Star Wars_ X-Wing 06_ Iron Fist - Aaron Allston [32]
It was a long three minutes. Halfway through it, a flatbed skimmer hauling two stormtroopers and some sort of laser artillery piece cruised by the hangar. Wedge and the others flattened themselves against the building wall, but the skimmer’s occupants didn’t even glance in their direction.
Wedge saw Donos keeping a close eye on his chrono. At twenty seconds of three minutes, Donos pulled his helmet off. At fifteen seconds, he checked his blaster rifle to make sure it was switched to stun and ready to fire. At ten seconds, he peeked around the corner, and did so again at five seconds. Then, precisely on cue, he stepped around the corner.
The sound of the stun blast was impossibly loud; Wedge was sure it could be heard off in the city of Hullis. Wedge stayed flat against the wall while Runt and Face ran past him. Only then did he peek around the corner, his own blaster ready in case his squadmates needed cover.
Runt almost tripped as he skidded to a halt over the unconscious form of his target; he picked the man up with inhuman ease, slung him over his shoulder, and came charging back toward Wedge. Beyond him, Kell arrived from the far corner, repeated his action with less speed and less pure strength, but was still swift. He arrived mere seconds behind Runt, his unconscious cargo bouncing painfully across his shoulder.
Now there were just two guards in front of the hangar, angled toward one another, at attention. Wedge checked his chrono. Fifteen seconds had passed, and the world was, cosmetically at least, the same as it had been at the start of those brief seconds.
“Castin,” he said.
“I’m way ahead of you,” his computer and security expert informed him. “Helmets off, no traffic from their control, I’m checking now for their orders and passcards. No passcards. That means a transmitted or spoken password. Let’s hope it’s transmitted. Hmm …”
Shalla stayed in a crouch behind a self-powered tool cart. Not four steps away was the doorway into the motor-pool office. Two stormtroopers—she suspected they were the ones who’d been in charge of the vehicle she’d ridden in—were within, one seated, both with helmets off. One, tall and fair-skinned, stood by the door, holding a glass with blue liquid on the inside and condensation on the outside. The other, apparently of average height and with skin as dark as Shalla’s, was seated at the main terminal, dictating in a bored tone. Shalla could catch most of his words. It sounded like a routine report, which made him the ranking officer. “… without struggle. No charges expended. Net expenditure: skimmer fuel, total of seventy-eight klicks.”
The other said something Shalla didn’t catch. The seated man nodded, then continued, “On return, about half a klick from base, stopped to offer aid to patrol of Sergeant—what was his name?”
The other one shrugged.
“I’ll put a placeholder there for now. Sergeant Placeholder, whose skimmer had broken down; gave him, his squadron, and his prisoners, including Lieutenant Cothron, transportation to base. Additional expenditure: fuel of hauling mass of five extra prisoners and ten additional stormtroopers—”
“Eleven,” said the other man.
“Ten.” The seated man thought about it. “Well, you were paying attention and I wasn’t. Eleven additional stormtroopers, distance of two kilometers.” He frowned, then shook his head. “End of report. Let me go through and edit out redundancies and program that placeholder to fetch the name of that squad leader, and we’re done for the night.” But he didn’t reach for the keyboard yet. “You’re sure about the eleven thing.”
“I’m sure.”
Shalla stood and walked, as confidently as though she were the base commander, to the door. She shouldered aside the man standing there and tapped the door switch. The office door dropped into place with the disconcerting suddenness of Imperial engineering.
Both men looked at her. The man she’d shoved aside said, “You know, it’s been a long time since I taught a nerf-herder like you some manners.”
“It’s