Rogue Squadron (10 page)

The droid’s panicked hooting brought a smile to his face. “Don’t worry, the shooting is not going to start yet.”

Wedge dropped into the pilot’s seat and got a pleasant surprise. One of Zraii’s improvements had been a refurbishing of the padding in his ejection seat.
This will make those long hyperspace jumps
more comfortable
. He strapped himself in, then brought his systems up. All the monitors and indicators came to life as expected. “Weapons are green and go.”

The R5 unit reported all navigation and flight systems were working, so Wedge pulled on his helmet and keyed his comm unit. “This is Rogue Leader requesting departure clearance from Folor Traffic Control.”

“Rogue One is clear for departure. Have a good flight, Commander.”

“Thank you, Control.”

With the flick of a switch he cut in his repulsorlift generators and feathered the throttle so his fighter rose from the hangar deck in a deliberate and firm manner. Using the rudder pedals to keep the lift generators in tandem, he killed roll and yawing. He wanted there to be no doubt in the minds of anyone in the hangar that his was a steady strong hand on the controls. His performance, he knew, would be pulsed out through the base’s rumor network and become fodder for every idle conversation until something truly worthy of discussion displaced it.

Adding some forward thrust, he moved the X-wing into the magnetic atmospheric containment bubble and through it to the airless exterior. Once outside, he kicked the Incom 4L4 Fusial Thrust Engines in at full power and rocketed away from the craggy grey lunar surface. He rolled the X-wing and brought the nose up slightly, sending the fighter into a gentle arc toward the horizon.

The datascreen in front of him reported the engines were working at 105 percent of efficiency—an increase he put down to Verpine tinkering. Throttling back to 70 percent, then 65 percent, he dropped his speed and flipped a switch above his right shoulder. The stabilizer foils split and locked
into the cross pattern that had given the X-wing its name.

He glanced at the upper left corner of the screen and saw his R5 unit had been designated “Mynock.”

“Are you called Mynock because you draw a lot of power?”

Urgent whistles and tweets were translated to a scrolling line of text at the very top of the screen. “A pilot once said I screamed like a mynock when we were in combat. A slander, Commander.”

“I can understand that. No one likes to be thought of as a space rat.” Wedge shook his head. “I need you to adjust the acceleration compensator down a bit. I want .05 gravity.”

The astromech droid complied and Wedge immediately began to feel more at home in the cockpit. To combat the effects of negative and positive gravity because of maneuvers, the starfighter had a compensator that created a gravity neutral pocket for both the craft and pilot. It prevented a lot of problems with blood flow and black- or red-outs in pilots, but Wedge felt it insulated him from the machine and left him out of touch with his situation.

Flying with all gravity negated felt, to him, like trying to pick up grains of salt while wearing heavy gloves. It might be possible, but it would be a lot easier without the interference. Flying required use of all the senses and the compensator cut out most kinesthetic sensations.

And that kills pilots
. Wedge was convinced that some pilots had died unnecessarily because they couldn’t feel where they were. Jek Porkins, a heavyset man who
always
had his compensator on at full, had plowed into the first Death Star while trying to pull out of a dive. His repeated assurances of “I can hold it, I can hold it” died in a burst of static as his X-wing slammed into the Emperor’s toy. Had
Porkins not been compensated, he could have realized he wasn’t pulling up and he might have had time to do something else.

Flying without full compensation is just one more thing we need to teach these kids
. Wedge laughed at himself. Aside from Gavin the whole crew in Rogue Squadron was almost his own age or older. He thought of them as kids because they hadn’t seen the sort of duty he and Tycho had.
And with what we’ll teach them, maybe they’ll survive longer than the rest did
.

Wedge rolled the X-wing again as he hit the terminator line and daylight flopped into darkness. Punching a console button he changed his screen over to a tactical scanner and picked up a dozen other traces. The screen reported and tagged eleven X-wings and one Z-95XT Trainer—the benign version of the X-wing’s little brother.

He switched his comm over to the tactical frequency he shared with Tycho. “Everyone green and running, Tycho?”

“Affirmative. Systems are go. There’s been some grumbling about feeding at the pig trough, however.”

