Her four bolts hit. Two burst through the inside of the starboard wing, melting long gashes in it. The other two pierced the transparisteel bubble between the pilot and the vacuum of space. Something burned red and hot in the cockpit for a second, then a roiling gold explosion ripped the dead craft apart.
Wedge rolled out to the right to avoid the explosion and pulled the stick back to his chest. He brought his X-wing around, ready for another pass up through the Interceptor formation. Liinade III loomed above him for a moment, then a trio of daggerlike ships filled his vision of the sky. All three had moved into range and cut loose.
Moonshadow
’s gunners concentrated their fire along
Direption
’s port edge, seeking to destroy the other ship’s weaponry. Heavy turbolasers, heavy turbolaser cannons, and ion beams all played out, splashing red and blue energy across the
Direption
’s shields. The weapons’ energy bled into the sphere of the shields, nibbling away at it, shrinking it like a balloon with a slow leak. Then suddenly the shields collapsed and beams played along the hull. Turbolaser batteries exploded and hull plates evaporated. Fire jetted into space as shots burned through the hull and consumed the atmosphere within.
Direption
’s return salvo proved no less deadly to
Moonshadow.
The Hegemony’s gunners concentrated their fire on several points, driving energy wedges deep into the shields. Breaches opened and beams ripped long, jagged scars over
Moonshadow
’s surface. Sensor towers exploded and ion cannons melted beneath the withering assault.
Swift Liberty
had swung down and around beneath
Direption
on a sharply angled course that took the ship across the Hegemony ship’s line of flight. When the gunners cut loose, half of them pounded on the pristine ventral shields, while the forward gunners hit bits of the ship left naked after
Moonshadow
’s assault. The
Victory
-class Destroyer’s weaponry was neither as extensive nor as powerful as that of the larger ships, but the turbolasers and double turbolaser batteries still ate away at the Hegemony Deuce. Liquefied
weapons congealed into metal threads, and at least one secondary explosion blasted a small chunk of
Direption
into space.
The joyful spike that sent Wedge’s spirits soaring as he watched the damage inflicted on the enemy crashed back down as another ship materialized in the system. Smaller and blocky, it appeared slashing across
Swift Liberty
’s aft.
That’s a Dreadnaught. It’s not that powerful, but in that close, in Bell’s aft, it can cripple her.
Tycho’s voice filled the comm channel. “
Direption
has a friend. Shall we introduce ourselves?”
“Squints and eyeballs first, Rogues. The big ships play with the big ships.” Wedge felt a knot tightening in his stomach. “When it comes to the point where they depend on
us
for a rescue, we’re
all
in worse shape than we ever wanted to be.”
13
Admiral Bell staggered for a second when the Dreadnaught’s attack blasted into
Swift Liberty
’s aft. “Did their attack breach the shields?”
“Negative, Admiral.” The Twi’lek sensor officer, Commander Tal’kina, looked up from his sensor array. “We lost gravity for a second because I had to shunt power to reinforce them.”
“Well done, Commander.” Bell flicked long locks of red hair back over her shoulder. “Helm, heading zero-four-five and level us out.”
The helmsman looked up, surprise on his face. “That will leave the Dreadnaught in our aft, Admiral.”
“Thought occurred to you, too, did it, Lieutenant Cyslo? We can weather another of their shots, and we want them watching us.” She gave the man a quick nod. “Do it, now!”
“As ordered, Admiral.”
“Good. And Guns, pour more fire into the
Direption.
I want it hurt and hurt now.”
• • •
Wedge snaprolled his X-wing onto the port S-foils and followed Asyr through a quick split-S maneuver that let the squints that had been on their tails overshoot them. They leveled out again and broke to starboard, applying rudder to get their noses around, then cruised in on the Hegemony fighters. Wedge chopped his throttle back a bit as he made his approach, but Asyr shot ahead and closed fast with her target.
The Bothan pilot fired off a quad burst of lasers that converged on the squint’s cockpit. The scarlet beams burned the top off the cockpit, instantly liquefying the Quadanium steel. It condensed into tiny round pellets that sparked off Asyr’s forward shields, but that was as much of a threat as the Interceptor posed to her. Fire flared in the engines, and the ship started a slow spiral down toward Liinade III.
