"Dominance killing?"
"The way he told it, the only killing the Yevetha consider murder is
when a lower-status male kills a higher-status male. The other way
around, it's expected.
You offer your neck every time you approach someone higher up the
ladder than you, and you'd better really mean it; they have every right
to take what you're offering and rip you open with those claws of
theirs. And there's something about doing it well that adds to your
status."
"Claws?" Leia winced as she heard the surprise in her voice. "What
are you talking about? Nil Spaar didn't have any claws--" Sconn rubbed
his wrists together. "Right here. One big curved claw above each
hand, on the inside. This I saw with my own eyes--all the males have
them. They retract down to a bump, come out backward--it looked
backward to me, anyway--for slashing and grabbing on.
That's why none of the males wear long sleeves, I guess.
It would just get in the way."
"Nil Spaar wore a long-sleeved tunic to our sessions," Leia
remembered.
"And gloves."
"There you go," said Sconn. "After I heard all this, I had to go down
to the surface myself and see. There were Yevetha all over the yard,
and no sign of any of this. The yard boss told the captain they were
hard workers--especially since they'd figured out we weren't leaving
soon."
"So did you spend some time on N'zoth, then?"
"About five days, all together, in three trips." Sconn dropped his
eyes and drew a deep breath. "I saw one male put his hands on
another's shoulders, drive those claws through, and lift that screaming
devil right off the ground. I saw what they call the proctor--means
kind of like mayor, I guess--of Giat Nor nearly take off the head of a
nitakka who was a little slow to take the knee. There must have been
fifty Yevetha who witnessed that one.
Not one of them said a word, or even showed any surprise."
Sconn shook his head. "When the yard started losing Yevethan workers
to this stuff, having to retrain new ones all the time, I guess the
Imperial governor told the troopers to try to put a stop to it. But
they never really managed to, unless it happened after Moff Weblin
left.
And I ended up the only one of my crew to go down.
After he heard my report, the captain restricted the officers to the
base."
"Make sure you don't miss this part," Leia said to Ackbar.
"Is there anything else you can think of that might be useful?" she
asked Sconn.
"Just the other thing that the morale officer warned me about my first
day in," Sconn said. "'They're crazy, but smart. Don't show them
anything you don't want them to start building for themselves."
"You see, the quality ratings for Black Fifteen had nothing to do with
the engineering staff or the foremen and everything to do with the
Yevethan guildsmen. They've got the gift of understanding how a thing
is put together practically on a first glance. Then they draw it from
memory the next day, and by the third they've figured out everything
that's wrong about it and started making you a better one."
Oh, my stars, Leia thought, hearing it for the second time. The droids
at the Imperial factory farm-"Did you see that for yourself, too?"
Sconn nodded. "That number four power cell we were in for? It was
replaced by one the Yevetha had rebuilt--and the replacement ran twenty
percent over rated capacity at a hundred degrees below the redline,
with absolutely no start-up surge. The chief engineer used to say that
he expected it'd still be running when the rest of the ship was rust
dust."
"Did the Yevethan conscripts work on every part of the ships in the
yard?"
"No, of course not," Sconn said. "The Empire was very fond of
secrets.
Stang, there were systems on board the Moff Weblin that I wasn't
cleared to know the details of. Conscript workers were never let near
anything on the secure list--that was true anywhere. And the yard boss
at Black Fifteen was especially careful about not letting the Yevetha
near the sensitive stuff--hyperdrives, turbolasers, shield generators,
reactors."
Then Sconn smiled with wry amusement. "At least, you'd better hope he
was. If you end up having to fight the Yevetha, and what they have
looks anything like what we had--well, all I can say is I wish I was
going to be there to see it. Nothing personal, mind you," he added.
"Just an old rooting interest I haven't quite managed to shed."
"General A'baht."
The Dornean's gaze was level. "Madame President."
"General, before you start, I have some information to pass along to
you. Within the hour, the Gol Storn and the Thackery will be en route
to Galantos. Lantol and Farlight will be detached from the Third Fleet
no later than twenty-two hundred for duty at Wehttam. And the Fourth
Fleet will be sending two cruisers to Nanta-Ri by the end of the
day."
"All welcome news, Madame President. So far, I have no reports of any
Yevethan incursions in those systems.
I hope we will be able to keep it that way."
