Star Wars: X-Wing I: Rogue Squadron (24 page)

“I know, sir, but his cousin …”

Gavin shook his head. “I’ve met people before who later died. I remember Mr. Owen and Aunt Beru—that’s what I called them on the couple of times Biggs let me tag along when he visited Luke at the Lars farm. When they died, my father took the farm over …”

Wedge frowned. “I thought Luke had given it to an alien.”

“Yes, Throgg was his name. He worked it for a couple of seasons, but my uncle wanted to add that farm to his holdings, so he got the Anchorhead Municipal Council to pass an alien landowner tax which would have broken Throgg to pay. My father didn’t hold with his brother’s tactics, so Dad bought the farm from Throgg, paying him what it was worth instead of letting Uncle Huff buy it in a tax auction.” Gavin shrugged. “Growing up on that farm I could remember having seen the Larses, but I never really knew them. I was a kid, a
real
kid. They were nice to me, but …”

“But you didn’t
know
them.” Corran drew his knees up to his chest. “I understand. Still, your cousin, Biggs …”

“Biggs was eight years older than I was. There were times he liked having me around and times he didn’t. I couldn’t understand why not then.” Gavin shrugged. “I’ve grown up since then, so I kind of understand now but, still, I didn’t really know him. And not seeing his … him or Luke’s aunt and uncle after, well, it’s not like I know they’re gone. I do, but, you know …”

“I do know.” Wedge folded his arms across his chest. “I was there when Biggs died. I got hit and pulled up out of the trench on Luke’s orders. Your cousin and I both knew we were really there as an
added set of shields to keep Luke safe, but we didn’t regret that. We knew he’d have done the same thing for us and we also knew he had to blow the Death Star. Biggs stayed there, keeping the TIEs back, and died there. And even though he died, he bought Luke the time he needed to destroy the Death Star.”

The Rebel commander’s eyes nearly shut as he stared off into space. “I flew with Biggs before Yavin and he was really good. It seemed like he could read the minds of TIE pilots. He knew when to break, when to shoot, and did everything necessary to stay in their ion exhaust and blast them to bits. He was proud of his record and his skill, but not arrogant.”

Gavin smiled. “He had that smirk, the one he’d give you when he’d done something you couldn’t.”

Wedge chuckled. “I used to hate that smirk, but I didn’t have it directed at me all that often. In his first mission we went against an Imperial convoy, right after they’d started assigning Nebulon-B frigates, just like the
Reprieve
here, to jump cover for the convoys. It launched two dozen TIEs at our squadron. Biggs lit and vaped five, making him an ace, but another pilot claimed his number-three kill. That kill made the other pilot an ace—I think he was on his fifteenth mission at the time. Biggs gave the guy the smirk and let him have it. And thereafter when Biggs got five of something, he’d give this guy the third one. He wasn’t nasty about it, but he didn’t let the guy forget.”

Gavin nodded. “Biggs was like that—he’d needle you with your own little foibles until you did something about it, or it didn’t bother you anymore.”

“It was his way of making everyone toe the line and push themselves to be the best they could. That’s why he used to get after Luke about going to the Academy. He didn’t want to see anyone waste
themselves when they could be doing more.” Wedge scratched the back of his neck. “If he’d survived Yavin, we’d be reporting to him now.”

Corran raised a finger. “Did the third-kill guy ever redeem himself?”

The curve of Wedge’s smile flattened out. “The guy, Karsk was his name, Amil Karsk, took the third of five scheduled patrols for Biggs. It was an easy job—nursemaiding a blockade runner on a courier mission. It even promised a couple of days of rest and recreation. It was a plum assignment, but Biggs let him have it and was willing to call it even. That mission and that courier took Karsk to Alderaan. He was on the ground when the Death Star appeared.”

“Ouch.” Corran reached up and hauled himself to his feet. “Biggs was lucky he let the mission slide.”

“Yeah, but luck runs out eventually.” Wedge’s brown eyes hardened. “Ours hasn’t, not entirely, yet. I’m glad you’re both back with us. I’d prefer not having to add you to the list of friends I’ve lost to the Empire. The list is too long already.”

Gavin swallowed hard, once, then extended his hand to Wedge. “Thank you, sir. I feel like I know Biggs a bit better now.”

