Star Wars - X-Wing 8 - Isard's Revenge Page 6

  Gavin set his glass down on the arm of his chair. "I guess I was hoping, with Thrawn gone, that things would begin to settle down. I mean, I know I'm not even twenty years old, but there are times I feel positively ancient."

  Asyr gave him a half smile. "Battles and death act as force-multipliers when it comes to time. Always having to be alert and ready to deal with violence wears you down. It's wearing me down, too."

  Gavin's head came up. "Really?"

  "That surprises you?"

  "Well, yes, I guess it does." He hesitated a moment, letting his thoughts order themselves. "You graduated from the Bothan Martial Academy, so I would have thought you would have training in how to handle this sort of thing."

  Asyr barked a little laugh. "Gavin, military schools and training are long on teaching you how to destroy things, but they don't much deal with the aftermath of that destruction. Everyone assumes that if you win you'll feel good and if you lose you'll be dead, so how you feel doesn't matter. By the time war begins to grind you down, it's pretty much had that same effect on everyone, so the war slows down and stops."

  "Or you get rolled over and killed and your feelings don't matter."

  "Right." She turned her head and looked at him with her violet eyes. "Are you saying you want to resign from the squadron, start a family, do something else?"

  Gavin frowned. "The squadron is my family, you're my family. I don't want to walk away from that. We both know that someone is going to have to do something about the guy who died, and Wedge and Corran will push for it to be Rogue Squadron. I don't want to sound silly, but that death was a shot taken at us, and showing the person who took it that they were wrong seems to be the right thing to do."

  "Agreed."

  He sat forward in his chair, resting his elbows on his knees. "As for the other stuff, like starting a family, I think I'd like that. I'd like to start a family with you. We could get married, make this permanent, and bring children into our lives."

  Asyr froze for a second and Gavin feared he'd somehow insulted her. Bothans were a proud species and very much tied into complex relationships involving kin and clans. Despite having been Asyr's companion for the past two years and joining her at a number of social functions, he'd yet to meet another human-Bothan couple. And I know there are plenty of Bothans who don't like the fact that we've managed to stay together as long as we have.

  She glanced down at the hem of her gown and picked a piece of lint from it. "I like the idea of being married to you, Gavin, but there's a lot to consider. You do know that it is impossible for us to have children together."

  Gavin nodded. "Yeah, both friends and enemies have clued me into that situation. Strikes me, though, that there are plenty of children who need adopting. I mean, we have those two little brothers who live in the alley near the squadron's hangar. They're just one example. Adopting would give us a chance to help heal some of the damage the Empire has done, you know?"

  She looked up and nodded solemnly. "I agree. There is something else you have to know: If we adopt, I want us to adopt at least one Bothan child."

  "Sure, no problem."

  Asyr held up a furred hand to stop him. "Listen to me, Gavin, because it won't be that easy. You know we Bothans set great store by our families. Political power

  flows from the networks we build up with alliances and everything. My family sees me as a disappointment because, while I have garnered acclaim in service with Rogue Squadron, I have not presented them with children. Those children would be well loved, but they would also be fodder for future alliances. I've managed to amass what Bothans recognize as a certain amount of power. I'm a political battery in that sense, and my family is disappointed that I've not provided them with a means to bleed some of that power off." ;

  "So you're saying that if we adopt a Bothan child, your family will want to exert some control."

  Asyr laughed aloud. "How can you have lived with a Bothan for so long and yet be so polite when referring to our possessiveness?"

  Gavin smiled. "Your possessiveness isn't that bad from my perspective. Look, this would be our child. I wouldn't be looking to interfere with the child's assumption of his heritage. I wouldn't want to try to substitute a human culture for Bothan culture, but I would want to provide some balance. I'd want to show him that different doesn't mean bad. And I'd hope any other children we adopted-be they human or Rodian or Ithorian, whatever-would get that same message."

  Asyr blinked and Gavin saw a single glistening tear roll from her left eye. "How could I have taken you for an anti-alien bigot when we first met?"

  "You didn't know me." He got up out of his chair and crossed over to where she sat, and then knelt beside her. He reached out and held her left hand, stroking the fur. "Look, I know this won't be easy, but I want to try to do something positive for the galaxy. Sure, flying off, stopping some Grand Admiral from reestablishing the Empire is noble and positive, but the way we rebuild the galaxy is by making lives better one at a time. We can do this, you and 1. I want to do it with you."

  She leaned down and kissed him on the forehead, and then rested her chin on the crown of his head. "You realize, if the adoption goes through, one of us will have to leave the

  squadron. It wouldn't be fair for both of us to risk our lives and leave some child orphaned again."

  "I know." Gavin let his head rest against her breastbone. "That's a decision we can make down the line. Neither one of us wants to leave, I know, but if that's what it takes to make the galaxy better, it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make."

