Chapter
One: The Flying Assassins
The sleek black speeder banked and turned onto the
flight-way, and melted into the flow of other southbound traffic.
Behind the tinted wind-visor, the driver seemed indifferent to
the horn blasts elicited by his action as he peered into the twilight
gloom. The sun's last dying rays caressed only the tallest skyscrapers,
transforming them into golden-crowned edifices, as it sank into
fiery oblivion on the eastern horizon. Along the avenue many of
the flight-way restaurants and cafes had already turned on their
harsh neon signs, which accomplished little in the fading light,
yet would transform the city into a multi-hued explosion of colour
in the encroaching darkness.
"How much longer?" A tired voice questioned
from behind, and the driver turned slightly to glimpse at the
passengers on the back seat.
"Not long. We're on the last stretch,"
he returned calmly, and shrugged as his partner fidgeted.
"Thanks," Jan Ors breathed, and continued
to look out the side window. Her anxiety faded as she remembered
the driver from a previous assignment, more than a year before.
Tam Darson, an experienced speeder driver, had already surveyed
the city street plan, driving around for almost a day in order
to obtain a clear understanding of the layout, and identify alternative
escape routes in the case of an emergency. He had come to know
this quadrant and all avenues to the spaceport like the back of
his hands, in a remarkably short time. Jan seemed to recall that
Tam had years of service with several other vehicle types, including
land transports and spacecraft, and her qualms about the journey
faded as she took in his weasel-sharp features and keen wide eyes.
She knew she had picked the right agent to back her up on this
assignment. His reflexes were second to none - except perhaps
for Jan's own.
Tam's foot came down on the accelerator, pressing
Jan back into the comfortable padded leather seat of the unmarked,
nondescript state-owned black SkyRanger Special. If the bullet-train
connection from Vektra had not been running behind schedule, there
would have been no reason for the extra speed. However, some incident
in one of the maintenance tunnels had determined that Jan and
the man in her charge arrived late. Tam now attempted to make
up for lost time, cutting corners with barely centimetres to spare,
and temporarily ignoring the altimeter limits and speed restrictions
of the city flight-ways.
Jan felt it unwise to interject on Tam's concentration
in case they ended their journey unexpectedly in an apartment
house.
"You're making me nervous, Jan." The
other passenger, a short, stocky man observed. His pale grey eyes
locked on the woman's own as she turned to him. Jan gazed back
at him critically, her brown eyes burning and probing. He could
see the slight bulge of the blaster under her black waist-jacket.
Jan pursed her lips and tightened a gloved hand
into a fist as she responded. "I've been given the job of
protecting you, Precept Tol-Rion. Out here we're easy targets.
I'll only be satisfied of your safety after we've reached the
Space Port, and you're off-world." The woman returned icily.
The Precept raised an eyebrow at the agent's tone,
and retreated slightly along the back seat. He took in the lithe,
sinewy frame under the lightweight body armour only half-concealed
by her casual wear, the mess of golden-brown hair and grim eyes
that scrutinised every street block. Her hands knotted occasionally
in anticipation of some catastrophic event to come. Tol-Rion knew
that Mon Mothma had personally selected this agent from a mere
handful of the elite operatives of the New Republic to protect
him. So far, her performance and planning had been exemplary.
The air traffic thickened as they reached an intersection
between two major flight-ways, down one of which the SkyRanger
sped with abandon. Then the speeder slowed as Tam applied the
decelerators. Jan leaned across, frowning, then noticed that the
other traffic had slowed to a crawl.
"What's wrong?"
"Must be heavy traffic from the north."
Tam explained, cutting in the repulsor shields, in case one of
the other speeders in the stream failed to brake soon enough.
"Nothing to worry about." With the repulsor shields
switched on, Jan felt slightly less vulnerable. Then the Skyranger
jolted as a long, sleek brown speeder with tinted visors slid
in slightly too close, kicking the shields into operation. Tam
scowled at the vehicle. "Business tycoons. They think they
own the flight-ways." He muttered something distasteful under
his breath, and Jan smiled slightly as she allowed her gaze to
wander.
