Star Wars_ X-Wing 06_ Iron Fist - Aaron Allston [82]
No time to worry about that. Face hurried to Phanan’s TIE fighter, clambered up one broken wing pylon, and peered into the cockpit. No sign of Phanan, as the conversation he’d overheard had suggested, but it would be good to deny Zsinj’s forces any information they might glean from analysis of the craft. He fired several blaster shots into the cockpit, and when the pilot’s seat and control board were fully ablaze, he dropped again to the ground.
The first speeder bike had fetched up against a tree, but had not detonated. Still, the forward outrigger looked bent, even from this distance, and that wasn’t good; it would seriously restrict the vehicle’s speed and maneuvering capabilities.
Face took the stormtrooper’s blaster rifle and hurried toward the bike. En route, he passed the bodies of both Raptors. Both men were dead. He took their blaster pistols, comlinks, and various cards and datacards.
As he’d feared, the outrigger of the surviving speeder bike was twisted out of alignment. A repair job was out of the question with the tools he had on hand. He swore to himself, mounted the vehicle, and set it into motion.
The thing’s thruster engine rattled and coughed, and the bike showed an immediate tendency to pull down and to the right—the new bend to the forward directional vanes made that inevitable. Still, it would be faster than walking. By brute force, he kept in line with the still-distinct trail Phanan had made and set out along that route.
Distantly, he could hear the roar of other speeder bikes. He snapped on his vehicle’s comlink, and that of one of the Raptors. The airwaves were active with communications: “May have some sign of passage here, looks something like crawling. But there’s no blood.” “Ay Dee Seven Four Two, have Ajaf and Matham reported in to you yet?” “Grid Two-Four secure. No large life-forms here except us.” “Too bad we can’t scan for intelligent life-forms, Dofey, that would let you out right away.” “No personal remarks, Private.”
The damaged speeder bike carried Face along Phanan’s trail of crushed underbrush and scored mud. Phanan had managed to crawl a fair distance, Face decided. He traveled a quarter kilometer through this forest, then a half kilometer, and finally reached a narrow, shallow river that must have been the one mentioned by the stormtrooper.
On the other side of the river, Face could see that the forest thinned, and not much farther it graduated to rocky hills that were thick with underbrush but not much for trees. Face shook his head. It didn’t make sense for Phanan to head for terrain like that, where it would be easier to spot him from above—and as he watched, a TIE fighter swooped by over the nearest ridge of hills, flying slowly enough that it had to be on reconnaissance detail. Still, Phanan’s crawling trail emerged on the other side of the bank, more obvious than ever, and headed toward those hills.
Face paused, sensing some of Phanan’s innate perversity at work. The stormtrooper had said the trail disappeared on stony ground, and the searchers hadn’t had any luck finding Phanan. No luck finding an injured pilot who was limited to crawling.
Phanan knew as well as Face did that a downed pilot who found a river would, under most circumstances, be much better off following it downriver. Human settlements tended to be built along rivers. Rivers tended to join other rivers. Rivers usually meant fresh water.
What if—More obvious than ever. What if Phanan had crawled as far as the first batch of terrain that would no longer carry sign of his passage, then had crawled back to the river? It was a sensible strategy. It might throw off his pursuers. It had thrown off his pursuers.
Face turned rightward, the direction the river flowed, and began cruising slowly above its surface.
This was a much better route. Trees along the riverbanks shielded long stretches of the water from view from above. Long grasses beside