Chapter

11

PHANTOM; ON APPROACH TO YAMANTO SPACEPORT

The next day, after they'd made all the preparations they could possibly make, they headed for the planet again. Zak and Jaina sat in the cockpit, dressed in light combat armour supplied by the Glory's marines, blasted clean of all markings and colours and repainted black with thick white and thin red adjoining stripes slashing across the chest. Jaina's hair was knotted up, and Zak's was slicked down as much as he could force it. While he had no scars, a couple of fake ones had been applied very carefully, and very convincingly, to Jaina's face to give the impression she'd had a few close calls with a lightsaber or other cutting weapon.

Tash was in the main lounge, wearing much the same with a temporary, and ludicrous, bright pink dye job through her hair. Zak was wearing lenses that changed his eye colour to blue, and his own hair had a temporary black colouring.

With them was Irina Lacosea. When she had appeared in the Corellian Glory's hangar, she had been wearing a heavily modified Mandalorian suit she just happened to have possession of. It was coloured varying shades of green and yellow, with a short comm. antenna sticking out from a slimline pack on her back. The helmet's visor was cross-shaped, horizontal through vertical, and pointed at the tips. Several deep scratches along the gauntlets and shoulder cuffs, she'd told them, were to give the impression of a kill count. Zak had stopped counting after fifty scratch-marks, and he hadn't even been close to half-done.

The Corellian Glory and its escort corvettes remained still and hidden behind the moonlet-asteroid that orbited the planet, safe from Imperium scans. One of the Imperium's Star Destroyers had landed on the planet since the last sensor contact with them, on the largest platform which was located on the very outskirts of the spaceport.

Jaina identified for Zak that it was a smaller Victory-class cruiser, one of the few models to still possess landing capabilities carried over from its Old Republic predecessors. One of the other destroyers in orbit was also Victory-class, but remained close in with the larger destroyer—Imperial II-class. She bore signs of recent battle damage, and high resolution sensors on the Phantom had detected pinpricks of movement along the hull as repairs went underway. The sight of the damage made both Zak and Jaina smile.

None of the Imperium's ships spotted the Phantom during the approach to the planet. Or, rather, they did but didn't register the ship as what it really was. The much smaller ship dipped into the atmosphere unmolested before proceeding to skim below the cloud layer at a leisurely pace towards the planet's capital city, and its sprawling spaceport.

VISITOR HOUSING COMPLEX; YAMANTO

An hour later, after passing through all of the customs procedures Zak had passed through before with Jaina and the others, he preceded his sister and partner into the apartment they had rented for the duration of their stay. While Irina had paid good credits for two rooms—one for herself, one for "the help"—Zak had taken the extra precaution of mudding up the desk clerks memory, making him believe that there were only two armoured guards, instead of three.

Afterwards, they had split up. Irina went to her own room to freshen up and said she would expect them in ten minutes to discuss strategy. Though she had visited the city twice before, Zak, Jaina and Tash knew the layout better than she, and that knowledge would have to be shared if their mission was to stand any chance of success.

Zak couldn't help but feel a little crowded, however. Only three people had accompanied him to the surface, but a part of him wished that he had come alone, to accomplish the mission alone. He felt that it was his obligation, since he had been the one to vouch for Allina, and now she was dying. Tash had simply refused to let him go alone, and Jaina had added that with three of them they could better watch Irina Lacosea's behind.

Zak deposited his lightsaber carelessly on the soft-looking lounges in the entertaining area of the apartment as he went past.

The room itself was grander than he had expected, or even hoped for. It had a spacious entertaining area, not unlike the one he had seen in a vision of Jaina's future some years ago. A couple of soft lounges were present at one side of the room at a right angle from each other, with a singular comforter seat was angled towards the wall that boasted a large holoscreen. In an opposing corner of the room was a high-power holocomm unit that required one to be standing on the slightly elevated pad for their image to be transmitted.

While Zak recognised the unit for what it was, he had never had the chance to use one before, and hoped he would.

There was a kitchen off to the side; a one-step raise of wooden panelled flooring and cupboards and benches with a refrigeration unit slapped against the middle of one wall beside the wash basin. From the entertainment area, a short hall granted access to two rooms, one at each end.

