X-wing_ Iron Fist Part 32

"She's right, sir. Anb if she's going on this mission, it's good that she can recognize the difference."

"Well, then." Melvar returned his attention to Face. "Will you be deploying your TIEs for launch from our bay?"

"No. Kettch is agitated enough as it is, and being exposed to too many strange humans would unsettle him. I think we'd prefer to launch from Sungra.s.s."

"Understood. Please switch your comm systems to our frequency and cancel your starfighters' usual encryption; we do want to be able to talk to one another. Launch and stand by at your convenience, and I will deliver this formidable young woman to the unit she will be working with."

There were eight of them. Three men and a woman, all large, with movements like natural fighters, were dressed in the non-descript uniforms of maintenance workers, the words KUAT DRIVE YARDS emblazoned above the left breast of the uniforms. Four others were in stormtrooper armor. Melvar introduced them and Shalla filed their names away. He also succinctly explained the difference between the mission as described earlier and the way it was now. Shalla let her eyes open in simulated surprise when she "discovered" that the target was no cargo satellite but a Super Star Destroyer.

"At this hour," Melvar continued, "on this s.h.i.+ft, Razor's Kiss - that's the name of the new Super Star Destroyer, unless Zsinj chooses to rename it - is almost deserted. What's left is mostly security details and workers finalizing critical a.s.semblies.

"We've spent two years helping a colonel in charge of the s.h.i.+p's landing parties build himself up a lucrative little smuggling operation. He doesn't know 'we' means Zsinj, though he'll find out when they court-martial him, if not before. Anyway, to facilitate his trading and dealing, he had to arrange for ways by which his people could bypa.s.s several layers of Kuat Drive Yards defense, and by monitoring him very closely we found out what those means were.

"This crew of specialists will be taking a standard shuttle in to the officers' landing bay under access codes he uses for his little side operation. That will get you onto Razor's Kiss... but no farther, I'm afraid.

"The crew will advance from the landing bay to the bridge and seize it, then enter programming that will allow you to operate the s.h.i.+p in limited capacity solely from the bridge. A false leak alert should clear everyone out of the engineering section and auxiliary bridge, at which point you'll lock them out to prevent sabotage. Finally, a hypercomm signal to us will alert the fleet that it's time to jump in and Razor's Kiss can move out on its escape vector. Any questions?"

The faces of the other members of the team showed clearly they were all fully briefed on the situation. Shalla said, "I take it that I'm to be some sort of lure?"

Melvar nodded. "You'll take point through much of the team's advance through the s.h.i.+p. It's inevitable that the team will run across crewmen we haven't accounted for. Your job is very specific: Distract them, delay them for the others to get in position, but most importantly, don't let them get off any sort of signal. Any comlink notification of the bridge can ruin the whole plan."

Shalla nodded. "Except for stormtroopers, with their comlinks built into their helmets, it shouldn't be too hard. And even with them, just striking fast and hard enough should solve the problem."

In looking over the other team members, she'd noticed that the only other female member of the team, though rather plain in her current guise, could, with a little makeup and attention to detail, have been quite attractive. Shalla said to her, "You were originally supposed to have my job."

The woman, whose name, if Shalla remembered correctly, was Bradan, nodded. "The general thought that a smaller woman would be less suspicious, less intimidating to the security forces aboard Razors Kiss."

"He's probably right." Shalla shrugged. "I'm sorry."

Bradan gave her a searching look. "You bring this mission off and we'll all be covered in glory. Do it and I'll forgive you."

"Done."

"The sign of a perfect mission," said Captain Raslan, "is that it's boring."

Shalla nodded. The mission had been boring so far. They'd taken a dirty, creaky wreck of a first-generation Lambda shuttle from Iron Fist, made the hypers.p.a.ce jump into the Kuat system, made an approach vector on the planet, transmitted pa.s.scodes that were apparently accepted, and now the shuttle was finis.h.i.+ng its first orbit so that it could continue on to the s.h.i.+pbuilding station from a proper approach vector.

"When it's not boring," the captain continued, "you know that you've failed."

"You're obviously unused to failure," Shalla said.

"You have that right." Raslan turned his attention back to the shuttle's controls. "We're getting the automated turn-back message. I'm transmitting our pa.s.scode."

Bradan leaned forward to speak in Shalla's ear. "If this works, we won't even get a voice acknowledgment. Just several minutes of silence as we approach."

"Thus," Shalla said, "more boring, thus even better."

"That's right." Bradan leaned back.

Shalla had to consider that. It was so contrary to Face's a.n.a.lysis of Iron Fist's officer corps, with their rough, piratical behavior on the bridge during the dinner with Zsinj. It was, in fact, more logical, more in line with the kind of success Zsinj enjoyed. But, of course, not all the officers would necessarily share Zsinj's flamboyance.

