Star Wars: X-Wing I: Rogue Squadron (23 page)

A laser bolt caught him in the right breast and pitched him into the shadows. He landed hard against a wall of wooden crates and stars exploded before his eyes when his head hit something solid. He heard wood and glass break and a gurgle of a vessel emptying. He hoped it wasn’t his body emptying of blood, but the shooting pains in his chest and the fire radiating out from the wound all but guaranteed he
was
the source of the sound. A sickly sweet scent mixed with the stink of burned flesh and Corran knew he was dying.

That smells like Corellian whiskey
. His mind flashed back to the endless rounds of drinks at his father’s wake. Each one punctuated a toast or a testament to his father by members of CorSec, from the Director on down to Gil and Iella to the rookies his father had taken under his wing. At that time Corran had thought having such a wake would be the grandest sendoff possible.
And now I hallucinate the smell of it
.

A jolt of pain left him a moment of lucidity in its wake and Corran clung to it. His vision cleared and he saw laser bolts burning in all directions through the darkness. He tried to lift his own carbine, but he couldn’t feel its weight in his hand. He decided to draw the blaster pistol, which was when he discovered his right arm wasn’t working so well.

That realization came a second or two before the laser fire silhouetted a stormtrooper seeking cover nearby.

Corran willed his body to sink into the ferrocrete, but nothing happened.

The stormtrooper swept something aside with a foot and Corran heard the clatter of the carbine against an unseen crate. He tried to lever himself up with his left arm, but the pain in the right side of his
chest stopped him. He found himself short of breath.
My lung. Collapsed
.

The stormtrooper lowered his carbine, giving Corran a good view of the muzzle. “It’s over for you, Rebel scum.”

“You, too, little stormie.” Corran raised his left hand but kept his thumb pressed on the end of the explosive cylinder he’d eased from the pouch on his belt. “I die and it blows.”

The stormtrooper hesitated for a second, then shook his head. “Nice try. You’re holding the wrong end.”

Blaster whine filled the crate-lined cul de sac and Corran flinched involuntarily. He thought flinching was a bad way to die, then he realized that the dead are seldom that vain. Above him the stormtrooper’s body wavered, then buckled at the knees and crashed down beside him. The hole in the back of his armor sparked and smoked.

Wedge came running up and dropped to one knee beside Corran. “How are you doing, Mr. Horn?”

“Parts of me don’t hurt that much.”

Wedge smiled. “Hang tight. The stormies are withdrawing. Medic!”

“Bombs.”

“I know. We’re finding and disarming them.”

Corran smiled and tried to take a deep breath. “Gavin?”

“Bad, like you. We’re already getting set to evacuate.”

“I’m as good as dead.” He winced. “I’m so far gone I smell Corellian whiskey.”

“You
do
smell Corellian whiskey, Corran. You’re lying in a puddle of it.” Wedge frowned. “The crate that broke your fall is full of Whyren’s Reserve.”

“What? How?”

Wedge shook his head as Emdee droids toddled over. “I don’t know. Consider solving that mystery your assignment while you recover from your wounds.”

Wedge Antilles watched as Gavin Darklighter and Corran Horn floated all but lifeless in bacta tanks. Seeing them there brought back memories of the time he had spent in such a tank—it hadn’t been aboard the
Reprieve
but on
Home One
, Admiral Ackbar’s flagship at Endor. He’d been barely conscious during his time in the tank, which he saw as a blessing. Being awake and thinking while being able to do nothing would have driven him insane.

“Your pilots have improved, Commander Antilles?”

Wedge turned and blinked his eyes in surprise. “Admiral Ackbar? What are you doing here, sir?”

The Mon Calamari clasped his hands at the small of his back. “I read your report and found it disturbingly clinical. I decided I wanted more information.”

Wedge nodded. “There wasn’t much time to prepare the report.”

“And you have never really liked datapadding.”

“No.” Wedge rubbed a hand over his face and discovered a fair amount of stubble on his chin and
jaw.
How long has it been since I slept?
“You could have requested a supplemental report, or asked me to report to you aboard
Home One
and saved yourself the trip.”

