Chapter Seventeen – Knight Hammer

A very broad smile drifted across Admiral Daala's face as one of the officers at a tactical screen passed her the more recent information. At current, they were not only winning the fight for Bilbringi, but everything else was working as planned. The same officer quickly announced that the Knight Hammer was within range of the two X-Wings. Instantly she cast an order to activate the tractor beams at the nearest of the two.

Daala grinned mercilessly at the screen as she saw the tractor beams latch onto Adra Tallon's X-Wing. This would be worth it, even if they lost Bilbringi. As the computer hacker's X-Wing finally ended its futile resistance, she felt a full smile break across her face.

* * * * *

Face Loran fired grimly at the nearest TIE fighter, his features lightening a bit as he saw the thing explode. He glanced out of the canopy's transparent top to see Wes dodge a red laser beam. Quickly he stole a look at his tactical board then gaped at it in shock. He rolled his X-Wing, bringing it in behind the fighter that was on his tail and vaporized it instantly. Vape twittered incessantly at him, but he ignored him to double check his tactical screen. Adra was in the Knight Hammer's tractor beam. He muttered something that he half-registered as sounding like 'and she told me to be careful' before he broke out of formation, heading towards Adra's X-Wing.

"General, permission to go help Wild Knights Two?" He didn't bother waiting for Wedge's response; instead, Face directed his X-Wing towards the Supe.

Though he didn't really want a reply, he was a bit surprised not to hear the General's voice immediately after he had spoken. After another minute, he heard Wedge start talking. "Permission denied, Commander. And don't even think about protesting. You're too good a pilot to lose, so don't even think about disobeying or I will have someone shoot you down."

Face cursed Wedge silently, reluctantly pulling his X-Wing back into formation, his gaze lingering over his shoulder at the Super Star Destroyer and the craft it still held in it's clutches. Under normal circumstances, Face wouldn't have given a Sith's lightsaber over the General's orders, but his threat wasn't an idle one. Face knew Wedge would live up to shooting him out of the sky if he had to. After another second, he tore his eyes from the sight of the X-Wing and the tractor beam and fired at the nearest Imperial vessel in anger.

* * * * *

Though the Force had alerted her a second or so before it actually happened, the jolt her craft received, in spite of her shields, knocked her sideways in what little room there was in the cockpit as the tractor beams attached themselves firmly to her ship. Another string of curses escaped her silently before she checked the rest of her systems.

"I think it's too late to point that out, Tyria." While she was well aware that sarcasm wouldn't do anything to help the situation, Adra couldn't help pouring it into her words in light of her current predicament.

Adra was sure Tyria was rolling her eyes, but didn't bother searching the Force to find out. Instead, she focused her energies on trying to think of anything that might get her out of this jam. Tyria's voice interrupted her not-quite organized thoughts.

"Adra, you were at Bothawui a few years ago, right?"

Confusion seared across her mind instantly, unable to draw the connection. Instantly her response was to pour on the sarcasm once more, but she held it in check. "Yes, but I don't see what that has to do..." She stopped mid-sentence as her mind registered something. "Oh, the TB twist?"

Instantly she felt Tyria's presence grow a bit less tense in the Force. "Exactly. And if this doesn't work, I hope the cloakers are working because if they aren't, we're two dead Wraiths."

In spite of the situation, she smiled at Tyria's words. Whether she tried to or not, that pilot always found some way to release the tension of a situation. Quickly Adra cast around for something appropriate to say.

"Well, at the risk of not sounding like a Jedi, good luck."

Instead of a verbal reply, Adra received the sound of a comm double-clicking in acknowledgement from Tyria. Adra watched the other X-Wing as it sped towards the semi-visible beam, silently begging the Force to let this work. Tyria's hit rammed the beam full on and it disappeared. Adra jerked her stick to roll her X-Wing out quickly, giving a whoop of glee. Abruptly she jammed her jaw shut. The Knight Hammer was moving quicker than she had expected; it took all of 2.3 seconds to reconnect the tractor beam to her X- Wing. This was bad, very bad. She let a groan slip past her lips unconsciously and resigned herself to the fact that there was no way she was getting out of this one.

"Alright. On to plan B. What's plan B?" Her voice cracked dryly and she knew she must sound just wonderful over the comm. Unfortunately, if she hadn't added sarcasm, she would've sounded worse. She heard Tyria's curse come over the comm just as the tractor beam started to draw her in.

"Plan B involves me having no idea what to do," Tyria finally said.

Another jolt rocked the X-Wing and Adra glanced at the scanners, uncomfortably aware that if she was hit again, her ship turned to vapor. Given that she had no other choice, Adra went EV. Three seconds after she cleared the Suprosa, it exploded.

