TIE Fighter: Command Decisions

Chapter Eight

I'm proud! This is officially at least one chapter longer than the first story!

All together now...LFL owns Star Wars, I don't. Borrowed without permission. I'm not making

any money off this, which is why it's taking such a long time to write-limited motivation.

For Sean, Jeff and James, for help with research and writer's block.

(Bonus points to those who can spot the oblique Anne McCaffrey references.)

***

Rurik knew the way to the Governor's war room and took it at double-time pace. Thelea, hampered by the gown, had to struggle to keep up. The war room was not quite as archaic as she'd feared it would be, given how under-armed the rest of the garrison was. Rothan, several aides, and a man in a Colonel's uniform and the icy, competent air of a professional soldier.

The Colonel looked up when they entered, one eyebrow raising slightly when he saw Thelea. "Hello, Rurik. Gena told me you were here."

"Hello, Dallen. I presume she told you about Commander Thelea, as well?" He gestured to her, and she tried to straighten the gown and at least look a little like an officer. "Thelea, Colonel Dallen Torak, Gena's husband."

"Commander," the Colonel said. He didn't smile, but Thelea had the impression it was nothing personal. From the look of him, he never smiled much. She wondered how such an irritatingly effervescent woman like Gena had chosen a man with the personality of a stormtrooper. "We've tracked eight ships new in-system, as well as we can. They have some sort of jamming system that's making it hard for our sensors to get a reading."

"They're setting up a blockade," Rurik hazarded, coming to look at the display screen showing Telamara, the two moons, and several amorphous points that glowed a hostile red. "Look at the way they're spreading out."

"They've already had you blockaded," Thelea observed. She was standing beside Rurik, and he was painfully aware of her shoulder touching his. "This looks more like they're planning something else."

"An invasion?" How Dallen managed to stay calm all the time was beyond Rurik's ability to comprehend. What they taught them at that academy . . . .

"That, or something worse." Thelea was still studying the readouts, and he could almost see her thinking. "If their ships really are as powerful as they seem, they might be able to stage a planetary bombardment. It won't quite do a Death Star's job, but with your population so concentrated in a few cities, it won't have to."

"And unless a miracle occurs and the fleet arrives, we have no way of turning them back. If we try evacuating now, we'd be shot to pieces before we even reached escape velocity." Dallen's frown deepened, if that were possible. "Right now I'd even be happy for a squadron of Interceptor."

"Believe me, you're not the only one. I wish we had even a few of them," Rurik sighed. "Even that would be better than those decrepit TIE/Ins you're using. And decrepit pilots," but he murmured that part low enough he didn't think anyone heard.

"Even if we did, what would we do with them?" Thelea, always the voice of despair. "If these are the same ships that we ran into before, we know they can take Interceptors without a problem."

"At least we could keep a few of them occupied, maybe long enough to buy a transport time to escape." Rurik sighed through gritted teeth. "I'm starting to know what the rebels must have felt like at Hoth."

"We're the Imperial Navy. This isn't supposed to happen to us. We are not a crowd of rebels on some backwater ball of ice. There has to be a way out of this." Thelea turned a floor-mounted controller's chair around to face them and slumped into it, arms draped across the sides, staring into space. "We are not going to stay trapped here. Is there anything else besides the TIEs? Anything at all?"

"In terms of fighters, no," Dallen said, and then he corrected himself. "Well, there are those that we picked up when we shut down that illegal racing group on the southern continent."

"I thought you'd said those were antiques," Rothan protested, "barely worth keeping for scrap."

"They are, but they do have lasers and can be loaded with concussion missiles. The shields are hardly worth mentioning, but that shouldn't bother pilots used to flying TIEs."

Rurik glanced at Thelea, eyebrows raised. "Just what, exactly, are we talking about?"

Dallen shrugged. "Five flight-worthy, if antiquated, Z-95s."

"Headhunters?" Rurik didn't know whether to laugh or not. "Are you out of your mind? These things swat Interceptors like a wherry lizard picks off birds for lunch. They'd atomize Headhunters as soon as look at them."

"Well, if you can make some Interceptors, or better yet the newer fighters, appear by magic, then I'm all in favor of letting the Z-95s rot, but if you can't, then I think you should take what we've got."

"I don't see you lining up to fly with us," Rurik snapped, a little more harshly than he'd intended.

"Enough, both of you." Thelea steepled her fingers in front of her. "We'll work with what we have. If that's Z-95s, so be it. We're Imperial pilots, remember? Are we going to let a minor technical problem stop us? Are we lesser pilots than the Rebels? Of course not. This will just require a little more thought."

Rurik sighed. "Can we at least load them with concussion missiles?"

Dallen smiled, a little more smugly than was really decorous. "We've got a stockpile for you. There were three TIE Bombers, but unfortunately we thought they might make good escorts for the ship we tired to send out."

"Great. So nice to know we're not the first ones to try this." Rurik slumped into one of the other chairs. "So, we go up with the Z-95s and your TIE group. Then what? Poke at them until they knock us down?"

"We could try to run another transport out," Dallen offered. "With the extra fighters we could buy more time."

"That's suicidal." Thelea was drumming her fingers together. "But we could run an empty transport."

