Rogue Squadron (23 page)

The hall light went out.

“Uh-oh.” Gavin shucked the pistol from its holster and the power selection lever clicked.

“Leave it on kill, kid.” Corran pointed to the window. “Go, you two. Flank them.”

Wordlessly Corran turned and scuttled over to the door. Reaching up he turned the knob and opened it a crack. He couldn’t see anything in the dark, but he did hear the squeak of hinges farther along the hallway. He touched the medallion he wore once for luck, then pulled open the door, stepped into the hallway, and fired a burst.

Two bolts caught one stormtrooper in the chest and tossed him backward into another trooper. The dead man’s finger jerked his carbine’s trigger, sending a line of bolts down the hallway. Corran dove to the right, slamming his shoulder into the wall avoiding them. Red light flashed back out of the doorway near the head of the hall, reminding Corran of the flare in the eyeplate of the first trooper he had killed. In an instant the Corellian knew the room contained a third stormtrooper and that at least one of the squadron’s pilots lay dead in bed.

Corran’s second burst knocked down the stormtrooper emerging from beneath the Imp corpse. Corran thought he went down hard enough to be dead, but the little votive fires lit in the floors and walls by the stray blaster bolts didn’t supply enough light for him to be certain. Then the trooper in the room at the head of the hallway emerged and, as if the
trooper’s mirror image, Gavin came through the doorway of his room.

“Gavin, no!”

The farm boy triggered one shot while the trooper filled the hallway with a steady stream of fire. Corran hit his trigger and scythed the muzzle back and forth across the hallway. He heard Gavin grunt and fall behind him. His own shots cut the legs out from under the stormtrooper. The last bolt blasted through the square eyeplate and bubbled the armor at the back of the man’s head.

The doors all along the hallway swung open. Nearest to him Corran saw the Twi’lek. “Gavin’s down. Help him. Stormtroopers are here in the base.”

Nawara Ven stared at him. “How did they find …”

“I don’t know. The place is rigged to blow. Get everyone clear.” Corran sprinted down the hallway, leaping over the trio of dead stormtroopers. He stripped the power pack from the carbine and slapped a new one into it. As he neared the hangar he heard plenty of blaster fire. The semitransparent plastic strips hung over the doorway showed a lot of shots heading out to converge on two points in the darkness, which told Corran that Shiel and Ooryl had attracted plenty of attention with their flanking maneuver.
Shooting coming from either side of the door, too
.

Corran fished one of the explosive cylinders from a belt pouch and set the timer for five seconds. He punched his thumb down on the arming button. Glancing up he located what he saw as the largest concentration of shots heading out at his comrades.
Six. Looks good to me
.

Corran stepped through the plastic curtain and
let the arming button come up, starting the timer. He slid the explosive cylinder across the smooth ferrocrete surface toward the knot of commandos.
Three, two, one!

The explosion scattered the soldiers, casting two up and over the generator cart they’d been using as cover. Before they hit the ground, Corran turned and thrust his blaster carbine at the stormtrooper hunkered down to the left of the door. The burst of laser fire burned through the torso armor, blasting the man out from behind a breastwork of crates.

Spinning, Corran sprayed scarlet blaster darts over the stormtrooper on the other side of the doorway. The shots hit him in the chest and legs, somersaulting him back through the plastic sheet and out of the hangar. Continuing his spin, Corran snapped shots off at various muzzle flashes, backing and turning, picking up speed and allowing himself to drift almost at random.

He knew he should be terribly frightened, but since he had decided he was as good as dead before, fear could find no purchase on his soul. He viewed his situation with an emotional detachment that surprised him. It allowed him to see his entry into the hangar much as he had seen diving into the cloud of TIEs at Hensara.
I can shoot at anyone—they have to take care
.

Corran’s gun came up and the muzzle tracked strobing laser fire over the silhouette of a stormtrooper up on the hangar’s catwalk. The trooper straightened up and twitched, then slowly began a backward spin toward the floor that Corran found incredibly graceful. His landing, which was all broken and herky-jerky, ruined the beauty of his fall and brought Corran back to the hideous reality in which he was enmeshed.