She took in the other traffic with mild interest:
company speeders, light duty transports, sleek modern business
models, family junks and the odd Air Patrol skiff. The Skyranger
had been sandwiched between the elitist brown Dorland executive
model and a nondescript olds-mobile dressed in faded light blue
between the dents and rust patches. Intrigued by the appearance
of this defunct model, Jan peered more closely at the driver,
attempting to understand what kind of person might hang on to
a junk-pile like that. The window, however, reflected too much
light, shadowed the hulking shape of the Skyranger and the Dorland
beyond. Perhaps if she hadn't been looking at that window, she
might not have noticed the reflection of one of the Dorland's
windows sliding down - or the muzzle of a blaster that slid out
and aimed itself at her head.
Without speaking, she grabbed Tol-Rion and thrust
him forward, ducked down and shielded his body with her own as
she heard a muffled roar, the shattering of glass. Hot, jagged
fragments rained on her as the side window blew in, and she scraped
molten glass off her flesh. She felt Tol-Rion shiver slightly
as he realised he had just cheated death.
Tam watched as the windscreen shattered, peppered
with some of the fragments, and snapped a glance back in the direction
from which the blast had come. He reacted without thinking, slammed
the Skyranger into gear and proceeded to make space for the speeder
to get out of the traffic, bumping other vehicles to the side,
above and below.
Another blast punched through the hull of the Skyranger,
and shattered one of the back windows. Jan quickly drew her blaster:
a long-muzzled Blastech DL-44 with modifications. Without hesitation,
she used the weapon to knock out the remaining glass in the passenger
window and squeezed off a couple of shots at the Dorland, had
the satisfaction of seeing a ragged hole appear in the smooth
surface just below the window of the back door. Before the attackers
could return the fire, Tam smacked into the side of the olds-mobile,
shouldering it aside, slid in front as the driver punched angrily
on his horn. The traffic had started to move again, another speeder
slid into the empty slot where the Skyranger had been - in time
to receive a blast to the front fender, which exploded in molten
fragments.
"Get us out of here!" Jan shouted, glancing
back nervously to see if the gunman was about to try again.
"I'm trying!" Tam snapped with irritation,
eyes scanning the traffic flow for openings. Seeing none, he decided
to make his own again with the Skyranger, ramming other vehicles
aside. If the Skyranger had been a less powerful vehicle, such
a feat would have been impossible. Jan was grateful for small
mercies.
She heard another muffled blast, the sound of a
speeder's hull being torn asunder - but not the Skyranger's hull.
A terrified woman at the controls of the vehicle to the Skyranger's
right glanced disbelieving at the sleek brown Dorland, and the
gunman intent on taking her speeder apart to get at the Skyranger.
She accelerated, bumped the speeder in front, creating a temporary
open space between Dorland and Skyranger.
"Down!" Jan called in warning, and Tam
ducked. The driver's window blew outward and a ragged tear appeared
in the fabric of the door. Jan cried out as she felt something
tear at her back, sear her flesh.
"I'm hit." She gasped through the pain.
"Bad?"
"I don't think so." She arched her back
and sucked in a ragged breath as something wet began to soak her
thermal under-suit.
"There's a Med-kit in the store box! Hold
on!" Tam shouted, and Jan responded, snapped open the cubicle,
riffled among the contents and withdrew a small but heavy case.
Grimacing against the pain in her back, she took a pain capsule
and bit down hard, breaking the seal and allowing a soothing pain-nullifier
to slide down her throat. She did not dare ask Tol-Rion to look
at her wound. Nor was she willing to risk removing her armour:
it had just saved her life.
Tam hunched over the controls and slammed his foot
down. Spaces were opening up everywhere as the southbound traffic
took off. Tam kicked the Skyranger into a dive that slammed it
onto the roof of an accelerating Estate model, eliciting worried
cries and a scream from a young girl. As Tam accelerated, the
Skyranger snapped off the air vent and Channel Receiver aerial.
