Star Wars - X-Wing - Iron Fist

by Aaron Allston

  "You're obviously unused to failure," Shalla said.

  "You have that right." Raslan turned his attention back to

  the shuttle's controls. "We're getting the automated turn-back message. I'm transmitting our passcode."

  Bradan leaned forward to speak in Shalla's ear. "If this works, we won't even get a voice acknowledgment. Just sev-eral minutes of silence as we approach."

  "Thus," Shalla said, "more boring, thus even better."

  "That's right." Bradan leaned back.

  Shalla had to consider that. It was so contrary to Face's

  analysis of Iron Fist's officer corps, with their rough, piratical behavior on the bridge during the dinner with Zsinj. It was, in fact, more logical, more in line with the kind of success Zsinj enjoyed. But, of course, not all the officers would necessarily share Zsinj's flamboyance.

  And despite their words, the approach to Razor Kiss, made in near silence, wasn't boring. As they approached the enormous arrowhead-shaped vessel, now wrapped up in the spars and projections of the shipbuilding satellite, which looked like a monstrous insect stinging the destroyer into sub-mission, she felt her pulse and breathing increase, her tempera-ture rise.

  One mistake and she'd die aboard that ship. Even, perhaps, if she didn't make a mistake. The innocuous-looking datapad in her pocket could mean the difference between life and death for thousands in the New Republic. Her father would be proud.

  And that thought, recollections of the irascible man, al-ready old when he'd falsified records of his death, resettied on the world of Ingo, and begun fathering children, the man who'd taught his daughters to look out for evil and watch out for good, calmed her. If he were here now, he'd be whispering in her ear Now you're Qatya. Keep your mercenary face on. Be nice to these people because they might hire you again in the future. Watch out for the backstab in case they decide to save themselves your fee. It won't happen before you take the bridge; right now they're anxious for you to succeed. It might not happen at all; Melvar was impressed with you, and they noticed. With the sound of his soothing voice in her ear, she fi-nally relaxed. She gave Raslan a confident smile. "Don't get too bored," she said. "You'll be asleep by the time we land."

  Razor's Kiss grew before them until it blotted out the en-tire universe. Raslan guided them toward a tiny white dot that gradually grew into a standard rectangular bay opening. He brought the shuttle into a bay th at was half-filled with other shuttles and with a pair of interceptors.

  There were no people in the bay. Shalla frowned over that.

  Was it unguarded, with no mechanics on duty? But if the

  duplicitous colonel had automated instructions set up, he might require bay personnel to absent themselves when vehi-cles using specific passcodes arrived.

  In silence, they exited the shuttle. Shalla was the first out of the bay, entering a long corridor that was eerily dim and quiet.

  As she moved along the deserted corridor toward the bridge-a hike of over three kilometers-she decided that this was a ghost ship. Every other ship she'd been on had pulsed with life, a steady vibration that one could feel in the soles of her shoes and every rigid surface, a sensation so commonplace that spacegoers no longer noticed it after their first few days. This ship had no such vibration, and she imagined that if she saw someone materializing out of the gloom ahead of her, it would be a ghost.

  But the first contact she had with the inhabitants of Ra-zor's Kiss was not so ethereal. Barely a kilometer into her walk, a doorway to a set of private quarters hissed open beside her and a stormtrooper emerged.

  He tried to bring his blaster rifle in line. "Say-"

  She leaned into him, pinning the rifle to his chest, and

  brought her hand up, an open-palm blow that caught the trooper's helmet just at the chin. The force of the blow popped the helmet free of his head, sent it clattering into the quarters from which he'd emerged.

  He backed away, trying to free his weapon, and she fol-lowed him. She crossed her arms and got both hands on the weapon, then stopped and yanked. The sudden torque ripped the blaster from his grip.

  He lunged forward, grabbing, and she swung the butt up into his jaw. He fell like an anesthetized bantha.

  Shalla looked around. This was a small office, perhaps a junior officer's. No one else was present. She took a look in its interior door, but it led only to an empty refresher.

