Project Boussh: High Ground - Part 2
by "Prophet" Kristy

"What can I say--it's the quiet floor."  Kristy didn't think that the
levity was keeping the nervousness out of her voice.  The stormtroopers
were still banging on the door, creating an unholy racket.  For the first
time since she'd started college, Kristy was thankful for the fact that
her door was so heavy and had two locks.  As long at the STs hadn't
brought an E-Web with them...  "What do we do?"

Tycho took his eye off the spy-hole for a moment to check the charge on
his blaster.  "I guess we'll have to fly out."

Wedge frowned.  "How are we going to get Kristy out of here?  We've only
got the two X-wings, which only you and I can fly, and they don't have
passenger room."

Kristy started to say, "Sure they do!" but had to remind herself that both
men were happily married.  **Damn.**  And given her level of success
playing Rebel Assault--very little--she wasn't going to volunteer to try
flying one of the sleek snubfighters while Tycho or Wedge fended off the
stormies and left the building some other way.

"But we're not planning on leaving the atmosphere or anything, are
we?" Tycho said, crossing the room to the window and starting to work at
the edge of the screen.

"No, why?"

"Well, Kristy could ride in your astromech slot.  We'll give her a gentle
lift down to our landing site, then leave Gate and rig a windscreen over
his hole.  Should be a few credits' worth, anyway."

"Let's do it."  Wedge yanked his comm out and called Gate, telling him in
pilot-code-speak to haul jets with the X-wing over to the coordinates he
gave--Kristy assumed they were directions to her dorm room's
window.  Tycho left off at the screen momentarily to do the same.  Then,
as a telltale roaring whine outside the now-wide open window heralded the
arrival of the two X-wings, Tycho pulled out the screen while Wedge pulled
a small device from his datapad and stuck it onto the side of Knave's
tower.

"I hope NRI can cover the huge fine I'm going to get slapped with for
taking out my screen!" Kristy yelled above the sound of the repulsorlifts
(much louder than she'd have thought possible), zipping up her ski coat
against the chill wind as Wedge guided her to the window, where Tycho was
clambering onto the fuselage of his X-wing.

The sixth floor seemed plenty high when she climbed the stairs instead of
taking the elevator (which she did more often now that she didn't have
time between classes and lab work to work out at the Kibbie Dome), but
that still didn't prepare her for hanging halfway between her window and a
hovering X-wing.  If she'd just been *dreaming* about this it would have
seemed really cool; in real life, as Wedge stood on his S-foil and gave
her a hand, and she looked down, down, to the dumpster six stories down,
it looked--

"W-Whoa," she said a little queasily, as she pushed off with her foot
against the windowsill and landed hard against Wedge, who kept her from
pitching off the other side of the S-foil with a strong grip on her upper
arms.

"You okay?" Wedge's greeny-brown eyes scanned her face carefully. 
He crouched, taking her with him so she could cling to the edge
of the laser cannon.

"Um...yeah...let's just get out of here," Kristy responded, praying
silently.  On top of the driving wind, it was starting to snow again.

"Right."  Quickly Wedge clambered into his open cockpit and took the
X-wing slowly higher and west, over Guy Wicks Field.  Tycho stayed just
below Wedge off his part S-foil, and Kristy hoped he was ready to
catch.  Though if he didn't make any sudden moves....this was actually
sort of fun.  Over the field, there weren't as many lights, so it didn't
seem like they were so high.  Too bad it was so cold outside.  But there
were more important things to worry about.

"Wait!  We can't leave yet," she shouted over the comlink Wedge had handed
her as he slowly turned north toward the wheat field where the X's had
been parked.

"What is it?"

"I'm worried about having stromtroopers loose in my building, to tell ya
the truth.  Several hundred people live there and most of them aren't too
tolerant of science-fiction nerds; who knows what they'd say to a group of
stormies with no sense of humor?"

"You don't happen to have backup anywhere close?" came Tycho's voice, made
fuzzy by the comlink.

