6
Pieces of the Puzzle
Unlike most Star Destroyers, Errant Venture came with a considerable number of amenities thanks to the entrepreneurs who had set up shop. Wedge and Booster sat in a corner booth in one of the ship's cantinas. The Rogues had stopped by briefly for formalities and handshakes, but they hadn't stayed for long. As expected, Booster had gone for Whyren's Reserve. Wedge, meanwhile, had opted for a non-alcoholic fruit beverage-he couldn't afford to be buzzed in the event of an emergency.
'The news of the TIE Hunters has the Empire quite angry,' Wedge remarked.
Booster grunted, his voice thick with sarcasm. 'A Moff stealing supplies and funding pirate scum? How unexpected.' He punctuated his reply by downing the contents of his glass.
'Point,' said Wedge. 'Still, though, it's worrying. You can't just fish up a few squadrons of Hunters out of nowhere. Eyeballs and squints? Sure, those are easy enough to find, but acquiring rare fighters like the ones we faced today? That might be grounds for some actual concern there, Booster.'
The old smuggler considered the point for a moment, scratching idly at his chin. 'Maybe. But if I had a few more turbolasers on this thing, I might-'
'Look, Booster, I don't think I'm at liberty to-'
'Bantha fodder, Wedge. You're a general now, and I've got to protect my business interests. After the last war, my crew's been aching for some extra protection on this tub. Besides, I've even got the perfect excuse for you.'
Wedge raised a tired eyebrow. 'Shoot.'
Booster leaned in close, his eyes bright with a mischievous glint. 'Say my crew and I volunteered to help you out out of a legitimate need to protect our business interests here in the Rim. Of course, with our rather, erm, inadequate armament, you saw fit to restore some of Venture's weapons and tractor beams to make sure we could survive the rigors of this glorious little warlord hunt you've got going, maybe even sent a few spare parts our w-'
A loud beep interrupted Booster's scheming. Wedge pulled a commlink from his pocket and activated it, apologizing to Booster as he stepped out of their booth.
'Go ahead,' he said into the receiver.
Luke's voice crackled as the commlink relayed his message. 'Wedge, we've got a situation. You're needed back at the ship.'
'Solid copy, Luke. I'm on my way.'
As Wedge ran off back to the Tiger Claw, Booster poked his head out of the cantina and yelled, 'Think about it, Wedge! We'll be a hell of a lot more useful if you give us some firepower!'
The space station was on fire and it wasn't their fault. Well, this time, anyway. Voort 'Piggy' SaBinring backtracked down to the Wraiths' escape vehicle as blaster fire whipped down its length. Shouldering a stolen E-Web, the Gamorrean let rip on full auto, cutting down a mob of mercenaries and Maw stormtroopers. Myri Antilles popped out from a nearby alcove and fired a burst to add to the wall of fire. Piggy rounded the corner and took cover as Daala's mercenaries returned fire.
'Flash out!' yelled Myri, raising her wrist launcher and firing a flash grenade. A second later, the detonation rang down the corridor, as did the disoriented yells of their mercenary pursuers. She followed up with a frag grenade and turned tail to run as Piggy covered her. Stopping to brace himself again, Piggy fired at the next wave of attackers. All but one were scythed down by the hail of blaster bolts. That last one wore a robe of black, red, and gold, and a mask carved in the shape of a stylized sharp-toothed skull. Lord Kharak chuckled darkly as he reveled in his newly returned vitality, deflecting every single shot that came at him.
Behind Piggy, the blast doors to their stolen ship's docking port slid open ever so slowly. In a vain effort to hold the Dread Master back, he kept firing. This was just ridiculous, he thought, how in Space does someone swing a lightsaber around that quickly? Oh, right. Midichlorians.
Slowly, Lord Kharak advanced, and slowly, the doors opened. Abruptly, Lord Kharak stopped in his tracks, winged by a sonic blast from the other side of the door. Huhunna roared as she fired a concussion rifle again and again at the Dread Master. The other Wraiths in the docking tube lent their support as well, opening up on the Dread Master. In response, Kharak reached out with the Force and hurled a forklift at them. In response to that, Huhunna shot him one last time and the Wraiths did what they did second-best: run away.
'You couldn't have gotten us anything faster?' Piggy asked, settling into the cockpit of a rickety old Citadel-class civilian cruiser.
'Nothing that would fit all of us,' replied Trey Courser, his arms buried up to their elbows in an opened instrument panel. 'Just give me a second to fix our navicomputer and we'll be able to make the jump to hyperspace.
'Noted,' Piggy grunted. 'Three, Five, get on the ion turrets. Hit the station's turbolaser arrays now, or we won't be leaving this station at all.'
Myri and Jesmin both barked affirmatives and made way to the ion cannons in the cruiser's aft section as their ship broke away from its docking tube. Piggy felt the ship vibrate slightly as the turrets went to work, disabling the station's defenses long enough for them to escape. By the time the Maw Irregular forces aboard the station scrambled fighters to intercept the Wraiths, they were long gone.
Old age was most definitely not fun, Wedge thought to himself as he reached the Tiger Claw's bridge, huffing and panting. Luke waved him over to the holo-projector. A number of other officers gathered around the hololith as well. Commander Sara Konnair, Polearm Leader, saluted Wedge as he entered. The others followed suit soon after they noticed his arrival. Syal and Aresh, still in their flight gear, entered behind Wedge. Piggy, the Wraiths' commander, inserted a datachip into the hololith console. A hologram of the galaxy manifested above the projector with a series of dots and line segments clustered in a corner of the Outer Rim. Most of these locations were just a few hyperspace jumps away.
'General,' Piggy began, 'this is a star map, or rather, a piece of one. During our last mission, we managed to steal this from one of Daala's Star Destroyers while it was docked at one of her space stations. This one was assigned to patrol the following routes, highlighted in yellow. If you'll notice, this patrol route takes this Star Destroyer to the Maw.'
'So if we capture more of those star maps,' Aresh muttered, 'we can piece them together to get a look at all of Daala's patrols and most of the potential routes into the Maw.'
'Correct,' Piggy replied. 'And about that, er, I have good news and bad news.'
'And the good news?' Captain Tomar asked.
'My team's extraction was, er, rather violent. Security is bound to increase after the Wraiths' little caper. By a lot. I'm not sure if we'll be able to play Hawkbat as easily anymore.'
Wedge sighed. 'Wonderful. Well, the point is that you guys got home safe. Good job on the find, Piggy. What's the bad?'
Piggy paused before speaking to make sure everyone was listening. 'Daala has at least one Force wielder on her payroll. Very nasty, very dark side. Also very dapper, but that's neither here nor there.'
'Oh,' said Luke. 'Oh dear.'
Wedge turned to his old friend and raised an eyebrow. 'Is this that disturbance you felt?'
'I'm almost certain,' the Jedi Master replied, his voice heavy with worry. 'And you know what that means.'
Captain Tomar nodded. 'I'll put in a requisition order for more concussion weaponry.'
'And Ben and I will take a quick field trip to Myrkr to pick up some ysalamiri,' Luke added.
'Are you sure, sir?' Tomar asked. 'I can just put in a requisition to Myrkr Base and-'
Luke waved it off, saying, 'It's alright, Captain. Something tells me Ben and I should be the ones to do it.' What he didn't tell them was that he'd met Mara on Myrkr so many years ago. It would be nice to enjoy a brief moment of nostalgia, to think about things other than war. And there was, in fact, a little sensation in the Force that nagged at him. Why was the Force pulling him there, of all places? And why did this feel so very contrived and convenient?