  Raslan was in the office when she emerged. "You could hear his helmet bouncing for fifty meters," he said, complaint in his voice, and held out his hand.

  She handed him the rifle and slid past him. "You would have heard a blaster shot from three hundred."

  For the next kilometer, she encountered nothing except some floor-scrubbing droids, machines so primitive that they recorded nothing but locations they had cleaned. Had she been invading Iron Fist, she would have been worried about their presence; a man like Zsinj would probably have adapted them to be an innocuous part of his ship security. Here, she had no such concerns.

  She checked the map Bradan had transmitted to her data-pad, turned left into a cross corridor... and bumped straight into a lean Imperial naval lieutenant standing there. The man rocked back, reached for his sidearm-and then got a good look at Shalla and relaxed. "Identify yourself," he said, his voice more curious than angry.

  Shalla put her hands on her hips, a pose of naive irritation.

  "I'm Qatya, of course."

  "Let me see your authorization."

  She put a finger to her lips. "Shhh. No need to be so loud.

  I'm just looking for Stoghi."

  "Stoghi?" He frowned. "Stoghin Learz? Major Learz?"

  "That's him."

  "Your business with Major Learz?"

  She shrugged. "I missed him. It's been days since he visited."

  "I see." It was clear the lieutenant didn't. "I'11 check with the bridge to find out where the major is."

  "I'd really appreciate that. I've been walking for kilo-meters and haven't found him."

  "Uh-huh." The lieutenant brought up his comlink.

  Shalla grabbed his hand with both of hers, twisting it and forcing his palm forward and down at a painful angle. He dropped the comlink before he understood what was happen-ing, and as he stiflened and tried to draw away, she twisted his arm up and behind him, then shoved him forward into the bulkhead. The metal rang with the impact of his head against it. She hammered the back of his head with her forearm and the metal rang again.

  The unfortunate lieutenant went limp.

  Moving fast, she took his sidearm and tucked it under the waistband of her pants, beneath the hanging folds of her tunic.

  She bound him with his belt and stuffed his holster under his

  tunic. By the time her team arrived, she was merely in charge of an unconscious prisoner and there was no sign that he'd been armed.

  She rose. "Was that more quiet?"

  Raslan gave her an abashed look. "Yes. You're doing your job. That's what you're here for. You have my apologies."

  They arrayed themselves outside the door to the security foyer leading to the bridge. Bradan took the security panel next to the door, checked it for alarm switches, and began the methodical process of opening it. The four false stormtroopers stood at the ready beside the door, as if waiting for it to open so they could relieve the previous shift on duty, and the others kept to the shadowy sides of the corridor as much as they could.

  After long minutes, Bradan spoke in a whisper "I've got it. I'm putting it on a delay. Three seconds after it opens, it closes. Don't start shooting until it closes, if you can avoid it; we don't want the sound to carry."

  They formed up, stormtroopers to the fore, Shalla at the rear, and the door shot up with the customary speed of Impe-rial barriers.

  The security foyer was beyond. Unlike the hallway, it was brightly lit, and Shalla had to blink at the sudden brilliance. But their stormtroopers, protected by the lenses of their hel-mets, advanced without hesitation, and Shalla heard one of them
say, "Don't move and you don't die."

  Shalla moved in with the others, heard the door whoosh shut behind her, heard the clattering of feet as the stormtroop-ers spread through the security foyer and into the bridge be-yond, and her eyes cleared.

  Still in the foyer was a naval officer wearing the insignia of an Imperial captain. His hands were up, his round florid face wearing an expression of extreme displeasure.

  Raslan stepped up to give him a shove toward the com-mand walkway. "Get moving." He glanced back at the sole stormtrooper remaining in the security foyer. "Guard the door.

  Bradan, secure the turbolift; we don't want some ambitious

  fool trying to get at us through the shaft. Then secure the doors out of the crew pit."

