Star Wars_ Rebel Force 05_ Trapped - Alex Wheeler [7]
"A few concussion missiles and a defective laser cannon," Luke said quickly. "That's it."
Enough to dispatch three, maybe four TIE fighters. No more.
"Identify yourselves," the voice said again.
Div lunged for the comm. "We're here on official Imperial business," he said quickly.
"We're expected."
The voice was unimpressed. "Identification and authorization. Now."
"How long before the hyperdrive is ready?" Div said.
"Four minutes now."
"Okay, we definitely don't have four minutes," Div said. He powered up the missile launchers. It wasn't much, but it would have to do.
The comm buzzed with an incoming message. But this wasn't coming from the Star Destroyer. It was coming from one of the TIE fighters.
"That's a Rebel frequency!" Luke exclaimed. They bent their heads together over the transmission, eyes widening in surprise. The TIE fighter had sent them a set of Imperial docking codes.
That wasn't all the TIE fighter had sent them. The message also included coordinates to be input into the hyperdrive. The TIE fighter was sending them somewhere. It was the strangest rescue Div had ever seen.
Or it was a trap.
CHAPTER FOUR
A kind face leans over him, and blond hair brushes his forehead. Her lips skim his cheek, and she smiles. She smells like zinthorn blossoms. Sleep now, she says in her soft, musical voice. He feels safe. He feels at home.
X-7 jerked the speeder back in its lane, a split second before ramming into a blue airspeeder.
"Watch it, you kreetle!" shouted the Trandoshan at the wheel, shaking a clawed fist at X-7's jet-black speeder.
"Focus," X-7 murmured, weaving through the dense Coruscant traffic. One trillion people swarmed the surface of this planet-sized city, and at the moment, it seemed all of them were crowding the skylanes of Quadrant 472. Trast speeder trucks and Zzip Astral-8s and SoroSuubs of every shape and color jockeyed for position as they whizzed past the skyscrapers, burrowing into the city like gravel-maggots infesting a rotting muja fruit. X-7
didn't possess the normal human inclination to prefer one environment over another. The mountains of Julio, the plains of Loped VII, the breathtaking cliffs of Kenosha, the bare, craggy surface of a lifeless moon—they were all the same to him. But if he had had a preference, this would be its opposite. The crystalline spires glowing in the blazing red sunset, the millions of windows glinting in the dying light, the layers upon layers of people covering every inch of the surface, buildings stretching untold kilometers into the sky—it was supposed to be the pride of the galaxy. It gave X-7 a headache.
Navigating the skylanes demanded his full attention. But how was he supposed to concentrate with these wretched memories floating around in his head?
" I dare you! " the boy cries.
" No, I dare you! " he shouts back.
The boy laughs and steers his speeder bike straight for the edge of the ravine. He surges forward at top speed, then pulls up at the very last minute. The momentum carries him across. He waves from the other side. " Your turn now, you sprigging coward! "
He is afraid. But he is also determined. He leans forward. Pushes the throttle. Wind thunders in his ears. The ground opens beneath him, and he is flying—
"Enough!" X-7 shouted. Blind with rage, he rammed the speeder into the bright red sport speeder in front of him, knocking the sport into a wild spin across four levels of traffic. The sport crashed into a zip speeder, which smashed into two Flash speeders.
Crushed and twisted durasteel spiraled through the air; drivers moaned and cried; sirens screamed. And X-7 quietly steered his heavily armored Serous into a narrow alleyway, fleeing the chaos he'd caused.
The needless destruction made him feel better. And that was the problem.
Feeling angry.
Feeling better.
Feeling anything at all. It wasn't right. He wasn't built for it. He was a tool, not a person. How many times had his commander burned that message into his brain? The Commander, who had taken X-7's flesh-and-blood