Star Wars_ X-Wing 07_ Solo Command - Aaron Allston [98]
Straight into the path of her opponent.
The enemy pilot fired a split second before she could bring her lasers in line. Her TIE shuddered under the impact and slewed to port.
But it held together. There was no shriek of hull breach, no warning of imminent detonation. She’d been grazed.
“I’m hit!” she said. “I’m done for.” She jerked her control yoke to send her spinning in the direction she was already headed.
She counted to two, then snapped her interceptor back around to face her opponent. The enemy TIE jittered in her targeting computer—
But he was much closer than she would have guessed, a mere quarter kilometer away, and was already lined up for a shot. Before she could hit her laser trigger, the sensor system shrieked a recognition of her enemy’s targeting lock—
Then her viewport went dead.
The artificial gravity, which simulated zero gravity and high-angle maneuvers, turned off and she dropped at full weight into her pilot’s couch. She sighed.
A voice crackled over her comm unit. It was deep, with a trace of the Corellian accent that occasionally crept into the speech of Han Solo and Wedge Antilles. “That was very good flying. And the last trick, pretending to be out of control, almost fooled me. I commend you.”
“Who am I talking to?”
“My name is Fel. Baron Soontir Fel.”
Lara’s insides went cold. When she was a crewman aboard Implacable, she’d never even been aware of the presence of Fel and the 181st there, so secret had their mission been. Now, at last, she’d be able to meet the most dangerous pilot who served her enemies.
With her fear, there was a rush of elation. With Wraith Squadron, Lara had flown in simulators against Wedge Antilles, the best the New Republic had to offer. Now she had flown against Baron Fel. She’d competed against the very best pilots two governments had to offer.
Too bad she lost most of the time.
“A pleasure to meet you,” she said. “I’m sorry I didn’t offer you more competition.”
“Don’t be,” he said. “You’re very good. More work, and you might train up to the standards of the One Eighty-first. Shall I keep you in my records as a candidate for the group?”
“I’d be honored. Can I buy the victor a drink?”
“Unfortunately, I have more simulations to fly—and it appears that you don’t. Some other time, though.”
The hatch behind Lara opened and Ensign Gatterweld thrust his face in. “Need any help?”
“No, thank you.” She was getting sick of the ubiquitous Gatterweld. Except when she was in her quarters, in the tiny office where she wrote her commentary on her time with Wraith Squadron, and in simulators, Gatterweld was there. Her shadow.
She undipped the netting that, in a real TIE interceptor, would have kept her bound in place on the pilot’s couch, and threw it to one side, then hauled herself backward and out of the open hatch at the rear of the ball-shaped simulator. Outside, the air was cooler and the omnipresent hum of Iron Fist’s engines was in her ears again.
Gatterweld handed her the pack in which she carried her datapad and other equipment. He looked at the control board where her standings were displayed. “You did pretty well.”
“Do you fly?”
“I can pilot shuttles now. I don’t have the reflexes for starfighters. Hand to hand is my game. Where to now? The cafeteria?”
Lara checked her chrono. “No, it’s late. I think I’ll just turn in.”
As they walked past the banks of control stations set up to monitor the simulators, she saw what she needed—a device she would kill for. A set of monitor goggles and attached microphone. They lay unguarded on one of the control stations, their owner away, perhaps on break.
As she and Gatterweld passed the station, she contrived to get her left foot tangled in his legs. He tripped forward, swearing, while she stumbled and fell sideways—snatching up the set of goggles and tucking them into her pack as she hit