Tess and Lyra moved furtively from building to building. They avoided the paths with their lights and surveillance cameras, and stuck to the shadows. As they neared the residential block, Tess hesitated, then turned toward to her parent's house.
Lyra watched her turn. She whispered, "We're likely to raise an alarm wherever we go, Tess."
"I know that," she whispered back, sounding urgent and desperate.
"Look, I won't tell you what you should do." Lyra looked intense. "I can't tell you how badly I miss Allegra and my parents every day. I'd give anything to have them back, so I know what you're going through, believe me. All I'm saying is we've got one shot at this." She could just see the Daros' house in the early morning gloom. "I see one guard outside. We could probably get the jump on him, but we don't know what we'll run into after that." She waited a beat, then said, "I'm with you, whatever you decide."
Tess had tears in her eyes. She looked torn, and at a loss.
Lyra clutched her hand. "What would Captain Daro do?"
Tess stifled a sob. Lyra hugged her tightly while Tess shook and cried silently into her shoulder. After perhaps fifteen seconds Tess lifted her head. "Enough," she chided herself with a sharp whisper. "Captain Daro would think about her crew and her mission. Thanks, Lyra," she said, wiping tears away.
"Any time, partner."
Tess sniffed. "I'm going to believe in mom and dad. Let's go."
Lyra gave her hand another squeeze. "We'll come back for them, I swear."
"You bet we will."
After a few minutes moving quietly from house to house they reached the end of the base's domestic quarters. The landing platform and hangar were still over two hundred meters distant with nothing but grassland around. They crouched and went on, staying out of the light spilled from the nearby pathway. It took another twenty minutes of careful, deliberate movement to reach the hangar. The broad building was bathed in bright light. Allegra's Heart sat on the landing platform, completely inert. They stopped a dozen meters away and knelt on the moist ground and wet grass.
"Dammit, they powered her down. I'll need at least five minutes to get Allegra off the ground like that."
"We need to find Rei and Sera."
"The annex is on the other side." Lyra pointed. "Let's go around the back."
The hangar stretched more than fifty meters. Harsh industrial floodlights mounted on the back wall of the reinforced structure cast glaring circles of light. Little blinking red indicator lights showed where motion sensors provided additional security. Lyra was as familiar with security at Imperial hangars as she was with plotting orbital approach vectors. She led, pressing against the gently rising terrain behind the hangar, staying just out of range of the lights and detectors. She whispered thanks that there were no stormtroopers on sentry duty; the sensors in their helmets almost certainly would have spotted the two women even in the darkness.
An alley separated the hangar from the security annex. From their position Lyra could just make out facing doors between the two buildings. The hangar's side door was open, spilling light. The faint sounds of maintenance work emanated from within. She pointed to the corners of both buildings. "There's no way to get there without being seen by those cameras."
Tess screwed up her mouth. "If there's no help for it then we might as well just walk up there. Maybe they won't look too closely and we can pass for overnight shift workers." She slipped the baton into her belt at the small of her back and covered it with her jacket. The two pilots walked toward the buildings, trying to appear casual. When they were a few meters away the door to the security annex slid open. Tess froze for an instant but they were already committed. She took another step forward.
Two figures emerged, one taller than the other. They looked around and saw Tess and Lyra. The taller one started to raise her blaster.
"Rendix!" Lyra hissed as loudly as she dared. She and Tess closed the distance.
Sera lowered her weapon. Rei put her hand to her chest and let out a relieved sigh.
They flattened themselves against the hangar wall. "We didn't see anyone else in the annex, but no telling when the shift will change," Sera whispered. She chanced a quick look inside the hangar through the little door. For such an early hour there was quite a lot of activity. Droids and a few humans worked at the half dozen TIE fighters. A woman wearing the uniform and armored carapace of an Imperial ground trooper herded Yuzu from one fighter to the next. He was performing some kind of work through a maintenance panel on the bottom of each ship. Sera flicked her eyes around the room and saw three others, similarly uniformed and armed with blasters. The nearest was only a couple of meters distant but facing away. She recognized at least one of them from her earlier fight and capture.