A laser bolt caught him in the right breast and pitched him into the shadows. He landed hard against a wall of wooden crates and stars exploded before his eyes when his head hit something solid. He heard wood and glass break and a gurgle of a vessel emptying. He hoped it wasn’t his body emptying of blood, but the shooting pains in his chest and the fire radiating out from the wound all but guaranteed he
was
the source of the sound. A sickly sweet scent mixed with the stink of burned flesh and Corran knew he was dying.

That smells like Corellian whiskey
. His mind flashed back to the endless rounds of drinks at his father’s wake. Each one punctuated a toast or a testament to his father by members of CorSec, from the Director on down to Gil and Iella to the rookies his father had taken under his wing. At that time Corran had thought having such a wake would be the grandest sendoff possible.
And now I hallucinate the smell of it
.

A jolt of pain left him a moment of lucidity in its wake and Corran clung to it. His vision cleared and he saw laser bolts burning in all directions through the darkness. He tried to lift his own carbine, but he couldn’t feel its weight in his hand. He decided to draw the blaster pistol, which was when he discovered his right arm wasn’t working so well.

That realization came a second or two before the laser fire silhouetted a stormtrooper seeking cover nearby.

Corran willed his body to sink into the ferrocrete, but nothing happened.

The stormtrooper swept something aside with a foot and Corran heard the clatter of the carbine against an unseen crate. He tried to lever himself up with his left arm, but the pain in the right side of his
chest stopped him. He found himself short of breath.
My lung. Collapsed
.

The stormtrooper lowered his carbine, giving Corran a good view of the muzzle. “It’s over for you, Rebel scum.”

“You, too, little stormie.” Corran raised his left hand but kept his thumb pressed on the end of the explosive cylinder he’d eased from the pouch on his belt. “I die and it blows.”

The stormtrooper hesitated for a second, then shook his head. “Nice try. You’re holding the wrong end.”

Blaster whine filled the crate-lined cul de sac and Corran flinched involuntarily. He thought flinching was a bad way to die, then he realized that the dead are seldom that vain. Above him the stormtrooper’s body wavered, then buckled at the knees and crashed down beside him. The hole in the back of his armor sparked and smoked.

Wedge came running up and dropped to one knee beside Corran. “How are you doing, Mr. Horn?”

“Parts of me don’t hurt that much.”

Wedge smiled. “Hang tight. The stormies are withdrawing. Medic!”

“Bombs.”

“I know. We’re finding and disarming them.”

Corran smiled and tried to take a deep breath. “Gavin?”

“Bad, like you. We’re already getting set to evacuate.”

“I’m as good as dead.” He winced. “I’m so far gone I smell Corellian whiskey.”

“You
do
smell Corellian whiskey, Corran. You’re lying in a puddle of it.” Wedge frowned. “The crate that broke your fall is full of Whyren’s Reserve.”

“What? How?”

Wedge shook his head as Emdee droids toddled over. “I don’t know. Consider solving that mystery your assignment while you recover from your wounds.”

19

Wedge Antilles watched as Gavin Darklighter and Corran Horn floated all but lifeless in bacta tanks. Seeing them there brought back memories of the time he had spent in such a tank—it hadn’t been aboard the
Reprieve
but on
Home One
, Admiral Ackbar’s flagship at Endor. He’d been barely conscious during his time in the tank, which he saw as a blessing. Being awake and thinking while being able to do nothing would have driven him insane.

“Your pilots have improved, Commander Antilles?”

Wedge turned and blinked his eyes in surprise. “Admiral Ackbar? What are you doing here, sir?”

The Mon Calamari clasped his hands at the small of his back. “I read your report and found it disturbingly clinical. I decided I wanted more information.”

Wedge nodded. “There wasn’t much time to prepare the report.”

“And you have never really liked datapadding.”

“No.” Wedge rubbed a hand over his face and discovered a fair amount of stubble on his chin and
jaw.
How long has it been since I slept?
“You could have requested a supplemental report, or asked me to report to you aboard
Home One
and saved yourself the trip.”

“I thought of that, but I knew another report from you would be light in bytes and that you would refuse to leave your people, so I chose to save myself the annoyance.” Ackbar stared through the viewport at the two men in the tank. “Besides, the tone of the Provisional Council meetings is beginning to wear on me. The fate of Rogue Squadron is important enough that I was able to slip away without being accused of running.”

