Star Wars - X-Wing - The Bacta War

  lock, but Corran came in and got it again fairly easily. "You can't escape me,

  Iceheart."

  Isard's reply came almost languidly voiced. "I've stopped trying, Horn. You're

  bluffing. If you had torpedoes, you would have used them already." The shuttle

  leveled out and prepared for the run to lightspeed.

  "I was hoping to take you alive, Isard. I'll shoot if I have to."

  "Please, Horn, do your worst. Know that when we meet again, to you I shall do my

  worst!"

  She can't get away. I can't let her get away! Corran punched his comm unit with

  a closed fist. His mind reeled as fury and a fear of failure raged through him.

  My lasers can't get through her shields and I don't have any missiles to batter

  them down. There's nothing I can do . . . nothing . . . wait, maybe there's

  something . . .

  "Quick, transfer all power to the forward shield!" Corran smiled grimly and

  reached for the throttle. "Hang on, Whistler, we're going to ram her."

  The droid began hooting loudly, but Corran ignored him and focused on the

  shuttle. "Your logic boards are fried. There's a chance we can survive, but that

  doesn't matter. If we cripple her ship ... we have to cripple her ship . . ."

  Before Corran could jam the throttle full forward, two blue darts streaked past

  either side of his cockpit. The first exploded against the shuttle's aft shield

  and collapsed it. The second drilled through the engine housing, skewing the

  ship to port. The proton torpedo detonated inside the shuttle's fuselage. Corran

  saw the angular ship puff up and out before fire lanced out the cockpit

  viewports, then a golden fireball ripped the ship apart from the inside out.

  Corran's X-wing passed straight through the center of the explosion and by the

  time he brought his ship around the sparks from debris hitting his shields were

  the only indication that the shuttle had been there at all. Consumed by fire.

  Somehow fitting.

  Corran keyed his comm unit. "Who did that?"

  "Seven here, Nine. Thanks for giving me the target lock."

  "What?" Corran glanced over at the transponder switch and saw it was lit. When I

  punched the console, I must have hit it by accident. The image of Luke Skywalker

  came to mind. He'd tell me that wasn't an accident, wasn't luck, just the Force.

  Corran slowly nodded. I prefer to believe it was justice.

  "It was a great shot, Tycho. If I couldn't get her, well, your claim predated

  mine."

  "Corran, we got her. That's all that counts." Tycho's X-wing came into view as

  Corran headed his X-wing back toward Thyferra. "I don't see any more squints,

  Tycho. You got a workout."

  "I got my share, but Ten vaped the bulk of them. He accounted for six

  Interceptors all by himself." Tycho chuckled lightly. "And it looks like the

  Lusankya isn't shooting anymore."

  Corran smiled. "A tyrant dead; a traitor dead; a Super Star Destroyer dead; and,

  if Elscol, Iella, and the Ashern have done their jobs, a planet liberated. Not a

  bad day at all."

  41

  "Looks different, doesn't it, Corran, when you're walking on the ceiling?"

  "Yeah, but not any better." Despite having the lights strung throughout the

  Lusankya prisoners' quarters, the warren's rough-hewn walls still pressed in on

  Corran. He turned toward Tycho Celchu as he climbed over the low wall into what

  had been Jan Dodonna's cell. "It's very strange to have mounted this whole

  operation to try to get Jan and the other prisoners out, just to get in here and

  find Isard had them shipped out by shuttle to other places months ago. Deep down

  she must have known we'd win, so she did this to frustrate us."

  "You've got it all wrong, my friend." Tycho patted Corran's right shoulder with

  his left hand. "When you escaped from the Lusankya, you ruined it for her. She

  could no longer view her little prison without thinking about how you beat her.

  Whereas anyone else would have beefed up security, she decided to scrap the

  whole facility. And it's just as well, because this section of the ship lost

  atmosphereeveryone would have died in here. Had Isard really been on her game,

  she would have let them die that way and would have us

  blaming ourselves for killing a bunch of the rebellion's heroes."

  Corran nodded slowly. In the week since the battle for Thyferra he'd waited for

  repair crews to restore atmosphere to the prison area on the ship. To the others

  that had seen it, the whole area was just part of a ship where the bulkheads had

  been lined with rock. The fact that the primitive latrines had drained into a

  zero gravity vacuum, then the waste settled wherever it had drifted when

  gravity and atmosphere had been brought back, did not help things. Everyone who

  visited the facility could see very clearly why he hated it

  But the stink and the crudity of its manufacture wasn't why he hated it. Corran

  frowned. "It feels to me as if despair and failure have permeated these walls.

  The men who were in here didn't dare try to escape, and yet most of them could

  have, I'm certain. Jan could have come with me, but he didn't because he felt a

  responsibility to the others. That made him more a prisoner than these walls."

  "But what you saw as a prison for him was not what he saw for himself. Jan knew

  he was keeping people alive by leading them. He hadn't surrendered, so they

  couldn't quite do it themselves." Tycho brushed fingers across the rocky

  surface of the walls. "What he was doing, by staving behind, was as much a part

  of him as your need to escape was a part of you. I don't remember much of my

  rime here, but I felt certain I was going to die here. It's a terrible thing to

  come back to your senses after having been out of it, to find yourself in a

  place where you think you're going to die. Jan told me I wasn't, and I didn't."