* * * * *

Adra was shaken roughly from the X-Wing's seat and immediately she felt a hand grabbing each of her arms. Her sense of time and place came back to her slowly, but at last she got it.  One of the glorious side effects of going EV. Her eyes cast a glance around the Supe's hanger bay and she repressed a shudder at the thought of the last time she'd been on one. As she heard footsteps on durasteel getting closer, she immediately hitched a sarcastic smile to her face- not exactly hard for her to do.

Just as expected, Admiral Daala appeared through a door and walked briskly over towards the little 'group'. A quick glance around the hanger told Adra that this would not be a good time to take out her lightsaber. She returned her gaze to Admiral Daala and watched the woman draw herself up to stand in front of her, looking down her nose as if Adra herself were a piece of scum. Unconsciously she heard Daala's voice telling the stormtroopers to take her to the detention center- cell DL-773, she thought- and then the Admiral was turning on her heal to, presumably, head back to the main command center. Well, dozens of stormies or no, she, Adra Tallon, still had the Force, a blaster and a lightsaber on her side. Not many stormtroopers could attest to quite as much.

Thirteen minutes later she was being half walked, half dragged down the hallway in the detention center. A sharp Force-presence caught her attention, but she quickly shunted it aside in preference of rewarding the stormtroopers a few more sarcastic remarks. Behind her, she felt Tyria Tainer's presence drawing nearer and nearer. She began loosing the stuncuffs around her wrists and used the Force to free up her lightsaber in her boot. The two stormtroopers hauled her past Tyria's hiding place and there was a blaze of red blaster bolts flying at them. The two stormtroopers who had been holding her arms were stunned and on the floor. The stuncuffs released themselves from her wrists and her lightsaber blazed on to meet the heads of two more stormies. Both fell to the durasteel as Adra whipped the lightsaber around to engage a third trooper. Tyria loosed another bolt at a stormtrooper and as Adra decapitated the one she had entertained, she grinned at her friend. Abruptly the lightsaber was deactivated and Adra walked over to her fellow hacker.

"Let's go," she grinned to Tyria.

It had been a while since she'd seen Tyria Tainer really smile, but her fellow computer slicer did just that. "Best two words I've heard in a while," her friend remarked, then led the way to the docking bay. Just before they entered, Tyria reached into her flightsuit pocket and pulled out several datacards, handing them to Adra. "Here; all the information I managed to get out of their computer on board the ship. Take it and get to my X-Wing. I'll take a TIE; been flying them in the simulators anyways."

The grin that was still on her face faded at her friend's words. She hesitantly reached out to grab the datacards with one hand just as the hanger door opened. Half-consciously her other hand raised her lightsaber to block the blaster bolt sent towards her head.

"No way, I'm not leaving you here. You almost got yourself killed to help me and I'm not going to let Daala get us." Immediately she saw Tyria roll her eyes. It might've been a bit of a 'joke' to her, but Adra wasn't taking any chances. There was no way in any of Corellia's hells that one of them was going to be stuck here.

"Yeah, well, Face can thank me later. And besides, you last flew a TIE what...eight years ago? I've flown one for about a third of my time in Wraith. I'll meet you back at base."

Before Adra could reply, Tyria gave her a shove towards the X-Wing. She decapitated the guards surrounding it and scrambled into the cockpit, taking the helmet that was lying there. With a quick glance into the bay, she saw Tyria darting in the direction of the Interceptors. A stray stun bolt came across the distance. Adra's eyes widened as Tyria dropped to the durasteel, stunned. Her first thought was to get to her friend, but a thought hit her as Tyria's head connected with the hanger floor. Go.

It was from Tyria, that was for sure. Feeling like a complete murderer as stormtroopers gathered around her friend's prone form, she launched the X-Wing and made the jump for Coruscant.

* * * * *

Wraith headquarters loomed in the distance. It had been about an hour, she knew, since the fight had ended. Ten crafts were on the hanger bay as she guided Tyria's X-Wing to its usual spot. As the X-Wing powered down, she fought to control the tears that were threatening to spill down her cheeks. The helmet came off instantly as the canopy released and she wiped her eyes on her gloved hands. She hadn't started crying yet and she had no desire to look like she had been by the time her feet were on the ground. Leaving Tyria's helmet in the cockpit, she vaulted out of he craft, landing on the durasteel flooring below.

To her left, she half-registered the form of Kell Tainer standing up. He had been sitting perfectly still the whole time, his head in his hands, as she had landed into Wraith's hanger. Adra felt another bout of pain sear across her as she realized that he had been waiting on his sister's return. Adra hadn't moved quickly enough. Kell was in front of her, searching her eyes for an answer.

"Adra, why the Sith-"

She shoved passed him and hurried towards the main building, feeling the presence of the explosives expert following her. Nicola was the next to impede her trek to her room about six meters from the door. Her original thought was, as she cursed everything that she could name, to shove Nicola off as she had Kell. But she couldn't do that, not to one of her best friends.

"Adra, what happened? Where's Tyria?" Nicola's voice cut through the fog in her mind.

