Star Wars: Hands of Thrawn Stories: Red Sky Blue Flame Read online

  RED SKY BLUE FLAME

  Elaine Cunningham

  STAR WARS GAMER #7

  BONADAN BOOKS

  RED SKY BLUE FLAME

  Elaine Cunningham

  Jag Fel shouldered open his dented cockpit and struggled out. A blast of cold air hit him. He shielded his eyes against the stinging wind and searched the horizon for the Chiss military academy. A vast, curved sphere rose from the bleak landscape, barely visible against the blowing snow. If not for the reflected light of the three converging moons, he might not have seen it at all.

  With a sigh, Jag began the trudge back. In this weather, he’d be as blue as a Chiss by the time he got back.

  A sharp, nasal blast of from hover sled mingled with the rising wind. The bright red vehicle skimmed through the swirling snow, driven by a burly Chiss man with white, ice- encrusted hair.

  “Obersken!” Jag shouted, waving both arms to get the attention of his rescuer. They were well acquainted-most of Jag’s flights with the Blue Flame ended with an interesting landing and a scolding from the chief mechanic.

  The elderly Chiss pulled up and sent Jag a baleful glare. Moving with practiced ease, he hitched lead ropes to the ship and winched it onto the sled. He grimaced at the sight of the huge mynock plastered over Jag’s viewing portal. “Couldn’t help this, I suppose. At least this time you’ve a good excuse.”

  Jag suppressed a wince. “You’ll hear otherwise. The thing settled on Shawnkyr’s craft and began to eat through one of the cables on her port, forward arm. I, ah... distracted it.”

  Obersken sent him a look of unmitigated disgust. “Rash, undisciplined. There’s no room for heroes in this corp. How many times have I told you that?”

  Jag inclined his head, a gesture that both acknowledged this wisdom and made apology for not following it. As a child, he had dreamed of being a hero. At fourteen, he already viewed these early ambitions with the nostalgia reserved for childhood foolishness.

  Gimald Nuruodo, the flight instructor, met them at the door. “More heroics, Lieutenant Fel?”

  The Commandant’s tone, cool and polite, conveyed his opinion with painful clarity. Jag snapped to attention. “Sir, we won the exercise, sir.”

  “Win or lose is hardly the issue. The disregard of rules, the presumption of an individual who placed his impulses above the collective wisdom of tradition and clan, this we cannot allow.” He paused for a disgusted sniff. “You are your brother all over again.”

  Jag’s first impulse was to thank the Chiss--which would be a sincere response, but one that would certainly seem insubordinate. His brother Davin had been a hero in every sense of the word, and the Chiss found a thousand ways to remind him of it.

  Thrawn was a hero, Jag thought, but he knew better than to speak the words aloud.

  Later, in the comforting warmth of the academy, Jag’s thoughts lingered on Grand Admiral Thrawn. He was wise enough to keep those thoughts to himself, even as he joined the other cadets for the evening meal.

  Long, straight rows of blue-skinned future warriors filled the mess hall. No one slouched; no one spoke. They sat with perfect posture on the backless plasteel benches, quietly spooning up the evening meal. You would never know by looking at them that the central purpose of their lives had suddenly ceased to exist.

  For months, “Thrawn has returned!” had resounded throughout the Rata nebula like morning birdsong spreading through the academy’s dome-sheltered forest. Rumors of the great leader’s survival had galvanized the Chiss outposts. The cadets’ training had been accelerated in hopes that the Grand Admiral would soon call them into active service. Even Jag had been given a ship of sorts. He considered himself as ready as any Chiss cadet, and as grimly determined to serve well.

  But Thrawn’s return had been a lie, a hoax perpetuated by a clone and his con man. Jag felt as if someone had pulled his clawcraft out from under him in mid-flight. What were he and the other cadets supposed to do now?

  As if in response, a tall Chiss male in the burgundy uniform of a House Phalanx commander strode into the room. The cadets rose crisply and turned with military precision toward the dais to await the commander’s words.

