Chapter Twenty-Six: Making Friends on Coruscant
Kyle Katarn stretched until his back popped. Behind him, Jan Ors groaned as she popped her neck. "Whose idea was this?" she asked.
"Yours."
"Oh yeah."
They stood in a grain storage crate four meters high and two meters square. After using the Force to search for any presences nearby, Kyle used his lightsaber to cut an opening in the crate. Only then did he and Jan dare take off their breathers. They found themselves on top of a very high wall of similar crates in a warehouse large enough to house a dreadnaught.
"Where are the rest?" Jan asked.
Kyle began pointing out the marked crates that housed their comrades. "We're going to have a heck of a time getting them out," Jan noted. "They must be a hundred meters off the ground."
"Look down, Sweetheart," Kyle said. "We're a hundred meters off the ground."
"Oh yeah. Any ideas?"
Every one of the infiltration units was equipped with a grappler, of course, so they could repel down easily enough. It was getting out of the crates that was the problem. All the units were on complete com silence. It was Kyle who was supposed to get the first of them out. But they were a hundred meters off the ground, and the other crates were across a very wide chasm.
They both heard a mechanical humming above their heads and looked up to see a loading arm swinging back with another crate. With the Force Kyle could sense more Rebel agents inside. "That's the ticket," he said as he pulled his grappler out and began swinging it.
"Kyle, I don't like where that rusty brain of yours is going," Jan said.
"Hang on anyway," he instructed. He threw the hook and then held out a hand, guiding his own throw with the Force. The hook flew straight and true and wrapped around the loading arm of the huge crane. He just had time to wrap an arm around Jan and kiss her. "For luck," he said.
"And forgiveness for doing this to me!" Jan said with a scream at the end as the loading arm yanked both from their crate. Hundreds of meters below them, empty space swung dizzily by.
"I'm going to let go," he said. "Be prepared to drop and roll."
"What?" Jan asked urgently.
Kyle let go and pushed to make sure she did as well. She screamed as she fell three meters onto the top of the perfectly square, tightly packed crates. Still, training and instinct overcame her fear of heights as she let her knees bend and take her into a shock-absorbing roll. A moment later Kyle joined her. She grabbed his spacer's vest and pulled him close, her eyes glinting dangerously. "Do not do that again," she whispered.
He kissed her again. "Sorry."
"Not yet, you aren't," she snapped back. "You might as well turn off your hot water, nerfherder!" Still fuming, she unrolled her own grappler, hooked it securely onto one of the grate hooks, and took a deep breath. "I can't tell you how much I hate this."
"I know, Jan," Kyle said, more gently this time. He pulled his own grappler back from the retreating loader arm and did the same. Together, they went over the side of the crate, confident the weight of the grain and the grates themselves would prevent the whole stack from toppling.
With a tap of his lightsaber or her vibroknife to let those inside know what was coming, the rebels quickly began cutting their fellow agents out of the crates used to smuggle them onto Coruscant.
The process took a long time. Even packed ten men to a crate, when trying to infiltrate the center of the Empire with a strike force of many hundreds of agents, transportation became a real problem.
The only weak point in Coruscant's defenses was food. With nearly a trillion people and very little in the form of food production, Imperial Center shipped in the equivalent of three agriculture planets' gross domestic harvest nearly every month. The flow of food was so great, in fact, that not even the most strenuous security checks could hope to police it all. This was Jan's point when she suggested using the standard black and gray grain crates to get onto the planet.
The process of freeing the agents grew more efficient as the freed agents themselves began helping. In the end, they had the entire taskforce freed. Of course, since it took the better part of two hours to free every one, someone was bound to discover them.
The fact that "someone" happened to be a squad of storm troopers on patrol was simply how the sabacc hand fell, as far as Kyle was concerned.
The storm troopers came around a corner in a squad of four troopers and one officer, and simply stared at the gathering of what looked like an army of armed civilians. "What is happening here?"
"Surprise!" Jan yelled, thinking quickly. "It's your lifeday!"
The officer blinked. "It is not!"
"Too bad," Kyle said before shooting the officer.