“No surprise there. Shifting to Tac-One.”

“I copy.”

Flipping the comm over to the frequency shared by the rest of the squadron, Wedge caught the last of a comment by Rogue Nine, Corran Horn. “… blind, wallowing pigs, and slow.”

“I’m sure, Rogue Nine, your comrades who fly Y-wings will be pleased to know what you think of their ships.”

“Sorry, sir.”

“Good.” The unit commander throttled back and fed his repulsorlift generators enough power to counter the moon’s gravity. The reference to
Y-wings, their slow speed and the underpowered nature of their sensors, had been heard in Rebel camps since the earliest days of the fight against the Empire. The B-wings had been developed to counter the flaws with the Y-wing and replace it in service, but production had yet to meet demand, so plenty of Y-wings still saw service.

Their reputation as “wallowing pigs” had led to the naming of the Folor gunnery and bombing range the “pig trough.” Alliance command had originally designated it the “Trench” as a memorial to the pilots who had died running the artificial canyon on the Death Star, but pilots saw no reason to stand on ceremony. Y-wings practiced their bombing runs in the twists and turns of the lunar canyon while fighter pilots preferred the rolling and looping demanded of them in the satellite field circling the moon.

“Today I want you all to do some basic work on the gunnery range. Laser targets have been set up to provide you a number of flying and targeting challenges. Your run will be graded for accuracy and speed, and if you get hit, you’ll lose points. If you suffer an equipment failure, pull out and you’ll get another run after things are fixed. We don’t want to lose you or the equipment, so try not to do anything stupid. Any questions?”

Horn’s voice squawked through the helmet headset. “Sir, our lasers are zeroed at 250 meters, which is a little short for ground attack missions.”

“I guess, then, you’ll have to be very good and very quick in shooting, won’t you, Mr. Horn?”

“Yes, sir.”

Wedge smiled. “Good, then perhaps you’d like to go first. Mr. Qrygg will fly your wing.”

“Yes, sir.” The enthusiasm in Horn’s voice
matched the energy in the roll and dive his X-wing executed. “Shifting to ground attack mode.”

“Good luck, Mr. Horn.” Wedge killed his comm unit. “Mynock, pull a sensor feed from Horn’s R2. Shoot it to Captain Celchu on Tac-Three.” He popped his comm over to Tac-Two. “Captain, you’ll be getting a datafeed from Rogue Nine.”

“It will be interesting to watch. He’s going in hot.”

“That he is, Tycho, very hot. He wants to set a mark the others can’t possibly hit.” Wedge nodded slowly. “I think he needs to get a different lesson today. Here’s what we’ll do …”

8

Corran pulled out of his dive and skimmed the surface of Folor. He aimed the nose of his snubfighter at the paired mountains that marked the opening of the pig trough. A line of red lights burned on and off in sequence, seeming to send the light from plains to the peaks of the grey mountains. Below him the rough rims of countless craters flashed past.

“Nine, should Ten shift shields forward?”

“Negative, Ten. Even them out. We’ll probably have targets at our backs.” Corran glanced at his datascreen. “Whistler, can you boost my forward sensors? Screen for background formations and pick out what’s anomalous. Yes, yes, take care of your communications link first, but just do it. Thanks.”

After a couple of seconds the astromech droid complied with the request and the image on the datascreen refined itself. The mountains appeared in a light shade of green and likely targets—in this case the lights on the mountains—were translated into red circles that began to blink when he had a clear shot at them. From past experience he knew Whistler
would turn the circles into diamonds if they proved to be hostile.

The fighter shot forward into the trench. Tall, jagged walls rose tall on either side of him. Unlike canyons carved through stone by the relentless flow of water, this one boasted sharp walls that would grind a fighter into dust.
It seems as if I’m flying between teeth, not stones
.

He guided the fighter up over a small rise and then down into a valley where two red circles became diamonds. His cannons tracked left and lit up the first target while laser fire from the Gand hit the second. “Nice shooting, Ten.”

“Ooryl was anxious. Ooryl will wait for clearance to fire in future.”

“Not at all. Two more targets. I’ve got them.” Corran let his fighter drift to the right. “Pick up what I drop.”

