Wraith Squadron (29 page)

The next stop in sequence was not a settled world; in fact, the planetary system had only a number designation, M2398, in the New Republic and Imperial records. Without any ordinary way to smuggle agents into the system, General Cracken had chosen not to send in a team.

Despite the fact the system was supposed to be uninhabited,
Night Caller’
s records clearly snowed a stop here,
though there was no mention of contact with local authorities.

Night Caller
jumped to a position well outside the orbit of the outermost planet and took sensor readings on the M2398 system. Within minutes they had trace communications emissions from a moon of the third world, a gas giant featuring a beautiful dust and asteroid ring. The transmissions were coded, but Jesmin, in the comm center, cracked the encryption in a matter of minutes. She called it in to Wedge, who was pacing the bridge, to the amusement of Captain Hrakness. “Simple mathematical substitution,” Jesmin said. “It’s probably only good for one battle or so, just long enough to keep their enemies from knowing what they’re saying.”

“Put it on,” Wedge said.

First there was a hiss of static over the comm unit, then a man’s voice. “How is it, Guller? Cold?”

A pause, then another man’s voice. “Shut up.”

Pause. “I mean, I know it’s cold. But is it just cold, or is it
really
cold, or is it your-parts-are-numb cold, or is it your-parts-are-falling-off cold?”

Pause. “Shut up.”

Pause. “You see anything?”

Pause. “No.”

Pause. “But are you not seeing anything because there’s nothing to see, or are you not seeing anything because your eyes are frozen?”

Pause. “Shut up.”

Wedge asked, “Two, that interval—I assume it’s transmission lag?”

“Yes, sir. I calculate that they’re about a hundred and fifty thousand klicks apart. I’m pretty sure that ‘Is it cold’ is broadcasting from the largest moon, and ‘Shut up’ is in the asteroid belt.”

“An outpost of some kind.” Wedge considered. “Sound like a pirate nest to you, Captain Hrakness?”

The smaller man leaned back comfortably in the command chair. “Out-of-the-way system, unprofessional and
credit-wasting exchanges between members of the group … Probably so.”

“Very well. Jesmin, set up the Captain Darillian simulator and call Face to the comm center. Falynn is to get into Imperial pilot gear and take TIE Two; I’ll be in One. All the other Wraiths to the X-wings. Tell Tyria to take her own snubfighter—she’s temporarily restored to duty—and Phanan to take Falynn’s. Captain Hrakness, call battle stations. I want everyone standing by hot as we go in, but looking cool; we don’t want them to know we’re ready.”

As he began his start-up checklist, Wedge heard the comm pop. Swearing in a female voice immediately came over the communications speaker. He took a look at his comm board. The TIE fighter was still docked, with external communications off-line; this had to be the direct connection to the other TIE fighter port. “Gray Two, is that you?”

The swearing broke off momentarily. “Yes, sir!” Then it continued.

“Refrain from personal comments over this channel.”

“Yes, sir!” Her voice sounded resentful.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing with the TIE fighter, sir. I just had a dead body drop on me out of my closet.”

“What?”

“A pressure suit. Sealed and inflated. With a knife taped to its glove. When I slid open my closet door to get my Imp flight suit out, it fell on me.”

“A prank?”

“What else?”

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. But it’s not funny. And if I were as clumsy as some of the old men in this squadron it would have stuck me.

“I’ll do something about this when we get back.”

“I don’t need any help,
sir.
”

“Maybe you don’t, but your prankster does. Are you live?”

“Two engines green, weapons live.”

“Drop to a trickle charge and prepare for what may be a long wait.”

From his seat in the comm center, Face watched the monitor, saw the hyperspace’s lines of light shorten into stars. Directly ahead was the red and orange brilliance of the third world. Face nodded in appreciation;
Night Caller
had dropped out of this second hyperspace jump not far from the world, as close as its gravity well would permit.

Almost immediately the comm board lit up as the unseen parties out there began communicating. “Glit One, Glit One, we have unknowns.” Pause. “Got you, Nest. I read one Corellian corvette. Looks like Captain Dandy is back.” Pause. “Confirm one dandy, Glit One. Glit Five, are you online?” The next pause was much longer, then Glit One’s voice came back, resentful: “Shut up.”

