Solo Command

by Aaron Allston

  "Gaining," Solo said. "Gaining."

  "Detonation ahead!" said the sensor officer.

  "Iron Fist?"

  "No," she said. "To starboard of her course. Something on the far side of that planetoid she's passing."

  Solo brought up his visual enhancers to focus on the area she described. She was correct: asteroids opposite a two-kilometer-long hunk of rock were illuminated by some sort of sustained explosion taking place just on the far surface of the larger asteroid.

  Whatever its cause, the explosion was propulsion as well as detonation. The two-kilometer rock began moving slowly toward the channel left in Iron Fist's wake.

  "Navigator?" Solo asked.

  The Mon Calamari navigation officer turned an eye toward him. "It will partially block the channel. We must destroy it or pass it by."

  "Weapons?"

  His weapons officer shook his head. "Too big for our guns to dismantle before we get there."

  Solo offered up a rich curse he'd learned on the back streets of Corellia. "Navigator, divert our course around it. Through the debris. Alert the rest of our group what's happening. Zsinj has set up at least one asteroid, maybe more, with explosives or thrusters to move it in our path. Stay alert."

  Mon Remonda began a slow maneuver, veering to star­ board inside the path of the asteroid. As the bow of the cruiser entered the uncleared portion of the debris field, Solo heard ominous clankings and felt trembling under his heels.

  Red lights flashed across more portions of Mon Remonda's diagnostics display.

  The numbers on the gauge showing the distance between Mon Remonda and Iron Fist slowed their rapid descent. The numbers stopped and then began climbing.

  Mon Remonda was falling behind.

  Lara's sensor board had shown the Rogues and Wraiths de­ scending into Selcaron's atmosphere, and the ten strange TIEs she pursued did likewise. She entered the moon's atmosphere at the angle necessary to keep air friction from burning her alive, then set her S-foils to attack position.

  When she broke through the cloud cover she could see, ahead and below, the unusual fighters split up by pairs, most heading to the main engagement, four vectoring to the south.

  Her sensor board said Rogue One, Rogue Two, and one unfriendly lay in that direction. Then it updated and only Rogue One and the unfriendly were left.

  She looped around to the south and dropped nearly to the surface of the water.

  Janson hit his trigger and the distant TIE interceptor detonated in a brilliant flash, leaving behind one of the hundred-meter- diameter fireballs the Rogues and Wraiths were coming to expect. The jamming technique had been a spectacular success—this unit of droids and humans had been trained to function under co­ordination and fell to pieces without that benefit. In the first thirty seconds, the Rogues and Wraiths had reduced the num­ber of interceptors by half. Then they sustained a one-minute jamming period . . . and the last of the interceptors had now fallen to Janson.

  The communications jamming fell away. "Group, Wraith Eight. We have incoming traffic descending from high altitude from the east-northeast."

  Janson veered in that direction and climbed. Yes, there were more starfighters coming in.

  He gave them a second look. "What in the world are those?"

  Wedge swung his legs over the lip of his cockpit and slid with reckless haste to the ground. He drew his blaster and moved at a full run across the sand toward Baron Fel.

  Fel, evidently injured, was crawling at a good pace away from his smoking interceptor. Fel was not in a traditional TIE fighter pilot's gear; the black jumpsuit was standard, but the red featureless mask, gloves, and boots, and the poisonous yel­low piping on those accouterments were pure Raptor uniform.

  Wedge reached him and prodded his boot with his toe. Fel rolled over on his back. His right leg did not turn the way it should have; Wedge could see it was badly broken beneath the knee.

  Wedge aimed his blaster. "Mind answering a few questions?"

  "Not at all." Fel's voice was muffled. He reached up to pull his helmet free.

  Wedge blinked. The man under his gun had Fel's height and build, but his blond hair and homely features were not Fel's. "Who are you?"

  The man offered him a pained smile. "My name is Tetran Cowall."