Wedge settled in on his target and dropped his aiming reticle over it much too easily. Part of him wanted the pilot to juke and move the ship, to make the shot tough for him. He realized instantly that his desire did not come because he wanted to prove himself the superior.
It’s just that I’d rather not slaughter some kid on his first mission.
Wedge immediately pushed that thought aside and tightened up on his trigger. The quad burst of laserfire drilled the Interceptor in its twin ion engines. The engine housing began to melt, warping out of shape, which compressed the reaction chamber. The engine exploded with a great gout of golden flame, jetting the Interceptor forward. The fire at the squint’s aft winked out, snuffed by the vacuum of space, leaving the fighter to fly on powerlessly.
Wedge felt a moment of remorse for the pilot’s death—whether it had come with the engine explosion or would come from exposure and suffocation as the squint’s lifesupport systems failed. He didn’t let himself dwell on the enemy’s fate, though. The other pilot had accepted the same risks Wedge did when he entered a cockpit and flew into combat.
Dead is dead, no matter how you go.
Wedge’s brown eyes narrowed.
And the object of this exercise for me is to avoid getting dead at all
Wedge glanced at his sensor scopes, and aside from
some fighters tied up in a dogfight with the B-wings, the Rogue Squadron area of operations appeared clear. “Rogue Lead to Flight Control. We are negative for targets. Do you want us on the Dreadnaught?”
“Negative, Rogue Squadron. Prepare for targeting run on Alpha target dirtside.”
“I copy, Control.” Wedge punched up the squadron’s tactical frequency. “Form up on me, we’re being cleared to go to ground.”
“There’s more targets up here, Lead.”
“Really?” Wedge smiled. “You mean Asyr left a few?”
The Bothan’s voice came on the comm channel. “I didn’t think I had.”
No, you were on a crusade, Asyr. I wonder why
? Wedge shook his head. “Punch up your ground attack data. We need to be ready to go as soon as it comes time to ferry troops down.”
Tycho asked a question. “
Swift Liberty
doesn’t want help with the Dreadnaught?”
“They seem to think they have that situation under control, Tycho.”
Even as Wedge made that observation, he looked up through his canopy and saw the capital ship battle still under way. The
Direption
had begun to come about to starboard, swinging its shieldless port side away from
Moonshadow. Moonshadow
was coming up and turning to port, its port-side batteries firing against
Direption
’s aft shields. Red and blue laser and ion cannon fire pumped terajoules of energy into the shields, but somehow they stayed up.
Probably shunting energy from the port side shield projectors into the aft shields.
Wedge watched as
Swift Liberty
cut inside
Moonshadow
’s maneuver and cruised beneath
Direption.
As
Swift Liberty
’s gunners got target locks, they blazed away at the larger ship’s naked left side, further compounding the damage done by the
Moonshadow
’s assault.
In
Swift Liberty
’s wake came the Dreadnaught. It continued to target the
Victory
-class ship’s aft shields, finally collapsing them. Red-gold turbolaser blasts scored armor around the
Swift Liberty
’s engines, but Wedge saw no
secondary explosions.
Even so, that sort of pounding will eat a ship up if it continues.
But continue it won’t
.
Captain Sair Yonka’s
Freedom
knifed its way from hyperspace and into the battle on a course that drove it beneath
Direption
and straight at the Dreadnaught. Yonka’s ship had come in perpendicular to
Direption
’s keel and raked it with shots from all its starboard guns, running from bow to stern as it passed. Heavy turbolaser batteries played shots over the Hegemony ship’s unprotected port side, burning great black pits in the ship’s white hull. Flames exploded and curled away as superheated atmosphere blew out through weakened hull plates. Ion cannons sent blue lightning skittering and leaping across the ship’s hull, with several bolts joining like ivy to grow up over the bridge. In yet more spots more laserfire burned straight through the hull. Wedge could see space through the stricken ship.