  Bradall nodded and summoned the turbolift. The storm-

  trooper stationed himself before the doors to the main corri-

  dor. The other members of the team raced to their specific

  assignments, two of them heading to the weapons and defense

  consoles, others dropping into the crew pit to take up station

  at the control consoles, the other stormtroopers keeping their

  blaster rifles trained on the crew of four that had been occupy-

  ing the bridge. '

  And suddenly Shalla was alone. True, she was mere meters from the stormtrooper and Bradan, but she was forgotten, her task done, her role vanished.

  And the ship's main communications consoles were right here. Available to her.

  But the stormtrooper and Bradan had only to turn around to see her.

  Delay kills more operations than treachery, bad planning, or bad luck, her father used to say.

  Moving quietly and quickly, Shalla drew a cable from her pocket. She plugged one end into her datapad. The other she fitted into the standard terminal interface on the communica-tions console nearest her. Then she brought up Castin's pro-gram and selected the "automatic" mode that would do its best to bypass the Razor Kiss security on its own, without in-put from Shalla, then set the datapad on the console chair and slid the chair in close, making the datapad almost impossible to see.

  All the while, she overheard conversation floating up from the crew pit and out of the weapons and defense alcoves "We have the engineering section and auxiliary bridge. Ready to send the alarm." "Wait for communications to be locked off." "That's locked off, sir." "Why didn't you say anything? .... I just finished." "All right, send the alarm. How are the gun em-placements? .... Up and ready. I've fed in the locations for the station attachments; as soon as I issue the command, they'll be metal vapor."

  As a last detail, she switched off the terminal's screen so

  the actions of Castin's program would not be visible, then quickly moved to the opposite console. She sat in one seat and put up her feet in another.

  Bradan emerged from the turbolift and caught sight of her.

  "What are you doing?"

  "Nothing." Shalla put her hands behind her head. "My job is done. I was going to let you professionals do the rest of the work."

  Bradan's expression turned sour. "True. Well, you stay right there. Don't move."

  "You can count on me. As long as you're paying, I'm inert." Bradan turned away and headed up to the bridge and the command walkway. Shalla relaxed, but made sure her stolen blaster was close at hand. If anyone noticed the datapad in the chair, she had to make sure that he noticed nothing ever again.

  General Melvar's voice was loud over the Sungrass's bridge comm unit "We have signal from the target zone. Prepare to enter hyperspace in two minutes."

  Face keyed the comm. "Sungrass, requesting permission to launch."

  "Permission granted. Have your fighters ready for instant dispersal."

  "We'll be ready." He glanced at Captain Valton, but the man was already raising Sungrass's repulsorlifts, drifting the cargo ship laterally to drop her from Iron Fist's main hangar bay. "Good luck," Face said.

  Valton nodded, and Face hurried back to Sungrass's own tight-packed hangar bay.

  The bridge of Razor Kiss was a riot of noise.

  The ship's batteries had obliterated the connections be-tween Razor's Kiss and the shipbuilding station, and the Super Star Destroyer was in motion. Communications from the dy-ing station, from Kuat, and from the main offices of the Kuat Drive Yards were demanding a response from the bridge crew.

  Sensors showed launches of squadro ns of starfighters from

  Kuat and from capital ships not far away in the system, and showed those capital ships maneuvering to intercept Razor's Kiss on her outbound flight. From the control console, the team's communications specialist was ordering the skeleton crew on Razor Kiss to go to their stations and prepare for an Imperial assault.

  Through all of it, Shalla sat comfortably in her chair, watching and listening to the others hurry about their duties.

  The datapad at the communications console pinged, the au-dible cue that its current program had completed successfully.

  Successfully. The program was in place.

  The stormtrooper at the door turned toward her. "Did

  you hear that?"

  "I did." She rose, staring intently beyond him, and came a few steps forward.

  "What are you looking at?"

  "The door, stupid. That's where the noise came from. The

  other side of the door."

  "No, it was behind me. Toward you."

  "Idiot, your helmet is fouling you up." She nodded signifi-

  cantly toward the door. "Something's on the other side."