And despite their words, the approach to Razor's Kiss, made in near silence, wasn't boring. As they approached the enormous arrowhead-shaped vessel, now wrapped up in the spars and projections of the s.h.i.+pbuilding satellite, which looked like a monstrous insect stinging the destroyer into submission, she felt her pulse and breathing increase, her temperature rise.

One mistake and she'd die aboard that s.h.i.+p. Even, perhaps, if she didn't make a mistake. The innocuous-looking datapad in her pocket could mean the difference between life and death for thousands in the New Republic.

Her father would be proud.

And that thought, recollections of the irascible man, already old when he'd falsified records of his death, resettied on the world of Ingo, and begun fathering children, the man who'd taught his daughters to look out for evil and watch out for good, calmed her. If he were here now, he'd be whispering in her ear: Now you're Qatya. Keep your mercenary face on. Be nice to these people because they might hire you again in the future.

Watch out for the backstab in case they decide to save themselves your fee. It won't happen before you take the bridge; right now they're anxious for you to succeed. It might not happen at all; Melvar was impressed with you, and they noticed. With the sound of his soothing voice in her ear, she finally relaxed. She gave Raslan a confident smile.

"Don't get too bored," she said. "You'll be asleep by the time we land."

Razor's Kiss grew before them until it blotted out the entire universe.

Raslan guided them toward a tiny white dot that gradually grew into a standard rectangular bay opening.

He brought the shuttle into a bay that was half-filled with other shuttles and with a pair of interceptors.

There were no people in the bay. Shalla frowned over that. Was it unguarded, with no mechanics on duty? But if the duplicitous colonel had automated instructions set up, he might require bay personnel to absent themselves when vehicles using specific pa.s.scodes arrived.

In silence, they exited the shuttle. Shalla was the first out of the bay, entering a long corridor that was eerily dim and quiet.

As she moved along the deserted corridor toward the bridge - a hike of over three kilometers-she decided that this was a ghost s.h.i.+p. Every other s.h.i.+p she'd been on had pulsed with life, a steady vibration that one could feel in the soles of her shoes and every rigid surface, a sensation so commonplace that s.p.a.cegoers no longer noticed it after their first few days. This s.h.i.+p had no such vibration, and she imagined that if she saw someone materializing out of the gloom ahead of her, it would be a ghost.

But the first contact she had with the inhabitants of Razor's Kiss was not so ethereal. Barely a kilometer into her walk, a doorway to a set of private quarters hissed open beside her and a stormtrooper emerged.

He tried to bring his blaster rifle in line.

"Say..."

She leaned into him, pinning the rifle to his chest, and brought her hand up, an open-palm blow that caught the trooper's helmet just at the chin.

The force of the blow popped the helmet free of his head, sent it clattering into the quarters from which he'd emerged.

He backed away, trying to free his weapon, and she followed him. She crossed her arms and got both hands on the weapon, then stopped and yanked. The sudden torque ripped the blaster from his grip.

He lunged forward, grabbing, and she swung the b.u.t.t up into his jaw. He fell like an anesthetized bantha.

Shalla looked around. This was a small office, perhaps a junior officer's. No one else was present. She took a look in its interior door, but it led only to an empty refresher.

Raslan was in the office when she emerged. "You could hear his helmet bouncing for fifty meters," he said, complaint in his voice, and held out his hand.

She handed him the rifle and slid past him. "You would have heard a blaster shot from three hundred."

For the next kilometer, she encountered nothing except some floor-scrubbing droids, machines so primitive that they recorded nothing but locations they had cleaned. Had she been invading Iron Fist, she would have been worried about their presence; a man like Zsinj would probably have adapted them to be an innocuous part of his s.h.i.+p security. Here, she had no such concerns.

She checked the map Bradan had transmitted to her datapad, turned left into a cross corridor... and b.u.mped straight into a lean Imperial naval lieutenant standing there. The man rocked back, reached for his sidearm - and then got a good look at Shalla and relaxed. "Identify yourself," he said, his voice more curious than angry.

Shalla put her hands on her hips, a pose of naive irritation.

"I'm Qatya, of course."

"Let me see your authorization."

She put a finger to her lips. "Shhh. No need to be so loud. I'm just looking for Stoghi."

"Stoghi?" He frowned. "Stoghin Learz? Major Learz?"

"That's him."

"Your business with Major Learz?"

She shrugged. "I missed him. It's been days since he visited."

"I see." It was clear the lieutenant didn't. "I'11 check with the bridge to find out where the major is."

"I'd really appreciate that. I've been walking for kilometers and haven't found him."

"Uh-huh." The lieutenant brought up his comlink.

Shalla grabbed his hand with both of hers, twisting it and forcing his palm forward and down at a painful angle. He dropped the comlink before he understood what was happening, and as he stiflened and tried to draw away, she twisted his arm up and behind him, then shoved him forward into the bulkhead. The metal rang with the impact of his head against it. She hammered the back of his head with her forearm and the metal rang again.

