His sensor system shrilled, indicating an enemy laser lock, and he shouted "Now!" and cut hard to starboard. A green laser blast illuminated space where he'd been just a moment before, and two TIE fighters followed the blast, caught off guard. They began their turn, but Kell continued his ferocious maneuver, feeling his chest compress as the interceptor's inertial compensator failed to keep up entirely with the g-forces he was generating.
His targets swung into view from the right side of his viewport. They, too, were now curving to starboard, but he'd caught them off guard, and had the advantage of a few seconds of controlled maneuvering. The leftmost of them jittered in his targeting brackets. He let it go—that was the easier target, and that was for his wingman. The second TIE now crossed into his targeting bracket and jittered, sign of a laser lock.
He fired. His green lasers bit into the TIE's fuselage where it glowed brightest.
Suddenly the TIE's engines glowed much brighter. Smoke and sparks emerged. The fighter banked to port and down, toward the planet's surface. As more and more sparks emerged, it looked like nothing so much as an artificial comet heading for its final resting place.
The second TIE was still intact. It continued looping around to starboard, cutting its maneuver more tightly than Kell could, and was now well out of his targeting brackets.
Then a barrage of lasers struck the fighter from Kell's left. The shots tore through its left solar wing array, turning the wing into a mess of shrapnel, then marching across to the fuse lage. The fighter detonated, hurling speeder bike-sized pieces of itself in Kelt's path. He juked around the closest of them and reswallowed his stomach.
Who'd fired that shot? He checked his sensors. "Drake Two? Where were you?"
"Sorry, Drake One." Elassar's voice was sheepish. "When you broke to starboard, I made a mistake and broke to port. I had to loop around to rejoin you."
Kell shuddered. His wingman had been gone for those long seconds, and his rear had been unprotected. He'd talk to Elassar about it later. "Nice shooting, Drake Two. Let's re join General Solo," he added for the benefit of the planetary listeners who would someday soon crack this set of broadcast encryptions.
"Yes, sir." Sensors showed Drake Two coming up in his wake, and Drake Three and Drake Four returning to the primary course with their targets now off the screen. But the second group of TIEs was much closer.
That -trick, pretending to be heavily laden with hyper drives, wouldn't work a second time, Kell knew. But it had helped even the odds. That was good enough for now.
Another TIE had fallen victim to Wedge's guns by the time the leader of the first TIE squadron got smart. The five remaining TIEs drifted out of the engagement zone and dropped back toward the intact squadron that was rapidly catching up.
Wedge deployed the Drakes behind him in two pairs and kept Tycho between them, giving him a five-pointed shield of fighters to his aft. They were well clear of the atmosphere now, outbound toward the planet's primary moon, but the remain-ing squad and a half of TIEs was gaining rapidly. "Chewie? How are we doing?"
He received a long set of rumbling commentary in reply.
"Squeaky?"
"He says, in his almost proverbial fashion, that the shields are holding, but the relays that permit adjustment of the shields are, as he puts it, 'twitchy.' He thinks some of them may fail if he continues shunting power between them."
"Wonderful. All right, Chewbacca, put them in their de- fault settings. We go with fixed shields for now."
Another long-range shot struck the Falsehood, rocking the freighter. Wedge heard mechanical crashes as something was jarred loose from a corridor housing. "Break and fire at will," he said, and saw his escort move out and prepare to engage the enemy again.
Then there was a sensor signal from ahead of the Falsehood —a big, complicated signal. And red lasers flashed from ahead, all around the freighter, into the ranks of the pursuing TIE fighters.
Chewbacca rumbled something.
"He knows that, you walking dirt trap. It's the Rogues and the Wraiths."
Wraiths, and they might cry. S-foils to attack position. Break by pairs and fire at will."
Face immediately rose relative to the plane of their flight, heading up and away from the centerline of the conflict to come. He also decelerated, dropping behind the rest of the group. Confused, Lara stayed tucked in behind his starboard. "Wraith One? Two. What's our tactic?"
Face was a moment in replying. "You'll see," he said.
The other Rogues and Wraiths fired, a column of red lasers that passed harmlessly around the Falsehood and her es cort but with less delicacy through the oncoming TIEs. Lara saw one fighter ignite and blow apart.
But Face held his fire and so did she.
A moment later, she thought she understood. The screens of TIEs and X-wings crossed, with pairs of starfighters maneuvering wildly to get behind one another. A pair of X-wings shot out of the flurry of activity with a pair of TIEs in close pursuit. Face angled toward them and accelerated, diving opportunistically toward them, and opened fire. His shots caused the TIE fighter to spook and pull away from its prey, but Lara's laser fire was more accurate—her concentrated fire punched through the TIE fighter's top hatch. There was no explosion, but the thin atmosphere in the fighter vented and the starfighter went into straight-line flight, out and away from the engagement zone.
"Nice shooting, Wraith Two. Thanks." The comm unit identified the speaker as Ran Kether.
"Happy to oblige, Rogue Seven."
Surely Face would now dive into the main body of the fight.
