Star Wars_ X-Wing 06_ Iron Fist - Aaron Allston [81]
Castin flushed red and looked as though he wanted to argue the point, but stood, saluted with a military precision that was, for him, obviously an exercise in sarcasm, and retreated.
Phanan’s TIE fighter had apparently hit the ground in a soft glade, bounced like a rock skipping across the surface of a pond, and crashed into a line of young trees. Now it rested, its port solar wing array crumpled, its cockpit canted forward, so its main viewport was half-buried in the dirt, against a trio of trees bent almost to the ground, their roots half up in the air. The twin ion engines at the vehicle’s rear were now encrusted with a foamy substance—probably a fire-extinguishing foam sprayed on by those who had come later.
Now a stormtrooper stood guard on the damaged vehicle, and was engrossed in conversation with two men in the distinctive uniform of Zsinj’s Raptors. Two speeder bikes in Raptor colors hovered beside the starfighter’s intact wing.
Face, a few dozen meters away, in the heavy underbrush characteristic of the light forest of the area, insects crawling across his back and sides, wiped more stinging sweat from his eyes and crawled forward to hear what they were saying.
The stormtrooper’s voice, amplified by the electronic speaker of his helmet, was easiest to make out. “… see here. Spots of blood. He was crawling here, but we didn’t get any units … ground at this site for half an hour, so he wasn’t crawling for stealth; he was hurt. We have men on speeder bikes … now. They say his trail goes a little less than a kilometer and just disappears on stony ground where things get hilly.”
The two Raptors looked at one another. The first, the taller of the two, said, “Is there any sign of repulsorlift dust-up along the trail?”
“Ehh, no. They would have mentioned it. They’re assuming he’s out there hiding in the hills.”
“I don’t think so. They would have found more blood. Even if he’d bandaged himself, he’d be cutting his flesh to pieces on that hard ground—unless he stopped crawling and started walking. Which isn’t likely. Scanning isn’t doing any good?”
“There are a lot of people, humans, in the region. Professional hunters. And some large game they hunt. We’re ushering them out as fast as we come across them, but they’re playing havoc with our scanners.”
The Raptor sighed, testimony to the stormtroopers’ incompetence, and turned back toward the speeder bikes.
The other one said, “We’ll find him. Then we’ll tell your people how it was done.” He followed his partner.
Face crawled forward as fast as he could manage while remaining fairly quiet. The stormtrooper was watching the Raptors, his body language suggesting that perhaps he’d enjoy beating the two men senseless with the stock of his blaster rifle, and did not turn in Face’s direction.
The Raptors mounted their speeder bikes, talking to one another, their low, amused tones and occasional chuckles making it likely that the stormtrooper and his fellows continued to be an object of derision. They fired up the bikes’ thrusters and headed out.
Face stood up from behind a bush in their path. His first blaster shot took the right-hand Raptor in the chest, sending him tumbling from the back of the vehicle. Face traversed left and fired just as the second Raptor came abreast of him. His shot took the man in the side of the head and the dead or injured man passed so close that Face could feel the wash from his repulsors and smell the char from his helmet.
Ahead, the stormtrooper was raising his blaster rifle’s stock to his shoulder. Face threw himself to the ground, once again partially concealed by the bush, and squeezed off three shots. The first two went wide, with the stormtrooper’s return shot charring soil less than a meter in front of Face, but the third blast took his target in the gut, where sections of white armor were connected by flexible black material. The stormtrooper let out a moan and fell forward.
There was an explosion from behind Face. He rolled over and brought his blaster up, but there were