X-wing_ Iron Fist Part 3

A plan, a simple one, one that would increase her worth in the eyes of Warlord Zsinj or any Imperial officer to whom she wanted to sell her services. The idea made her as dizzy as her long-faded teenage longing for an actor named Garik Loran had.

"Lara?" Face asked. "Are you all right?"

She began to cry. A useful talent, that, being able to cry on cue; her teachers at Imperial Intelligence had been delighted by it.

"I can't do it," she said. "I'll lose everything."

Phanan leaned forward and took her hands. "What will you lose? What could you lose?"

"Everyone at home is dead. All I have left are people I've met since I was rescued. I was hoping for a career in the mili-tary, some civilian post. If I do what you say, if I go through pilot's training, I won't be able to help myselfmit'll wake up that old wish and the only thing I'll want is to be a pilot. And then if I set this man up and ruin him, everyone everywhere will say, 'That's Lara Notsil. The traitor.' No one will want me. Every-one will distrust me."

"That's not true," Phanan said. But Gara saw Face lean back, considering her words, and she knew he recognized the truth of them.

"It is true," she said. "What commander would take me on as a pilot?

Everyone will think I'm spying on them, and friends of this person you want me to burn down will do what it takes to ruin me. I'll have terrible scores from doing exactly what you wanted me to do, so the civilian piloting services won't have anything to do with me." She stared between them, defiant, allowing tears to continue streaming down her face. "You know it's true. And you can't speak for any squadron except your own, and you know Wedge Antilles would never take me on after I'd done what you asked."

Face still looked troubled. "We don't know that."

"But you can't speak for him."

"No, we can't."

"So you two want me to trade my entire future for a little piloting training. Thanks for the offer. There's the door."

"Wait." There was no artifice in Face's voice or manner now.

"What if we could guarantee you a piloting station?

Somewhere you'd be accepted for your skills, where the consequences of this operation play in your favor instead of against you ?"

"Where ?"

"I don't know yet."

She shook her head. "I can't trust that the commander will be as fair as you think. I just don't believe it."

"What if it were Wedge Antilles?"

She caught her breath. Then: "You just said you can't speak for him."

"Not yet. I haven't put any details of this in front of him. But I will.

And if he says yes?"

She paused. She already knew her answer, but they had to think she was considering it. Finally, she said, "If it were Wedge Antilles's command, either Rogue Squadron or that new one, Wraith Squadron, yes, I'd do it."

"I'11 talk to him today." Face rose and Phanan followed suit. "I'll let you know as soon as I have an answer from him." She gave him a brave little nod.

And when they'd gone, she clamped both hands over her mouth, the better to hold in the whoops of victory that threatened to escape her.

When they were a few steps from Lara Notsil's door, Phanan said, "Commander Antilles is going to take you to pieces."

"I know." Face shouldered his way through the thick stream of pedestrians.

"You'll be pulling punishment detail until you're forty."

"Probably."

"When you put this idea in front of him, flames are going to come out of his mouth and burn you from head to foot."

"That's true. But one thing makes it easier for me to take."

"What's that?"

"You're going to be there burning with me."

Phanan grimaced. "You're such a good friend."

Flight Officer Shalla Nelprin dove toward the ground - as far as the narrowing gaps between Coruscant's endless sea of buildings would allow her to descend. She could see blurs in the viewports, blurs that had to be startled faces.

The pair of TIE fighters on her tail pursued her with agility, matching her maneuver with little effort, still firing their linked lasers at her tail. She leveled off, juking left and right as much as the narrow confines would let her, and green laser blasts slammed into buildings on either side of her and into her reinforced rear shields.

"I can't shake them, Control," she said. "They're good."

The voice of Runt Ekwesh came back. "Shalla, why do you think Warlord Zsinj employs so many former Intelligence officers? Implacable, Night Caller, and more ships and officers we're learning of..."

Shalla's snubfighter shuddered as another laser blast slammed into her stern shields and penetrated to reach her hull. She glanced at her diagnostics board. Minimal damage to hull, no indication of other problems. Yet. "Control, do you mind? I'm flying for my life here."

"It is only a simulator run. Your scores are not being recorded."

"Treat every simulator run like the real thing and stay alive longer.

That's what my daddy says." She dropped down another ten meters to fly under, rather than through, a walk-way connecting two skysc.r.a.pers. One TIE fighter mimicked her, the other rose and flew over the obstruction.

"All right. First, they were available. Ysanne Isard, head of Intelligence, is killed a few months ago by Rogue Squadron. This gives every one of her subordinates a choice. Work for this council now running what's left of the Empire, work for one of the warlords, go pirate, or go hide. Wait a second."

Below and ahead was another enclosed crosswalk; beyond it, immediately below the crosswalk's level, two buildings widened so that there was scarcely any room between them. Shalla dove again, came up immediately beneath the walkway, and rotated ninety degrees, her wings now pointing skyward and groundward, to fit in the narrowing gap between buildings.

As before, one TIE fighter went high and the other followed her closely.

But the TIE-fighter profile was not as variable as that of an X-wing; because of its solar array wings, no matter how it was turned, the TIE fighter needed more than six meters of clearance in any direction.

In this narrow gap, her pursuer didn't have them. It hit the four-meter opening between buildings and the buildings sheared both wings off, top and bottom. The TIE fighter dropped, its ball-shaped c.o.c.kpit bouncing between buildings on its way down until it detonated.

A new voice - Shalla thought it was Kell Tainer's-came across next.

"Good flying, Nelprin. One to go."

"Thank you." The gap between buildings widened. She rotated until she was horizontal again. "So, all of a sudden there are lots of Intelligence operatives and ships available. That's the supply.

"Demand is trickier. Zsinj's records say he's sort of a compulsive liar.

