"Adumar."
A moment later, the nearest fringe of people, including Tycho and Iella,
took it up as a chant "Adumar. Adumar. Adumar." It rolled across the
assembled air armada, gaining in strength and volume.
Wedge let it go only for a few moments, only long enough for every one
present to be caught up in it. Then he nodded to Tycho. Tycho thumbed his own
comlink, and suddenly the air was split with the sound of a keening siren.
Like an insect mound suddenly disturbed by a giant intruder, the air base
abruptly became a sea of running bodies as pilots returned to their fighters,
mechanics scrambled to get last-second details in order, flight workers rushed
to get late-arriving missiles loaded into aircraft.
Wedge stepped down to the duracrete. Iella came up to him. "You
understand," she said, "if you let yourself get hurt, it's going to go very
badly for you. I'll make you regret it."
"I had that figured out," he said.
She waited as if hoping for him to say something more. The smile she gave
him was an uncertain one. "That's Wedge. So honest he can't even reassure me."
He looked around to make sure no one was close enough to hear. "Here's
some reassurance," he told her. "Two reasons why I'm not going to let anything
happen to me. One I'm the best there is. Two I finally have someone to come
back to."
She wrapped herself around him. "Don't forget that."
"I won't."
"I have to get to my station."
He kissed her, then watched her runor perhaps fleetoward the large
aircraft that was her assignment for the mission. It was built like a spoke-
and-wheel space station whose every joining of spoke and wheel was a spherical
sensor array.
He climbed back up to his cockpit. His mechanic, a middle-aged woman
whose face was striped, tattoolike, with Blade-32 greases, was astride the
fuselage, just behind the cockpit, dogging down the rear of the canopy with a
hydrospanner. "How's it look, Grembae?" he asked.
"They gave you the best," she said. "And it's in as fine a shape as I can
make it."
His helmet lay in the pilot's seat. He picked it up to put it on, then
noticed the decorations upon it. Recently dried paint in gold on the dark red
surface showed up as a succession of delta-shaped wedges, the decorative motif
Wedge had added to most of the helmets he'd worn throughout his career. "Who
did this?" he asked.
"My son," she said. "A mechanic on my team. Your lady said you'd like it.
"
"My lady." He put the helmet on, cinched it under his chin. "My lady."
The words weren't new to him, but they were in a new combination, a
configuration that had never meant anything to him before. He decided he liked
them.
He levered himself into the pilot's chair. "She was right. Thanks,
Grembae."
12
They rose from the Yedagon City air base, hundreds strong, fighters and
bombers and fortresses and aircraft of all colors and description, and they
were only one group of several involved in this all-out assault on Cartann and
her satellite nations. One of the Blade units moving ahead of the group as a
skirmish line was Running Crimson Flightknife, now being led by Wedge and
Tycho.
This was a much faster flight than Wedge's departure from Cartann, and
much more agreeableit had just felt wrong to be in a vehicle he wasn't
piloting. He watched moonlit forest tops and cultivated fields flash by
beneath him. It was oddly peaceful, despite the fact that he was at the
spearpoint position of hundreds of engines of war, for there was no comm
chatter.
A few klicks from the Cartann border, the lightboard offered up a
throbbing noise, indicating that he'd been hit by a lightbounce from ahead.
Wedge nodded. That would be a border sensor installation. As the noise
continued, Wedge got a fix on it with his lightboard. He looped away from the
Running Crimson formation with Tycho tucked in beside him and headed straight
for the source of the lightbounce signals.
The enemy sensor operators tried to save their installation The
lightbounce signals cut off. But the installation's coordinates were already
locked into the Blade-32's computers. Wedge brought it up on his sensor board
and designated those coordinates as the sole target. He armed his lasers, and
as soon as the sensor board solidified the lasers' targeting brackets, he
fired. He saw his lasers and Tycho's flash down into the forest below, and
some hard target erupted into flaming explosion.
On the way back, they took a closer look. They'd hit a squarish bunker,
perhaps fifteen meters on a side, and it was burning fiercely. Elaborate
sensor gear on top was now char and slag. Satisfied, Wedge headed back to
rejoin Running Crimson Flightknife.
All down the line, other members of the advance screen of Blades would be
doing the same thing. They couldn't conceal their own approach to Cartann, but
they couldif they hit enough sensor stations, and hit them early enough
conceal the size of the force approaching the enemy nation. The military
forces of Cartann would have to go to an extra effort to get an idea of what
was assaulting them.
Ahead, the sky was growing lighter. Wedge checked his chrono. The
operation was still on schedule. And it was midday on the Allegiance; he
supposed that the Star Destroyer's sensor crews would be having an interesting
day of observation.
