Wraith Squadron

by Aaron Allston

  He was suddenly banged up, down, and sideways by thruster corrections and could no longer keep his attention on the datapad. Then gravity had him and he was standing on his head.

  He heard a wild, musical shriek, Gadget emitting a sound of pure droid terror, and there was an impact. Something gave way under the blow. Piggy was slammed forward, banging his head, then slammed onto his back.

  He had heard Gadget screech; they had to be within atmosphere. He popped the seal on his pilot suit and dragged out one of the blasters with his left hand, then kicked open the hatch of the smuggling compartment. Bright light flowed in to blind him.

  He couldn't wait for his eyes to adjust. He squeezed out of the compartment.

  He was on his back on a metal floor. It was a miniature hangar space, mostly filled with four gigantic metal racks situated side by side; the two end racks held TIE fighters upright. He was almost directly beneath the starboard-side TIE fighter. Forward was the open hold door framing starfield and the planet Xobome 6. He could not see the magnetic containment field holding in the hold's atmosphere, but if it were not there, he'd already be strangling on vacuum.

  The sound of a laser blaster's discharge and the impact of the bolt on the metal bracket nearest him made him jerk. He rolled over onto his belly, dragging the chopped-down laser cannon out of the compartment after him, and aimed the blaster pistol.

  Nothing directly ahead but metal stairs going up. But above them was a gray catwalk, and on it men in mechanics' overalls running toward an exit. And two men in standard stormtrooper armor, aiming rifles his way . . .

  He snap-fired at one, hitting the wall behind the man, and tried to crawl backward from the smuggler's compartment and under the cover offered by the nearest TIE fighter. But as he crawled the Lunatic came after him. It wasn't as heavy as it should have been; he saw that Gadget was no longer attached, and the brackets that had held him there were bent and broken.

  He swore to himself, a Gamorrean grunt, as he realized the power cable from his belt generator was still plugged in to the compartment's electronics. He got two fingers of his blaster hand on the cable and yanked it free; a blast from the second stormtrooper hit the compartment dead-on, chewing a head-sized hole in its metal side.

  Piggy got back under the cockpit of the TIE fighter. A marginal improvement; they couldn't see him, but he couldn't see them.

  He felt the air pressure change, then a wash of heated gas rolled over him from behind. Shrapnel clattered across the TIE fighters and little pieces stung the back of his legs. Something had happened just outside the bow hold door, but he couldn't turn back to look.

  Tactics. The stormtroopers would be separating on the catwalk, moving in either direction to bracket him with fire. He half stood and put his shoulder against the TIE fighter's wing.

  The sturdy starfighter resisted his efforts, but some of the brackets holding it in place broke. The TIE fighter rotated, the remaining brackets acting as a pivot, and suddenly he could see the right-most stormtrooper. The trooper fired at him but the TIE fighter's solar wing, held before Piggy like a shield, absorbed the bolt. Piggy returned fire with the blaster pistol, saw black charring appear on the stormtrooper's chest, saw the trooper collapse to the catwalk, twitching.

  He continued pushing against the wing, rotating the eyeball farther still, firing almost blindly as he went, until the second stormtrooper came under his gun. He hit the trooper twice. The trooper smashed back into the wall behind the catwalk, then stumbled forward and went over the rail.

  A moment's breather. The hold crewmen had all escaped through the door. Then there was also the open hold door leading to space. These were the only ways out.

  "Gadget?"

  An irritable, nearly musical chittering from the far side of the hold reassured him that the R2 was functional.

  Tactics. If he were the ship's captain, he'd shut the internal door and turn off the magcon field, venting the bay's atmosphere into space and suffocating Piggy or launching him into the void. Well, he'd have to do something about that possibility.

  Wedge saw both of the TIE fighters rotate, trying to track the Lunatic, but only one managed to maneuver fast enough to get off a shot. The shot missed the wildly rocking assembly of parts. Then, at full speed, the Lunatic shot into the open bay door.