  7

  Corran Horn hated waiting for the go/no go signal for the mission. On the long journey from Coruscant to Commenor he and the other Rogues had studied the intelligence gathered about their target. He knew it was less comprehensive than he normally would have preferred, but everyone involved in the operation agreed that Urlor Sette's arrival at the Rogues' party meant their enemy had access to intelligence sources within the New Republic, so the operation was running outside normal channels. The intel they got was enough to plan the mission, but not enough to guarantee success.

  Not that success can ever be guaranteed in a military op, and especially one counting on surprise to be effective.

  Iella and Wedge had managed to trace the material components of the device that killed Urlor to Commenor. Wedge had been to the planet before, and many of the other Rogues had trained on a covert base on Folor, the largest of Commenor's moons. An Imperial raid later hammered the base, but Corran felt little nostalgia for it. Training there was a long time ago. Lifetimes ago.

  Tracing the components to Commenor had involved good solid detective work, but locating the site on Commenor

  where the implantation had happened involved some good fortune. Commenor's medical system contained a fair number of facilities that could have done the implantation, but an analysis of records failed to turn up anything that suggested the operation had taken place there. Wedge located a couple of places where some exotic xenobiological creatures had been kept, and as he concentrated on them as a possible source of the venom that killed Urlor, he noticed that one facility boasted a full veterinary surgical suite, complete with droids. That facility had gone out of business roughly two years earlier, about the same time Isard had fled to Thyferra. The place had been built in a remote rural district in anticipation of further growth, but the collapse of the Empire had cooled Commenor's economy enough that such expansion didn't take place.

  The target facility, called "the old Xenovet place" by locals, consisted of a fairly modern central building that served as the main animal hospital. Outlying buildings provided housing for commercial animals recovering from illness or being kept there for breeding and birthing purposes. One of the Xenovet's final programs was an attempt to start a captive breeding program of exotic animals that were endangered on other worlds, but the rebuilding of worlds in the wake of the Empire's collapse took precedence over the rebuilding of creature populations, dooming that effort as we
ll.

  On the face of it, the place looked like an easy target. Weather satellite data and other more covert methods of surveillance indicated no weapons systems in place to defend the site. Utility records indicated fairly low power and water use for a place that size, suggesting that no more than thirty individuals lived on the site-anywhere between a third and a sixth of the total prisoners estimated to have been on the Lusankya. Shipments of supplies came in through local stores and likewise were not that extensive. As nearly as the local residents knew, the folks at the XV facility were caretakers waiting for some bankruptcy trustee to find a buyer for the place.

  Two problems cropped up to make the target harder

  than anyone expected. The first was simply logistical. The Rogues could sweep in, pound the place, and reduce it to rubble, but that wouldn't do anything for the prisoners being held there. From his CorSec experience, Corran also knew that destroying the building would destroy any clues as to who owned it, who was running it, and where other prisoners might be. The site itself was a valuable link in the chain that would take them to all the prisoners.

  To get the prisoners out would require a commando strike. The New Republic assigned their two top units to the raid: Team One, led by Colonel Kapp Dendo, a Devaronian who'd worked with the Rogues in the past, and the Katarn Commandos, led by Captain Page. Page and his people had worked with the Rogues on their mission to Borleias to liberate that planet from Imperial hands. Both teams had been covertly inserted onto Commenor and had worked their way to the district around the XV site.

  The second problem concerning the mission proved more frustrating than any possible defense the Imperials could have raised. Commenor had declared itself independent of the Empire and the New Republic, much as Corellia had done. Since Commenor was a key world on trading routes, it was able to maintain its independence by courting each and every political faction in the galaxy. An attack on an Imperial facility by a New Republic strike team could create an incident that would cause Commenor's officials to bar New Republic trade, impose stiff tariffs, or even cause the planet to align itself with a warlord like Krennel.

  Leia Organa Solo managed to convince Commenorian officials that they should sanction the coming operation. She pointed out that when General Jan Dodonna retired, he did so to the Commenorian moon, Brelor-a small moon the Emperor had given him as a reward for his service to the Empire. She suggested that the Empire's subsequent attempted assassination of Dodonna on Brelor was a violation of Commenorian law. Allowing the New Republic to rescue him, or comrades of his, from the XV facility would be a step toward making things right again. Having the New Republic stage the raid would also insulate Commenor from any Imperial reprisals, which was an aspect of the deal the Commenorians liked a lot.

  Rogue Squadron's X-wings-painted black for the operation-and astromech droids had been shipped to Commenor under cover as training vehicles for the local militia. The members of Rogue Squadron arrived on a variety of commercial transports and all rendezvoused in Munto, the largest city near the XV site. At the warehouse that served as a hangar for the X-wings, Wedge ran over a briefing with the latest intelligence. Then the pilots mounted up and waited.

  Wedge's voice crackled through the headset built into Corran's helmet. "Rogues, we are good to go. Light your engines, but keep the S-foils in transit position until we are out of Munto."

  "Finally!" Corran turned to glance back at Whistler. "Now we make good on the promise."