Face scanned the comm equipment. He knew the basics of handling a comm unit, but didn’t have the training to try to seek and amplify what had to have been a third transmission point out there.

Then a new voice, a strong broadcast from the occupied moon: “
Night Crawler
, this is Blood Nest. Respond at once.”

Face toggled his comm and the switch governing the instant translation to Darillian’s voice. “Bloody Nose, this is
Night Caller
. What do you want?”

“We want to tear your face off and vent what’s left into hard vacuum.”

Face snorted. Was this piratical posturing, or did these people intend to attack Captain Darillian? “You’re welcome to if you can, Bloody Nose. But first, tell me about your wife. I want to know something about the woman I’ll be consoling tonight.”

There was a long pause. Then the voice returned, more somber than before. “Darillian, I told you not to come back.”

“I recall you
requesting
me not to come back. Do you remember us talking about the possibility of mutual profit?” Nervous, Face tugged at his collar. He was guessing now,
presuming that Darillian had followed what seemed to be his predictable pattern in dealing with these people. “Have you really decided to close off all my avenues to more wealth, more power?”

“No … of course not. Very well,
Nutcracker
. I’m clearing you to land on Berth Two. We’ll dine, we’ll talk. Follow the signal in.”

“Excellent.
Night Caller
out.” Face disconnected both the microphone and the Darillian voice simulator.

Immediately the comm unit indicated a single strong signal coming from the moon that must house Blood Nest. “Captain Hrakness, this should be your homing beacon.”

“It is, Face. We’ve got it, thanks.”

Night Caller’
s TIE fighters were mounted outside the corvette’s artificial gravity field. Wedge, waiting in his cockpit, didn’t care to spend time in zero gravity, but he decided it was marginally better than being shot at.

His right hand twitched. He tightened it into a fist and tried to ignore it. In one of his few protracted zero-gravity experiences, he’d had to keep two components of the external triggering mechanism of a self-destruct device from coming together. He’d done so the simplest way possible: exiting his X-wing into hard vacuum, relying only on his flight suit’s magcon field and a life-support tether to keep him alive, and jamming his hand in between the closing components.

In the long minutes he’d waited, he’d been battered by conflicting thoughts. He’d resigned himself to dying, yet hoped rescue would come. His flight suit inadequate to the task of retaining his body heat, he’d begun to freeze, yet he’d waited there, marveling at the beauty of the starfields above the sanctuary moon of Endor.

When rescue, in the form of Luke Skywalker, had come for him, he’d torn himself free of the mechanism and almost lost fingers doing it … and now those fingers became a bit twitchy whenever he found himself in zero gee for any length of time. The emotions returned, too. He could even taste the bacta they’d dunked him in to heal him after the ordeal. He
tried to will the taste away and concentrate on his surroundings.

Just as at Endor, there was beauty here. The gas giant was an extraordinary pattern of warm colors, a mesmerizing painter’s palette.

Eventually the moon of Blood Nest came into view, a large but dismal brown thing.
Night Caller
descended into its thin, unwholesome-looking atmosphere. Wedge felt himself settling into the cockpit restraints as gravity began to pull at the corvette. There were no seas below, only pockmarked brown and red desert; the corvette passed above it, heading toward high mountains in the distance.

As they approached the first set of foothills, Wedge saw a curved portion of ground below and to the side of
Night Caller’
s course curl up and retract.

For a moment it made no sense. Then the picture fit itself together into elements he could recognize.

A crater, concealed from above by some sort of colored or dust-covered fabric. Beneath it, a laser artillery cannon, its barrel elevating straight toward the unshielded keel of
Night Caller—

Wedge powered up and hit the crude escape-pod ejection switch Cubber had wired to his control board. His TIE fighter dropped. He oriented immediately toward the laser rig. “Bridge, bring up all shields! Gray Two, launch! Follow my lead. Fire at will.” He suited action to words, firing as soon as his laser cannons oriented on the artillery unit below.

His first shot creased and blackened the unit’s barrel housing. “Wraiths, launch. We’re under attack.” He fired again, not yet bothering to arrest his plummet, and saw the TIE fighter’s green lasers penetrate the cannon housing halfway between the barrel end and the control pod at its base.

The cannon operator fired his compromised weapon. Wedge saw the upper half of its barrel glow red, then yellow, then white from heat as it melted from within.

