Wraith Squadron

by Aaron Allston

  Around him, in the viewscreens that simulated the X-wing's transparisteel canopy, he saw a fighter launch bay; he knew the real one was actually half a klick above him, much closer to the lunar surface.

  His board indicated that all four engines were live and performing at near-optimal levels. "Gold One has four starts and is ready. Primary and secondary power at full. All diagnostics in the green."

  His comm system crackled. "Gold Two, identical report. Ready to fly."

  Kell didn't know who Gold Two was; the other pilots in this Gold group mission had been sealed into their simulators already by the time Kell had arrived for the mission. He wondered if they'd been getting in a few minutes extra practice before the exercise. He wondered if he should have been doing the same.

  Gold Two's voice, distorted through the comm system, was not deep but seemed to be male; odd pronunciation suggested that Basic was not his native tongue.

  "Gold Three, everything is nominal. Ready to go." Those were the mechanical tones of Piggy, the Gamorrean. Kell was interested in seeing how that pilot flew; Piggy was the one candidate trainee who was physically even broader than Kell, even more uncomfortable in the standard X-wing cockpit.

  "Gold Four, everything nominal, ready to go." A female voice. Kell had met several female candidates trying out for places in this squadron, but comm distortion kept him from being able to match this voice to anyone he'd met.

  Lieutenant Janson's voice crackled in his ear, not distorted at all; Kell stiffened. "Launch in sixty," Janson said. "We have incoming spacecraft, eyeballs and squints, screening a capital ship. Engage and hold them ten klicks from base. Your job is to keep them off us long enough to launch our transports. You fail, we die. Training protocol one-seven-nine is in effect. Control out."

  Kell tried to force his shoulder muscles to relax. He switched the comm over to a direct channel to his wingman. "Gold Two, what's training protocol one-seven-nine?"

  "We don't know, One."

  "We? Who's we?"

  "Gold Two, One."

  Kell opened his mouth to ask for a clarification, saw that the chrono was down to ten seconds, and decided to wait.

  At five seconds he activated his repulsorlift engines and rose a few meters into the air. At one second he nudged the stick forward, made sure he was aligned perfectly with the tunnel exit from the hangar, and kicked in the thrusters. A visual check showed the other members of his group doing the same.

  His X-wing punched out through the magnetic containment field at the end of the tunnel, into hard vacuum— Straight into the incoming fire from a group of four TIE bombers, dupes already so close he could clearly see them with the naked eye.

  Kell snapped up on his starboard wing, put all shields forward, bracketed one of the oncoming dupes and pulled the trigger even before the brackets could glow with the green of a laser lock, and pulled up in an arc that carried him to starboard and away from the lunar surface. He saw the rear edges of his control surfaces brighten with the glow of an explosion behind him. Communication from his R2 unit scrolled over his data screen: CONFIRM ONE KILL GOLD ONE.

  Panicky, incomprehensible chatter came over his comm system; Kell shouted it down. "Quiet! Strike foils to attack position! Intelligence was wrong, the intruders are already all over the base. Two, stay with me, we're going up after our original objective. Three, Four, do a fly-by over the base and report damage."

  He heard a chorus of subdued acknowledgments and saw Gold Two pull up to his port rear quarter. Then he tried the comm again: "Control, come in. Gold One to Control."

  No answer.

  His sensor unit showed three remaining TIE dupes below, at just above ground level—then two, as Gold Three scored a kill. But ahead and above, now at a distance of four klicks and closing, were thirty-six TIE fighter blips: three full squadrons. They maintained separation, were not converging on Gold One and Two.

  Gold Four's voice crackled over the comm system. "One, the launch tunnels are down, all of them. They've been bombed out of existence."

  "Even the main tube? The transport exit? That's the only one that concerns us."

  "A hundred meters of collapsed rubble, One. Nobody's coming out of that." Four's voice sounded upset even across comm distortion. Kell wanted to tell her, Calm down, it's only a simulator run. Nobody real is dead.

  But he had other problems. Control had given him a clear set of mission goals . . . and then had changed the mission parameters and invalidated all of them. What should he do now? And what was that damned training protocol Control had cited just before they launched?