  "I know that name." Wedge frowned. "Some sort of actor. Face Loran doesn't think much of you."

  "That's because he is my inferior in every way," the man said. His voice did not resemble Fel's. It was higher in pitch, though melodious.

  "You used computer voice enhancement to sound like Fel."

  "Very good."

  "Where is Fel?"

  The man shrugged. "You should know. You had him last. Where was he when you last saw him?" He gave Wedge a smirk. "Really, we have no idea."

  "So this was all a ploy." Wedge felt sudden exhaustion be­gin to eat at him. All these months, hoping that this man would have some word of his sister ... and this man turned out to be the wrong one. "Why?"

  Cowall slowly put his hands behind his head, a posture of relaxation and contentment that was belied by the sweat on his face and the odd angle at which his right leg lay. "Well, you, ac­ tually. Scuttlebutt had it that Fel had deserted you and that you'd taken it rather personally. Had arranged for him to be looked for since then. The warlord decided that his reappear­ance would be a mystery you just had to solve. He put together a new One Eighty-first. Half with human pilots, half with fly­ing bombs that could sidle up next to you and detonate— making hash of the famous Wedge Antilles despite your overly vaunted skills."

  "So your only job was to lure me out and kill me."

  Cowall smiled. "And it worked."

  "Not exactly."

  Cowall pointed eastward. Wedge sidestepped to be sure he could keep the actor under his gun while he looked.

  In the distance, two or three kilometers off, TIE fighters, their outlines unusual, were looping around from east to south, obviously intending to turn northward near or at the shoreline.

  "TIE Raptors," Cowall said. "New design, nice to fly. They'll be on us in a few seconds. And you can't get into the air by then. You're dead, Wedge Antilles."

  For a quarter second, Wedge debated shooting the man, then sheathed the blaster and made a sprint for his X-wing. He heard the actor laugh behind him.

  Cowall was right, of course. He could hear the distant shriek of the TIEs. They'd be in firing position about the time he was sliding into his cockpit.

  He reached his X-wing, leaped up to swing himself in, dropped into his chair.

  There were three incoming TIEs, and they were of a type he'd never seen before. They had the standard TIE ball cockpit, but lacked wing pylons. Instead, four trapezoidal wings, smaller than half the size of a regular TIE fighter's wings, protruded from the cockpit at even intervals. They rolled to port to line up along the straight section of beach and came on, their engines shrill, a second from firing.

  Then Wedge saw something blue flash over his head from behind and the center TIE exploded. The other two broke left and right, momentarily abandoning their run.

  Wedge finished shutting his canopy and got his X-wing up on repulsorlifts. He had his S-foils locked into attack position before he'd drifted ten meters forward.

  Another X-wing flashed by mere meters overhead. It was painted in the darker gray of Wraith Squadron and had no astro­mech. Wedge put power to acceleration and checked his sensor board. The X-wing wasn't returning a transponder signal.

  The X-wing looped in pursuit of one of the alien-looking TIEs, climbing in its wake. Wedge turned in the direction of the other, coaxing his X-wing up to speed. "Lara, is that you?"

  "Sorry I was late." She was banking hard, trying to get her X-wing around at an angle that could fire on her target. "Had to hit one of these weird TIEs that was trying to strafe a downed Rogue."

  "Tycho—is he—"

  "He's under cover now. Hopping mad, I think."

  "When you come around north, you may g
et crosswinds. He'll get them worse. They may blow him back across your path. Hold tight." Wedge turned after his target TIE Raptor, saw that the unusual vehicle was now looping around to get behind Lara. "I owe you one," he said.

  "I owe you," she said. "I—there!"

  The Raptor pilot hit a bad patch of crosswind and was tumbled eastward. Lara fired, her lasers creasing the rear of the TIE.

  A plume of smoke emerged from her target. The starfighter dropped tumbling into the sea, hitting with enough force to turn anything within it into something resembling jelly.

