No longer forced to divide his concentration, Tycho poured laser fire into the Blade ahead of him. Though the Blade returned fire, singeing the nose of Tycho’s craft, Tycho’s attacks relentlessly chewed away at its rear fuselage, riddling it with char and holes.
The Blade didn’t look badly hurt, but abruptly it rose straight skyward, then heeled over in what looked like an uncontrolled dive. The pilot had to have been hit, a typically surgical Tycho kill.
Wedge continued his climb. At the upper altitude indicated for the engagement, he pulled back on the stick
and rolled over to continue toward Cartann, though he was belly to sky, giving him a good look at the fight as it continued. Tycho pulled alongside.
It wasn’t bad, Wedge decided. The united Adumari force was continuing to move toward Cartann, and Cartann’s defenders were forced to keep with them. In minutes, if this continued, they’d be over the city itself. “Red Leader to Eye Three, report if you can.”
“Eye Three to Red Leader. Red Three and Red Four report in unhurt, though their squadron took heavy losses. The pursuit forces have broken off and are returning to their cities to deal with Groups Five and Twelve. The Scythes from North Horn and South Horn have broken away from the horn formations and are now over Cartann, heading for the air bases. We have reports of ground-based defensive batteries firing.”
Wedge looked toward the city. Yes, yellow-white streaks of laser light, four to a group, were flashing into the sky. Tiny as they seemed at this distance, each column of light would have to be half the diameter of a Blade or more.
“Sensors show another dozen or so squads rising from the air bases and Cartann proper,” Iella continued.
“Any of Group One’s units not yet engaged?”
“The six Meteors and their screens.”
Wedge breathed a sigh of thanks that he’d assigned most squadrons and major aircraft numerical references in addition to their normal names—it was a choice that would allow him to address them even when he couldn’t recall their normal designations. He switched to group frequency. “Meteors One and Two and screen flightknives, join the Scythes from North Horn. Meteors Three and Four and screen flightknives, join the Scythes from South Horn. Meteors Five and Six and screens, I want you to plow right into the middle of this furball. Give the enemy something new to think about.” He switched back to command frequency. “Thanks, Eye Three.” He pulled
back on the stick and he and Tycho dove into the main engagement again.
He’d just taken a long-distance shot at a pair of Blades when a vehicle, unbelievably fast, cut across his flight path, leaving a blurry afterimage on his vision. It was a TIE Interceptor, flying an impossible-to-predict course full of sudden bends and course changes.
His lasers pointed at empty forest floor, he opened fire again. And as another three TIE Interceptors crossed his path, he had the pleasure of seeing his sustained laser fire clip the solar wing array of one of them. The shot didn’t destroy the TIE, but he did see it roll out of formation and have to struggle to get back in position, and the spot where he’d grazed it was black with char. He turned in the TIE Interceptors’ wake and was rapidly outdistanced.
“Good shot, Lead.”
“Not good enough, Two. We’ve got no chance against Interceptors in these.”
“Who are you now, Lead?”
Wedge tapped the centerpoint of his lightboard. The data sent by his transponder came up; it was his alternate identity, a Yedagon pilot with no kills to his name. “I’m not-Wedge.”
“Good. Recommend you stay that way until and unless we get back to our snubfighters.”
“I’ll take it under consideration.”
He could track the TIEs on the lightboard without consulting transponder data. They were the only craft in this engagement that moved at such high speed. He saw them streak to the edge of the engagement zone, reverse, then begin to shoot back through the thickest portion of the zone. All along the line of their passage, the blips representing Blades on the lightboard began blinking or vanished altogether. All along their flight paths, as Wedge checked visually, burning fighters began their final descents to the forest floor.
Two dark red Blades rose up to join Wedge and
Tycho. “Red Three and Four reporting in,” Janson said, his voice cheery.
“Good timing,” Wedge said. “Come about with me to one-eighty degrees.” He began a hard loop around. “We’re putting ourselves in the way of trouble.”
On his lightboard, the four streaks representing the TIEs reached the edge of the engagement zone and looped around once more for another pass. Wedge calculated their likely path, just an estimate, and climbed higher to be in that path. “Here’s the rules. This is not a one-on-one, not a duel. When the TIEs come in range, everyone hit the lead TIE. If you can, as soon as they flash past, switch to rear lasers and target the rear TIE. We’ll see how much damage we can do them.”
