"Oh, I think the least you can count on is a medium-term civilian contract. You're far more likely to receive an officer's posting on Iron Fist. But let's find out." Melvar led Lara out of the hangar, which otherwise was occupied by Imperial-style vehicles and personnel. From the number of TIE interceptors and Lambda-class shuttles, she suspected that this was the senior officers' hangar.
She was sure of it a minute later—its proximity to Zsinj's personal office made it a certainty. She was led into the presence of the warlord like an honored guest. Zsinj actually rose as she entered the office, giving her a little formal bow. "Gara Petothel. So happy to meet you at last."
"You're the warlord," she said, keeping her voice pert. "I won't try to compete with you in degrees of happiness."
Zsinj's smile broadened. "Very good. She gives me my due, yet steals it back by making her presence the one that induces more happiness. Did you see that, General?"
"I saw." The general hovered, standing a meter behind Lara's chair, to the left. She forced herself to stay relaxed. She couldn't let him know how tense his presence made her.
"Lieutenant Petothel—may I call you Gara, at least until we have questions of your employment settled?"
"Please do."
"Gara, we must know." The general's mobile features took on an expression of sympathy, of worry. "We dispatched a team to make arrangements for your employ, and possibly your extraction, to Aldivy. We received word from their contacts several days later that our agents had been found—or, rather, their bodies, badly decomposed. What happened?"
Lara offered a little sigh of vexation. "I traveled to Aldivy in the company of an officer of Wraith Squadron. I'd intended to make an offering of him and his X-wing to the contact team. He was the final member of Talon Squadron, which I helped Admiral Trigit destroy. I thought he was one lingering detail I ought to deal with. But what I didn't know until later is that the idiot had fallen in love with me. He was supposed to stay with the X-wings; instead, he followed me. Well, in my opening negotiations with your captain, my brother—that is, the real Lara Notsil's brother—got testy, drew a blaster, just a show of intimidation . . . and Lieutenant Donos fired upon him, killing him. Then he finished up by killing your captain. I had to cover up my tracks after that, not attempt any further communications with you for a while, as I was under some scrutiny during the review."
Zsinj nodded. "But, obviously, you came away clean."
"Oh, yes. For a while. Unfortunately, on Coruscant, one of the Wraiths stumbled across some information on my mother, who'd been with Imperial Intelligence. He noticed a resemblance, did some research ... and then confronted me during a mission. With my cover blown, with it now impossible for me to uncover any more information to offer you, I fled."
"How did you manage to contact us?"
Though Zsinj's expression was open, innocent, Lara knew he had to be aware of every fact of the story. Still, she was playing his game by his rules. "When my so-called brother contacted me initially, he mentioned a company that might want to employ me—that is, Lara, his real sister. After I was forced to flee Mon Remonda, I decided to look into that firm, in case it was a front for your operations. And it was, one you'd set up only a couple of weeks prior to the first contact I received."
"Well, excellent." Zsinj reviewed a screen full of data on his terminal, data Lara could not see. "I am, unfortunately, too pressed for time to give you all the attention I should like, so let's jump straight into the dogfight, shall we? I can offer you a commission at the rank of naval lieutenant. You'd be an analyst aboard Iron Fist. While you go through your first few weeks of orientation, we'd like to pry from you every bit of knowledge you can give us on Mon Remonda, General Solo, Commander Antilles, and Antilies's squadrons. Does that suit you?"
Lara made her voice a purr. "It suits me very well. May I keep my X-wing and R2?"
Zsinj's face registered mild surprise. "Why would you want to? We can give you something far better."
"Well, they're souvenirs. Of my victory over a rather vehement idiot named Atton Repness, They used to belong to him."
Zsinj exchanged a blank look with Melvar, then shrugged, "Of course. We have a deal, then? Excellent. Welcome to Iron Fist, Lieutenant Petothel."
Lara shot to her feet, schooling her features to absolute blankness, and saluted.
