TIE FIGHTER: Prime Wing
by Jennifer Quail
See disclaimer/acknowledgments in Chapter One
Chapter Three
"Well, I can safely say that was one of the least enjoyable experiences of my life." Rurik grimaced as the squadron, battered but miraculously intact, left the debriefing room. Thelea was not certain whether he meant the mission or the debriefing. Either was entirely likely.
The debriefing had occurred aboard the Valiant, in the presence of Captain Medreian and his second-in-command, Commander Varkris. The questions had centered mainly around the container and the source of their reinforcements. Thelea had repeated, time and again, that her she had orders from a higher source, one that wished not to be revealed. They hadn't liked it, they had asked her, ordered her and even threatened her and still she remained silent. They'd finally given up in disgust, the threats left hanging empty. Rurik, however, wasn't as easily dismissed. "What did you mean when you said that the transport was from a 'source that you could not identify?'"
Thelea's glowing eyes settled on him, and for once they seemed less a threat than a measurement. "I'm sorry, Lieutenant," she said finally, voice never changing. "I am afraid that I cannot say."
"You mean you don't know or you can't say?" Rurik pressed.
For just a minute, he thought Thelea's eyes flickered sideways, avoiding his. "I'd rather not say." Her tone did not waver, but the sudden evasion told him she was not telling the truth. For now, however, the set of her jaw was firm and spoke volumes.
"Do you think they'll court-marshal us?" Giriad's tone was sullen. He'd been silent during the debriefing-cum-interrogation, except when directly addressed. The words Medreian had used to describe Giriad's words and conduct had been, simply put, harsh. Rurik almost thought unjustly so. Sure, the kid had run scared, but who among them hadn't considered it when they'd seen the X-wings bearing down on them?
One person, he thought, even as she spoke. "No, Lieutenant, they're not going to court-marshal us," Thelea said wearily. "The results of our actions were so beneficial as to easily outweigh our disobedience."
"But obedience is an Imperial soldier's primary duty," Giriad protested.
"We are not the Board of Inquiry, so spare us the Academy platitudes," she said. "You will learn, Lieutenant Quoris, that in the field it is the end result that matters. Who is left standing, not who obeyed their orders to the letter." She looked as though she wanted to say more, but then something odd happened.
They had been walking past the hangar bays where a cargo shuttle convoy was being unloaded. There were crew members in olive-drab jumpsuits scrambling about piles of supply crates, shouting orders and directing the lifter droids in moving the cargo. As the four TIE pilots
passed an open crew hatch, a nondescript man in the same uniform as all the other enlisted personnel stepped in front of them. Clicking his heels smartly together and executing a crisp salute, he placed a datapad in Thelea's gloved hand. Without a word of explanation, he turned and disappeared into the mass of crew, droids, and containers, indistinguishable from any other enlisted man.
Rurik looked from the Thelea to the cargo bay and back again. Her head was bent, and she was paging down the data screen rapidly, red eyes never blinking. Then she punched two keys in quick succession and looked up.
"If you gentlemen will excuse me," she said, setting the pad atop a cargo crate. "I have an appointment I need to keep." Without a further word, she spun on her heel and disappeared down one of the Valiant's myriad of corridors.
Rurik watched her go, his brows furrowing. "Now what in the Empire was that about?" L'Grath only shook his head, and Giriad looked as though he wanted to make a smart remark but thought the better of it. Rurik stared down the corridor after her, and then noticed the datapad still sitting where she'd left it. Snatching it from its perch, he'd pounded the page key twice before he realized the screen was blank. A few more taps confirmed his suspicion. "She erased it," he said, looking down at the pad but not seeing it. "Wiped clean." He looked back after her and then at the pad again. "What is going on here?"