The alloy hulls screeched together as if in a longing kiss, then
parted as the Estate twisted away and scraped along the side of
a hulking white business mobile. The Skyranger growled to life,
speeding across a line of traffic coming up fast on the left.
Another blast punched a hole in the roof between Tol-Rion and
Jan.
"They're behind us." Jan growled with frustration, keeping
Tol-Rion bent forward and out of sight. He knew enough about their
situation not to complain, and the New Republic agent was grateful.
The last thing she needed was to cope with a hysterical citizen.
"Hold on." Tam gritted, and Jan barely
had time to take his advice before the grim-faced driver put the
Skyranger in a hard turn onto the Eastern Avenue, skidded past
the oncoming traffic, and proceeded to make headway up the one-way
flight stream, travelling in the wrong direction. Jan pressed
herself into her seat, expecting any moment to become just another
piece of debris on the street forty metres below. Somehow, Tam
avoided a collision. The howl and screech of buckling plasteel
evidenced that the Dorland had not. The long brown muzzle of the
business machine came on, swerving back and forth like the nose
of a mechanical shark desperately seeking prey.
Twisting in her seat, Jan took careful aim, fired,
and missed her intended target as the Dorland swerved to one side.
She squeezed off three more shots, which punched holes in the
windshield. The Dorland gained altitude, rising up behind the
Skyranger. The blaster spoke again, rupturing one of the power-channels
on the Dorland's underside. The big speeder whined with protest,
then climbed above the Skyranger, out of view.
"Dive! Take us down!"
Even as Jan shouted, the roof of the Skyranger
buckled down as the Dorland landed hard from above. Tam took the
vehicle down in a stomach-churning dive, almost to ground level.
The Dorland followed with deadly purpose, gained as it swerved
around the oncoming traffic. Tam gauged distance, speed, and at
the last moment took the Skyranger into a tight turn into a narrow
side alley not meant for speeder traffic. The speeder could not
straighten out properly, and the left side screamed along one
of the walls creating a fountain of sparks.
Jan lolled back in her seat and sucked a ragged
breath, hissed against the pain across her back. Her jaw clenched
as she looked back through the hole of the rear window. The Dorland
had not attempted to follow down the alley. No doubt they would
be looking for another way around, to intercept the crumpled Skyranger,
which now came out onto another avenue with light traffic.
"Where are we?"
"Second quadrant, I think." Tam grimaced.
"How far are we from the Space Port? Can we
make it?"
"We can surely try."
Hands shaking slightly from too many close calls,
Jan surveyed the damage the Skyranger had sustained. Mainly body
work. The controls remained functional. All windows were gone,
and the chill air rushed in, bracing them. As Tam drove on, he
studied his partner intently.
"Are you okay?"
"I've been better," Jan admitted quietly,
perspiration running down her ashen cheeks. "My back's on
fire, but it can't be too bad. I wouldn't be able to move otherwise."
"How about you, Tol-Rion? Are you okay?"
The Precept simply nodded, unwilling to test his
voice just yet. They fell silent, Tam wincing as he wrestled with
the controls, and Jan kept her eyes peeled for any sign of the
Dorland. As she searched the flight ways, her mind locked onto
the thing that had been bothering her: why the attempted assassination
now? Surely it would have been easier on the bullet train? Or
even lay in ambush at the Space Port? She could recall no details
of enemies from the assignment profile with the inclination to
go to such lengths to settle an old score. She knew Tol-Rion had
stepped on plenty of toes in his time, but there had never been
an incident serious enough to elicit such drastic measures. Just
why was this man so important? She chewed thoughtfully on her
lower lip, wiped the sweat off her palms on her trouser leg. The
blaster remained locked in her fist.
Tam wove a path down unnecessary avenues in an attempt
to shake any pursuit. Of the Dorland, she could see no sign, as
if it had only been a bad dream. The state of the Skyranger and
her own injury reminded her otherwise, kept her keenly alert.
