The Essential Novels

by James Luceno

  “Three Flight, shuttle Devonian has four Interceptors inbound.”

  “Ooryl copies, Control. Ooryl has them.”

  “I’m on your back door, Ten.”

  The Interceptors had re-formed into two flights and had selected one of the assault shuttles as a target. Ooryl brought his X-wing in behind the lead pair and throttled back to match their speed.

  “Ooryl using torpedoes.”

  “Shoot straight, Ten.”

  The TIEs broke formation and split out in four directions. “Ten, go to lasers, they must have lock-threat warning systems.” A fighter with that equipment would provide the pilot with an indicator light when another ship had a torpedo lock on him. By jinking sharply it was possible to break the lock before the torpedo was launched. The Interceptor pilots ahead of them clearly knew their business. Only very good pilots survive to become veterans in TIEs, making them far deadlier than the pilots the Rogues had yet faced.

  Corran rolled the X-wing up on the starboard stabilizers and started the long turn that would bring him in behind one of the squints. Whistler anxiously hooted a warning about another Interceptor moving to swing onto Corran’s tail, but the pilot did nothing to lose the fighter. He pressed his attack, sharpening the arc of his turn to trim distance from his target.

  Whistler became more insistent and Corran smiled. “Kill thrust.” As the droid complied with that order, Corran punched the right rudder pedal with his foot. That swung the aft end of his ship up, a maneuver that further corrected his course for the ship in front of him. It also provided a tantalizing broadside shot for the squint following him.

  “Counterthrust, now.”

  Whistler brought the engines back up to power as the X-wing’s aft completed its 180-degree arc. The engines thrust against the line of the ship’s flight, effectively killing its momentum and, for a split second, freezing it in space. For the barest of moments it lay dead in the sights of the Interceptor.

  But the Interceptor pilot had already begun his roll and turn to keep his guns trained on where the X-wing should have been. Corran feathered his left rudder pedal and tracked the nose of his fighter along the squint’s flight path. The quad lasers loosed two bursts of red darts that perforated the port wing and stabbed through the cockpit.

  That Interceptor slowly spiraled out of control. More ion bursts from the planet coursed through the dogfight. The Emancipator took two more hits and the Mon Valle took another. Corran didn’t see any more fighters get hit, nor shuttles, but a string of green laser bolts slicing across his flight path distracted him.

  “Ooryl hit!”

  Corran punched the throttle and whipped the X-wing up and over in time to see his wingman’s ship break apart. “Ooryl!”

  The X-wing disintegrated. The engine pods spun off in different directions and the cockpit canopy exploded into a million glittering fragments. He saw Ooryl float free of the stricken ship, and saw the Gand wave his arms. Corran hoped it was more than random reflex, then a piece of the fighter’s S-foils sliced through the pilot’s right arm, taking it off above the elbow. The body began to tumble through space, but it remained otherwise unmoving.

  “Control, Ten is extra-vehicle. Get someone down here to get him.”

  “Nine, Emancipator reports the zone is too hot for rescue operations.”

  “Convince them, Control.”

  Wedge’s voice came on to the frequency. “Control, I have Three and Eight EV. We need help here.”

  “I’m on it, Rogue Leader. It’ll be done.”

  Three and Eight, that’s Nawara and Erisi! Two dead and three more out of the fight.

  A new voice came through Corran’s headset. “Control here, Rogues. Good news: Your rescue’s on the way. Bad news: We have two squadrons of squints coming in from planetary north. ETA two minutes. Shuttles are heading to hyperspace now.”

  Corran watched as the assault shuttles started the runs to light speed. The Corulag had already vanished, as had the Y-wings, leading the way out of disaster. Two ion blasts caught the Mon Valle, stopping it dead in space. The Eridain was beginning to move and the Emancipator had begun to drift toward planetary north but, in doing so, oriented itself for entry into hyperspace as if Admiral Ragab could not decide whether he was going to run or fight.

  Run. No reason to stick here.

  A sharp whistle from his astromech made Corran invert his ship and dive. A pair of squints flashed past, then one exploded as Rogue Four shot by on its tail.