Elsewhere in the city, per Luke Skywalker's suggestion, Captain Tenaha had dispatched three pairings of his best marines and a tech specialist who would all be residing in separate locations. Since the idea was to be covert, Zak guessed that they were all in civvies with any weapons and equipment well hidden. Jacen had flown them all down ahead of Zak's party on the Recluse, but if the situation became bad enough that there was no time to bring the shuttle back down, they would all be returning to the Glory on Zak and Jaina's ship.

Irrationally, Zak was worried that something might happen to those teams, that some mistake of his or some lucky break of the Imperium's might expose them all and that they would pay the price.

"Roomy," Tash said, looking around as she stepped up into the kitchen and opened the refrigeration unit.

"Got to be the highest-rated apartment complex in the city, Tash," Jaina pointed out. Zak seated himself on one of the sofa lounges. He sighed contentedly. "They'd be expected to maintain a high level of comfort in order to encourage a steady influx of customers."

"Normally, bodyguards wouldn't even get this much," Zak said. He was glad to be shot of his suit's helmet. The suit's conditioning systems weren't functioning properly and it was stifling to wear. He'd have to take a look at it before he put it back on.

Jaina scoffed. "Bodyguards. Indeed!" She sat on the soft comforter almost opposite him and sighed as much as he had. "So comfortable," she said with a smile. "Maybe we should take these with us … install them on the Phantom."

"I like this idea," Zak said with a sly smile. "But how would we get them to the spaceport without notice." It was all just talk, of course. Zak was no thief. But it gave him the idea to look into replacement seating whenever they reached their new home and he could devote time to such frivolous pursuits.

"Midnight run," Jaina suggested, shrugging, "cloaks instead of armour. Maybe some concealment sheets. Avoid all the lights, use the back alleys, and move only when the coast is clear. Might take a couple of hours with all of those precautions, but we'd get there eventually."

"Unfortunately," Tash interrupted from the kitchen, "neither of you has the luxury of just taking what you want when we're on an important mission. A girl's life hangs in the balance here, you know?"

"I know, I know," Zak responded. He lifted his arm, checked the chronometer strapped to his wrist and was surprised to realise he hadn't done so before to judge the passage of time. "How long left until we head to Irina's?"

"A couple of minutes," his sister replied. Clearly, she was the more responsible one. He smiled at her when he felt her read that thought.

Tash entered the room after a moment, carrying three short cups filled with dark, purplish liquid. She handed a cup to Zak, and another to Jaina before sitting down next to the latter and sipping from her own.

Zak sniffed at his curiously; found that he didn't recognise the scent. He sipped timidly from the drink and tried to ignore the glances both the girls were shooting him.

"This is a bad idea," Tash finally said.

"And this is pretty good," Zak responded. He held up his cup. "What is it?"

"Jawa Juice," Jaina told him after sipping from her own and screwing her nose up. She set her cup down and didn't so much as glance at it again.

Zak nodded, turned his gaze back to his sister. "And you're not the only one that thinks so," he clarified gruffly. "Jaina doesn't think we should expend the effort, Captain Tenaha thinks the risk is too great and the reward uncertain. Jacen is just worrying like Jacen always does and Rebekah, Anakin and Tenel Ka don't think I should be involved at all.

"As for my own worries?" He paused, sipped again, swallowed and sighed. "I don't like riding second seat. Irina is putting herself at great risk, since we're not absolutely sure that we're going to get away with our planned deception. On top of that, the soldiers that the captain sent down to cover us in the event of the plan going sideways are running the risk of being discovered also. I've met some of those soldiers. They're not the quickest, nor the best liars I've ever come across."

"Some would say not being a good liar is a great thing," his sister chided him with a frown of disapproval that made him feel like shrinking back into his chair. Years ago, when they had lived on Alderaan, such a look would have sent him scurrying for their parents in terror, or frozen him in place for minutes before he could recover enough wit to respond sarcastically.

"Not in this instance," Jaina said with a sideways glance. Zak was glad that she understood, but then he knew that Tash was aware of the necessity for deception as well.

Tash nodded, blinked twice rapidly, and then said, "Time." She gulped down the rest of her drink, got up from the seat, and started towards the door. On her way past the kitchen, she flung her cup into the wash basin, where it ringed the edge spectacularly before falling in with a dull clunk. Zak emptied half of his own before putting it down next to Jaina's on the table and following his sister out.

Jaina was still locking the door to their apartment when Irina answered Tash's knock on the adjacent door. The door swung outward, old-fashioned style, to admit them. She gestured them in, glancing around outside before she pulled the durasteel panel back into the doorframe and flipped the electronic lock.