  "And you escaped from the place where she sent you after you left here."

  "Right." Tycho smiled. "We have to hope the others will be able to do that,

  too."

  "It'll be fine if they do, but I'm still on for finding them myself." Corran

  smiled. "Zraii's already got my X-wing back to normalwell, as normal as it gets

  after a Verpine messes with itso I'm ready to hunt. You with me?"

  Tycho nodded thoughtfully. "I am, though I think we're going to have some stiff

  competition. One of the first 'repair'

  crews in this area was a forensic team from Alliance Intelligence. They are

  supposed to have swept this place, pulling fingerprints, hair and tissue

  sampleseven samples of some of the solid waste floating around. You know better

  than I what that sort of evidence can tell them, but I gather they were able to

  confirm the identities of some of the prisoners from what they got."

  Corran smiled slowly. "Which is why General Airen Cracken showed up two days

  ago. The New Republic is going to hunt for the prisoners, then?"

  "That would be my guess. They couldn't do it before because they only had your

  word to go onmy identifications were spotty and old. Since you chose to resign

  from Rogue Squadron and started all this, they had to disassociate themselves

  with our effort. Now they have solid evidence, which changes everything."

  "Great, they can race us in finding them."


  "Ah, there you are, Corran." Ooryl filled the entryway. "I thought I could find

  you here."

  What? Corran stared at the Gand. "Ooryl?"

  "Did Ooryl say that right?" The Gand's mouthparts snapped open and shut

  excitedly. "Ooryl wanted you to be the first to hear."

  Corran looked over at Tycho, but the Alderaanian just shrugged. "Yes, Ooryl, you

  said that correctly, but I thought Gands didn't use personal pronouns unless . .

  ."

  The Gand's fist clicked off his chest. "I am janwuine. The ruetsavii, they have

  declared me janwuine. They have returned to Gand to tell Ooryl's, ah, my story.

  What we did here, Ooryl's part in the taking of Coruscant, and the battles

  against Iceheart, these will become known to all the Gand. If Ooryl says 'I,'

  they will know to whom I refer."

  "That's great, Ooryl." Tycho extended his hand to the Gand. "The Gands have

  every right to be proud of you."

  Ooryl shook Tycho's hand, then Corran's as well. "There is more. Each of you

  have been declared hinwuine. This means that when you come to Gand for Ooryl's

  janwuine-jika, you may speak of yourselves with personal pronouns and will not

  be thought vulgar or rude."

  Corran's eyes narrowed. "You mean to tell me that the whole time you've been

  here in the squadron you felt the way we talked made us vulgar or rude?"

  The Gand shook his head. "Ooryl never assumes vulgarity when ignorance suffices

  as an explanation."

  "Thanks, I think."

  Tycho shot him a sly smile. "That should be 'Corran thinks.' "

  "But not often," Ooryl added.

  "Corran thinks Ooryl should practice using personal pronouns more regularly

  before he tries comedy." Corran opened his arms wide. "Not much better than the

  shack we shared on Talasea, is it, Ooryl?"

  "The mineral deposits do add some color, but Ooryl, er, / would not like to live

  here." The Gand held a hand up. "I would explore this place with you more,

  later, for the story of your time here will be vital to my janwuine-jika, but

  there are other things we must do right now. Captain Celchu, Commander Antilles

  asked Ooryl to tell you he is waiting for you in the Lusankya's staff officers'

  mess."

  "Last minute things before his party?"

  "Ooryl, I mean /, believes this is the case. Captain. And Corran, General

  Cracken has asked to speak with you."

  / wonder what that's about? "Where do I find him?"

  "Ooryl will take you there."

  The trio of pilots carefully picked their way out of the cavern complex and took

  the turbolift up. Tycho exited first while the Gand and Corran continued on,

  climbing higher and higher in the Lusankya's superstructure. When the turbolift

  stopped, Corran found Airen Cracken waiting for him outside the door to the

  Captain's ready-room.

  He nodded at the Gand as the turbolift's door closed behind him, then turned to

  the older man. "What can I do for you, sir?"

  Cracken raked fingers back through reddish hair tinged with white. "I need you

  to talk some sense to Booster Terrik."

  Corran immediately raised his hands. "Got a Death Star you want killed instead?"

  "Close." Cracken shook his head. "Booster wants to keep the Virulence."

  "And you want him to give it to the New Republic?" Corran laughed aloud. "He

  won't listen to me."

  "Mirax suggested I get you up here."

  "Okay, you have me, but I don't know what I can do."

  "Back me up, or we're going to have Booster Terrik in command of a fully

  operational Impstar deuce." Cracken sighed. "Terrik was never as bad as some of

  the smugglers out there, but now he's hooked up with Talon Karrde and . . ."

  "Booster and Karrde are together? Allied? I mean, I knew Karrde had come into

  the system, but I assumed it was to work a deal with Thyferra's new government

  about hauling bacta. Are you sure Karrde and Booster are working together?"