The stormtroopers went for their rifles, but then thought better of it as two thousand, four hundred well trained Rebel SpecOps troopers raised their own weapons.
Half an hour after that, wearing storm trooper armor again for the first time in years, Kyle nodded to Major Derlin. "Break up, spread out. Go to your pre-assigned rendezvous points and wait for the Intelligence officers to pick you up."
"Good luck, Colonel," Derlin said.
"You too, Major."
Beside him, looking rather short in her armor, stood Jan Ors. "I ever tell you how much I like women in armor?" Kyle said.
"I bet you say that to all the armored women you meet."
He winked. "As a matter of fact, I do." He pulled on his helmet. After pulling her hair into a tight bun, Jan did the same. Together, they began walking toward the far entrance of the warehouse.
"So where do we go first?" Jan asked.
"InviSec," Kyle said. "We need to check on some things for Han. They should be coming in the next few days, and we need to make sure they're welcomed in style."
As they walked down a wide corridor lined with some crates as small as a person and some as large as a building, they heard a loud rumble from one of the larger, building-sized crates. "What was that?" Jan asked.
Kyle stopped and reached out with the Force, recoiling quickly as he did so. "Something nasty," he said. "Let's hurry up and get out of here."
A door hissed open at the end of the corridor and a squad of twenty storm troopers rushed out led by an Imperial lieutenant. "You!" he said when he spotted Jan and Kyle. "Where is the rest of your patrol and why haven't you checked in yet?"
"There was a malfunction in the loading arm that dropped a crate on our lieutenant," Kyle lied quickly. "We were going for help."
"Why not call it in?" the officer demanded.
"I don't know, sir."
"What is your ID number?" the officer called.
"1138 S I T H S P I T," Kyle said.
The officer removed a piece of flimsiplast and dutifully took notes. Not even when it was spelled out in his own hand did he… "That number is not the correct format. Wait, what is this?" he demanded angrily as he finally did notice the word the "ID Number" spelled.
"Our exit," Kyle said.
He and Jan turned and ran.
"After them!" the lieutenant called.
"Kyle?" Jan asked.
"Yeah."
"Any Jedi tricks up your sleeve?"
"Just one," Kyle said. From the utility belt of the armor he wore, Kyle removed his lightsaber and ran toward the building-sized crate with the odd rumbling. With a quick, efficient slice he removed the magnetic lock control. "Run!" he shouted as the entire wall of the crate began moaning.
It took a Force push for Jan and a Force jump for Kyle himself to clear the way as the wall came thundering down to the floor. From the menacing darkness of the unlit crate emerged a nightmare.
It was a rancor, but only in the sense an Executor-class super dreadnaught was a star destroyer. This creature hulked larger than any rancor Kyle had ever heard of. But more than that, the creature had obviously been mutated almost beyond recognition. Huge viols of green fluid each the size of a human ran in two rows down its bent spine, connected directly into the creature's thick skin. Its eyes were completely covered with large metal plates that appeared to have been bolted directly to its bone.
The whole thing throbbed with the Dark Side of the Force.
"What is that thing?" Jan asked.
"Must be one of Palpatine's pets," Kyle said.
They slowed as they heard screams behind them. The mutated rancor was spraying the unlucky lieutenant and his troopers with some green corrosive fog that killed them instantly and literally caused the surrounding crates to explode.
"By the Force!" Kyle muttered.
With terrifying speed, the rancor swung its huge, blind head toward them. "Kyle, I think it can hear us," Jan said.
It roared loud enough to make all the crates rattle. "I think you're right," Kyle said.
"What should we do?" she said.
"I'm thinking about running. You?"
"Sounds good."
They turned and ran. The rancor followed with an angry roar. Activating the com system in his helmet, Kyle said, "This is TK 241 in the Sector 2546-A warehouse. We have a rancor on the loose. Requesting immediate assistance with heavy weapons. Repeat, we have a rancor on the loose. Need immediate assistance with heavy weapons."
The reply was immediate. "Say again, TK241. Did you say a rancor?"
Behind them, the rancor roared again. "Affirmative, control," Kyle said.
