Rogue Squadron had been at Hensara. Visuals were of generally poor quality, but
crests and fighters appeared to match those images recorded by the Black Asp,
confirming the squadron's presence at Chorax as well. He had no objective
confirmation about the squadron being
Rogue Squadron, but one communications intercept had included the name "Wedge"
and Kirtan thought he heard some faint trace of Corran Horn's voice in other
messages. The end-for-end swapping maneuver that led to the damaging of one
Interceptor had been vintage Horn, providing Loor all the evidence he needed to
label the X-wings as Rogue Squadron.
Admiral Devlia had not been convinced, but he had agreed to send units out to
find the squadron's base, if Kirtan could isolate it. Admiral Devlia had made
the offer in a voice that suggested providing such information would be
impossible.
It should have been impossible, and for most people it would have been. However,
Kirtan Loor remembered a wealth of things that might be trivia to others, but
proved to be useful to the search for the Rogues' base. He had to make a few
assumptions about them and the force they arrived with, but his calculations
could be run with a number of variables factored in, then all that data could be
correlated with known system locations and Rebel preferences for bases.
Because several of the X-wings entered the atmosphere of Hensara III, they left
significant traces of ionized fuel in the atmosphere. Spectral analysis of those
trails provided an amount of thrust that gave Kirtan an indication of the
quantity of fuel used per second of operation with sublight engines. This proved
consistent with the known specifications of the X-wing. Since the performance
of sublight engines had not been modified, he assumed the hyperspace engines
were similarly standard.
The forces on the ground on Hensara provided some basic entry vector and
velocity data for the Rebel force. Back-plotting was not terribly difficult and
suggested to Kirtan that the force had begun their last jump from the Darek
system. Using the
fuel consumption figures for an X-wing's hyperspace engine, he was able to
subtract from the weight of the ship the appropriate amount of fuel.
Thrust output, vector, and velocity data provided him with changing weights for
the X-wings as they burned up fuel in their flight. The ending weight and fuel
consumption seemed consistent for known performance profiles. Precluding
refueling stops along the way, the amount of fuel he calculated for them
determined the range to their base.
He had to assume, of course, that they had started with a full load of fuel, and
the same had to be assumed for the Pulsar Skate and Eridain, as well as the
Lambda-class shuttle at Chorax. Working out the fuel consumption and range
limits for those ships had shown them to be far more fit for distance travel
than the X-wings, as would be expected of larger ships, but few ships like to
travel beyond range of their escorts.
Even limiting the trip to the range of the X-wings gave each flight the
capability of traveling a considerable distance. He further reduced the range by
assuming the Rebels would keep sufficient fuel in the X-wings for a dogfight or
rearguard action to allow the other ships to escape. This cut the range roughly
in half, and when given a spherical plot on a map of the galaxy for each of the
squadron's sight-ings, the spheres intersected in a relatively small area of
space.
Five hundred known systems existed in that overlapping slice of space. Kirtan
discarded all truly loyal worlds from the list. He also removed the openly
rebellious worlds because Intelligence had enough spies of their own in hotbeds
of Rebel support to inform him if Rogue Squadron had been seen. While the
Alliance was willing to draw volun-
teers and support from such worlds, they chose not to jeopardize them by basing
operations on them.
Inhospitable worlds were shuffled onto a secondary list. While the base on Hoth
had shown the Rebels were willing to hide almost anywhere, post-invasion
breakdowns and evaluations of the Hoth operation showed the Rebels had trouble
modifying equipment to work there. In fact, had the Rebels not been reeling from
the defeat at Derra IV, they probably would have bypassed Hoth altogether.
Being the opportunists they were, the Rebels did tend to prefer worlds that
already had structures on them that could be converted into installations. It
appeared that the more benign and abandoned the world seemed, the more likely
the Rebellion was to choose it as a base. Kirtan doubted the Rebels themselves
realized they had this predilection for taking over ruins for their own use, and
he imagined it had to do with a subconscious desire to renew the Old Republic.
The very thing that drove them against the Empire demanded they embrace things
older than the Empire to give their movement a legitimacy it lacked itself.
The final list of primary worlds contained only ten names on it. Kirtan
subjected this list to the final selection processone that had come to him as
inspiration upon waking from a dream that included visions of Ysanne Isard
metamorphosing into a scarlet ghost of Darth Vader.
The X-wings, in arriving at Chorax, had not expected to be dragged out of
hyperspace. That meant their entry vector, if drawn as a line through space,
would point out their intended destination. Kirtan plotted that line through his
data model and then asked the computer to sort the candidate worlds according
to their proximity to any world on that line.