She took a deep, trembling breath, still putting up a fight to keep from crying. Only this time, her defense failed and she felt a tear run down her cheek. "With Daala," she answered shortly. As she voiced what her mind had been going over, the actuality of it hit her. The tears she had been attempting to keep back were free to do as they would now, only to be impeded by Adra uselessly wiping her eyes on her sleeve. Half-consciously, she saw Nicola turn away to her husband, who had come to stand behind her.

A few seconds later, she felt arms encircle her, bringing her into an embrace. Face's voice questioned her softly. "Adra, what happened?"

She drew back a few inches, wiping her cheeks on her sleeve once more. It was almost funny that for once in her sane life she was ignoring the fact that she was close enough to Face to kiss him. She shunted off the much-repeated question once more and kept her voice level in a statement of her own.

"Face, I need to talk to you and Wedge immediately."

* * * * *

Wedge looked up from his desk and the letter he was attempting to write to Doran Sarkin's family. Another man they'd lost in battle. No matter how many times he wrote these letters, they never got easier. Adra Tallon and Face Loran seemed to be the more pressing matter, however, so he put the datapad aside and stood up to greet them.

"Adra, where's Tyria and what the Sith happened out there?" He didn't even bother reprimanding her over the lack of salute. While his question list had been short, the answers were, unfortunately, long ones.

"Right now," Adra began, "Tyria's probably being tortured by Admiral Daala. And that's all my fault. I shouldn't have left without her, and I shouldn't have let the eyeballs and squints take me away from the squad. And I should've out flown that lumbering Star Destroyer." She finished her report in a short clip, yet he had the slight impression that she was loathing herself over the last part.

In spite of the situation, he let out a mental sigh. Wedge had taken his seat at the first bit of news: Tyria being captured. That was just wonderful, considering about 90% of all the New Republic's codes were stored in her brain. He listened to the rest of his pilot's report before coming to his conclusion. While she might feel it was her fault, not everything that had gone wrong could be blamed on one person. Abruptly he came to the conclusion that what must be done need to be.

"Tallon, sit down, take your right boot off and put your feet up on the desk." He himself took his right boot off as the pilot hesitantly did as ordered. Quite relaxed and comfortable, he put his feet up on the desk between them. "Now, start that little speech again. How did it go? Oh yes. 'Right now, Tyria's probably being tortured by Admiral Daala'." He stopped, letting her pick up the talking end of the 'conversation'.

* * * * *

As ordered, Adra re-reported, her expression no doubt of exasperation. Though she was beginning to feel a bit stupid about sitting with a single boot on, the General in the same position, she nodded. Orders were order after all, and even if she hardly ever followed them, this might be the only way to get the man to listen.

"Right now, she's probably being tortured by Admiral Daala. And it's all my fault. I shouldn't have left without her, and I shouldn't have..." Adra didn't even notice that her voice was trailing away. She was actually listening to the words she spoke this time. If she shouldn't have done x, x, x and x, what should she have been doing then? And what should, say, Tyria really have been doing? What about everyone else that had been in the fight? Was she going to start rattling off mistakes they made and listing them as her own, giving reasons why she caused the other pilot to make the mistake? At this point, more or less, the realization of her stupidity hit her. Adra felt a slow smile begin to creep over her face as she nodded to herself in understanding. The next instant she remembered she was supposed to be giving a report.

Wedge didn't appear angry; quite the contrary. He was smiling, his eyes flicking past her face to land on the person behind her. She grinned slightly as she remembered Face was still in the room. Then General Antilles looked back at her as his feet were removed from his desk.

"Glad to see you've come to your senses about all this, Lieutenant," he grinned as he pulled his boot back on. Adra's feet hit the floor just as he stood. "You can put your boot back on, Tallon."

Adra pulled it on just as he finished speaking and stood up, a slight scowl written on her features. "Yes, General, I'm aware I can put my boot back on. And if the situation had been any less formal, say not in your office, I would've thrown it at your head first." The smile she'd been attempting to cover leaked through to cover her face and she gave him a quick and very fake salute.

Across the desk, Wedge was grinning. "Lieutenant, you're extremely close to insubordination. And you really can't get less formal than an office unless you count the mess hall." He paused and Adra saw his face become a bit more serious before he spoke again. "Does Kell know yet?"

Abruptly she withdrew once more, trying to believe that Tyria's capture wasn't real and that she and Face would arrive at Wraith headquarters to see Tyria Tainer complaining about security lapses. However, she knew it wasn't the case. She shook her head, not trusting herself to answer Wedge's question verbally.

Behind her she heard Face sigh. No doubt over the fact that Kell Tainer was extremely protective over his younger sister. Then he spoke. "This'll be hard. Let's keep anything that can explode away from Kell for a while." His words seemed to be more directed to her than to Wedge.

Adra glanced over at him, nodding in agreement. "Yes, it is, but no one said life as a pilot was easy. You'd best let Cloud do the 'no explosives' part though."