"Stay put, TK. Help is coming."
The message ended and Kyle took off his helmet. Jan followed his lead. "What now?"
"We shed the armor and keep running," he said.
Leaving behind a trail of white storm trooper armor for the rancor to follow, they ran as quickly as they could through the confusing maze of the warehouse. Wherever they went, it seemed the rancor was just a step behind, bulldozing its way through not just crates, but walls as well. "What did we ever do to that thing?" Kyle asked.
"I don't know, but whatever it was, I'm sure it's your fault," Jan said. They turned a corner around a stack of crates and faced a complete dead end with a containment field blocking their only path. "Oh Sithspit," she said.
"See that!" Kyle asked urgently.
"What?"
"That vent?"
"Yeah."
"I think that's an emergency flood valve."
"Okay."
Behind them, a crate the size of a landspeeder flew against the wall and shattered in a spray of Ithorian fire sprouts. The rancor emerged a second later, sniffing loudly.
"The vent it is," Jan decided.
Kyle pulled his lightsaber and the two sprinted across the corridor to the vent. Kyle had it open in a single efficient slash and Jan climbed in first. Kyle waited as the massive creature lumbered up behind him. He heard a long intake of breath from the rancor and knew he did not have time to climb in.
"Here I come!" he shouted as he dove in headfirst just as a spray of green death enveloped the vent. He felt a chemical heat against the heel of one boot as he plummeted into the darkness below.
He landed in old, fetid water as the angry roars of the rancor were suddenly interrupted by heavy weapons fire. "Jan?" he asked. "Where are you?"
He felt her hand on his arm. "I've found a way out. It should let out in the middle of the warehouse district."
Kyle took a deep breath and calmed himself. "Hey Jan?"
"Yeah."
"Have I told you lately how much I love you?"
"Not since this morning, and I'm definitely holding a grudge about it."
"Well, I love you."
"That's better. Now get your arse in gear. I don't even want to think about what else is floating in this water!"
~~Last Son~~
~~Last Son~~
A Golan III Space Defense NovaGun was nearly as powerful as an Imperial I- class star destroyer, sporting 50 turbolaser batteries and 24 proton torpedo launchers. It held a complement of more than a dozen star fighters and had a crew of 880 technicians and over 200 gunners.
A Golan II was only slightly smaller, with 35 turbolaser batteries, 10 proton torpedo launchers and a bay with 12 or more star fighters. Its crew compliment was 550 with 149 gunners. The Alliance was going to take those platforms held in geosynchronous orbit over the Imperial Palace.
"That's a tall order," Lieutenant Blunt said.
The lieutenant was one of several deep-cover agents who had been seeded to Coruscant over the last six months. Like the other agents, he was one who went to the many rendezvous sites to collect the SpecOps teams.
The meeting itself consisted only of the deep cover agents and the officers of the taskforce. The rest of the soldiers had been split back up and positioned in strategic teams around the city.
Kyle shrugged. "That's just the tip of the asteroid. Not only do we have to take the platforms, we need to keep the Imperials from realizing that we've taken them."
Blunt and the other agents stared back at Kyle as if… "You're insane," Blunt said.
"Yes, but I'm pretty," Kyle snapped back. "Now listen up, this isn't a joke. We are going to take those platforms or a lot of our friends are going to die. And we have one week to do it."
One of the other agents, a strikingly beautiful woman with black hair and Kiffar tattoos across her cheeks, shrugged. "It can't be done."
"It can," Jan said. "It must. And we start here, now."
"I want observation teams on every man and woman in those platforms," Kyle said. "I want to know who they are, where they live, when they go to work and when they come back. This is domestic duty for most of them, so chances are they live on the surface rather than on Centax 1. I want to find any patterns we can exploit, and windows of opportunity we may have. And this must be done in absolute silence. With the fleet of star destroyers, missile boats and support ships in permanent station over Coruscant, this is very important. One inkling that the Empire has lost control of an orbital defense platform, and we're all dead."
Blunt looked at the Kiffar agent, and then at the rest of the agents. "Okay, let's get started."
