The Essential Novels

by James Luceno

  What he wanted to hear was the return of the engine thrum, but what he got was nothing. Ignition circuits must be fried. There has to be something else I can do. Without the engines, he had no power. The primary power cells and the reserve power cells for the lasers probably had enough energy in them to at least give him communications, attitude control jets, and limited sensors, but getting at it from inside the cockpit presented him a problem. It’s not like I can just land this monster and do some manual cross-wiring.

  Corran laughed aloud. “No, but I can manually land this thing.”

  He brought his left leg up and hooked a small tab on the cockpit wall with his heel. It flipped out a small bar that sat in a groove. Corran centered his foot on the bar and pumped it down. It came back up beneath his foot and he pushed it down again and again.

  From the nose of the fighter he heard metallic pops and clicks. The bar was connected to a small generator that put out enough current to deploy the fighter’s landing gear. Extending them did nothing to affect the spin, but the payoff Corran hoped for wouldn’t come until the gear locked into place.

  With a shudder he felt throughout the ship, the landing gear snapped into their fully deployed positions. The monitor in the cockpit lit up again and the stick began to feel alive in his left hand. Laughing aloud, Corran took the stick in his right hand and tugged it over to the starboard side of the cockpit. The spin began to slow.

  He fingered the medallion with his left hand. Because no-power landings would be seriously harmful to most lifeforms, extending the landing gear on the fighter opened a circuit that allowed the primary and reserve power cells to drive the S-foil impeller jets for simple maneuvering and to kick in the repulsorlift drives. The power cell tap tended to be used primarily by techs for moving the ships around in repair and maintenance facilities, because running the fusion engines up for full maneuvering power in enclosed places is generally considered harmful to most living creatures.

  Corran tried his restart again, with the same results as before. Diagnostics told him he’d lost one of the starboard Incom phi-inverted lateral stabilizers and the engine just wouldn’t start with power levels fluctuating all over the place. No engines, but maybe I have sensors and communication.

  He brought those systems on-line but got nothing from sensors and a lot of static covering voices on the comm. “This is Rogue Nine. I could use some help here.”

  Waiting for a reply, he flipped on the proton torpedo launch circuits. Without sensors, his ability to hit anything was nil, but at least he could get a shot or two off. And I’m probably going to need it.

  Above and to starboard he saw the Black Asp. Rogue Squadron had regrouped to form a screen between the Interdictor and the smuggler. He couldn’t tell how many Rogues were left, and the occasional glint of sunlight off TIE Interceptors’ Quadanium solar panels told him a few of the squints still existed, but there seemed to be far more Rogues than there were TIEs, and that was a good sign.

  The Interdictor ventured in close to the fight, its lasers and ion cannons blazing away with green and blue bolts. The energy streams filled space with tangles and knots as the gunners tried to target the elusive X-wings. Though he had been hit fairly easily, he knew his collision-avoidance maneuver had kept him in one place long enough for the gunners to hit him, and that only because he’d ventured far closer to the Interdictor than he should have.

  He half heard a command crackle in over the comm, but he couldn’t make sense of it. Out beyond his ship’s nose he saw a series of proton torpedo launches from the X-wings. They came in at the large ship from a multitude of angles. While the power in each of the torpedoes was hardly a threat to the Interdictor, the combined damage of a volley like that was enough to batter down its forward shield. The concave energy wall glowed a sickly yellow before it imploded and Corran thought certain he saw several torpedoes explode against the Interdictory hull.

  “Yeah, Rogues!” Corran laughed aloud. “Oh, Whistler, you’re going to be sorry you missed this.”

  The Interdictor brought its nose up to pull the vulnerable bow away from the X-wings. It could repair the damaged shield by pumping more energy into it, but that would require the shutting down of the gravity well projectors. That, in turn, would allow the X-wings and the yacht to escape, turning the whole engagement into a draw. If you don’t count the vaped squints.

  The big ship executed a roll that combined with the loop to reverse the cruiser’s course. “He’s running. They’ve driven it off! Yes!”