  "One Group, our mission is scrubbed," he said. "Our status is omega. Three, Four, get to us and we'll punch a hole out of here."

  Three and Four acknowledged just as the range-to-target indicator dropped below two klicks. This meant the oncoming enemy was within their weapon range . . . and that Gold One and Gold Two were within range of the enemy's targeting.

  They could either bug out and suffer long-range potshots of the enemy on their way back to Gold Three and Four, or try to punch their way through, get back a little of their own, and loop back to their comrades, hoping that their attack might leave the enemy in some disarray. The latter course was potentially suicidal. Kell said, "Gold Two, let's get out of here—"

  Gold Two's reply was a weird, warbling yell. His X-wing headed straight toward the oncoming squadron. Little needles of green Imperial laser fire came lancing in, none too close to him.

  "Gold Two, return to formation. Gold Two . . ." Kell cursed. Had Two's comm unit malfunctioned? That would be in keeping with the foul-up nature of this mission. "All right, Gold Two, I'm your wing." He continued in pursuit of Two and prepared to cover him.

  Two's course carried him straight toward the center of the port squadron. The enemy's laser fire now flashed thick around him, and Kell saw some of it dissipating meters ahead of Two's fighter, stopped by its shields. Two was performing the most dangerous and most effective sort of fighter maneuver, the head-on approach, but against an entire squadron . . . and twelve-to-one odds made it likely he'd end up being vaped.

  Time to change those odds. Kell lost a little relative altitude so that Gold Two would be less likely to wander across his field of fire, then switched his lasers over to dual-fire, giving him less punch but a much higher rate of fire. He hit the etheric rudder, slewing his bow to port while maintaining his current course, then traversed his bow back to starboard—and as fast as his targeting brackets panned across the line of TIE fighters and went green to indicate laser lock, he fired, sending streaks of destructive red light toward the enemy. The musical tones of successive laser locks filled his cockpit.

  He saw distant light flares indicating he and Two had managed at least to graze some targets. His data screen showed one kill and a graze for Kell, just a graze for Two. He returned more incoming fire and juked as the oncoming TIEs were suddenly on them, then past them— Time to come around in a tight loop and hit the rear guard if the TIEs had one, fall upon the TIEs from the rear if they didn't. But, dammit, he wasn't lead fighter, the erratic Two was. He found Two visually and on the sensors; the pilot was rolling out and coming around in a tight starboard loop. Kell kept with him.

  Sensors showed four TIE fighters coming around to engage them; the other fighters were continuing on toward their objective. Closer to the lunar surface, Gold Three and Four were approaching that remaining line of seven TIEs in the weakened squadron. Good; they were obviously going to plow through the weakest link in the attackers' chain. There were no blips remaining from the four TIE bombers; Three and Four must have finished them.

  Two was lining up for another head-on run, but Kell saw the four TIE fighters spreading out in box formation. "Two, break off. They're setting up for you. Follow me in; I'm lead now."

  Two ignored him, accelerating even faster and replying with another wavering war cry.

  Kell gritted his teeth. All right. Let's see if I can save him in spite of himself. He let Gold Two
continue to increase the distance between them. He switched over to proton torpedoes.

  The oncoming fighters were arrayed like the corners of a two-dimensional box, and Two was headed straight for the lower-left corner. All four TIE fighters began spraying laser fire at him.

  Kell pointed his nose up, caught the upper-left eyeball in his brackets. They immediately went red, indicating torpedo lock, and he fired. At this range, the TIE fighter had plenty of time to dodge or range the torpedo . . . but in so doing, he'd have to break off his own attack against Two. Kell rolled up on his starboard strike foil, targeted the upper-right corner the same way, and fired again.

  The two TIEs he'd targeted broke off their approach, going to evasive maneuvers in order to elude the torps. The other two continued firing. Kell rolled over to bring the lower-right eyeball into position. That fighter must have had a sensor unit that could detect torpedo locks; it immediately began evasive maneuvers.

  He heard comm chatter that reassured him: "You vaped him, Three. I'm your wing." "Got it, Four. There's one coming up on my tail—" "He's mine."