It took the intelligence agents two days to discover two key points of interest: 1) each shift ended at the same time each day; and 2) each shift received leave at the same time.
This interested Kyle and his command team especially because of how unusual it was to keep work shifts together instead of constantly rotating personnel. They soon determined the reason—the commander in charge of coordinating the shifts was having an affair with one of the shift leaders, a young female lieutenant who was admittedly quite attractive, and several years (even decades) younger than the commander.
The commander's amorous relations with this young lieutenant were complicated by his wife of twenty-five years. Hence, the lieutenant's shift always ended in the middle of the day, allowing her and the commander to have the afternoon together without the wife's knowing. This had a ripple effect on the other shifts with the result that the same cadre of people all served at the same time in the same shift day in and day out.
Of course, Intelligence pointed out to Kyle that the wife was having an affair with the commander's non-commissioned aide at the same time and knew exactly what was happening with her spouse, but enjoyed the relative wealth of an Imperial commander's pay grade too much to change the status quo.
"Still," Jan noted upon reading the reports, "you ever do anything like that to me and you're a dead man."
"Does that mean we're going to get married someday?"
"No, it just means if you ever cheat on me you're going to be a dead man."
Kyle kissed her neck and said, "Good to know where I stand."
The second part of the operation made many of the Alliance executives over Madine squeamish, but both Katarn and the General knew it had to be done. Madine issued the orders not to the SpecForce squads, but to Katarn's SpecOps teams directly.
SpecOps teams had little trouble committing murder. Many of them were, in fact, former criminals under Imperial law. In the course of one night two weeks after the still unreported theft of the Black Sword ships at N'zoth, whole shifts of Imperial Navy personnel were hunted down, murdered, and then thoroughly disposed of.
The commander and his lieutenant lover were killed in a rented room and their bodies were quickly vaporized. The commander's wife and her own corporal lover were murdered in the commander's own bed.
In the end, the intelligence agents and SpecOps task force killed and vaporized thousands of people in cold blood. It was unlike any mission Kyle had ever been a part of for the Alliance, and when the last report of successful assassination came in, Kyle felt filthy.
"Now I know how Leia felt with the Black Sword fleet," he muttered in the small rented room a few hundred klicks south of the palace that served as their headquarters.
"If we tried taking the platforms by force, they would have died as well," Jan pointed out.
"They would have died fighting in uniform. These people were killed in civilian dress on their days off."
Jan sat beside Kyle and wrapped an arm around his waist. "Knowing what's coming, I find myself looking at the people around the palace. Did you know there is not a single school within fifty kilometers of the palace? It's like no one that close has children, or if they do they get their kids as far away as they can."
"They may not have kids at all," Kyle pointed out. "The people that close to the palace are rich. The rich tend to either inherit it, or earn it. Those who earned it are likely older, those who inherit it don't generally care about politics as much and so wouldn't live that close to the palace." He turned and looked at her. "Are you saying this to make me feel better?"
Jan shrugged, and then pushed his shoulders back and straddled his lap, facing him. "I can't tell you if what we're doing is right or wrong, Kyle. But I'll tell you this. I believe in what we're fighting for. I believe in the Alliance. I believe in you. And I do love you."
"So does that mean we're going to be married some day?"
She kissed him. "No, you idiot. It just means I love you."
"That's enough, I guess."
~~Last Son~~
~~Last Son~~
Han and Leia stood on the bridge of the newly commissioned Freedom's Hammer, the Alliance's first super star destroyer. The two of them were reading over the reports from the operation on Imperial Center. So far, none of the agents had been compromised.
Nearby the couple stood Colonel Antilles, overseeing the last steps of preparation for the Freedom Hammer's deployment. The ship was not finished by any means, which was why it was at N'zoth in the first place. However, most of the unfinished areas involved crew quarters and cosmetics, as the weapon and drive systems were always completed first on a star destroyer.
"Colonel," Han said as Wedge joined them.
Wedge smiled and took Han's hand. "General. Princess. Are you two ready?"
They nodded and the three of them left the command deck toward the conference room on the same level. There they found Admiral Ackbar, General Madine, General Rieekan, General Calrissian and finally Mon Mothma herself waiting for them. Kale and Mara were nowhere to be seen.
