Star Wars - X-Wing - Iron Fist

by Aaron Allston

  Face looked around. "Is he here?"

  "Baron Fel? No, he's on duty." The warlord shrugged.

  "Not the most congenial of dinner guests in any case."

  "So he bites, too?"

  Zsinj laughed.

  Castin waited until the hallway was momentarily clear. He moved up to the closed turbolift and quickly popped open its control panel. Beneath was the usual collection of wiring and computer boards. Deftly, he stripped the insulation from two wires and twisted them together.

  The turbolift doors slid open, revealing an echoing shaft beyond. Castin untwisted the wires, slapped the control panel shut, and stepped out to grab the maintenance access rungs in-side. He swung his feet clear of the opening just in time; the doors slid shut again just as rapidly.

  Now he had to find a level where he could have some privacy-and access to a computer interlock.

  Down or up? He could see the terminus of the shaft above him, some considerable distance, but not below him. That meant there was more to explore below. He climbed down.

  Moments later, he gripped the rungs as though his life de-pended on it while a fast-moving turbolift sailed past. The wind of its passage shook him and knocked his feet from the rail they rested on. Swearing to himself, he pulled himself back up and continued downward.

  If only these Imperial twits had seen fit to label the interiors of the turbolift doors. Level 15 HANGARS, ARMORY, CAFETERIA- that would have been nice.

  Still, there were clues he could interpret. The pattern of wear on the turbolift's machinery against the walls of the lift shaft, for example. There were telltale marks where the lifts came to rest, marks where the metal of the shaft had been worn away, showing which levels were the most heavily accessed. He'd have to avoid them.

  Six levels down, he found a turbolift door where the shaft showed almost no wear. A good sign. He opened the mainte-nance panel leading to the control box... and nearly dropped off his rung in surprise.

  This control box was not standard. In it was a sealed secu-rity module, an indication that whatever was beyond the door was very important to somebody.

  He leaned away and held tight as another turbolift shot past, this time rising from below, then returned to the problem at hand. This was probably too dangerous a level to enter for his task. On the other hand, he was curious. He broke out his pouchful of tools.

  The sealed security module was sophisticated, but he'd

  grown up slicing Imperial hardware and software, so after a

  few minutes it yielded to his experience and opened. Within

  were the standard turbolift door controls, plus a variety of se-

  curity measures-sensors to register whenever the doors were

  opened or closed, to note whenever a turbolift was called from

  this level or directed here, and to send all that data to the ship's

  main computer. He disconnected the sensors. He couldn't dis-

  connect the computer relay; it also handled the permissions for

  people to enter and leave the level, and if he disconnected it and someone with proper authorization tried to enter or leave, his modifications would be detected immediately.

  He could open the door from here without effort, but once the door was closed, he wouldn't be able to leave again with-out that authorization. It was time for some improvisation. He patched a small corem-enabled datapad into the circuit, pro-gramming it to do two things monitor his comlink frequency and issue the command to open this door when he broadcast a specific signal. That should do the trick.

  He put away his tools and brought out his blaster rifle.

  Then he tripped the switch to open the door.

  It slid open silently, unlike most turbolift doors, revealing a darkened passageway beyond. There was no one in sight. He hopped from his rung perch to the passageway floor and swept it around in a covering arc, but there was still no one to see.

  It wasn't a passageway, precisely. It was a gallery, a long hall in which one wall was made up of large viewports. The chambers beyond the viewports were well lit. He liked that; it would be next to impossible for people within them to see him. He reached back, tripped the switch again, and then yanked his arm out of the way so the door wouldn't close on it.

  There was a computer interlock here, just beside the turbo-lift door, but that would not be safe. He advanced along the gallery with the precise pace of an Imperial stormtrooper, look-ing for another.

  The chambers beyond the large viewports came into view as he passed them. The first was large. Against the far wall were large cages or small cells, stacked three high, made of glass or transparisteel, each occupied by a single creature.

  Castin saw a number of Gamorreans, a large dark arthropod whose cell was festooned with some sort of organic webbing, and an Ewok. In one oversized cell mostly filled with water was a dianoga, a tentacular scavenger with a single eye-stalk; it watched him as he passed. There was one human male outside the cages, seated at a desk with a large, elaborate computer ter-minal on it, his feet up on the desk as he idly tapped away at a personal datapad; he looked as though he were playing a game. He took no note of Castin.

  Up ahead, despite the dimness of the passageway, Castin could make out a darkened desk and computer terminal in the left corner. He couldn't tell whether this passageway ended there or turned to the right. That terminal was what he needed, assuming he could power it up without alerting anyone.

  He passed by the next section of viewports. These dis-played a smaller chamber, an operating theater. There was an operation in progress, a team of four human males, gloved and masked, working on a large, white-furred creature with two large eyes and two small. Castin recognized it as a Talz, then took a closer look.

  The Talz had some sort of drip tubes implanted in its head; fluids moved slowly from the bottles set up beside the operat-ing table. The creature was strapped in place... and it was awake. As Castin watched, it opened its mouth and roared, the noise not penetrating the viewports. Its clawed hands opened and closed as it strained against its bonds and its four eyes glared redly at the doctors.