Zsinj looked startled for a moment, then chuckled. "I admire the way you switch gears, Lieutenant. You're off duty until we come up with an itinerary for you. One of those pasty-faced ensigns out there will take you to your new quarters and act as your guide for your first few days. Wander as you will. And welcome." At last, he returned her salute.
"Thank you, sir." With military precision, she spun on her heel and exited the office.
The "pasty-faced ensign" awaiting her outside was anything but. Tall, dark-haired, and solemn, he had the hard look of a front-line soldier who'd received a field promotion. He identified himself as Ensign Gatterweld and led her first back to the hangar where her X-wing waited—so that she might pick up her R2 unit, Tonin—and then to her quarters. He spoke little.
It was a long walk, and the finality of what she'd done finally hit Lara.
She was surrounded by countless tons of machinery whose sole purpose was to rain death down on people she had ultimately chosen to protect.
Except for one R2 unit, she was alone, a secret enemy of those who now employed her, a public enemy of those to whom she desperately wanted to return.
She saw a trapezoidal little utility droid zipping along the hall, steering like a frightened animal out of the path of officers walking along the corridor, and imagined herself the human equivalent of such a machine—so small and inconsequential that she posed no threat, that she could not determine even the smallest detail of her own fate.
Then, five steps later, she realized how she was going to • destroy Iron Fist.
"What do you think?" Zsinj asked.
Melvar let his features go slack. All the menace and cruelty in them vanished. "Certainly, some of what she was saying was the truth. I just have difficulty trusting Intelligence types."
"Such as yourself."
"I was never with Imperial Intelligence. I just saw them as a likely enemy and schooled myself in their skills and tactics." Melvar shrugged. "I've received early word from the technicians examining her astromech. It's a new-model R2, very much state-of-the-art, and has received a recent memory scrub. It remembers the jump from Aldivy to our rendezvous point, but nothing else. It had a restraining bolt on it when she arrived."
Zsinj smiled. "Very appropriate. Innocuously appropriate. Keep a close eye on her. Extract every possible bit of information out of her. If she remains loyal, reward her. If she proves to be disloyal—"
"I can guess the rest."
"Why me?" Janson asked.
He lay on his bunk, hands behind his head, looking dubiously at his visitor.
"I can't go to a friend," said Donos. He sat in Janson's chair, leaning back on its rear legs so his shoulders rested on the wall. "I don't have any."
"Not since you shot at the last one."
Donos managed a mirthless smile. "I can't go to a subordinate officer. I'd just feel uncomfortable. Or to a superior."
"Which leaves the rest of us lucky lieutenants."
"Pretty much."
"So talk. I'm game. It's been years since I ruined the life of a fellow lieutenant. Well, weeks, anyway."
"I'm not sure where to begin. I don't know whether I'm crazy or not. I just know that before Talon Squadron was destroyed, I was a different man. Self-control, self-composure were easy. Afterward, I had to work so hard to manage everything. If I didn't.. ."
"If you didn't, what?"
"I don't know. I never found out. I was so good at managing everything. Except for that collapse. And the other day, with Lara."
"How many times did Lara slap you?"
"Slap me? Never."
"Why not?"
"I never gave her reason to."
"Right. Since you became a pilot, how many times have you been picked up by military police for being drunk and belligerent?"
"Never."
"But you drink."
"In moderation."
Janson sighed. "You see, I was operating under the assumption that you'd actually died with Talon Squadron but had failed to notice. But I was wrong! You've been dead since you joined Starfighter Command. Maybe longer, maybe since you were with the Corellian armed forces."
Donos frowned. "I'd appreciate it if you'd explain that."
With a single, fluid move, Janson sat upright, spun ninety degrees to his right, and set his heels on the floor. "Sure," he said. "It's simple. You're dead. I'm not. Let me demonstrate." He stood up on his bed, then began bouncing up and down. "Did you ever do this as a kid?"
"Of course."
"Did you ever do it as a grown-up?"
"Of course not."
"You say 'of course' a lot, and it's always wrong. Tell me, Myn. How do I look?"
"Well, stupid."
