Wedge's Gamble (40 page)

More typing and a small label appeared attached to each of the floating cubes. Gavin couldn’t read them at that distance but he assumed they were unit designators that would allow Winter to send orders from the computer to the station.

“We’ll use OSETS 2711. First step is to have the mirror opaque itself. Then we focus it here and start it reflecting again.”

Tycho nodded. “Can you also bring up on this display the Golan stations and ships in orbit?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know, probably, but if I do it might attract some attention. First things first.”

“Go to it.” Tycho stood behind her and rested his hands on her shoulders. “This world needs a bath, so start boiling the water.”

•    •    •

Life could have been worse
, Lieutenant Virar Needa thought to himself. The Captain Needa who had once commanded the Imperial Star Destroyer
Avenger
had only been his cousin, and one generation removed at that. Darth Vader had executed Lorth Needa for incompetence after Hoth, while Virar was still at the Imperial Military Academy. His cousins had all vanished, along with his aunt and his grandparents on the Needa side of the family, but at least he’d remained alive and been allowed to continue in service to the Empire.
It could have been worse, I could be dead
.

Of course, service on an Orbital Solar Energy Transfer Satellite was about as close to death as someone could get in the Imperial Navy without having shots fired at him. Others, including the rest of the six-man crew, saw OSETS service as punishment, but Virar Needa saw it as noble duty. After all, he was entrusted with the care of a facility that made life on Imperial Center possible. Without OSETS 2711, Imperial Center would be just that much more uncomfortable, and if the people who ran the Empire were uncomfortable, well, then things would just begin to fall apart entirely.

A mild tremor shook the station. The others looked up from their sabacc game in the lounge. He saw fear in their eyes because they had no idea what was happening. He did because of his four years of experience with OSETS 2711. That’s why he was a Lieutenant and in command.

He raised a hand. “Don’t worry, that’s just the mirror panels rotating to opaque the surface.”

One of the cadets looked up. “Why would they be doing that, sir?”

Needa smiled at him. “Well, Pedetsen, I would guess it is because another station is off-line for repairs and we’re going to take over its duty. We’ll have our direction adjusted …” He held a hand up, then cocked his wrist and pointed his index finger just as the altitude adjustment jets started a burn. “There you go.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Needa nodded and went back to looking out the viewport. Below him he saw the dark face of a sleeping Imperial Center. It scintillated with a variety of lights that ran like phosphorescent blood through shadowy flesh. He smiled and tried to burn the vision of the planet into his brain.
It always looks so pretty from up here
—
a potential it fails to live up to when I am down on the ground
.

The jet burn went on a bit longer than usual and this disturbed him. Not because he realized anything was wrong, after all, the care of OSETS 2711 was what kept him alive, so nothing could go wrong. He couldn’t and wouldn’t conceive of that possibility. No, the longer than normal burn, he decided, meant they had built a new reception facility for the energy OSETS 2711 was sending down. That he’d not heard of the plans to do this meant they were top secret. The use of OSETS 2711 to power this top secret, vital, new site meant someone down there had finally decided to reward his unswerving and unfailing loyalty.

The tremor again coursed through the station and Needa smiled. “That’s the mirror reflecting again, boys. We’re giving them everything they want. Our contribution to this day will never be forgotten.”

43

Corran Horn snapped the Headhunter up on its starboard S-foil and pulled back on the stick. He feathered the throttle back, slowing his fighter, and pulled it through a tight turn. Leveling off he triggered two blaster bursts that blazed through the air in front of a TIE starfighter. The eyeball broke off its run on Wedge’s airspeeder. The black vehicle slid into the gaping cavern marking what had once been a fifth-floor office.

Corran rolled the ship left, dropped into a dive, then came back up and over the computer center. “Hunter Lead here, anyone need help?”

Asyr’s voice came back through the comm. “I show six more interceptors vectored in on us. Estimated time of arrival, five minutes.”

“I copy, Five.” Corran glanced at his scanner and saw the group she was indicating. “See if you can pull the fight more in this direction.”

