Trilogy (27 page)

“That's it, we're through,” Blue Leader told them quietly. “Keep all channels silent until we're on top of them. It doesn't look like they're expecting much resistance.”

Though half the great station remained in shadow, they were now near enough for Luke to be able to discern individual lights on its surface. A ship that could show phases matching a moon … once again he marveled at the misplaced ingenuity and effort which had gone into its construction. Thousands of lights scattered across its curving expanse gave it the appearance of a floating city.

Some of Luke's comrades, since this was their first sight of the station, were even more impressed. “Look at the size of that thing!” Wedge Antilles gasped over his open pickup.

“Cut the chatter, Blue Two,” Blue Leader ordered. “Accelerate to attack velocity.”

Grim determination showed in Luke's expression as he flipped several switches above his head and began adjusting his computer target readout. Artoo Detoo reexamined the nearing station and thought untranslatable electronic thoughts.

Blue Leader compared the station with the location of their proposed target area. “Red Leader,” he called toward the pickup, “this is Blue Leader. We're in position; you can go right in. The exhaust shaft is farther to the north. We'll keep 'em busy down here.”

Red Leader was the physical opposite of Luke's squadron commander. He resembled the popular notion of a credit accountant—short, slim, shy of face. His skills and dedication, however, easily matched those of his counterpart and old friend.

“We're starting for the target shaft now, Dutch. Stand by to take over if anything happens.”

“Check, Red Leader,” came the other's reply. “We're going to cross their equatorial axis and try to draw their main fire. May the force be with you.”

From the approaching swarm, two squads of fighters broke clear. The X-wing ships dove directly for the bulge of the station, far below, while the Y-ships curved down and northward over its surface.

Within the station, alarm sirens began a mournful, clangorous wail as slow-to-react personnel realized that the impregnable fortress was actually under organized attack. Admiral Motti and his tacticians had expected the rebels' resistance to be centered around a massive defense of the moon itself. They were completely unprepared for an offensive response consisting of dozens of tiny snub ships.

Imperial efficiency was in the process of compensating for this strategic oversight. Soldiers scrambled to man enormous defensive-weapons emplacements. Servodrivers thrummed as powerful motors aligned the huge devices for firing. Soon a web of annihilation began to envelop the station as energy weapons, electrical bolts, and explosive solids ripped out at the oncoming rebel craft.

“This is Blue Five,” Luke announced to his mike as he nose-dived his ship in a radical attempt to confuse any electronic predictors below. The gray surface of the battle station streaked past his ports. “I'm going in.”

“I'm right behind you, Blue Five,” a voice recognizable as Biggs's sounded in his ears.

The target in Luke's sights was as stable as that of the Imperial defenders was evasive. Bolts flew from the tiny vessel's weapons. One started a huge fire on the dim surface below, which would burn until the crew of the station could shut off the flow of air to the damaged section.

Luke's glee turned to terror as he realized he couldn't swerve his craft in time to avoid passing through the fireball of unknown composition. “Pull out, Luke, pull out!” Biggs was screaming at him.

But despite commands to shift course, the automatic pressors wouldn't allow the necessary centrifugal force. His fighter plunged into the expanding ball of superheated gases.

Then he was through and clear, on the other side. A rapid check of his controls enabled him to relax. Passage through the intense heat had been insufficient to damage anything vital—though all four wings bore streaks of black, carbonized testimony to the nearness of his escape.

Hell-flowers bloomed outside his ship as he swung it up and around in a sharp curve. “You all right, Luke?” came Biggs's concerned query.

“I got a little toasted, but I'm okay.”

A different, stern voice sounded. “Blue Five,” warned the squadron leader, “you'd better give yourself more lead time or you're going to destroy yourself as well as the Imperial construction.”

“Yes, sir. I've got the hang of it now. Like you said, it's not
exactly
like flying a skyhopper.”

Energy bolts and sun-bright beams continued to create a chromatic maze in the space above the station as the rebel fighters crisscrossed back and forth over its surface,
firing at whatever looked like a decent target. Two of the tiny craft concentrated on a power terminal. It blew up, throwing lightning-sized electric arcs from the station's innards.

