Star Wars: X-Wing I: Rogue Squadron (20 page)

He hauled back on his stick, killing the weaving flight and arrowing his ship up into a flight of TIEs. He lined one starfighter up in his sights and let it have a quad blast of lasers. As the eyeball exploded, he cut the stick hard to starboard, then rolled out into a level line that continued his original course, with a half-kilometer cut to the right thrown in. As the TIE formation collapsed in after him, he cruised out the other side of it.

Inverting his X-wing, he pulled the fighter into a loop that brought him around in the TIEs’ wake, though slightly below their formation. Keeping the nose up, he headed back in again. He picked up on a TIE Interceptor that had broken right while its
wingmate had broken left. Ooryl continued on the tail of the latter squint. The other Interceptor tightened its turn into a teardrop loop designed to bring it onto the Gand’s aft.

Corran’s quad lasers shredded the Interceptor’s starboard wing and blew apart one of the twin ion engines. The other, operating at full power, sent the squint spinning away. Corran winced in sympathy with the pilot, then drove into the middle of the TIE formation.

The X-wings plunging and wheeling through the middle of the TIEs had an unanticipated advantage in that they had a very high target-to-comrade ratio to shoot at. Moreover, because the X-wings had shields, even a shot taken in haste at another Rogue would not likely prove fatal. The same could not be said of the TIEs—one burst from their lasers could cripple or kill a fellow pilot.

Corran snapped a shot off at one starfighter and watched it disintegrate. A warning warble from Whistler and he mashed his right foot down on the etheric rudder pedal. The X-wing’s stern slew around to the left, swinging him out of an Interceptor’s line of fire while pointing his nose right at the ship as it sailed past him. He punched the X-wing over ninety degrees, hauled back on the stick, then completed the inversion and dove down onto the Interceptor’s tail. He sent kilojoules of scarlet energy into the ball cockpit and watched the craft explode.

“Nine, break left.”

Without thinking Corran slammed the stick hard to port and caught the green highlights of laser bolts shooting through where he had just been. More red laser fire chased back along those same lines and something exploded out there.

“Thanks, Commander.”

“No problem, Nine.”

Corran eased his stick forward and dove down to stay clear of the mass of starfighters. With the arrival of the rest of the squadron he knew there was no way he could track all the ships and sort friend from foe. Even as he came back up he saw less laser fire permeating the cloud of fighters than there had been when the forces were less evenly matched. “So much twisting and turning going on in there, no one can find a target and stick with it long enough to dust it.”

Pulling up to continue his loop around the fringe of the battle he saw one X-wing break free with a starfighter on its tail. His sensors told him Gavin was at the stick of the Alliance ship. Measuring Gavin’s line, Corran rolled his craft and looped down at a tangent to it. “Rogue Five, break hard right.”

Gavin’s fighter rolled up on its starboard S-foil crisply and pulled away at an angle that cast doubt on the existence of inertia. The starfighter following him tried to imitate his maneuver, but neither the pilot nor craft were up to it. As the TIE rolled, Corran swooped and fired. His quad-lasers burst the spherical pod like a bubble, sending the hexagonal wings slicing off through space.

Before he could even smile, his X-wing jolted forward. His instruments indicated heavy damage to his aft shield. “Whistler, get me a lock on that TIE.”

Corran inverted and dove, then pulled back on the stick to power up through a teardrop and onto the TIE’s tail. Instead of being where he expected it, the TIE, an Interceptor, showed up off his port S-foil, going away at a right angle to his course. Corran stood on his left rudder, then did a snap-roll that gave him a view of the planet above his head and the Interceptor racing away from him.

Just as he feared it was going to run far enough
for Tycho or someone else on the
Eridain
to blast it, the Interceptor pulled its own loop planetward and started back at him.
Head to head—he knows what he’s doing
. As Wedge and Tycho had pointed out countless times in training, the majority of kills took place in head-to-head engagements.
But so do I
.

“Watch our tail, Whistler.” Corran kicked his shields full forward and drove in straight at the Interceptor. The rangefinder on the targeting monitor scrolled numbers off with blurred speed. His crosshairs went green and he fired, but couldn’t see how much damage he’d done because of the light show produced by the Interceptor’s lasers eating away at his shields.

