X-wing_ Iron Fist Part 2

"I'll bring him in on the plan." Antic.i.p.ating Kell's objec-tions, Phanan hastily continued, "I won't mention Tyria by name. I can keep her out of the story."

"Well... all right. Let's keep her out of this end of it, too."

"Done."

A day later, they rea.s.sembled in the same hangar, all the Wraiths and more personnel besides.

Face looked over the newcomers with interest. Tallest among them was a human male, on his head an untidy mess of strawcolored hair. Next was a dark-skinned woman with large, alert eyes, a red bead tied to one lock of hair on her forehead, and a broad smile that suggested that every minute of every day she was thrilled to be alive. The last, and shortest, was a Twi'lek woman, her features startlingly beautiful by human standards but her red-eyed stare forbidding, her brain tails hanging loose behind her instead of being draped over her shoulders in the fas.h.i.+on of a Twi'lek among friends and allies. All three wore the standard orange-and-white New Republic pilot's suit.

"Lots of news today," Wes Janson said, looking over his datapad. He was, Face saw, back to his usual self, his eternally youthful features merry, no sign on them of discomfort from the injury to his side. "Most of it good, some bad.

"Bad news: I'm back. Bad for me, because I was enjoying my rest, and bad for you, because if some of you had been a lit-tle quicker, I wouldn't have been shot. Keep it in mind as I make up a.s.signments over the next few weeks."

He smiled at the chorus of groans that resulted. "Runt, also, is fit for duty, which is probably both good and bad, because some of his personalities enjoy working and some don't."

The greatest mental peculiarity of Runt's Thakwaash species, now well known to the Wraiths, was that most had multiple personalities-not caused, as they were among humans, by great emotional trauma, but occurring as a natural part of their mental development. Each of Runt's personalities was adept at a different task, and new personalities tended to emerge as he learned.

"We have new pilots to fill our roster." One of the Wraiths had died at the battle on the moon of System M2398; two more had perished in the fight that destroyed the Implacable. "I present to you Flight Officer Castin Donn, our new computer specialist."

The blond-haired man nodded cheerfully.

Janson continued, "Castin is a native of Coruscant, so the next time we decide to walk into a trap here, we'll take him along to make sure it's a better grade of trap.

"Flight Officer Dia Pa.s.sik is a native of Ryloth."

The Twi'lek woman nodded, looking among the Wraiths as if to guess which one would attack her first.

Janson said, "She has experience with a broad variety of New Republic and Imperial vehicles, especially larger s.p.a.ce vessels, and knows quite a bit about criminal organization - she's a new resource for us where things like smuggling, the slave trade, and mercenary operations are concerned.

"Our third pilot is Flight Officer Shalla Nelprin-"

"Oh, no," Kell said. He banged his head against the fuselage of Face's X-wing.

Janson looked vaguely amused.

"You have something to say, Lieutenant Tainer?"

Kell stopped hammering the snubfighter for a moment.

"You're related to Vula Nelprin?"

The new Wraith's smile broadened, causing dimples to ap-pear. "She's my older sister."

"And your father trained you, too?"

"Yes... though I think I'm a little better than Vula."

Kell sighed. "I think I've told you all about my hand-to-hand instructor in the commandos, the one who could throw me around as though I were a dust rag without even letting me see her sweat - this is her sister."

Janson said, "This should come as no surprise to you, then: Nelprin is going to be our new trainer in unarmed combat. You make her the best pilot she can be, and she gets to reward you by beating the life out of you. But she's also well versed in Imperial Intelligence doctrine and tactics, which is helpful to us, since Zsinj seems to be fond of employing Intelligence personnel. Wedge ?"

Wedge said, "Make the new pilots welcome, Wraiths. We're going to put them, and you, immediately to work on our new mission." He drew his datapad from a pocket and punched in a command on its keys. "I've just transmitted to your datapads the details of our a.s.signment... one which, unfortunately, won't take us off Coruscant yet." He waved down the chorus of groans that resulted. "Sorry. But our results on this task may determine where we're a.s.signed next, so pay attention.

"Our efforts in tracking Admiral Trigit and insinuating ourselves into his confidence have gone over very well with High Command. We've demonstrated that we have both skill and luck on our side. But now we have to prove it beyond a doubt.

"We're going to divide ourselves into three groups. Each group is to ask the following questions: What is Zsinj up to? What are his specific plans and strategies? Once you've arrived at a set of theories, we'll put them to the test: We'll go out into the field and look for evidence to corroborate the best of the theories.

"I'm choosing three of you to head these groups based on your ability with tactical thinking and skill in getting into your enemies' heads."

