12: The Cavalry
HIGH ABOVE HOTH
ABOARD THE IDT-7 DROPSHIP
Kevv double-checked his sensors. Not good. They had flown around to the planet’s dayside and were almost in orbit, with Hoth’s blue sky slowly fading away as they pierced the stratosphere. Kevv was picking up multiple sensor anomalies. Blast it. Well, that settled it—they definitely had company incoming. His two sensor displays picked up on the spatial distortions—realspace was being bent and there was evidence of tachyon displacements, both of which were usually indicative of something coming out of hyperspace close by. And it had to be big, and it had to be a lot of them if it was registering on a dropship’s sensors. “Second moon,” he muttered.
“Are you sure?” said Mordenta, seated next to him in the copilot’s seat. She was still trying to get comms to work, but Kevv already knew it was useless. Obviously one of the sensor buoys the Imperials had left in orbit was blanketing this entire section above Hoth in radio-saturating energy. There was no way she was going to reestablish contact with the Shadow of Alderaan, not until they could somehow get beyond all that comms static.
“Yes, I’m sure,” Kevv said. “Something just came out of hyperspace behind the second moon.” He looked out the forward viewport and peered at the pale-pink orb, half lit by the distant sun. “Lots of somethings. It has to be them. Whatever Star Destroyers they had sitting at the edge of the system and waiting for someone to return to Hoth, they’re here now.”
“Probably also the same ones that dropped off Ageless,” Mordenta said.
“That, too.”
“Did I hear my name?” The Zabrak stepped into the cramped cockpit. His heavily-bruised eyes ranged across the displays.
Kevv glanced over his shoulder at the Imperial agent. “Shouldn’t you be watching the pilots?”
“They’re good. The droids are guarding them. What’s the situation?”
Mordenta pointed, “A couple of Star Destroyers hiding behind that moon. Likely waiting on us to emerge and then they’ll snatch us up.”
Ageless looked at Kevv. “Options?”
“Unless you’ve got a better idea, I am going to keep us in a low-orbit pattern, circle the planet under cover of any clouds I find—sensors say a heavy snowstorm is just a few klicks ahead. We can use that to stall the Imperials.”
“Until what?”
“Until Mordenta’s friends come to rescue us,” Kevv said. “Assuming they are willing to risk themselves against an Imperial Navy task force for little old us.”
“They’ll come,” Mordenta said. Her hands were moving feverishly over the comms controls, trying to find some way to boost their signal. “Someone will come.”
Ageless looked over at her. “What are you doing?”
“What do you mean? I’m trying to get comms back up—”
“Pointless. You’re wasting your time.”
She glared at him. Kevv saw her swollen face, a reminder of what Ageless had done to her, a reminder that they were enemies. She said, “Do you have a better idea?”
“As a matter of fact, I do.” He hefted his duffel bag forward and plopped it on the floor. He knelt and dug through it until he pulled out the transceiver deck and the slicer rig. “These might help.”
“How?”
“Part of this deck has been modified with components I took from a Rebel T-47. I found the snowspeeder crashed out beyond the base.”
“So?”
“So, the T-47s are made by Incom Corporation, who also happen to specialize in communications equipment.” The Zabrak waved for her to stand up, and Kevv saw that, while she was confused, Mordenta begrudgingly obeyed. Once in the copilot’s seat, Ageless reached underneath the comms controls and opened up the access paneling. He used the wires from the slicer rig to connect the transceiver deck to the comms relay board. “Incom also has a contract with Rothana Heavy Engineering, who happen to mass-produce troop dropships. Just like IDT-7s.”
Kevv cocked his head in surprise. “Wait, is that true?”
“It is a little-known fact, but like many corporations, they play both sides against the middle and don’t really care who wins,” Ageless said, his fingers already racing across the slicer rig’s keys. The screen showed hundreds of lines of indecipherable code racing along, while the rig launched various key-log and password attacks. Kevv knew a little something of computer slicing, but he possessed nothing like the dexterity of mind and hands that the Zabrak displayed. “The comms systems between the T-47 and these dropships are a little different, but they’re close enough cousins that we should be able to…there.”
A high-pitched sound came from the comms speaker and Kevv cringed. Mordenta covered her ears. Ageless kept pressing keys until the squeal went away, and then they heard static. After a few seconds, the static cleared.
Suddenly, a voice came over the speaker. “—secondary sweep shows clear. No sign of target as yet. Omega Squadron, do you see any sign?”