  These were not roars of pain, Castin decided, but of rage. An unsettling image. The Talz were supposed to be peaceful creatures.

  A few steps more, and the operating theater was behind him. He seated himself at the darkened terminal and brought out his tool kit again.

  "Return to Iron Fist? I don't think so." Lara shook her head.

  "HI be far more valuable to Zsinj on Mort Remonda."

  "Not necessarily," Rossik said. "We'd be getting a couple of X-wings-which you'd be able to fly for us in covert missions- and your analyses of the missions you've flown so far and of the thought processes of the Wraiths and Rogues. These could be as valuable as getting an accurate fix on Mon Remonda's position."

  "I'd still prefer to return to the Wraiths."

  "Well, it's not going to happen that way. Now, assuming

  that he's looking at us, keep your wingman distracted with some animated conversation with the most unanimated Tavin while I get into position."

  Gloom settled over Lara as she realized what she had to do... as she realized that she was about to take prisoners who knew her secret, that she had to reveal that secret to Wedge An-tilles. "I don't think so. Put your hands in the air. You're now in the custody of the New Republic."

  From underneath his tunic, Tavin brought out a small blaster and aimed it at her. Rossik glanced at Tavin, his expres-sion openly derisive, and merely placed his own hand on the butt of his own blaster. "You don't appear to be in a position to make such demands, Petothel. Your partner is a kilometer away and may not even be watching. I know you haven't been broadcasting; my scanner would have told me."

  Lara looked at the blaster in Tavin's hand and raised her arms, a gesture that was half surrender, half insolent stretch. "I'11 give you two just one chance. Throw down your weapons now."

  Rossik said, "Keep her covered and take her blaster. I'm doing what I tol
d you-leaving through the rear of the house and circling around behind her partner. Just keep her here and quiet until then."

  "Easily done," Tavin said.

  "You should have surrendered," Lara said. She closed her

  hands into fists.

  A brilliant lance of light from the hill took Tavin right in the stomach. The sudden explosion of superheated tissues threw the man down and back; his blaster dropped to the charred ground.

  Rossik turned toward the source of the laser fire and took a step forward. Lara drew her blaster. Rossik was in the air, throwing himself to the ground, when Lara's blast took him in the side. He hit the ground and lay there unmoving.

  Lara rose and kept the two men covered as Donos ran down from his sniper position. She didn't need to; it was clear to her that both men were dead. She tried to simulate rattled nerves and was surprised to discover that she had them for real. Part of her reaction, she knew, was the sudden relief that her secret was once again safe for the time being. "Are you all right?" Donos asked.

  Lara nodded. "They wanted "Her voice broke and once

  again it was a genuine reaction. "They wanted me to go back

  to Iron Fist with them. They weren't going to leave me an op-

  tion where I could feed them false information. I was just going to disappear." She shuddered. "I couldn't do that."

  Donos prodded Rossik with a foot. The body rolled halfway over, displaying staring, vacant eyes. He reached down to take the man's blaster away. "Why did your brother draw on you?"

  "I said no. I said I wouldn't go back with this man, Rossik. Apparently my brother wasn't going to get paid unless I went back with Rossik. If he wasn't going to be paid, he was going to kill me."

  "Not exactly a loving brother." Donos looked over Tavin's body and took his weapon, too. Then he looked back over his shoulder at Lara. "I'm sorry. That was a callous thing to say."

  "That's all right. The Tavin I loved just stopped existing when I was a little girl; he turned into this. I miss him... but you didn't kill him."

  "We can't be sure there's not more to Rossik's team. Let's grab their papers, give the house a quick look, and then head back for the X-wings. I want to get off this world as soon as possible."

  Castin had to keep a certain amount of attention on the hall-way behind him as he continued to hammer away at Iron Fist's computer security from the terminal. So far, none of the scien-tists or technicians from the rooms beyond the viewports had stepped out into the hall, but he couldn't count on his luck last-ing forever.

  And the computer security here was good. Someone nearly as skilled as he had set up the multilayered defense that so far kept him from sliding his program into place in the communi-cations system. And while Castin was certain that he was supe-rior to this unknown code-slicer, that individual had had weeks, months, or years to perfect his code; Castin was trying to bypass it in a matter of minutes. Even with his superior skills and the tools he'd brought, it wasn't going well.

  So he was upset. Barely able to concentrate on what he was doing.

  No, that didn't make sense. Tough systems were a challenge

  to him, not an aggravation, and sharpened his concentration rather than diminishing it. So why was he upset? He leaned back, away from the screen with its unhelpful rejections of all his most reasonable requests, to think about it.

  Even his stomach was upset, and that, finally, pointed him to the source of his emotion. It was what he'd seen moments ago. The creatures in the cages. The Talz on the operating ta-ble, a peaceful being maddened by chemicals until it was full of rage.

  It was ridiculous. He didn't care about such things. They weren't human, they weren't particularly important, and if the scientists decided to work on them, that was fine. But the sick feeling persisted.

  That Talz's life was over. Even if it miraculously escaped its captivity, it would be forever changed by what had hap-pened to it. Could it return home to its world, its family, know-ing how it had been violated, knowing what it had been made to feel and do, and still go back to the way of life it had known before? Castin didn't think so.