***
Thelea tapped at the keypad of the computer terminal, the blue Basic characters flashing past and casting a darker blue light over her skin. She scrolled rapidly through the initial report of the incident, which should have been a near-verbatim transcript of the just-completed debriefing--judiciously edited, of course. Then came the list of the captured containers and their contents. And as the data pad had said, there were glaring omissions. Nowhere was it mentioned that the original mission had been search and destroy, and nowhere did it mention the captured TIE parts, and the combat-ready squadron of X-wing fighters that had been waiting for them. It said that a Rebel scout fighter had stumbled across the operation and offered resistance. It explained how the fighter group designated Alpha had "neutralized" the threat, but not before the X-wing had destroyed several containers.
If her face could have reddened, it would have been inflamed. As it was, her emotional training kept her features reasonably composed. Only her glowing red eyes narrowed, and her pale lips thinned. But only the outward expression of her anger was suppressed. Inwardly, the rush of hot fury almost made her dizzy. "What is this?" she demanded, voice forcibly level. *That* wasn't what had happened at all. She was not naive enough to think that the recorders could always say what had really happened. The damage to morale if the suspicions of treachery were made public would be disastrous, but to make it sound as though her own squadron had been surprised and outclassed by a lone Rebel snub fighter....she almost logged out immediately, but then remembered. The source of the debriefing should be named at the bottom of the transcript.
Thelea stared at the source name, eyes widening. "L'Grath, Caelin, Thelea, Quoris," she read, shaking her head. Not a word of their own statements had appeared, and yet there were their names and serial numbers. That was when she noticed the message light.
She tapped the private retrieval code that the Inner Circle had given her "to protect the integrity of our communications." The fact that this was a blatant breach of regulations never seemed to bother them. Then again, from the little she'd seen of them, few regulations bothered them.
The text of the message was brief. THE REPORT WAS FILED BY ONE OF YOUR SQUADRON MATES. THE FIGHTER LOGS HAVE BEEN ALTERED TO REFLECT THIS AND THE FLIGHT RECORDER CHIPS HAVE BEEN CONFISCATED. THE CARGO
MANIFEST WAS CHANGED BY SOMEONE ELSE, UNDOUBTEDLY WORKING IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE PILOT. WE WILL LOCATE THE SOURCE OF THAT DISCREPANCY. UNTIL OUR NEXT COMMUNICATION, BEWARE. YOUR OWN
WINGMEN MAY BE DANGEROUS. As always, there was no signature. There didn't have to be.
Thelea sighed and deleted the message. It hadn't told her anything she didn't already know. Someone in the squadron was a traitor, and someone in the upper levels was obviously working with them. But which one? That was still the question. Caelin, Quoris, L'Grath? It took all her control to keep from kicking a chair across the cabin.
As was always the case with her singular abilities, a temper tantrum seemed to enhance them. Her normal impressions of the people aboard ship increased to almost an intolerable din. She felt the normal quiet rhythm of crewmen going about their business, perhaps tenser than it had been before the Death Star, but at their regular levels. Except...there was something different. Somewhere in the ship someone was angry, nervous, radiating hostility so loudly it drowned out all the other voices. Thelea's eyes narrowed and stared at the bulkhead as she tried to focus on that one infuriated sense. The swirl of a thousand minds competed for her attention, and her teeth ground in frustration and a new wave of anger. And then, suddenly, it focused. A man, unsurprisingly, somewhere in the...in the hanger bay...he was nervous, angry, he didn't like what he was doing, but he was resigned to it...damn, she was losing him.
She had no training in using her abilities, but she had made one discovery--the angrier she got, the more frustrated, or the more frightened, the more control she had, the more powerful she became. Now she let the irritation and fury she'd been feeling since she'd read the false report surge through her, and suddenly the stranger's location was in sharp focus, though his personal sense remained blurred. Using his eyes, she looked around. They--he--was in the hangar where the TIE fighters were. Where *their* TIE fighters were. He was just closing an access hatch above one of their fighters, his hands shaking with a whirlwind of emotions. Anger, with others and himself, fear, betrayal, and most of all a grim resignation. He looked at the hatch and its number--Rurik Caelin's fighter. Guilt, now, but still resigned. He had to do his duty, he had to plant--
Thelea started into awareness with a lurch, losing an epithet in her native language no one but the lowest class would ever say. "A bomb!" The minute anyone opened the TIE's dorsal access hatch, the little ship would explode in their faces. She reached for her comlink and then thought better of it. Whoever planted that explosive might still be there. They might even be the mechanic themselves. Besides, better not to have to explain how she knew. Grabbing her holster and the tiny hold-out blaster, she strapped them on as she went out the door. Her only hope of deactivating the explosive was to do it herself. And if the saboteur was still there--well, she wouldn't go down easily.
