Wraith Squadron (51 page)

“You’re ready to go, sir.”

“Attention, forces of the
Implacable
. This is Commander Wedge Antilles of New Republic Starfighter Command. Recommend you break off hostilities now.”

He got an answer instantly. “Antilles, are you demanding surrender?”

“Negative. Here’s the deal. You break off hostilities, we do, too. Go wherever you care to. We’ve won this round. Neither one of us gains from continuing this battle.”

“Not correct. You die, we gain. Prepare to eat vacuum.”

Then a new voice, words spoken with biting precision. “Captain, accept the commander’s offer.”

Wedge went cold. He knew that voice.

The captain’s voice returned. “You’re only an observer here. You don’t issue orders to—” Then a scream.

Face’s voice: “Sithspit, he’s vaped his own man.”

The precise voice returned. “I apologize. A slight question of chain of command. Commander, you have a deal. All
Implacable
forces, break off now. Come to heading two-seventy.”

Wedge said, “All New Republic forces, break off combat. Form up on
Night Caller
. If you consider yourself in good shape and have sufficient fuel, fly by on downed fighters and escape pods to report their condition.” He drew his finger over his throat and the comm officer cut the wide-channel transmission.

Wedge’s weapons officer stared wide-eyed. “You looked like you knew him.”

“You might say that. That was Baron Soontir Fel.”

The officer paled and returned his attention to his weapons board. Baron Fel, since the death of Darth Vader, was accounted the best Imperial pilot living, and his elite 181st Imperial Fighter Group was the most accomplished fighter unit the Empire could field.

What was he doing as an observer on Admiral Trigit’s ship?

On the sensor board, most of the dots obeyed the orders of their respective commanders.

Five dots did not. Three reds headed away from Ession’s moon on a straight, out-system course. Two blues pursued. The sensors identified the faster one as Blue Leader, the slower as Wraith Nine.

Squeaky drew Kell in through
Narra’
s emergency airlock. “So glad you are among the living, Tainer. Now that I have you trained to proper manners, I would hate to lose you.”

Kell shivered uncontrollably and ignored the 3PO unit. Atril, herself swathed in a blanket, threw another one across his shoulders. Phanan was lying on one of the passenger couches, a blanket over him, his face pallid, but he managed a faint smile for Kell. Squeaky returned to Phanan’s side.

“We lost Grinder and Falynn,” Atril said.

Kell sat beside her. “Tyria?”

“She’s not hurt.”

Kell relaxed. He tried to sort out his thoughts, his feelings. Relief about Tyria. Sadness for the loss of Falynn, Grinder, and Thirteen. And an odd sort of jubilation at the
loss of a part of himself. He knew that something in him had died and he did not miss it.

“Kell.”

“Yeah, Cubber.”

“
Night Caller
sends you congratulations. They say this combat was like your first simulator run with the Wraiths.”

Kell blinked at him, confused. “Runt gets all my points?”

“No, stupid. One mission, five kills, instant ace. Congratulations.”

“Oh.”

Cubber snorted. “Much more behavior like that and I’m going to doubt your dedication to the mechanic’s profession, boy.” He turned back toward his controls. “
Narra
lifting. More packages to pick up.”

“Leader to Wraith Nine.”

Donos sat stiffly, his whole body cold, his hand holding the control stick in a death grip.

“Leader to Wraith Nine.”

“Nine here.”

“Report your condition.”

Falynn is dead. I don’t have a condition
. “I’m functional.” Automatically, Donos checked his fuel reading, his weapons and shield status. All in the green. He had several more minutes worth of dogfighting power available to him.

Three enemies and one ally ahead.

Commander Antilles probably meant his mental condition.

He’d almost gone away again when he heard Falynn die. But he hadn’t. He knew the Wraiths wouldn’t let him stay gone.

Best just to keep moving and kill the man who’d killed her. The man who’d killed Talon Squad. “I’m in pursuit of three enemies who are not part of the pacified force.”

“If they surrender, you’re obliged to accept it.”

“If.” Donos was silent a long moment. “Please instruct that A-wing ahead of me not to vape Trigit. That’s my job.”

A new voice came over the comm. “Commander Antilles
doesn’t instruct a general to do a damned thing, Wraith Nine.”