Another voice responded. “Negative, no sign of the IDT-7. Escorting sensor ship to the western hemisphere to get a different vantage.”
“Copy that, Omega.”
“Who’s that?” Kevv said.
“That,” Ageless said proudly, “is a couple of TIE squadron commanders out here performing sweeps. They’re escorting a sensor ship to scan the planet, probably a Ukuzu-class. They’re looking for us.”
Kevv was taken aback. “You patched into their comms? Just like that?”
Ageless took no credit, he simply turned the volume up on the speakers and said, “Now we can hear where they are, and know where we need to be, and when.”
“Your training must be extensive at the Kingdom,” Kevv said. He glanced back at Mordenta, who wore a grim look on her face. Kevv sensed that the Imperial’s resourcefulness actually made her quite worried. But if he was being honest with himself, he was quite happy to have the Imperial along. Yes, he had tried to kill them both, but now that he knew the full story behind the Kingdom’s plan to kill him, Ageless appeared to have turned his full focus on getting them out of here.
Or is it a ruse?
His mind switched back to its paranoid state, and he recalled that this was a spy, an adapter, someone who knew how to use people as useful objects and then discard them. Kevv decided he would keep an out on the Imperial, and turned his attention back to the transmissions between the TIE squadrons. They were tossing out commands and coordinating where they would search next. Sometimes they gave precise coordinates, and Kevv was able to check that against the planetary map that was keyed into the dropship’s database.
“Looks like they’re moving up behind us soon,” he said. “We can make for the snowstorm, then maybe head south, staying just below the stratosphere’s edge. Then we could—”
Something beeped on his diagnostic display. He leaned in to view it.
“What is it?” Mordenta said. “Trouble?”
“Maybe. I’m getting a strange reading on our starboard wing. Seems heavy, it’s causing a little shimmy.” Kevv only now noticed the shimmy, something that, now that he thought about it, had been there since almost takeoff. “Maybe nothing. Maybe crosswinds, or a warm front moving in fast, causing updraft.”
But Ageless’s eyes flashed. He looked at Kevv, then at the display, then he developed a thousand-meter stare. “Do the sensors say that there is an updraft?”
Kevv checked. “No, but…” He shrugged. “Sensors aren’t always accurate.”
For a long moment, Ageless just sat in the copilot seat, listening to the radio chatter between TIE pilots. Then he stood up and said to Mordenta, “Come with me.”
“Where are we going?”
“To check something.” He pointed to Kevv. “Keep us low, and holler at us if things change significantly.”
“Will do. Hey, send that protocol droid up here, he can help monitor the TIE radio chatter while I pilot.”
“You got it.”
Kevv watched them go, but a chill ran up his spine when he saw the look on the Zabrak’s face. It was the same look he wore when he faced Kevv for the first time. When he tried to kill him.
* * *
Ageless did not know what exactly made his paranoia go up a couple of notches, but he had learned long ago that he shouldn’t ignore that feeling. Beside him, Mordenta asked, “What are we doing?” But he just stood in the main trooper bay, looking around, listening. Then he started walking, moving aft. The droids were all huddled around the two pilots, both of which were coming around. He looked down at them, still listening.
Then, the dropship gave a little shudder. It seemed to almost slew side to side fractionally.
“Ageless, what is it?”
He looked over at the Human. “He’s here.” In that moment, he knew it was true. Just saying it was like invoking his enemy.
“Who?”
“Who do you think?”
Mordenta’s eyes narrowed, like she was trying to read his. Then some understanding passed between them, and she slowly gripped her blaster in low-ready position. “Location?”
“Aft. Probably hung on to one of our wings when we took off. Best guess, he probably cut through the paneling somehow, then wiggled his way inside between the fuselage’s insulation. The gaping hole in our hull is probably what’s causing the drag, making us shimmy.”
“So he’s inside?”
“He’s inside.”
Mordenta’s face hardened. “This ship isn’t very big.”
“No.”
“And he’s not at the front or in here with us.”
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“No.”
“So he’s back there in the maintenance bay.”
“Yes.”
Ageless raised his holdout blaster. He told R-3PO to join Kevv in the cockpit, and after the droid was gone, he looked at Mordenta. “Sark is no fool, and he’ll be faster than anything you’ve ever seen. And stronger. If he gets the drop on you, you’ll be dead before you hear the shot.” He thought about it some more. “But if he’s been hanging on this long, he’s got to be freezing. Probably close to death. It might slow him down some, but only some. Watch yourself.”