***
Rurik turned down the catwalk leading to the TIE fighter bays. He resisted the urge to kick a bulkhead in frustration. Why had they lied? He understood that they couldn't broadcast the fact that the squadron had been ambushed, or the location of the incident, but why make it look as though they had not only been ambushed, but humiliated as well? Obviously L'Grath and Thelea had something to do with it. He half-hoped one of his senior wingmates would have drawn this patrol slot, too. He had a piece of his mind to give them.
Not that I'd dare to, he admitted to himself. Arguing with a senior officer, whether they were a decrepit has-been or some....whatever Thelea was, was asking for a one-way ticket to Kessel. Rurik heaved a sigh. There was nothing he could do but take the implied reprimand and live with it.
As he stepped off the lift and onto the platform where the squadron's Interceptors were docked, he collided with a familiar form in a maintenance uniform. "Watch it," he snapped irritatedly before recognizing the person. "Look where you're going, Starbo."
The technician glared sullenly at him. "Watch it yourself, Caelin," he snapped. "You've been a big enough problem."
"What are you talking about?" the TIE pilot demanded.
"Thanks to you, that alien freak of a commander put me on discipline report," Starbo told him. "One more and I could get demoted."
"If you're on report, I'm only sorry that I didn't put you there myself." Rurik was in no mood to deal with the tech's surly temper.
"What did you do for her that she likes you so much, anyway? You one of those who likes aliens?" Starbo smirked lewdly. "Did you do her a favor?"
Rurik reacted without thinking. He spun around, dropping his helmet, and grabbed the tech by the shoulders. "Let's get one thing straight. Commander Thelea is my superior officer and yours, too, and I don't think those kind of remarks are appropriate." Starbo glared, but didn't say anything. Rurik shoved him away. "I won't report you this time." The tech looked as though he were about to say something, but thought the better of it. Rurik let go. Nice as it would be to knock some sense into him, Starbo wasn't worth a discipline referral of his own.
He stopped above the hatch to his Interceptor. The hatch had a security lock that required a passcode. He'd forgotten about that and paused, fumbling with the heavy gauntlets of his flight suit. Then the glove snagged on the cuff of the suit. "Oh, blast it," he muttered, tugging at the recalcitrant glove. There it went...he reached for the key pad.
"Caelin!" He looked up, so startled he dropped the glove. Commander Thelea had stepped out of the lift. She looked as if she had run from wherever it was she'd come from. "Don't open the hatch!" She started towards him across the gantry.
"What?" He turned and stared at her. "Commander, what are you-"
"Just don't!" Thelea broke into a run. As she did so, his finger, almost as though it was on autopilot, pressed the final number. The hatched popped open with its normal hydraulic hiss, but then he heard a faint beep that wasn't normal. He took a step toward her--
Thelea dove at him suddenly, tackling him to the ground. Just as they hit the deck, the TIE fighter's cockpit exploded. Hot shards of plastisteel and sparking remains of internal circutry bounced off their backs, hissing and crackling. Rurik felt a particularly volatile piece burn the back of his neck. Thelea, whose face was somewhere near his ears, muffled a shriek and rolled away as her hair singed. For a minute, they kept their heads down and remained flat on the deck. The conflagration that had been an Interceptor flared and just as abruptly died out. Carefully, they raised their heads.
Rurik looked from the charred remains of the cockpit to Thelea's singed and disordered figure and back again. If she hadn't appeared when she had, his head would have been inside the cockpit when the bomb went off. "That could have killed me." Then he looked at her, realization dawning. "You saved my life."