Not alert enough, it seemed.
A hail of blaster fire suddenly chewed into the
front section of the Skyranger, ripping through the hull and most
of the flight cabin. Tam screamed, and suddenly lolled in his
seat, his hands slipping from the controls. The Skyranger immediately
slid into a spiralling dive. The sudden movement of the vehicle
saved Jan and Tol-Rion from being blasted to pieces under the
continuing fire.
"Tam!" Jan shouted at her partner, but
the man had slumped forward and to the side. He was either unconscious
or dead, but whichever it was, he would not be regaining control
of the speeder. Jan gritted her teeth in panic as she saw the
ground rushing up to meet them through the shattered wind-visor.
She did the only thing she could think to do, and threw herself
forward, grabbed the flight controls, and wrestled passionately
with them. She discovered she had no leverage, and quickly struggled
to get at least one leg into the front seat, over the back of
Tam. While she was otherwise occupied, her right hand jerked on
the flight stick, and the Skyranger lurched, started to roll onto
its back.
More blaster fire tore chunks out of the underside,
and came close to punching a hole in the engine. Jan almost fell
into place, and punched the accelerator pedal with her left hand
as her right compensated on the flight stick to correct the vehicle's
angle of descent. The Skyranger shuddered violently, and Jan forced
herself not to think about it. The vehicle remained aloft, and
that was all that mattered. She snarled with frustration as the
nose of the hulking vehicle slowly came up. She suspected it would
not be fast enough, but she didn't tell Tol-Rion.
You really messed up this time, she cajoled
herself. "Hold on, Tol-Rion!" She shouted back to her
ashen passenger, and just had time to kick the repulsor shields
up to full as the ground completely filled her vision. She squeezed
her eyes shut.
A heavy impact, a screech of twisted metal, a roar
of battered engines. She opened her eyes to witness the nose of
the Skyranger rebound from the floor of the alley, saw the hail
of sparks as the belly of the vehicle tore up a section of ferrocrete.
Then suddenly the battered speeder was five metres up in the air,
flailing from side to side like a drowning man trying to find
the surface of the water. She had managed to bring the nose up
just enough to prevent a head-on impact. Now she had to make the
most of it.
With no time for niceties, Jan sat on top of her
partner and assumed whatever control of the vehicle she could
muster. She kicked Tam's feet out of the way and positioned her
own over the pedals. She gripped the flight stick in her left
hand, and worked the other controls with her right. The Skyranger
steadied in the air, and although it shuddered with protest, it
began to accelerate.
That was just as well, because the Dorland was back
on their tail. She suspected it must have followed them down,
to witness the crash and make sure everyone was dead. She allowed
herself a tight-lipped smile of satisfaction as she imagined the
shock on their faces. She floored the accelerator, and the Skyranger
jolted forward. It jolted again. She hastily scanned the readouts
on the controls, but they had been shot to pieces, and offered
no explanation. Perhaps the power conduits had been damaged, or
the engine had suffered damage in the impact. It didn't really
matter. All she knew was that the Skyranger was shuddering with
protest, and barely managed to keep aloft. Blaster fire punched
another two holes in the rear of the vehicle, and the Precept
cried out in surprise.
"Return fire, Tol-Rion, or we're both dead!"
Jan shouted at her terrified passenger, and saw him reaching down
for the abandoned blaster. He found the weapon, and hefted it,
feeling the weight. "Aim as best you can!" She directed
urgently as she took the Skyranger down closer to the ground.
The refuse littering the alley was whipped up as
the speeder passed. The Dorland, ten metres above and to the side,
was well out of range of any fallout, but Jan was not really trying
to blind them. She needed to keep the Skyranger low to the ground
in the hope the repulsor shields would help to keep the vehicle
in the air and take some strain off the engine.
The sniper in the Dorland decided it was time to
take a few more pot shots at the sluggish vehicle. A section of
the roof in the passenger compartment disintegrated, and Tol-Rion
threw himself back in the seat to avoid the molten shrapnel. His
face twisted with fury, and Jan saw him prime the blaster, then
throw himself forward, under the hole in the roof. He aimed through
the unnatural vent and started returning fire. She could see he
was inexperienced with guns, because he did not expect the kickback.