“I’ll take point,” she said.
“No, I will. Cover our rear.”
Ageless advanced down the three-meter corridor to the rearmost part of the ship. At the lead, he pulled his holdout blaster up close to his chest, just in case his enemy came launching out of a weapons storage locker and tried to grab his weapon. There was a single doorway at the end of the corridor, and he performed a quick sneak-and-peek around its corner before he signaled behind him for a button-hook entry. He assumed Mordenta’s own training had familiarized her with the gesture.
It must have, for she lightly squeezed his left shoulder to indicate she was ready to step through. It was as though they had had the same tactical instructors, had worked on the same team. They had a shared mission now: to survive. They each knew the best way through was with each other.
After they performed a button-hook entry, they moved across the small preparation room, where soldiers would gather their weapons and armor before a drop into a warzone. Ageless was the first to see the tear in the paneling on the far wall. He swept his blaster left, then right, looking for any sign of their enemy.
That was when he realized they had been had.
It occurred to him suddenly. The obvious hole in the wall was meant to make them think Sark had entered here. And he had, if only briefly, before he climbed back into the wall, maybe even outside onto the hull, climbing across the outer walls, and began making his way towards—
“Something’s not right,” he said, turning about and facing Mordenta, who was just now catching on. “He’s heading for the cockpit…or…”
But he had even that wrong. And a second later he realized that, too.
A small, silver, cylindrical object was flung suddenly into the room. It took him half a second to recognize what it was, and he tackled Mordenta and shoved her back into the corridor. Several things happened in quick succession—first, the thermal detonator went off, deafening him, punching the wind out of his lungs and sending him and Mordenta flying through the corridor. Smoke and debris flew past them. Some metal shard embedded itself in his right shoulder. He shouted in pain. He landed on top of Mordenta, temporarily stunned, his blaster flying from his hand.
Dazed, ears ringing, the world spinning out of control all around him, Ageless forced himself to his feet, turned around, and met the ice-covered agent known as Horizon Lost, his old pal Sark, just as he stepped out of the smoke and entered the narrow corridor, pistol out, fists and elbows flying with rapid ferocity.
* * *
Sark was near freezing to death. He had gotten to the IDT-7 right as it was lifting off and had leapt onto its starboard wing, feet slipping on the ice and hands clawing for purchase. As the dropship had gained altitude, he whipped out his multi-tool and activated the plasma torch and got to cutting. His endocrine enhancements were the only things that saved him, allowing him to hang on to an aileron one-handed while his other hand did the cutting. Even then it was dicey, and as the ship had climbed higher and higher, he had gone up into atmosphere where oxygen was scarce and the cruel cold of Hoth intensified to the point most of his body was now numb and coated in ice.
He was in no condition to fight. Or to aim.
With desperation, with his body shaking uncontrollably, with his vision going blurry, he had barely managed to toss the thermal detonator into the troop preparation room. But his quarry had sensed the trap early and leapt back out into the corridor. His only chance now was to launch himself at the target.
Ageless Void was obviously stunned for a moment, but whipped himself back onto his feet to meet Sark. Sark aimed his blaster pistol right at Ageless, who performed a superb barrel sweep to the weapon, aiming its barrel at the ceiling so that the four shots fired went into the ceiling, then he did a snaking disarm that sent the weapon vanishing into the smoke-filled corridor.
“Oh my!” shouted someone. Sounded like a protocol droid of some kind.
The first blow went to Ageless’s chin, but then he slipped the next cross coming from Sark, which was too slow by half thanks to the effects of extreme cold on his body. Ageless snatched the wrist and pulled him in before performing a wrist lock. Sark slipped free and jabbed at Ageless’s body, connecting but without enough power. They shoved one another around the narrow corridor, tripping over a woman lying stunned on the ground. Sark attacked in a furious hail of blows that were only half as effective as they should have been.
Jab, cross, hook, hammer-fist, duck, weave, uppercut, elbow…
Ageless blocked the last attack, snatched Sark’s wrist again, pulled him in for an arm-drag and head-butted him with his spiked crown. Sark saw stars. Ageless then overwrapped Sark’s arm before reaping his foot out from under him and slamming him to the ground. Sark landed on his back with an impact that robbed him of air, but he rolled out of the way just before Ageless brought down a stomp that would have broken his neck. Wheezing, shivering, his body going into shock from the cold, Sark came back to his feet and launched himself at Ageless with a flying knee, which thankfully connected fully to Ageless’s chest, and knocked the Zabrak backward into the main troop bay where a bunch of droids were assembled.
