The selection is perfectly focused to inspire me to join him. The problem with it was that Corran found it rather daunting. It also caused him to start second-guessing himself, which was something he seldom did and hated whenever he did do it. Before reading the Jedi material, Corran would have put the dread coiling his belly down to a reaction to the bumpy ride. Now he wondered if he wasn’t anticipating some disaster through the Force, which in turn made him wonder if he was leading his friends into an ambush.
I know just enough about the Force to be dangerous—more so to myself than my enemies. He had really appreciated Skywalker including information about lightsaber maintenance and fighting styles. He’d gotten a chance to practice with the weapon in the Cloudrider’s galley and began to feel comfortable with it. He was notoriously bad when fighting against a remote—recalling his failure at picking off its stinging bolts made him shift uncomfortably in his seat—but four days of practice had made him feel confident enough with the lightsaber that he sincerely doubted he’d lop off any of his own limbs using it in a fight. In my hands it’s more of a lightbludgeon, but it will do in a close fight.
The shuttle’s wings creaked as the pilot began to retract them. The viewscreens on the interior of the shuttle’s cabin showed a heavily forested landscape up through which occasionally thrust very inorganic stone and transparisteel towers. The buildings didn’t look so much inappropriate for the setting as they did alien to it. Corran knew instinctively these were the human dwellings on Thyferra, because no Vratix could live in one.
Mirax indicated one particularly blobby building with a nod of her head. “I bet she lives there.”
Corran hesitated for a second, wondering which she Mirax meant, but the cold anger in her eyes took the choices from two to one. Anyone else might have been pointing out where Ysanne Isard lived; but Mirax had no use for Erisi Dlarit, so Corran knew it was Erisi to whom Mirax referred. While Corran had not been at all pleased to become a guest of Ysanne Isard’s through Erisi’s efforts, Erisi had engineered the destruction of a whole convoy of freighters specifically to kill Mirax.
Corran turned his right hand over and held Mirax’s left tightly as the ship settled down on the landing pad. “Might want to throttle back there just a hair. You’re probably right, but we’re not going to go on a social call just to find out.”
Mirax gave him a sweet smile. “I was thinking of sending a gift.”
Corran returned the smile. “Ah, but how does one gift wrap a bomb?”
“Bomb?” Mirax shook her head. “Nope, too quick. I want her to linger.”
“Remind me never to make you angry.”
She raised his hand to her lips and kissed it. “You’ll never do that, love at least not more than once.”
Corran and Mirax slid from the seats and followed the rest of the passengers out of the shuttle. It brought in crews from a half-dozen tankers parked in orbit around the planet, most of which were returning from runs they completed after the Rogues had hijacked their convoy. Of main concern for most of the crews was whether or not they’d be docked pay by their employers for making unauthorized runs. The majority opinion seemed to be that they would be because the Thyferrans never lost sight of the bottom line and were willing to cut costs anywhere and everywhere.
The five infiltrators did not appear to be that different from the rest of the crews going dirtdown. While Thyferrans owned and ran the shipping companies, they hired laborers from throughout the galaxy to actually do the work. On Thyferra these foreign workers were restricted to certain areas around the spaceport, but none of them seemed to find these restrictions that tough to bear. Most of the crews found the Thyferrans arrogant—the word Imperial was used to punctuate this point several times on the trip down—and preferred to keep with other spacers.
Once outside the shuttle, Corran picked up his luggage satchel. He opened it and pulled out the heavy tool belt and looped it over his left shoulder. A big hydrospanner hung at his left hip. He picked the bag up with his left hand, leaving his right hand free to deal with his identity card.
Or the lightsaber. To disguise the weapon, he’d grafted the working end of a hydrospanner onto the butt of the lightsaber. One quick, smooth draw and he had a working weapon in hand. Elscol had pronounced his work useless and suggested he would do better being able to produce a blaster in a pinch. He’d replied that a blaster and hydrospanner don’t look a lot alike.
A tall, slender Thyferran man with blond hair looked down his long, skinny nose at Corran. “State your name and the nature of your business.”