She suspected some of his shots only managed to widen the hole
in the roof. A few got through, though, and two smacked into the
underside of the Dorland.
Their pursuers got the message, and began to weave
from side to side, making a harder target. It also kept the sniper
from getting a clean shot, as Jan had hoped. Then the Dorland
changed tactics, and started to lose height. She knew their intention:
the Skyranger was practically sitting on the ground as it was
- one heavy jolt from above, and it would slam into the ferrocrete,
probably destroying the vehicle - or perhaps they meant to crush
them in the process. Regardless, they would be instantly transformed
into a sitting target, and the sniper in the Dorland could pick
them off at will.
Jan was not about to let that happen. She had managed
to keep Tol-Rion alive this far, and had no intention of giving
up on her assignment. One way or another, she would deliver Tol-Rion
to the Space Port. All she had to do now was figure out how.
Then a glimmer of hope sparked in her eyes as she
saw what lay ahead. The entrance to a tunnel leading to the bullet-train
subway loomed in the middle-distance. It was not designed for
vehicles, only pedestrians - and only the foolhardy, because this
was a rough neighbourhood. It would serve her purpose well enough,
she suspected. The Skyranger was a big vehicle, but the tunnel
mouth was not exactly small.
She kept her foot pressed to the floor, and willed
the Skyranger to increase speed. It didn't. In fact, it seemed
to be slowing down. The Dorland continued it's descent, directly
above the vehicle, and Jan began to suspect they were not going
to make it to that welcoming bolt hole. Then she had another idea.
She would have to time it just right, but she thought it might
work.
As the Dorland came down to within two metres of
the Skyranger, she glanced up, watching keenly for the move she
knew must come. She was so intent on watching the nose of the
vehicle above, that she almost missed the sudden movement when
it came. The Dorland seemed to fall rapidly out of the sky - and
Jan reflexively slammed her foot on the decelerators as she simultaneously
thrust the vehicle into reverse. The Skyranger's engines screamed
with protest, but it slowed almost to a stop. The tail of the
Dorland clipped the Skyranger's nose, and then the heavy brown
speeder slammed into the ferrocrete of the alley floor, throwing
up a hail of sparks. Jan threw her head to one side as shards
of hot metal rained into the flight cabin, even as she punched
the accelerator once more. The Skyranger's nose smashed into the
rear engine of the other vehicle. The heavy impact smashed a metre
of metal before grinding to a halt, and Jan immediately kicked
her vehicle into reverse once more.
The two vehicles parted company.
The Dorland screamed along the alley floor, suddenly
without altitude or direction, simply carried by its momentum
toward the subway entrance. Jan quickly searched for Tam's sidearm,
found it and wrenched it free. She did not even bother to aim,
but started firing at the rear of the Dorland, partly to dissuade
any of the occupants from bailing out, partly to get her own back.
Then the Dorland disappeared in a hail of sparks as it entered
the tunnel. She thought she heard someone screaming as she forced
the Skyranger to gain height. Her action came not a moment too
soon, because the Dorland exploded. She must have hit the power
cells or something. The tunnel mouth filled with fire and smoke,
and shrapnel leapt out of the hole in a deadly hail.
A large piece of twisted metal rebounded off the
underside of the Skyranger as the vehicle clawed its way up to
an altitude of five metres. Jan floored the accelerator once more,
uncaring of the grinding sounds and heavy vibration that rattled
the vehicle. She had an assignment to complete.
*****
She checked for clearance, and brought the battered
black speeder limping into one of the docking bays of the Space
Port, the nerve centre of the planet's galactic relations. She
looked across at the silent, bloody body of her dead partner as
the Skyranger touched down. She had managed to manoeuvre Tam into
the front passenger seat with Tol-Rion's help, and checked him
over for life signs. The scorched and gaping holes in Tam's chest
and neck had already convinced her she would not find any. She
gritted her teeth and forced her jaw to stop trembling as she
powered down the hulk of scrap that had somehow managed to bring
them here. She could not afford tears just yet. This was not the
proper time for mourning her loss. She had yet to complete her
assignment.
