Rogue Squadron (40 page)

And none of them can do what I have in mind
.

The range-to-target indicator on his console scrolled meters off by the hundreds as he dove in on the conduit. A peace washed over him despite the Imperial fire being directed toward him. He knew he wasn’t slipping into some Jedi trance—as much as he admired Luke he knew he’d never master his friend’s mystical skills. The sense of serenity seemed born of a conviction that he had to succeed in destroying the conduit and, more importantly, a lifetime of experience that told him the forces on the ground couldn’t stop him.

One kilometer out from the target, Wedge pulled his throttle back and reversed the engine’s thrust. As the Juggernaut’s laser batteries brought their beams together to burn him from the sky, the X-wing dropped like a rock. In virtual freefall, it hurtled down toward the canyon floor. The Juggernaut’s gunners, perhaps believing they had in fact hit the fighter, or perhaps horrified at its uncontrolled descent, stopped shooting.

Not that it would have mattered. A hundred meters from the ground Wedge clicked in the repulsorlift engines and their whine drowned out Mynock’s terrified scream. The fighter’s fall ended abruptly in a bouncing, bobbing hover barely five meters from the canyon’s sandy floor. Dust billowed up around the X-wing and the lasers in the boxy Juggernaut’s forward turret began to track down. Behind the vehicle,
visible in the red and gold light of the burning mixer, stormtroopers and masons began to scatter.

Running his engines to zero thrust, Wedge ruddered the X-wing’s nose in line with the Juggernaut and pulled the trigger on his flight stick. A single proton torpedo jetted out at the assault vehicle. The coruscating blue energy projectile pierced the Juggernaut’s windscreen. It immolated the cockpit crew and melted its way into the vehicle’s main body. There it detonated, swelling the Juggernaut with energy and rounding out its sharp corners before blasting it apart. Armor shrapnel sprayed throughout the area. It made the X-wing’s shields spark for a moment, but through them Wedge could see the aft end of the vehicle tumble back up and over the conduit to fall on the other side.

Its burning hulk silhouetted the conduit.

Wedge thumbed his weapons control over to lasers and pulled the trigger. Using the rudder pedals he rocked the fighter back and forth, peppering construction vehicles and plasteel forms with scarlet energy bolts. Scaffolding collapsed and semifluid ferrocrete oozed from burning forms. Stormtroopers darted back and forth, seeking any cover they could find. He made no attempt to target them specifically—using a starfighter’s weapons to kill an individual was akin to using a lightsaber to trim loose threads from a garment. It would do the job, but there were easier ways that were far more economical.

He switched back to proton torpedoes and armed two. Focusing his aiming reticle on the ferrocrete pipe, he hit the trigger, then punched power to the repulsorlift drives to vault his ship into the air.

The paired torpedoes blasted into and through the conduit in a shower of sparks. Ten meters beyond the pipe itself they exploded, igniting a rogue
star right there in the canyon. The shock wave rocked the fighter. It disintegrated the pipe, shearing it off at both ends, then rolled on with such force that it snuffed the fires burning in the vehicles. The canyon walls shook, starting rocks and dust tumbling down. The explosion’s harsh glare gave Wedge one last glance at the complete destruction of the target zone, then the fireball imploded, plunging the canyon into complete darkness.

He allowed himself the hint of a smile. “Conduit’s gone. Now we start working on
my
objective.”

Wedge punched his throttle full forward and jettisoned his empty fuel pod. “Rogue Leader here. Mission accomplished.”

“Four here, Lead. All eyeballs blinded, all Rogues are safe. Squints and Rogues inbound your position.” Bror’s voice stopped for a moment. “We’ll be there before they are.”

“Time to head home, Rogues. Let’s outrun them.” Wedge brought his fighter around on a course that would link up with the other four fighters in the squadron. “Nine is leading the way out and will report trouble.”

“Negative, Lead.” The anxiety in Nawara’s voice sank like ice through Wedge. “I’ve checked. Nine is nowhere on my forward scan.”

Angry with himself, Corran considered violating Commander Antilles’s order and shadowing him anyway. That thought survived about as long as Peshk had in the first fight for Blackmoon.
He’s right. Your fuel reserves are down. He’s given you a mission, and you’re to complete it. Head out and make sure the run is clear
.