Minutes later, with the lightness in the east broadening and climbing,
comm silence was finally broken. "Group One Leader, this is Eye Three." It was
Iella's voice. "Electrocution Death Flightknife, at the extreme north edge of
the group, reports an assault by a squad of Cartannese Blades. The furball's
still continuing, but a unit of Scythe-class bombers tracked the enemy back to
their base, a previously unknown one, and are pounding it flat. They say they
caught another squadron on the ground."
Wedge looked northward. He could see distant, tiny flashes, and he wished
luck to the members of Electrocution Death. "Thanks, Eye Three."
Minutes later, his lightboard lit up with signs of the coming squadrons
lots of them. They approached from north and south, from the major Cartannese
cities in those directions.
Standard Cartannese tactics, had this just been a fighter raid, would
have been to veer toward one or the other force, whichever seemed more
prestigious, and engage it, with the hope of dispatching it before the other
caught up... but Group One continued straight on its course, which led
straight to the great city of Cartann. In minutes, those two Cartann units'
lightboards would detect Groups Five and Twelve headed straight for their
respective cities, and would be torn between the need to pursue Group One and
to defend their cities. Wedge grinned. Cartannese society seemed to be tooled
to keeping its people from having to address difficult questions. He planned
to present them with quite a few more before this day was done.
"Eye Three to Red Leader. Main force detected from Cartann City air
bases.
Forming up and heading this way. Estimated strength twenty squadrons
and growing."
"Thanks, Eye." That meant the enemy strength in fighters was already
equal to Wedge's. "How's our pursuit?"
"Still pursuing. Groups Five and Twelve should just now be reaching their
respective cities' lightbounce range."
"Acknowledged. Red Leader out."
The enemy would appear on the lightboard, Wedge knew, as a ragged line of
tiny bright blips, each representing an enemy formation. As they neared, the
blips would grow, gradually breaking down into clouds of dots representing
individual fighters. And that's exactly how it happened, moments later. That's
all Wedge would see until they were much closer; the enemy would be flying at
them out of the rising sun, which was already peeking above the horizon.
Wedge lowered the goggles on his helmet. Yes, it was a disadvantage to
fly into the sunlight. But it was a momentary disadvantage; as soon as the two
forces broke up into individual dogfights, everybody would be at equal
disadvantage. And the Cartann pilots' disadvantage, being too quickly roused
after too short a night of sleep, would linger.
When the enemy force was about sixty seconds from distant firing range,
when enemy squadrons were beginning to diffuse into individual enemy fighters,
Wedge switched his comm board over to group frequency. "Red Leader to Group.
Forward screen, slow to one-third to allow main body to catch up. North Horn,
South Horn, begin your move into position. All other flightknives, slow to
one-half standard cruise velocity and maintain formation."
He heard acknowledgments from the two horn formation leaders. On his
lightboard, he saw the group's formation change shape. The leading edge, a
thin line of fighters, dropped back until it was absorbed into the leading
edge of the main body, an inverted triangle. The two leading corners of the
triangle stretched forward, suggesting a pair of horns. Ahead, the roughly
oval formation of Cartannese fliers continued toward them, not yet adjusting
for the appearance of the horns, which would be to either side of them within
seconds.
By squinting, and with polarization increased as high as it would go on
his goggles, he could see traces of the oncoming force, little black dots at
the heads of needle-thin white contrails.
Then specks of fire rose with blinding speed from the forest. As they
reached the heart of the Cartann force, they expanded out into ball-shaped
clouds of fire.
Wedge jolted. That was Hobbie and Janson's force, Blastpike Flightknife,
sent on ahead to do just this thingand Wedge, nearly overwhelmed by other
planning details, had all but forgotten about them. He saw the Cartann force
begin to mill, with whole squadrons spiraling down toward the source of the
missiles... missiles that kept rising into the group.
Wedge said, "North Horn, South Horn, that's your cue. Close and fire.
Main group, advance. As you close, break by flightknives and fire at will." He
accelerated back to cruise speed as, ahead, the first laser and missile
crossfire by the two horn formations began.
He switched his targeting system back on and it immediately began howling
at him, a wavering cry as distant targets flashed into and out of his
brackets. He switched to missiles and fired every time the musical tone
suggested a clean lock. Ahead, the Cartann force looked like the intersection
of four sets of target practice, but lasers and missiles were now pouring back
out of the cloud of enemy fighters. Wedge was rocked when a Blade to his port,
Running Crimson-3, detonated; the blast buffeted Wedge and drove him meters to
starboard before he recovered.
Then the two forces met, blurred into one wide-ranging engagement, clear
distinctions no longer possible between them.