  Jag stood with them, regarding the Chiss commander with a mixture of interest and apprehension. The commander known only as “Stent” had served with Admiral Voss Parck and with Jag’s father, General Baron Soontir Fel. Stent was also the reason why Jag had come to this particular academy.

  “Stand at ease,” the Chiss said in a low, perfectly modulated voice that carried to the far corners of the mess hall. The cadets shifted into a slightly more relaxed posture, their eyes intent upon the leader.

  “The liaison post commanded by Admiral Voss Parck has fallen to the Rebel Alliance,” he said bluntly.

  With difficulty Jag bit back a curse. His father’s post, destroyed! Once again, the rebels had reduced a comer of his ordered world to chaos.

  Commandant Gimald stepped forward and executed a crisp bow, a courtesy normally given only to those of far higher rank than Stent. This was a sure sign of disagreement to come. It was the sort of small, pointed irony that Jag had learned to expect from the Chiss.

  “With respect, Commander Stent, the former Alliance has not been known by that name for over a decade. The cadets are expected to keep abreast of political developments.”

  “The name might have changed since the so-called Battle of Endor, but after fifteen years, the so-called ‘New Republic’ is still a rag-tag collection of thugs, peasants, and deserters,” Stent said bluntly. “But I wasn’t sent to discuss semantic niceties. With your permission, Commander?”

  Gimald yielded the floor with a tight-tipped face and a deep, formal bow more appropriate to an audience with the Chiss Senate.

  “There were two waves of attack,” continued Stent. “The first came from Jedi spies. The facility was destroyed. We salvaged what we could before other ships arrived, forcing a tactical retreat. It is possible that some records remained behind. If the security locks were breached, it is possible that the location of this academy has been compromised.”

  Jag kept his eyes straight ahead, but he felt the other cadets’ red-eyed glare and the sudden, answering heat in his face. The academy’s location was not entered into the data banks. No human but Baron Fel knew of its location, and this information had been given him grudgingly and with a cost-- the safety of his only living son. Baron Fel understood that betraying the location of this academy would also mean endangering his son. Jag knew his father would not betray him.

  Still, here was Stent, preparing the academy for an attack. Stent reported to General Baron Fel. Why would he come, unless the New Republic had learned the location of the academy?

  A thin whine cut through the condemning silence, rapidly growing to a maelstrom that spanned the spectrums of sound, encompassing both a thunderous, ground-shaking roar and a raptor’s shriek. Alarms blared and warning lights pulsed. The Chiss scrambled toward the ship hangers.

  Jag followed as he had during scores of drills, racing down the spoke-like corridors that radiated from the vast and verdant forest In the dome’s center. The passage was filled with a complex green scent, a strange contrast to the metal- and-ceramic fleet visible through the transparisteel wall of the hangers.

  Too late it occurred to Jag that his ship, the infamous Blue Flame, was not in the hanger but in the mechanics bay. Again.

  His heart sank. He slowed his pace and moved toward the corridor wall to let the others pass. His gaze settled longingly on one of the sleek, silver clawcraft assigned to his fellow cadets. With their rounded cockpits and four neatl
y furled metal arms, they looked like a small pack of feral creatures, tamped down and ready to spring into the sky.

  Suddenly, a terrible crash shook the structure and threw down fragments of the transparisteel wall. Jag raised his arms before his face, but not before he saw his fellow cadets fall beneath a sparkling shower of knife-sharp shards. Many of the Chiss students did not rise again. The bloody survivors pushed through the wreckage to get to their ships. Then they stopped, staring with tight-lipped dismay at their ruined fleet.

  Small fires burned throughout the hangar. The sprinklers came on, dousing the flames but doing nothing for burning pain that flared in a dozen wounds on Jag’s body. He pulled a particularly nasty shard from his forearm before striding forward to take stock of the damage.

  The cause of the disaster had been a mid-sized freighter. Its scattered remains littered the hangar floor, which had buckled and cracked under the impact of the crash. Its cargo, most of which was decidedly not military issue, spilled from a twisted hull and lay strewn across the floor. Between the impact and the shrapnel, most of the clawcraft had been damaged beyond repair. Only one seemed to be still intact.