  “Thanks, Four.”

  “Thanks for playing bait, Nine.”

  The remaining TIEs broke away and headed toward the incoming fighters flying over the planet’s polar cap. “Do we pursue, Rogue Leader?”

  “Negative, screen our people until pickup.”

  Corran keyed his comm. “Rogue Leader, two squadrons of squints against a half dozen of us is going to be ugly.”

  “Nine, if you can’t handle your four, I’ll take them.”

  Corran ignored Bror’s jibe.

  “Trim it, Rogues. We’re here protecting our own.” Wedge’s voice carried a confidence with it that buoyed Corran’s spirits. “Focus on your mission and let the rest take care of itself.”

  “Control to Rogues. Squint ETA is thirty seconds. EV Three is recovered.”

  Corran smiled and looked up. In the distance he could see the white triangular hull of the Forbidden motionless in space. The pilot had brought the ship in close to where Nawara Ven had been floating, then used a rescue tractor beam to pull the pilot inside the emergency hatch in the hull.

  The Corellian brought his X-wing up and around, then flew toward where Ooryl hung in space. “Ten is here, Forbidden.”

  “Thanks, Nine, I have the coordinates. On my way.”

  Corran blinked. That’s Tycho’s voice. “Cap, is that you?”

  “Guilty, Ten. You have four squints closing on your position. Deal with them before I get there, please.”

  “You got it.” Corran shivered. The only thing he could think of that was more stupid than engaging four Interceptors with a single X-wing was flying an unarmed shuttle into a hot zone to pick up pilots. A smile slowly crept across his face. It’s only stupid if we die doing it, otherwise it’s heroism. “And I can be a hero today.”

  Corran jumped his throttle full forward and shunted laser energy into his engines. That pushed his speed up toward maximum. Adjusting the stick and tapping the pedals he made his ship jump, cut, and dive. He flipped his weapons over to torpedoes and tried to get a lock on the lead squint, but it juked out of his sights. The others took shots at him, but his evasive maneuvers made them miss.

  His fighter flew past them and two of the Interceptors started loops to come after him. Their turns took them high and away as they throttled up to match his speed. Increasing their speed meant their loops became wider than they might have preferred. They outnumber us enough that being a bit sloppy can’t hurt.

  Corran chopped his throttle back to half and pulled his X-wing through a tight turn. “Forbidden, paint one with a missile lock.”

  Punching the throttle full forward, Corran shot his ship back along the vector that had carried him through the squint formation. One of the Interceptors broke off on its run at the shuttle, so Corran concentrated on the other. He centered the ship in his aiming reticle and waited until he got a missile lock. When the reticle turned red, he hit the trigger and sent a proton torpedo speeding out toward the Interceptor.

  The Interceptor pilot juked up and starboard, which pulled him out of the shuttle’s forward firing arc. While that maneuver would have carried him away from any torpedo the shuttle had launched, Corran’s missile had to make little more than a minor course correction before it hit. The torpedo cored through the Interceptor’s ball and exploded, spitting shrapnel out in all directions from an incandescent cloud.

  Knowing he was pushing his luck, Corran rolled the X-wing and dove after the first Interceptor the Forbidden had scared off. Throttling back he tightened a tu
rn and came up inside the arc of the squint’s loop. With a flick of his thumb he snapped weapons control over to lasers. The squint began to juke and twist, but Corran stayed with him.

  Whistler screeched a warning about the return of the other two Interceptors, but Corran ignored it. He triggered one burst of lasers and clipped one of the squint’s wings, but it sailed on. Pushing more power to his engines, Corran started to close with it, but the astromech whistled insistently at him.

  The pair of Interceptors had closed to inside a kilometer and were firmly on his tail. “Nine here, I could use some help.”

  “I’m on it, Nine. Ten on the way. Break to port on my mark.”

  Ten? That’s Ooryl, but not his voice. What’s going on?

  “Mark.”