Thelea was, for the first time since he'd met her, disheveled. Her powder-blue skin was marred with a midnight-blue bruise on her cheek and a slight speckling of burn marks. She blinked, her eyes seeming a little dimmer than usual. "It wasn't anything," she said, coughing a little from the acrid smoke. "The least I could do."
"Thank you." It was the first thing that he could think of to say. He didn't know what he'd thought, but her response was far from effusive. She shrugged, and looked at the charred remains of the TIE's cockpit. "That could have been your head. We don't have enough TIE pilots to go around."
He shivered, thinking what could have happened. Then something occurred to him. "How did you know?" Gratitude began to be tempered by suspicion.
It seemed well-warranted. Thelea's eyes lowered, and, as after the briefing, she couldn't seem to meet his eyes. "I can't explain."
"Really? That's unusual," he said, crossing his arms. "I suppose you had a vision that the TIE was going to explode."
Her reaction was odd, to say the least. "I don't think it really matters, do you?" She reached for her comlink. "We'd better call for a medical team."
"Now wait just a minute!" He reached out and clamped a hand over the comlink. "Yes, it does matter. If you didn't set that bomb, how did you know it was going to go off?"
"If I set the bomb, why would I warn you that it was going to go off?" she countered, for the first time he could remember, raising her voice. But it wasn't so much her tone as the logic of what she'd said that made him stop and think. "Just think about it, Caelin. First, if I wanted to kill you, I could have blown your starfighter out of the sky during that firefight. I wouldn't have to take the risk of setting a bomb. And second, why in blazes would I tell you about the bomb in advance?"
"But if you didn't set it, how did you know it was there?" he countered. Thelea gritted her teeth audibly and refused to answer. Rurik rolled his eyes and shifted his hand from her comlink to her shoulder. She started, trying to step back, but he tightened his grip. "Look," he said, "a security team is going to be her in minutes. Now, I'm inclined, for some reason, to think you're telling the truth. But if you don't explain to me right now how you knew about the bomb, what am I supposed to think?"
Thelea considered that silently for a minute, face expressionless as always. Finally, she lowered her eyes. "If I told you, you wouldn't believe me."
Rurik's suspicion began to fade slowly. Something in her voice was different, almost insecure. Her eyes were fixed on the deck paneling. "What is it?" She remained silent. "Commander, how did you know about that? You can tell me."
The sound of the lift opening startled them both. Thelea looked over her shoulder at the security team hurrying along the catwalk. She looked back at Rurik. "Meet me in the recreational center at 1845. I'll be on the sparring court." Before he could say yes or no, she turned to face the investigative team, effectively ignoring him.
***
He stared into the deep blackness beyond the viewports. The report of the accident glowed on his screen, attached to the same report that told of Alpha Wing's reportedly lackluster performance. And yet something about it didn't ring true. According to all these reports, Thelea had failed. She had failed to perform to Imperial standards, so had her squadron, and by
rights they should all be sent back to their old assignments. Somehow...
*You don't believe that, do you?*
He sighed, clasping his hands behind his back. "Of course not."
*She would never knowingly betray the Empire,* she commented with a slightly wry note to her "voice." *It must be one of the others.*
"Which one, though," he mused.
*Use your talents,* she said in that gently exasperated tone he found he missed. *L'Grath was born and raised on Coruscant, Quoris is from Ashthera, and Caelin is from some Outer Rim world, the name escapes me-*
"I thought nothing escaped you." The smile was only a little more relaxed than he would have used with one of his men, though she couldn't see it.
*If that were true I wouldn't be in this predicament,* she noted dryly. *At any rate, find out who the traitor is. Her life and yours may very well depend on it.*
"I would hope she'll be able to figure it out herself," he said. "But of course I'll investigate. Quietly, of course," he assured her before she could say it. "But this next assignment recommended for them-"
*This time they'll have backup,* she pointed out.
"True, but how do I justify sending them on this assignment after their rumored past performance?" he wondered.
*That, I'm afraid, is your problem,* she said, not without sympathy. *You're in command. It's your decision.*
"Blunt as always," he said, "and correct as usual." He looked down at the datapad. "So, the raid on Freidor will be spearheaded by Alpha Wing. Perhaps the traitor will reveal himself before then."