  He moved to the nearest security console, just three seats down from the seat where her datapad lay, and brought up its main screen. It was a holocam view of the hall just outside the main door. "There's nothing going on out there." He turned back to the door.

  Shalla quickly picked up her datapad, yanked the cable free and pocketed it, and joined him beside the door. She took a good look at the main and secondary screens, gauging which portions of the hall outside were under direct holocam obser-vation. "You're right. It looks clear." "I told you."

  She shook her head. I don't trust it. They're trying some-thing. Let me through. I'll give it a look."

  The stormtrooper thought that over, then apparently acti-vated his comlink. "Captain, we're hearing some things at the main door, but holocams show nothing. Qatya has volun-teered to act as forward reconnaissance in case there actually is some activity out there."

  A moment later he said, "Captain says it's a good idea."

  "Can I have a sidearm?"

  "You won't need one just to report activity. Do you have a comlink?"

  "Yes, but I don't have your frequency."

  The stormtrooper handed her a comlink. "Good luck."

  He keyed the main door open for her. Then she was through, the door shutting behind her. And though the air was the same here, suddenly she could breathe it more easily.

  She was still under holocam observation, though. She moved forward with slow, steady confidence, as though she actu-ally were moving in on a possible enemy emplacement, until she was beyond the range of the holocams they were monitoring.

  She waited there a couple of minutes, then keyed her com-link and whispered, "Qatya here." Bradan's voice "Report."

  "There's a security detail a few meters up the corridor. They have munitions. Looks like they're rigging a shaped charge to blow the door."

  "Good work. Fall back and we'll set up to repel."

  "No, wait. Their demolitions team is closest to me, and

  not guarded. They're not expecting an assault from this direc-tion. I can eliminate one or two and then set off the charges they've brought. The next group they send is going to be a little put off by the mess I leave."

  Moments of silence. Then "That's authorized. The cap-tain will put you in for a bonus if you pull this off."

  "Qatya out." From the datapad she shook the four explo-sives Kell had rigged for her. She set two of them down on the floor against one wall. Sh
e drew the blaster she'd taken, fired three shots into the ceiling, depressed the buttons that would be-gin the explosives' ten-second countdowns, and began running.

  Now it was time to find an escape pod and safely wait out the conclusion of this battle... and the one to come.

  Zsinj's fleet dropped out of hyperspace well within the Kuat

  system, where the gravity well of Kuat herself made hyperspace

  progress impossible, and the sensor displays transmitted from

  Sungrass's bridge showed an oncoming Super Star Destroyer and alarming numbers of starfighters from all directions.

  "Launch," Face said, and roared out of the cargo bay as soon as the opening door gave minimal clearance. His tempo-rary wingman, Kell, followed in his own interceptor and the others emerged rapidly.

  Emerged into a star system very different from the one they were upposed to have expected, of course. The sun was not quite the shade of Coruscant's, and the oncoming Imperial Star Destroyers were not complemented by Mon Calamari cruisers. The comm waves suddenly became crowded with shouts and infuriated questions. In character, Face keyed his comlink. "Hawk-bat Leader to Iron Fist. What is this? Where's Corusca nt ?"

  The chuckle he received in response was a familiar one; he recognized it as Melvar's. "We never said you were going to Coruscant, Hawk-bats. Welcome to Kuat. Please keep to your assigned roles. Everything will work out very profitably."

  There was a moment's delay, and the pitch of the general's voice lowered. "Hawk-bat Leader, I regret to inform you that the insertion team reports that they have lost Qatya." Face's gut went cold and hard. "How?"

  "She single-handedly eliminated a demolitions team and was lost in the explosion. Her action has apparently prevented any further assaults on the bridge. You have our condolences."

  "Thank you." The tightening of Face's stomach eased but did not go away entirely. Melvar's story sounded like the kind of ploy Shalla might have used to get clear of the insertion team; on the other hand, the story might be entirely true. And he couldn't ask, Did anyone witness her death? It would create suspicion. He could only pray. He said, "Someone is going to die for this."