"Got them, Control. Rogue Squadron, keep the Imps off the shuttles."
Corran shook his head. "Seven shuttles, two do/en Imps, and eleven X-wings.
Piece of ryshcate."
Whistler's mournful keen matched Corran's feelings more than his words. He
keyed his comm. "Three Flight, hang together. Squints are coming our way."
"Ooryl has them, Nine."
Andoorni likewise reported in. "Twelve has acquired targets."
Corran punched up a graph and had it overlaid on the track of the incoming
Interceptors. Coming at us rather obliquely. Their funeral. "Three Flight,
switch to proton torpedoes and lock a target in. If they want to play ..."
A trio of ion blasts shot up from the planet's surface. One sliced in at Three
Flight, cutting through the vector the squints should have been using to engage
the X-wings. The second hit the Emancipator and played out over it like a
thunderstorm on a prairie. The third lanced up at one of the shuttles, but never
reached its target. Corran saw the blast diffuse ever so slightly, as if it had
hit a shield, but its dissipating ball left no debris behind.
"Two, report." Dead air answered Wedge's call.
"Rogue Leader, we have no contact with Rogue Two."
Damn, Peshk caught that one. He's gone.
"Full evasive, Rogues. Control, get the shuttles dancing."
"Stay alert, Three Flight." Corran's aiming reticle went red and a target-lock
tone filled his ears. He tightened on the trigger and launched a torpedo at an
approaching Interceptor. Switching to lasers, he linked all four, then picked
another target. As his torpedo hit the first, he flashed into range on the
second and let it have a full burst of laser fire.
The glare of lasers against his shields hid the results of his shooting, but
Whistler reported one Interceptor destroyed and another damaged. In seconds he
shot past the line of Interceptors, then hauled back on his stick, rolled, and
dove back in at them. The squints, reduced from eight to six, split up into
flight elements and moved to engage single X-wings. As two started to circle
around toward him, Corran inverted, dove, and came back up and around to go
head-to-head with them.
He boosted power to his forward shields, then pulled a snap-roll that stood the
X-wing on its port S-foil. That narrowed his profile and allowed the first
volley of laser fire from the squints to pass on either side of himself. At the
last second he selected a proton torpedo and let it fly at point-blank range.
Even though it never got a solid target lock, it nailed the lead TIE dead on and
tore it apart.
Corran nudged the stick and shot through the center of the fiery explosion.
Clear on the other side he lost the Interceptor's wingman, but a more immediate
problem captured his attention. "Twelve, break to port, now!"
Andoorni's X-wing juked left, but the squint riding her exhaust stayed with
her.
"Break harder, Twelve. Climb."
"Not do. Lateral stabilizer gone."
"Weave, Twelve."
The Rodian started her X-wing in the corkscrew maneuver and the Interceptor's
first shots went wide of their mark. Then the aft end of the ship came back
around and the squint's fire ripped up through the engines. Fire blossomed on
the right side of the ship, shredding the S-foils. A second later the whole
fighter shook and its skin split from the inside out. Argent flames burst free,
converting the ship into a miniature sun, then the roiling ball of gas collapsed
into its own black hole.
Bloodlessly Corran vaped Andoorni's killer. Part of him wanted to cheer at
having exacted revenge for her, but he overrode those emotions. He could no more
allow himself to luxuriate in the death of an Imp than he could afford to mourn
his comrade. There would be time for that laterif there is a later. Anything
that distracted him from the job at hand would kill him, so he pushed it all
away and concentrated on the battle around him.
"Three Flight, shuttle Devonian has four Interceptors inbound."
"Ooryl copies, Control. Ooryl has them."
"I'm on your back door, Ten."
The Interceptors had re-formed into two flights and had selected one of the
assault shuttles as a target. Ooryl brought his X-wing in behind the lead pair
and throttled back to match their speed.
"Shoot straight, Ten."
The TIEs broke formation and split out in four directions. "Ten, go to lasers,
they must have lock-threat warning systems." A fighter with that equipment
would provide the pilot with an indicator light when another ship had a torpedo
lock on him. By jinking sharply it was possible to break the lock before the
torpedo was launched. The Interceptor pi-
lots ahead of them clearly knew their business. Only very good pilots survive to
become veterans in TIEs, making them far deadlier than the pilots the Rogues had
yet faced.
Corran rolled the X-wing up on the starboard stabilizers and started the long
turn that would bring him in behind one of the squints. Whistler anxiously
hooted a warning about another Interceptor moving to swing onto Corran's tail,
but the pilot did nothing to lose the fighter. He pressed his attack, sharpening
the arc of his turn to trim distance from his target.
Whistler became more insistent and Corran smiled. "Kill thrust." As the droid
complied with that order, Corran punched the right rudder pedal with his foot.
That swung the aft end of his ship up, a maneuver that further corrected his
course for the ship in front of him. It also provided a tantalizing broadside
shot for the squint following him.