Corran hesitated for a second and immediately felt heat flush up from within his jumpsuit. “Eamon Yzalli. I am here to wait for my ship to be refilled and head out again.”
The Thyferran snatched the identity card from Corran’s hand and ran it through a datapad’s card slot. “Ship’s mechanic?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you always bring your tools with you when you come to a planet?”
“Well, sir, not always, sir, but I have a friend who might get me a berth on another ship so”
The Customs official’s eyes darkened. “You would not think of overstaying your welcome here and trying to go into business for yourself doing repairs, would you?”
Unless it’s fixing your attitude, nope. “No, sir, never my intention, sir.”
“Very well.” He hit two buttons on the datapad, then swiped the card back through the slot. “Your provisional visa is good for a week. Remain longer than that and face criminal charges.”
Corran looked down as he accepted the card back, refusing to meet the man’s eyes. “Yes, sir. I understand, sir. You have been most kind, sir.”
“Yes, well, be gone. Next.”
Corran shuffled on past and into the spaceport’s main building. Its long, low shape, with softened edges and decorative elements clustered in groups of six suggested to him that the insectoid Vratix had designed and created the rectangular spaceport. The whole structure looked as if it had been worked around and between existing trees, with the roof being open to let some of them grow up through it. While clearly artificial, the two-story building showcased the natural beauty of what had been there before it had been created instead of trying to supplant and surpass the beauty of the native plants.
Inside the spaceport itself, Corran rejoined Mirax. Ahead he saw Elscol and Sixtus, off to the left he saw Iella. Their Ashern contact was supposed to meet them in the spaceport building, but no one appeared to be paying any of them any attention. There were backup contingencies in case contact could not be made for some reason, but Corran hoped they didn’t have to fall back on them because they involved a lot of waiting and, in an emergency situation, sitting around waiting meant disaster.
Seeing that nothing was happening immediately, Corran guided Mirax over to a row of seats set beneath an overhead walkway servicing offices on the second level of the spaceport. The seats were also located fairly near a refresher station of which he wanted to make use. “Watch my stuff for me?”
Mirax nodded and sat while Corran piled his satchel and tool belt in the empty seat beside her. He started to step away toward the refresher station when its door opened and a stormtrooper with a blaster carbine slung at his right hip came walking out. In that armor, how can they? Corran realized he was staring, then turned away quickly. He realized that looked suspicious as could be, so he leaned down and smiled at Mirax. “What did you say, dear?”
The look of fear in Mirax’s widening eyes and the reflection of a stormtrooper’s helmet eclipsing her brown irises told Corran his attempt to look inconspicuous had failed utterly and completely. He felt a heavy hand land on his shoulder, straightening him up and turning him around. Belly to belly with the stormtrooper, he looked up into the black eye lenses and tried to smile. “Is there something I can do for you?”
“I know you. Identification card.”
Corran’s mind reeled. It had to be impossible for the stormtrooper to actually know
him, then he realized the man may have been on the Lusankya and might have seen him there. Then again I could just look like someone else.
Anxiety began to build in Corran as he handed over his identification card. Think, quick, what to do? He forced himself to breathe normally. First thing is to avoid panic. The identification is good and solid. It will hold up.
The stormtrooper held it up and examined it forward and back. “It seems fine, but you’re familiar, and I don’t know anyone named Eamon. Come with me so I can check you out.”
Fighting the urge to panic, Corran flashed on one of the Jedi stories. He settled a simple grin on his face and stared intently into the black recesses of the helmet. “I don’t need to go with you.”
“You don’t need to go with me?”
Corran’s grin grew. Hey, it’s working. I’m influencing his mind. “I can go about my business.”
“You can go about your business?” The stormtrooper shook his head, then grabbed a handful of Corran’s jumpsuit front. “Your business is my business, void-brain.” The stormtrooper’s comlink clicked from inside the helmet. “This is Nine One Five, bringing one in.”
The stormtrooper looked past him at Mirax. “She with you?”