The Corellian looked over at his commander. “Are things that acrimonious?”

“I probably exaggerate. Politicians tend to view soldiers like their pet Cyborrean battle dogs.”

“And soldiers don’t like to be considered pets.”

Ackbar’s barbels twitched slightly. “Since we are the ones who get bitten and bleed and die, we tend to resist plans that are politically expedient but militarily suicidal.” He tapped his hand against the viewport. “Is the picture of what happened there any more clear?”

“Not yet. The basics are the same—three pilots seriously wounded, one dead, and all six sentries dead. A number of others have cuts and scrapes. It should have been much worse but it looks as if the stormtroopers wanted to plant the explosives, withdraw, then arm and detonate them by remote. Had they just put them on timers we would have lost equipment and people before we found them all. A full platoon was operating on Talasea. We got all of them and captured the Delta DX-9 Transport they came in on.”

“Hardly worth the cost, but a good thing, nonetheless.”

Wedge nodded. “The ones we captured—two stormtroopers and all five of the transport’s crew—refuse to talk. I have them in detention, isolated from each other. I’ve had an Emdee-oh and Emdee-one droid engaged in postmortems of the troopers we killed. With luck something will give us an idea where they came from.”

“And Talasea was evacuated?”

“Yes, sir. We expect Imperials to come looking for whatever got their people, so we set up some booby traps and other surprises for whoever follows us in there.” Wedge sighed heavily. “I have a list of what we left behind in case we ever have cause to go back.”

The Mon Calamari nodded slowly. “What is the mood of your unit?”

Wedge turned and pressed his back against the cool transparisteel. He just wanted to close his eyes and go to sleep, and he feared he’d do just that if he
did
close his eyes. “We’re all stunned and exhausted. Losing Lujayne came as a shock. She wasn’t the best pilot in the unit, and not one to take chances, so none of us had her pegged as someone who would die first. Corran or Bror or Shiel were easy to picture going out in a blaze of glory—and Corran almost did. Lujayne was a fighter, so having her die in her sleep was, well, it just made it worse. She was murdered, not killed in combat, and I guess I thought we were somehow immune to that sort of ignominious death.”

He shook his head. “That makes no sense, of course.”

Ackbar patted him on the shoulder. “It does make sense. We know war is barbaric, but we try not to be barbaric in waging war. We hold ourselves to a high standard that demands we only attack legitimate military targets—not civilians, not medical
frigates. We would like to see this honor we demand of ourselves reflected in the actions of our enemies.”

“But if they were as honorable as we are, we’d not be fighting this war.”

“And in that, Commander Antilles, you have the core of the whole problem.” The Mon Calamari paced away from the viewport. “When will your people be out of the tanks?”

Wedge glanced down at his chronometer. “Twelve hours more for Horn and Darklighter, another twenty-four to forty-eight for Andoorni Hui. I’ve been told it has something to do with her metabolism, but she was hurt worse than they were, too. I want to hold a memorial for Lujayne fairly soon.” He rubbed his eyes. “Gavin will be crushed—she’s been helping him sharpen his astronavigation skills.”

“It seems, then, nothing can be done until at least twelve hours from now.”

Wedge shook his head. “Nope, we just have to wait.”

“No, you just have to sleep.”

The Corellian turned and looked at Ackbar. “I can rest later.”

“But you
will
rest now. Consider that an order, Commander, or I will order a Too-Onebee droid to sedate you.” Ackbar’s chin came up as he spoke and Wedge knew he’d carry out his threat. “In fourteen hours I want to see you and your XO on
Home One
. General Salm will have arrived by then.”

“If I’d known I could look forward to a dressing down by him, I’d have let the stormtroopers shoot me.”

“Yes, he can have that effect, can’t he?” Ackbar’s mouth hung open in a silent laugh at his joke. “The purpose of this meeting is not a reprimand, however.”

“No?”

“No.” Ackbar’s voice became calmer, yet more intense. “Someone in the Empire struck at one of my forward bases. If we don’t strike back, and strike back hard, they might feel emboldened to continue such activity. I don’t want this to happen. General Salm’s bomber wing should be sufficient for exacting retribution.”