One world had a perfect correlation with that
line. Kirtan smiled. "Talasea, in the Morobe system." He downloaded his result
into his personal datapad and headed off for Admiral Devlia's office. "We know
where you are, Rogue Squadron. Now we will crush you."
18
Corran's eyes snapped open. He knew from the chill of the air and the deep
darkness that it was still night. The fog drifting in through the window of the
small cottage seemed to amplify the silence of the night. He knew that nothing,
not light nor sound had awakened him, but he also knew something was wrong.
He glanced over at Ooryl's cot and saw it was empty. That wasn't much of a
surprise. He'd learned that Gands needed only a fraction of the sleep humans
did and appeared to be able to store it up for times when they could not sleep .
He would have loved to know what set of evolutionary pressures had given the
Gands this ability, but Ooryl remained decidedly private concerning his species
and Corran hadn't pressed for details.
Corran's sense of unease didn't center itself on Ooryl. It remained a feeling
that something was wrong, and this sensation was one with which Corran had a lot
of experience. He'd felt it when preparing for meetings with criminals or during
undercover work when his cover had been blown and
enemies were waiting to hurt him. His father had nodded sagely when Corran told
him about that feeling, and had encouraged him to heed it when it occurred.
He threw open his sleeping bag and shivered as the cold air hit his naked flesh.
Well, Father, I'll "go with my gut." Corran pulled on his flight suit and
discovered that its synthetic material retained the night's chill better than
his flesh retained heat. He stepped into boots that were also rather frigid. He
would have run in place for a moment to warm himself up, but a wave of
malignancy washed over him.
Corran crossed to the cottage's open doorway and crouched in the shadows. He'd
have given his right arm for a blaster, but he stored his personal sidearm in
Talasea's flight center, along with his helmet, gloves, and other equipment. In
my days with CorSec I wouldn't have been caught dead without a gun of some sort.
I don't even have a vibroblade. Either I'm going to be very lucky here or very
dead.
Any advantage he might have came from the basic appearance of the cottage
itself. With an open doorway, unglazed windows, and sagging roof, the
cottage hardly looked like the sort of place anyone, let alone pilots, would
choose to live in. Unfortunately Ooryl and Corran had no choice since a
windstorm had knocked a local kaha tree through the wall of their room in the
pilots' wing of the flight center. Unpowered and barely visible from the center
of the compound, the cottage might go unnoticed.
Unless someone is being very thorough.
The unmistakable squish of mud beneath boot alerted Corran to the presence of
someone just out-side the cottage. Looking up he saw the snout of a blaster
carbine poke through the doorway. A left leg encased in the slate-grey armor
worn by storm-
troopers on commando missions followed it. The gun's muzzle moved to the right,
away from Corran, and began a slow sweep of the room.
Corran exploded up from his crouch and slammed his left fist into the
stormtrooper's throat. Using his own body as a weapon, the Corellian smashed the
stormtrooper against the doorjamb. Hooking his right hand through the armpit of
the soldier's armor, Corran spun and flung the man into the center of the
cottage. Taking one step forward, Corran leaped up and landed with both knees on
the Imperial's stomach.
The stormtrooper retched and vomit squirted from beneath his helmet. Corran
pulled the man's blaster pistol from his holster, tucked it up beneath the
trooper's chin, and pulled the trigger once. A muffled squeak accompanied the
reddish light flashing through the helmet's goggle-eyes, then the body beneath
him went limp.
Corran winced. He who carries a blaster set on kill dies by a blaster set on
kill. He tossed the blaster pistol to the floor beside the carbine, then slid
off the dead man's abdomen. He unbuckled the dead trooper's ammo belt. Tugging
it free of the body, he noticed, in addition to the erg-clips for the blasters,
a number of pouches, half of which were bulging. Opening one of them he saw
compact silver cylinders and a new shiver ran through him.
Explosive charges! Some must already have been set.
A noise in the doorway made Corran spin. A stormtrooper stood there, staring
down at him. Corran's right hand groped for the blaster pistol, but he knew he'd
never make it in time. Then he noticed the stormtrooper's hands were empty and,
more importantly, the man's feet were two inches off the ground.
Ooryl cast the body aside and it crumpled.to the floor. The Gand took a look at
the stormtrooper on the ground, then nodded once. "Ooryl apologizes for having
left you undefended. Ooryl was out walking when the presence of these
interlopers became apparent."
"How many?"
The Gand shook his head. "Two less. Ooryl saw four others at various points on
the perimeter."
"And our sentries?"
"Gone."
"Not good. Stormtroopers travel in squads of ninelet's figure two dozen with
the crew of whatever brought them here." Corran refastened the ammo belt and
slung it across his body. Reholster-ing the blaster pistol he noticed that Ooryl
had similarly appropriated his trooper's weapons. "Is your boy dead?"