Sera whispered to the others. "Four armed guards. One's watching Yuzu. Looks like they've got him doing some kind of work on the TIEs." She forestalled Reiko's look of horror with a raised hand. "He's okay, Rei-sha." To the others she said, "They're the same guards who captured me. They'll probably recognize me if I go in." She thought for a minute, then motioned them all into the security annex.
The two captive guards were beginning to stir. Sera stunned them both with her blaster. "Watch the door," she said, tossing the gun to Lyra. She stripped the uniform from one of the guards, took off her clothes, and put on the gray Imperial coverall, belt and cap.
Lyra handed back the blaster. "You look like you have a plan."
"I do," she said, stripping the other troop. "Get into these clothes."
"Me?"
"You and I are going into the hangar. I'll try to get you into one of the TIEs. You can give us some cover while Allegra gets away. Maybe take out the shield and the defense battery while you're at it."
"We can't disable them from here?" Tess suggested.
Reiko shook her head. "They're underground, behind a ray-shielded blast door."
Sera looked at Lyra. "I'm counting on them being slow to respond to a TIE, so if you can create a diversion by knocking out those batteries—"
Lyra picked up her idea. "The IFF system in the TIEs won't trigger the auto-tracking systems. If I do it right I should be able to target the cannons and missile tubes before they know what happened."
She looked at Tess and Rei. "You two need to get Allegra powered up and ready to go. We'll exfil the others then rendezvous somewhere to pick up Lyra and get the hell out of here."
"That sounds risky," Tess opined.
"I'm open to other ideas, Captain."
Tess gave it a moment's thought but screwed up her mouth. "I can't think of anything better. What if they scramble those TIEs to come after us?"
Lyra shook her head. "I'll take the Striker. It'll fly circles around the TIEs in atmosphere and it outguns them. It's got proton bombs, too. If they're loaded it'll make a mess out of that deflector generator. You take Allegra."
Tess shook her head. "Allegra's your ship. I'll fly the TIE."
"I trained on TIEs, Tess. I'm the better choice." She stripped off her jacket and put the Imperial's boilersuit over her clothes.
"She's right," Sera said to cut off further debate.
"Allegra looked completely iced," Lyra informed Reiko as she zipped the suit and strapped on the broad black belt.
Rei scowled. "I can cold-start her but she won't like it."
"Shields and repulsors are first priority. Weapons after that," Sera said. The Imperial uniform was a poor fit on Lyra but it would have to do. "Nimor and I will go to the hangar. You two head straight for Allegra's Heart. I imagine it'll get lively in the hangar soon. We'll try to give you time to get the ship powered up. Watch for Lyra's exit. You'll have to be ready to move by then."
Rei nodded tightly. She hugged Sera as hard as she could, then she and Tess slipped out the annex door.
Sera looked at Lyra. "Ready?"
"Sure."
"Listen, if things go sideways I may have to start shooting. I know those are Imperials in there, but I need you to be—"
"You don't need to say it, Rendix." She looked anxious but resolute. "I'll do what I need to for my ship and crew."
Sera gave Lyra's shoulder a squeeze. She adjusted the cap low on her head and they walked into the hangar.
Big fixtures on the ceiling ten meters overhead cast plenty of light, but the tall solar collectors on the TIEs reached nearly that high and they threw broad shadows so that only slashes of light splashed on the hangar floor. Lyra and Sera chose a path that took them behind the TIEs, as far away from the guards as they could get. There was one TIE closest to them. The next ship was the Striker, the only one of its model in the hangar. Built for air superiority, it sat only a few meters high, its two long solar collector wings angled down to act as landing skids.
A tech droid moved on tripod legs from the center of the fuselage where it had been working. Sera stood at the rear of the fighter. So far, no one seemed to be paying much attention to them. Lyra started to climb up one of the structural ribs on the wing, heading for the pilot's hatch on top of the craft. The tech droid skittered over to her. "Technician, interior maintenance has already been completed. There is no need for you to enter this vessel."
She adopted the tone she'd used in the Customs office when addressing droids. "I'll decide when maintenance is complete."
"I'm certain that's not necessary, ma'am," said the droid in a reassuring tone.
"What's your designation?"