  Then Two's X-wing, invisible against the blackness of space, suddenly flared back into Kell's vision. It exploded, an expanding ball of orange and yellow.

  A dull weight settled into Kell's stomach. He knew the real Gold Two was unhurt, probably now emerging from his simulator . . . but Control would probably blame Kell for failing to save him. Failing to save him in spite of himself.

  He flipped weapons control back to lasers, linking them for quad fire. His target momentarily ceased evasive maneuvers, probably thinking he'd broken Kell's torpedo lock and was out of danger. As soon as his laser brackets went green, Kell fired. His lasers shredded the eyeball, one lancing beam slicing the port wing clean off at the pylon and two others punching through the cockpit. The TIE fighter didn't blow up, but it did explosively vent its cockpit atmosphere and sailed past Kell on a ballistic trajectory that would end on the simulated surface of Folor.

  That left Kell with three immediate foes. No, two: One of his torpedoes caught its luckless target, turning him into a rapidly expanding cloud of gas and shrapnel. But his other intended torpedo victim had eluded the explosive device, and that TIE fighter and Two's original target were now wingmates looping around to get behind him.

  Kell pulled back on the stick, attempting as tight a turn as the X-wing could manage. TIE fighters were actually more maneuverable than X-wings out of atmosphere, but that meant less if they were being flown by indifferent pilots, as these eyeball drivers seemed to be.

  He was at the top of his loop, staring relative-down at his pursuers and the surface of Folor beyond, when red laser fire from moonward sliced through one pursuer and a torpedo from the same point of origin destroyed the other. He checked his sensor board and whistled. "Good firing, Three, Four."

  Piggy's mechanical voice: "Thank you, sir. The eyeballs are breaking off. Shall we pursue?"

  They were indeed heading off. But why wasn't Kell's canopy fading to black, indicating that the exercise was over?

  Kell thought about that long enough to take a couple of deep breaths and steady his nerves. "No, they're heading back to their carrier. Which means we have more incoming. Did anyone ever get a signal from Control?"

  "No, sir."

  "No."

  "Then we have to assume Folor Base is a loss and we're all that's left. Close and follow my heading." Relative to Folor's surface, he stood his X-wing on its tail, then called up his nav program.

  Had this been a real attack and Folor Base unable to launch its transports, he would have been expected to get all viable forces to safety and later link up with other New Republic units. So he plotted a quick jump to get them away from Folor and to an unoccupied spot in space—somewhere from which he could set up a more sophisticated course to Allied-controlled space.

  The other two X-wings grouped with him. As soon as he had a navigation solution and had left the moon far enough behind to be free of its gravity well, he transmitted the course to the others. "All right. On my mark, three, two, one, execute!"

  But instead of elongating into brilliant stripes of light, the first visual sign that a hyperspace jump was being successfully executed, the stars faded to nothingness. Kell's canopy rose and harsh artificial light made him wince.

  Janson gathered the four pilots together at a table beside the quad group of simulators and Kell got his first look at his wingman.

  Gold Two was not human. He was definitely humanoid, with arms, legs, torso, and head arranged in a comfortably recognizable fashion. But, though nearly as tall as Kell, he was very lean, covered in short brown fur, with an elongated face, huge brown eyes, a broad, flattened nose, and a mouth full of squarish white teeth. His were features better suited to a draft animal than a sapient being—but for the inquisitive, luminously intelligent quality of his eyes. He also had a head of hair that would be the envy of many a human, male or female; as Kell arrived at the table, Gold Two was tugging his hair free of an elastic band and allowing it to shake out into a waterfall of midback-length chestnut brown.

  Kell tried to rein in his irritation at the other pilot's blatant disregard of orders and protocol. He extended a hand. "Kell Tainer."

  The alien took his hand and shook it in human fashion. "We are Flight Officer Hohass Ekwesh."

  "We? Is that a royal we?" That would explain the alien's apparent disdain for procedure.

  "No, a collective—"

  "Biographies can wait," Janson said. "We're here to review performance, remember?"

  Kell stiffened up at the reprimand. "Yes, sir."