"Exactly!" With an exuberant bound, Janson leaped off his cot, smacked his head on the ceiling, and swore as he landed on the floor again. He rubbed his head and glared at the treacherous ceiling. "When was the last time you looked stupid?"
"I don't know."
Janson leaned in close to him. "Try to understand this. I'll say it slowly. I want you to remember it for the rest of your life.
"You can't look dignified when you 're having fun."
"Assuming that's true—so what?"
"If you're not having fun, you're not enjoying your life. If you're not enjoying your life—why even bother being alive?" Janson gave an eloquent shrug. "Myn, I'm living on borrowed time. I've nearly been killed more times than, than, well, more times than you've been slapped, certainly. If I wait until some imaginary distant point in my life to start enjoying it, I'll be dead before I get there. But if I get killed tomorrow, at least I can be pretty sure that I enjoyed myself more than whoever's killing me. You understand?"
"Not really."
Suddenly deflated, Janson sat on his bed again. "Let's try it a different way. You want to be in control so you don't foul up some horrible way. But you're so in control that you're basically a walking dead man. Since you're dead, you had nothing to offer Lara. You have nothing to offer Wedge—he's got plenty of dead pilots, doesn't need another one. Most of them are smart enough to stay where we plant them, though."
"So what do you recommend?"
"Get drunk. Get slapped. Do something you always wanted to do as a child, especially if it's something that would humiliate you today. If you're going to get kicked out of Starfighter Command, make it for something you can be proud of." Some-
thing beeped in one of Janson's pockets. He pulled it out, a comlink, and held it up to his ear to listen. He brightened. "Automatic signal. The Rogues and the Millennium Falsehood are back. No losses. Sorry, I have to run, have to figure out what to razz Wedge about." He darted for the door and was gone.
Donos shook his head. "I'm asking career advice from a nine-year-old."
The door to the Falsehood's hangar slid open before Janson reached it. Out came a repulsorlift cargo sled, pushed by a single Mon Remonda technician. On the sled was a crate, two meters long by one wide and high. The crate rocked on the sled and odd noises, like a faint and garbled voice, emerged from it.
Wedge walked out behind the technician and stopped short when he saw Janson. He made a noise of exasperation and slapped the gloves he carried into his open palm. "You weren't supposed to see that."
"See what?" Janson stared after the departing technician and cargo. "What was that?"
"That was Lieutenant Kettch."
Janson gave Wedge a close look. Wedge certainly didn't look crazy. "Um, please correct me if I'm wrong, but Lieutenant Kettch is fictitious. An Ewok pilot who doesn't exist. 1 should know. I made him up."
"He's not fictitious anymore."
"Now he's real?"
Wedge stepped out so the hangar door could close behind him. "On planetside, while we were waiting for the Falsehood to be spotted, Tycho found a store where they sold exotic animals to wealthy Zsinj supporters who enjoy that sort of thing. One of the 'animals' was a full-grown Ewok male named Chulku. When we were preparing to blast off and do our usual number on the pursuit, Tycho staged a jailbreak and we brought Chulku along. While we were flying back, I had an idea—if Zsinj ever does need to see the Hawk-bats, we could have an actual Lieutenant Kettch for him." He nodded after the sled. "Chulku is pretty bright, and we think we can teach him which TIE interceptor controls to touch and which not to—I doubt we can teach him to fly without years of education, but we can make him look authentic in a cockpit."
"That's crazy."
"Now we just need to build him those prosthetic hand-and-leg attachments Kettch is supposed to have so he can manipulate a starfighter's controls."
"Still crazy."
Wedge smiled. "And since you had the bad luck to witness his arrival, you get to be part of the crew who takes him food. Welcome to the conspiracy, Wes."
Janson shook his head. "Now I'm crazy."
The TIE interceptor hurtling toward Lara in a head-to-head run juked and jinked in what seemed like a random pattern, but the maneuvers did not seem to throw the pilot off. His linked laser fire angled in ever more accurately toward Lara's interceptor.
She, too, threw her starfighter back and forth, up and down, in an effort to keep the enemy laser fire from hitting her. She was successful—the two fighters passed with no damage to her craft. But she hadn't gotten off a single accurate shot at her enemy.