  Left rudder, then a snap-roll onto the port stabilizers pulled him wide out of his previous flight path. He saw blue bolts shoot back toward the ships following him and for a half second Corran felt utterly disoriented. Blue beams meant ion cannon shots, but the planet had been behind him, not in front of him. And the ion cannons on the ground wouldn’t be shooting at TIEs in any event.

  “You’re clear, Nine.”

  Corran brought his ship around and suddenly everything became clearer. Defender Wing’s Y-wings dove and climbed through the dogfight, blasting away at Interceptors with wild abandon. What the slow ships lacked in grace they made up for in sheer firepower. Their entry into the fight destroyed or disabled a half-dozen Interceptors.

  “They’re running!”

  Salm’s voice came through the comm. “No celebrations. With them clear the ion cannons will open up again.”

  “Forbidden to Control, I have all EV pilots.”

  “Forbidden, you are clear to hyperspace.”

  Four ion blasts from the planet stabbed up and again struck the Mon Valle. The modified bulk cruiser began to break apart. Escape pods shot out from around the bridge and away into space, while the rest of the ship began to slowly drift back down toward Blackmoon.

  “I hope it hits the installation.”

  “Control to all fighters, you are clear to hyperspace.”

  “Control, does Eridain need cover for getting the escape pods?”

  “Negative, Rogue Leader, they’re on our way out and the Interceptors are heading home.”

  “Thanks, Control.” Wedge’s voice seemed filled with weariness. “Back to base for us, Rogues.”

  “Got it, Rogue Leader.” Corran took one last look at Blackmoon, then pointed his fighter toward the stars. “Back to base for most of us he means, Whistler. Two months of prep and in ten minutes the squadron is cut in half. Someone made some very bad mistakes here, and our friends paid for them. Never again.”

  27

  Corran stared out the window of the Noquivzor base recreation center. Rolling hills and treeless plains stretched out for kilometers in all directions from the building. Gentle and warm breezes washed in waves over the golden grasses and tickled the back of his neck. If Erisi weren’t over in the med center floating in her family’s finest stock, I’d take her on a long walk out there and just enjoy the countryside. As beautiful as it is, though, it’s hard to think of enjoying anything right now.

  He forced himself to smile as a man in an infantry uniform set a mug of lum down on the table in front of him. “Thanks, Lieutenant.”

  The man nodded. “Call me Page.”

  Corran shoved the chair on the other side of the table out toward Page. “What’s the lum for?”

  “Drinking usually.” Page sat. “Me and my people were on the Devonian. You and your wingman scattered the squints coming in our direction. We owe you.”

  The pilot lifted the mug and drank a mouthful of the fiery ale and let it burn its way down his throat. “I appreciate the drink, but you’ll have to buy one for Ooryl when he comes out of his bacta dip.”

  Page nodded. “Gladly. How badly was he hit?”

  “Lost half his right arm. The suit shut down around the wound so he didn’t suffocate, but he got very cold.” Corran put the frosted mug down and shivered. “Bacta is for exposure—all the EV pilots are getting a dunking, though none of them are as bad off as Ooryl. The Emdees don’t know about prosthetics for him—they’ve never done Gands before and don’t have appropriate limbs to use for replacements.”

  “Rogue Squadron got hit hard.”

  “Two pilots dead, three EV, and one was flying wounded.”

  “I heard about him, the Shistavanen.”

  “Very tough individual.” Corran nodded. “Shiel wasn’t going to report for medical care but Gavin forced him to go. Net result, we’re at two-thirds strength, but only if we can find X-wings to replace the ones we lost. If not, we’re below fifty percent.”

  The infantry officer looked around the crowded, above-ground pavilion, then leaned forward and lowered his voice. “This mission was vape-bait from before Kre’fey ordered the Y-wings home.”

  “No kidding.” The pilot glowered at the mug. “About a second before the cannons took the Modaran apart I realized that just because the cannons hadn’t shot didn’t mean they couldn’t shoot.”

  “That occurred to all of us, I think, except for General Kre’fey. He was blind to that possibility.” Page shook his head. “We all knew he wanted Blackmoon so the Council would give him command of the Coruscant invasion. In three weeks the planet’s orbit takes it through an annual meteor shower. I wanted to use that as cover to bring my commandos in to do a ground recon of the base. We would have taken the ion cannons down.”

