Star Wars: X-Wing I: Rogue Squadron (38 page)

“That’s dangerous for a droid doing military work.”

“It’s not a standard modification for obvious reasons. There are a number of things odd about this droid, not the least of which is the voice shift when you start to press him on requisitions. I can check that later, though. Right now this override should get us what you want. Emtrey, I require the name of the system in which Rogue Squadron will be operating.”

“Pyria system, Borleias, fourth planet, one moon, home to an Imperial fortress and various failed and abandoned industrial and agricultural ventures.” The voice changed slightly. “Location of agro-manufacturing facility for Alderaanian agricultural products with high covert trade value.”

Mirax’s blood ran cold. “Emtrey, the list of products available from that facility—how many people have had access to it?”

“Yours was the only access, Ms. Terrik.”

“Could a copy have been made by a slicer without your knowledge?”

The droid did not reply for a second or two. “Impossible to determine an answer to that question.”

Mirax looked over at Tycho. “The Empire could have been warned. We have to do something.”

“What? If we send a message out it could warn
the Empire they’re coming as easily as it warns our people of an ambush.”

“So we go there. I can get us there fast. Maybe even before they arrive.”

“And have our presence tip the Empire about the raid?” Tycho shook his head. “Any comm message could be intercepted, even if we are in-system and try to tight-beam it to them. That’s no good.”

Mirax balled her fists and hammered them against her thighs. “We have to do something. We can’t just sit around and do nothing.”

“Yes, but what we do has to be the right thing.” Tycho slowly smiled and reached for the button on the back of Emtrey’s neck. “And I think I know what it is.”

When the squadron reverted to realspace, the dark craggy ball hanging in space before them reduced Borleias to a slender blue-green crescent streaked with white. The moon’s thin atmosphere blurred Borleias’s image, making it beautiful—which was definitely
not
how Corran had remembered it. Corran inverted his X-wing, then reached up with his right hand to hit the switch that brought his S-foils into attack position. Ahead of him Wedge’s X-wing similarly spread its wings, twisting around and bearing down on the moon.

The X-wings maintained comm silence as they leveled out and skimmed the black lunar surface. Corran brought his snubfighter in behind and to the left of Wedge’s fighter. With their scanners in passive mode to avoid detection, they’d only register threats that had scanners up and seeking targets. As a result visual scanning by pilots and astromech droids became the primary defense against ambush.

“Not that much should be here.” While the simulations had represented this run as threading their way through an asteroid ring around a planet to remain
hidden, all the parameters used were taken from Borleias. As nearly as they knew the Imperials had not stationed fighters or remote detection units on the moon. Still, that possibility did exist, so the squadron did all it could to keep their presence a secret.

Volcanic glass teeth lined gaps in crater walls. They reflected scant little starlight, but strange shapes did appear in silhouette against the starfield. Whipping along at near maximum speed in the pitch-darkness of the moon’s nightside did seem reckless and foolish, but no more so than the rest of the mission. They raced through the blackness, heading toward a point on the ever-changing horizon.

When the horizon appeared as a white crown, Wedge’s X-wing pulled up and shot away from the moon. Down on Borleias the moon only appeared to be half full and the Rogues made their approach against the background of the moon’s dark side. They plunged down into Borleias’s gravity well. They let the planet draw them in, but before they hit the outer edges of the planet’s atmosphere, Corran brought his ship around in a looping turn to starboard and inverted to have Borleias’s dark face above him.

Pulling back on the stick, he eased the fighter’s nose into the atmosphere. The ablative shell Zraii had applied to his fighter began to glow red, then came apart in a shower of sparks that momentarily blanketed his cockpit canopy. Once the fiery cloud passed, he pulled back even more on the stick and started a sharper descent into Borleias’s night.

The ablative shell had given his ship the appearance of yet one more of the Versied meteors streaking through the night sky. Corran checked his scanners and had no indication of hostile sensors
directed at him.
Entry is clean
. Glancing at his instruments, he came around to a heading and chopped his speed back so he would reach the rendezvous point exactly on time.

Flipping a switch, he engaged the fuel pod pump so it would start to refill his onboard fuel tank. A red-lined error message scrolled up on his main screen. “Whistler, the T65-AFP pump isn’t working. Is there anything you can do?”

