get in contact with me. He wants something."

  Donos rubbed his chin while he mulled over that. Finally he said, "Could Zsinj have gotten hold of him?" "What?"

  "No, bear with me. We know that Zsinj has a considerable level of interest in Commander Antilles and Wraith Squadron. Let's say he finds your name on the unit roster and checks into your background, then finds this scofflaw of a brother of yours alive when the man should be dead. Would your brother turn you over to a man like Zsinj for money?"

  Lara's mind whirled. Try as hard as she might to keep her fictitious background separate from her current life, they con-tinued to threaten collision. "In a Coruscant second," she said.

  "So maybe this is just him wanting to graft some credits from you... and maybe he's angling to lead you into a Zsinj trap. Possible?"

  "Possible," she admitted.

  "I think we need to find out. I mean, that's intruding into

  your family business . . . but if Zsinj is taking a run at you through your family, he might do the same with the rest of us. We need to know."

  "You're right. But I have to do this myself. He wouldn't trust anyone but me."

  "Not all by yourself, no. What if it's a trap? As in, the in-stant you walk into his house, he hits you with a stun rifle and a bunch of Zsinj's Raptors take you up to Iron Fist for some of his delicate interrogation?"

  She answered with a shudder. She was surprised to find that her dread was real. "You're right."

  "If you like, I'll put together a mission proposal and run it past Commander Antilles. Just you and a small team going to Aidivy to clear this up."

  "Would you? I'd appreciate that." The way her head was filling up with whirling emotions and irrelevant remnants of roles and personalities she'd abandoned, she didn't think she could think clearly enough to plan a shopping trip.

  "I'11 do that." He rose and took up his rifle case.

  "What's that for?"

  "Down about two hundred meters, this tunnel takes a turn to the right and opens up into a long, wide gallery, straight as a laser beam, about a kilometer long. I have targets set up at the far end for practice."

  "That's past the artificial gravity, isn't it?"

  He nodded. "Doing it in zero gravity adds a little to the
difficulty, but this is one of the skills Antilles brought me in for. l'm supposed to stay sharp. And it really does focus and clear the mind."

  "Maybe I should take it up. I could stand some focusing and clearing."

  He smiled. "Try getting some rest. We're going to need you alert and ready."

  "I know. Mission tomorrow."

  He gave her a little wave good-bye and left her alone with her thoughts.

  She should never have agreed for him to plan and propose this Aidivy mission. She had to be in charge of it, every part of it, or something would come up to ruin her, expose her.

  But she was oddly unworried. It was because she, she...

  Trusted Myn Donos.

  Trusted him.

  Trusted someone.

  She shook her head. That was wrong, she couldn't trust. It went against all mission parameters.

  But she did, and once again she found herself crying with-out entirely understanding why.

  Wedge ascended the ladder to the interceptor and peered down into the cockpit to make sure Lieutenant Kettch, Ewok pilot, was not waiting for him once more. But his cockpit was clear. He glanced up and saw Face, lowering himself into the cockpit of his own interceptor, smirking at him, obviously having fig_ ured out what he was looking for. Wedge gave him a mock glower and clambered down.

  A moment later, he heard Face's exclamation of "Son of

  the Sith!" and Lieutenant Kettch came flying up out of the open hatch of Face's interceptor. Phanan, walking toward his TIE fighter, neatly fielded the stuffed toy and handed him off t0 Squeaky.

  Wedge shook his head. At least morale was high. He be-gan his power up and systems check.

  Kell, Runt, Donos, Tyria, Piggy, and Castin were already off in the Narra. Their mission was to conclude at about the same time as that of the other Hawk-bats, but required more time in its initial stages. In some ways it was even more danger-ous, and Wedge wondered briefly about the advisability of putting Kell Tainer in charge. But the man had not demon-strated any recurrence of the problem that had plagued him during his first few weeks with Wraith Squadron.