“Good.” That was Hobbie’s voice, more intent than usual. “Damage.”
“Three, is Four all right?”
“He’s fine, chief. Still deliriously happy from his missile barrage, I think.”
The path of the oncoming TIEs changed slightly, continuing from what must have been an evasive move. Wedge sent his Blade into a hard vector to starboard. Now there was no way to get in the path of TIEs, but they could still fire upon them—
And there they were, two wing pairs streaking in from port. Wedge opened fire with his lasers, concentrating on the lead TIE, and was gratified to see three other pairs of lasers joining his.
The Interceptor exploded as if hit by a missile, leaving only an orange-and-yellow fireball and a spray of shrapnel behind. Wedge’s Blade shook as he crossed in the wake of the TIEs and was hit by the explosion shock wave.
But because of their changed flight plan they hadn’t concluded the exchange with their rear lasers pointed toward the TIEs. Wedge saw the three remaining enemy fighters split off, two one direction and one another, and
begin to loop around at impossible speeds toward his Blades. “Whoops,” Wedge said. “Red Flight, scatter.” He rose and vectored to starboard, toward what looked like an incoming wing pair of friendly Blades.
A TIE Interceptor rose in his wake. He fired upon it, but the nimbler craft juked and jinked far too quickly for him to get a fix on it. It responded with lasers that hammered away at his rear fuselage; he felt his Blade shudder and text suddenly started scrawling across his diagnostics board.
“Red One, come to one-six-five.” That was Iella’s voice. He complied, as hard a turn as he could manage, the TIE adhering to his tail as if glued there.
As Wedge completed his maneuver, he found himself heading almost due west and into the path of something huge.
Shaped like a single curved wing, with a dozen laser cupolas atop the wing and a dozen below, the
Meteor
-class Aerial Fort was the largest flying vehicle the Adumari made, and among the most punishing. Each cupola held paired lasers the equal of the ones on the Blades and could turn 360 degrees around and depress to cover an entire hemisphere.
As Wedge turned into the craft’s path, a half dozen of its gunners opened up on him—or so it looked, for their laser fire flashed all around him, above and below.
The TIE on his tail broke off with an almost ninety-degree turn and flashed out to the side faster than the Meteor’s gunners could turn their weapons. In a second he was out of sight.
“Thanks—” Wedge tapped the lightboard—“Meteor Six. Much appreciated.”
“Our pleasure, Red Leader.”
The Cartann Blades were not yet approaching the Meteor. Wedge saw some forming up into half squads, presumably for strafing runs at the enormous aircraft,
but they weren’t ready yet. He took the opportunity to catch up on his breathing. He also checked visually for the other members of his flight, couldn’t spot them immediately. Into the lightboard microphone, he said, “Red Flight.”
Three blips lit up.
Three.
He tapped each one in turn. Red Leader. Red Four. Red Three.
“Red Two, come in. Tycho, where are you?”
Janson’s voice came back, strained. “I think he’s gone, Lead. I saw him hammered by a TIE’s laser fire, really bad. He banked away from me, not maneuvering well, and then a Blade’s missile took him.”
“Four to Red Flight, negative, negative. I was just queried by a Yedagon Blade-28, Sandstorm Six, who’s following him down. Tycho punched out. No serious damage.”
Wedge nearly slumped. Fear for Tycho had tightened every muscle in his body like they were an instrument’s strings being tuned. “Red Leader to Eye Three.”
“Eye Three.”
“Please track Sandstorm Six. He’s following Red Two down; Two is extravehicular. Send whatever you can to pick him up. We want him back in the air and with us, whatever it takes.”
“Understood. And we have good news on another front. Cheriss with Holdout reports that her group has found your X-wings.”
“That was fast.”
“She said it was simple. They picked up your astromech’s broadcasts.”
“Tell her group to stand by. That just doesn’t make any sense.” The first thing an enemy would have done would be to disable the astromechs with restraining bolts and then go to work cracking the security measures limiting
cockpit access only to authorized personnel. The astromechs would never be allowed to continue transmitting.
No, wait—that was the first thing an Imperial enemy would have done. It was the people of Cartann who’d seized the X-wings.
He tried to think like his enemy, and the answer was there almost immediately.
The
perator
ruled Cartann, not some diplomatic council. He could hand the X-wings over to the military, certainly, but as an ex-pilot himself—and an autocratic ruler—he might well have decided to keep them for himself.