When the sound of the tortured engine had died,
two rumpled figures staggered from the battered hulk. Before Tol-Rion
could pitch forward, Jan caught his arm, took his weight and helped
him over to the bay door. She ignored the fire of pain raging
across her back, even though she knew her injury was more serious
than she had at first believed. Tol-Rion also needed attention,
having sustained a number of injuries, and he had started drifting
into shock. Getting him to a Med-Lab once they were off world
would be a priority.
The docking bay door opened, allowing them entry,
and a reception committee filed out, headed by two high-ranking
officers, who were flanked by six armed guards. They took in Tol-Rion,
then noticed the Skyranger on the pad behind them.
"What happened, Agent?" A tall man snapped
forward, concern etching deep lines in skeletal features. Grim
grey eyes darted to and fro, nothing of the scene escaping them.
As he spoke, two of the guards paced forward to support Tol-Rion's
shaking frame between them.
"We had another reception committee on the
way here," Jan explained as she allowed the Republic soldiers
to take Tol-Rion off her shoulder. "They tried to convince
us to stay and take advantage of their hospitality." She
smiled humourlessly, and forced herself to remain upright, in
spite of the buzzing that filled her head and the grey fuzziness
that interfered with her vision.
"Are you all right?" A short, stocky Sullustan
strode forward, wearing a thick tan jacket. Dark eyes squinted
at her against the glare of a brightly-lit advertisement on the
wall behind her.
She chose to ignore his question. "Agent Darson is dead.
The Precept has been injured, and he's slipping into shock. He
needs immediate attention."
The tall officer turned to the guards holding the
sagging official upright. "Get him into the transport, and
notify the Med-Lab to prepare for a casualty. And make sure I
get a report on his condition as soon as possible."
The soldiers quickly left, carrying Tol-Rion between
them. Jan suddenly felt tired, and raked a hand through her hair,
as she sucked air between her teeth. She noticed the blaster in
her hand and gave it to one of the guards, who took it without
comment. The two officers arrested her attention.
"Did you see who it was?" A third man
in civilian clothes, a clean-cut gangly youth with brown eyes
and thick lips stepped toward the Skyranger, and started to survey
the damage.
"A light brown Dorland. Looked like a business
model. I couldn't catch the registration code, but then, I don't
think it had any. The blaster had the hallmarks of a high-power
assault weapon, maybe military issue."
"Impressive." The walking skeleton assumed
an incredulous expression, as if the very thought of an assassin
carrying military weaponry shocked him to the core. "Do you
seriously entertain the notion that this…" he gestured
at the wrecked Skyranger, "…could have been caused by
the local militia?"
"I didn't say that…sir," Jan started,
then realised the three were complete strangers to her.
"Forgive me. I'm Commander Novo Daan."
He extended a hand and Jan took it, shook once, and then released
herself from the vice-like grip. "This is Captain Brank Mordar,"
Daan turned to the stocky Sullustan. Jan acknowledged him with
a nod. "And Senator Trabus Garm, who was involved in the
negotiations with the local government." Daan indicated the
gangly youth, who smiled nervously as he looked up from investigating
the internal damage to the Skyranger. Jan arched an eyebrow at
the youth, who did not seem old or experienced enough to shoulder
such responsibilities. She nodded again and looked past Garm through
the entrance of the docking bay. Sounds drifted in from the flight-ways
- the city thrived, pulsing with kinetic life, an almost perpetual
motion that if stopped would indicate the city's death.
She knew of at least one who had died tonight.
Jan grimaced, and wondered if any of the Dorland's
passengers had survived in the subway tunnel. Then the grey fuzziness
filled her vision completely, and she felt her legs buckle under
her. She didn't feel the impact with the floor.