Star Wars_ X-Wing 07_ Solo Command - Aaron Allston [46]
They gathered where the big captain had died. Janson was on his feet, supported by Tyria, his right bicep wrapped in a thick bandage already stained through with blood, his arm hanging uselessly. There was blood spilling down his forehead, too, and a matching patch on the wall at head height. His face was already graying with shock. Shalla, too, was up. Runt was swaying and breathing hard where he stood; flecks of white spittle decorated the sides of his mouth. Seven stormtroopers and the big captain lay dead in the hall.
The female civilian, whom Piggy called Dr. Gast, led them back toward the incinerator room. Fire from the chamber had spread out into the hall. The air was becoming smoky and flames licked along the ceiling at the far end. But halfway there, Gast turned a toward blank wall and said, “Gast access override one-one-one.”
The wall section lifted like a high-speed doorway, revealing a small turbolift beyond. Gast gave Face a cool smile. “Down one level is an underground landspeeder channel with a utilities shaft running parallel to it.”
Face boarded and the others followed. “You know what this means to you if this is a trick.”
She shook her head. “No trick. Zsinj will have me killed for failure. So my survival means getting you to safety. Gast, descend to sub-five.”
The turbolift descended for a few seconds. Then the door opened onto a dimly lit duracrete shelf. Beyond it was a dropoff; a few meters beyond that, a wall.
They exited cautiously, blasters raised right and left. This was a boarding platform for a railway of some sort, the dropoff being a low roadway.
“And may I say,” she continued, “that I always enjoyed your holodramas?”
“You couldn’t say anything that would nauseate me more.”
She smiled, her expression still calm. “Though I liked Tetran Cowall more.”
“That makes me feel better. He’s a no-talent bag of bantha droppings.” Face gestured right and left. “Which way?”
As they moved, fast as their ill-treated bodies would let them, they passed hatches allowing access into upper floors, tanks where water was stored and processed, power-cabling terminals, and equipment housings that were less easily identified.
Kell stopped beside a heavy metal beam running from the duracrete ceiling above into the duracrete shelf below. He tapped it with his forearm. His hand was still charred, twitching. “Hey,” he said. “This is a main support beam, isn’t it?”
Gast nodded. “I think so. Why?”
Face said, “Five, no. We can’t bring down this whole building. There may be other innocents, other test subjects up there.”
Kell offered him a smirk. “Boss, I don’t want to blow everything up. Listen. We just passed a power station a few meters back.”
“So?”
“So if we can adapt the power from that station to boost the signal strength of Runt’s comm unit, and patch the unit’s signal through this beam—”
“Then we use the whole building as an antenna.” Face slapped his forehead and regretted it instantly as his palm encountered burned flesh. “Do it. Do it fast.”
At a dead run, Hobbie charged up to where Wedge and Tycho sat under their camouflage covers. “Signal from the Wraiths, Wedge. They need immediate air support.”
Lara and Elassar had circled around, maintaining fire against the now much more distant stormtroopers, reaching the point on the wall where their fibra-rope rig would give them access to Donos’s roof, when they saw and heard the approaching TIE fighters. “Just what we need,” she said.
She gauged the drop to the ground below. Not too far, she might land unhurt, but there was no place within a hundred meters to hide from a TIE. Likewise, the nearest roof hatch, its locks and security restored to keep guards and workers from noticing anything amiss, would take too long to open.
The pair of TIE fighters roared in from the south, decelerating as they came within easy firing range of the rooftop. They came to a complete halt, floating on repulsorlifts, when they were two hundred meters away. One was aimed directly at Lara and Elassar’s position, the other at Donos.
Lara set her blaster