But he didn't. He circled around the periphery of the battle. Frowning, Lara followed. She knew her duty, even when she didn't understand it.
On Lara's sensor screen, the cloud of TIE fighters suddenly be came bigger, more diffuse, then resolved itself into seven wing- pairs and one trio of starfighters.
"Group, this is Rogue Nine." She could almost recognize Corran Horn's vocal characteristics in the comm-distorted words. "Remember not to fire on the interceptors. They're Tyria was in the flow of the moment. Even when she wasn't looking at her sensor board, she had a grasp, a comprehension she'd never really enjoyed before, of where the fighters around her were in relation to her and to one another. She knew what they intended. A moment before they maneuvered, she knew which way they would turn.
Three pairs of starfighters—Corran Horn and Ooryl Qyrgg in the lead, two Kidriff TIE fighters behind them, gaining to optimal distance for a shot, and behind them, Donos and Tyria, unable to gain on the lead Rogues.
Ooryl fell a little behind and Horn swung ahead and slightly below him. The maneuver gave Horn a split second of advantage, since his pursuers couldn't see the first signs of his next action. Suddenly he was behind Ooryl, losing ground to the TIEs so quickly that they overshot him. One TIE fighter, its pilot obviously experienced, banked to port. The other hung there in place for a moment, and Horn took his shot, a quad-linked laser barrage. Tyria couldn't tell where it hit the TIE; the enemy starfighter blew so suddenly that she wasn't able to register the impact.
Both Horn and Ooryl banked in the wake of the escap ing TIE.
"How'd they do that?" Tyria asked, surprised. She hadn't felt the trick maneuver coming, hadn't predicted it. "That was too fast for them to have said anything."
"Experience," Donos said. "Less chatter, Wraith Four."
"Sorry."
"I'm hit!" The voice was young, a little panicky. "Losing shield power. Smoke in my cockpit. Lasers indicate malfunction."
Lara checked her board. The transmission was from Rogue Eight, "Target" Nu, the Rodian. He was separated from his wingmate and had a pair of TIEs on his tail.
"I'm coming." That was his wingmate, Kether. "I'm—I'm hung up here."
"Rogue Eight, this is Wraith One." Face's voice. "Come to one-nine-four. I'll head in straight toward you and head-to- head your pursuit. You pair up with Wraith Two out here and stay clear of the engagement."
>
"Thanks, Wraith One." The blip that was Rogue Eight vectored toward her and Face. Face headed straight toward it, leaving Lara hanging out in the void.
She didn't object. She didn't ask for orders. She knew what was required of her.
But she wondered, and her confusion gradually turned to cold worry in her stomach.
Seven fighters of the combined TIE pursuit force, including the one Face vaped on his head-to-head run into the center of the engagement zone, were destroyed before the pursuing squad leader ordered an evacuation. Donos decided that the man had to have been assuming the TIE fighters';, greater speed and maneuverability would give him all the advantage he needed against a numerically superior mixed force. But against the Rogues and Wraiths, he was wrong.
The surviving TIEs fled planetward, doubtless to form up with yet another flight group and come once again after the Rogues and Wraiths. But this time they wouldn't catch up.
Donos responded to Wedge's order that the group form up on the Millennium Falsehood. But on his sensor board, Wraith One and Wraith Two maintained their distance, paralleling the main group's course a dozen kilometers out.
Lara could still hear a little high-pitched alarm in Rogue Eight's voice, but that situation seemed to be under control. "I'm getting regular power fluxes but no serious drops. I've had to shut down one starboard engine but I can limp in on three."
"Group, this is Leader. As soon as we have a little bit of moon horizon between us and the planet, the Drakes are going to sepa rate and head on out to Rendezvous Point Beta. The rest of us will vector back into space the planetary sensors can scan, and will then make the jump to Rendezvous Point Alpha. Rogue Two, I want you to delay your jump thirty seconds to make sure all our damaged snubfighters make the transition to hyperspace."
"Leader, Two. Understood."
"Wraith One, Wraith Two, rejoin the group and prepare for jump."
Face's voice was next. "Leader, this is Wraith One. We need to jump from here and follow you in."
"Explain that, Wraith One."
"On a private channel, if you please, Leader."
The worry in Lara's stomach turned into fear. There were only so many reasons Face would refuse to let them return to the group. Most of them involved one or the other of them being a danger to the group, such as if one of their X-wings were threatening to blow up.
Face was protecting the group, Or someone in the group. And Lara was certain she knew who. He was protecting Wedge.
From her.
Face's voice was off the comm waves for a couple of min utes. Then he returned. "Wraith Two, have you double-checked your nav course?"
"No," she said. "You know, don't you, Face?" Her voice emerged as a choked whisper and she wondered if the comm unit would even pick it up.
"I know that you're Gara Petothel," he said. His voice was quieter, more gentle than she expected it to be.
She felt a snapping sensation in her chest, as though her breastbone had broken. And then there was the sensation of loss—of the sudden departure from her life of everything she considered important.