"Counterthrust, now."
Whistler brought the engines back up to power as the X-wing's aft completed its
180-degree arc. The engines thrust against the line of the ship's flight,
effectively killing its momentum and, for a split second, freezing it in space.
For the barest of moments it lay dead in the sights of the Interceptor.
But the Interceptor pilot had already begun his roll and turn to keep his guns
trained on where the X-wing should have been. Corran feathered his left rudder
pedal and tracked the nose of his fighter along the squint's flight path. The
quad lasers loosed two bursts of red darts that perforated the port wing and
stabbed through the cockpit.
That Interceptor slowly spiraled out of control. More ion bursts from the planet
coursed through the dogfight. The Emancipator took two more hits and the Mon
Valle took another. Corran didn't see
any more fighters get hit, nor shuttles, but a string of green laser bolts
slicing across his flight path distracted him.
"Ooryl hit!"
Corran punched the throttle and whipped the X-wing up and over in time to see
his wingman's ship break apart. "Ooryl!"
The X-wing disintegrated. The engine pods spun off in different directions and
the cockpit canopy exploded into a million glittering fragments. He saw Ooryl
float free of the stricken ship, and saw the Gand wave his arms. Corran hoped it
was more than random reflex, then a piece of the fighter's S-foils sliced
through the pilot's right arm, taking it off
above the elbow. The body began to
tumble through space, but it remained otherwise unmoving.
"Control, Ten is extra-vehicle. Get someone down here to get him."
"Nine, Emancipator reports the zone is too hot for rescue operations."
"Convince them, Control."
Wedge's voice came on to the frequency. "Control, I have Three and Eight EV. We
need help here."
"I'm on it, Rogue Leader. It'll be done."
Three and Eight, that's Nawara and Erisi! Two dead and three more out of the
fight.
A new voice came through Corran's headset. "Control here, Rogues. Good news
Your rescue's on the way. Bad news We have two squadrons of squints coming in
from planetary north. ETA two minutes. Shuttles are heading to hyperspace now."
Corran watched as the assault shuttles started the runs to light speed. The
Corulag had already vanished, as had the Y-wings, leading the way out of
disaster. Two ion blasts caught the Mon Valle, stopping it dead in space. The
Eridain was beginning to move and the Emancipator had begun to drift to-
ward planetary north but, in doing so, oriented itself for entry into hyperspace
as if Admiral Ragab could not decide whether he was going to run or fight.
Run. No reason to stick here.
A sharp whistle from his astromech made Corran invert his ship and dive. A pair
of squints flashed past, then one exploded as Rogue Four shot by on its tail.
"Thanks, Four."
"Thanks for playing bait, Nine."
The remaining TIEs broke away and headed toward the incoming fighters flying
over the planet's polar cap. "Do we pursue, Rogue Leader?"
"Negative, screen our people until pickup."
Corran keyed his comm. "Rogue Leader, two squadrons of squints against a half
dozen of us is going to be ugly."
"Nine, if you can't handle your four, I'll take them."
Corran ignored Bror's jibe.
"Trim it, Rogues. We're here protecting our own." Wedge's voice carried a
confidence with it that buoyed Corran's spirits. "Focus on your mission and let
the rest take care of itself."
"Control to Rogues. Squint ETA is thirty seconds. EV Three is recovered."
Corran smiled and looked up. In the distance he could see the white triangular
hull of the Forbidden motionless in space. The pilot had brought the ship in
close to where Nawara Ven had been floating, then used a rescue tractor beam to
pull the pilot inside the emergency hatch in the hull.
The Corellian brought his X-wing up and around, then flew toward where Ooryl
hung in space. "Ten is here, Forbidden."
"Thanks, Nine, I have the coordinates. On my way."
Corran blinked. That's Tycho's voice. "Cap, is that you?"
"Guilty, Ten. You have four squints closing on your position. Deal with them
before I get there, please."
"You got it." Corran shivered. The only thing he could think of that was more
stupid than engaging four Interceptors with a single X-wing was flying an
unarmed shuttle into a hot zone to pick up pilots. A smile slowly crept across
his face. It's only stupid if we die doing it, otherwise it's heroism. "And I
can be a hero today."
Corran jumped his throttle full forward and shunted laser energy into his
engines. That pushed his speed up toward maximum. Adjusting the stick and
tapping the pedals he made his ship jump, cut, and dive. He flipped his weapons
over to torpedoes and tried to get a lock on the lead squint, but it juked out
of his sights. The others took shots at him, but his evasive maneuvers made them
miss.
His fighter flew past them and two of the Interceptors started loops to come
after him. Their turns took them high and away as they throttled up to match his
speed. Increasing their speed meant their loops became wider than they might
have preferred. They outnumber us enough that being a bit sloppy can't hurt.
Corran chopped his throttle back to half and pulled his X-wing through a tight
turn. "Forbidden, paint one with a missile lock."