Gray Two sideslipped into position and fired. Her shot penetrated the phototropically darkened bubble over the control pod. Wedge saw the pod light up from within. Inside was
a fuzzy-edged human silhouette that almost instantly lost resolution and was absorbed by light. The pod vented gases.

Captain Hrakness’s voice was cool over the comm: “Wraiths, Grays, we have incoming from dead ahead.”

The bow hold doors were sliding open as Hrakness transmitted his message. As soon as they were separated enough to allow an X-wing to exit, Kell saw the distant thruster trails of the incoming fighters.

He was lucky enough to be the centermost of the nine X-wings in the hold. That meant he launched first, and he wasted no time with repulsorlifts, punching forward with a burst from his main thrusters. He’d helped build the blast shield behind the X-wing’s housing racks; he knew it could take punishment from his engines.

He emerged from the hold into dirty air and checked his sensor panel. “Wraiths, I read two full squads of snubbies unknown types, mixed types, distance two point five klicks and closing.”

“
Night Caller
is vectoring.” That was Lieutenant Tabanne. She sounded as calm as her captain. “Wraiths, compensate for the maneuver or refrain from launching for a moment.”

Kell nodded.
Night Caller
couldn’t approach oncoming fighters with her bow hold open. Even with shields up, if a laser blast or proton torpedo penetrated them, there would be no ship’s hull to take the shot; X-wings still in the hold could be vaped. So could any of the mechanics on duty there; or the blast could angle up against the ceiling and penetrate the bridge. Hrakness’s maneuver was simple self-preservation, and Kell prepared himself to fly alone for a few long moments.

18

Tyria’s voice came over the comm: “So, you’re making it a challenge?” Kell glanced back to see the corvette in midmaneuver, Wraith Ten firing out of the bow hold. Tyria stood her X-wing up on its port strike foil and angled straight toward Kell.

“Wraith Two away!” Jesmin’s snubfighter was next.

That cleared the center column. The other six X-wings in the bow hold, closer to the sides of the hold, would have a slightly more difficult launch; even ignoring the corvette’s maneuver, they’d be several more seconds. But now Piggy was following Janson out of the topside hold, arcing around to join the group, and the TIE fighters of Wedge and Falynn were rising toward them.

Kell’s R2 unit shrieked at him as the cockpit alarm indicated an enemy laser lock. Without waiting for authorization to break, Kell rolled up on his starboard strike foils and continued the roll, spinning and diving; he could see the other Wraiths break and roll.

Wedge heard Janson’s voice: “They’re Uglies.” Uglies were hodgepodge rigs assembled from components of normal fight
ers; they were unpredictable to both their pilots and their targets, sometimes characterized by terrible flight performance, sometimes by unusual and effective weapons combinations.

Wedge added, “Wraiths, this is Leader. Fire at will. Forget the standard wing assignments. Form wings as you launch. Three, stay with me.” He shook his head. This was bad. The Wraiths were uncoordinated, still half off balance despite the destruction of the ambushing laser cannon.

His sensors showed a trio of bandits headed his way. He desperately wanted to snap off a proton torpedo to shake up their formation, to put extra energy into his forward shields, but the TIE fighter didn’t give him either option.

Instead, he gave his yoke a little sideways tug, felt the moon’s thin atmosphere yank at his solar wing arrays, and was hurled to starboard. His engines screamed with the change in course. The maneuver was just in time; green lasers cut through the air he had just occupied. Sensors showed Falynn performing a similar sideslip to port.

His Imperial-style targeting screen showed a lock on the closest oncoming enemy. It was visible in the viewport, an unlikely assembly of parts: a classic Headhunter body augmented by TIE fighter solar wing arrays mounted horizontal to its plane of flight on each side. TIE fighter wings were designed to recharge ship’s lasers and to provide some armor, and were never particularly aerodynamic; in this rig, they were wobbly, far too awkward to provide lift in flight, and probably provided tremendous drag. The vehicle had to be entirely dependent on repulsorlifts. Wedge fired at the patchwork vehicle, a snap-shot, and watched it shudder its way into a starboard rising turn. This made its profile longer, larger, and his second shot sheared through its midsection, just behind the cockpit. Wedge saw components and perhaps crew falling out of either portion of the bisected, doomed craft.