  "Good. All right. Four, you had two kills and did a good job on your reconnaissance fly-by. Three, three kills, and initiative points for double-checking Tainer's hyperspace calculations."

  "Triple-checked, sir. I also ran the numbers in my head."

  Kell glared at the Gamorrean. "And did my numbers check out?"

  The Gamorrean nodded. "They were inelegant numbers, but perfectly functional, and correct."

  "Gold Two, you scored no kills, disobeyed orders twice—though we have to drop one of those because Mr. Tainer yielded lead to you, even if it was a bit retroactive— and managed to get yourself killed through bad tactics." Janson paused over the datapad. He kept his attention on the data before continuing—possibly, Kell thought, in order to keep from having to meet Kell's eyes. "Gold One, very impressive. Five kills, an instant ace if it were real life, including one snap-shot while your strike foils were still in flight position. I'm saving that one for instructional holos. Good choice of new orders when the mission parameters changed. All in all, close to perfect."

  Janson glanced around among them. "Now, for scoring. This mission was worth two thousand, with bonuses possible for exceptional performance. Gold Four, thirteen hundred fifty. Gold Three, twelve hundred. Gold Two, twenty-three hundred. Gold One, zero."

  "What?" The word exploded from Kell. "Lieutenant, I think you've got that backward."

  Janson finally met his gaze, and nodded. "That's right. It is backward. But still correct. Didn't you hear me cite training protocol one-seven-nine?"

  "I did, but I don't know what that means."

  Janson smiled. "Piggy, it seems to me I heard you telling your wingman over your private channel what that protocol represented. Would you please inform your group commander?"

  Piggy cleared his throat; through the mechanical translator, the sound emerged as an ear-popping burst of static. "It is a scoring variation. In order to encourage cooperation, particularly among trainees who have not been together long, each wingman earns the points his wingman scored."

  "That's—" Kell heard his voice try to crack. He lowered his tone, tried again, but couldn't keep the anger from his words. "That is manifestly unfair. Is it going on my permanent record that way? A zero for what you called a near-perfect performance?"

  "Certainly it's unfair." Janson closed down his datapad. "Take it up with the wingman who ended up with all yo
ur points. For now, dismissed. I recommend you all talk it over together at DownTime. You're through for the day, but this is an order: Do not discuss your performance or the mission parameters with other pilot candidates until they've concluded the exercise. Understood?" At their chorus of affirmatives, Janson brusquely waved them toward the exit from the simulator chamber.

  5

  It was just over three hundred paces along one broad cut-stone corridor, down a shuddering, clanking escalator, and through a small chamber to the cantina known as Down-Time, and Kell glared at his wingman every step of the way. Finally, in the final chamber before they reached DownTime, the long-faced alien faced him. "I am sorry, Flight Officer Tainer."

  "Why did you do it? Fly off on your own, disobey orders?"

  "I don't know."

  "You don't know? If you're going to mutiny, you really ought to remember why."

  "It is not so simple." The alien paused to consider his next words, and the delay brought the four pilots into Down-Time.

  This was a large chamber cut from living stone back when the Folor Base had been an active mining colony. It was a large gallery, but its size was not what kept visitors from seeing the far wall; the absence of illumination, other than glows from neon decorations and holoprojectors, was to blame.Kell led them to a four-seat table against one wall, but Piggy pointed to a much longer table nearby. "We'll be joined by other candidates," he said, his mechanical voice cutting efficiently through the cantina's ambient noise, and Kell had to agree.

  When they were seated, Kell turned back to the long-faced alien. "You were saying."

  Gold Four laughed. Kell turned his attention to her for the first time.

  By the standards of DownTime, they had pretty good available light, most of it a glaring cyan from a nearby holo advertising Abrax cognac, so he got a good view of her—and was stunned by it.

  If he could have created a holo of what he thought the perfect female pilot would be, Gold Four would have matched it exactly. She was tall and slender, with light hair, probably blond in normal light, worn long in a ponytail. Her features were even and expressive; hers was the sort of face that could go from military blankness to unusual beauty just by assuming a smile, and she was smiling now.