  But the last Raptor dropped in behind Lara and began stitching her rear with laser fire. Wedge put all discretionary energy into acceleration, hurtling toward the engagement.

  The TIE Raptor fired again. This was no laser—a concus­ sion missile detonated just below Lara's X-wing. Wedge saw her stern leap up, and then the X-wing was tumbling, unaero­dynamic, slinging components in all directions as it dropped.

  "Punch out, punch out," Wedge said, but had no time to watch. He turned after the TIE Raptor.

  That pilot tried an immediate roll to port, diving toward the water, a frantic effort to shake Wedge from his tail. Wedge flicked his targeting brackets back and forth but was unable to get a lock.

  So he fired directly over the TIE Raptor's hull, immedi­ately above its top viewport.

  The pilot dodged out of reflex.

  Straight down.

  The leading edges of its odd wings dipped into the surf. The TIE rolled forward, its wings breaking free and being flung into the air with more speed and violence than anything com­ing off Lara's X-wing.

  Wedge looped around, looking for Lara.

  He found her X-wing fifty meters offshore. It was a twisted, broken thing, slowly rolling over from its belly onto its side.

  He cruised over it at a slow rate of speed, running on re­pulsorlifts, and looked into the cockpit. Then he shook his head and banked back toward Tycho and the colony.

  "On my command," Piggy said, "Wraith Nine and Ten, begin straight-line flight but maintain evasive maneuvering. Rogue Three and Four, climb at a thirty-degree angle, target their pur­suit, and fire. Ready ... now."

  Two kilometers below him, Shalla and Janson discontinued their efforts to get around behind the unusual TIEs pursuing them. They accelerated into straightforward flight toward the west. Their pursuit accelerated, swinging into firing position behind them.

  A kilometer below that, Pedna Scotian and Hobbie Kli­vian rose toward the engagement now passing above them. Piggy could tell the exact moment they acquired targeting locks: both pursuing TIEs suddenly wobbled in flight as their pilots were alerted to the danger they were in.

  But it was too late. Both Rogues fired. Hobbie's lasers sheared through the lower portion of one TIE's forward viewport and continued cycling against that target. A moment later, Piggy saw his lasers emerge from above the TIE's engines. The TIE hur­tled forward ballistically for half a kilometer, then detonated.

  Scotian's lasers missed the second TIE. It veered abruptly upward. Shalla and Janson looped around in tight maneuvers and gave pursuit.

  Piggy turned away from that engagement, looked again at the swirling colored dots on his sensor board. Flight vectors, acceleration rates, probabilities ran through his mind like un­regulated data streams. He saw the blip designated Rogue One returning. That would begin to figure into his calculations in two minutes. He saw another blip, yellow for unknown, de­scend from low lunar orbit toward Wedge's earlier engagement zone. He dismissed it. It wouldn't factor into his equations un­til it came closer to his current engagement zone.

  His comm system lit up, indicating reception of a recorded message. He glanced at the data portion of the screen. It was a lengthy message, flagged as low priority, going to all vehicles on New Republic frequencies. He dismissed it from his mind.

  Numbers and formulae clicked into place in his mind. "Wraith Seven, two targets will be crossing over your space from the east in six-point-four seconds." Dia, her fuzial thrust engines malfunctioning, was now running on repulsorlifts only; Face had directed her to stay under cover, and she now hovered within a half-ruined colony dome, able to swivel her guns toward any one of three large holes in the dome. "Wraith Five, please make your course due east and come up to full speed. You should pull two of the new intruders . . . yes, you have." Kell veered as Piggy had requested, momentarily abandoning his slower-moving wingman, and both new TIEs that had been lin­ing up for a run on Wraiths Five and Six opted to pursue him. Kell blasted across Dia's position and the lead TIE pursuing him was suddenly illuminated from the dome, painted and then penetrated by Dia's lasers. It rolled, a deceptively pretty cork­screw, and then hit rubble that had once been a duracrete street.