“What the blazes is going on back there?!” shouted someone from the cockpit. “What was that explosion?!”
Ageless performed a technical stand-up and was back on his feet, creating distance before circling Sark for two heartbeats. Ageless edged in, hissing in time with his strikes. Sark met him, exerting everything he had left. SCENE-it allowed him to have a split-second prediction of where the next attack was coming from—Pronation of left foot; right shoulder rotating; probable cross incoming!
He ducked it and hopped back. This time Sark edged in first. He did not attack. Sometimes attacking first was good, but first to attack was sometimes first or err. So he waited, breathing, focusing. All around him were a number of droids, including a 2-1B and a red-carapaced protocol droid that just stood watching with their blank faces.
Ageless darted in, gave a quick finger thrust at the air before leaping back. A feint, to check Sark’s reaction more than anything. He must have seen what he wanted—that Sark was indeed sluggish—because he came back in with quick hands, slashing at the air and clearing Sark’s hands out of the way in a series of traps, until finally one of his hammer-fists connected with Sark’s jaw.
Sark grunted. His implants dumped norepinephrine and acetylcholine to his motor cortex. He went on the offensive, ravening for the final confrontation.
Cross, hook, uppercut, elbow, knee, bob-and-weave, jab, slip…
Almost nothing he did landed, and Ageless’s hand went for something—Blade silhouette detected; warning!—and Sark was just in time to dodge a curved blade—looked like a harangi—and sliced the air just an inch from Sark’s throat. Sark dodged the next two thrusts as well, then caught the wrist on the third, pulled his enemy in close and then they struggled for control of the knife. Ageless knew what Sark was trying to do, putting both hands on the thumb and the meat of the palm, squeezing, weakening Ageless’s grip. With his free arm, Ageless elbowed him in the face, but Sark shin-pressed him, forcing Ageless to stumble sideways and sag up against the wall.
Sark pressed his full weight on his enemy. He bent Ageless’s wrist so that the Zabrak’s own blade was pointed at him. This was it. Sark had him. Just a few more centimeters and the blade would sink into his enemy’s heart—
Something wrapped over his head and cinched around his neck. An arm. Slim but powerful. It yanked him backward and pulled him off balance. It was the woman. Sark dumped everything left in his endocrine enhancement to fight her. The woman could feel his power, because she growled with the strain of holding him back from Ageless.
All of a sudden, a cold, metallic arm wrapped around Sark’s left arm. He looked to his left, and was surprised to see the red 3PO droid was actually assisting the woman!
Then Ageless yelled, “Kevv! Hard to port! Now!”
The pilot called back, “What are you—?”
“Now!” he bellowed.
What a strange time to call for a course correction, Sark thought, his mind still addled. He almost laughed.
And suddenly the entire dropship lurched to port and Sark was pulled away from Ageless, who now slipped from his grasp. Sark went stumbling backwards into the woman, who was still yanking him back, back, back. Sark saw Ageless race towards him—and then ran right past him. Where is he—?
It became clear where Ageless was going when he reached the bay door panel. Sark was still stumbling backwards, fighting against the woman holding his neck, when Ageless opened the portside troop deployment door. Sark and the woman both went flying out the door, but at the last second, Sark saw Ageless reach out and snatched the woman by the collar of her chest armor, and Sark himself went tumbling out into the cold again.
No!
SCENE-it put a golden halo in his vision—Opportunity; handhold. Since the dropship was still canted to port, the portside wing’s double-barrel laser cannons were the only thing in sight, and he wrapped his arms and legs around one of the barrels and hung on for dear life, even as he watched the troop deployment door close.
An R2 astromech droid went out the door with him by accident, and Sark watched it go tumbling into the white storm all around him.
The cold was biting hard. Hoth wanted him dead. It drained the spirit from his bones. His grip on the laser cannon barrel was slipping, slipping…
His eyes were closing. The cold was seeping in, deeper and deeper. Part of him just wanted to sleep. The cold was inviting him to. A deep rage filled him. Anger at himself for not completing the mission. He held on to the cannon’s barrel as long as he could. Then, he saw the ground rising up to meet him. The dropship had dipped back to the surface for some reason.