But it didn't feel quite the way she expected it to. Pain there was, certainly, but she also felt a sudden relief, an absence of the weight she'd been carrying around since first she decided she no longer wanted to serve Zsinj, since she decided that her alliance with the Wraiths was fact, not fiction.
Like an animal in a hunter's steel-jaw trap, she'd finally lost that part of her the trap held. The pain was indescribable. But there was freedom as well. And she knew that she didn't need to cry anymore.
"I never betrayed you," Lara said. She was surprised at how calm her voice sounded.
"I'm glad."
"I tried so hard just to be Lara. But they wouldn't let me. The whole universe wouldn't let me."
"Lara, I'm sorry," Face said. "I have to place you under arrest pending investigation of this whole mess. Power your weapons systems down. Set your S-foils to cruise position. Don't attempt any sudden maneuvers."
"Understood, sir. I'm complying with your orders."
Face felt sick to his stomach. He had wished, futilely, that he'd been wrong. But Lara had confirmed it.
A sudden fear struck him. He had been on a private com munications channel with Lara, had switched to squadron chan nel to handle the Target Nu situation and then to respond to Wedge's order that he move back to the formation, had switched to a private channel for his quick talk with Wedge—and then had gone back to his private channel with Lara. Hadn't he?
He looked at his comm board. He was now set to squad frequency. He'd spoken last to Lara on an open channel.
His stomach suddenly got worse.
Donos heard the words but didn't understand them. "I know that you're Gara Petothel." He knew that the name Gara Pe tothel meant something to him but he still couldn't force his mind around the meaning of those words.
Ah, that was it. Naval officer Chyan Mezzine, a commu nications and intelligence specialist, had betrayed the New Republic by sending critical information to Admiral Apwar Trigit, a minion of Zsinj. Some of that information was what Trigit used to annihilate Talon Squadron—the X-wing unit com manded by Donos. Only he had survived. Then, later, the New Republic had put out a bulletin on her, indicating that her real name was Gara Petothel, that she was actually a deep-cover agent for Imperial Intelligence. Later, she had been declared dead, another victim of the destruction of Trigit's Star Destroyer, Implacable.
But Lara Notsil was Gara Petothel.
Lara Notsil had destroyed his command. Had killed eleven pilots he had bound together.
Suddenly he was back there, in the smoky skies above the volcanoes of Gravan Seven, as ally after ally was ripped from the sky by Trigit's pilots and their ambush. Again he felt the pain of their deaths. It was a selfish pain, part loss, part realization that he had failed them, part understanding that his life had changed in a way he could never set right.
The howl that escaped him was no animal noise. It was the wail of a man who'd just lost everything dear to him . . . and who suddenly had the destroyer of his happiness in his sights.
In spite of comm distortion, the howl made Face's skin crawl. He knew who it had to be, and a glance at his sensor board showed Wraith Three turning away from his course to the rendezvous point on an intercept course with Face and Lara.
Wedge's voice did not sound amused. "Wraith Three, this is Leader. Return to your original heading."
Donos did not deviate from his new course.
Face said, "Wraith Two, come to three-three-two and accelerate to full speed." He himself did as he'd ordered, turning away from Donos and running before him. Lara stayed with him.
It's happening again.
The words were a wail of anguish inside Tyria's mind.
Once again a fellow pilot was making an assault on a friendly target.
She turned in Donos's wake and returned her S-foils to at tack position.
Once again she had to put a fellow pilot in her weapon sights.
But this time her target was not just an ally but a friend. A squadmate. "Myn," she said, "please don't do this."
Wraith Three came on inexorably but could not gain on Face's and Lara's X-wings. But he could fire a proton torpedo, which would cross the distance between them in seconds and could achieve a lock on Lara.
Face neatly sideslipped his X-wing behind Lara's. "Wraith Three, hold your fire. If you fire, I'm your primary target."
"Wraith Three, power down or I'll be forced to fire." The words were being choked out, the voice identifiable as Tyria's.
"Wraith Four, this is Wraith One. Do not fire, whatever happens. This is not the same as the Jussafet situation. Acknowledge."
"Acknowledged, sir."
Lara, her voice raspy with pain, said, "Maybe you ought to let him shoot me, sir. Get out of the way."
"Shut up, Two."
Face's sensor board howled, a new noise—the distinctive wail signifying a p
roton-torpedo launch. Donos had fired.
"Wraith Three, detonate your torp now." Face made no effort to keep alarm out of his voice; that would have required concentration. He maintained his position immediately behind Lara's X-wing and put all available power to his rear shields. He kept his free hand on his ejection lever. "Three, blow the torp, I'm your target." From the moment of launch he had only a few seconds before the torpedo hit, and most of that time was already gone. "Detonate, dammit!"
The universe behind Face filled with bright blue fire. His stern shuddered as though he'd been rammed and his cockpit was suddenly filled with smoke, the howl of damage alert sirens, Vape's mechanical shrieks of dismay, and the rumble and tremble of failing vehicle systems.
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