The Gand nodded and rolled his trooper onto his stomach. The trooper's helmet
had a blood-smeared hole in the back of it. The hole itself looked odd, and
Corran knew that was because of its shape, not just the jagged outline from
where the armor crumbled. Kind of a diamond shape . . .
He looked up. "Did you hurt your hand?"
Ooryl folded his three fingers into a fist with the wound's peculiar shape.
"Ooryl is not impaired."
"Well, I am, by the night and the fog. You'll be in the lead. We have to assume
the others are rigging the flight center to blow."
"No alarm?"
Corran hesitated. By rights raising an alarm
would be the smart thing to do, but there were no
troops to fight against the stormtroopers. Waking
every one up would be inviting them to get slaugh-
tered as they ran about unarmed. The pilots would
head toward their ships and the stormtroopers in the flight center would cut
them down in seconds.
"Have to go silent on this one. We want to approach the flight center from the
blind side."
The Gand nodded and led Corran out into the misty darkness. Clutching the
blaster carbine to his chest, a legion of conflicting thoughts and emotions
flooded through him. With each step a new plan presented itself to him. There
had to be better ways to handle the situation than slipping blindly through the
would their armor protect them, but the helmet enhanced their vision and the
built-in comlink meant they could coordinate any efforts to hunt him down and
kill him.
Thoughts shifted and ambition sparked dreams of glory. He saw himself as a hero
of the Alliance for foiling the stormtrooper raid, yet that dream died quickly.
As Biggs Darklighter and Jek Porkins had shown, most heroes of the Alliance were
made heroes posthumously, and posthumous was the most likely outcome of the
expedition. This did not suit Corran, but the sense of menace radiating out
through the night made it hard to deny.
At the same time the knowledge that he was surely dead provided him with a sense
of freedom. His goal shifted from staying alive to making sure his friends would
stay alive. He wasn't fighting for himself, he was fighting for them. He was the
shield that would prevent the Empire's evil from touching them. In this idea he
found a haven from the sense of doom grinding in on him.
Ooryl stopped him with a hand pressed gently to his chest. The Gand held up one
finger, then pointed straight ahead. He made a fist with his right hand, then
signaled with his left in a looping motion.
Corran nodded and sighted the carbine along the line where Ooryl had pointed.
The Gand slipped to the left and immediately disappeared in the fog. The
Corellian waited, willing himself to be able to see through the fog to his
target. He knew the chances of hitting anything were minimal, and he expected to
aim at the source of any blaster fire he saw. Even so, he allowed himself to
believe he could feel the soldier in a hard carapace standing twenty or so
meters in front of him.
A wet crunch drifted to him through the fog. Corran moved forward, carefully
pushing his way through the leafy plants and curtains of tendril-moss it the
fringe of the compound. About where he had expected his target to be he found
the Gand crouched over a prostrate stormtrooper. The helmet looked decidedly
flattened on top and now rode low enough to hide the man's throat.
Ooryl unfastened the last of the catches on the
breast and stomach armor, then pulled it from the dead man's body and handed it
to Corran. "You shall have exoskeleton, too."
The human pilot smiled. He removed his gunbelt and slipped the armor on. It was
much too big for him, but he tightened the flank straps as
much as he could and got a vaguely reasonable fit. Adding the trooper's ammo
belt to his own helped hold the armor in place, though the weight of two
blastersone on each hipmade him feel slow.
Ooryl hefted the other carbine in his free hand, then headed off into the night.
Corran followed and quickly enough they came to the side of the flight
center that faced away from the central compound. They made good use of the hole
the kaha tree had made in the wall to slip back into the building. Light
shone in beneath the edge of the door into the hallway and Corran took this as
a good sign.
He pointed to it. "If the troopers were in this wing, they'd have killed the
light because leaving it on means they'll be silhouetted when they enter a
darkened room. Gavin and Shiel are in the next room. Let's get to them."
The Gand nodded and opened the door a crack. He peered out, then waved Corran
forward. Corran shut the door behind him and followed Ooryl through the next
door down the hallway. The Gand crossed to where the Shistavanen lay while
Corran approached Gavin's bed. Shifting the carbine to his right hand, he
crouched down and laid his left hand over Gavin's mouth.
He felt the boy start. "Gavin, be quiet. It's me, Corran. Be still."
Shiel awoke with a low growl, but after taking a couple of healthy sniffs of the
air, he stopped making any noise. He sat up, t hen slipped from the bed and
crouched along with Corran and the Gand at Gavin's bedside. "Troopers. Blood."
Corran nodded. "We have stormies here in the base. They're rigging it to
explodethey're in the hangar now, I think. We have three down and we're
guessing there were two dozen total."