"Nice," was all Zak managed after a quick look around.

"Why thank you," the woman replied. "Are we ready to discuss business, my young friends?"

"We are," Jaina said quickly.

"Prime!" Irina clapped once as she spoke, and then pressed a button on the data reader she had brought down with her and placed on the kitchen counter.

A chip must already have been inside the reader slot, because when the device spun to activation, information was already displayed by holo above the device. Jaina easily recognised the complete schematics of a standard Victory-class star destroyer, fully labelled with known weapon and sensor hard points, shield generators and ECM antennae, fighter hangars and engine pods.

Tacked onto the image were other notes as well. Whether the extra information had been gleaned by the NRI operative on the way to the planet, or had been in NRI archives prior to her dispatch from Coruscant, Jaina did not know. But also labelled on this particular destroyer was its name, registry codes and fleet attachment information. In a margin along the left side of the image was a short list of names—command and other key staff on board the ship as per last record.

In particular, Jaina took keen notice of the spot on the underside of the ship, portside-aft, where a primary power distribution conduit had been marked off as having been diverted closer to the hull than was normal for that class of ship. If it came down to a shooting match, the ship could be crippled just by targeting that. The power conduit looked like it was connected to the primary engines as well as the star-bound thrusters, descent thrusters, and hyperdrive control. If they were lucky, perhaps weapons and shields as well. But Jaina could not remember the last time she had been lucky in such a serious engagement.

"Night Sky," Irina started, pointing to a spot foremost of the command block. "Not the ship's control hub."

"What?" This took Jaina by surprise. "You have accurate information on that?"

"Though I probably shouldn't be disclosing it, there used to be an operative on board that ship a year ago. Current status unknown, but all of this information had been transmitted before the operative went dark. What would be a primary command bridge on other ships of this class has been wired as a secondary in this one. All primary ship functions have been routed to a chamber of equal size here." She pointed to a spot along the upper spine of the ship, halfway towards the point at the fore.

By no means did the indicated position look like it was really a command bridge, but Jaina considered that perhaps the information was accurate.

"I suspect," started Jaina, "that if they even agreed to allow you access to the ship, that information wouldn't be disclosed. You wouldn't be allowed near the real bridge. You'd be led to believe the secondary was the real thing."

"My thoughts exactly," the woman replied with a nod. "And that's fine with me. My objective is to get aboard, not to take control. Miss Perisca and your uncle told me that the best place to be searching for this information would be the medical bays. It's likely the computers there run off their own server within the Second's fleet, and might have the information stored only on those machines."

"Logical deduction," Zak offered.

"Wish I'd thought of it," Irina admitted.

"Have you thought of a story for why you'll be spending time in the med labs? I doubt they'll be unstaffed, and any staff there will question your reason for being there."

"Not yet. I'm confident I'll have an acceptable excuse by the time I get there, though." Another smile, and Zak frowned again. "Just leave small details to me, okay, handsome?"

Zak blushed again and the girls laughed at him for it. "Fine. But just take us into consideration for any plan you develop. We're here to keep you from being shot in the back if they find out who you are. I can't speak for the girls, but I wouldn't want my first task as a Jedi—official or not—to end up being a failure."

Irina's expression sobered, and she put a gentle hand on his shoulder, gave it a squeeze. "Don't dwell on the negative outcomes, just because they're possible. A good friend of mine—a Jedi, I might add—told me that once. It saved my life."

"I have the sneaking suspicion the man that told you that told me the very same thing not two years ago," Zak grumbled.

"Then what are you worried about?" She clapped his shoulder and then removed her hand.

After a moment in which he didn't reply, she turned back to the reader and switched it off, removing the data card from within and handing it to Jaina.

"You've got your father's mind for ships, I hear," she started. Jaina nodded, tucking the card into an inner pocket beneath the armour. "Take a look. A good look. You should familiarise yourself with the entire ship in case I need you to crack in and extract me. I'm unsure what kind of security their computers are going to have, but I'm assuming that finding what we're after is going to set off some serious alarms."

Jaina nodded. "When are you planning on insertion?"

"I need to bring myself to the attention of their commanders in a way that's not too obvious or suspicious." The woman stroked her chin for a moment, considering. "I can only plan so far for now. All of my other plans hinge on being given access to the ship. If we try to crack in to slice the data we need, it's likely to result in a full system lockdown. We won't achieve our directive, and the girl will die."

Determined, Zak said, "Then I'll leave that up to you."