Freedom
’s port gunners had no intention of being cheated of their chance to wreak havoc on the enemy. As
Freedom
drove forward, guns started firing on the Dreadnaught as they came into range. The sheer volume of fire filled the smaller ship’s shields with color and seemed to stop the Dreadnaught in mid-flight. Then the shields collapsed and
Freedom
’s precision fire started burrowing in on the Dreadnaught, right beyond the forward superstructure of the bridge. Hull plates, all twisted and half melted, flew off as secondary explosions racked the vessel. What started with fire-blackened armor became a glowing metal pit that drilled deep into the ship’s interior. Finally one huge explosion shook the ship, and all the lights in the forward section winked out.
Seconds later Wedge watched as the Dreadnaught broke into two at the point of the assault. In the cold silence of space, the bridge began to drift away from the aft, one piece twisting toward the planet and the other toward space. Fires burned at the point of the break, but quickly died as they exhausted the available oxygen.
Direption
pulled its nose up and began to make a run deeper into the system.
Moonshadow
and
Swift Liberty
both fired full salvos at it and collapsed both the aft and starboard shields. Outgunned and already weakened,
Direption
didn’t stand a chance of escaping. Despite its troubles, it could still inflict a great deal of damage, so
Freedom
maneuvered into position to slag it if necessary.
Direption
’s running lights blinked on and off four times in rapid succession, then stayed off. “Control, this is Rogue Leader. What is the status up there?”
“Standing by, Rogue Leader. Looks like
Direption
’s commander may be reasonable. New orders just flashed for you, Rogue Lead.
Freedom
is deploying troop carriers and assault shuttles. Head to your assigned ground targets. May the Force be with you.”
Corran nodded and punched up his target zone. “Three Flight copies, Lead. We’re on blue sector.” He switched over to the flight’s tactical frequency. “We’re clear to blue sector. Think you can stay with us, this time, Eleven?”
Asyr answered in a voice that wasn’t quite as subdued as Corran wanted to hear. “I copy, Nine. I’ll work on it.”
“Stay sharp down there. We don’t know what they have, but it could be decidedly nasty.” Corran rolled out to port and started the atmospheric insertion. He felt a slight bump as they entered Liinade III’s atmosphere and he had to keep his hand steady on the controls. Despite the more difficult flying, he felt a bit of tension flow from him.
At least we can breathe this atmosphere, which makes survival here more likely than out in space.
As the X-wing broke through cloud cover he saw a lush green planet spread out before him. Three Flight was coming in over the southern continent, which featured a prominent spine of mountains dusted with snow running up the west side. The target for Three Flight was a hydroelectric powerplant that supplied most of the electricity for the large city on the plains to the east of the mountains. The
mission goal was for the X-wings to eliminate any fighter cover around the powerplant and suppress opposition as a shuttle full of commandos came in and secured the place.
Corran caught the flash of sunlight off a slender ribbon of water running through a canyon and dropped down toward it. “This should be the outflow from the dam, right, Whistler?” White water churned through the canyon and a small flotilla of boats made its way down through the perilous watercourse.
They have to be freezing down there—there’s snow on the ground. What some folks think of as fun I just don’t understand.
He shook his head, then keyed his comm unit. “Target is two klicks out. Ten, with me. Eleven and Twelve, fly high cover.”
Corran brought his fighter down on the deck and Ooryl’s X-wing came in behind him. Corran kicked the X-wing up on its starboard S-foil and tugged back on the stick to curve to the right, then rolled back to port and sailed around to the left. The inertial compensator’s adjustment allowed him to feel the twists and turns he put the fighter through and just for a second he felt the absolute joy and freedom flying had always given him.
Then he came around a bend and saw the dam.
In the simulations they’d run on this mission the dam had always been tall, but seeing the solid edifice of ferrocrete, with spots where moss had grown along seep lines, and seeing the great rush of water pouring from the sluice-gates, that he’d not expected. Evergreen trees and bushes grew thickly through the riparian area along the riverbanks, but thinned a bit up on the hillsides in the canyon. Everything, save the twin Atgar 1.4 FD P-tower units built atop the dam, looked peaceful and sedate.