Punching the throttle full forward, Corran shot his ship back along the vector
that had carried him through the squint formation. One of the Interceptors
broke off on its run at the shuttle, so Corran concentrated on the other. He
centered the ship in his aiming reticle and waited until he got a missile
lock. When the reticle turned red, he hit the trigger and sent a proton torpedo
speeding out toward the Interceptor.
The Interceptor pilot juked up and starboard, which pulled him out of the
shuttle's forward firing arc. While that maneuver would have carried him away
from any torpedo the shuttle had launched, Corran's missile had to make little
more than a minor course correction before it hit. The torpedo cored through
the Interceptor's ball and exploded, spitting shrapnel out in all directions
from an incandescent cloud.
Knowing he was pushing his luck, Corran rolled the X-wing and dove after the
first Interceptor the Forbidden had scared off. Throttling back he tightened a
turn and came up inside the arc of the squint's loop. With a flick of his thumb
he snapped weapons control over to lasers. The squint began to juke and twist,
but Corran stayed with him.
Whistler screeched a warning about the return of the other two Interceptors, but
Corran ignored it. He triggered one burst of lasers and clipped one of the
squint's wings, but it sailed on. Pushing more power to his engines, Corran
started to close with it, but the astromech whistled insistently at him.
The pair of Interceptors had closed to inside a kilometer and were firmly on his
tail. "Nine here, I could use some help."
"I'm on it, Nine. Ten on the way. Break to port on my mark."
Ten? That's Ooryl, but not his voice. What's going on?
"Mark."
Left rudder, then a snap-roll onto the port stabilizers pull ed him wide out of
his previous flight path. He saw blue bolts shoot back toward the ships
following him and tor a halt second Corran felt utterly disoriented. Blue beams
meant ion cannon shots, but the planet had been behind him, not in front of him.
And the ion cannons on the ground wouldn't be shooting at TIEs in any event.
"You're clear, Nine."
Corran brought his ship around and suddenly everything became clearer. Defender
Wing's Y-wings dove and climbed through the dogfight, blasting away at
Interceptors with wild abandon. What the slow ships lacked in grace they made up
for in sheer firepower. Their entry into the fight destroyed or disabled a
half-dozen Interceptors.
"They're running!"
Salm's voice came through the comm. "No celebrations. With them clear the ion
cannons will open up again."
"Forbidden to Control, I have all EV pilots."
"Forbidden, you are clear to hyperspace."
Four ion blasts from the planet stabbed up and again struck the Mon Valle. The
modified bulk cruiser began to break apart. Escape pods shot out from around the
bridge and away into space, while the rest of the ship began to slowly drift
back down toward Blackmoon.
"I hope it hits the installation."
"Control to all fighters, you are clear to hyperspace."
"Control, does Eridain need cover
for getting the escape pods?"
"Negative, Rogue Leader, they're on our way out and the Interceptors are heading
home."
"Thanks, Control." Wedge's voice seemed filled with weariness. "Back to base for
us, Rogues."
"Got it, Rogue Leader." Corran took one last look at Blackmoon, then pointed his
fighter toward
the stars. "Back to base for most of us he means, Whistler. Two months of prep
and in ten minutes the squadron is cut in half. Someone made some very bad
mistakes here, and our friends paid for them. Never again."
27
Corran stared out the window of the Noquivzor base recreation center. Rolling
hills and treeless plains stretched out for kilometers in all directions from
the building. Gentle and warm breezes washed in waves over the golden grasses
and tickled the back of his neck. // Erisi weren't over in the med center
floating in her family's finest stock, I'd take her on a long walk out there and
just enjoy the countryside. As beautiful as it is, though, it's hard to think of
enjoying anything right now.
He forced himself to smile as a man in an infantry uniform set a mug of lum
down on the table in front of him. "Thanks, Lieutenant."
The man nodded. "Call me Page."
Corran shoved the chair on the other side of the table out toward Page. "What's
the lum for?"
"Drinking usually." Page sat. "Me and my people were on the Devonian. You and
your wingman scattered the squints coming in our direction. We owe you."
The pilot lifted the mug and drank a mouthful of the fiery ale and let it burn
its way down his
throat. "I appreciate the drink, but you'll have to buy one for Ooryl when he
comes out of his bacta dip."
Page nodded. "Gladly. How badly was he hit?"
"Lost half his right arm. The suit shut down around the wound so he didn't
suffocate, but he got very cold." Corran put the frosted mug down and shivered.
"Bacta is for exposureall the EV pilots are getting a dunking, though none of
them are as bad off as Ooryl. The Emdees don't know about prosthetics for
himthey've never done Gands before and don't have appropriate limbs to use for
replacements."
"Rogue Squadron got hit hard."
"Two pilots dead, three EV, and one was flying wounded."
"I heard about him, the Shistavanen."
"Very tough individual." Corran nodded. "Shiel wasn't going to report for