“As ordered, Lead.”

Leveling out, Corran began a slow loop to the east. All of a sudden a golden dagger of sunlight stabbed down through the night. The wedge of light focused on an ostentatious building fitted with columns and a cascade of
ever broadening steps. The building grew in brilliance until it shone like a beacon. For the barest of moments it even rivaled the exalted edifice of the Imperial Palace.

Then the building began to melt.

Window casings began to smoke and glow, then the pressure from the superheated air inside the building blew them out. Pennants flying from the top of the building burst into flame. Huge iron doors went from black to orange, red, and finally white before they began to waver and collapse. Columns began to wither and the building’s sharp edges softened.

The building began to sag in on itself, then it swelled at the center. The roof rose up volcanically, then an explosion shook the building. Half-molten granite blocks split apart and sloughed to the side like rotting vegetable matter as a gout of steam shot skyward. It billowed out and thickened as it hit the layer of cooler air above it. The expanding vapor darkened precipitously, then Corran saw golden highlights illuminate it from within.

The first silvery lightning bolt slashed down at the Imperial Palace. Corran laughed aloud. “Even the elements want the Empire dead!”

He keyed his comm unit. “I hope you can hear me, Wedge. You’ve got one fantastic storm brewing out here. Keep it going.”

The image of Coruscant floating in front of Captain Uwlla Iillor on the bridge of the
Corusca Rainbow
began to change. Beneath the twin shields the datastream began to sketch in an angry red storm centering itself over the Palace district. Gold pinpoints marked lightning strikes and quickly became so numerous that flecks of red floated like islands in a golden sea.

Jhemiti inclined his head toward the image. “The storm appears to be fierce.”

“The worst Coruscant has seen in generations, I would imagine.” She leaned forward and studied the image through half-closed eyes. “Rogue Squadron must
have caused this storm somehow. It becomes a weapon of fantastic power, but it is very difficult to direct.”

The Mon Calamari nodded. “Perhaps the Jedi Knight …”

“Can control it? I doubt the Emperor could have controlled a storm of this magnitude. This I take as a good thing because it means the Empire cannot stop it.”

The inner shield sphere flickered and went dark. Jhemiti pointed at the holographic projection. “There, the shields are coming down.”

“Perhaps.” Iillor looked at the chronometer. “We have five minutes until the fleet comes through. Begin initial power up of the gravity well projectors.”

Jhemiti’s eyes half shut. “But the shields.”

“The shields still exist.” Captain Iillor gave her First Officer a cold stare. “We’ll give Rogue Squadron time to finish their mission, but if they cannot, we will finish ours.”

Wedge came around the corner and into the computer center after getting an all-clear from Gavin. Because the construction droid had the same anti-intruder system installed on it, Mirax, Iella, and he had been able to appropriate breathing gear from it before they made the run to the center. He immediately crossed to the workstation where Winter sat while Iella and Mirax took up defensive positions near the door.

“How are things going?”

Tycho looked over at him while Winter typed furiously on her datapad. “Good and bad. The storm is fierce enough that skyhooks are detaching and moving off. Better yet, the inner shields have come down. Unfortunately, it appears their collapse has resulted in a shift of resource allocation programs within the computers. The storm is taking some power plants off-line, but others have been directed to shunt their output through previously unused conduits.”

Wedge frowned. “You’re telling me that the destruction
of one layer of shields has diverted power through backup systems to reinforce the remaining shields?”

Winter nodded. “No one knew the backup system of conduits existed—no power ran through them so folks scouting for places to tap the grid never found them. In essence, this is a whole new power grid. It allocates power to essential services, of which this center is part, but it means that main shield isn’t coming down.”

This is not good
. Wedge leaned with one hand on the workstation. “Can you pull a map of this grid up?”

“Not available.”

Emtrey tottled over. “If I might suggest, sir …?”

“Please do, Emtrey.”