“As ordered.”

Corran pulled back on his stick and climbed sharply to get at the first target. He shot it before its laser could depress enough to shoot back at him. Rolling his ship to the left, he moved back to the center of the canyon, then finished the roll with an inside loop that brought him down to target the second diamond. It hit him once before he took it out, but the shot from the target did not penetrate his shields.

Climbing back up, Corran stood the fighter on its right S-foil and arced around a corner in the trench. Coming up to let his sensors read the valley beyond a steep rise, he took laser fire from two bunkers nearly a kilometer distant. He pushed the stick forward and brought the X-wing down to the deck, then worked his way back up to the rise. “I’ve got the one on the port side, you take starboard.”

A brief, high-pitched whistle came through the comm to signal Ooryl’s understanding of the order.

The X-wing streaked over the ridgeline and immediately started taking fire from the target on the left. Corran dipped below it, intending to repeat his steep-climb run from before when Whistler started wailing. A threat light burned in the aft position. “Full shields aft, Whistler!”

Laser bolts shot past the X-wing as Corran jinked to the left. He punched the right rudder pedal, vectoring thrust to kick the tail of his fighter into a bit of a skid to port. Doing that took him out of line with both guns, while allowing him to keep his nose on his intended target. He triggered four bursts of fire, hitting with the second and third.

He rolled the fighter to present its belly to the mountain wall that had housed the gun he’d silenced, then he cut in his repulsorlift generators. They created a field that bounced him off the wall and pushed him back toward the center of the canyon. Rolling back down to starboard, he killed the repulsorlift generators and dove to pick up a little speed. In doing so he came out beneath Ooryl and still had laser bolts popping past him.

Whistler shifted views of the canyon for a moment and showed Corran what had been happening in that section. An emplacement had been located on the reverse slope of the rise. Had Corran not ducked his ship back down when he took fire the first time, his sensors might have picked up its location.

I would have come up, looped, hit it, then rolled out and picked up the right side target. Ooryl could have nailed the left target and we’d have been set
. “Forward view again, Whistler.” Seeing the array of targets upcoming, Corran trimmed his speed back
to allow him more time on target. “It’s going to get busy.”

Whistler hooted something about understatement.

Targets came fast and seemed to get more accurate the deeper he ran into the trench. Corran tapped his lucky charm once, then forced himself to concentrate. He analyzed target locations and plotted angles of attack. Rolling his fighter, diving and climbing, he wove his way through the gunnery course. He didn’t get every target he shot at, but fewer of them hit him.

Two thirds of the way through the course Corran and Ooryl approached another ridge like the one that had hidden a gun position on its back slope. “Drop back, Ten. Let me draw fire from any back slope guns, then you can roll in and nail them.”

A squeal answered him. Corran sailed up over the rim prematurely and snapped a shot off at the guns to the left. Rolling wide to the right, he sideslipped out of fire from below. “Midslope down, Ten.” Without waiting for confirmation Corran corkscrewed his X-wing around and lased the starboard target. The port target still fired at him, but he dove below its line of bolts and cruised farther into the canyon.

“Ooryl got it, Nine.”

“Congrats, Ten.”

Coming around the last sweeping turn Corran saw a narrowing of the canyon down toward the deeper part of it. Above that crevasse four laser targets had a perfect field of fire for blowing any X-wing out of the sky, but they couldn’t shoot down into the split in the rocks. “Whistler, give me the width of the crevasse.”

The droid mournfully reported it was 15 meters
on average, 12.3 meters wide at the most narrow point.

“Good. The walls will cover me.” Behind him, anticipating him, Ooryl had already rolled his X-wing up on its starboard S-foil. Corran smiled and dipped toward the crevasse while keeping his wings parallel to the ground.

“Nine, you need to roll.”

“Negative, Ten. It’s wide enough—a meter to spare on each side.”

“If you go dead down the middle.”

“If I don’t I’ll be
dead
.” Taking a deep breath, Corran focused on an imaginary point about ten meters off the nose of his fighter. He kept his hand gentle on the stick and steered for that point. He kept it in the middle of the crevasse, floating left and right as sections of the wall jutted out from one side or the other.