Star Wars_ X-Wing 01_ Rogue Squadron - Michael A. Stackpole [60]
The Intelligence agent found himself anxious to meet Captain Iillor. He had read her file, as well as that of Admiral Devlia and most of the senior command staff during his journey out from Coruscant. The files were a welcome departure from tracking the various rumors about Rogue Squadron, but her record especially intrigued him. In studying it he caught hints of how forceful she had to have been to have risen in the Imperial Navy as far as she got before the Emperor’s death.
Devlia stood and smoothed his grey jacket over his round belly. “And I’ll tell you here and now that I’ll stop any questions I think are off the mark.”
“I understand that, sir.” Dream all you want, Admiral.
Devlia led Kirtan from his spacious office down a narrow hallway in the mansion that housed the command staff. The Admiral preceded him into a small study that had been converted into a conference room through the addition of a big table that dominated the room. Boxes full of datacards still lined the built-in shelves and Kirtan judged it a larger library than he would have expected to find on a planet like Vladet.
Devlia secured himself the chair at the head of the table, then waved a hand toward the woman standing at the far end. “Captain Iillor, this is Agent Kirtan Loor. He wants to ask you some questions about the ambush.”
“Yes, sir.” The brown-haired woman looked at Kirtan without a trace of the hunted look most people acquired when told Intelligence wanted to question them. “I’ll help if I am able, Agent Loor.”
Her voice had an edge to it that backed up the challenge in her dark eyes. Kirtan assumed her lack of fear came after years of being on the Navy’s NhM track—Non-huMan. The Empire’s bias against aliens and women reached an unprecedented level of refinement in the Imperial Navy. Iillor had been sent to serve under Colonel Thrawn and a host of other alien superior officers before she had been given a ship of her own. She would have been stuck on that Carrack-class cruiser had not the defeat at Endor made the need for competent officers so great that the command staff’s survivors reevaluated personnel and awarded commands according to some semblance of merit.
“I’m sure you will, Captain. I would like any reports you have filed about this action, as well as any holographic records of it, along with any communication intercepts.” He walked around to the left side of the table, then turned back toward Devlia. “With the Admiral’s permission, of course.”
The old man nodded.
“Very well. If you don’t mind, please tell me what happened.”
“May I sit?”
“By all means.” Kirtan smiled but remained standing. “Make yourself comfortable.”
Captain Iillor sat and turned her chair so she gave Devlia her profile. “We had information that a smuggler running supplies to the Rebels was expected in the Chorax system at a particular time, and would be departing after picking up some supplies there. I sent a shuttle in to monitor the smuggler’s situation while I put the Black Asp on the fringe of the system. When the Pulsar Skate started to head out of the system, I jumped the Black Asp in and brought my G7-x gravjectors up.”
Kirtan frowned. “Intra-system jumping is a rather unusual tactic, isn’t it?”
Iillor shook her head. “I’ve seen it used with great success out in the Unknown Sector. It worked at Chorax, too, because the Skate had no idea where we came from. It took them nearly six seconds to begin evasive maneuvers. I took the liberty of closing to use our ion cannons on the Skate during that time. Then a dozen X-wings came into the system.
“I deployed my Interceptor squadron, but none of the pilots are Academy material. They