"Five A nine KDY dash four dash Q seven, ma'am," it replied. "Is there a problem?"
"Yes, you're challenging my orders." Sera glanced at her with a we-don't-have-time-for-this look. Lyra shook her head. "Nevermind. I'll take over from here. Report to droid maintenance at once."
The tech droid swiveled its head briefly, then said, "Very well, technician," and trundled off. Their conversation attracted attention from one of the uniformed guards who was watching from several meters away. Lyra continued up the wing strut, hoping the guard wasn't the curious type. When the man took a step in their direction her heart sank.
"Get going," Sera said out of the corner of her mouth. "I'll handle this." Lyra ascended the wing. Sera stepped into the shadows beneath the solar collector. When the other guard got within a couple of meters, she waved and said, "Quiet night, huh?"
"So far," the man agreed. "What's going on?"
"Orders from the Director's office. Sounds like they want to run some patrols this morning. They want this one flight-ready."
The other man pursed his lips. "I don't remember anything about patrols being ordered." He wasn't accusatory, but there was an edge of disbelief in his voice.
Sera tried a chuckle. "You know how it is. Somebody gets an idea in their heads and poof, there goes the regular ops schedule." She heard the hatch close and the whine of power systems starting up on the Striker.
The man tilted his head. "No, that doesn't usually happen around here," he said slowly. The disbelief in his tone was turning toward suspicion. "I know most of the technical staff. You don't sound familiar." He started to shift his E-11 blaster from where it rested in the crook of his arm.
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In Ballista training the cocky seventeen-year-old Sera Rendix had been given a stun-locked blaster and told to square off against her hand-to-hand combat instructor, Senior Trooper First Class R'dak Rokostod. The Filvian stood seven meters away, armed with a baton. Like every other recruit, Sera was convinced that her blaster gave her the upper hand. But time after time, she found herself stunned and on her back with Trooper Rokostod's toothy Filvian snout hovering over her. She tried again and again, but the result was the same. Despite her best effort, and the efforts of every other recruit in her squad, not a single one could bring their weapon to bear before Senior Trooper Rokostod punched the business end of his stun baton into a solar plexus or kidney or groin and triggered the punishing electrical shock, laying each one of them flat on the ground, writhing in pain.
Following the practical exercise Sera and her fellow recruits had learned all about reaction times, the fractions of a second needed to observe an action, recognize it as a threat, then make their bodies move to counter it. By the time all that had happened, a reasonably fit being in standard gravity could cover seven meters before their opponent had time to get their hand on their blaster, much less clear the holster. And Senior Trooper Rokostod was at the peak of physical condition.
Sera smiled from the shadows, recalling the lesson. She didn't have a baton or a knife, but she hardly needed one for the task at hand. Without a warning she shot from the Striker's shadow, grabbed the guard's throat with one hand and slammed the other into his temple. The man slumped. Sera wrapped her arms around his waist to keep him from falling.
A human worker pushing a repulsor cart laden with a power regulator looked over and said in a much too loud voice "Hey, is that guy alright?"
Sera swore. Another guard started her way. "Game's up," she said to herself, dropping the unconscious guard and taking his blaster. She saw Yuzu not too far away and began edging toward the droid, looking for cover. She dove behind a big tank of coolant just about the time the approaching guard figured out that Sera's tall, fit body, red hair, and sharp eyes didn't match any of the technicians she knew.
A streak of emerald plasma tore through the air where her shoulder had been a second before. They aren't bothering with stun settings this time. Sera peeked around the tank and snapped off a return shot, mostly to keep their heads down. The tank was on repulsors and she pushed it along as she moved,
"Yuzu!" she yelled through the sudden noise and chaos that enveloped the hangar for the second time.
The droid looked her way. "Mistress Sera!" he exclaimed, raising his arm in recognition. Yuzu's Imperial minder reached for the droid caller on her belt.
Sera urgently motioned for him to approach, flipped her blaster to stun, and fired at the woman. The shot enveloped her in blue ionized plasma, overloading her nervous system. She collapsed, the caller rolling from her slack fingers. "Two," she said, keeping track of the guards she'd disabled.