"Yes," Leia said. "General, what do you need from US?"
"That depends entirely on what you want me to accomplish. But before
we can even contemplate a course of action, I must have better
information about the enemy. Can I assume that Admiral Drayson is not
in a position to expand his assistance?"
"I'm afraid that's correct. Drayson tells me that his assets inside
Koornacht Cluster have been 'extinguished,'" Leia said.
"Then I need authorization to send in my own," A'baht said.
"Tell me what you propose."
"There are eleven members of the Duskhan League.
We know of thirteen habitable worlds which the Yevetha may have
attacked. I want to put a ship within a thousand kilometers of every
one of them, on a flash pass."
"Do you have enough drones?" The pilotless ferrets were the first
choice for forays into hostile territory.
"No," A'baht said. "I have to commit all my prowlers as well--and put
X-wing recon fighters out on patrol to replace them. Or I can send the
recon fighters themselves into the Cluster. I would prefer to do the
latter."
"Why is that?"
"A recon-X is somewhat faster than a prowler, which I hope will
increase their chance of survival. And a recon-X has a smaller crew
than a prowler, minimizing any losses."
"Well--you've obviously had your tactical staff working on this
already," Leia said. "Do you have any projections?"
"The only reasonable way to go is to synchronize all the contacts.
Stagger departures so everyone jumps in-system at the same time--five
minutes later, everyone jumps out--" "Five minutes! That's a long
exposure for a flash pass."
"It's necessary to get maximum coverage of the primaries," A'baht
said.
"We have to be able to see what's in orbit on the back side."
"What does the estimate look like, then?"
"Sev
enty-five percent getting at least a one-minute partial report
out.
Forty percent overall mission survival."
"My word--" "That's under the least-risk mission profile, without
direct return. Most of the scouts would continue more or less straight
through to the other side of the Cluster and return the long way
around. That's another reason to use a recon-X instead of a
prowler--fewer hours without that detection capacity on our
perimeter."
"You're planning to send out twenty-four scouts, and you expect to lose
fourteen or fifteen of them."
"Based on what we encountered at Doornik Three Nineteen--yes. The
losses will probably be heavier among the recon-X's than the drones, on
account of speed and size," A'baht said. "Do I have your
authorization, Madame President?"
"Have you considered putting this off until we can get some additional
drones out to you?"
"We did consider it. I would be uncomfortable with waiting, Madame
President. We need information now.
We're vulnerable without it."
Thinking about the pilots of those recon-X fighters, Leia drew a deep
breath and let it out slowly. "Very well.
You may proceed, General," she said. "What else do you need from
us?"
"Replacement fighters," he said without hesitation.
"What's the status of the first ferry flight?"
"Assembling now at Zone Ninety East," Leia said, glancing at the report
Ackbar had supplied to her.
"Twenty-four E-wings, X-wings, and B-wings to cover the losses at
Doornik Three Nineteen."
"Don't hold them up on this account--I wish we had them here already,"
General A'baht said. "But you can get ready to send us some more."
"How long?"
"I took the liberty of prepositioning several of the drones," A'baht
said. "We'll be launching the first scout into Koornacht in ninety
minutes."
The delta-winged Yevethan fighter banked more sharply than Plat Mallar
expected and bore in toward his X-wing's port side. That quickly, he
was trapped. No maneuver he knew--no twisting roll, no amount of
climbing or diving--could carry him clear of the Yevetha's fire zone.
In desperation, he turned away from the enemy fighter and tried to run
from it. Twenty seconds later a pinpoint laser bolt blasted through
the armor on the tail-plate.
The aft end of the fuselage exploded, sending all four stabilizers
spinning wildly away. Moments later Mallar's displays went black.
Mallar tore off his helmet and mopped the perspiration off his face as
the scoring came up.
SIMULATOR MODULE 82Y--SINGLE COMBAT T-65 VS. YEVETHAN D-TYPE PILOT
MALLAR, PLAT 9938
DURATION 0207
LASER CANNON SHOTS FIRED 0
HITS 0
PROTON TORPEDOES FIRED 0
HITS 0
OPPONENT SHOTS FIRED 6
HITS 3
COMBAT RESULT YEVETHAN VICTORY
As he climbed disgustedly out of the simulator, Mallar found Admiral
Ackbar waiting for him at the bottom of the ladder.