  Jag glanced up. A huge hole marred the ceiling, revealing another gap in the outer wall of the dome. The jagged edges of both holes refracted the light of the converging moons. It was fortunate, Jag noted, that the planet was in one of the temperate seasons of its complex, years-long cycle. Had they been in deep winter, the breached dome would have meant certain death.

  “Not a deliberate attack,” Jag said, his eyes seeking Stent’s grim face. “This was not the Rebel--not the New Republic.”

  The Chiss eyed him coolly. “Explain.”

  Jag kicked at a shattered crate, and the pile of bright fabrics it had once held. “This looks more like loot than anything a military ship would carry. You said the first wave of attack was by Jedi spies, the second came later. Perhaps the second wave was pirates, not New Republic.”

  Stent considered the suggestion. “It is possible. I was not there to confirm the identity of the attackers. But pirates traveling with Jedi? It seems illogical.”

  “But not unknown,” Jag countered. “Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan married a common smuggler. That sets a certain standard for strange bedfellows. On the other hand, pirate organizations can be resourceful. They might have got wind of the attack and followed like scavenger birds to a battlefield, with no connection to the Jedi.”

  A tall, muscular Chiss female approached them and snapped a quick bow to the commander. “Permission to speak,” she asked, glancing pointedly at Jag, who had not followed such protocol. Her red eyes lingered for a moment on the blue piping on the arms and legs of Jag’s black flight suit. Her own suit was marked in red, as were those of all the other Chiss. When he’d first been issued this uniform, Jag had assumed it to be symbolic, a way of integrating the human cadet with his cerulean-skinned fellows. He soon learned otherwise.

  Stent acknowledged her with a curt nod.

  She bowed again. “First Lieutenant Shawnkyr Nuruodo, cadet commander. In my opinion, sir, the human could be correct. It seems likely that this freighter was damaged in the attack on the outpost. The pilot attempted to land on what appeared to be a lake and was confounded by the dome. By the time he realized his error, it was too late to alter course.”

  “Exactly,” Jag agreed. “They never knew we were here.”

  “They do now.” Shawnkyr pointed to the shattered ceiling.

  Tiny silhouettes of intruding ships crawled across the pale face of Asdroni, the largest of the planet’s three moons. They seemed to circle the glowing orb, growing larger with each spiral.

  “They’re landing,” Stent concluded. “If they are pirates, they will land and loot the academy. Where are your commanders, your instructors?”

  Shawnkyr’s gaze shifted to several motionless forms lying under a small hillock of shattered crystal. “They led the way to the hangar. You are now the ranking officer, Commander Stent.”

  The Chiss nodded once in agreement and pulled a small blaster from his belt. This he handed to Shawnkyr. “Take ten warriors to the nearest weapons lockers and gather all the charrics and extra energy packs you can carry. Bring them here. The pirates will soon come through the breach. We must be ready for them.”

  Shawnkyr tucked the blaster into her belt. Her eyes swept the shell-shocked survivors. “Fenlish, Khana, each of you choose four and follow,” she barked out, then jerked her head toward Jag to indicate that he was also to come with them.

  The cadets sprinted through the corridors to the nearest weapons cache, then looked expectantly at Shawnkyr. Cadet commanders were issued key cards with lock combinations for just such contingencies.

  She reached for a uniform pocket; but the ripped fabric hung in an empty flap, its contents lost. A lavender flush suffused her face.

  On impulse, Jag spun and kicked the locker just to one side of the locking mechanism. The thin metal buckled. A second kick folded the door in, pulling it away from the lock, but not quite disengaging it. With an exasperated hiss, Jag snatched the Shawnkyr’s borrowed blaster and sent a single shot at the lock. The door swung open with a creak of protest.

  “Quicker this way,” Jag explained to the surprised Chiss. He began pulling charric blasters from the locker. He dumped the first load into Shawnkyr’s arms. Their eyes met over the piled weapons.

  “Your orders, Lieutenant?” he asked.

