Star Wars_ X-Wing 06_ Iron Fist - Aaron Allston [25]
“Castin Donn laid enough money down at enough cantinas, we’re bound to get what we want.”
“You may be right. That thing’s not maneuvering like a staff skimmer. It’s big and sluggish.”
Wedge twisted to look at the oncoming vehicle through his optics. “Imperial Military Police. Signal Runt.”
Janson waved a handheld light down at the other Wraiths, flicking its beam three times across them. This close to an Imperial base, Wedge preferred they not use comlinks, whose transmissions, even if coded or extremely short, might be noticed. At the base of the hill, Runt would now be using a portable scanner on the distant vehicle.…
From the Wraiths’ position came an answering blink of light, a single pulse.
“Runt signals yes. It’s loaded with personnel,” Janson said.
“Move out.”
Wedge and Janson scrambled down the side of the hill, not directly toward the other Wraiths, but angling toward the right, an intercept course. By the time they reached the base of the hill—with Janson’s armor now somewhat battered by a fall he’d taken during his descent—the other Wraiths were almost to the road.
Wedge and Janson caught up to them and put their helmets back on.
“Snap it up,” Wedge said, “march formation. Left foot, right foot.”
And the Wraiths managed something like a proper formation in spite of the loads they carried.
Runt carried one of the unconscious pilots over his shoulder, moving without difficulty. The Gamorrean Piggy could also have carried one of the pilots with fair ease, but could never have worn one of the sets of stormtrooper armor; he remained with the skimmer. Kell, now suited up as a stormtrooper, and Dia dragged an unconscious pilot between them; they held the pilot’s arms over their shoulders so the man remained upright. Phanan, also in a set of stormtrooper armor, and Face also dragged one of the pilots, as did Castin and Shalla, with Donos and Tyria dragging the fifth. The sixth pilot, the ranking officer among them, remained with Piggy.
It was several hundred meters to the gate into the base, but if Wedge calculated correctly, they wouldn’t have to walk the entire distance.
They heard the humming of the heavy skimmer behind them and Wedge turned to look. It was a large model, nearly identical to the one that had been part of the trap on Coruscant: It had an enclosure over the bed, and only the pilot and the guard assigned to his protection were exposed to the elements. On the side was painted the stooping bird-of-prey insignia of Victory Base; over that design were the crossed batons of the base’s military police.
The skimmer pulled alongside Wedge’s troop of ersatz stormtroopers and prisoners. Its pilot called, “What happened to you?”
“Skimmer broke down,” Wedge said. “Repulsorlift failure in the energy transference array.”
“Care for a lift?”
“I’d put you up for a Hero of the Empire medal.”
The pilot tapped a button and a door in the rear enclosure opened; its hinge was at the bottom, allowing it to open down into a ramp. Wedge peered inside. The spacious enclosure held four stormtroopers and another pair of prisoners in the uniforms of Imperial maintenance personnel. Both prisoners were awake, though apparently anesthetized by alcohol.
Wedge’s people hauled their unconscious prisoners up the ramp and settled them down on the padded benches against the enclosure walls. Wedge, at the rear of the line, stayed tense. The stormtrooper armor the Wraiths wore—seized from prisoners during some of the countless clashes the Alliance had had with the Empire and brought as part of the squadron’s gear—was authentic enough, but the military-police insignia the Wraiths had meticulously painted on the armor might not pass close inspection. Also, the officer in charge of these real military police should, if he kept strictly to