X-wing_ Iron Fist Part 27

"Dissek, please." Face made his voice admonis.h.i.+ng, but inwardly was pleased by Kell's improvisation - it was just the sort of gruesome detail he would not have felt knowledgeable enough to provide. "Do forgive him.

Combat is his only love."

"Quite all right," Zsini said. "You will provide me with dossiers on the Hawk-bats who have technical skills so I can evaluate possible roles for them?"

"I will. Just give me a way to send them to you."

"Melvar will give you a set of HoloNet times and frequencies before you leave."

"And as much data as you can give us on this mission so we can run our own simulations?"

Melvar produced a datapad from a pocket and slid it over to him.

"Would you be averse to a small commission now?" the warlord asked.

"Not at all."

Zsinj stared back toward the security foyer, the route by which the Hawkbats had entered the command center. Two stormtroopers there were advancing, dragging a third stormtrooper backward between them. The third man was limp in their arms and had no helmet on; his hair was golden blond.

"I must be sure of your ruthlessness," Zsini said. "I know you are capable of killing in fair combat, but I want men - oh, yes, and women who can kill under less adverse circ.u.mstances. So, if you'd please shoot this man for me?"

The stormtroopers dumped their human cargo by the foot of the table.

The man they had carried was Castin Donn. His eyes were closed. There was a blaster burn mark on his right leg. His chest rose and fell in regular rhythm.

Face swallowed the bile that tried to crawl up his throat and hoped that he had not gone as pale as he felt. Castin, you idiot. You've killed us all.

Kell glanced down at Castin and then at Face, admirably keeping his features emotionless. His look was a question-lump Zsinj now? Or wait?

Dia kept her gaze on Castin's face, her own expression oddly enrapt.

"Not much of a target," Face said, stalling. There had to be something he could do without revealing their hand, some way to preserve all their lives without managing to iettison their entire mission.

Nothing came to mind.

"True," Zsinj said. "Would you shoot him, please?"

"Oh, I should imagine," Face said, but did not move. "It seems rather a costly test for you, though-having us shoot one of your own stormtroopers."

"Not one of mine," said Zsinj. "An intruder."

"You're not going to question him?"

Zsini shook his head. "I'm not interested in what he has to say. Would you shoot him, please?"

Face clamped down on the panic rising within him. The s.h.i.+p's officers at the table were watching him with increasing interest. And no plan was coming to mind.

"Of course," Face said. "How much ?"

Zsini looked surprised. "What?"

"How much to shoot him? How much are you paying?"

"General Kargin, you surprise me. You're already here, and the cost of a single pistol blast is negligible-especially as we are providing the blaster." He nodded toward one of the officers, who produced a blaster pistol. "You can't do this as a demonstration of goodwill?"

"Intelligent life is the most precious commodity in the galaxy," Face said, making his voice pompous. "Consequently, I never take it without adequate financial reward."

Dia stood, her sudden motion startling everyone at the table. She smiled at the warlord, a heart-melting expression, and said in her husky Seku voice, "The general is just looking out for the well-being of his officers and troops, Warlord. He can't abandon his policies; they're written up in the Articles of the Hawk-bats. But I can do this for you as a private commission. The blaster, please?" She held out her hand.

Face felt a sudden surge of elation. She had a plan. He saw Kell bring his legs up under him. The big man would probably go after Zsinj. That left General Melvar for Face, with Dia to hold the others at bay with the blaster. a.s.suming they gave her a functional one.

Metvar nodded; his officer handed Dia the blaster pistol.

She checked the charge, moved over beside Castin to...

And shot him in the throat.

A chatty junior officer, apparently cheered by the murder of the intruder, led the Hawk-bats back to their shuttle.

Once the security foyer doors closed behind them, Zsinj rose. He clapped his hands, and all the talk in the room ceased. "You've done very well,"

the warlord said. "Thank you for a fine performance."

The men saluted and began filing out of the ersatz crew pit.

Zsinj sat. "How is... what's his name? Yorlin?"

Melvar's features relaxed and became bland and non-threatening once more.

"That man Dissek hit him hard enough to give him a concussion and damage some teeth."

~Well, he's to be commended for following orders even at the cost of considerable pain. Give him a commendation, and when he gets out of the medical ward, give him a three-day leave." He nodded at the body of the intruder; smoke still rose from what was left of its neck. "Hand that over to our technicians. I want to know who he was, where he came from, where he's been living, and how he got aboard Iron Fist. Since he appears not to have been one of the Hawk-bats after all."

"Done. What did the intruder cost us?"

"Initial reports indicate that he shot two stormtroopers and two technicians, then our best Talz specimen killed an-other two technicians and another stormtrooper, and finally the remaining troopers shot the Talz. Costly." Zsinj fixed Melvar with a serious stare. "Have we lost an Ewok test subject?"