Wedge nodded toward three pilots in turn. "Runt, you're Zsinj-One. Piggy, you're Zsinj-Two. Face, you're Zsinj-Three. Choose your teams and confine yourselves, as much as possible, to research resources available here at head-quarters. Questions?"

Janson's hand went up. "Are we going to be working with Rogue Squadron on this?"

Wedge nodded. "Once we're off-planet, yes, but not in the theoretical phase. The Rogues are being a.s.signed to General Solo on the Mon Remonda to look for Zsinj; once we get out into the field, we'll work with them as circ.u.mstances demand."

Tyria was next. "Have they found out whether it was Zsinj who arranged the ambush on us?"

Wedge managed a sour smile. "The survivors of that little operation have been free with their information. But none of them knew who they were working for except the organizer, who a.s.sembled them as a team, trained them for this operation, and led the mission. He was the one whose throat Phanan cut."

Phanan didn't look abashed.

"Oops."

"General Cracken's field investigators are trying to back-track their expenditures and movements; maybe that will turn up some leads for them.

Not our problem. Anything else? No? Dismissed."

In the organizational chaos that followed, Runt chose Kell and Tyria as his partners; Face took Phanan and Janson; and Piggy chose Myn, and rounded out his group by adding Squeaky, the unit's 3PO quartermaster, to his roster. By silent agreement, each of the three virtual Zsinjes took one of the new squadron members: Runt took Shalla, Piggy chose Castin, and Face took the Twi'lek Dia.

"And may the best Zsinj win," Face said. "Until he runs into Wraith Squadron, that is."

2.

Gara Petothel rechecked the code for the last time, her attention skipping back and forth across screens of data, then sent the command to compile the ungainly-looking mess into what she hoped would be the final version of her program.

A work of art, it was. It would transfer a number of packets of encrypted data from her terminal deep in the lowrent warrens of the city-planet of Coruscant to public computer repositories, disguising the data as ancient archives of accounting data. Then, once the trail back to Gara's terminal was cold, it would transmit the data out across the New Republic HoloNet, to HoloNet addresses Gara had committed to memory weeks before...

addresses that would lead eventually to the communications station of the warlord Zsinj.

If he's a smart man, she thought, and by all accounts he is, within a few weeks I'!! have gainful employment again. Away from this cesspool and away from the Rebel police and Intelligence agents...

A heavy knock fell on the door. She jumped. Sign of a guilty conscience, she thought, and tried to school her features back into an expression of innocent curiosity. She switched off power to her terminal's screen.

As she rose to answer the door, she looked into the mirror to make sure she looked the part she was supposed to be playing. Her downy white-blond hair, cut very close, still seemed odd to her, as was the absence of a mole she'd carried on her cheek since childhood-a mole she had secretly had removed when preparing this ident.i.ty. No, this ident.i.ty shared only a certain delicacy of features with Gara Petothel, and hair and makeup were sufficiently different that no one should recog-nize her in the time it would take her to leave. She opened the door.

Two Rebel pilots stood outside, both in pilot's jumpsuits topped with transparent slickers more suited to Coruscant's frequent thunderstorms.

One had saturnine features and a prosthetic faceplate over the upper left half of his face, a red glow where his left eye would have been. The other would have been startlingly handsome, with luxuriant dark hair framing intelligent, active eyes and features suited to raising heart rates, but his face was marred by a puckered scar-a blaster graze, she guessed-running from his left cheek to his right forehead.

She knew the one with the faceplate, and it was he who spoke first.

"Lara Notsil."

It was a statement, not a question.

"Yes." She looked beyond them, to the pedestrian traffic in the tenement hallway. Though her tiny quarters were on the fortieth floor of a building, this hallway was part of a tube access allowing people to walk across kilometers of Coruscant at this alt.i.tude, and traffic was always heavy. Her hallway was a place of thefts and a.s.saults, but also a way for her to lose herself quickly in a crowd, which is why she'd chosen it.

She returned her attention to her visitors. "It's Lieutenant Phanan, isn't it? From the hospital on Borleias? Please, come in before someone sticks a vibroblade in you." She backed away and allowed them to enter, then shut the door against the ceaseless stream of humanity outside.

"Actually, it's just Flight Officer Phanan," her visitor said.

"The smart one here is the lieutenant, Garik Loran."

She froze in mid-handshake and gave the other pilot a closer look. It was him, and it embarra.s.sed her, the way she suddenly felt light-headed.

"The Face? You're still alive?"

Face gave her a smile. She knew it was an actor's smile, carefully rehea.r.s.ed to suggest amus.e.m.e.nt, comrades.h.i.+p, and attraction, but despite the fact it did not fool her, she was still half washed away by the emotions it caused. She felt as though she'd just been invited into his intimate acquaintance. Her light-headedness worse than ever, she sat heavily at her terminal chair.