  “That makes sense. Why didn’t he approve it?”

  “The world’s only moon—the Blackmoon that gave the system its codename—would be in our entry and exit vector. It would act as a natural Interdictor cruiser, which could make things a lot more dangerous.”

  Corran shrugged. “The ion cannons made things dangerous enough, thanks.”

  “No kidding.” Page smiled. “We would have taken them down. And we would have found the base for those squint squadrons that came in late to the fight.”

  “The Bothans didn’t even know they were there.”

  The infantryman winced. “And they should have. They’re very good at worming their way into Imperial networks.”

  “So this time they failed.” Corran hesitated as an idea occurred to him. “Or records of those forces aren’t part of the official garrison.”

  Page frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Working with CorSec I was involved in a sweep of a smuggler’s headquarters. She was very sharp and had always distanced herself from glitterstim stores, so we couldn’t pin anything on her. This one time, though, we found a couple of kilos of glitterstim in a warehouse she owned. She said she knew nothing about it and accused us of planting it. Turned out that she didn’t know anything about it. The glitterstim had been skimmed from shipments by one of her aides and hidden there until he could find a way to move it himself.”

  “You’re saying the Empire doesn’t know those Interceptors were there?”

  “A squadron is a rounding error for Imperial bookkeepers.” Corran leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. “And the Bothans didn’t know about whatever power source was used to boost the shields back up after we took them down. Whoever is in charge of wherever Blackmoon is might be running some operation his Imperial masters know nothing about.”

  Page nodded slowly. “The data on the covert operation is kept away from the Imperials, so the Bothans had no way of discovering it.”

  “Not without being on the ground.”

  “We had intel on the vislight from the galaxy, but we got jumped by the IR and UV.” Page rapped his knuckles on the plasteel tabletop. “If we’d been given proper background on Blackmoon, we might have been able to guess at the kind of information we really needed.”

  “I understand the need for operational security—but you can bet now the true location of Blackmoon won’t be declassified until we’re all dead and gone.”

  Page nod
ded. “Still, the simulations of an assault are only as good as the databases from which they are constructed. Bad intel gets people killed.”

  Corran ran a hand over his face. “Well, now we have an inkling of what we don’t know about Blackmoon. At least two squint squadrons and a power generator are hidden there somewhere—hidden from us and Imp officials.”

  “The information in the official Imperial survey files is clearly useless.”

  “Right. And that means …” The chirp of the comlink on the table cut off Corran’s comment. He picked it up and opened the channel. “Horn here.”

  “Emtrey here, sir.”

  “Something wrong with Ooryl?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Is Erisi coming out of the bacta?”

  “No, sir.”

  Corran frowned. “Then why did you call me?”

  “Sir, Whistler asked me to inform you he has completed the calculations of the wind currents you requested.”

  “Wind currents?”

  “On Blackmoon, sir. He said he has found some very interesting things.”

  “We’ll be there in a second. Horn out.” Corran looked up at Page. “It may be raising the shields after the base had been strafed, but I’m up for learning a little more about the world we just ran from. How about you?”

  “I had friends on the Modaran. I didn’t like seeing them die.”

  “Good, let’s go.” Corran shot him a smile. “Maybe, just maybe we can find a way to go back in and make the Imps pay.”

  Wedge wasn’t certain he had heard General Salm correctly. “Did you just say it was just as well that we failed to take Blackmoon?”

  Salm nodded slowly and pointed with a glass of pale blue Abrax cognac at the datapad on his desk. “Intelligence reports that the Imperial Star Destroyer-II Eviscerator left the Venjagga system on a course that would have put it in at Blackmoon within six hours after we launched our operation. Its six squadrons of TIEs would have matched our fighters and the Eviscerator would have pounded on the Emancipator. Chances are very good we would have lost our strike force and Blackmoon.”

  The Corellian’s jaw dropped. “The mission was a go with a Impstar-Deuce within six hours of the target? How did that happen?”