The Bacta War (20 page)

“We could, but hitting such sites still doesn’t bring the nature of war home to the people. We need to frighten them, deeply.”

“And hitting military targets won’t do that?”

“Eventually. This will be faster.”

Iella frowned. “Wouldn’t just shooting random people accomplish the same thing?”

Elscol shrugged. “Probably. It’s a backup plan.”

“You can’t be serious.” Iella looked at the smaller woman in utter disbelief. “That would be murder.
This
is murder, for all intents and purposes. You can’t kill innocent people.”

“Look, Iella, there are
no
innocent people here.” Elscol planted fists on her hips. “Over the years I’ve helped dozens of worlds liberate themselves from the Imps, and part of each fight is making the populace wake up to what’s really going on. People assume that if they say nothing and do nothing they’re not involved in the fight, but the fact is that their apathy is a tacit vote of support for the status quo. They have to be made to see that by making
no
choice they have indeed made
a
choice. When they understand that, they begin to think about those choices, and we make choosing the Imps out to be a very bad choice.”

Iella’s head came up. “Black Sun used to use that same rationale to justify murdering all sorts of folks.”

“There’s a difference between Black Sun and us.”

“Oh, do tell.”

“Black Sun was all about greed and selfishness.” Elscol looked around at the humans and Vratix gathered in the room. “We’re fighting for freedom, for the right to live the way we want to live. We’re fighting for the only thing worth fighting for.”

“And if these people want to be ruled by the Empire?”

“They can consider our action an eviction notice.” Elscol’s brown eyes narrowed. “You come from a law-enforcement background where you were out to protect the innocent from the ravages of the criminals. You could do that without resorting to this drastic an activity because you had the weight of the government behind you. You had a justice system
that would reinforce the will of the people. I understand that and respect it. By the same token, I also know that you saw criminals out there that you knew could only be stopped by a blaster bolt.

“That’s what we’re up against here. Dlarit might seem harmless, but he’s helping prop up a system that keeps the Vratix in virtual slavery. He’s propping up a system that means billions of individuals suffer needlessly from diseases because they cannot afford the cure. He’s got the blood of everyone who died because of a lack of bacta on his hands, as well as that of the families of the
Alazhi
’s crew.”

Iella had nodded. “I can’t deny the validity of what you’re saying about Dlarit. Add to it the fact that his daughter spied on the Alliance for the Imps and got Corran captured. The problem still is that I’m uncomfortable with assassinating him, especially in his home.”

“The act has much more impact there. We’ll make a hologram of the execution and start circulating it. That will get our point across, and fast, too.”

“And it will make us into ghouls. What about Dlarit’s staff and his family? What do we do if they find us there?”

The muscles at the corners of Elscol’s jaw bunched. “Blasters do have stun settings.”

Iella had raised an eyebrow. “You sound as if you would kill his children, too.”

“Erisi’s his daughter—Huttlings grow up to be Hutts.”

“But leaving his minor children alive would show us to be capable of mercy for those who realize the error of their ways, correct?” Iella had looked hard at her. “Correct?”

“It’ll make the operation more difficult, but it can be done.” Elscol had looked around the briefing room. “Any other philosophical objections, or can we get to planning?”

There were none, so Elscol immediately moved into planning the assault.
And what a job she did
. Her experience in planning and executing operations showed through in how she broke down the Dlarit estate’s security setup. Iella had attended countless CorSec Special Operations briefings about raids on criminal strongholds, and Elscol’s presentation was the equal of any of them in detail and foresight.

To everyone’s surprise, including her own, Iella agreed to join the group of a dozen Ashern commandos volunteering for the operation. Elscol, Sixtus, and three of his Imp Special Naval Operations comrades formed the core of the group. Iella, two Vratix, and four humans—all four of them Zaltin refugees—filled out the rest of the team. Each commando was issued a blaster, a blaster carbine, dark clothing, a comlink, and a light armored vest with armored plates that covered them from throat to groin, front and back. Iella knew the armor would be almost useless for stopping a blaster bolt, but even deflecting it from the body’s midline meant the wound might be survivable.