"That's me," Face said. "I get that a lot. No, the story of my death was a sort of propaganda thing cooked up by the Empire to make people think the Rebel Alliance was full of evil people who'd kill a child actor. I'm a pilot these days."

"Obviously." She struggled to bring herself under control. Remember, she thought. You're Lara Notsil now. Farm girl from Aidivy. Former prisoner of Admiral Trigit. That's what they're here for, more debriefing on Trigit. Phanan had been there, one of the Rebels shooting at Implacable-shooting at me.

"Please, sit down. I'm sorry about the mess-it's hard to keep anything clean here. How did you find me?"

Phanan sat on the edge of the bed. Face took the only other chair. Phanan said, "Anyplace you can walk or sit without sticking to everything is very hygienic by low-level Coruscant standards. Believe me, we know. As for finding you-we asked around New Republic Intelligence. They said you'd been discharged and had declined transportation back to your homeworld.

We ran a search on the worldnet looking for your name and recent employment application. You're working as an information processor for a s.h.i.+pping concern?"

"Yes. It pays" - she gestured at the tidy squalor around her-"for all this."

Face said, "How would you like a better job and the chance to live in better conditions?"

"I'd like that. What would I have to do?"

"Go through New Republic pilot training. The full academy course."

No, thanks. How would you like to get me a ticket to Warlord Zsinj fleet instead? But she had to play her role.

"That would be... nice. But it can't happen."

Face gave her another smile, this one full of confidence.

"Why not?"

Gara injected a note of wistfulness into her voice.

"When I was back on the farm on Aidivy, that's something I thought about every day. Learning to fly. I got to be pretty good on the farm's skimmers. I studied things like voice and Basic to sound less like a farm girl."

"It shows," Face said. "Your Aldivian accent is almost gone."

If you knew that I was born and reared less than a hundred klicks from here, you'd appreciate how much work it takes to speak with the barest trace of that accent, Gara thought.

"But then, when the Implacable came, destroyed New Oldtown, and took me away, I sort of lost interest. All I wanted to do was see the Implacable destroyed. And then when Admiral Trigit chose me for his" - she broke eye contact, put an extra rasp into her voice, let a tear fall-"mistress, all I wanted was for him to die.

"You did that. You killed him. Your squadron and the other ones. Thank you." She modulated her voice to sound as though she were feigning nonchalance and concealing pain. "But I guess I don't have anything left.

Any ambitions."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"Besides, since I've been... a.s.sociated with Admiral Trigit, the New Republic wouldn't trust me." She shrugged fatalistically.

"They cleared you. You were never charged with any crime."

She nodded. And what work it had been, all those weeks ago, to generate the Lara Notsil ident.i.ty, careful planning ahead just in case her employment with Trigit didn't work out.

Hooking her new ident.i.ty to a real event, Trigit's punitive bombardment of a farm community that had refused to provision him. Finding and modifying the pitiful few records concerning a farm girl whose body was now a carbonized ma.s.s of powder in a charred Aldivian grainfield, replacing key bits of data with Gara's picture, Gara's fingerprints, Gara's cellular coding. Spinning a tale of secret chambers on the Implacable - so secret other Implacable survivors could plausibly not have known about her - where Trigit imprisoned his "unwilling mistress"

and maintained her on a diet of glitterstim and other drugs.

They'd accepted it, the whole package, especially eager for the scandalous details of her captivity and Trigit's evil... lies she'd been happy to offer out of her anger at the man. Trigit had been willing to sacrifice his crew to death when he didn't have to, a crew that had been efficient and loyal.

But this whole Lara Notsil ident.i.ty had only one purpose, to get her out of New Republic hands and back to Imperial service-or service that would someday be acknowledged as Imperial.

She shook her head. "I don't think I can help you." Then she frowned.

"Wait. You said 'trade favors.' What would I do for you?"

Phanan leaned forward. "Ah. That's the tricky bit. We'd want you to struggle a bit with your pilot training. Skirt along at the bottom of your cla.s.s, sometimes dipping just under acceptable skill, sometimes skimming along just above. Sort of terrain-following flying, if you get my drift."

"Why? Why not do the best I can?"

Phanan said, "Because we think someone will come to you and offer to help train you, improve your scores... and then want to use your pilot's skills in a deal. Some sort of illegal operation."

"You're setting this person up. I would be bait."

Face nodded. "He's the sort of man who uses people, Lara. Uses them like Admiral Trigit. We thought, maybe, you'd be able to take out on him the vengeance you'd been saving for Trigit."

She shook her head. "It wouldn't be the same, and I wouldn't..."

And then the idea hit her, detonating in her mind like a proton torpedo.