The second she flashed passed the enemy TIE, she hauled back on the flight stick, gaining relative altitude with such a sharp maneuver that she felt the g-forces pull her down into her pilot's couch despite the ship's inertial compensator. A moment later she was upside down and headed back the way she had come—
Straight into the path of her opponent.
The enemy pilot fired a split second before she could bring her lasers in line. Her TIE shuddered under the impact and slewed to port.
But it held together. There was no shriek of hull breach, no warning of imminent detonation. She'd been grazed.
"I'm hit!" she said. "I'm done for." She jerked her control yoke to send her spinning in the direction she was already headed.
She counted to two, then snapped her interceptor back around to face her opponent. The enemy TIE jittered in her targeting computer—
But he was much closer than she would have guessed, a mere quarter kilometer away, and was already lined up for a shot. Before she could hit her laser trigger, the sensor system shrieked a recognition of her enemy's targeting lock—
Then her viewport went dead.
The artificial gravity, which simulated zero gravity and high-angle maneuvers, turned off and she dropped at full weight into her pilot's couch. She sighed.
A voice crackled over her comm unit. It was deep, with a trace of the Corellian accent that occasionally crept into the speech of Han Solo and Wedge Antilles. "That was very good flying. And the last trick, pretending to be out of control, almost fooled me. I commend you."
"Who am I talking to?"
"My name is Fel. Baron Soontir Fel."
Lara's insides went cold. When she was a crewman aboard Implacable, she'd never even been aware of the presence of Fel and the 181st there, so secret had their mission been. Now, at last, she'd be able to meet the most dangerous pilot who served her enemies.
With her fear, there was a rush of elation. With Wraith Squadron, Lara had flown in simulators against Wedge Antilles, the best the New Republic had to offer. Now she had flown against Baron Fel. She'd competed against the very best pilots two governments had to offer.
Too bad she lost most of the time.
"A pleasure to meet you," she said. "I'm sorry I didn't offer you more c
ompetition."
"Don't be," he said. "You're very good. More work, and you might train up to the standards of the One Eighty-first. Shall I keep you in my records as a candidate for the group?"
"I'd be honored. Can I buy the victor a drink?"
"Unfortunately, I have more simulations to fly—and it appears that you don't. Some other time, though."
The hatch behind Lara opened and Ensign Gatterweld thrust his face in. "Need any help?"
"No, thank you." She was getting sick of the ubiquitous Gatterweld. Except when she was in her quarters, in the tiny office where she wrote her commentary on her time with Wraith Squadron, and in simulators, Gatterweld was there. Her shadow.
She unclipped the netting that, in a real TIE interceptor, would have kept her bound in place on the pilot's couch, and threw it to one side, then hauled herself backward and out of the open hatch at the rear of the ball-shaped simulator. Outside, the air was cooler and the omnipresent hum of Iron Fist's engines was in her ears again.
Gatterweld handed her the pack in which she carried her datapad and other equipment. He looked at the control board where her standings were displayed. "You did pretty well."
"Do you fly?"
"I can pilot shuttles now. I don't have the reflexes for starfighters. Hand to hand is my game. Where to now? The cafeteria?"
Lara checked her chrono. "No, it's late. I think I'll just turn in."
As they walked past the banks of control stations set up to monitor the simulators, she saw what she needed—a device she would kill for. A set of monitor goggles and attached microphone. They lay unguarded on one of the control stations, their owner away, perhaps on break.
As she and Gatterweld passed the station, she contrived to get her left foot tangled in his legs. He tripped forward, swearing, while she stumbled and fell sideways—snatching up the set of goggles and tucking them into her pack as she hit the floor.
He scrambled to his feet. "I'm sorry. Are you hurt?"
She took the hand he offered and let him half haul her to her feet. She winced as she put her weight on her left leg. "A bruise, maybe. Not your fault. I think I had a cramp from all the time in the simulator."
Star Wars - X-Wing 07 - Solo Command Page 22