*Perhaps,* she conceded, but the doubt could not be disguised by the distance or the unorthodox method of transmission.
She did not see the smile, of course, but he knew she sensed the foreboding in his next words. "If not, there are ways. Not pleasant, of course, but there are always ways." A sense of hesitant agreement preceded her withdrawal from the conversation. Once more, he stared into the blackness.
***
Rurik entered the Valiant's recreation area dressed in the standard black exercise suit, looking around self- consciously. He saw a few bridge crewers and technicians using the various pieces of equipment provided to keep the Imperial Naval Officer in perfect fighting trim. Thelea had told him to meet her at the sparring courts, and he took the lift down to the central pit where the six circular force-fielded area were located. There was a rack of sparing rods to the right of the lift as he stepped out, and he selected one before checking the court use schedule.
"Caelin." The voice near his left ear almost made him jump out of his skin. He hadn't even heard Thelea approach. As always, she looked at him with that level, unreadable stare. "You're late."
"Explaining about how my TIE blew up in my face took longer than I thought," he said. Her expression didn't change, and he felt that urge to sink into the deck again. "It's only a few minutes. Now, you wanted to talk."
Without saying anything, she turned and stepped onto court three. Rurik, hesitant but not knowing what else to do, followed. Hefting the rod, he stepped into one of the two overlapping circles that comprised the court. Thelea was waiting with a faintly impatient air, her own staff
hanging almost casually in her right hand. "Ready?"
He activated the force field that would not only prevent them from actually harming each other but would also grant them some privacy. "Whenever you are," he said.
Without warning, Thelea expertly spun the rod in an arc, a move he almost didn't have time to parry. The plastiform sticks sparked with electricity as they made contact. Rurik circled warily. Thelea had faded back a little, as if she was able to gauge his skill from the single blow.
"There is a traitor in the unit," she said without breaking stride.
"Tell me something I don't already know," Rurik said dryly. "I almost got my head blown off, remember? Speaking of which, I still want to hear how you knew about that."
"In a minute." Hoping to catch her off-guard, Rurik lunged abruptly, swinging his staff in a fast series of lunges and arcs, each of which Thelea parried seemingly without effort. "First, and more important, we have to find out who this person is. It's not me, and unless you staged that explosion, I sincerely doubt that it's you. So Giriad or L'Grath."
"What if it's not one of us?" Rurik countered as he did the same with her next thrust. "What if it's someone aboard the Valiant? I saw crewman Starbo coming out of the hangar. He damn near ran into me. He had the time and the knowledge to rig my fighter. He's certainly not shy about disliking us, either."
"If we used dislike for Alpha Wing as evidence, most of the ship would be suspect," Thelea said dryly. "No, I think it had to be one of us. That, or the Captain or Commander Varkris. Did you see the report that was filed on our debriefing?"
Rurik shook his head, unable to catch his breath for a minute. Thelea, seemingly unaffected by the strenuous exercise, explained the falsified report. Rurik managed to draw enough air to say, "That doesn't mean someone didn't break into the computer and change the report after it was filed. A tech would know how to do that."
"But how would he have known the correct details?" she countered. "It has to be one of our own. Which means, of course, L'Grath or Giriad."
"Why would either of them want to kill me?" Rurik asked, ducking a particularly hard swing.
"Why wouldn't they?" Thelea said dryly. "A better question would be why did they betray the Empire? The Rebels knew we were coming. Someone had to tell them. Besides the ISB officer who briefed us and the Captain, we were the only ones who knew in advance what we'd be
raiding."
Rurik hadn't even thought about that. Being attacked while on a raid was such a common occurrence, or so he'd been lead to believe, and nearly getting blown to shreds had been a little distracting.... "Do you realize what you're saying?" he asked, staring at her. "You're accusing members of our own flight of treason against the Empire. Do you know how serious that is?"