“I thought of that, but I knew another report from you would be light in bytes and that you would refuse to leave your people, so I chose to save myself the annoyance.” Ackbar stared through the viewport at the two men in the tank. “Besides, the tone of the Provisional Council meetings is beginning to wear on me. The fate of Rogue Squadron is important enough that I was able to slip away without being accused of running.”

The Corellian looked over at his commander. “Are things that acrimonious?”

“I probably exaggerate. Politicians tend to view soldiers like their pet Cyborrean battle dogs.”

“And soldiers don’t like to be considered pets.”

Ackbar’s barbels twitched slightly. “Since we are the ones who get bitten and bleed and die, we tend to resist plans that are politically expedient but militarily suicidal.” He tapped his hand against the viewport. “Is the picture of what happened there any more clear?”

“Not yet. The basics are the same—three pilots seriously wounded, one dead, and all six sentries dead. A number of others have cuts and scrapes. It should have been much worse but it looks as if the stormtroopers wanted to plant the explosives, withdraw, then arm and detonate them by remote. Had they just put them on timers we would have lost equipment and people before we found them all. A full platoon was operating on Talasea. We got all of them and captured the Delta DX-9 Transport they came in on.”

“Hardly worth the cost, but a good thing, nonetheless.”

Wedge nodded. “The ones we captured—two stormtroopers and all five of the transport’s crew—refuse to talk. I have them in detention, isolated from each other. I’ve had an Emdee-oh and Emdee-one droid engaged in postmortems of the troopers we killed. With luck something will give us an idea where they came from.”

“And Talasea was evacuated?”

“Yes, sir. We expect Imperials to come looking for whatever got their people, so we set up some booby traps and other surprises for whoever follows us in there.” Wedge sighed heavily. “I have a list of what we left behind in case we ever have cause to go back.”

The Mon Calamari nodded slowly. “What is the mood of your unit?”

Wedge turned and pressed his back against the cool transparisteel. He just wanted to close his eyes and go to sleep, and he feared he’d do just that if he
did
close his eyes. “We’re all stunned and exhausted. Losing Lujayne came as a shock. She wasn’t the best pilot in the unit, and not one to take chances, so none of us had her pegged as someone who would die first. Corran or Bror or Shiel were easy to picture going out in a blaze of glory—and Corran almost did. Lujayne was a fighter, so having her die in her sleep was, well, it just made it worse. She was murdered, not killed in combat, and I guess I thought we were somehow immune to that sort of ignominious death.”

He shook his head. “That makes no sense, of course.”

Ackbar patted him on the shoulder. “It does make sense. We know war is barbaric, but we try not to be barbaric in waging war. We hold ourselves to a high standard that demands we only attack legitimate military targets—not civilians, not medical
frigates. We would like to see this honor we demand of ourselves reflected in the actions of our enemies.”

“But if they were as honorable as we are, we’d not be fighting this war.”

“And in that, Commander Antilles, you have the core of the whole problem.” The Mon Calamari paced away from the viewport. “When will your people be out of the tanks?”

Wedge glanced down at his chronometer. “Twelve hours more for Horn and Darklighter, another twenty-four to forty-eight for Andoorni Hui. I’ve been told it has something to do with her metabolism, but she was hurt worse than they were, too. I want to hold a memorial for Lujayne fairly soon.” He rubbed his eyes. “Gavin will be crushed—she’s been helping him sharpen his astronavigation skills.”

“It seems, then, nothing can be done until at least twelve hours from now.”

Wedge shook his head. “Nope, we just have to wait.”

“No, you just have to sleep.”

The Corellian turned and looked at Ackbar. “I can rest later.”

“But you
will
rest now. Consider that an order, Commander, or I will order a Too-Onebee droid to sedate you.” Ackbar’s chin came up as he spoke and Wedge knew he’d carry out his threat. “In fourteen hours I want to see you and your XO on
Home One
. General Salm will have arrived by then.”

“If I’d known I could look forward to a dressing down by him, I’d have let the stormtroopers shoot me.”

“Yes, he can have that effect, can’t he?” Ackbar’s mouth hung open in a silent laugh at his joke. “The purpose of this meeting is not a reprimand, however.”

“No?”

“No.” Ackbar’s voice became calmer, yet more intense. “Someone in the Empire struck at one of my forward bases. If we don’t strike back, and strike back hard, they might feel emboldened to continue such activity. I don’t want this to happen. General Salm’s bomber wing should be sufficient for exacting retribution.”

