while the thrummed rumble of Saricia's return-fire filled the
cockpit.
"Our armor will hold them back for a little while, but not long."
"Can we make the jump to lightspeed?"
"In the time we have left?" Nootka asked. "Not even if I knew where
we were going and had the course already plotted into the nav
computer.
It looks now that where we are going is to the grave."
Corran Horn eased the X-wing's throtde forward and his speed started to
climb faster as he left Garqi's atmosphere." You should have told me
sooner, Whistler, that's all I'm saying. It doesn't matter now,
though. We can talk about it later. Now we have to get those TIEs."
The droid replied in a muted whistle that Corran found almost as
depressing as the four-to-one odds on the fight. Not how I wanted to
do this, but I have no choice.
Corran hit the thumb-switch on the X-wing's stick. The proton torpedo
targeting system came up and painted a big yellow box around the
slowest of the TIE starfighters.
"That's target one. Give me the next closest one and mark it as target
two."
Whistler complied instantly, then keened a question.
"Yes, if they're in range, get me comlink contact." Cor
ran heard the hiss of static from the speakers in his helmet, then a clear channel
opened up. "Star's Delight, the key-code for your shields is 349XER34,
repeat 349XER34."
"Who is this?"
"Someone who just gave you your shields back. Eamon Yzalli sold you
out. He's dead. What he knew, I know."
In the background he heard a voice excitedly shout, "It's Xeno!"
The deeper voice, the one he decided belonged to Lai Nootka, overrode
the shout. "349XER34 is the code."
"Exactly." corran smiled. "Tell your gunner not to shoot the X-wing
and I'll make his life easier. X-wing Ollt."
Whistler tooted triumphantly.
"Not yet, buddy, not yet. Give me target one and lighten my
acceleration compensator. I want to feel it when I move around."
Nudging the stick over and back, he settled the box around the lagging
TIE. The droid beeped intermittently as he tried to get a target
lock.
The target box went from yellow to red at the same moment Whistler's
tone went solid and Corran hit the trigger.
The proton torpedo shot away from the X-wing and curved only slightly
to port before it slammed into the TIE's ball-cockpit. The explosion
shattered the star-fighter's hexagonal solar panels. It sent their
shards spinning away from the roiling, red-gold plasma ball spreading
out from where the cockpit had once been.
"Acquire two."
Brief beeps melded into an uninterrupted tone as Corran hit a pedal and
the etheric rudder brought the X-wing's nose around to port.
He hit the trigger again and saw a proton torpedo burn into and through
the second TIE. The torpedo hit it solidly on one of the solar panels
and blasted through. The projectile glanced down, crushing the
fighter's ion engine exhaust port and clipped the far side solar panel
before exploding. The
TIE whirled off on a wobbly course before exhaust pressure from the engines tore the ship apart from the
inside.
"Two down." Corran flipped his weapons control over to laser fire and
linked the lasers for dual-fire. "Whistler, even out the shields."
The droid complied with the order as Corran brought the X-wing up in a
quarter snap-roll. The maneuver stood the fighter on its port
stabilizer foils. Tugging back on the stick, he brought the nose up
and cruised onto the tail of one of the two remaining TIEs. It had
broken left while its wing man had gone right--a strategy that was
usually discouraged and went a long way toward confirming Corran's
opinion of the Garqi garrison.
monitor. Coming in behind me. Not as bad as I thought. "I see him,
Whistler. Now you know why I didn't want to fight them at all."
The TIE in front of him began a slow loop to starboard.
The move was slow enough that Corran was tempted to follow and light
the ship up, but he knew giving in to temptation would have a price.
In this case it will be the TIE back there shortening the loop and
melting my ship's tail. Not for me.
Corran chopped his thrust back and pulled the stick to his
breastbone.
He looped the X-wing, then punched the throttle full forward and rolled
out to port. That dropped him in on an attack vector to the TIE that
had been following him. Tightening up on the trigger, he tracked ruby
laser bolts across one solar panel, through the cockpit and into the
other solar panel.
The TIE didn't explode. It rolled slowly to port, little blue tendrils
of energy playing over its myriad surfaces.
The X-wing overshot the ship, so Corran rolled and dove down through a
loop to keep an eye on it. The TIE did not react and just continued
spiraling along on its previous course, bound for a fiery collision
with Garqi's atmosphere.