  Wedge realized his mouth was open. "I'll be damned. They did it." He hit his comm key. "Wraiths, power up and target those eyeballs, lasers only, do not abandon your positions." He switched channels. "Attention, TIE fighter pilots. This is Commander Wedge Antilles of the New Republic. We have you under our guns. Surrender or be vaped."

  The two TIE fighters ceased drifting. One came up to speed, heading toward the corvette, and the other spun back toward Phanan's X-wing. That eyeball fired, its green lasers shredding the derelict snubfighter.

  Wedge grimaced. "Amateurs. Wraiths, open fire."

  Not all the Wraiths had angles on the eyeballs, but enough did. The fighter approaching the corvette was hit by two quad-linked bursts, the one that had destroyed Phanan's craft by three. Both exploded.

  His blaster pistol once again tucked away and the chopped-down laser cannon hanging from its power cable, Piggy climbed the TIE fighters' landing brackets. He kept a strong grip on those brackets; if the atmosphere vented, he didn't want to be pulled out with it. He saw the door through which the hold crew had run begin to close.

  At the top of the brackets, he was only three feet from the hold ceiling. If he remembered the layout of Corellian corvettes from the training he'd received, there would be a floor of officer and guest quarters above the hold, and the ship's bridge would be immediately above that. If his cannon would chew holes in both ceilings and he could find a means to keep climbing, he could be in the bridge before anyone knew he was coming.

  He dragged up the cannon, pointed it at the ceiling, averted his eyes, and fired.

  The light produced by the shot was overwhelming, dazzling him even when reflected from the canopy of the TIE fighter below. The noise was incredible, a shriek of metal and displaced air. Melting metal scraps fell all around him—and on him, burning through his pilot's suit.

  He ignored the pain. As his eyes cleared, he clambered up atop the bracket beams and leaped up through the hole he'd made— Into the bridge. Around him, lying on the floor where they'd leaped for cover, running toward the exit, reaching toward holsters for blasters they'd never grasp, were the members of the bridge crew.

  Where was the officers' quarters floor? It didn't matter. Piggy shouted, "Stop where you are! One move and I fire!"

  And he aimed the still-smoking laser cannon toward the bow of the bridge, where metal walls and transparisteel windows were all that held in the chamber's atmosphere.

  The bridge officers glanced at one another, then at an officer wearing the insignia of an Imperial naval lieutenant. The lieutenant nodded glumly and raised his hands.

  Only when ash began to drift down from the ceiling did Piggy glance up, there to see what was left of another ship's officer.

  "Captain Voort saBinring of the New Republic corvette Night Caller hailing Wraith Squadron. Wraith Squadron, come in."

  Wedge couldn't restrain his grin. "Captain? That's a sudden promotion."

  "A temporary promotion, sir. I am in command of this vessel. I thought a captaincy would be most appropriate."

  "Oh, it is. Permission to come aboard?"

  "Granted. And please hurry."

  12

  Inconvenient as the planet's weather was, they brought Night Caller down to the surface of Xobome 6 to perform their examination. Jesmin Ackbar remained on station in orbit to alert them to any other enemy arrivals.

  Wedge stayed on the bridge, accumulating information, while the Wraiths performed their duties as fast as possible. Wedge could see them, dim shapes moving among the rocking X-wings while the wind drove ice particles past the bridge windows and obscured his vision. He was careful to stay well away from the hole melted in the floor. The object
fried to the ceiling above that hole, remains that had once been a man named Captain Zurel Darillian, had fallen free during the ship's landing and dropped into the TIE fighter hold; Falynn Sandskimmer, unperturbed by their grisly nature, was dealing with them.

  Squeaky, just back from his initial tour of the ship, seemed fascinated by what he'd seen. "It's all so very clean, sir. The captain must have been quite a stickler for cleanliness."

  Wedge gave him a rueful look. "Usually a sign of a diseased mind . . . What about the structural modifications?""It has been very heavily modified from the standard corvette, Commander. Where the Tantive IV had a luxury quarters deck beneath the bridge, Night Caller has eliminated the deck, I suspect to make extra room in the bow hold for the four TIE fighters. The bow has also been widened, the hull armor on the sides of the bow narrowed, electronic apparatus that should be between bulkheads there moved somewhere else. The topside hold has been converted into a skimmer hangar. There are no laboratories; that's where the luxury quarters are located."