Sark finally lost the battle. His hand slipped free of the cannon’s barrel and he plummeted towards the ice.
He had failed. For the first time ever, he had failed.
* * *
Namyr looked around in surprise at the hand that had saved her. Ageless stood over her, panting heavily, his hand on her collar. The ship was just leveling out, and all the droids were still clutching whatever they had been holding on to.
“You okay?” Ageless panted. He had a bloody lip and a scraped jaw, but other than that he appeared to be fine.
“Yes,” she said. She squinted from the hub light hanging from the ceiling above him—her eyes were suddenly very sensitive to light. And her ears were ringing. The shock of the blast had been harsh. “I…I think I’m fine—”
“My ears are ringing,” he called over the roar of the engines. “So you’ll have to speak a little louder.”
“I said I’m fine!”
“Ah.” He offered her a hand. She took it, and he hauled her up.
“Thanks,” she muttered.
She started to walk toward the cockpit, but Ageless grabbed her.
Ageless looked her in the eye. For a moment she thought he was going to kill her. “Answer me honestly, because I’ll know if you’re lying.” She was suddenly aware of his hand squeezing her arm tightly. He was panting, bleeding from his lip, but otherwise seemed fine. “If I ever make it back to your side, and turn what I know about the Kingdom over to your people, they’re not going to just let me go, are they? The Rebels aren’t going to forgive me for everything I’ve done to them in the past.”
“Wh-why are you asking me this now?” She winced at the bright light in the bay. She figured she was concussed.
“Just answer me.”
Her ears were still ringing and she shook her head.
It was a strange time to grill her about this. They had barely just survived an attack. But she suddenly realized why he was doing it. Because he had just saved her life and they were both rocked by the concussive blast of the thermal detonator. He was taking advantage of her delicate state, interrogating while her defenses were down.
Namyr swallowed, preparing herself for another attack if he didn’t like her answer. “I…I honestly don’t know. The Kingdom’s decapitation strikes against our leadership are somewhat legendary.” She added, “You would be very much despised.”
Ageless appeared to search her eyes for the truth. Then he nodded, somewhat sadly, and sighed. “What if…what if I gave the Rebels something else? Something big?”
“Like what?”
“Like all of the Kingdom. Everything. Even IIS and its safehouses.”
“How can you do that?”
“Have you ever heard of Hej Zumter?”
“No. Who is that?”
“Someone close to the top of the Kingdom.”
Namyr shrugged. “It’s not up to me. Rebel High Command would have to decide if that was enough to…absolve you. Or whatever.”
Ageless ruminated a moment. Then the ship bumped from turbulence and he snapped out of it. He looked around at 2-1B and said, “Look after her. She seems to have some sensitivity to light, she may be concussed.” He headed for the cockpit. On his way, he clapped R-3PO on his shoulder and said, “Nice job. Thanks for the assist.”
“My pleasure, zzzir. We must all do our part. That’s what my old master used to zzzay.”
For a moment Namyr stood there panting as 2-1B looked her over. “I’m fine,” she said. “Just keep your eyes on them.” She pointed to the lockers where the two pilots were kept. The medical droid moved to obey. Namyr took a moment to compose herself, and let it soak in that Ageless had just saved her when he didn’t need to. Then she got back on the clock, and realized she needed to gather their weapons up again. She moved to the back of the ship to reclaim their blasters.
* * *
The Duros said, “Everything okay back there?”
“Yes,” Ageless said. He exercised his jaw where Sark had cracked him and spat out a gob of blood.
“What the blazes happened back there? Sounded like a bomb went off. Did we blow a heat panel or—?”
“Don’t worry about it, it’s all taken care of. Why are we so low?” Ageless looked out the viewport and was dismayed to discover they were barely a dozen meters off the ground, flying over wide, flat plains of ice. Snow was coming down like thick blades and smacking against the transparisteel windows. He could feel the high winds buffeting the ship.
“I had to go low,” Kevv said. “To avoid radar. I was listening to the TIE commanders speaking, and it sounded like they were moving to our region, bringing a scout ship with them—we’d never evade those sensors if we stayed in the stratosphere. So, I got below the storm and I’ve been keeping low to the ground.”
Ageless nodded. “So what now?”
“Good news and bad news. Bad news is that just before I brought us low, sensors detected another set of Star Destroyers in orbit.”
“Sithspit. What’s the good news?”
The Duros’ eyes took on a glint of humor. “The cavalry just showed up.”