“If you want Rogue Squadron to fly cover for such a mission, you have us.”

“That was the reaction I expected from you, Commander. Now, go get some sleep.”

“Yes, sir.” Wedge saluted.
Sleep it is, and dreams of retribution will be very pleasant indeed
.

Corran wasn’t certain what was worse: the sour taste of bacta in the back of his throat or feeling like he was still bobbing up and down in the tank. To him bacta tasted like lum that had gone flat, gotten stale, and been stored in the sort of plastic barrel that lent it an oiliness that slicked his tongue. Because the blaster bolt had punctured his right lung and collapsed it, a little bacta had been circulated through the lung, bringing the fluid’s cloying bouquet to his nose every time he exhaled.

Other than that, he felt pretty good. He still had a reddish spot on his chest where he had been shot. The mark on him was about half the size of the mark on Gavin. Corran realized that armor had saved his life by absorbing some of the power of the bolt—how Gavin survived taking a shot to the naked abdomen he hadn’t a clue.

Gavin rolled onto his side on the next bed over. “Never done that before.”

“Blunder into a lightfight or spend time in a bacta tank?”

“Neither.” The youth frowned. “I didn’t think I was blundering …”

“You weren’t.” Corran shook his head and swung his feet around so he could sit up. “I should have realized you didn’t know to wait until I signaled the hall was clear. I didn’t think, which is why you went down. It was my fault you got shot.”

Gavin covered the reddish area on his stomach with his right hand. “It hurt a lot, then I guess I fainted.”

“You’re lucky that’s all you did. That shot should have killed you.”

“I know I shot back at the stormtrooper. Did I get him?”

“I don’t know, Gavin. Unless you have a holo of a lightfight, trying to reconstruct it after the fact is all but impossible.” Corran slid from the table and found his legs supported him with only a few minor tremors. “He and his buddies died, and that’s all that counts.”

“Were any of us killed?”

Corran remembered the impression of death he’d had in the corridor, but he shook his head. “I don’t know, Gavin.”

The med-center hatch opened and Wedge Antilles stepped through it. His smile broadened at first, then shrank slightly. He paused and returned the hasty salutes Gavin and Corran managed. “Good to see both of you hale and hearty.”

“Hearty, perhaps, sir, but hale will need some work.” Corran worked his right arm up and around in a circle. “A night’s rest ought to make it all right.”

“And you, Gavin, how do you feel?”

“Fine, sir. I could fly right now if you need me.”

“That’s not necessary right away.” Wedge’s expression darkened. “We’ve abandoned Talasea and evacuated it cleanly. We got the stormtroopers and captured their transport ship. Forensic analysis of
the bodies has given us a good indication of where they came from. I’m meeting with Admiral Ackbar and General Salm to consider a counterstrike against their base.”

“I’m in.”

“Me, too.” Gavin hopped off the bed. His knees buckled, but he caught the edge of the bed and remained upright. “I want to go and repay them.”

Wedge nodded and Corran knew he was getting to the worst part of the report. “In the raid we gave better than we got—but we had casualties. Six of our sentries died. You two and Andoorni were severely wounded.” Wedge glanced down at the deck, then over at Gavin. “Lujayne Forge was killed.”

Gavin leaned heavily on the bed. “Lujayne is dead?”

Corran sat abruptly on the floor. He’d felt her die, he knew she had died, yet he couldn’t believe it any more than Gavin could. She’d always been the member of the squadron who was concerned with the welfare of the others—not just their physical welfare, but how they felt.
She formed the heart of our unit, bringing us together. There’s no way she should have been the first of us to die
.

He stared down at his empty hands.
She never even collected on that favor I owed her for fixing my X-wing and now she’s gone
.

Gavin shook his head. “She can’t be dead. She’s been tutoring me in astronavigation. She …” The youth balled his fists and hammered them against the edge of the table. “Dead …”

Wedge sighed. “It’s never easy to lose a friend, Gavin.”

Gavin raised a fist as if he wanted to smash it down again, but let it slowly drift back to his side. “This is the first time anyone I’ve known has died.”

Corran raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

“He’s only a kid, Corran.”