Star Wars_ X-Wing 02_ Wedge's Gamble - Michael A. Stackpole [32]
Corran extended the landing gear and brought the ship to rest, then killed the repulsorlift generators and engine. “Whistler, remember, shoot first if you have to, then go for an engine start to give you more laser energy. If you have to, hover out of reach until the rest of the squadron comes and covers you.”
The droid keened mournfully.
“No, nothing will happen, I promise, but I want you to be careful.” He missed a chunk of Whistler’s reply, but took it that the annoying tone carried the meaning of the missing content. He doffed his helmet, drew the blaster from his shoulder holster, checked it, took it off safe, and reholstered it. Finally he pulled on a breathing mask and a pair of goggles, then popped the release on his cockpit canopy. It slid up and he crawled out.
Corran jumped down and found Kessel to be just a bit lighter in gravity than Borleias or Noquivzor. He ran over to where Wedge and Nawara stood beside an orange, mushroomlike tent that the commandos had assembled. “How did your conversation with Moruth Doole go?”
Wedge frowned slightly. “I think I got my points across, but he’s right on the edge of paranoia, and it doesn’t take much to push him over.”
“Doole’s probably a glit-biter.”
The Twi’lek twitched a head tail in Corran’s direction. “I don’t believe I’ve heard that term before.”
“CorSec slang, sorry. Glitterstim is the most potent form of spice—the stuff most people get is cut and diluted so heavily that the most they get from using is a little euphoria. Glit-biters are taking the real thing and it seems, in some folks, to punch up their latent mental abilities. They can read minds, or so they think, and they assume any mind they can’t read is closed because the person is plotting against them. Doole probably forgot he was seeing a hologram of you, Commander. You were hostile, he couldn’t read you, hence he figured you really had it in for him.”
Lieutenant Page, a dark-haired man of medium height and build, came over and pointed toward the horizon. “Landspeeder coming down the road.”
Wedge hit his comlink. “Lead to Twelve. How does it look?”
“One vehicle, Lead.”
“Thanks, Twelve.” Wedge turned to Page. “It’s coming alone. If you clear it, let it come in.”
“As ordered, sir.” Page went running off in the direction of the big, boxy landspeeder and a squad of folks fell in behind him. The landspeeder slowed, then stopped, and a door opened. Page spoke through the open door with someone while his people checked in and around the vehicle. Apparently satisfied with the inspection, Page closed the door and jumped back off the vehicle’s running boards. He waved it forward and it headed in.
Other commandos stopped the landspeeder about a hundred meters beyond the perimeter at a point where it remained under the guns of Wedge’s X-wing. Two people got out and a trooper escorted them forward toward Wedge. The man stood very tall and seemed to Corran to be painfully thin. What little hair he had left on his head was white and wispy enough that Kessel’s weak atmosphere could make it float. The woman came up to the man’s shoulder and had deep brown hair. Corran guessed from the way she moved she was younger than the man, but her face was deeply enough scored with wrinkles that he would have matched them in age were he looking at still holograms.
The commando moved the two visitors into and through the tent’s simple airlock, then Corran and Nawara followed Wedge through. Once inside they were able to remove their breathing masks, though the acrid stink of hot plastic almost made Corran put his back on. Resolving to breathe as little