  His jubilance died as he realized that meant the cruiser was heading back in his direction, and the surviving TIE Interceptors were flying along in its wake like fledgling mynocks chasing a slow freighter. “Whistler, you’re lucky you’re not seeing this. It’ll be ugly.”

  “Rogue Nine, do you copy?”

  “I copy.” Corran didn’t immediately recognize the voice. “I’m on partial power. Whistler’s dead and I’m blinder than a Y-wing.”

  “This is Rogue Null. You have squints coming your way. I mark two.”

  “Oh, more good news. Thanks, Null. Be my guest.” Corran craned his neck to see where Tycho and the shuttle were, but he couldn’t see it. “I’m naked here, so please get them off me.”

  “Not possible, Nine. Clear your sensors to 354.3.”

  “What?” Corran frowned as he saw the TIE getting closer. “I’m a sitting Hutt here.”

  “So you have indicated, Nine. Clear your sensors.”

  Corran punched the frequency code into the keypad under his left hand. “Done, Null.”

  “Happy hunting, Nine.”

  Corran’s targeting display came back alive and his monitor showed targeting telemetry data from the Forbidden. Beyond the display Corran saw the TIEs juke to try to shuck the shuttle, but Tycho managed to keep his sights locked on the lead Interceptor, despite flying a slower, less agile craft.

  The HUD went red and Corran hummed an imitation of Whistler’s target tone. He squeezed the trigger on his stick twice, sending two torpedoes streaking out at the lead Interceptor. “Lead’s gone, Null, give me number two.”

  The display flickered, then Corran nudged the X-wing around and launched two more missiles at the Interceptor boxed in red on his tactical display. So intent had the Imperial pilots been on losing the shuttle behind them, they had no chance to react to the missiles shooting in at them.

  The first pilot died without being able to execute even the most basic of evasive maneuvers. The proton torpedoes blasted through the cockpit ball, ripping the craft to bits and igniting the ion engine fuel into a swollen ball of fire. The second set of missiles lanced through that fireball and blew one wing off their target. That squint careened away, somersaulting and twisting wildly through space. Bits and pieces of it flew off into the void, then it exploded brilliantly, blotting out the image of the Interdictor going to light speed.

  “Great shooting, Nine.”

  Corran shook his head. “Greater flying, Null. I did the easy part.”

  “The kills are yours, Corran. Three confirmed—the best today.”

  The Corellian pilot shrugged. “Maybe today wasn’t so unlucky after all.”

  “Glad you feel that way, Nine.”

  “Why, Captain?”

  “You had the most kills. When we get where we’re going, all the drinks are on you.”

  14

  Corran happily popped the cockpit canopy seals on his X-wing after the yacht killed its maneuvering jets and the thick fog descended over the ships. At Chorax the yacht had come back and picked him up, using landing claws to capture the X-wing’s landing gear. This left his ship clinging to the dorsal hull of the yacht like a dauber-wasp on the back of a bird. He didn’t particularly like the situation, but it was a long walk from Chorax to Talasea in the Morobe sector and he liked the idea of leaving his fighter and Whistler behind even less than being carried into port.

  He’d shut down all systems except for life support, so he had no communication with the
yacht’s pilot. Corran had been impressed with how smooth the landing was at the primitive spaceport. A dense fog hid almost everything, and what little he could see in the backwash of maneuvering jets seemed overgrown with dark green ivy. He saw dim shapes that resembled buildings, but most of them were covered with sufficient plant life that he wondered if the New Republic hadn’t grown the base instead of building it.

  He stood and stretched, then doffed his helmet and gloves and put them on the seat of his command couch. Vaulting from the cockpit, he landed heavily on the yacht’s hull. More gravity here than I expected. Corran looked for a ladder to let himself down, but couldn’t find one. Instead he walked along the curved wing and jumped down to the ground from the lowest point.

  His knees buckled with the impact and he went down on all fours. “Either there is more gravity here than I expect, or that fight really wrung it out of me.” As he straightened up and scraped mud from the knees of his red jumpsuit, he knew both of his assumptions were probably correct. I’m lucky to be alive.

