Star Wars_ X-Wing 06_ Iron Fist - Aaron Allston [91]
Her comlink crackled. “I can’t detect any traffic on Imperial channels,” Donos said. “Just some routine stuff on standard planetary and commercial channels. Pretty light, actually.”
“Aldivy isn’t heavily settled,” she said. “A couple of hundred communities. Not enough value there for the Imperials to protect it when they occupied it. At the height of Imperial occupation, we had two TIE fighters and a shuttle protecting us.”
“In addition to your own planetary defense forces, I assume.”
“Um, yes.” She wished he’d quit asking questions. Too much of this and he’d catch her out in a wrong answer. “Our police. Not much defense against assault forces, I’m afraid.”
“Is your home on the day side or night side right now?”
“I’m trying to figure that out.” Shut up. Just shut up. “I can’t tell. I’ll know when we’re closer.”
The main doors to Iron Fist’s false bridge rose with their customary startling speed and General Melvar entered. He stopped short at the sight of the dinner table now occupying the center of the command walkway. Zsinj was seated at the head chair of the bare table, his booted feet up on it. Behind him, at the bow end of the chamber, the holoscreens had been activated and were now a perfect match for the view from the real bridge’s forward viewports; they framed Zsinj, making him the central feature of the galaxy they showed.
Zsinj smiled at him. “What do you think?”
“Perhaps your most ostentatious demonstration yet,” Melvar said as he approached. “Shouldn’t you surround yourself with a nimbus of light to complete the effect?”
“Not a bad idea. Maybe next time. What do you want?”
“Sensors have reported a shuttle’s appearance from the hyperspace course you provided to the Hawk-bats. They’ll be here within minutes.”
Zsinj’s feet hit the walkway surface and he stood. “Assemble the cast. Notify the galley. And get into makeup. This should be entertaining.”
As he watched Iron Fist growing in the forward viewport, Face willed his stomach to quit crawling around. “All right. Here’s your last bit of advice. Remember, we’re just as arrogant as they are but nowhere near as strong. So respond appropriately to bad manners—but not so appropriately that you get us killed.”
Kell mimed entering data on an imaginary datapad. “No get killed,” he said. “I’ll try to remember.”
“I’d like to say leave all the talking to me, but that’s not going to work—we’re here to impress them with our individual skill and readiness. Just keep all your responses in character, and refer any question about our unit strength, tactical readiness, that sort of thing, to me.”
“Understood, General,” Dia said. Her voice was an insinuating purr, far different from the flat, sometimes emotionless tones he was used to from her. He glanced at her, and it was a stranger’s face that looked back at him: Dia’s features with another woman behind them. Her eyes evaluated him with the steady regard of a half-tamed animal watching its owner for some sign of weakness. He looked away quickly, uneasily aware that he didn’t know whether she was simply a natural actress or this was a layer to her that he hadn’t seen before.
To his disappointment, the Iron Fist bridge crew instructed the Hawk-bats to land in a secondary hangar well forward of the main hangar. He would have liked to have seen the damage done to the main hangar by Kell’s tanker bomb, to have seen its state of repair.
Dia brought the shuttle into the designated hangar. Within already were a pair of interceptors, another Lambda-class shuttle, and a larger Raptor transport shuttle—an ugly, boxy troop carrier known to be favored by Zsinj’s forces.
And a reception committee—an officer and a half-dozen stormtroopers. One of the troopers hand-guided Narra to a landing pad marked off by red paint. Dia set the shuttle down expertly.
“Show time,” Face said.
They