To the left, just beyond the vehicle doors, a ramp led down to a garage area. Off the foyer two corridors led away, one north and one south, going deeper into the facility. From the southern one, off to his right, two more stormtroopers came running. Corran's initial burst caught the second one on the left flank, punching through his thigh and chest armor. That man slammed against the foyer's back wall and bounced down to the floor.
The lead stormtrooper twisted and dove, extending his right arm toward Corran. The blaster carbine he was carrying spat hot light. One bolt burned through the flight suit over Corran's right hip, but the pilot had already begun to move to his own right, so the rest of the stormtrooper's bolts passed wide.
Corran's return fire scythed across the man's mid-section. The armor did a good job of deflecting a couple of shots and ablating even more, but one drilled in through the gap between codpiece and thigh. The stormtrooper screamed and clutched at his leg. Corran stroked the trigger twice more as the man came up into a sitting position, dropping him to his back forever.
Something hot and hard caught Corran in the left flank, spinning him around. As he came about he saw a smallish man in an olive uniform holding a blaster in a double-handed grip. Corran staggered a bit, and then dropped to his knees and flopped onto his back.
A grin slowly started to spread over the man's face.
He was deliberately aiming at my back and only caught my flank? Corran groaned aloud. And he only shot once? Has to be a clerk.
The Lieutenant's expression changed from one of joy to one of wide-eyed horror as Corran sat up. The Rogue's carbine came around and the burst Corran triggered tracked blasterfire up through the doorway of the office with the two dead stormtroopers. A trio of bolts lifted the clerk from his feet and spun his body back deep into the office.
Corran slowly regained his feet and jogged over to the office. He peeked in quickly, didn't get shot, and then moved in past the dead stormtrooper and clerk. He checked the second stormtrooper to make sure he was well and truly dead, and then searched the rest of the office for anyone hiding in desk legwells.
He was alone and slumped back against a wall for a second. He could have used more of a rest, but as he pressed his back to the wall, the wound complained. Reaching back with his left hand, he probed it and found a nice neat hole burned through his flight suit and the armor about the level of his floating ribs. Luckily for him it had come in at an angle and most of the energy had been ablated by the armor. When he poked a finger all the way through, it came back wet and red, but the blood hadn't begun to soak his flight suit, so he was fairly certain the wound wasn't that serious.
Looking around at the room again, he realized he was standing in what passed for the small installation's communications and security office. A dozen monitors showed shifting views of locations within the facility and he took heart that only a couple of the monitors showed folks moving around. Those individuals were not stormtroopers and looked like technicians working on some sort of research project.
Appropriating a datapad, Corran called up a site map and located one of the labs in the north wing. He tried to
call for a general security lockdown of the facility, but the computer refused, indicating the user didn't have the authority to do so. He shifted to another desk-one that looked like it had belonged to the female Major who had died as he broke in-and repeated the request.
The clanging shut of blast doors echoed through the base.
Corran slipped from the office and stopped at the Major's corpse. He pulled the rank cylinder from her breast pocket, and then headed off through the north corridor. It extended twenty meters into the rock and ended in a durasteel security door. He pressed the rank cylinder into the locking mechanism and the door slid open.
The assembled workers, all in long white coats, barely glanced at him at first. When he produced and ignited the lightsaber, they paused and looked at him. He got the distinct impression they were more fascinated by the weapon than they were threatened by it. It's as if they see it as technology, pure and simple, with no regard for what it could possibly do.
Corran slashed the blade to the left and bisected a duraplast chair. The clatter of both halves toppling to the floor seemed to drill some reality into the techs' consciousnesses. They returned their attention to Corran and he was pleased to note that a number of them were decidedly pale.
"I'm Captain Corran Horn of the New Republic. Either I'm here liberating you or capturing you, your choice." He smiled quickly. "One note: I hate taking prisoners."
He nodded toward a holoprojector on a table in the center of the lab. "Show me what you're working on and you'd be cooperative, which prisoners never are."
A small blond woman moved to the datapad connected to the holoprojector and started to punch in a request for data. A man moved to stop her, but Corran waved the lightsaber through the air and its hum seemed to drive the man back. "Cooperative. You want to be very cooperative."
The woman finished typing her request and an image
flashed to life above the holoprojector pad, just hanging there in the air.
"Oh, you have been cooperative with someone, big-time cooperative." Corran felt his guts tightening into a knot. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks as if you were going to help someone build himself a Death Star."
16
The briefing room felt hot and close to Wedge, even though it dwarfed the X-wing cockpit he'd ridden in on his return to Coruscant. Corran had flown on his wing in a borrowed X-wing and now stood with him at the far end of the briefing table. Mon Mothma sat stone-faced at its head, with Leia Organa Solo at her right hand and Borsk Fey'lya at her left. In the middle of the table a holoprojector displayed a schematic of a Death Star.