"What are you suggesting?" Rurik turned to look at her. "What good's an empty transport?"

"It's a decoy. Come now, I thought you were smarter than that." Sometimes he wondered if she played up her accent and highly formal diction when she was annoyed. "Send someone-whoever you think would be the best pilot-from elsewhere in the Infiltrator."

"What makes you think they'd have any better chance than the transport, especially without the fighters?" Rurik couldn't help snapping; sometimes she could be so arrogant . . . .

"The fact that they didn't swat us down when we arrived in-system. With more of them out there in orbit, I doubt we'd be that lucky again, but if we make it look like there's a whole group making a run for it, we could draw their attention." She sat forward abruptly, turning her chair to face one of the computer terminals. "If whoever flies the Infiltrator can get to the nearest major base, they can call the fleet from there. If we use a priority-one distress signal, someone will have to come. Even if it's only a Victory-class or two, that could at least buy time for an evacuation."

"Who's going to take the Infiltrator?" Thelea and Rurik looked to the governor, who'd asked. "If the three of you are flying-"

"We could send Giriad," Rurik offered. "We'd be all right without him-one Z-95, more or less, isn't going to make or break us, and one of us really should make contact with the fleet. We're probably listed as MIA at best, or deserters, by now."

"Giriad at least would be the most obsequious," Thelea sighed. "They might be less likely to shoot him on sight."

"Getting cynical in our old age, aren't we?" Rurik muttered, but he nodded. When Giriad wanted to, he could still play the role of perfect Imperial cadet. That tended to grate less on superior officers than his own Rimworld accent or Thelea's alien aloofness. "All right. Though you realize, if he doesn't make it, we're more or less dead."

"I'll take less." Thelea's fingers went back to drumming. "They're spaced pretty evenly around the planet, but a big enough force might draw the attention of a few-enough for the Infiltrator to sneak by."

"There are eight of them. If they decide to all gang up on your decoy task force, there won't be enough of you left for spare parts." Dallen always did have a way with words, Rurik thought grimly, but he couldn't argue with the logic.

"That's a risk we'll have to take." Thelea sighed, standing up. "I suppose we should go see about getting those fighters space-worthy."

"In that?" Rurik raised his eyebrows at her, or more specifically, her dress.

"I'm sure I can convince Gena to find you something more suitable," Dallen offered, masterfully keeping an amusement he felt concealed. Or maybe he just didn't feel any.

"I'd appreciate that. Rurik, find Giriad, wherever he's disappeared to, and have Colonel Torak show you where these fighters are. We'll need at least one practice run for you and me, and Giriad needs to know exactly what we're planning to do."

"It'll have to be atmospheric-we go up too early and the games' up." Rurik stood and stretched. "And I was hoping to get some sleep tonight, too."

"Humans," Thelea sniffed, starting for the door. "Get plenty of caf, and I'll see you on the flight line. Such as is." The doors hissed shut behind her.

"You fly with that?" Dallen jerked his thumb after Thelea. "My sympathies."

Rurik bristled. "She's the best pilot I know. Definitely the best I've ever flown with, and she's a good commander, too. She cares about what we do."

Dallen raised his hands in surrender. "Sorry. I didn't mean for you to take it personally. Jays, but you've gotten touchy."

"She's rubbing off on me." Rurik shook his head as if to clear it. "Now, you'd better show me where you keep the antiques. I have a feeling this is going to be a long night."

Aleishia sat in the quarters she had been given, wrapped in the robe she'd been wearing yesterday. She could feel the presence in the sky above-since she had opened herself to the Force again she was noticing so many little things, the people moving anxiously around the capitol, the animal life in the hills of Telamara's green continents and teeming in the seas, and above that, the heavy, crushing sense of the aliens. She did not know what species this was, but she knew the power that controlled them, and where those strange weapons and ships had come from.

There was a brushing at the back of her mind, an impression more than actual speech, but she recognized the source and knew what they were asking. "Yes," she said quietly, "they're here, too." Another touch, more insistent this time, and she shivered. "I know. I'll try. But it's not easy-I'm not like her, I'm so tired."

She closed her eyes wearily. It was more true than she cared to admit; the years were wearing on her, harder after so much isolation. But at least now they had the girl-Chiss, she corrected herself, Thelea was too old to be thought of as a child, by her people's standards at least, and woman would have such overtones of humanity to it. She was powerful, as they'd hoped, but so tainted. Who'd have imagined she'd have found her way into Palpatine's service? I should have, she admitted. I should have kept closer watch. Now everything could be-

The contact increased, and she felt a soothing surge of warmth that seemed to encompass her mind in a brilliant bath of white light. Somewhere in that light she touched a vast, incomprehensible understanding, an intelligence so alien that her own mind could not grasp it. That collective reached out and for a moment it included her, and she was caught up in the knowledge, the wonder, the sheer, painful beauty of it . . . . abruptly the feeling was gone, replaced by a soothing, restful peace. She let herself sink into it, and through it, to sleep. For now, at least, everything was still proceeding, neat and orderly, as they had planned. Everything was still all right.

"Yes," she murmured, before she drifted off, "yes, that's exactly what I'll do."