Wedge shook the youth’s hand. “Thanks for giving me the chance to remember the good things about Biggs. Too much of war is remembering the loss—the point at which people cease contributing to this life. Biggs, Porkins, Dack, Lujayne—they all need to be remembered as more than just casualties. I don’t do that often enough.”

Their commander glanced at the chronometer on the ship’s bulkhead. “I’m due to meet with Admiral Ackbar shortly. You’ve got about four hours before
we’ll have a memorial for Lujayne and the other people we lost on Talasea. And after that, Ackbar willing and Salm being sanguine, we’ll bleed some Imperials pale of luck and let our dead rest just that much easier.”

Emtrey’s uncharacteristic quiet on the flight over from the
Reprieve
to
Home One
had started Wedge wondering if the galaxy hadn’t changed around him while he’d been sleeping. The droid hadn’t wheedled, cajoled, begged, or bored him with details about the need for him to travel to
Home One
—he just showed up and said he had things to take care of on board the Rebel flagship.

Tycho had shrugged, so Wedge agreed. The droid seemed uncharacteristically quiet, but that didn’t seem sinister and really was quite welcome. As he piloted the
Forbidden
on the run over to the Mon Calamari Star cruiser he realized he’d not seen much of Emtrey during the time on Talasea, and he’d heard even less from him. He’d heard even fewer complaints about the droid, and this he took as a good sign. He felt caring for pilots was tough enough without having to worry about droids, too.

The smile on General Salm’s face as Wedge and Tycho entered Admiral Ackbar’s briefing room increased the Corellian’s sense of dislocation with the galaxy. “Good to see you, Commander Antilles,
Captain Celchu. It was very kind of you to have your M-3PO droid send that gross of new flight suits to Defender Wing. We accept your apology and look forward to working with you on this mission.”

Wedge looked at Tycho, but his XO gave his head a nearly imperceptible shake.
If it makes Salm happy, do I
really
need to know what’s going on?
“You’re welcome, General. We’re all on the same side, after all.”

Ackbar’s face shifted from Wedge to Salm and back again. He blinked, then clasped his hands together. “Clear water, gentle waves, good.” The Mon Calamari seated himself and pushed a button on the chair’s arm. “Our droids have double-checked the findings of the forensic team working on the stormtroopers you brought up from Talasea. They confirm the rash on three of them as being Rachuk roseola. DNA analysis of the virus shows a variation from the sequencing reported there two years ago, and given the spontaneous mutation rate, this would be the most recent strain.”

Wedge nodded. “So they came from Rachuk.”

Ackbar pointed to the computer-generated holographic image growing up in the middle of the group. It showed a relatively small world with a scattering of jungle islands. “The Rachuk system itself is unimportant except that its central location means a great number of ships pass into and out of it as they conduct trade. The Empire located a base on Vladet to discourage piracy and they were relatively successful in doing so. The Chorax system is within the sector controlled from Rachuk, as is the Hensara system, so it is logical to assume that the sector commander decided Rogue Squadron needed to be eliminated.”

“But how did they know where we were?”

Salm’s face darkened slightly. “The presence of a spy in your midst cannot be fully discounted.”

Wedge glanced at Tycho but saw no reaction to the remark at all.
A better man than I not to shoot back
. “No spy at all would leave the same evidence as a very good spy—one in so deep we couldn’t find it.”

“That is still no reason why we shouldn’t look for a spy.”

Tycho shook his head. “Security at the base was tight. We had no unauthorized messages going in or out.”

“That you know of.”

“No, sir.”

“Or,” Salm smiled, “that you’re choosing to report.”

“General, Captain Celchu is reporting the results of checks I performed myself. There were no leaks from Rogue Squadron.”

Ackbar waved the discussion away with a flip of his hand. “It is more than likely that the Empire planted a number of passive sensor devices in the buildings there after Vader killed off the colony. If such sensors gathered data and then sent it out on a delayed basis, or in a format we would not easily recognize, we would miss it. While we did have teams sweep the area, detecting passive devices is not easy.”

“It also could have been blind luck.”

Salm looked at Tycho. “What do you mean, Captain?”