Inside, troopers, mechanicals, and equipment were blown in all directions by subsidiary explosions as the effects of the blast traveled back down various conduits and cables. Where the explosion had hulled the station, escaping atmosphere sucked helpless soldiers and 'droids out into a bottomless black tomb.

Moving from position to position, a figure of dark calm amid the chaos, was Darth Vader. A harried Commander rushed up to him and reported breathlessly.

“Lord Vader, we count at least thirty of them, of two types. They are so small and quick the fixed guns cannot follow them accurately. They continuously evade the predictors.”

“Get all TIE crews to their fighters. We'll have to go out after them and destroy them ship by ship.”

Within numerous hangars red lights began flashing and an insistent alarm started to ring. Ground crews worked frantically to ready ships as flight-suited Imperial pilots grabbed for helmets and packs.

“Luke,” requested Blue Leader as he skimmed smoothly through a rain of fire, “let me know when you're off the block.”

“I'm on my way now.”

“Watch yourself,” the voice urged over the cockpit speaker. “There's a lot of fire coming from the starboard side of that deflection tower.”

“I'm on it, don't worry,” Luke responded confidently. Putting his fighter into a twisting dive, he sliced once more across metal horizons. Antennae and small protruding
emplacements burst into transitory flame as bolts from his wing tips struck with deadly accuracy.

He grinned as he pulled up and away from the surface as intense lines of energy passed through space recently vacated. Darned if it
wasn't
like hunting womp-rats back home in the crumbling canyons of Tatooine's wastes.

Biggs followed Luke on a similar run, even as Imperial pilots prepared to lift clear of the station. Within the many docking bays technical crews rushed hurriedly to unlock power cables and conclude desperate final checks.

More care was taken in preparing a particular craft nearest one of the bay ports, the one into which Darth Vader barely succeeded in squeezing his huge frame. Once set in the seat he slid a second set of eye shields across his face.

The atmosphere of the war room back in the temple was one of nervous expectancy. Occasional blinks and buzzes from the main battle screen sounded louder than the soft susurration of hopeful people trying to reassure one another. Near a far corner of the mass of flickering lights a technician leaned a little closer to his own readouts before speaking into the pickup suspended near his mouth.

“Squad leaders—attention; squad leaders—attention! We've picked up a new set of signals from the other side of the station. Enemy fighters coming your way.”

Luke received the report at the same time as everyone else. He began hunting the sky for the predicted Imperial craft, his gaze dropping to his instrumentation. “My scope's negative. I don't see anything.”

“Maintain visual scanning,” Blue Leader directed. “With all this energy flying, they'll be on top of you before
your scope can pick them up. Remember, they can jam every instrument on your ship except your eyes.”

Luke turned again, and this time saw an Imperial already pursuing an X-wing—an X-wing with a number Luke quickly recognized.

“Biggs!” he shouted. “You've picked one up. On your tail … watch it!”

“I can't see it,” came his friend's panicked response. “Where is he? I can't see it.”

Luke watched helplessly as Biggs's ship shot away from the station surface and out into clear space, closely followed by the Imperial. The enemy vessel fired steadily at him, each successive bolt seeming to pass a little closer to Biggs's hull.

“He's on me tight,” the voice sounded in Luke's cockpit. “I can't shake him.”

Twisting, spinning, Biggs looped back toward the battle station, but the pilot trailing him was persistent and showed no sign of relinquishing pursuit.

“Hang on, Biggs,” Luke called, wrenching his ship around so steeply that straining gyros whined. “I'm coming in.”

So absorbed in his pursuit of Biggs was the Imperial pilot that he didn't see Luke, who rotated his own ship, flipped out of the concealing gray below and dropped in behind him.

Electronic crosshairs lined up according to the computer-readout instructions, and Luke fired repeatedly. There was a small explosion in space—tiny compared with the enormous energies being put out by the emplacements on the surface of the battle station. But the explosion was of particular significance to three people: Luke,
Biggs, and, most particularly, to the pilot of the TIE fighter, who was vaporized with his ship.