The other two were farther away but headed toward her at a dead run. At the same time, loud klaxons blared throughout the base. Either someone had raised the alarm in the hangar or their escape had been discovered. No matter, Sera thought. She had more important things to worry about. Like getting Lyra out of there.
Yuzu hurried over. "Mistress Sera, whatever is happening?"
She grabbed his arm and pulled him into a reasonable imitation of a crouch. "Nimor's in that Striker. She's going to cover us so we can get to Allegra."
"That's a marvelous idea, Mistress. I don't have to tell you that these last few hours have been a particularly stressful ordeal for a droid of my model." He stopped suddenly and tilted his domed head. "Did you say Mistress Lyra is in the TIE Striker? By the Maker, that won't do at all!"
Sera continued to fire at the approaching guards. Her aim was hampered by the effort of pulling the coolant cart, Yuzu's body, and avoiding the scattering techs and droids. The Striker started moving toward the wide mouth of the hangar. "What's the matter?"
"Well Mistress, when those brutish Imperial taskmasters set me to work on the fighters, I was instructed to check all of the flight and combat subsystems. I have to say, Sienar Fleet Systems software is quite rude—"
"Software complaints later, Yuzu!"
"Oh yes, of course, Captain. While adjusting the flight systems, I made sure to cross-connect the anti-theft circuits in all of the TIE fighters with their combat systems."
"Great. What does that mean?"
"If Mistress Lyra uses any of the Striker's weapons, the anti-theft system will activate, ejecting the pilot and disabling the craft!"
Sera swore. "That's a disaster!" She fired at the lights overhead, sending sparks cascading through the air and casting even deeper shadows. She'd covered half the distance to the hangar mouth when she saw what she'd dreaded. Four stormtroopers sprinted into the hangar. As soon as they saw her they opened fire, punching big holes in the coolant tank. Sera fired back and changed direction, angling to get behind the moving Striker.
"Oh, not to worry, Mistress, I took the liberty of setting an override sequence. I'm not programmed for slicing but I thought under the circumstances it was quite clev—"
"Fine, Yuzu, fine. Get on your comlink and tell Nimor!" she shouted over the shriek of blaster bolts. The coolant tank was rapidly becoming useless as the stormtroopers' accurate fire took the metal cylinder apart chunk by chunk. Worse, another four had entered from the side door and were moving to bracket her. She heard Yuzu's voice calling out a sequence of commands. Sera glanced toward Allegra's cockpit and saw lights. She smiled at the sight. Now she just needed to escape the hangar without getting killed.
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Tess and Reiko stepped across the permacrete toward Allegra's Heart. No one knew who first started calling the YV-929 model a 'flying brick' for its blocky, ungainly appearance, but both of them knew the truth. Despite her awkward, compact shape, Allegra was a tough ship with a vicious bite.
Rei tapped the stun baton nervously against her leg as they walked. When the Imperial troops had arrested her, two of them had stayed aboard. She'd taken the precaution of locking down all of the systems before they boarded but who knew what kind of damage she'd find, not to mention that they would have to overcome the troops that were probably waiting for them. She started breathing hard as panic crept up on her. If Sera was with her she'd have felt at ease. Sera could sweep any threat away. She glanced at Tess who wore a concerned, determined look.
They heard shots erupt behind them as they stopped at Allegra's landing strut. Tess gripped her blaster and tilted her head toward the boarding ramp controls. Reiko shoved the baton in her waistband and opened the panel, intending to bypass the controls. Instead, the ramp hissed and opened on its own. Cold fear trickled down the engineer's back as dim light spilled from the ship, backlighting a tall figure. She clamped her hand on the stun baton and uttered a little whimper.
Before the ramp had finished extending, two bodies in Imperial uniforms rolled down it and flopped onto the permacrete. Below, Tess and Reiko looked up, nonplussed. As the light improved, it began to gleam against a curvaceous golden body and long shiny black limbs.
"Kalli!" cried Reiko, sprinting up the ramp with Tess close on her heels.
"Mistress Reiko, Captain Daro, I hope you don't mind that I cleaned up some garbage that was cluttering our wonderful ship while you were away."