So why hire people who are trained to see through those lies? My guess is that he doesn't mind. He doesn't lie to fool people-except his enemies, of course. He does it to entertain. To impress people with his brilliance."

The remaining TIE fighter resumed firing on her; lasers flashed past her strike foils to blow through building walls below, and her stern shields took more hits.

Ahead and above was a crowd of high-alt.i.tude skimmers-aerial traffic following one of the posted routes. But these skimmers were all decorated with the colors of Coruscant police.

"Hey, fair game." Shalla rose into the cloud of skimmers, flashing just below most of them, using them as a screen. Her pursuer's lasers. .h.i.t skimmers all around her. Several detonated, raining shrapnel upon her.

When a skimmer ahead of her blew up, she decelerated as hard as she could and was vibrated by her snubfighter's shudder. Half on main engines and half on repulsorlift landing engines, she rose through the cloud of flame and debris...And as she cleared it she saw the other TIE fighter racing along ahead, not having antic.i.p.ated her sudden deceleration.

It was slowing now, preparing for one of the impossibly tight turns TIE fighters could manage.

She bracketed the TIE fighter with her heads-up display. The brackets went almost instantly from yellow to red and she fired, sending a proton torpedo straight into the Imperial vehicle's c.o.c.kpit. It detonated, a brilliant flash of light and debris.

Then Shalla's view spun as she was hurled out of control.

She saw a building side rushing toward her, frightened faces in the viewports - and then everything went black.

The canopy opened over her, admitting light. Runt, Kell, and Tyria stood nearby, all of them wearing headsets. "What happened?" Shalla asked, complaint in her voice.

Kell smiled. "You were hit by a skimmer. It was flying blind through that first explosion and slammed into you from the side."

Shalla hissed in vexation and climbed out. "They say the city is a dangerous place."

"Otherwise an excellent run," Kell continued.

"So," Runt said, "the Intelligence operatives are available, and Zsinj doesn't mind that they can see through some of his deceptions. What else?"

Shalla gave the others a look. "Runt is pretty single-minded, isn't he?"

They laughed. Kell said, "No, more like multiple-minded. But any one of his minds might get very focused."

"I see." She didn't, but she figured she would eventually. She turned back to Runt. "Maybe it's more than that Zsinj just doesn't mind. Maybe he likes having an appreciative audience. Someone knowledgeable enough to understand what he's doing and be impressed by it. He has to have a tremendous ego."

Runt frowned. It wasn't a proper human frown, but his very mobile eyebrows came down over his large, expressive eyes to suggest concentration.

"He likes to be appreciated."

"I think so."

"He would enjoy playing the hero. Hero of the Empire."

"Certainly. Why else make all these very public a.s.saults on New Republic colonies and outposts? It's not all for their strategic value. They're not all valuable, and he could do more damage by being sneaky. It's to show somebody that he's a warrior. His audience, whoever that is." She bent over, pressing her head to her knees, then straightened, arms high in the air, and began repeating the motion.

Tyria sighed. "She's exercising. We have a compulsive exerciser."

Shalla didn't look up. "Just stretching. I get leg cramps when I'm in the c.o.c.kpit too long."

Kell said, "Her sister is like that, too. Always in motion. Want to drive her completely insane? Tie her to a chair for an hour."

Shalla straightened and gave him her most wicked smile.

"Try it, Lieutenant."

"No, thanks."

Wedge stood so fast that his chair slammed back into his office wall.

"You promised her what?"

Phanan and Face were already standing. Face said, "We promised her nothing-except that we'd look into it."

"Gentlemen, this is a matter for New Republic Intelligence. Hand it off to General Cracken's people."

Face looked uneasy. "With all due respect, sir, Cracken's people haven't noticed this man yet. That means he might have a friend, a fellow officer, in Intelligence, covering for him. If he's stolen s.p.a.cecraft before, and we have no reason to suspect he hasn't..."

"Or any knowledge that he has."

"True. But if he's stolen s.p.a.cecraft before, having a friend in Cracken's group would account for the failure of any investigation to turn up evidence against him. If we turn this over to Intelligence, we may just be giving him advance warning so he can cover his tracks, play the good little officer for a couple of years... and then go back to stealing things and luring young, struggling officer candidates into his employ."

Wedge considered that. "If you carry out this little operation, Cracken's people may decide they don't care for us very much. For intruding on their territory."

Phanan nodded. "That's a possibility. But another possibility is that we can do this without even alerting anyone it is an 'operation.' Let's say Lara Notsil gets into flight school on the recommendation of a dashing, preposterously attractive pilot she met in the hospital on Borleias..."

"One of Blue Squadron's pilots, I a.s.sume."

"Thank you for that vote of confidence, sir. Anyway, she goes through training, Repness starts his shenanigans. Lara calls in her old friend from the hospital, they expose Repness immediately. That's the story, and it'll hold up to most scrutiny."

"To casual scrutiny, maybe." Scowling, Wedge finally resumed his seat.

Phanan and Face looked a little more relieved and sat as well.

Wedge continued, "But the likelihood is that we'll be on a.s.signment elsewhere when her troubles with Repness begin. Are you planning on resigning from Wraith Squadron to stay here near her?"

"No. But Face here is going to deposit some credits in an account for her to use for HoloNet access. Whenever it hap-pens, she can get in touch with us almost immediately..."

"a.s.suming we're not undercover."

"a.s.suming that, yes. I'll leave instructions for her for what to do if she can't reach us. But if she can, we'll find out who's on Coruscant, someone we trust that she can depend on. There's bound to be somebody.

There's always somebody."

Phanan gave his commander a diffident little shrug. "You might even be able to call on Princess Leia Organa..."

"Absolutely not. She's a busy, busy woman. Besides, she's gone on some diplomatic mission n.o.body will talk about."