  A hatch opened with a hiss on the underside of the yacht and a boarding ramp slowly descended. Corran turned toward the ramp, wiping his hands off on his thighs. A Sullustan descended first, followed by an insectoid maintenance droid of Verpine manufacture. Corran nodded a salute at them, but they ignored him as they waited at the base of the ramp.

  Corran assumed they were waiting for the captain of the ship—a person he had assumed to be male since very few of the independent smugglers were female. As the captain descended the ramp, Corran had his assumption exploded by his first glimpse of shapely long legs encased in boots and a form-fitting, dark blue jumpsuit. A gunbelt encircled her slender waist and long black hair fell to midback. She grabbed the ramp’s forward support and swung around to face him in a carefree manner, and Corran was very taken with the smile lighting up her beautiful face.

  He wiped his hands again on his jumpsuit. “Thanks for the ride back here.”

  She returned his smile as she shortened the distance between them. “Thanks for the save back there.”

  “My pleasure.” He extended his hand to her. “I’m Corran Horn.”

  Something dangerous flashed through her brown eyes. “Are you any relation to Hal Horn?”

  “He is … was my father. Why?”

  “Because he hounded my father and had him sent to Kessel.” She poked him in the chest, right where the flight stick had bruised him. “If I’d known who you were I’d have left you there.”

  Corran recoiled in surprise and for the first time saw the patch on the shoulder of her jumpsuit. It showed a Corellian sea-ray that had a bar where its eyes should have been. Because of the polarized thread used to embroider the black eye-bar, a little vertical white line passed through it, running side to side. I know that crest—I knew this ship was familiar! “This is the Pulsar Skate. If I’d known Booster Terrik was bringing me in, I’d have stayed out there.”

  “I can see you two have already met?”

  Corran whirled around and quickly saluted Wedge. “Yes, sir.”

  The woman planted her fists on her narrow hips. “You didn’t tell me who this pilot was because you knew I’d not have transported him, right?”

  Wedge smiled easily. “I suspected there might have been some friction. How have you been, Mirax?”

  “Paying for spare parts and fuel, Wedge.” Mirax kissed Wedge on the cheek. “I’ve also been collecting stories about you from all over the galaxy. Your parents would have been proud.”

  Wedge nodded solemnly. “I’d like to hope so.”

  Corran’s green eyes narrowed. “Sir, you realize the Pulsar Skate is a ship with a well-documented history of smuggling and that Booster Terrik is one of the more notorious smugglers who ever flew out of Corellia.”

  Corran’s commander smiled. “I know all about the Skate, Lieutenant Horn. I was about fifteen years old when I helped replace the fusion chamber on that starboard engine. Mirax’s father regularly used my parents’ fueling station for repairs and refueling.”

  “But, Booster used to smuggle glit …”

  Wedge cut him off with a scowl. “He also helped me track down the pirates who destroyed the fueling station and killed my parents—pirates who destroyed it while fleeing Corellian Security and whom CorSec never caught.”

  “And that makes it all right?”

  “No, Lieutenant, it just puts things in perspective.” Wedge gave Mirax a hug around her shoulders. “Mirax isn’t her father. Ever since he retired, she’s been running a lot of supplies for the Alliance.” He then turned and gave her a hard stare. “And Corran isn’t his father, either. If he’d not made some last-minute adjustments to the course we were taking, we’d not have ended up in the Chorax system to save you.”

  Mirax glanced down at the ground. The anger in her expression eased slightly, aided and abetted by the color rising to her cheeks. “You’re right, Wedge. I’m still bleeding off the stress of being jumped like that. The Black Asp came out of hyperspace right on my exit vector and gravved me in place. Someone sold me out.”

  Corran snorted. “No honor among thieves.”

  Wedge frowned at him. “More like Imperial credits buying more loyalty than the promise of Alliance credits.”

  Mirax shrugged her shoulders. “Some of us find those promises more safe than letting the Empire get their hooks into us.” She extended her hand to Corran. “I want to apologize for my behavior, Lieutenant.”