A negative hoot replied to his question.

Corran shrugged.
I have to run with the pod a little longer. No big deal
.

Suddenly Nawara’s voice crackled over the helmet speakers. “Leader, twelve, repeat one-two, eyeballs coming in from the west, angels ten. On intercept for run. Patrol formation.”

Corran felt his stomach clench.
Lucky bastards
. He smiled.
Or
very
unlucky
.

“Two Flight, Three Flight, pounce on them. Nine, we’re to the deck and in. Are you ready?”

“Telemetry feed started, you are lead.” Corran tightened his grip on the stick and shoved the fighter over into a steep dive. “This is it, Whistler. Keep your domed head down and enjoy the ride.”

Wedge flipped his scanners into active mode and swooped his X-wing into the narrow end of the rift valley. The computer used muted greens to impose holographic highlights on the canopy that corresponded to the terrain outside. Nudging the stick to port and starboard he sliced his craft through the sleeping canyon. He rolled up on his port wing to slip through a narrow passage, then noted that behind him Corran had remained level to make the same run.

“No need to be fancy, Nine.”

“Yes, sir.” Corran’s voice drifted off for a
second. “Lead, I have two hostiles coming in behind us.”

Wedge hit a switch on his console. “Power to rear deflector shields.”

“Done.”

“Mynock, bring up data on the trailers.” The monitor flashed images of two TIE starfighters.
We should be faster than they are maneuvering through atmosphere here, but I’d rather they weren’t there
.

Wedge keyed his comm. “Four, we have two down here. Can you help?”

Bror answered immediately. “Negative, Lead. Our plates are full, and long-range scans indicate squints coming in.”

“Copy, Four.” Wedge frowned. The intervention by Interceptors was not good. If both of the squadrons that showed up at the end of the last battle were to scramble against Rogue Squadron, no one would make it home.
But that’s not the objective of this mission—blowing the conduit is
.

“Nine, push your speed.”

“As ordered.”

The X-wings came out of the canyon leading into the rift valley. To the right grassy plains stretched out through the darkness. On the left a striated escarpment rose up nearly a thousand meters. Its craggy surface reflected enough moonlight to let Wedge see Corran’s X-wing in silhouette as the fighter drew almost parallel to his port stabilizer. Twenty-five kilometers farther on the valley narrowed again and five kilometers beyond that point lay their target.

Verdant laser bolts sizzled past, splitting the space between the Rebel fighters. Wedge juked up and to the starboard, while Corran’s ship sank out of sight on the left. Rolling his ship and letting it move back toward the center of the valley, he saw
one TIE dive, its lasers gouging up great chunks of the valley floor in front of Corran’s jinking X-wing.

Wedge hauled his throttle back to half power and pulled a hard turn to port. Punching the throttle forward again, he rolled the ship onto its right S-foil and yanked it back in another hard turn. Leveling out to the left, he slipped into the aft wash of the TIE that had been on his tail. His finger tightened down on the trigger and scarlet laser fire exploded the Imperial fighter.

“Nine, report.”

“Go, Lead, punch it. I’m coming behind.”

“Status.”

“I’ll be good to go in a second.”

Kicking the X-wing up on the starboard stabilizers, Wedge stabbed his fighter into the narrow northern end of the valley. A brilliant flash of light painted shadows against white rock with skeletal clarity. The X-wing bucked a bit as the explosion’s shock wave caught up with it, but Wedge’s steady hand kept the fighter clear of the canyon walls.

“Nine, what was that?”

“Fuel pod exploding.”

“One more time.”

“Misses on the deck kicked up debris that hit my belly pod and I had a slow leak. I jettisoned it. The tank exploded and the guy behind me got an eyeful.”

Wedge looked at his fuel indicators. His fuel pod was still a quarter full. “Fuel status.”

“I’m okay.”

“How much?”

“Three-quarters.” Anger in Corran’s voice transmuted into resolution. “Enough to do the job.”

“Copy.”
One run, then you’re out of here, Corran. You’re into your reserve
. Wedge clicked his
weapons control over to proton torpedoes. “One
klick, arming two.
”

“Got it. Armed two. Is that light up there?”