The New Republic's Chief Councilor looked through the holograph and Wedge felt energy sizzle through her pale, aquamarine eyes. "I am certain that General Cracken and your own experience have made it abundantly clear to you that what you know in this matter is highly classified. You will not speak of it outside this room, neither between yourselves nor to others."
Wedge nodded. "Understood."
"As ordered."
Corran's voice carried with it the weariness that Wedge felt. The Rogues had brought Kapp Dendo's Team One in to secure the lab, and then New Republic Intelligence operatives had pounced on it, hustling off the workers and dismantling
the equipment and carting it all away. In the meantime the Rogues had returned to active duty, engaging in support missions that lasted another three weeks until no Hegemony hostiles were present on Liinade III. Immediately following the planet's conquest and reinforcement, Corran and Wedge had been recalled to Coruscant.
Borsk Fey'lya's claws scraped along the table's matte black surface. "It is hard to believe that someone even as cruel as Krennel would resurrect Death Stars."
Leia shook her head. "Since we have not found the original shipyard that created the Death Stars, the possibility that one or more are under construction is something we can't ignore."
Wedge pointed at the holograph. "You're also wrong in calling this a Death Star. It looks like one, but this is a decidedly scaled down version. It looks to be inspired by how the Emperor used the Death Star at Endor, targeting capital ships. That was a gross underutilization of its power, but it was very effective.
"What Krennel was creating here is a system domination weapon. It pops out of hyperspace, cranks up gravity well generators-that's what those blisters around the center are-and all traffic in or out stops cold. The planet-splitting beam from the original Death Star has also been scaled back and multiple sites for it have been created. Those are all the dimples on the thing. With each of those beams capable of killing a Super Star Destroyer, it's a decidedly lethal ship. It also bristles with smaller antiship weapons and can support a half-dozen TIE wings, which gives it plenty of defensive capabilities."
Corran folded his arms over his chest. "We've taken to calling it a Pulsar Station."
Mon Mothma calmly pressed her hands together. "Does Krennel have an operational version of the device?"
Wedge shrugged his shoulders. "Unknown, but unlikely."
The Bothan Councilor's eyes narrowed. "Explain."
Wedge raised an eyebrow. "I would have thought it
would be obvious to you, Councilor. Creating a ship this size would require an incredible amount of resources. Just the durasteel alone would necessitate the mining of a planetoid and its total conversion into metal. The factories needed to turn out the finished pieces don't exist in Krennel's Hegemony-or, as Captain Horn would point out, we don't know of their existence."
The Bothan waved a hand graciously in Corran's direction. "Would you care to explain?"
Corran shrugged his shoulders. "Data on some of the Hegemony worlds is thinner than the cushions on a Hutt's reclining platform. Krennel is clamping down on information sources, so getting any data out is going to be tough. Some worlds we can eliminate as candidates: Ciutric, for example, is a well-charted and traveled system. Others, like Corvis Minor, are hardly known at all. The shipyards could be there, perhaps positioned to always be opposite the main world in orbit, so the sun blocks any sensor readings of the construction on that world."
Leia sat back, her brows knitted with concentration. "The only way to confirm this would be to scout the systems."
"That's the quickest way." Wedge nodded. "We can run a T-Six-Five-R through the system and have it pull all the intel it can gather."
Leia frowned. "The X-wing recon version has no weapons, so such a run would be risky."
Wedge laughed. "I wasn't thinking of taking it in all alone, even though an accompanied ship will be easier to spot. Still, we pick the right location to come into the system, make a quick hit, and go, and we might be unnoticed."
"Fact is, though, we might need to be noticed." Corran nodded toward the holograph. "The facility we found was relatively new, with the team there assembled only over the last couple of months. As nearly as we can determine they're not part of a design team per se, but are analyzing the data being produced by the actual designers. They're trying to look for flaws in the thing the way you did at Yavin."
The fur rose on the back of Borsk Fey'lya's neck. "I fail to follow the significance of this information."
"Two main points really. The first is that we don't have an exhaust port to dump proton torps into." Corran ticked points off on his fingers. "Second, their simulated assaults are run against the Pulsar in various stages of construction. Within a year of construction starts, the hyperdrives should be operational. Two months after that, one of the big beams will work, as will shields, gravity well generators, and two of the TIE wing bays."
"So it can defend itself."
"Right, but its primary mode of defense will be to run." Corran opened his hands. "If we can make it run, we stop construction. We can harry it until supplies run out and then take it at our leisure."
The Bothan Councilor drew himself up tall in his seat. "You mean to suggest that a squadron of X-wings might be enough to scare this Pulsar Station into running?"
Wedge let mock surprise wash across his face. "Well, we are Rogue Squadron."
"And we were going to let Asyr lead the raid." Corran smiled. "The fact that they've been discovered is going to make them jittery, especially with the New Republic fleet so close by."