  She composed herself. “Tlarik, help Jag Fel gather the weapons. All others, queue up. Take as much as you can carry at a run, then return to Commander Stent for instructions.”

  Shawnkyr spun on her heel to do as she had instructed the others. Jag snatched up weapons and tossed them to the waiting Chiss. He piled all the remaining power packs into Tlarik’s arms and waved the last cadet on his way. There were more remaining weapons than he could reasonably carry, but the cadets would need them all. Jag looped the straps to the rifles over his shoulders until he could barely stand under the weight of weapons. He gathered up more to carry in his arms and hurried to the rendezvous point. Stent and one of the surviving cadets were checking out the sole intact clawcraft.

  He was about a hundred meters away when a streak of laser fire slashed down through the hangar. A red flare lit the devastation. When it faded, the clawcraft was gone, as were the two Chiss who’d been examining it.

  “Stent,” gasped Shawnkyr.

  “You’re in command,” Tlarik reminded her.

  Shawnkyr composed herself almost instantly. “Everyone take a weapon and two extra packs. Once all are armed, anyone my size or larger takes a second weapon, as long as the supply holds out.”

  Her red eyes quickly swept the hangar. Jag followed the line of her gaze and tried to guess the path of her thoughts. On the far side of the hangar was one of several corridors that formed concentric circles around the interior forest. The hangars were near the center of the dome, a position intended to protect the ships from attack. Since the dome was virtually invisible from above, it was believed that a ground assault was the only real threat. Only the catastrophically bad luck of the freighter’s crashing through the dome had changed that.

  “We seal off every circle beyond this one,” Shawnkyr decreed. Her gaze shifted from one cadet to another. “Gintish, seal down this passage. Pump the oxygen from all the outer corridors to contain the invaders in the center. Can you accomplish this?”

  The young Chiss snapped a bow and set off.

  “That will forestall looting. With limited territory to explore, the invaders will find their way into forest center. We will await them there,” Shawnkyr concluded, glancing up through the ruined dome. Above them, the enemy ships circled in lower and lower.

  The young Chiss took their places. As Jag snatched up a charric, he wondered whether he was the only one feeling apprehensive about this plan. What Shawnkyr suggested were traditional tactics born of the drills the Chiss had designed to protect the academy’s students in case of a gro
und invasion. All of them had been trained in hand-to- hand combat, using the artificial forest terrain as if it were a second weapon. Jag’s father had taught his son that the Chiss had an unparalleled aptitude for tactical thinking. Why, then, was Jag so uneasy?

  The bombardment was as brutal as it was sudden. Laser fire streamed down into the breached chamber, followed by the blue flare of proton torpedoes.

  “To the forests!” shouted Shawnkyr.

  The Chiss scattered, fleeing the leading edge of the first explosion, stumbling down rubble-strewn corridors to the central haven. Here the dome was the highest and also the most impermeable, for it was meters thick and protected by powerful shielding. Jag ran close behind Shawnkyr.

  The corridor ahead exploded into shrieking metal shards. Jag threw himself at Shawnkyr. They fell hard and rolled together into a side corridor. They found themselves in the mechanics bay, and one of the safest places outside of the forest itself.

  The Chiss pulled herself free and came up in a crouch, running lightly under heavy durasteel grids that lifted ships to an easily accessible height. They dove under one of the platforms and huddled there.

  Shawnkyr’s black hair, always neatly fastened at the nape of her neck, now hung in loose and unruly strands. She raked one hand through it in an attempt to restore order. Her hand came away wet and red, but she merely wiped the blood on her uniform.

  “Probably two-thirds of the cadets have made it to the forests,” she murmured. “That leaves our forces at between fifteen and twenty. That should be enough. Once these pirates land, we’ll pick them off easily”

  The truth came to Jag suddenly. “They won’t land,” he said. “Not for a while, at least. There were a few clawcraft still recognizable after the first crash, and the ships came close enough to get a clear view of them. No one but Chiss flies this kind of ship. It’s unlikely that pirates would intentionally attack a Chiss military outpost--”