Fear for her cleared Corran’s brain of disbelief over his failure to warp the stormtrooper’s mind. He twisted toward his right to get a look at her, letting his right hip hit the back of the seat containing his luggage. He let himself begin to fall back, using his weight to tear his clothing free of the stormtrooper’s grip. His head went down and his feet came up, letting him somersault backward over the chair. As he did so his right hand grabbed the hydrospanner and slid it free of the belt. Landing on one knee, he brought his head up and looked at the stormtrooper.
Corran found himself staring into the barrel of the man’s blaster carbine.
“Hydrospanner will work better if you have the heavy end pointed toward me, but it hardly matters.” The stormtrooper’s two-handed grip on the carbine kept his aim steady. “Come along with me or the janitorial staff earns its pay.”
“Sithspawn!” Corran swore and hammered the floor with the hydrospanner’s head. As the tool rebounded from the floor, and the head of the hydrospanner went bouncing off to the right, he thumbed the lightsaber on. The silvery blade sizzled out and swept up through the muzzle of the blaster carbine. The weapon’s barrel fell one way, the stormtrooper’s left hand another as Corran whirled to his feet and brought the lightsaber around in a slash at the stormtrooper’s eyes. The blade burned through the helmet, filling the air with the pungent scent of melted armor and burned flesh.
The stormtrooper collapsed like an empty suit of armor. Someone in the spaceport threshold screamed, then Corran saw two stormtroopers stationed near the Customs officer come running. Two more appeared from in front of the spaceport, entering the building closest to Sixtus and Elscol. She pulled a hold-out blaster from her bag and shot at one of them. He went down with a wound to the leg, and suddenly the whole building erupted with blasterfire as stormtroopers appeared on the elevated walkways on the narrow ends of the rectangular building.
Corran dove forward into the row of chairs and pitched them over backward. Mirax went with them and hunkered down beside him. She brandished the smoking ruin of the stormtrooper’s blaster carbine. “I appreciate the rescue, but did you have to destroy his blaster?”
“Can’t parry the bolts, so I just parry the weapon.” Corran ducked his head as crossfire from the far walkway nibbled away at the chairs behind which they hid. Above them, the stormtroopers on the balcony directed their fire toward Elscol and Sixtus. Corran knew more folks than just Elscol were shooting, since he saw one stormtrooper across the way go down, but the Imps definitely had them outgunned and outmanned.
Unless I do something, what I started is going to kill us all. He leaned over, kissed Mirax full on the mouth, then smiled. “Stay here, I have an idea.”
“Don’t get yourself killed.”
“What, and make your father’s day. Not going to happen.” I hope.
Lightsaber in hand, Corran ran low and fast toward the refresher station. He hit the door hard and cut inside as blaster bolts shattered tiles and burned into the duraplast door. He could all but hear the stormtroopers who had shot at him laughing about how screwed up his priorities were, and it struck him that a refresher station, especially in a public spaceport, would be a really ignominious place to die. Which is why I don’t plan to die here.
He kicked open the door to one of the stalls, hopped up on the commode, and climbed up on the edge of the durasteel partitions. He stabbed the lightsaber up through the ceiling and made three quick cuts. A triangular section of ceiling crashed down and a shower of tiles from the floor of the refresher station above spattered down in its wake. Corran worked his way a bit further along the partition, then boosted himself up into the second-floor refresher station.
Emerging from the stall into the empty refresher station, he felt a terrible calm wash over himself. He’d felt it before, long ago and far away, on Talasea, when he’d engaged other stormtroopers in combat. When I come out of here, the stormtroopers across the way will see me and warn their comrades. I’ve got five, maybe six seconds to get all of them. Any longer and I’m dead. He shifted the lightsaber to his left hand, wiped his right hand off on his jumpsuit, then grabbed the hissing blade again. I’m already dead, this is just to save my friends.
He ripped open the refresher station’s door and stepped onto the elevated walkway. One step out he brought the lightsaber around in a waist-high cut that caught the first stormtrooper in the back. He pitched forward, then rebounded off the guardrail, but Corran had already moved past him. In a continuation of the move that had taken the first man, Corran shifted his right wrist, raised the lightsaber, and used a backhanded cut to decapitate the second warrior.