"The rest of the AFW'ers are near the East Coast or in
Australia.  Hmmmm...what about a fire drill?"

"Can we set one off from up here?"

"Well, if I'd thought of it earlier, I could have pulled the alarm before
we left the building....of course, that would mean that everyone in my
whole wing would be standing out in the parking lot watching the three of
us climb out of my window and into two X-wings."

"Not exactly a normal occurrence even in our galaxy."

"Nope.  Why don't we set a *real* fire?"

Pause.  "Are you sure?"

"Yeah.  Head over to the other side of the building.  See that room right
there?  Hit that one.  Our lounge has horrible furniture anyway."

In response, Tycho peeled off east, back toward the Wallace Complex, while
Wedge continued gliding slowly away from campus.  It was amazing what quad
lasers could do to to brick-and-cinderblock Terran construction; the 6th
floor Carter lounge went up like a Roman Candle under Tycho's quick
shot.  Kristy could see the bright flash even from over the
arboretum.  Irritated, swearing college students began to pour from the
exits of the building.

"You still back there?" Wedge asked, his voice almost washed away by a
particularly strong gust of wind.

Kristy tightened her grip on the laser cannon, eyes closed tight.  "Yeah,
just don't go any faster, okay?"

"We're almost there."

Soon they'd come to a rest in a field half a kilometer south of
campus; Wedge's landing was so smooth that Kristy didn't even notice it
until the general called from below, "You can come down now."

It was quite a bit colder outside than Kristy'd thought while hanging on
for dear life; her fingers were stiff enough that it was hard to unwrap
from the top port laser cannon on Wedge's X-wing.  Tycho's landing a few
moments later threw a wash of warm air from his engines over her, helping
immensely, and she was on the ground by the time Tycho was.

"Where to now, Boss?" asked the second-in-command, rigging up a spotlight
on the outside of his ship so they could see what they were doing.

Wedge glanced up at his friend from his datapad, which he'd pulled from
his jacket.  "I managed to get an interface going with Knave, so we've
still got a link to the rest of the team," he said.  Kristy couldn't stop
herself from grinning; even they had started calling her computer by her
nickname for it.  (Kristy had been gratified at Wedge's high opinion of
the intelligence she'd recieved on Commander Jenna Starr, the former CO of
Knave Squadron who'd been Wedge's friend befire she was killed in
action.)  "I don't see any reports giving us any more information on
Medellia, but I suppose we should start heading to the Galapagos Islands
and scout it out--you know where they are, Kristy?"  She nodded at his
sidelong glance.  "Well, then, let's get my X refitted and haul jets
before those stormies find out where we went."

It took both Wedge and Tycho with a lot of grunting and "Sithspawn"s to
get Gate out of his socket behind Wedge's cockpit and to the
ground.  Droids apparently weren't made of lightweight aluminum.  Kristy
took the time to get chilled completely to the bone, shivering hard as she
trudged through the snow around the two X-wings.  They really were
beautiful--despite all the models she'd owned and drawings she'd seen,
nothing came quite close to standing next to a real X-wing and running
your fingers over the two black Death Stars painted on the side of the
ship under the Aurebesh which Kristy assumed spelled out "General Wedge
Antilles."  She hoped they wouldn't have to leave right after they found
Quiara--she'd like to be able to spend some non-mission time with them and
the rest of the Rogues and Wraiths.

Soon Wedge and Tycho had rigged the GFFA equivalent of a tarp duct-taped
loosely over the droid socket, which Wedge pronounced air-tight enough to
keep in some pressure and maybe even a little heat.  He made Kristy wear
his flight suit for added warmth, which was huge on her 5'2" frame.  **Oh,
well, baggy clothes are always warmer.**  With frequent stops planned to
make sure she was staying warm enough in her jury-rigged cubbyhole on
Wedge's X-wing, the three of them lifted off and headed south, avoiding
airline lanes and leaving behind only a trash-can shaped robot behind.