Tess ran for the cockpit. Reiko palmed the ramp switch and went to the circuit bay. "You're a gem, Kalli! Give me a hand getting Allegra started, will you? We'll have to do it cold."
"I'm happy to lend my services, Mistress Reiko, but cold starting the reactor will increase the chance of a catastrophic hypermatter containment breach by twenty-eight point oh—"
"I know Kalli, but we don't have time to be gentle. We need to go now!" Reiko worked furiously, both hands flying over the controls as if driven by minds of their own. Kallista plugged into the ship's computer and began bringing systems online as power surged from the reactor into the converters and distribution bus. Tess hooted from the cockpit and fired up the repulsors as Allegra's systems started humming to life.
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Lyra strapped into the tight pilot's seat and put on the comm headset. Beyond the round cockpit window she could see her precious ship and she prayed that Reiko and Tess would be able to get her running quickly. She began the preflight procedures, careful not to fire up too many systems. She wanted her exit to be as much of a surprise as possible.
Despite her earlier assertion to Tess, Lyra hadn't been at the controls of a starfighter in nearly six years. She'd made it most of the way through TIE training at the Alui sector academy before she failed to make the cut of the top pilots. Everyone below the cutoff line had to find other postings—command crew on a capital ship or piloting smaller vessels like shuttles and transports. The Customs office came calling and once her ire over her family's deaths had cooled, she saw the wisdom in working in a service where she wasn't likely to be flying through combat zones all the time.
She'd used the TIE simulators on some of the bigger Customs vessels when she needed a break from the boredom and monotony, and she'd flown plenty of TIE boarding craft. All the ships in the TIE line had similar controls, but Strikers were still experimental when she was in training and she'd never flown one. Sims were all well and good but she still had to move with more deliberation than she wanted, and she wasn't sure how the ship would handle once she got airborne.
The tactical scopes flickered to life. Two of the four wing-tip laser cannons weren't charged, but the pair of heavy cannons beneath the cockpit were. She let out a little yelp of joy when she saw that the bomb chute was loaded with six devastating ArmaTek proton bombs. She slaved the bomb chute controls to the pilot's yoke just as the shooting began in the hangar.
No more time to be timid, Nimor, she thought while she fed power to the repulsors. Visibility in any TIE was poor, and with the Striker's long fuselage she had to rely on the inadequate rearview camera to see what was around her. Her best hope was to make a run at the weapon emplacements and the shield generator as soon as she could.
Here goes nothing, she thought grimly and pushed the atmospheric fighter forward.
Startled droids and techs dove out of her way but her nervous grin turned sour as she saw stormtroopers jump from the back of a speeder truck. It was the first she'd seen of the Imperial shock troops since landing at Rho-277 and she wondered where they'd come from. It dawned on her that there might be another part of the operation they didn't know about. The thought made her nerves jump a few orders of magnitude. As klaxons began blaring she saw that there were lights in Allegra's cockpit. Her grim smile returned and she began turning the fighter to line her cannons up on the other TIEs in the hanger.
Without warning her comm crackled to life. She jumped when Yuzu identified himself.
"Yuzu, it's Lyra. Is everyone alright?"
"Mistress Sera is engaged in combat at the moment."
"I guess that explains the shooting."
"Mistress Lyra, I have a message of utmost importance! Your ship's anti-theft circuit is active. It will be triggered if you use any of your weapons."
Lyra barked a sharp curse. Intended to discourage Imperial pilots from defecting, the anti-theft circuit was controlled remotely, probably by Tafo or his lieutenant, she realized with a start. "Is there an override?"
"Yes, Mistress. Please put the flight systems in diagnostic mode, then enter the following sequence to disable the anti-theft circuit." He waited for Lyra's confirmation and gave her the codes to enter. Lyra's fingers tapped away at the keyboard on the flight computer panel.
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"There they are!" Tess yelled as she watched Sera make a break for Allegra's Heart. Yuzu came behind as fast as his legs would carry him. Dozens of maintenance workers and droids swarmed near the mouth of the hangar as Lyra's Striker emerged and began turning around. From twenty meters away the stormtroopers opened fire.