  Piggy started to speak again, then saw Kell's TIE intercep­ tor vector back at a sharp angle toward Runt's position. Kell and Runt closed on one another as though they planned a head-to-head, but when Runt fired, it was Kelt's pursuit he hit. The unusual TIE fired, too, its concussion missile flashing past Kell and hitting a ruined wall, before Runt's lasers punched through the TIE's hull. It became, to Piggy's eye, a tiny, pretty ball of red, yellow, and orange.

  Piggy sat back and nodded to himself, satisfied. He loved math.

  "We're in open space, Warlord," the captain announced.

  Zsinj offered him a tight, unhappy smile. "Make your course directly toward Second Death. Instruct Second Death to deploy the Nightcloak in a channel long enough for us to make a hyperspace jump from. And to finish this masquerade, I'm going to have to stand by in a shuttle. The fleet is in your capable hands."

  "Yes, sir."

  In his shuttle bay, Zsinj and his pilot found his personal shut­ tle unharmed, but Melvar and Gatterweld were there in much less intact condition. Both men were tied, bleeding, unconscious.

  He clucked over them but didn't delay. Time was pressing. He called in a medical team as he and his pilot prepared the shuttle for flight.

  "Iron Fist is outbound," Onoma said. "And as much as the de­ bris field is delaying us, we're not going to be able to catch her."

  Solo looked at the damage diagnostics projections, which showed an ever-mounting damage total for Iron Fist. "Keep the starfighters on her. There's a chance they can crack her open before she can jump. See, concentrate there on the for­ward top shield projector and the starboard engines. Both sys­tems are faltering like mad. Her hyperdrive is damaged, too. There's got to be a chance it will fail when activated."

  Mon Remonda's own damage totals were mounting, too. Numerous asteroid impacts had reduced her shields, battered her bow hull in several places, even vented atmosphere from portions of the bow near the keel. And Iron Fist's starfighter screen had been insane in its prosecution of Mon Remonda.

  But suddenly the enemy starfighters were running, fleeing in the wake of Iron Fist.

  Solo sat, his muscles knotting, uncertainty burning at his gut. It didn't matter that he and his force had just destroyed or captured the rest of Zsinj's group. It didn't matter that they'd survived each trap Zsinj had set, each ploy he had initiated. Nor did it matter that they'd sent Iron Fist fleeing for the sec­ond time in the mighty destroyer's career.

  The only thing that mattered, the only acceptable out­ come, was Iron Fist's capture or destruction.

  More data crawled across his personal screen. Rogue Squadron and Wraith Squadron were returning from Selcaron. They were requesting shuttles for pilot rescue and enemy pi­lot capture. Rogue One was among the pilots returning. Solo breathed a sigh of relief. He had few enough friends. Win or lose, he didn't want to lose any more in this engagement.

  Tetengo Noor, Polearm Nine, finished another pass across Iron Fist. He'd dumped more laser fire across the great ship's bow. Turbolasers and ion cannons had failed to touch his A-wing. Now he banked around for another run. His wingman was dead; most of the friendly starfighters within sight were Y-wings and even TIE fighters.

  Selaggis Six was growing small behind him a
nd his target. But Mon Remonda was coming on strong. His home was chas-

  ing him. He got lined up for another run and dove toward the destroyer, his lasers stitching destruction across her hull.

  Halfway across, he sensed something wrong to his port, toward the ship's bow. He glanced that way, saw nothing be­yond the bow.

  Nothing. No stars. No starfighters. Blackness, an immense sea of blackness. It so jarred him that he ceased fire, ceased ma­ neuvering until a near miss from an Iron Fist turbolaser jolted him out of his surprise.

  Iron Fist's bow entered the darkness and disappeared. The blackness rolled across the ship's hull and swallowed Tetengo Noor.