Iella hunkered down behind the bole of a huge akonije tree. The humidity in the air helped retain the day’s heat, and the vest made her none too comfortable. Even so, the slight whisper of a breeze helped cool her.
But it also hides some noises and creates others, keeping me on edge
. She blew a wisp of her light brown hair back out of her face and peered ahead into the darkness.

Barely visible as hulking shadows, Sixtus and his companions worked their way forward through the rain forest that sheltered the Dlarit estate. The estate itself was set on a small knoll at the foot of high mountains that had once been part of an extinct volcano. Holograms of the estate taken in daytime looked incredibly beautiful, with the natural stone building rising up out of the surrounding jungle like a small volcano itself. Huge waterfalls cascading down the mountainous backdrop added the last element to transform the estate into a paradise.

They also provided the means for entering the estate. Most travel to and from the estate took place by airspeeder. Forty-five kilometers of a twisting, single-lane track connected the estate to the main throughway to the south, but several gates interdicted it, and a number of narrow passes between natural rock outcroppings made for perfect ambush points if an invasion were attempted along it. Likewise, a ring of well-hidden Comar Tritracker Air Defense batteries meant approaching the estate in an airspeeder without authorization could be suicidal. Various sensor arrays positioned around
the estate also monitored likely avenues of approach through the rain forest.

Slicing into the planetary computers and making use of Zaltin surveillance satellites, the Ashern team had pulled down realtime holograms of the estate and the thermal images of the guards on their rounds. They also found the placement of the sensor devices in the rain forest and noted the human patrols tended to concentrate on the side of the estate facing the mountains and the waterfalls. After studying the specifications for the sensors in use around the estate, they realized that the sensors on the mountain side of the estate had been muted so the movement of water and the sound from the falls wouldn’t constantly be triggering alarms.

Entering the estate, they made their approach from the far side of the mountain and ascended to the summit by dusk. Once darkness fell, they descended, keeping as close to the waterfalls as they could. They sped their descent by rappelling down beneath one of the longer falls, letting the curtain of water hide them from the estate’s sensors. Once at the base of the mountains, they moved in along the fringes of the sensors’ range, cutting a labyrinthine path through the jungle.

The SpecNav troops led the way. Though they were as big as stormtroopers, Sixtus’s men were deceptively swift and deathly quiet. Iella was more than happy they were on her side. As scary as facing stormtroopers might have been, fighting against these men would have been worse. At one point they had been selected to join the Imperial Navy’s most elite fighting unit, and the product of their skills proved that choice had been a wise one.

Iella heard a single click over her comlink, so she hurried forward, remaining low. She reached Elscol’s side and looked off in the direction where the smaller woman pointed. Silhouetted against the lights from the house she saw two Thyferran Home Defense Corps guards wandering along. Elscol tapped her finger twice against her comlink and huge shadows rose up to eclipse the guards. Iella heard no screams or shots being fired, but another double-click played over the comlink, indicating the guards had been neutralized.

The rest of the group moved up to the edge of the clearing
around the estate. Barely twenty-five meters separated them from the mansion solarium. Iella dropped to one knee next to one of the guards and felt for a pulse in his neck, but her hand encountered a sticky wetness that told her all she needed to know.
The sound of a stun shot being fired or the light from the blue burst could have been seen. These men had to die
.

Elscol tapped two of the SpecNav soldiers on the shoulders and they sprinted forward across the lawn to the shadows beside the solarium. Iella found herself holding her breath, waiting for a reaction from the house. A single click from the comlink told her the SpecNavs felt safe. Elscol sent them a double-click, and Iella prepared herself to run.

The SpecNavs pulled an electronic device from an equipment satchel and slapped it over the solarium’s door lock. Iella saw lights on the device flicker and shift color, then five of them all burned green at the same time. They went out after three seconds at which point one of the SpecNavs pushed the door open. Another double-click came through the comlink, and Iella was up and running.

With each step she braced herself for a shot from the darkness, a burning red bolt that would hit her, lift her up and send her flying across the yard. She’d seen it happen to others before, more times than she could remember. The look of surprise on the victim’s face as confident immortality dissolved into dismay and despair haunted her.
In death, especially violent death, no one ever looks pretty
.