  Wedge nodded. "It appears that this was no retrofit job. It came out of the shipyards this way."

  "I agree, Commander."

  From the main weapons console, Janson said, "They've given up one of their bow turbolaser twin cannons and installed a tractor beam instead."

  "Most ships this size have a tractor."

  Janson grinned. "I mean a real tractor beam. Something suited to a frigate or larger war vessel, not just a beam suitable to drag a fighter around."

  Grinder, bent over one of the bridge's data consoles, called, "Oh, Commander." He made the rank sound like part of a song. When he straightened and turned, Wedge could see the Bothan's teeth bared in a meat-eating smile.

  "Yes?"

  "Piggy got to the bridge so fast—oh, this is sweet. They didn't have time to shut down, to purge the memory, to activate the most basic security. They have a state-of-the-art Imperial HoloNet system, a real luxury on a vessel this size, and it was hot, ready to go—and they didn't even get a message off."

  Wedge blinked at him. "Whatever fleet it came from is unaware it's in trouble?"

  "Completely. I pulled up its mission profile, its standing orders, its schedule, everything."

  "Tell me."

  "It belongs to Zsinj—"

  "No surprise."

  "No surprise. But it's temporarily assigned to Admiral Apwar Trigit. Its mission is to lay mines, Empion mines, a type I'm not familiar with—"

  "Ask Kell about them. I think I had him redesign them in his head earlier today."

  "Right. Anyway, it's supposed to plant them, to monitor their hypercomm frequency for alerts that they've been triggered, to inform Admiral Trigit of the results when they go off."

  "Go on."

  "I also got their schedule, mostly visiting unaligned planetary systems and demonstrating that Zsinj has muscle, also some routine meetings with refueling ships. A schedule they're supposed to return to once this minelaying is done."

  "Show me."

  Grinder brought up a list on-screen. Wedge read off the list of planets. "Viamarr 4, Xartun, Belthu, M2398, Todirium, Obinipor, Fenion. Can you plot that for me?"

  "I'm way ahead of you."

  "That seems to be a short description of my recent command history." Wedge looked over the star chart Grinder brought up. It tracked a course through Rimward planets just outside the New Republic's current zones of control. "And Trigit doesn't know we've captured this vessel."

  Grinder shook his head, sending ripples through his silver fur. "Sir, he can't."

  Wedge whistled as the first elements of a plan began to percolate in his mind.

  Cursing the cold, Cubber and Kell staggered against the gale-force winds of Xobome 6 and reached the stern of the Narra.

  There, as Squeaky had described, tucked neatly away in one of the recesses beside the main thruster of the main drive unit, was a rectangle of the dimensions Kell remembered. This one was black to match the surrounding components of the drive unit.

  The two mechanics looked at each other. "Doesn't belong here," Cubber said. "Let's pull it off."

  "Let's scan it first, Cubber. Remember my other occupation?"

  "Oh, yes. I'll wait over there. Behind the outcropping."

  Kell pulled out the sensor pack Squeaky had saved for him, the one optimized for demolitions work, and hoped that it would hold up in this cold environment. He moved it slowly across the surface of the mystery box and carefully watched the sensor's display.

  The heat-based visual display showed intricate electronic components inside, some of which were consistent with advanced comm gear, none of which seemed to include the sort of nondifferentiated material that usually made up the explosive portion of a bomb. There seemed to be some sort of armature attachments on the other side holding it to the shuttle's surface.

  He waved Cubber over, then carefully gripped the box and pried at it. It resisted him; then, as he applied more pressure, it came away from the shuttle. Four mechanical limbs, each articulated, half a meter long, and ending in gripping hands, hung limply.

  "I think it's dead," Cubber said.

  "What do you want to bet that the bomb that scrambled our droids' memories did the same thing to this?"

  "No bet. Let's get inside where it's warm and find out for sure."