"You overestimate the effect of your reputation, I think."
"Maybe, but we might be able to enhance it a bunch."
Mon Mothma sat forward. "What is it you are thinking, General?"
It took Wedge a moment or two to realize she was speaking to him. "You selected Prince-Admiral Krennel as the target of our operations because we had the pretense of murder to justify what we're doing."
Fey'lya snorted. "It's more than pretense. You were there."
"I was, but that's not my point. Krennel's murder of Pestage is not clearly an evil. As you say, I was there, and I was tempted to murder him myself. The other warlords out there have seen us destroy Zsinj because he was an
aggressor and attacking the New Republic. Our going after Krennel makes us the aggressor, and something as simple as this murder charge doesn't carry with it the moral authority that defending yourself does."
Wedge leaned forward on the briefing table, holding himself up on his arms. "Revealing the fact that Krennel is working on a new and improved Death Star-style weapon does."
Fey'lya shook his head. "Impossible. We can't let that news out." -
Leia held a hand up. "Let Wedge finish. He has his reasons, I'm certain."
"I do, both political and practical. Let's start with practical: We're going to have troops hunting for this thing and it would be utterly immoral not to advise them of the threat they face. Moreover, it would be stupid. If they don't know what they're up against, they'll get hammered. And the fact is that no matter how good our security, once word goes out to the troops, it will spread.
"The key thing here, however, is that this news could be very divisive and hurt Krennel a lot. Talk to anyone who ever served the Empire and came over to the Rebellion, and the Death Star resonates in their memory. It's the embodiment of evil and, sure, lots of folks died when we blew it up, but lots more died on Alderaan and no one doubts the evil of the destruction of Alderaan. Even the most strident supporter of the Emperor-save perhaps Isard-would allow that destroying a moon could have made the point just as clearly as Alderaan's death."
Leia stared at the projected Pulsar Station image. "The Emperor's construction of a second Death Star put a lie to the claim that the first one had been Tarkin's folly; but the Emperor's death allowed everyone to shove the blame off onto him. His death absolved their consciences, and they believed that such a station would never appear again."
Wedge nodded. "Until now. And remember that Krennel has been waging a propaganda war against the New Republic, offering his Hegemony as a refuge for those
we'd mistreat. If we reveal this project, folks who are inclined kindly toward him will reconsider. And the other warlords will have to wonder what this station would do to their holdings. If we make this public, we will force a lot of people to ask a lot of questions of Krennel."
The Bothan looked to Mon Mothma. "If we reveal this information, we could start a panic." "Councilor Fey'lya has a point." "Revealing the nature of the mission to those who will fight the thing will start news leaking that could start a panic. Coming from the government, this becomes a security advisory that ought to generate support for what we're doing against Krennel." Wedge straightened up. "It's important that we get this Pulsar Station now, while it can't do much more than run, and explanations about the situation should make that clear."
Mon Mothma nodded slowly. "This is an intriguing strategy you suggest, General Antilles. The Council shall consider it. You'll likely be on station again in the Hegemony before you learn of our decision."
"I understand, Chief Councilor Mothma." Wedge gave her a smile. "As long as the information is going to get out, I think we should make it work for us. Make Krennel's allies and the station's people uneasy. It might even get us the station without a shot being fired."
Borsk Fey'lya barked a short laugh. "Do you actually believe that, General?"
Wedge shrugged. "No, but I hope it all the same."
Prince-Admiral Delak Krennel slowly extended his mechanical index finger, letting it uncurl from his fist, and pointed it at Ysanne Isard as she entered his office. "This is your doing, is it not?"
Isard graced him with the hint of a smile. "I admire the way you keep your rage from your voice. A good skill to have." She turned away from him and looked at the holo-projector unit in the corner of the room. "As for that, no, I had nothing to do with it."
Krennel shifted his finger to point at the projector, and then brought his thumb up to hit one of the buttons on his index finger. The projector's volume came up as General Cracken moved into the center of the image. He smiled briefly as the holocam pulle
d back to reveal a smaller holoprojector and a Death Star image behind him. Bitter bile bubbled up into the back of Krennel's throat as Cracken began to speak.
"One month ago, as New Republic forces liberated the world of Liinade Three, we uncovered a secret research and development base in which scientists were engaged in studies devoted to creating the next generation of weapons based on Death Star technology..."
Isard turned back and waved her left hand dismissively at Krennel. "You may shut it off. I've seen it too many times in the last day. I know his boring monologue by heart."
Krennel's chin came up. "Ah, you were so entranced by all this that you could not come when I summoned you after my first viewing of this message?"
"Hardly." She shrugged effortlessly and remained standing in the center of his office as if she owned it. "I was not on Ciutric. I traveled away from here to obtain reports from agents about this lab the New Republic says it found."