“Whistler, boost my sensors. I want as complete
a picture of the theater here as you can give me. Full threat assessments.”

The astromech droid chirped happily. His first list of fighters showed only three eyeballs left in the dogfight with Rogue Squadron. A full squadron of squints was inbound, but their threat assessments were in decimal points. They were no threat to him, and scant little threat to his squadron mates. While he could not ignore them, there was no reason they would interfere with his run out of the system.

The numbers on two of them climbed slightly higher. “What’s with those two?”

Whistler splashed a tactical display on Corran’s monitor. Two of the squints had broken off to run a flyby and possible intercept on a body moving through the atmosphere. The numbers Whistler used to describe that falling object showed its fall to be controlled, and Corran was fairly certain that little fact would not have been lost upon the TIE pilots.

“Whistler, do you think they’re closing on one of our assault shuttles?”

A crisp note answered him as Whistler tagged the shuttle as the
Devonian
.

“Yeah, I thought so.” Yanking his stick back to his breastbone, Corran brought the snubfighter over in a big loop. “Page, you’re going to owe me big time for this one.”

The droid tootled at him with low tones.

“Yes, I do know what I’m doing. If I let my dive drive me instead of burning up fuel, we’ll be fine.” Corran eased his throttle back. “And, no, I don’t want you to calculate the odds on this. I’ve never asked for the odds before, and I don’t want them now. Odds only matter when you’re engaged in games of chance, and if Page’s people are going to have any chance, this can’t be a game.”

Corran’s dive was bringing him high, hot, and
on an angle at the rear arc for the Interceptors. He focused his attention on the second squint. He couldn’t switch over to proton torpedoes because a target lock would warn them of the threat they faced. If he was going to succeed, he needed things to be fast and that meant the first Interceptor had to die on his first pass.

Just over a kilometer out, Corran pushed his throttle forward and leveled out to come straight in at the Interceptors.
A bit more angle and maybe I can get both of them at the same time
. He switched his weapon over to lasers and linked them so they would fire in tandem. He dropped his targeting crosshairs on the rear ship and when they flashed green, he pulled the trigger and kept it down.

Four pairs of red energy darts perforated the slant-winged Interceptor. The first hits on the right wing started the ship rolling, then it jinked up into Corran’s line of fire. Four laser bolts converged, puncturing the cockpit and filling the interior of the ship with fire. A roiling explosion blasted the squint apart and forced Corran to roll and dive to avoid the worst of the debris cloud. Snapping back to his previous orientation, he looked up at where the other Interceptor should have been. He didn’t see it, but before he could even begin to wonder if it had somehow died, too, laser fire carved into the strength of his aft shield.

Great, all I need is some Sithspawn hotshot pilot in that squint!
He reinforced the aft shield, rolled, then hit the left rudder and slewed his ship around to try to give him an angle on the Interceptor. He couldn’t see it on his forward or rear scope, so he hauled back on the stick and started a climbing loop.

The Interceptor appeared dead-center in his aft scan and again laced his aft shield with green fire.

Who
is
this clown?
Corran came over, rolled up onto the port S-foil, then chopped his throttle back and let the X-wing drop toward the planet. “Whistler, comm to one klick radius. Tell the transport to go to ground as soon as possible because this guy is good. I want room to operate.”

A harsh whistle stung him. A question appeared on his display.

“Yes, of course I’m better. I’m toying with him. Now reinforce those shields and hang on.”

The Interceptor began to close on Corran’s tail. Pulling back on the stick, Corran leveled his ship out and the Interceptor swooped in behind him. The Corellian waited until the Interceptor closed to five hundred meters, then sideslipped his ship to starboard. Hitting hard left rudder and bringing his throttle back up, his X-wing’s nose swung back toward the squint.

Though more maneuverable than their vertically winged predecessors, the Interceptor’s broad wings still gave them yaw problems. The squint’s sideslip came slow and presented Corran with a wonderful target. His first shot hit solidly on the starboard wing, lasing two angry holes in it. The squint began to roll and Corran shot again, but the scarlet bolts shot fore and aft of the ball cockpit.