"I see you were trying the new simulation."
An embarrassed look crossed Mallar's face. "Did you watch?"
Ackbar nodded. "Your last three runs. You're not alone. Several of
our pilots made similar miscalculations at Doornik Three Nineteen," he
said. "It appears the Yevetha have a greater tolerance for g-forces
than the pilots for whom New Republic fighters were designed."
"Than human pilots, you mean," Mallar said.
Ackbar's mouth worked. "Yes. It is occasionally frustrating to be
held back by their limitations." He nodded toward the simulator. "Are
you going back in?"
"No," Mallar said, and started down the ladder.
"I see--" "There's just no way, with an X-wing." His tone was both
annoyed and discouraged. "It's not quick enough against a D-type. And
the operator won't let me start training on an E-wing yet."
Ackbar snorted. "He must belong to that stodgy old order of
instructors that believes in mastering one skill before taking on
another." Reaching up toward Mallar, Ackbar held out a data card. "I
was in the Mission Planning Office and saw this come up for you," he
said. "I was coming this way, so I signed for you. I think you should
"What is it?"
"Your orders," Ackbar said. "You've been placed on alert."
"Me? Why?" He fumbled with the data card reader.
"Ferry pilot?"
"Do you have a problem with that?"
"Problem no! It's terrific. I just didn't expect--" "Most of the
available pilots went with the ferry flight that just left. Why do you
think it's so quiet here?
But another flight will go out in the next fifty hours.
You'll be the last called--but you may be called on all the same, to
take a recon-X out to the Fifth Fleet."
"Gladly. It's something," Mallar said. "It counts for something.
Thank you, sir."
Ackbar frowned crossly. "Airman Mallar, if you are called, it'll be
because someone with considerably more experience did no better out
there against the real thing than you did in here against the
simulator. Does that make your orders any more clear?"
Mallar paled. "Yes, sir." Slipping the data card and reader back into
his pocket, he grabbed the handrail and hastened back up the ladder to
the simulator.
"Eighty-two-Y, please," he called to the operator as he opened the
cockpit hatch. "And put me in a recon-X this time."
Chapter 15
Strapped securely in the cockpit of his recon-X fighter, Lieutenant
Rone Taggar went through his prepass checklist with unusually exacting
care.
His target was N'zoth, the capital of the Duskhan League--the most
important objective of the 21st Recon Group's targets, and quite
probably the best defended.
But it was not the danger ahead, on the other side of the hyperspace
wall, that concerned him. What mattered was gathering the information
he had been sent to collect and kicking it back out unjammed to the
hypercomm receivers and data recorders waiting in the Fleet.
The beveled nose of the recon-X concealed six separate flat-scan
imaging systems, each with its own independent pan and zoom. The
scanning radar, infrared imager, and stereoscopic imagers were
programmed to keep the planet centered in the data frame, filling it
edge to edge. The other two systems were under the control of the R2-R
recon droid, which would evaluate the images in real time and select
both particular targets and the best scanning wavelength.
All six systems were linked to the hyperdrive controls and would begin
operating the moment Jennie Lee entered realspace. The hypercomm data
relay was auto matic as well, even to the selection of alternate
channels if jamming signals were detected. The pass trajectory was
programmed into the autopilot, which would take over the controls if
there was a deviation of more than one percent without pilot inputs.
It was said, jokingly, that all a recon-X pilot was really needed for
was to keep the R2 uni
t company, and that a pilot could have a heart
attack in hyperspace and still fly a perfect mission. The unit's
second-in-command, Sleepy Nagelson--who was flying the Wakiza intercept
had gotten his nickname when cockpit monitors recorded him sleeping
through a recon run, back during the Thrawn affair.
But Taggar shrugged all that off. In heart and mind both, he believed
what he had told his pilots before they set off on the mission that
the irreplaceable quality the pilot brought to the cockpit was caring
about the outcome.
A pilot would keep trying when a machine would quit, because he
understood the concept of failure, and the consequences mattered to
him.
"There are no great stories told about drones that fought their way
home with vital information, or rose above themselves to complete a
perilous mission," he had told them. "You're there because you can
make a difference. That's what I'm asking of you--make a difference,
and make sure the job gets done. That's why there is a Twenty-first