  Whistler warbled encouragingly as Corran brought the engines up. He shunted power to the repulsorlift coils and let the X-wing hover there. He retracted the landing gear, and then smiled when the ship didn't dip at all. He nudged the throttle forward, and then applied a little etheric rudder via his foot pedals and swung the X-wing's nose around to starboard. Corran trailed out after Slee's X-wing, and then slid his X-wing more to starboard, swinging wide onto the open ferrocrete slab where another warehouse had once stood.

  All around the Rogues most of Munto lay sleeping. Houses had been built up on terraces all around the valley in which the town lay, but most of them were dark save for a safety glow panel here and there. Some airspeeder traffic moved down in the more central part of the valley, and beyond it a roadway carried landspeeder traffic heading up to the town of Kliffen, but otherwise the city seemed all but dead.

  One Flight took off first, heading out slowly in a very loose formation. It started off toward the northeast and then would course correct for the target well beyond prying eyes. Two Flight followed with Wes Janson in command. Corran smiled as he remembered Wes proudly sporting the trio of pips that marked his elevation to the rank of Major. Corran had asked Wes if he'd ever thought he'd live long enough to wear three pips, but before Wes could answer, Hobbie quipped, "He never thought he'd live long enough to count to three pips."

  Two Flight headed out to the northwest and Corran brought his flight along to the launching point. "Heading two-seven-five degrees, ten percent power. Let's fly."

  The X-wings took off easily and headed down into the Munto valley, and then hooked north along the roadway. They followed it for a couple of kilometers, and then, when it cut west again for the run to Kliffen, the X-wings pulled up and flew over the ridgeline and out of the valley. They continued on, flying fairly close to the roll of the terrain and over another line of hills before they locked their S-foils into attack positions.

  Corran glanced at the chronometer built into his command console. "Time to target is fifteen minutes."

  "Nine, this is Twelve. I've got trace readings on my tail."

  "Whistler, give me a fine-grade sensor scan of our backtrail."

  The droid complied and Corran caught a flash of something moving back there. Whatever it was, it managed to use terrain features to mask itself fairly well. A shiver ran down Corran's spine. Even though this mission is off all screens back in the New Republic, is it possible we've been betrayed?

  Corran keyed his comm unit. "Okay, Rogues, throttle up. We're going to half power and going to bounce over that ridge. Ten and Eleven keep going to the target. Twelve, we reverse throttle on the other side, drop to ground, and watch to see what's coming after us. We'll burn it if we need to."

  "As ordered, Nine."

  The quartet of fighters picked up speed and climbed up the far ridgeline and then over. Corran chopped his thrust back, and then reversed it and killed his forward momentum. The X-wing began to drop from the sky, so he cut in his repulsor-lift coils and bounced to a stop a meter and a half above the ground. He nudged the fighter over into a small gully and saw Inyri's fighter go to ground about twenty meters to his port side. In the distance he saw Ooryl and Asyr cruising along and down into a pass that would take them north.

  Then, from back over the ridgeline, came four TIE Interceptors. They screamed past nearly fifteen meters overhead, correcting to follow the two X-wings into the pass. Corran saw no markings on them, and the scanner data didn't identify them as hostile. For all I know those are a bunch of kids out flying around in surplus Interceptors.

  Then one of the Interceptors burned a green laser bolt through the air at Ooryl's vanishing X-wing.

  I guess that settles that.

  Corran immediately dropped his crosshairs on one of the Interceptors and thumbed his weapons-control over to proton torpedoes. On the heads-up display a green box surrounded the Interceptor, and then it went yellow. Whistler's piping picked up speed as the droid sought a targeting solution for the torpedo. When he finally got it his tone became constant and the box went red.

  Corran goosed the throttle forward, brought up the fighter's nose, and launched a proton torpedo. The missile leaped up, riding a brilliant blue flame that scorched a Fijisi tree as it went past. The torpedo spiraled up into the air, and then curled down as the Interceptor tried to evade it. The pilot's efforts proved partially successful: The torpedo did not hit it, but overshot and exploded when proximity sensors reported it had missed.

  The force of the missile
blast crumpled the Interceptor's port wing and tore most of it away from the stubby stanchion that connected the wing to the ship's ball cockpit. Shrapnel from the missile itself blew through the transparisteel viewport. Lethal shards of the transparent metal whirled through the cockpit, stabbing deep into equipment and slicing clean through the pilot. Spinning wildly, the Interceptor slammed into the ground and exploded in a golden fireball.

  Inyri likewise shot a proton torpedo at one of the Interceptors. Her missile hit dead on target, lancing up through the bottom of the ball cockpit and out through the starboard side before exploding. The torpedo's impact did enough structural damage to the ship that the twin ion engines ripped free and blasted out through the front of the ship, and then arced down to smash into the ground. The missile's detonation shredded the rest of the Interceptor, sparking a hot metal rain that started a constellation of small fires burning across the landscape.