The blow from Thelea's staff caught him across the chest, and he staggered backwards into the force field. Thelea looked at him, her lip curling just a trace. "Of course I do. You think I'm an idiot? But what other explanation is there? The person who put that bomb in your TIE
didn't want to kill you in particular. In fact, he felt bad about it." Rurik was still dazed on the floor, and with a sigh of pure disgust, she offered a hand to help him up. Grudgingly, he reached for it--and with a lightening-quick twist of his wrist, he flipped her to the ground. Thelea,
startled, lost her grip on the rod and Rurik was able to pin her.
"All right, one last time," he said, "how do you know about who planted that bomb? Don't give me any more of this I-can't-tell-you stuff. And while we're at it, where did that transport come from, and who was that guy with the data pad?"
Thelea was incensed. In any other circumstance, she would have been able to throw him off. But he had her arms and shoulders pinned so efficiently that she couldn't find any leverage. "All right," she sighed grimly, avoiding his eyes. "But you can't repeat this, understand?"
He paused a minute, then nodded. She braced herself. "I have certain...abilities. They're not entirely unheard of among my people, but my...gift...is unusually strong. I have the ability to sense other beings' emotions. Sometimes, if I concentrate, I can even read their minds."
She was oversimplifying, she knew, but now was not the time for an involved explanation of her people's Bonding, the mastery of emotions, and the old stories about those with special gifts. "I sensed someone in the TIE hanger, and when I concentrated I was able to see through their eyes."
Rurik's eyes showed only skepticism. "You expect me to believe that?" She nodded. "Why?"
"Because it's the truth. I know it sounds insane, but that's what happened. As for the transport, and that man in the cargo hold..." She trailed off, eyes shifting to her own arm. "Let me up, and I'll tell you."
For a minute, Rurik considered disobeying. Then he met the intense red gaze, and relented. "All right," he said, stepping back. "What?"
Thelea pulled the right sleeve of her exercise gear up to her elbow, and turned her forearm up. "Have you ever seen that before?"
Rurik stared. It was not a tatoo, or a brand, or any sort of cosmetic mark he'd ever seen. The mark was violet in color, a strange three-pronged design with a circle at the center. "What is it?"
She pulled down her sleeve, hiding it again. "That is the brand of the Emperor's secret Inner Circle, third level. It is a secret group of pilots and others in the armed forces who serve the Emperor's special purposes, and if you ever tell anyone that I showed this to you, I will kill you."
He shivered. She spoke in a bland, emotionless tone, but something in her face told him that she meant it very sincerely. "Your secret is safe." Then, as he considered that, he asked, "That transport came from them, didn't it? That's how you knew there were stolen TIE parts in one of the containers. And that datapad was a message from them."
"Very clever, Lieutenant," she said dryly. "Unfortunately, they either do not know or do not wish to tell me the identity of the traitor."
"I still say we can't rule out Starbo," Rurik insisted. "He might have alerted the Rebels after we arrived?"
"How? For that matter, how could anyone?" Now she seemed to be thinking out loud as opposed to speaking to him. "How would they get a transmission away without detection? You can't just dial the Rebellion on the holonet."
"The Valiant would have monitored comlink transmissions," Rurik pointed out. "There has to be some kind of secret encryption code and method of communication."
"Thank you for stating the blindingly obvious," Thelea said. "Anyway, what we have to worry about is stopping him, whoever he is, before he kills one of us or sabotages another mission. We can't tell anyone else about this, understand? The more people we tell, the more likely it is that the traitor will find out."
It was Rurik's turn to be sarcastic. "I think I could have figured that out myself, mi'lady," he said, slipping back into the disrespect mode. "What should we do?"
Before she could reply, the inter-ship comm sounded a tone. "Attention all TIE pilots," a mechanical voice announced, "All pilots will report to the main briefing room at 2000 for mission briefing. Flight dress is required. Repeat: all pilots..." The message repeated twice, and the tone sounded again.
Thelea glanced at her chrono. "We have just enough time to get cleaned up and changed. Remember what I said. Don't tell anyone. We can discuss this later." Before he could reply, she turned on her heel and strode toward the lift. Rurik watched her go, and then started slowly back
to his quarters. He had a lot to think about.