“Recommend you not get between Trigit and my lasers, General.”

“On any other day I’d consider that a threat, sonny. For now, I recommend you just shut up. Blue Leader out.”

Donos shut up. Nothing the general could do to him worried him. He just didn’t feel like spending energy on an argument.

Donos watched the sensors as General Crespin gained on the interceptor flight. They weren’t flying as fast as true Interceptors; the personal vehicles of an Imperial admiral and his favorite bodyguards, they were probably loaded down with hyperdrives and even shielding systems, and that weight would count against them. Even Donos’s X-wing, slower than a standard Interceptor, was gaining steadily on these three.

A few more minutes and they’d be far enough from Ession’s gravity well to enter hyperspace. But maybe the general was canny enough to stop them.

When the sensor screen showed three klicks distance between the A-wing and the interceptors, Donos’s comm board lit up with a cross-frequency transmission. “Blue Leader to outbound interceptors. This is General Edor Crespin. I’m giving you this opportunity to surrender.”

The reply came in a dry voice: “Thank you, Blue Leader. I notice a certain disparity in our numbers, though. Perhaps you’d better go home.”

Donos heard no reply from Crespin. That exchange had been enough for both leaders.

Moments later, when the range meter showed two kilometers between the Interceptors and General Crespin, Donos saw the Interceptor group change formation. The starboard TIE dropped back and fell into position immediately behind the center one. The port TIE rolled out and turned back toward the A-wing.

Why? Then Donos knew what had happened. General
Crespin had gotten a laser lock on Trigit’s craft. One Interceptor had moved in the way of the general’s lasers. The other was going back to destroy the A-wing … or die trying.

For once, Donos prayed for the success of an A-wing pilot. “Gadget, can we put anything else on acceleration?”

NO
.

Donos began rocking in his seat, forward and back, as though the action would coax just a little more acceleration out of the X-wing.

On screen, the rearmost red dot and the blue closed on a head-to-head course.

Donos frowned over the maneuver.
What was General Crespin doing, playing head-to-head with a pilot who was doubtless willing to give up his life to buy the admiral a little extra time?

They were far from the mass shadows of Ession or her biggest moon. In moments, the Interceptors would be able to jump to hyperspace.

Donos calmed himself.
The general isn’t an idiot. He has a plan. If I can figure out what it is, maybe I can figure out what he’s going to do to Admiral Trigit—what direction he’ll make the admiral jump
.

If he, Donos, were in an A-wing closing with an Interceptor while two other, more important Interceptors were headed away at a slight angle, what would he do?

The A-wings had laser cannons that traversed up and down, giving them a generous arc of fire—something else the drivers of those tiny speed machines were always bragging about. In Crespin’s place, Donos could keep his current course but rotate ninety degrees rightward and elevate his guns, bringing Trigit and the other escort back into his sights.

Donos brought up his visual sensor and saw that the general had indeed rotated—in fact, his rotation was continuous, a spin designed to make the A-wing’s narrow profile an even more difficult target, and laser blasts from the Interceptor were streaking harmlessly past him. But Donos saw the general had indeed elevated his guns. He wouldn’t be able to use them to fire on the Interceptor. He had to be planning for an angle of attack on the other Interceptors.

Donos almost slapped himself. He had it. In Crespin’s place, he’d close until he had barely enough time to maneuver out of the head-to-head death trap, then fire the A-wing’s concussion missiles. The other pilot, more likely to be locked into a suicide ramming course, would not be likely to maneuver out of their way. That would eliminate the suicide pilot and immediately give Crespin a clear laser shot at the other two Interceptors.

Which way would they jump? Currently, Trigit was in front, his bodyguard trailing immediately behind, Crespin vectoring away from them at a slight angle to port. As soon as they sensed a laser lock, Trigit would have to go to starboard—because that would keep his bodyguard right behind him and in the path of Crespin’s lasers.

Donos almost smiled. He switched to proton torpedoes and aimed visually toward empty space to the Interceptors’ starboard. He wasn’t in range for a torpedo lock yet … but was well within the torpedoes’ strike range. If he fired at the correct angle, with the torpedoes set to follow any heat source, and the Interceptors broke across the torpedoes’ path …

He waited, and rocked in his seat for more speed.
Falynn, are you watching?