But he didn’t have time to investigate them. He was planning a war against those arrayed against Cartann. So he’d put them somewhere secure and worry about them when the war was done, or at least offered him some recreation time. He might not even be aware of the astromechs’ capacity for self-motivation and action.
He switched to Red Flight frequency. “Red Leader to Gate, do you read?”
His communications board’s text screen lit up with words,
I READ YOU
.
“Report your situation, please.”
I AM IN A HANGAR SUITED FOR TWO OR MORE SQUADRONS OF STARFIGHTERS. RED FLIGHT’S X-WINGS AND FOUR BLADES, VARIOUS TYPES, ARE HERE. THE OTHER SNUBFIGHTERS’ ASTROMECHS ARE HERE. WE ARE GUARDED BY SIX GUARDS WITH BLASTER RIFLES. THEY ARE TALKING, AND LISTENING TO DISTANT EXPLOSIONS AND THE SOUNDS OF LASER BATTERIES. WE HAVE NOT BEEN INTERFERED WITH AND THE X-WINGS HAVE NOT BEEN OPENED. WE AND THE X-WINGS HAVE SUFFERED ONLY COSMETIC DAMAGE
.
“Cosmetic damage?”
THEY PUT STRAPS ON THE X-WINGS TO WINCH US OFF THE BALCONY AND TAKE US TO THE HANGAR. THE STRAPS RUBBED PAINT OFF ON BOTH THE SNUBFIGHTERS AND US
.
“Stand by, Gate. We’ll get someone to you soon.”
The Cartann half squadrons preparing their runs on the Meteor banked and headed toward the gigantic aircraft. Wedge vectored to be away from the Meteor when it happened—not that the enemy odds worried him, but so that the Meteor’s gunners would not have to worry about hitting him.
“Eye Three, when Red Two is picked up, assign the rescue craft to Red Flight. Red Flight, as soon as Tycho rejoins us, we’re heading into Cartann to pick up our snubfighters.”
He heard a wild, undisciplined cheer that had to be Janson’s. Then Iella’s voice came back: “Red Leader, if you head out in advance of the group, you’ll be flying into antiaircraft laser barrages. They don’t have to cut back on those until their own forces drift out over the city.”
“Understood, Eye Three, but that’s the plan. Red Leader out.”
Wedge switched frequencies to that used by the insertion team in charge of finding the X-wings. “Red Leader to Holdout.”
The response was immediate, but hard to hear; the voice was Cheriss’s, and she was whispering. “Holdout to Red Leader.”
“By any chance, did you end up with one of the New Republic datapads from our quarters?”
“No, Red Leader. All I have is standard Adumari gear.”
“Including a flatscreen?”
“Yes.”
Wedge pondered that. Gate could be told to transmit to a flatscreen, but anything he broadcast to Cheriss could be picked up by other flatscreens in the area. Unless …
“Can you adjust the frequency it receives on?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Good. Set it to the most unusual or ill-used frequency
you can think of and tell me what it is. Then, in a few minutes, your team is going to receive some very helpful visual images from within your target area.”
“Understood.” A moment later, she responded with a numeric sequence corresponding to one of the standard flatscreen reception frequencies.
“Acknowledged. Red Leader out.” He sat back. He’d have to get Iella, who knew more than anyone else on all Adumar about translating between New Republic and Adumari systems, to get in communication with Gate to instruct the R5 unit in interfacing with the Adumar flatscreens. Then Gate and the other astromechs in the X-wings’ hangar could broadcast 360-degree views of the hangar interior, with the holocam data reinterpreted to two dimensions and translated to the format understood by the flatcams.
It would be another desperately needed edge for his people. If only they would survive long enough to employ it.
In five minutes, the aerial situation had changed, though not in unexpected ways.
Cartann’s fleet of Meteors and most of her Scythes had been caught on the ground and largely destroyed—the larger craft, requiring numerous crewmen, were not in a position to lift off by the time the united Adumari craft roared across the sky above them. Even at this distance, Wedge could see the columns of flame that marked where Cartann Bladedrome and Giltella Air Base had been. The united Adumari force’s Meteors were doing substantial damage in the air, their lasers actually optimized to shoot down incoming missiles and used only when the opportunity arose to fire upon enemy fighters.