Reiko tripped the ramp switch. She saw a stormtrooper with a sergeant's white shoulder pauldron drop to one knee and raise his blaster. She screamed as he fired directly at the fleeing Sera.
Sera heard a shot and a loud squawk. She looked back to see Yuzu stagger, sparks erupting from his leg. "Yuzu!" she shouted and turned. She raised her rifle, but civilians ran through the line of fire between her and the buckethead NCO. Other white-armored troops were closing in fast.
Yuzu raised his head. In a static-laced voice he cried, "Flee, Mistress!", then lurched to the side as another trooper fired. A woman in red coveralls with a full head of wiry gray hair had run into the gap between Sera and the droid. Yuzu threw himself into the path of the plasma bolt. He fell on the platform and didn't move.
Sera uttered furious curses, then dashed for Allegra's boarding ramp. She ran to the auxiliary turret controls that Reiko had installed in the engineering section, but the laser cannons were dead. She slammed her fist on the panel, enraged but impotent. She heard Reiko's cries over the intercom and scaled the emergency ladder to the upper deck, then sprinted to the cockpit where her lover fell into her arms, sobbing uncontrollably. Sera held her and nodded to Tess. "Let's go."
Lyra's voice came over the speaker. "Tess, everyone okay?"
"Yuzu didn't make it."
There was a brief pause. "Sorry to hear that. I was going to take out the other TIEs but there are too many civilians around. I'm going after the weapons and shields. Things might get loud. Be ready to move."
"Got it. Good luck."
"To us both," Lyra said, sounding tense.
The TIE rose on its repulsors, turning slowly. Lyra fired the ship's heavy canons at the first quad laser turret. It exploded in a spectacular fireball. If they didn't know we'd escaped yet, they do now. The other turret began tracking. Lyra backed off, gaining more altitude to be sure its fire would be directed skyward. She slipped the Striker laterally as a burst erupted, passing by her starboard side, then triggered her wingtip guns. The green bursts of supercharged ions and plasma peppered the rocky terrain below the turret. Adjusting her aim on the move, Lyra walked the fire up the hillside into the turret's traversing mechanism. It burst apart, sending shards sliding down the slope behind the hangar.
The stormtroopers below began harassing the TIE with their blaster rifles, but Lyra was well beyond their effective range. She couldn't discount the possibility they might have heavier weapons though, so she nudged the TIE higher. Guessing that the missile battery was meant for longer-range engagements she drove forward until only fifty meters separated her from it, then opened fire with the cannons below the cockpit. The missile tubes shredded in a coruscating burst that lit up the pre-dawn sky nearly as bright as day. She turned the ship in a circle, getting a look at the chaos on the base below. More stormtroopers, a whole platoon at least, were pouring out of the manufacturing facility. She didn't stop to think about why they were coming out of a factory, but keyed her comm. "Tess, come in."
"I've got you, Lyra."
"I'm going to hit the shield generator. As soon as I do, get out of here. I'm going after Taz and Varun. They should be somewhere in the admin section near Tafo's office, unless I miss my guess. Head east and find someplace to put down. I'll contact you with a rendezvous."
"Will do. Bring our boys back, but be careful."
"That's the plan," she said, trying to sound upbeat, but falling short. "Lyra out."
A TIE slid from the hangar and started rising toward her. Lyra applied thrust from the ion engines, put her bombing reticle on the array of semi-circular deflector shield generators, and triggered the bomb release twice. A pair of the thirty-centimeter spherical proton bombs dropped from the chute on a parabolic arc and impacted the generator as she steered the Striker away from the base. They exploded with an enormous concussion and blast wave that jolted her ship.
Lyra checked her scanner to verify the shield had come down, then gave a little triumphant shout. Her pursuer turned on an attack vector. She pushed the Striker into a climb, expecting to see green plasma bolts from the opposing TIE. When nothing happened after a few seconds she turned the ship.
A satisfied smile lit her face. The TIE lay in a freshly gouged divot on the ground, its solar collectors discarded nearby after being jettisoned by the anti-theft system. High in the air, she saw the pilot's seat descending on its emergency repulsors after its forceful ejection.
Thanks Yuzu. You were a good droid. Looking determined, Lyra swung back toward Rho-277's administrative complex.