She made it to the door and passed through, then cut to the left and hugged the wall on the other side of the doorway into the main house, opposite the first SpecNav trooper. After her, came Elscol; then Sixtus. They both ran through the doorway, then double-clicked an all clear so Iella and the SpecNav moved up. Other members of the team fanned out through the mansion’s lower floor and secured it without incident.

Elscol and Sixtus moved up the stairway to the main floor. Iella followed them up and found the main floor dark save for a muted yellow light coming through one open doorway further along the main hallway. The darkness didn’t surprise
her terribly much—the raid had been timed to reach the estate halfway between midnight and dawn to take advantage of the fact that most people would be asleep. That a light was still on seemed odd, but carelessness couldn’t be ruled out.

Nor can someone’s working late. That’s supposed to be Dlarit’s office
. Iella crept forward cautiously. Though only ten meters separated her from the lit doorway, she took two minutes to make it that distance. At the edge of the doorway she tilted her head and got a quick glimpse into the room. What she saw prompted a smile and made her double-click her comlink and invite the others forward.

She strode into the office and shook her head. Wearing his finest Thyferran Home Defense Corps uniform, Aerin Dlarit sat sprawled in a high-backed chair behind his desk. The holoprojector plate built into the desk displayed a meter-tall replica of a monument featuring a larger-than-life statue of Dlarit atop a pedestal. The hologram slowly rotated in the air, complete with a throng of miniature well-wishers gasping and applauding at its base.

Elscol drew her blaster pistol and dropped her voice to a whisper. “Get the holocam up here. He dies a monument to his own ego and misplaced trust in the Empire.”

Iella laid a hand on her arm. “Wait, I have another idea. One that may work even better.”

“He has to die.”

“With what I have in mind, he will, but a thousand times over.” Iella drew her own pistol and clicked the selector lever over to stun. “We’ve already killed two guards, so they know we’re serious. Trust me, this will work.”

“If I don’t like it, he dies anyway.”

Iella smiled. “You’ll like it. We’ll get more play out of it.”

Iella explained, and Elscol balked until Sixtus cracked a smile. That swung Elscol over, so Iella fired one shot into the sleeping General, then set to work. The party exited the estate the same way they’d come in, and though burdened as Iella was carrying away General Aerin Dlarit’s dress uniform, the journey seemed not nearly as hard as before.

19

Commander Erisi Dlarit’s TIE Interceptor dropped from the belly of the
Corrupter
and let gravity seduce it down into Halanit’s atmosphere. The cant-winged craft bucked a little as it entered the frigid planet’s atmosphere, reminding Erisi that the Interceptor would surrender some of its maneuverability to friction and drag. Maneuvers she could pull in the vacuum of space would get her killed below.

The Rebels refer to these fighters as
squints,
but in atmosphere I prefer to think of them as
winces. From the moment Ysanne Isard had appointed her to lead the Thyferran Home Defense Corps aerospace wing, Erisi had lobbied hard to equip her two squadrons with X-wings. While slower and slightly less agile than the Interceptor, the X-wing’s shields and ability to use proton torpedoes in addition to its lasers made it a superior fighter.

It mattered not at all how eloquently I argued, what facts I used, Iceheart would never have agreed to my request
. Erisi realized her own sense of superiority had collided full on with Isard’s need to see anything and everything Imperial as better than anything the Alliance had to oppose it.
Isard sees herself as the pinnacle of Imperial excellence and demands that everything
else rises to her level. What I or others know counts as nothing to her because we are not up to her standards
.

Erisi really couldn’t blame Isard for treating the Thyferrans and the THDC as the Empire’s stupid, inbred cousins. Though the
Corrupter
had already been en route to Halanit when the Ashern raid took place, word of it had been communicated to the ship. Her cheeks burned as the image of her father slumped naked in his chair exploded in her mind. Mortifying in the extreme, the incident meant that the
Corrupter
’s Imperial crew felt no reason to hide their contempt for the THDC personnel on board.