The unfortunate lieutenant went limp.

Moving fast, she took his sidearm and tucked it under the waistband of her pants, beneath the hanging folds of her tunic. She bound him with his belt and stuffed his holster under his tunic. By the time her team arrived, she was merely in charge of an unconscious prisoner and there was no sign that he'd been armed.

She rose.

"Was that more quiet?"

Raslan gave her an abashed look. "Yes. You're doing your job. That's what you're here for. You have my apologies."

They arrayed themselves outside the door to the security foyer leading to the bridge. Bradan took the security panel next to the door, checked it for alarm switches, and began the methodical process of opening it. The four false stormtroopers stood at the ready beside the door, as if waiting for it to open so they could relieve the previous s.h.i.+ft on duty, and the others kept to the shadowy sides of the corridor as much as they could.

After long minutes, Bradan spoke in a whisper: "I've got it. I'm putting it on a delay. Three seconds after it opens, it closes. Don't start shooting until it closes, if you can avoid it; we don't want the sound to carry."

They formed up, stormtroopers to the fore, Shalla at the rear, and the door shot up with the customary speed of Imperial barriers.

The security foyer was beyond. Unlike the hallway, it was brightly lit, and Shalla had to blink at the sudden brilliance. But their stormtroopers, protected by the lenses of their helmets, advanced without hesitation, and Shalla heard one of them say, "Don't move and you don't die."

Shalla moved in with the others, heard the door whoosh shut behind her, heard the clattering of feet as the stormtroop-ers spread through the security foyer and into the bridge beyond, and her eyes cleared.

Still in the foyer was a naval officer wearing the insignia of an Imperial captain. His hands were up, his round florid face wearing an expression of extreme displeasure.

Raslan stepped up to give him a shove toward the command walkway.

"Get moving." He glanced back at the sole stormtrooper remaining in the security foyer.

"Guard the door. Bradan, secure the turbolift; we don't want some ambitious fool trying to get at us through the shaft. Then secure the doors out of the crew pit."

Bradall nodded and summoned the turbolift. The stormtrooper stationed himself before the doors to the main corridor. The other members of the team raced to their specific a.s.signments, two of them heading to the weapons and defense consoles, others dropping into the crew pit to take up station at the control consoles, the other stormtroopers keeping their blaster rifles trained on the crew of four that had been occupying the bridge.

And suddenly Shalla was alone. True, she was mere meters from the stormtrooper and Bradan, but she was forgotten, her task done, her role vanished. And the s.h.i.+p's main communications consoles were right here.

Available to her.

But the stormtrooper and Bradan had only to turn around to see her.

Delay kills more operations than treachery, bad planning, or bad luck, her father used to say.

Moving quietly and quickly, Shalla drew a cable from her pocket. She plugged one end into her datapad. The other she fitted into the standard terminal interface on the communications console nearest her. Then she brought up Castin's program and selected the "automatic" mode that would do its best to bypa.s.s the Razor's Kiss security on its own, without input from Shalla, then set the datapad on the console chair and slid the chair in close, making the datapad almost impossible to see.

All the while, she overheard conversation floating up from the crew pit and out of the weapons and defense alcoves: "We have the engineering section and auxiliary bridge. Ready to send the alarm."

"Wait for communications to be locked off."

"That's locked off, sir."

"Why didn't you say anything? .... I just finished."

"All right, send the alarm. How are the gun emplacements? ....Up and ready. I've fed in the locations for the station attachments; as soon as I issue the command, they'll be metal vapor."

As a last detail, she switched off the terminal's screen so the actions of Castin's program would not be visible, then quickly moved to the opposite console. She sat in one seat and put up her feet in another.

Bradan emerged from the turbolift and caught sight of her.

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing." Shalla put her hands behind her head. "My job is done. I was going to let you professionals do the rest of the work."

Bradan's expression turned sour. "True. Well, you stay right there. Don't move."

"You can count on me. As long as you're paying, I'm inert."

Bradan turned away and headed up to the bridge and the command walkway.

Shalla relaxed, but made sure her stolen blaster was close at hand. If anyone noticed the datapad in the chair, she had to make sure that he noticed nothing ever again.

General Melvar's voice was loud over the Sungra.s.s's bridge comm unit: "We have signal from the target zone. Prepare to enter hypers.p.a.ce in two minutes."

Face keyed the comm. "Sungra.s.s, requesting permission to launch."

"Permission granted. Have your fighters ready for instant dispersal."

"We'll be ready."

He glanced at Captain Valton, but the man was already raising Sungra.s.s's repulsorlifts, drifting the cargo s.h.i.+p laterally to drop her from Iron Fist's main hangar bay.