  "See for yourself." Cracken opened the door to the ready-room and allowed Corran

  to precede him in. Corran found Booster at the far end of an oval table, with

  Mirax seated on his right and a handsome man he took to be Karrde seated on his

  left. Corran went over to Mirax's side of the table and gave her a kiss on the

  cheek. "Booster, you're looking fit."

  "Captaining a Starship agrees with me."

  Corran extended a hand across the table to the other man. "Talon Karrde, I

  presume. Pleased to make your acquaintance."

  "Better now than when you were with CorSec." Karrde seemed to be watching him

  very closely. "The resemblance to your father is unmistakable."

  "Thanks." Corran sat down, fighting to conceal a shiver. He didn't know why, but

  he gained the impression that Karrde knew more about him than perhaps even Airen

  Cracken did, and that disturbed him. I think I'm happy I didn't meet him when I

  was with CorSec as well. He would have been to me what Booster was to my father,

  but I don't think I would have been sending Karrde to Kessel.

  Booster looked up at Cracken, then jerked a thumb at Corran. "Did you think he

  could convince me to give up my ship?"

  Great, this is off to a good start. Corran glanced at Cracken and shrugged.

  "Booster, I just thought Lieutenant Horn here could sup-ply you with some more

  perspective on why you're not going to be able to keep the Virulence. That ship

  presents a rather major danger . . ."

  "Right, a danger to anyone who tries to take it away from me."

  "Let me see if I can rephrase thisthe only people with that sort of firepower

  at their disposal are Warlords and other Imperial renegades. The New Republic

  has to consider any Star Destroyers that are not under the control of itself or

  its allies to be an immediate threat to the New Republic's stability."

  "Fine, General, fine. I'll just take the Virulence, conquer some planet with it,

  have the planet become one of the New Republic's allies."

  Mirax shook her head. "That's pretty much what they're afraid of, Father."

  Booster winked at his daughter. "Okay, then try this I'll make the Virulence

  herself a nation. We'll just move from system to system, trading here and there,

  and we'll be sovereign and even join the New Republic. Think of a!! the guns as

  ground-based defenses."

  Cracken's breath hissed in between his teeth. "No, I don't think that will work.

  That would constitute quite a large threat to peace in the galaxy. Such a threat

  would have to be dealt with."

  Booster's artificial eye's light seemed to flare for a second. "I think there

  are several different degrees of threat, General, and I'd have to say, right

  now, you're acting more threatening than I've ever contemplated being. The

  Virulence is mine. She was surrendered to me."

  "But only after three squadrons of New Republic A-wings appeared in the Yag'Dhul

  system, giving Captain Varrscha the impression she had been trapped by New

  Republic forces." Cracken pressed his hands flat against the white tabletop.

  "She thought she was surrendering the ship to

  the New Republic, and you know that's true. Your representations to her did not

  dissuade her of this fact."

  Corran looked over at Booster and shook his head. "You let Isard's conviction

  that we
were a covert New Republic operation trick Varrscha into believing we

  actually were part of the New Republic? Not bad, Booster."

  Mirax's father smiled proudly. "She was looking for any excuse to get out of

  trouble, so I just used the one she gave me."

  Corran winced. "Unfortunately, that means you've given the New Republic a claim

  on the Virulence."

  "What?!"

  "Mirax, tell him. It's the same as a partnership for salvaging hulks. Just

  because one partner is ceded ownership, he doesn't own itthe partnership does."

  "Corran's right, Father."

  "Nonsense. I've never heard of such a thing."

  Mirax laughed. "No? As I recall, that's how you got your share of the Pulsar

  Skate."

  Booster frowned heavily. "That's not the same thing at all, not at all. But, for

  the sake of argument here, let's say Captain Varrscha was mistaken about my

  connection with the New Republic. I still possess the ship, and if they have a

  share, so do I."

  Cracken nodded. "You do. We will justly compensate you for it, of course, and

  you'll earn our undying gratitude. Even a pardon for any indiscretions you might

  have committed . . ."

  "You can stop there, General. Unless you want to give me back the five years I

  spent on Kessel, I'm not interested in any judicial rewards, thanks. How much?"

  The New Republic's representative hesitated. "The current situation is such

  that an immediate payment is out of the question, but I think we could

  compensate you with five million credits."

  "Ha! This is an Imperial Star Destroyer Mark II we're talking about. It doesn't

  have a scratch on it. It is worth billions and billions of credits. I'll settle

  for a billion credits, payable in two hours, or I'm flying it out of here."

  "Ah, Booster, you're dreaming that if you think that ship is going anywhere."

  Cracken smiled confidently. "As you know, Thyferra has voted to join the New

  Republic. Because of this, all ships in the system are subject to New Republic

  law. In accord with said laws, your navigation and engineering section crews

  have been taken planetside for debriefing."

  "That's piracy."

  "No, it's actually a security concern. As Lieutenant Horn can attest, a number

  of prisoners who were on this ship are missing. We want to question anyone who

  might have been used to move them to other locations, and your astronav crews