  Corran shook her hand. “Apology accepted, and I apologize as well. I’m still rattled after getting fired upon by a cruiser. My R2 is down and I’m a bit worried …”

  She smiled and some of the tension in his chest eased. “I understand. If I can help in any way.”

  “I appreciate the offer.” Corran looked over at Wedge. “I should probably see to getting the X-wing unloaded and Whistler’s getting repaired.”

  “In a moment, Lieutenant, I want to speak with you first.” He jerked a thumb at the Pulsar Skate. “Mirax, do you know where your shipment was going?”

  “I was supposed to rendezvous with a ship for transfer or coordinates.” She shrugged. “According to the manifest it was a lot of basic stuff for setting up a base. You could probably use most of it here.”

  “I don’t doubt it.” Wedge fished a cylindrical comlink from a pocket of his flight suit and flicked it on with his thumb. “Antilles to Emtrey.”

  “Emtrey here, sir. I’ve been trying to reach you since we landed …”

  Wedge rolled his eyes skyward. “I’m sure you have. No time to talk now. I need you to get a salvage crew with a lift crane over here to get Horn’s X-wing and R2 unit. You also need to get the ship’s manifest from the Pulsar Skate. Find out where that shipment of supplies was going and see if you can’t arrange for what we need to remain here.”

  “Yes, sir. As I was saying, sir …”

  “Antilles out.” Wedge turned the comlink off and shoved it deep into his pocket again. “Tycho said he didn’t have any trouble with the droid on the trip out here, but why not I can’t imagine.”

  Mirax arched an eyebrow at Wedge. “So you send him out here to talk with me?”

  “Believe me, he’s not the worst protocol droid on our side, not by a long shot.” Wedge winked at her. “Just give him the datacard, retreat to the Skate, and threaten to shoot him if he comes aboard.”

  “Make sure you shoot twice.”

  “I’ll remember that, Lieutenant.” Mirax sighed. “Wouldn’t it be easier if I just downloaded the manifest to your central computer?”

  Wedge winced. “Right now he is our central computer.”

  “True, this isn’t exactly Coruscant Rimward. It makes the Outlier worlds look civilized.”

  “I’m glad you understand.” Wedge tossed her an abbreviated salute. “We will talk more later, Mirax. Lieutenant, if you’ll follow me.”

  Corran fell in step with his commander. “You wanted to say something to me, sir?”

  “It’s nev
er again going to be quite like that first time.” Wedge smiled. “Taking on fighters is one thing, but fighting in the shadow of a capital ship, that’s enough to get to anyone.”

  Maybe that was the difference between this time and the others. “I appreciate the perspective, sir.”

  “I also wanted to congratulate you for the way you recovered yourself out there. You were in a very difficult position and you got yourself out of it rather handily.”

  “It was more luck than anything else, sir. If that second blast had caught me square on, I would have been on that Interdictor and Talasea would be under assault.”

  “Call it whatever you like, Mr. Horn, you did well.” Wedge shook his head. “Getting those two Interceptors after your systems were down was very impressive.”

  “As I told Captain Celchu, he did the hard part, I just pulled the trigger. If they’d broken his lock, I would never have hit them.” The younger man frowned. “That brings me to a question, sir.”

  “Yes?”

  Corran stopped and grey mist swirled between the two of them. “Captain Celchu was able to get a torpedo lock on those two Interceptors. Why didn’t he shoot them himself?”

  Wedge hesitated, instantly putting Corran on his guard. “The Forbidden is being modified for training purposes to simulate the profile of an assault gunboat. While it has the sensor package for concussion missiles, it doesn’t carry any and couldn’t shoot them if it did.”

  “Then why didn’t he take them with his lasers? Lambda-class shuttles have lasers.”

  Wedge’s reply came tight and laced with frustration. “The Forbidden does not.”

  Corran glanced down at the ground. “Commander, I saw Alliance Security escorting Captain Celchu around on Folor. He’s never had fully powered weapons on his Z-95 Headhunter and you’re telling me his shuttle had the lasers removed despite our travel through contested sectors of the Core? What’s going on here?”