The door closed and locked behind the last three arrivals.
"This meeting is classified as highest confidentiality. We have designated 24:00 hours Coruscant time tomorrow as H-Hour," Ackbar began. "We have already sent coded transmissions to our assets on the planet. We have dedicated the vast majority of our resources to this campaign."
Madine leaned forward. "Before we finally commit, however, there is something we need to discuss."
Leia had been waiting for this for weeks, even before she and Han went to the Koornacht Cluster. "The message from Vader," she said.
Mon tried to smile. "We know how difficult it has been for you, knowing that he is your biological father."
"I got over it," Leia said. "I didn't find his hospitality or fatherly concern much to my liking while I was there."
Mon's smile looked strained; Madine did not even try to smile. "I'm more concerned about the message than its origin," he said. "Winter has previously expressed a great deal of misgiving over Ms. Jade's conversion to the Alliance, and while I trust you implicitly, I trust her as well. After our debriefing and further review, I have to admit I share this distrust. Jade was as highly placed and trained of an agent for the Empire as there was, possibly second in the Emperor's eyes only to Vader himself. Whatever misfortunes may have fallen on her, I find it hard to believe she would convert just for Captain Naberrie."
Leia could not help but smile. "Crix, I don't think you could understand." She turned to Mothma. "You've seen his eyes, haven't you?"
The leader of the Alliance actually blushed. "Well…."
Madine, Rieekan and Ackbar shared a long look.
"He's a handsome boy with an earnest face," Calrissian said, evidently more secure that the others. "And he can fly through star destroyers. I can see the attraction a woman might have for him. I personally think Mara really is in love with him. The rest just kind of follows."
"He's in love with her, anyway," Han pointed out. "And let's face it; the kid is our Pure Sabacc in this game. He's the only one who has a chance against the Emperor's pet Kryptonians and the Emperor or Darth Vader himself."
"We are actually timing the invasion to coincide with Vader's absence," Ackbar said. "We have determined that Lord Vader and his fleet departed Coruscant for the Outer Rim territories this morning. The Oversector fleet should be at Anaxes. The Capital is at its least defended in five years, and the window will only remain open for three more days."
Han nodded. "So, the time is right. The question is what do we want to do about Mara?"
"We want to keep her out of the battle," Madine said. "I believe we should drop her off at Dantooine for the duration of the battle."
"With all due respect, General," Leia said, "she has invaluable knowledge of the Imperial Palace and security codes in general. Even if they've changed the codes, I believe she is too valuable NOT to take on this mission."
"You will be placing yourselves in the Emperor's hands if Operation Freedom's Hammer does not work."
"If it doesn't work, we're all dead anyway," Han said. "Even Kale."
"We will keep her with us," Leia promised. "Kale may be smitten, but in each of his past encounters with her, he has never let his feelings for her put any of the rest of us in mortal danger." She continued quickly before someone reminded her of Kyle Katarn's close encounter with Mara's lightsaber. "I don't believe he will do that now."
Mon locked Leia in a long gaze. "I hope so, Leia, for all our sakes. She could be the end of everything we, and your father, have fought for all these years."
"Mara will not let us down," Leia said. However, in her mind, she prayed for her words to be true.
The Force was oddly silent on the subject.
~~Last Son~~
~~Last Son~~
"They don't trust me," Mara said.
Kale rolled onto his side on his bed and looked at her, their faces so close their noses touched. Her hand rested on his chest, his hand cupped the inner curve of her hip.
"It doesn't matter," Kale told her. "I trust you."
"Why is that again?"
"Because I love you."
A slow smile crept across her lips as she kissed him. "Better not forget that."
"I never could."
Half an hour later, as she rested on him, she said, "Kale?"
"Yeah."
"I have to go with you."
He looked down into the emerald depths of her eyes. "Have to?"
"I can't explain it. Call it a hunch. Call it the Force. But I just know that I have to be with you. Something terrible will happen if I'm not there."
He put his arm around her shoulders and held her close. "You'll be there. Either that, or I won't be."