“Got him!” Luke murmured.

“I've got one! I've got one!” came a less restrained cry of triumph over the open intercom. Luke identified the voice as belonging to a young pilot known as John D. Yes, that was Blue Six chasing another Imperial fighter across the metal landscape. Bolts jumped from the X-wing in steady succession until the TIE fighter blew in half, sending leaflike glittering metal fragments flying in all directions.

“Good shooting, Blue Six,” the squadron leader commented. Then he added quickly, “Watch out, you've got one on your tail.”

Within the fighter's cockpit the gleeful smile on the young man's face vanished instantly as he looked around, unable to spot his pursuer. Something flared brightly nearby, so close that his starboard port burst. Then something hit even closer and the interior of the now open cockpit became a mass of flames.

“I'm hit, I'm hit!”

That was all he had time to scream before oblivion took him from behind. Far above and to one side Blue Leader saw John D.'s ship expand in a fiery ball. His lips may have whitened slightly. Otherwise he might as well never have seen the X-wing explode, for all the reaction he displayed. He had more important things to do.

On the fourth moon of Yavin a spacious screen chose that moment to flicker and die, much as John D. had. Worried technicians began rushing in all directions. One turned a drawn face to Leia, the expectant Commanders, and one tall, bronzed robot.

“The high-band receiver has failed. It will take some time to fix …”

“Do the best you can,” Leia snapped. “Switch to audio only.”

Someone overheard, and in seconds the room was filled with the sounds of distant battle, interspersed with the voices of those involved.

“Tighten it up, Blue Two, tighten it up,” Blue Leader was saying. “Watch those towers.”

“Heavy fire, Boss,” came the voice of Wedge Antilles, “twenty-three degrees.”

“I see it. Pull in, pull in. We're picking up some interference.”

“I can't believe it,” Biggs was stammering. “I've never seen such firepower!”

“Pull in, Blue Five. Pull in.” A pause, then, “Luke, do you read me? Luke?”

“I'm all right, Chief,” came Luke's reply. “I've got a target. I'm going to check it out.”

“There's too much action down there, Luke,” Biggs told him. “Get out. Do you read me, Luke? Pull out.”

“Break off, Luke,” ordered the deeper tones of Blue Leader. “We've hit too much interference here. Luke, I repeat, break off! I can't see him. Blue Two, can you see Blue Five?”

“Negative,” Wedge replied quickly. “There's a fire zone here you wouldn't believe. My scanner's jammed. Blue Five, where are you? Luke, are you all right?”

“He's gone,” Biggs started to report solemnly. Then his voice rose. “No, wait … there he is! Looks like a little fin damage, but the kid's fine.”

Relief swept the war room, and it was most noticeable
in the face of the slightest, most beautiful Senator present.

On the battle station, troopers worn half to death or deafened by the concussion of the big guns were replaced by fresh crews. None of them had time to wonder how the battle was going, and at the moment none of them much cared, a malady shared by common soldiers since the dawn of history.

Luke skimmed daringly low over the station's surface, his attention riveted on a distant metal projection.

“Stick close, Blue Five,” the squadron commander directed him. “Where are you going?”

“I've picked up what looks like a lateral stabilizer,” Luke replied. “I'm going to try for it.”

“Watch yourself, Blue Five. Heavy fire in your area.”

Luke ignored the warning as he headed the fighter straight toward the oddly shaped protuberance. His determination was rewarded when, after saturating it with fire, he saw it erupt in a spectacular ball of superhot gas.

“Got it!” he exclaimed. “Continuing south for another one.”

Within the rebel temple-fortress, Leia listened intently. She seemed simultaneously angry and frightened. Finally she turned to Threepio and muttered, “Why is Luke taking so many chances?” The tall 'droid didn't reply.

“Watch your back, Luke,” Biggs's voice sounded over the speakers, “watch your back! Fighters above you, coming in.”