Pilot's gone, ship's running on momentum. Corran shiv
ered, imagining
for one second what it was like to spend your last seconds of life in
pain, in a breached cockpit with all the atmosphere leaking out while
cold poured in. Not the way I want to go.
Whistler's indignant yowl and the hiss of laser fire splashing against
his aft shields shocked Corran. He immediately hit the right rudder
pedal, whipping the X-wing's tail to port and out of the line of
fire.
Pushing the stick hard left, he rolled out to port, then pulled back a
nd brought the ship's nose up and around in a loop.
Halfway through that he rolled right and dove, but his sensors showed
the TIE was still with him.
Why are the best guys always the last? Corran smiled at his own
question. "Because the pilots who are bad die first.
They were all probably daydreaming just like you." He sideslipped the
X-wing to the right and the TIE followed him.
"Whistler, get me the Delight again."
"Nootka here, X-wing."
"Captain, this guy on me is good. Kill your shields and tell your
gunner to shoot high."
"We just got our shields back."
"I know. Kill your shields."
"I do not understand."
"You will."
Corran rolled the fighter out to port, then kept a light hand on the
stick. Nudging it left and right, up and back, he made the X-wing
dance almost unpredictably. After every third or fourth move, when the
ship had drifted to port, he'd push the stick down, then up right and
right again. He'd level out and fly straight for a couple of seconds,
then after that the random pattern would begin again.
When he saw the TIE begin to anticipate his pattern, corran pulled the
X-wing back through a big loop and dove straight in on an intercept
course for the Delight. "Full shields aft, Whistler." Corran dipped
and jerked the fighter through its pattern. Laser fire came in from
the Delight, passing over his ship, b
ut only by a margin of
decimeters.
The TIE kept to Corran's tail as the X-wing turned and swooped down
into a run that took it from bow to stern on the Delight. The TIE came
in tight and sank below the level of the ship's fire. He's low enough
to strike sparks! This Imp's very good. Corran smiled. I gotta hope
I'm better.
As Corran's pattern ended, the X-wing drifted into a gentle glide along
the Delight's spine. The TIE dropped in behind him and lined up for a
shot. The first laser blasts hit the X-wing's aft shield and rocked
Corran in the cockpit. Now or never!
Corran killed his thrust and cut his repulsorlift drives in at full
strength. Acceleration jammed him down in the cockpit couch as the
X-wing bounced up and away from the freighter's mass. The TIE
starfighter shot through beneath the X-wing, pulling up abruptly to
miss the freighter's engine cowling.
Punching the throttle forward and killing the lift drives, Corran
sailed in on the TIE's aft. His targeting box went green. He pulled
the trigger and filled the last TIE with laser fire.
The scarlet energy darts shredded the ship, puncturing the cockpit and
melting their way through the twin ion engines. The TIE exploded
brilliantly. The glittering plasma sphere burned like a star going
nova, then im-ploded, leaving the void in its wake.
"X-wing, this is Delight. May we put our shields back up?"
"Affirmative, Delight." Corran smiled. "Captain Nootka, have you got
a course plotted out of here?"
"We have a course, X-wing."
"If you don't mind, I'll slave my navigation to yours and tag along.
After all, I still owe you for the debris extractor."
"Consider the debt paid, X-wing, but come on along."
Corran heard gratitude in the Duros captain's voice.
"This adventure will be a tale to tell, and I would have you there
when I first tell it."
Prefect Mosh Barris bowed graciously amid the applause from his
guests.
The series of bright explosions and the spectacular light show of
debris streaking through the upper atmosphere had been far more than he
expected. If you arranged that on purpose, Eamon, I shall give you
rewards in excess of what I had already planned.
He held a hand up. "Thank you, thank you all. I am pleased you have
enjoyed how we have eliminated the Rebel threat to Garqi." Bards
smiled proudly. "I was the architect of this event, but another
carried it out. My aide, Eamon Yzalli. Eamon, where are you?"
"Indeed, where is he?"
Bards' head came up as a sharp voice asked the question from the
balcony doorway. "Who are you?"
A tall, hatchet-faced man stooped slightly to make it through the door,
then fixed Bards with a harsh stare. "I am Kirtan Loor, Imperial
Intelligence. You have been expecting me?"
"Of course." Barris gestured up at the sky, spraying choholl from the
glass in his hand. "You came too late to see what happened to the
Rebels."
"Oh, I think I already know what happened to them."