Corran stabbed the right rudder pedal with his foot, swinging the ship around a full 180 degrees. Punching his throttle to full, he killed his momentum, then dropped the engines to zero thrust. With his thumb he popped his weapons control over to proton torpedoes and got a solid tone when he trapped the fleeing Interceptor in the targeting box. His finger tightened once on the trigger and a single torpedo shot away on a jet of blue flame.

The torpedo caught up with the Interceptor quickly enough, but the TIE pilot, confirming his possession of the skill Corran had willingly granted him before, juked his Interceptor out of its path at the last second. Unfortunately for him, his maneuvering and run at Corran had taken him to the outer edge of Hensara’s atmosphere. While not particularly dense, impact with it at the speed the Interceptor was traveling proved devastating. The starboard wing shattered and the Interceptor ricocheted away in a wobbly somersault.

“Control, this is
Skate
. We’re on our way back up. We have company that wants to go home.”

“Good job,
Skate
. Rogue Leader, mission accomplished.”

“I heard that, Control. Rogues, regroup for egress.”

Corran smiled as he heard Gavin’s voice over the comm. “Leader, there are two getting away.”

“Let them go, Five. Flight Leaders, check your flights.”

“Whistler, give me feeds on my people.” A tracking chart replaced the targeting data on Corran’s screen.
Nine, Ten, Eleven, and Twelve
. “Three Flight is all here.”

“Control to Rogue Leader, I have a dozen X-wings in-system, two Interceptors on recovery vectors, and two deployed shuttles on pilot recovery missions.”

Corran clapped his hands. “We didn’t lose
anyone
?”

“Are you complaining, Nine?”

“No, sir, Commander, not at all. It’s just …”

“Yes, Nine?”

“This is Rogue Squadron. I thought most of the pilots didn’t survive Rogue missions.”

“That was when there was still an Emperor, Nine.” The grim tone in Wedge’s voice gave way to one somewhat lighter. “I guess that’s the difference. Let’s head home, Rogues. This is one victory we can celebrate without having to toast dead comrades and I, for one, like the change.”

Wedge sat with his back against the thick wall of the Grand Room in what had once been Talasea’s Planetary Governor’s Palace. The title sounded much more important than the building and room it described. Built with heavy beams made of the dark native wood and plaster slathered over wooden slats, it reminded him of the sorts of reconstructions he’d seen in museums on Corellia.
This is about as primitive as it gets
.

The incongruity struck him as he watched his pilots sitting around a couple of central tables, using their hands to describe the twists and turns they went through in what they had taken to calling the Rout of Hensara. They could have downloaded their sensor packets and played them out on the wide-screen holoviewer in the corner, but that device remained black. By telling the stories themselves they shared not only what they did—which the sensor data would have shown in exacting detail—but how they felt about it.

And in doing that they’ll know they’re all the same
. Wedge tipped his chair back against the wall.
He glanced at two Alderaanians who shared his table with him. “They did a good job out there today.”

Tycho smiled broadly. “They did better than good—they were spectacular. We recorded thirty-four kills out of a possible thirty-six with no losses. If I hadn’t been there, I’d think it was propaganda.”

Afyon looked up from a barely touched tankard of the local lum equivalent. “You know as well as I do, gentlemen, they were awfully lucky. They may be the hottest pilots going, but vaping TIEs won’t Coruscant take. That’s going to take an operation that will need more than snubby jocks to make it go.”

Wedge lowered his lum mug. “Captain, I’ve been in this Rebellion for as long as you have. I remember the fighting at Endor and I know the
Eridain
fought hard.”

“I appreciate that, Commander Antilles, but it was
you
who got paraded around the New Republic as the hero who saved the Rebellion.”

Tycho’s blue eyes narrowed. “He did blow the Death Star, you realize, and survived the previous Death Star run.”

“I know, and I know you were there, too.” Afyon sat back and frowned. “Look, I’m not saying you don’t deserve your recognition, and I’m not saying your people don’t deserve their little party here. Strapping yourself into a fighter isn’t the easiest thing to do, and more fighter pilots die than do the folks I have crewing with me, but
our
contribution to this Rebellion is just as important as yours is.”