That blow, though grandly struck to great effect, was a mistake and Corran knew it. Though it popped the man’s head off and sent it flipping up through the air, it also allowed Corran’s arm to carry too far back. Sliding forward toward the next stormtrooper in line—the third of the four he faced—he wasted a second bringing the lightsaber back into striking position. He tried a high, two-handed cut that should have split the stormtrooper from outside shoulder to inside hip, but the Imp had already begun to turn toward the attack and ducked it.
The stormtrooper lunged toward Corran, catching him with a shoulder in the ribs. The stormtrooper drove him back, slamming him into the ferrocrete wall. Corran felt something crunch in his chest, then he couldn’t breathe. The lightsaber fell from Corran’s hand as the Imp drove him again into the wall, pinning him there, crushing him. Corran stared into the black lenses of the man’s helmet and heard low laughter.
The laughter died as the stormtrooper’s comlink came alive. “Get clear, Seven Three, so I can shoot him.”
The pressure in Corran’s chest slackened for a moment and he knew he had only one chance for survival. As the stormtrooper withdrew, Corran kicked off the wall and knocked his foe into the guardrail. Launching himself at the man’s head, Corran grabbed him and held on as the metal guardrail shrieked and bent. Overbalanced, they both whirled off the elevated walkway. Corran tried to twist around so he’d land on top of the stormtrooper, but with a short fall and no frame of reference, he only half-accomplished his goal.
He hit hard, his back slamming into the body of the first stormtrooper he’d killed. His rear end hit the ferrocrete floor, sending a jolt of pain up his spine, then the second stormtrooper smashed headfirst into the floor and his limp body crashed down on Corran, sandwiching him between their armored bodies. With his lungs burning for lack of air, he leaned back and found himself looking straight up into the muzzle of the remaining stormtrooper’s blaster.
Unable to do anything but cough, Corran closed his eyes and prepared to die. He heard the whine of a blaster being fired, then felt a hammer-blow to his chest. It didn’t hurt the way a blaster bolt hurt, but he kne
w he’d been hit. I’m dead, I have to be dead. As much as he knew that was the truth, he immediately felt a need to rebel and live. Open your eyes. If you can open your eyes, you’re not dead.
Corran willed his eyes open and would have laughed if he could have. Standing over him he saw Bror Jace, a member of Rogue Squadron the Imps had killed well before Coruscant had fallen. Though he wished it otherwise, as his consciousness faded, Corran knew there was only one explanation for what he saw. I am dying because only the dead can see the dead. He knew that made little sense, but he was beyond caring as he realized the dead really have little use for logic as well.
Chapter Fourteen
Wedge shivered as he waited for the shuttle from the Twi’lek freighter dock at the Yag’Dhul station. His shiver had less to do with apprehension about the Twi’leks’ arrival at the station than it did the temperature on the station. Lowering it by an average of five degrees was just one of the few changes Booster Terrik had made since he’d taken over.
Wedge slowly shook his head. Booster had long been legendary for being tightfisted. He’s left dermal ridge indentations on every credit that has passed through his hands. While Booster was more than generous with his friends, in business he was shrewd and capable of saving money in any situation where he found himself. By lowering the station temp, and by refusing to heat unoccupied portions of the station, he lowered its operating costs rather significantly.
More important, by leaving the tapcafs and cantinas on the central levels warmer than any other place, he encouraged people to congregate there and patronize those establishments. Since the station’s vendors were paying him a percentage of their profits and were funneling all their supply needs through Booster, the old man was making credits hand over fist.
Credits that are going to get us the things we need. Booster had put the word out through his network of contacts that he’d taken over the station and deals were to be had and made there. Traffic to and from the station had begun to increase and while Booster told Wedge there were some suppliers he’d have to visit to make deals with, the vast majority of the items they needed would be delivered straight to them at Yag’Dhul.