Tycho raked brown hair back from his forehead. “Imperials tend not to be subtle. If I’d been in command and I knew where Rogue Squadron was, I would have brought in everything I had. We know Rachuk command has an Interdictor and at least one Strike cruiser that can carry three squadrons of
TIEs. Since all of that didn’t show up, I suspect they just sent out stormtrooper platoons to recon uninhabited systems in the sector—assuming, of course, that they have spies in most of the inhabited systems. One platoon found us and the commander decided to be ambitious and destroy us himself.”

Ackbar nodded. “Another logical conclusion drawn from the evidence at hand. There has also been a fair amount of traffic by small trading ships into and out of Talasea.”

“Yes, sir. Emtrey can give you the data on them.”

“He already did and they all appear to be clean, Commander, but one misstatement by one crew member and your security would be compromised. Ultimately, though, the reason the Talasea base was discovered is less important than our discovery of the source of the stormtroopers. It has been two standard days since the stormtroopers died, so chances are very good that their absence has been noticed.”

Wedge folded his arms. “Standard Imperial response would be to move in, secure the planet, and prevent us from using it again.”

“We expect the
Havoc
and the
Black Asp
to be used to prevent Rogue Squadron from making a quick hit and run on the Talasea expeditionary force; they won’t be defending Rachuk.” Salm reached out and touched the holographic world. The island he selected grew up in place of the world of which it was part. As the image expanded the computer added buildings, mountains, ion-cannon batteries, and other details of military importance. Two steep mountain chains—the edges of an extinct volcano’s crater—enclosed the base like parentheses. “We have other information about the locations and patrol routes of the Rachuk sector’s ships. We believe
Vladet should be open to a reprisal strike, and Grand Isle here is the place to hit.”

Wedge took a step closer to the holographic island floating in midair. “Defense shields?”

Salm smiled and Wedge was pleased that predatory leer wasn’t directed at him. “Not if they want to fire their ion cannons. The island, as you can see, is part of an old volcano. The generators are geothermal and old and not up to the strain of raising the shield
and
powering the ion cannons.”

“And if they choose to go turtle instead of trying to shoot?”

The bomber pilot traced a circle around what would have originally been the edge of the crater. To the south the wall had broken down almost completely and much of the base had been built on the flat stretch of land that linked the volcano and the bay. On the north side of the crater the wall had begun to erode, but it was just a small divot compared to the gap to the south.

“The shield generator has to cover everything from the beach to the tops of the mountains. On the north side it should be possible to blast through the
mountain
and open up enough of a gap to let our bombers in. Once we’re under the shield, the generators go and it’s over.”

It looks like it should work
. Wedge rubbed a hand over his chin. “Are we hitting and running, or moving in?”

“We want to cripple Vladet so the Empire will have to move new forces in.” Ackbar hit another button on the arm of his chair and the island vanished. “The Rachuk sector is immaterial at the moment, except as a symbol and a wound the Empire must stanch. We want this raid to go off in twelve hours. What will Rogue Squadron’s operational strength be then, Commander?”

“I’ll be down two pilots. I could give Captain Celchu Forge’s X-wing.”

“No.” General Salm shook his head adamantly.

Ackbar opened his mouth in a smile. “What General Salm meant by this is that we will be using the
Eridain
as a command and control center. Captain Celchu will operate there to coordinate Rogue Squadron and Defender Wing. This is at Captain Afyon’s request.”

Wedge frowned at General Salm.
How is it that you will trust Tycho to direct
all
our forces, but won’t trust him in the cockpit of an X-wing? Isn’t it obvious where he can do the most damage?
“Is that acceptable to you, Captain?” He put enough of an edge in his voice that he felt certain Tycho knew he’d fight Salm if Tycho wanted to fly in the raid.

“Yes, sir. I’ve not logged enough time in an X-wing to be mission qualified anyway, Commander, so I’ll be happy to do flight coordination and control.”

Salm tugged at the hem of his blue coat. “I’ll have my own flight controller on the
Eridain
. You’ll work with him.”

“Of course, sir.”

And your man will decide whether or not to relay orders
. Wedge nodded to himself. “We’ll make it work.”

“Good.” Ackbar closed his eyes for a moment and Wedge took that as a sign of appreciation for his cooperation. “You are returning to the
Reprieve
for the memorial service?”