Wedge slowly nodded. “Be alert. Power to forward shields.” Banking hard starboard he brought the fighter around the final turn before the run to the conduit. Yanking the stick to the left he snap-rolled the X-wing level, then hit the right rudder pedal and started the fighter skidding to the left. Laser bolts exploded against his forward shields.

He pulled the trigger, sending two proton torpedos sizzling out, but even as he did so he knew they would miss high. As they exploded against the canyon walls beyond the ferrocrete tunnel, Wedge snapped his repulsorlift drives on and bounced his fighter up and out of the canyon. Jamming his throttle full forward, he hauled back on the stick and shot skyward.

He saw the flashes of two more explosions below him as he rocketed away from Borleias. “Nine, report.”

“Mine went low. That was a Juggernaut assault vehicle down there providing that fire.”

“And it looked like they were reinforcing the conduit.”

“I saw that. I nailed a ferrocrete mixer.”

Wedge checked his scanners. “We have a squadron of Interceptors headed in our direction.”

“What do you want to do? I’m good for another run.”

“Another run would be suicide, Nine, and you don’t have the fuel to play.”

“Sir, I’m good for another run.”

Wedge shook his head. “You’re heading home while you can still get there.”

“No.”

“That’s an order, Nine, not an invitation to debate.”
Wedge could feel Corran’s disappointment.
It’s exactly what I felt when Luke ordered me out of the trench on the first Death Star run
. “Get clear, Corran. You can’t do any more good back there.”

Dejection filled Corran’s voice. “As ordered, sir. What are you going to do?”

“Blowing the conduit is our mission and the others can’t break off to do it.” Wedge Antilles slowly smiled. “What the Imps have set up there will stop almost any pilot. I’m going to remind them that in Rogue Squadron we don’t take just any pilot.”

Kirtan Loor fussed with the hem of his tunic and adjusted his cap with a tug on the bill. He wanted to feel confident about his recall to Coruscant, but he did not dare allow himself that indulgence. His mission had been the destruction of Rogue Squadron. While half of it had died at Borleias, the other half lived, with Wedge Antilles and Corran Horn still flying. In fact, the unit had amassed a considerable list of kills while it was his to destroy, so he could not imagine Ysanne Isard would be in a pleasant mood.

He cracked a smile.
I cannot imagine her
ever
being in a good mood
.

The door to her office slid open and Kirtan’s smile died. Isard again wore her scarlet Admiral’s uniform, complete with the black armband on her left arm. Her hair had been drawn back and fastened at the nape of her neck with a black clasp. She gestured invitingly, but the mannerly nature of her greeting only played through her hand. Her mismatched eyes prophesied doom, but he thought it might be deferred instead of immediate.

“Please, Agent Loor, do come in. I trust the journey from Borleias was not too tiring.”

He shook his head, doing his best to hide any trace of fatigue. “I apologize for not being here sooner. My original agenda was disrupted, hence the week’s delay in my arrival.”

“I know about it. Another operation demanded some resources that I had planned to use for your return.” She casually waved away concern over the delay—something Kirtan found mildly annoying since she had caused it
and
his week on Toprawa. “I trust you spent your time on Toprawa well?”

“Well?” Toprawa had been a Rebel transfer point for the stolen data about the first Death Star. As punishment for their complicity in the Rebellion, the population saw its world reduced to a pre-industrial state where banthas were the swiftest form of travel and fire was the highest level of energy production available to the native people. Imperial forces lived in gleaming citadels that remained lit like beacons throughout the night, becoming visible monuments to what the people of Toprawa had lost through their perfidy.

“You studied their suffering, yes?” Her dark brows arrowed together. “You saw what they have become.”

Kirtan swallowed hard. “I have seen, yes. They are wretched and pathetic.”

“And you witnessed one of their festivals?”

He nodded slowly. The “festival” involved a company of stormtroopers driving a cart laden with sacks of grain into the center of a village. To receive the grain the villagers were required to squirm on their bellies, worming their way forward, all the time weeping and wailing lamentations over the Emperor’s death. Food was doled out based on some trooper’s belief in the sincerity of the mourning.
Kirtan had no doubt that many of the people had come to believe they truly did regret the Emperor’s death.