Wedge nodded slowly. “I know that, Captain, and if the
Eridain
hadn’t been there today to make the
Havoc
think twice about closing with us, we would have been blind-jumping out of the system.”

Afyon shook his head. “Don’t take me for a
stormie, Antilles, I don’t believe everything I’m told. You’d have gone in after the
Havoc
itself. What’s a Strike cruiser to a crew that turned two Death Stars into black holes?”

The Corellian brought his chair down onto all four legs. “The New Republic might promote me and this squadron as immortal and immune to danger, but I know better than that. Two of us, just
two
, survived Yavin. A half dozen survived Hoth and just four of us lived through Endor. As far as I’m concerned the Death Stars lived up to their names.

“Well
now
, this squadron has to live up to its name. The New Republic is using us as a symbol because it’s easier to blind people to the blood-cost of war when you get to celebrate the heroic efforts of a half-dozen people. Luke Skywalker is easy to admire and want to follow. Han Solo is a man who rose from nothing to become a hero and consort with royalty. Me, I’m the quintessential soldier who does his job very well. But what is that job? Two things: neutralizing Imperials and, the part I take most seriously, keeping my people alive.”

Wedge raked fingers back through his brown hair. “It doesn’t matter if we were good or lucky out there today—and I’d rather the former than trust in the latter. What does matter is that we all survived, and that’s as close to a miracle as I ever expect to see in my lifetime. The key thing to remember is that I can’t trust in our luck or skill. I can’t allow myself to believe we were that much better than the opposition and I can’t let my people believe it. If they do, they’ll die taking chances they should never take.”

Afyon sucked on his teeth for a second. “You’re right. I guess I just remember the Clone Wars and how the ‘hero’ labels were handed out. You’d think a dozen Jedi and two dozen snubby jocks won the whole thing. Even all the years I spend pulling for
peace—same as most of the rest of the folks on Alderaan—never dulled that feeling of injustice I had concerning credit for the war. Weird, eh, wanting peace enough to agree to disarmament of my home planet, yet still burning about getting credit for my part in a war?”

The other Alderaanian at the table shook his head. “One of the problems we all have is that we try to think of ourselves in general terms, and that smoothes over some of the inconsistencies that make us who we are. We see all Imperials as rancors and they see all of us as nerfs. The very fact that we see them as a united front is ridiculous, just the same as we’re not all united—as this discussion proves.”

Afyon smiled. “I’ve not heard that kind of philosophy since, you know, our world …”

Tycho nodded solemnly and squeezed Afyon’s shoulder with his right hand. “I
do
know.” He smiled and looked over at the knot of pilots in the center of the room. “I’m afraid this group does not inspire that much philosophy. I appreciate being able to share some with another Alderaanian.”

Wedge glanced at his pilots, then tipped his chair back up against the wall as the Twi’lek stood. Nawara Ven flipped one of his brain tails around and over his shoulder as if it were a scarf, then stumbled slightly. Wedge wasn’t sure if it was the cavalier way he tossed his brain tails around or the drink that made the pilot stumble. The lum brewed up by the ground crew had the potency of Corellian brandy and the piquant bouquet—according to Gavin—of a Tatooine dewback in heat.

Nawara remained almost completely upright as he wove his way through tables to where Wedge sat. “Forgive me, noble leaders, but we require your esteemed personages to act as a tribunal to adjudicate a question.” The Twi’lek pressed a hand to his own
chest. “Owing to my legal background, I have been appointed a neutral advocate to present the cases to you.”

Wedge couldn’t keep a smile from his face. “Please proceed, Counselor.”

“Thank you, sir.” Nawara turned back toward the other pilots. “First we have the case of the
worst
pilot in the unit. May I present Gavin Darklighter, who won this award by virtue of the fact of not getting
anything
out there today.”

Easier to read than the scowl on Gavin’s face was the open relief on the faces of Lujayne Forge and Peshk Vri’syk. Wedge knew the award had to sting Gavin badly, but he was young. The rest of the squadron had been willing to cut him a lot of slack because of his youth, but that latitude would last only so long. In Wedge’s opinion Gavin wasn’t the worst pilot by far, but his lack of kills allowed his squadron mates to rib him a little.