  Jesmin remained at her station in orbit; Falynn and Runt guarded fifty-plus ship's officers and crewmen now crowded into the stern lounge. The rest assembled in the small meeting room that was part of the captain's quarters.

  "First," Wedge said, "I want to commend the principal parties involved in the capture of Night Caller. Piggy, Face, Kell—excellent work."

  There was general applause, and Piggy said, "Can I keep the ship?"

  "If you mean as a personal possession, no. If you'd like to remain in command, the answer is probably yes."

  Piggy looked startled. "I was joking."

  "Well, the question would have been a joke in the Imperial navy or the Corellian fleet or a lot of other places, but it's actually a reasonable one in the fleet of the New Republic. It's all because many of our traditions are rooted in the more piratical times of the Alliance's first days. Still interested?"

  Piggy nodded, silent. His expression was made up of surprise and confusion.

  "The first thing you'd do is transmit an informal request for command of Night Caller to Fleet Command. Then you'd submit a formal application for transfer out of Starfighter Command and into Fleet Command. I'd have little choice except to approve it, and the Navy is nearly one hundred percent likely to accept you. They have a keen appreciation of officers who capture ships to add to the fleet, after all.

  "Then you'd receive a crash course in naval traditions and capital ship command, along with a promotion to naval lieutenant . . . and an immediate temporary promotion to captain. Because of your lack of experience, you'd be given very simple missions for your first several months—guarding convoys of ships carrying nonessential goods, for example. Eventually, within the year, I'm certain, they'd become aware of your competence, begin giving you more critical missions, and make that last promotion a permanent one.

  "Let me just say, though, I personally think it would be a shame to take a promising fighter pilot like yourself and turn him into a barge driver. But I have to admit that those are the words of an irredeemable X-wing jockey."

  Janson barked out a laugh, which Wedge ignored. Wedge continued, "What about it, Piggy? Naval captaincy within a year? Still interested?"

  Piggy was still for a moment, then slowly shook his head. "Perhaps I am selfish. But everyone remembers Lando Calrissian and Wedge Antilles and what they did at Endor. Who remembers the name of the captain or the gunner on the Home One at the same battle?"

  Wedge smiled. "I do. But I know what you mean. And I appreciate the fact you're staying." He turned back to the others. "All right, back to Night Caller and our current situation. Cubber, fuel?"

  "We're good. Night Caller's tanks were almost fu
ll, and they have proper refueling equipment. I've siphoned off enough to top off the Narra and all the X-wings except Jesmin Ackbar's."

  "As soon as we're done here, I'll bring her down and send Myn up so you can refuel her as well."

  Jesmin's voice came out of the intercom on the table. "Thank you, sir."

  "Oops. Forgot you were listening. Grinder, did you transfer the nav data?"

  The Bothan nodded. "We can jump out of system at any time."

  "Phanan? Your status?"

  Ton Phanan looked less pallid than he had up in orbit, but he looked no less unhappy. "They blew up my snubfighter."

  "Your physical status, I mean."

  "Oh. The damage to flesh was all trivial. I didn't lose any limbs or organs this time, which is quite a treat, I assure you. The damage to the prosthetics is not all fixed yet, though. My left leg isn't receiving proper neural input and drags a bit. And my right hand works just fine for most things, but when I start to work with a datapad, there's some sort of leakage of signals and it just goes crazy." Phanan waved the hand in question. It ordinarily looked like a normal hand, but now it twitched continually, the ring finger jerking rhythmically and the flesh on the back of the hand crawling in an inhuman fashion. Phanan did not seem disturbed by the phenomenon. "But with a little more work with the ship's computers, I should be able to set everything right."

  "Cubber, Kell, the attachment on the shuttle?"

  Kell shrugged. "It's hard to tell with its memory blown out, but I think it was some sort of parasitic communications device. It was mobile and had a camouflage coating; it can alter its color to match whatever vehicle it's attached to. It also has a very small, very limited hypercomm ability . . , but again, with its memory gone, I can't find out where it was transmitting to. My guess is that it went from ship to ship and occasionally broadcast its current location to its maker."