"Not from Iron Fist. But it could be that one of the planet-bound laboratories has lost one-and covered up the loss."

"I'm going to have to execute someone for that, Melvar. Find out who lost him, then kill that idiot."

"Yes, sir."

Face made it clear, by gesture and private code, that he wanted the others to remain silent even as they accelerated away from Iron Fist.

Only when they had entered hypers.p.a.ce, on their first leg out did he speak.

"Report."

"He was already dead." The words burst from her like water finally breaching an old dam. "He was gone, Face."

Pain tugged at her words, made them waver. There was bleakhess in what he could see of her face.

"He was breathing."

"No, he wasn't. It was some sort of trick. Some sort of me-chanical pump, I don't know." She took a deep, shuddering breath. "He was completely limp when they brought him in. Not unconscious limp. Dead limp. There was blaster charring on his armor's pelvic plate that should have continued up into his chestplate but didn't, so they had to have put a new chestplate on him - to replace the one that was burned through when he was killed. And the guards carrying him, their posture said they were hauling cargo, not a prisoner who might wake up someday." She closed her eyes and bowed her head. "Body language is something I know a lot about, Face. He was dead."

"Accepted." Face sighed and leaned back. "Dammit. If only he'd followed orders. Will you be all right?"

"I'll be-I'll be..." Her voice choked off. She gulped a couple of times and then just stared.

"Dia?"

She shrieked as if stabbed and was suddenly a whirlwind of motion, las.h.i.+ng out in all directions. Her random blows landed on Kell, on the command console, on the windscreen, on the shuttle wall beside her.

Kell leaned between her and the controls, fending off her blows.

"Face, get her off me before she b.u.mps the wrong things and sends us down a blind hypers.p.a.ce path."

Face leaned forward, grabbing at Dia, received a blow to his chin from a brain tail for his trouble.

"Dia! Power down!"

But her shrieks and blows redoubled, joined now by what looked like painful spasms. Face reached around the copilot's seat and got both hands on her, then bodily hauled her over the chair and into his lap. He took another pair of random blows before getting his arms around her waist, pinning her to him.

She let out one last, keening moan and collapsed. Tears ran unchecked down her cheeks and Face found himself frozen, staring at them, evidence of emotions he had never believed she possessed.

"Dia?"

Her voice was a moan. "She's dead."

"She? She who?"

"Dia. Diap'a.s.sik. She is dead."

He put heat and anger into his words. "No, you are not."

"Yes! She would not have done that. She would not have shot him. She would have died first. She is dead, Face."

He heard a snap, heard metal slide on leather, and was prepared when her hand came up with her blaster and its bar-rel came in line with her chin.

He released Dia with his left hand and got his thumb under the trigger, preventing her from squeezing it.

She shrieked again, a haunted noise compounded of agony and bottomless guilt.

"Face, let me!"

He wrenched the blaster from her hand, held it over Kell's shoulder until he took it, and pinned her again.

"No."

"Then kill me."

"No."

"Yes. I will not live this way."

"You have to. We need you."

She surrendered then to silent tears and racking sobs. He held her to him and finally had a moment to think.

Dia, who in simulator combats cut down the enemy with a cold-bloodedness that sometimes shook the other squadron members-where had she gone? Who was this doppelganger, torn by grief, in his arms? She had to be a Dia who lived under her s.h.i.+eld of ruthlessness, some remnant of the Dia who had been stolen as a child slave off Ryloth a dozen years before. A Dia who could know terrible guilt-self-destructive guilt.

As gently as he could, he said, "Dia, thank you."

She didn't respond.

He repeated his words, and finally she drew back and looked up at him, incomprehension and pain on her face.

"What?"

"Thank you."

She shook her head. "For shooting... for shooting..."

"No. For my life. If you hadn't done what you did, I would be dead. I would have failed to convince Zsinj, and he would have killed us. I prefer to be alive, Dia. Thank you."

He finally could see comprehension flickering around in her eyes.

Kell turned and caught her attention.

"Dia. Me, too. Thank you. Without you, I'd be dead. Or in Zsinj's tender care, worse than dead. Face and I owe our lives to you."

She stared at him in confusion for a long moment, then collapsed again into Face's arms.

"No," she said, and repeated it again and again as her tears flowed unchecked.

Finally she slept.

Face let Kell handle the routine tasks of getting them back to the Halmad system. They'd have to rendezvous with Cubber and - and whoever was a.s.signed in Castin's place - in the asteroid belt, in order to do a complete sweep of the shuttle for tracking equipment, then head on in to Hawk-bat Base.

He had just that much time to compose his report, a report in which he had to explain just why it was that two subordinates had died in his immediate vicinity in just a few days.

16.