The Imperial pilot finished the roll and dove. Corran kicked the X-wing up on the port S-foil and dove after the Interceptor. The pilot in front of him let his ship jerk and juke back and forth, but the drag from the damaged wing’s solar panels made all moves to the right quicker and harder to recover from.

Corran dropped his targeting reticle just to starboard of the stricken fighter. The Interceptor drifted to the right and he fired. The lasers took the right wing clean off. The squint immediately whirled off
into a flat spin to port, uncontrolled and unrecoverable. Corran pulled up before he saw the Interceptor crash and part of him hoped the pilot had the intelligence to eject before he died.

He glanced at his monitor and angled his ship onto an intercept for the rest of the squadron’s outbound course. “Nine to Rogue Leader, I’m still here.”

He heard plenty of anger pulsing through Wedge’s reply. “You’re supposed to be leading, not following, Nine.”

“Copy, Lead. I was getting clear, but two squints made a run.”

“So you made a run.”

“Avenging General Kre’fey.” Corran figured Wedge would catch the reference and realize the Interceptors were closing on a transport when he picked them off. He looked at his fuel indicator. “Lead, I have a problem.”

“I know, Nine, your astromech just answered an inquiry I sent.”

The Twi’lek’s voice broke into the frequency. “Lead, another dozen squints have launched and are following the wave behind us.”

“Lead, this is Four. Let’s stay. It’s only twenty-two of them.”

“Lead, Five here. I’m game.”

Corran smiled. “Thanks, guys.”

“Quiet. This isn’t a democracy and what we
want
to do doesn’t matter. We have orders and others are depending on those orders being obeyed.” Static filled the speakers for a moment, then Wedge spoke again. “We
do
have some leeway in obeying them, though. Change in plans. We’ll go sunside and draw the Imps with us. Nine, you will go in on the dark side and go to ground. The atmosphere is thin, but your life-support equipment can concentrate it
enough for you. If you can avoid them, we’ll be back for you.”

“I’ll do my best, Lead.” Corran brought his X-wing into position with the rest of the squadron. “Four, how many did you vape?”

“I got six. You?”

“Three, if we count the one in the canyon.”

“It counts, Nine. Unconventional, but it counts.”

“Thanks, Commander.”

Rhysati broke into the conversation. “What did you do, Nine?”

“It’s complicated. I’ll explain it later.” Even as he pronounced the word “later,” it turned to dust in his mouth. “I’m only at seventeen. You’re plus two on me, Four. I’m going to count the ones I get on the dark side in our contest.”

“I would not have it any other way, Nine.”

Nawara Ven spoke. “Nine, Gavin’s an ace now.”

“Never doubted it for a minute. Good going, kid.” Borleias’s moon loomed large overhead. “Welcome to the club.”

“Ten seconds to break, Rogues. Nine, don’t feel you have to be a hero.”

“Have to be? I’m a Rogue. I thought hero came with the territory.”

“It certainly does, Nine. Break now.”

Corran banked off to the left as the rest of the squadron went right and filled his aft sensor scope. “Later, my friends.”

If there was any reply it didn’t make it over the horizon to him.

Corran throttled back and took the X-wing down close to the lunar surface. He cut off his comm unit and flipped his sensors over to passive mode. “Okay, Whistler, it’s just you and me. Let’s
find us a hole to crawl into. No, not one to hide in, but one to ambush out of. The Commander knew as well as we did that this split wouldn’t fool all the Imperial pilots. They’ll come for us eventually. I’ve never had a desire to die alone, and taking a bunch of them along will suit me just fine.”

37

As certain as taxes and as slow as paperwork they come
. With his X-wing nestled in a frozen lava tube on the side of a volcano, Corran watched as paired Interceptors flew search patterns over the lunar surface. They’d pushed enough power to their sensors that even with having them focused directly downward, enough energy bled off to register on his passive receptors.

Whistler had detected differences in the energy signatures of each sensor unit and had isolated a dozen different Interceptors.
That means ten squints didn’t make it back from their pursuit. Given that the Rogues had only fifteen minutes to play, that’s very good work
.

He reached up and tapped the transparisteel at the rear of his cockpit. “Whistler, they’ve been at this search stuff for nearly half an hour. Have you got the solution worked up yet?”

The droid piped a jeer at him.