When the Interceptor and A-wing were a quarter klick apart, Crespin angled away, but twin streaks of light continued down his original course. The Interceptor he was jousting with reached the point they’d both been aiming for and exploded, victim of twin concussion missiles and bad tactics. Crespin stopped his A-wing’s rotation and had his guns directed at the other two vehicles in a bare second.

Immediately, as Crespin’s laser lock found them, Trigit’s Interceptor and its pursuit vehicle broke away. To starboard. Donos fired. “One for Falynn. Two for Talon.”

Crespin’s lasers found the engines of the pursuit Interceptor, stitched them with bright red fire. The Interceptor vanished in a bright ball.

Donos’s comm unit popped. Trigit’s voice. “Crespin, I’d like to reconsid—”

Donos’s first torpedo shot between the slit in the Interceptor’s
starboard wing and hit the Interceptor where the round forward viewport met the hull. The Interceptor detonated in a brilliant flash. Donos’s second torpedo entered the cloud but did not emerge from it.

Then there was nothing but the hiss of static over his comm unit, a single blue dot on his sensors.

The A-wing began a long, lazy arc back toward Ession. “Nice shooting, son.”

“Nice flying, sir.” Donos brought his own snubfighter around.

In his chest was a coldness to match the vacuum around him. It was the emptiness of his future. But Talon Squad had had its revenge. Now, perhaps, eleven good pilots, one ever-helpful R2 unit, and a Tatooine woman who’d never recognized her own worth would be able to rest easy.

31

Her beaches and seas are almost as beautiful as those on Storinal
, Kell reflected.
Maybe more so.
They aren’t as … deliberate. As sculpted
.

The world was called Borleias. Once the site of the biomedical research facility of an Imperial general, later captured by the New Republic as the first stage of the march on the Imperial throne world, Borleias was now home to a fighter training base.

The New Republic had named a troop transport after the battle for this world, and Kell and Runt had saved that transport on Folor. Kell decided, irrationally, this meant the world welcomed his presence.

He certainly felt welcome. He lounged on a puff-cot large enough to accommodate his generous frame—with plenty of room for Tyria beside him. Uniform of the day was bathing suits that might generously be called minimal, and that was a vacation in itself. Beside them on a blanket were half-finished drinks slowly warming in the sun and a small refrigeration unit from which more drinks would emerge as the day grew later.

Up and down the beach, other Wraiths and crewmen of
Night Caller
splashed in the waves, lounged on puff-cots, rode recreational speeder bikes, sat drinking around tables under broad reflective parasols. Donos was at the end of the line of cots, alone with his thoughts, but remaining within reach of the other Wraiths instead of distancing himself from them.

Phanan was in Borleias’s military hospital, recovering from the loss of his spleen, which had been perforated by shrapnel as he ejected. When Kell had gone to see him, Phanan had explained, “Yes, I got so angry that I had to vent my spleen.”

The Wraiths, Kell’s fellow pilots, his friends. There were no recriminations in their eyes. Most of them knew that he’d had … some sort of attack back on Ession’s moon. They also knew that he’d recovered from it, thrown himself into the worst part of the fight. He’d vaporized more than his share of the enemy and had drawn the fire of even more pilots.
Night Caller
, her sensors overwhelmed by the deliberately faulty emissions of the nearby retransmission dish and the dust cloud she was kicking up, had no record of his temporary vacation from reality. So, like Donos’s collapse, it wasn’t spoken of. It hadn’t happened.

And it wouldn’t happen again. All he’d ever have to do is imagine what would become of the people he loved if he abandoned them.

He glanced down at Tyria, a teasing remark on his lips; but she was asleep, her head on his shoulder as though it were a pillow.

A shadow fell across them.

Admiral Ackbar stood above him.

Kell saluted out of reflex. “Sir.”

“Don’t get up.” The admiral moved to sit on the next puff-cot over. He turned toward the water, looking at it, as far as Kell could read his posture, with a longing expression. “I am sorry I was not able to speak to you on Talasea.”

“I … was avoiding you, sir.”