Star Wars_ X-Wing 06_ Iron Fist - Aaron Allston [90]
Grinning, Kell moved aft, behind the seats, and tapped a complicated rhythm against the starboard bulkhead. A portion of what had looked like seamless wall swung down on hinges and he reached inside. An expression of surprise crossed his face and he ducked down to look. “Hey, no Castin.”
“It’s empty?”
“I didn’t say that.” Kell retrieved something fairly large and furry from the compartment’s interior and waved it at the others. It was the Ewok toy. “Say hello to Lieutenant Kettch.”
Face snorted. “You ever wonder how he gets around? I’m not sure he isn’t alive.”
Kell peered inside the compartment again. “And some generous spirit has loaded this thing up with goodies. A couple of blasters, some preserved food, a couple of bottles of Halmad Prime—”
“Hey, bring that up here.”
Kell replaced Kettch within the compartment and sealed it. “I don’t think so.”
“It’s every general’s right to be uproariously drunk on diplomatic missions.”
Kell dropped into the seat behind Dia and began practicing his signature move. With every repetition it became more obnoxious. “I’m going to keep this up until you shut up about the Prime.”
“Ooh. You win, mutineer. Prepare for space.”
14
Narra emerged from hyperspace at the appointed coordinates.
This was deep space, nothing to see within a half-dozen light-years, but there was something awaiting them—a barrage of comm messages. They flooded the communications waves, repeating variations on the same message, overlapping one another.
“Greetings Hawk-bats this is greetings Hawk-bats Warlord Zsinj not rebroadcast I welcome this is you prepare to receive them simply Warlord Zsinj a new set of I welcome follow them coordinates do not rebroadcast you prepare them simply soon we follow them to receive soon we will be will be a new dining in comfort and set of dining in coming to terms of coordinates do great mutual comfort and profit …” The words continued in that way, a ceaseless stream.
Face shook his head. “That’s a mess. Let’s see if we can lock them down to a single transmission.” His hands moved over the communications console. “All right. We have a small satellite dead ahead. One signal’s stronger than the others. And that gives us …” He punched a button to isolate the signal.
“Greetings, Hawk-bats. This is Warlord Zsinj. I welcome you. Prepare to receive a new set of coordinates. Do not rebroadcast them. Simply follow them. Soon we will be dining in comfort and coming to terms of great mutual profit.” The message began to repeat.
“We’re getting a file on the same band,” Dia said.
“Don’t bring it up,” Kell said. “It might be the kind of program Castin likes to work up. Something that will give them more information about us than we’d like.”
Face nodded. “Good point. It’s not a big file. I’ll transmit it to my datapad and we can reenter the nav data by hand. What do you figure would happen if we did want to retransmit the file?”
Dia said, “One of two things. That satellite will have an extra system. Either it’s a weapons system, designed to destroy us, or it’s a hypercomm system that will warn Zsinj before we get to him.”
Kell dragged his hair back over his shoulder again. “It’ll be whichever system is cheaper.”
“Well, in either case, we won’t be doing that.” Face compared the navigational data on his datapad with that which he’d just typed into Narra’s computer. It matched. He punched the execute button and nodded for Dia to bring the shuttle around to its new course. “All right, stage two.”
The two X-wings dropped out of hyperspace at the outer periphery of the Aldivy system, well beyond the solar-gravity well that would prevent their reentering hyperspace.
Lara immediately brought up her visual sensors and trained them on the planet of Aldivy. The picture that emerged, jittery and blurry, was of a blue-and-white globe with no features she could identify.
She restrained herself from