  He swore to himself. He didn't have time for this. And he didn't need to concern himself with the fate of a grab bag of nonhumans Zsinj decided to perform tests on.

  But the images persisted, crowding out the techniques and procedures he needed to use for his current mission, filling him with an unwanted emotion. Sympathy.

  Sympathy for those hairy, smelly, and most unhuman be-ings crowding those cells he'd seen. They were a concentration of tragedy.

  Caught up as he was in these thoughts, Castin still heard the hiss of the turbolift door far behind him. He powered down the terminal, grabbed up his datapad and helmet, and scuttled around the corner to the right before peering back the way he'd come.

  A half squadron of stormtroopers, dimly visible in the

  passageway's gloom, advanced toward him. Their steps were

  unhurried. Halfway toward him along the passageway, the

  leader rapped smartly against the nearest transparisteel. Hav-

  ing apparently gained the attention of someone beyond it, he tapped the side of his head, an obvious signal for someone in-side to get to a comlink to receive his transmission.

  Damn it. They had to be looking for him. What had he done wrong? He was certain he'd covered his tracks when powering up the corner terminal.

  No, wait. When he'd first popped the cover on the control box inside the turbolift shaft and discovered the heavy-duty secu-rity there-he hadn't known about that level of security until he'd opened the box in the first place. If there was a sensor on the box itself, a sensible precaution for a set of controls leading into a very secure area, he would have set it off without ever realizing it.

  He drew away from the corner. Behind him was another viewport, this one into an office area, currently unoccupied. Beside it was an armored door with a standard set of controls beside it. tie tapped the "open" button and the little screen on the control pad read ENTER AUTHORIZATION CODE.

  At the stormtroopers' rate of approach, they'd be oil him be-fore he could break through that security and get into the office.

  What was it to be-bluff or fight? There was no way a bluff would work; it would only serve to keep him in one place while the rest of the stormtroopers approached. He readied his blaster rifle.

  The lead stormtrooper came around the corner and froze

  momentarily. "What's your-"

  Castin fired. His shot took the stormtrooper in the gut and threw him back against the far wall.

  Castin didn't wait for the next trooper to appear. He fired again, this time into the viewport, shattering it inward, and leaped, following the broken transparisteel into the office beyond.

  He landed and spun, aiming back through the broken viewport. Two more stormtroopers rounded the corner, bring-ing their long arms to bear on the spot where he'd stood a mo-ment before. He fired again twice, his first shot taking the nearer stormtrooper in the chest. The other trooper dove for the deck, out of sight below the rim of the viewport, and Castin's second shot missed him.

  A shrill Klaxon alarm sounded and the lights in the office

  began flickering in time to it.

  There was another door out of the office, leading in the general direction of the turbolift, and its control panel was re-sponsive. It opened into what appeared to be a scrub room, all sinks and lockers and decontam chambers, with no viewport out into the passageway.

  The next door opened just as readily-into the operating theater. The medical technicians there had ceased their minis-trations to the Talz and were watching the activity on the other side of the picture viewport-the last of the stormtroopers passed by, heading toward the scene of the action Castin had just left.

  A blaster bolt went over Castin's shoulder and hit one of the technicians in the back of the head. Castin saw the man, his head now a black mass of char, topple forward as slowly as if sinking into heavy oil, saw the other t
echnicians as they turned toward him in similar slow motion.

  He spun, firing before he could even see his target. A stormtrooper stood in the open doorway between office and scrub room, a perfect target, and Castin's unaimed blast took him in the knee. The man toppled with a shriek.

  Castin slapped the near control panel and the door slid shut. He turned back to the technicians; they already had their hands up. One couldn't take his eyes from the smoking mass that had once been the head of his colleague.

  It would take just one blast to blow out the near viewport. He could leap through and get back to the turbolift before the three stormtroopers still mobile were likely to catch up to him. That was it, then. But as he traversed to aim at the viewport, he saw the Talz looking at him. Its four eyes seemed to be holes leading to a world of pure pain.

  He hesitated, then pulled his vibroblade from a belt pouch. He cut through the Talz's ankle restraints, then went to work on its wrist straps.

  "Don't!" That was one of the technicians, his eyes wide.

  "That's not a Talz anymore, it's a killer-"

  "Right." Castin finished with the last strap, then backed away.

  The technician who'd spoken bolted, got to the doorway, slapped the control. The door opened . . . and the technician caught a blaster bolt just beneath his gut. He folded over, still alive, and began screaming.

  The 'Ihlz rolled tlp off the table, tubes still gruesomely in-serted into its skull. It glared with malevolence at Castin, then turned toward the remaining technicians and advanced on them. The rolling carrier holding the bottle of drip chemicals tipped over and was dragged along. The Talz spotted something through the door, probably the stormtrooper who'd last fired, and paused, obviously trying to decide what foe to attack first.

  Castin fired at the viewport, blowing it out, and leaped through the hole he'd made. There was nothing between him and the turbolift door. He dropped his vibroblade and dragged out his datapad as he ran.