“Lightning will travel along the easiest course from the ground to the clouds and vice versa. The new grid, and especially its substation transfer points, will leak a certain amount of power. Lightning strikes will cluster at these points, so a plot of strikes should show you where the grid is.”

Winter’s fingers played quickly over the datapad’s input surface. The globe flattened out and golden pinpoints started to dot the resulting grid map. The image became localized to the Palace district and enlarged, but the strikes still bled together into a golden network. Wedge saw dark spaces fill in on the map with each staccato thunderclap from outside.

Tycho pointed to a solid cluster that appeared to be the hub from which many gold spokes spread. “That’s likely a substation. The whole purpose of this storm was to hit and knock out power stations. This one looks invulnerable to lightning. So much for our plan.”

Wedge shook his head. “The grounding that will protect it from lightning won’t help it against missiles. Winter, can you pinpoint that substation?”

“Done.”

Tycho looked over at Wedge. “You’re going to send someone in at that target with the storm raging above it?”

“The airspeeder I came in doesn’t have missiles or I’d go.”

“Yes, but you’re a Corellian. You have no respect for how truly hopeless some tasks really are.”

“Right.”

“So you’re sending Corran.”

“Right again.” Wedge slapped Tycho on the back. “There’s no pilot I know of for certain who can outfly lightning, but I’d sooner bet
on
Corran than against him.”

Corran brought his fighter around on the heading Winter gave him. “You want me to fly into
that
?” Six kilometers distant, the lightning strikes came in sheets, not individual bolts. “It’s very ugly over there.”

“I copy, Corran, but it’s got to be done. Take heart, the target is twice the size of the conduit on Borleias.”

“Oh, you should have said that from the start.” Corran nudged the throttle forward. “On an inbound vector.”

“You have four minutes.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Corran took the fighter into a dive and tried to sink as low as he could in the duracrete chasms. The storms had already begun to kick up high winds, but the buildings tended to break them up. He did hit some nasty sheers when he flew through intersections, but the worse of them occurred at the largest intersections, giving him plenty of time to recover.

He started to come up and out of the urban maze two kilometers away from his target. Rain immediately lashed his fighter. It beat so heavily on the cockpit canopy and shook the ship enough that it wasn’t until he saw his shield indicator go from green to yellow that he realized someone was shooting at him. A glance at his aft monitor showed two Interceptors coming up on his tail.

Corran rolled and started a dive that he aborted almost immediately. Rolling again violently, he righted his craft and kicked in power to the repulsorlift drives. The drives cut in on cue and bounced his fighter up over a crumbling skywalk between buildings.
With power going down, they don’t have their little lights on
.

Behind him something exploded and his aft sensor indicated he only had one squint on his tail. A pair of near misses, with green bolts shooting past his starboard S-foil, told him that the Imp pilot behind him was good. Coming up on his left wing, he pulled a hard turn around the corner of a building, then rolled 180 degrees and cut back around another. The figure-eight maneuver got rid of his pursuit for the moment, so he came back around and set up to make his run on the target.

The Headhunter sliced through the air amid a cacophony of thunder and a forest of lightning bolts. Corran knew there was no way to dodge a bolt—one second it would not be there and the next it would. The lightning strikes silhouetted darkened towers, helping him steer around trouble. In that way they proved more helpful than harmful, but he knew one solid strike and his controls would fry.
They will fry, fighter won’t fly, and I will die
.

Turbulence in the air began to bounce him around. The stick tried to pull itself out of his grasp, but he hung on firmly. Flying through rough air he had to strike a balance between becoming rigid, which would lock things up and crash him, and being too flexible, which meant he’d lose control of the stick and the fighter would crash. He trimmed his speed and did his best to keep the fighter on target.

More green laser blasts shot past.
At least the turbulence is making me tough to hit
. He shoved the stick hard to the left, then rolled right and pulled back. After two seconds he rolled left again and hauled back on the stick. Leveling out right, he hit rudder and brought his nose in line with the aft of the Interceptor. His quick turns amounted to taking a long time to cover the distance the squint covered swiftly in its swoop. He ended up behind it and fired.