The Imperial officer's lip curled in a sneer. "As I came into the
system, I was sent a report by this Eamon Yzalli. It indicates you
arranged for the escape of the local Rebel organization on the Stars
Delight. The report indicates this action was the preliminary gambit
in your bid to usurp Governor Tadfin and transfer Garqi to the Rebel
Alliance."
Barris' stomach slowly wriggled into a knot. Kirtan Loor reminded him
of a young Grand Moff Tarkin, and the resemblance did nothing to stop
the fear flooding Barris' mind. "This is wrong. This cannot be.
Eamon must have planned this. Ask him, the accusations are not
true."
"I would ask him, but I cannot find him." Loor's blue eyes
narrowed.
"An appendix to his report said he feared for his life at your hands.
When I arrived here I read that you had ordered and carried out his
elimination. That message came from you, directly, I've checked."
"Yes, but it was all part of the plan, don't you see?"
Kirtan Loor shook his head solemnly. "I don't see what you want me to
see. What I do see is a Rebel collaborator with much to tell me about
the enemy."
"But I know nothing about them."
"I doubt that very sincerely, Barris." Loor smiled with a cold
superiority that weakened Barris' knees and sent his glass crashing to
the floor. "By the time your interrogation is barely started, you will
wish you knew even more, so you could tell me everything. You will be
surprised how much information there truly is in your nothing---and you
will learn to dread your punishment whenever you seek to feign
ignorance as a shield."
Corran had fully expected the look of surprise on Dynba Tesc's face
when she first saw him. "Greetings, Dynba. I'm glad you made it.
I apologize for the rough time the Delight had."
The war between horror and joy in her expression even proved
entertaining, though the ultimate victor in the struggle proved to be a
stunned look. "Y-you're dead . . . at least you said you were dead.
You're Eamon Yzalli, but you can't be."
Corran winced as hurt entered her voice. He scratched at his beard for
a second, then shrugged. "I'm sorry for the deception. I intended for
you to assume Barris had killed me and take off. I knew the TIEs would
head out after you. I wanted to use you as a diversion one more time,
so I could get away while the TIEs were busy with you."
A Twi'lek walked up behind Dynba and draped a head tail over her
shoulder protectively. "The TIEs almost did
us in because you disabled the shields. You tried to have us killed."
"Not my intention at all." Corran sighed. "I meant to have a message
sent to you that would give you the code to bring the shields back
up.
I wanted to blame the shield tampering on Burris and have you
protected, but the old fool went and deactivated my message account
when he entered his death declaration about Eamon."
Dynba dug a gentle elbow into the Twi'lek's midsec-tion.
"Arali, if he wanted us dead, he'd not have come after the TIEs and
given us the code. He still could have gotten away."
"Right." Corran nodded. "Exactly."
"So what did you mean about using us as a diversion 'one more time'?"
"Setting up the Star's Delight's escape allowed me to get the spare
parts I needed for the X-wing. I told Barris they had been stolen from
storage, but I really just had the guys who helped me load the things
put them in the back of my speeder. They were the TIE pilots, so now
we're the only ones who know where the parts ended up."
Dynba smiled. "The parts, of course. The phantom X-wing flights ended
about a month before the Delight showed up and was taken."
"I needed a debris extractor."
"So, then, you're Xeno. You got us together to eventually steal those
parts for you."
"No, I'm Corran Horn, late of the Corellian Security Force." He smiled
as Whistler came rolling up and patted the droid affectionately on the
&nbs
p; dome. "The droid here was Xeno."
Arali's head tails twitched with surprise. "A droid organized our
little group?"
Whistler chirped emphatically and corran beamed.
"He worked with me in CorSec. In addition to astrogation programming,
he's a fairly good codeslicer and had a facility for putting together
sting operations. He was grooming you to get the parts for me, but he
didn't men
tion it because he knows I don't really want anything to do with the Rebellion and the New Republic."
"It is a little late for that." Captain Nootka came walking over with
two Republic officers in tow. "Helping us escape will lead Barris to
figure out who you were, and you will be branded a Rebel."
"I don't think so. Barris is in plenty of trouble himself."
Corran smiled broadly. "I once worked with Kirtan Loor, the Imperial
Intelligence agent heading in to Garqi. This beard and dye job
wouldn't have fooled him, so I had to move. That's the reason this
whole operation got put together and involved you and your friends,