Star Wars_ X-Wing 07_ Solo Command - Aaron Allston [41]
“They burn organic material here,” Piggy said. He struggled to his feet, holding his side. “It’s an incinerator.”
Lara knelt and fretted. Still no communication of any sort from the team. Of course, they were supposed to keep comm transmissions to a minimum. But she wanted to know what was happening down below.
It didn’t help that Elassar was so calm. The Devaronian junior pilot lay on his back, admiring the stars. “A shooting star!” he whispered. “That’s good luck.”
“Is it still lucky if it’s one of the asteroids we shot into the atmosphere as cover?” Lara asked.
He frowned, considering. “I don’t know.”
Sixty meters away, there was a terrific metal crash and two hinged pieces of roof slammed open. An open-sided turbolift rose into view. The dozen stormtroopers within it jumped out, turning toward Lara and Elassar.
“I guess not,” Elassar amended.
Face lifted Dia, as mindful as he could be of her broken arm. “Sorry I said anything, Five. Blow us out of here.”
Kell slipped his bag back over one shoulder. He held two charges, one in each hand. He tucked one charge into a pocket and tapped something into the keypad of the other.
Tyria hopped up on a boxy piece of metal equipment as the redness of the floor neared her feet. She peeled off her face mask. The other Wraiths began following suit. Face could see that they were already sweating heavily. So was he, but burdened as he was, he couldn’t do anything about it. Tyria said, “What if the chamber is magnetically sealed?”
“It’s not,” Face said. “If it were, they wouldn’t have bothered to demand our demolitions.”
Kell said, “One?”
“What?”
“Where do I place this?”
“Your best guess. You’re the demolitions expert. But this deep down, we may have stone and dirt on all sides.”
“Imperial architecture is kind of conservative,” Kell said. “One floor is often like another. Meaning that the main hall above may have a parallel on this floor. Which was—where?” He looked around blankly. In the fall and the Wraiths’s subsequent disorientation, he’d lost track of directions.
Piggy pointed at one wall, then yanked Runt up before the heat in the floor grid reached him. The Thakwaash pilot looked groggy, but mobile.
Flame erupted from every nozzle along the chamber walls. The flames were no more than half a meter in length, but the temperature in the room rose instantly. Several Wraiths swore and all flinched away from the new heat.
“Three seconds,” Kell said. “Find cover.” He threw his package against the wall and moved to crouch behind one of the ruined metal cases of false lab equipment.
Face followed suit. He felt the floor grating begin to burn its way through his shoes the moment they made contact. He crouched and leaned back against the experiment chair, keeping it between him and the explosive charge, trying to keep Dia’s limbs from trailing against the floor.
One floor up, a stormtrooper opened Shalla’s pack and extracted a tube of processed nutrients. He pawed through the other contents of the pack, then held out the nutrient tube to his commander for inspection.
The commander said, “Uh-oh.”
6
“I wasn’t too sure about this crematorium idea,” Netbers said. “But I must admit it seems to have come off rather well. Though the warlord might have preferred a better souvenir than several kilograms of ashes.”
Dr. Gast nodded. “But I think he’ll be pleased that they didn’t just die—that they died very, very painfully.”
“True.”
The building rocked and the sound of a muffled detonation reached them. Technicians jumped up and looked around as though deciding whether to situate themselves in doorways.
Netbers sighed. “Not good,” he said. “I’m going to lead the stormtroopers down to the crematorium level.”
Gast stood. “I’m going with you. You’ll need me for access to all levels.”
“Come along.”
The explosion hit before Face heard it, before he comprehended