Wedge caught sight of an incoming Blade-32, on what looked like a
collision course with him. He switched to lasers, fired, then looped to port,
diving to get out of the madman's flight path. His sensor board howled that he
was in an enemy's targeting brackets; he continued the dive, flashing between
two enemy Blades, and the howl cut off. He began to pull up. Behind him, the
sensors showed one of the two Blades he'd passed between now stitched with
laser fire, its port side opened by a blast; the Blade was shaking violently
as air hammered its way into the now-unaerodynamic vehicle.
His wingman was no longer beside him. "Tych?"
"Busy, boss."
Wedge said "Tycho" into the microphone of his targeting board. One blip
on the lightboard began to blink. It was half a kilometer above him, directly
between two enemy Blades. Wedge climbed.
He could pick out Tycho and the man's enemies, even against the dark sky,
by the flashes of light between them. Tycho was in pursuit of a Blade, being
pursued by another, and was sending laser fire in both directions, meanwhile
slewing about in evasive action.
Wedge rose, caught the lead Blade in his targeting brackets, ignored it.
He let his brackets flash back across Tycho and to the pursuit Blade. He
opened fire, his first barrage of lasers missing the vehicle, his second
chewing through its stern fuselage.
The tough Blade-32 did not explode, but its stern dropped away. The
vehicle rolled, out of control. Wedge saw the canopy tear free and the pilot
punch out a moment later. Wedge grinned; he must also have wiped out the
repulsorlift system, else that pilot could have brought the Blade down to a
safe landing.
into the Blade ahead of him. Though the Blade returned fire, singeing the nose
of Tycho's craft, Tycho's attacks relentlessly chewed away at its rear
fuselage, riddling it with char and holes.
The Blade didn't look badly hurt, but abruptly it rose straight skyward,
then heeled over in what looked like an uncontrolled dive. The pilot had to
have been hit, a typically surgical Tycho kill.
Wedge continued his climb. At the upper altitude indicated for the
engagement, he pulled back on the stick and rolled over to continue toward
Cartann, though he was belly to sky, giving him a good look at the fight as it
continued. Tycho pulled alongside.
It wasn't bad, Wedge decided. The united Adumari force was continuing to
move toward Cartann, and Cartann's defenders were forced to keep with them. In
minutes, if this continued, they'd be over the city itself. "Red Leader to Eye
Three, report if you can."
"Eye Three to Red Leader. Red Three and Red Four report in unhurt, though
their squadron took heavy losses. The pursuit forces have broken off and are
returning to their cities to deal with Groups Five and Twelve. The Scythes
from North Horn and South Horn have broken away from the horn formations and
are now over Cartann, heading for the air bases. We have reports of ground-
based defensive batteries firin g."
Wedge looked toward the city. Yes, yellow-white streaks of laser light,
four to a group, were flashing into the sky. Tiny as they seemed at this
distance, each column
of light would have to be half the diameter of a Blade
or more.
"Sensors show another dozen or so squads rising from the air bases and
Cartann proper," Iella continued.
"Any of Group One's units not yet engaged?"
"The six Meteors and their screens."
Wedge breathed a sigh of thanks that he'd assigned most squadrons and
major aircraft numerical references in addition to their normal namesit was a
choice that would allow him to address them even when he couldn't recall their
normal designations. He switched to group frequency. "Meteors One and Two and
screen flightknives, join the Scythes from North Horn. Meteors Three and Four
and screen flightknives, join the Scythes from South Horn. Meteors Five and
Six and screens, I want you to plow right into the middle of this furball.
Give the enemy something new to think about." He switched back to command
frequency. "Thanks, Eye Three." He pulled back on the stick and he and Tycho
dove into the main engagement again.
He'd just taken a long-distance shot at a pair of Blades when a vehicle,
unbelievably fast, cut across his flight path, leaving a blurry afterimage on
his vision. It was a TIE Interceptor, flying an impossible-to-predict course
full of sudden bends and course changes.
His lasers pointed at empty forest floor, he opened fire again. And as
another three TIE Interceptors crossed his path, he had the pleasure of seeing
his sustained laser fire clip the solar wing array of one of them. The shot
didn't destroy the TIE, but he did see it roll out of formation and have to
struggle to get back in position, and the spot where he'd grazed it was black
with char. He turned in the TIE Interceptors' wake and was rapidly
outdistanced.
"Good shot, Lead."
"Not good enough, Two. We've got no chance against Interceptors in these.
"
"Who are you now, Lead?"
Wedge tapped the centerpoint of his lightboard. The data sent by his
transponder came up; it was his alternate identity, a Yedagon pilot with no
kills to his name. "I'm not-Wedge."
"Good. Recommend you stay that way until and unless we get back to our
snubfighters."
"I'll take it under consideration."
He could track the TIEs on the lightboard without consulting transponder
data. They were the only craft in this engagement that moved at such high