Star Wars: X-Wing V: Wraith Squadron

by Aaron Allston

  “I know that. It’s a matter of Imperial record. What was that you were saying about one woman you adored?”

  Face could have cheered. He’d finally pulled Trigit off the tracks of his interrogation. “Oh, there’s no use hiding the truth anymore. It can no longer hurt anyone. I loved my wife, Admiral, but Ysanne Isard was a goddess to me.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “Did you ever meet her?”

  “Of course. Several times.”

  “I, too. And I was dumbstruck each time. By her intelligence, by her power, by the sense that she had destiny wrapped around her like a cloak. I would have given up everything for her—my family, my honor, my command, my name.” He shook his head ruefully. “It could never have been, of course. I was an insect under her eyes. I think everyone but the Emperor was. But I could dream.” He took a deep breath, straining the seams of his uniform, and let his eyes drift as his memory ranged back through time. “Just the smell of her. As clean as if she were as meticulous and uncompromising in hygiene as she was in every other area of her life. And a touch of perfume, something with spice but lacking any sweetness whatsoever—”

  The admiral nodded, his expression fascinated. “Leather-wood. A scent few women can carry off.”

  “That was it.” Face managed a sad smile. “And now both my loves are dead. One more reason to wipe the stain of the Rebellion from the galaxy. My reason, anyway.”

  “I understand.” Trigit’s tone was solemn, soothing. “Yes, of course your TIE fighters may escort Implacable. I’ll leave you to your preparations, Captain.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Trigit’s hologram vanished. A moment later the comm system popped. The noise that came across it was not a voice, but the applause and cheering of many crewmen.

  The smile that sprang to Face’s lips was not Darillian’s but his own. “Thank you, thank you. Performances every hour, on the hour. Imperial madmen a speciality.”

  The communications officer announced, “Cargo carrier Red Feathers is passing through Ession’s outer security belt.”

  Captain Atril Tabanne nodded. “That’s our contact. Patch it through to all stations and all fighters. And put it up on the monitor. I want to see what she is.”

  A moment later the auxiliary bridge’s main monitor glowed with the image of a decrepit, ancient container ship approaching one of Ession’s warehousing space stations.

  Atril hissed. “I know that ship.”

  “That’s not Red Feathers,” Janson said. His tone was one of amazement. “That’s Blood Nest.”

  Indeed, the container ship approaching Ession was the pathetic Super Transport Mark VI that had served the pirates of M2398-3 as a base.

  “I can’t believe they got it flying,” Wedge said.

  “You’d better get to your fighters,” Atril said. “But first, I’ve had a bad thought.”

  “You shouldn’t do that,” Janson said.

  “My current orders are to get clear as soon as the Wraiths are away. The sensor jamming from that relay dish should make it hard for Implacable to target me.”

  Wedge nodded. “Correct.”

  “What if they’re smart enough to blast the dish a few seconds into the engagement? We’ll be an easy target.”

  “I hadn’t considered that.” Now Wedge did. “Well, there’s a maneuver you can perform that will also foul up both their sensors and visual targeting systems.” He described it to her.

  Atril glanced at her chief pilot, who shook his head. “Sir,” she said, “I’m not confident we can do something that sophisticated. We haven’t had enough time with this class of ship.”

  “Atril, you’re the most experienced pilot of Corellian craft aboard.”

  “Excuse me, sir, but I’m not. There is one who’s a lot more experienced.”

  Falynn, dressed in her TIE fighter piloting gear, waited beside the escape pod access hatch to her starfighter.

  She heard booted feet coming at a run, expected to see Commander Antilles race past her to his own starfighter access —was surprised when the black-clad pilot turned out to be Atril Tabanne.

  “Captain? What happened to the commander?”

  Atril skidded to a halt beside her hatch and pulled her helmet on. “We traded. I’m Gray One now.”

  “Another last-minute foul-up?”

  “No, I think we averted one.” Atril disappeared into her hatch. Falynn followed suit.

  Kell flipped switches, announced, “Five here. Four engines lit and showing green. Weapon systems at full power. All systems nominal.”

  He heard similar reports from the pilots around him, nestled in the metal brackets in Night Caller’s bow hold. Grinder, Runt, Phanan, Donos, and Tyria reported go conditions. Face would join them for initial launch if feasible, or launch subsequently if not. Wedge, Falynn, Janson, and Piggy were supposed to be readying themselves in the four TIE fighters for their own surprise assault on the Star Destroyer.

  His breathing was already accelerating, and they were still minutes from launch. He tried to calm himself.

  He looked rightward and down. In the next row over, in the bottom rack, Tyria was going through her own start-up and checklist. She glanced his way, saw he was looking, blew him a kiss.

  He forced a smile for her, turned away as he felt it turn shaky.

  Lieutenant Gara Petothel looked up from her station in the crew pit and caught Admiral Trigit’s eye. “I think the old container ship is their delivery mechanism, sir.”

  “Why is that?”

  “It’s reporting structural damage from planetary gravity. Possible breakup. I say it loses structural integrity, breaks up … and when it blows, it rains X-wings.”

  Trigit chuckled. “Not a bad tactic. Whether or not you’re right about this assault, I’ll have to remember that.”

  She smiled and turned away.

  “Communications, put up on our speaker any transmissions you receive to or from the container ship Red Feathers. Sensors, give us a visual lock on that cargo hauler.”

  “Switching to speaker, sir.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Almost immediately a voice came over the bridge’s main speaker: “Negative, Ession Control. We’re showing failure all along the keel. Fissures widening. Hold atmosphere venting. That’s making it worse. We can’t hold together until you get rescue craft up here.” The voice sounded pained.

  “Red Feathers, do you anticipate debris entering our atmosphere?”

  “I’m afraid that’s an affirmative, Ession. We’ll do what we can to limit it. We’re going to set our self-destruct for five minutes and eject in an escape pod.”

  “What about the mass of your hull and containers—”

  “Hull won’t be a problem. Our self-destruct will reduce it so everything will burn up on reentry. Containers, too. I’ve transmitted our manifest. We’re not exactly hauling hundred-ton durasteel ingots up here. You’re mostly going to get a rain of manure.”

  “Planetary communications protocols don’t allow me to answer that statement properly, Red Feathers.”

  Admiral Trigit looked down at his navigator. “Plot their course. Report where they will be at the end of their five-minute countdown.”

  “Yes, sir.” The navigator worked at his control panel for a minute. “Grid seventeen thirteen.”

  “I mean, in relation to the Pakkerd Light Transport plant.”

  “Oh.” The navigator sounded abashed. “Laterally, within fifty kilometers, plus or minus another fifty. At an altitude of a few hundred klicks.”

  The admiral settled back, satisfied. “Lieutenant Petothel, award yourself a three-day pass.”

  “At once, sir.”

  “All pilots to their fighters.”

  · · ·

  On Night Caller’s main monitor, and piped to secondary monitors in all the fighters and common areas, the ancient container ship called Red Feathers tumbled helplessly, its hull already deforming, as it reached the outer edges of Ession’s a
tmosphere.

  An escape pod ejected and drifted away from the planet.

  A minute later the first explosion rocked the cargo ship’s surface. Portions of the hull gave way. As the ship continued to rotate, tiny rectangles, standardized cargo containers each capable of holding a hundred tons of raw goods, tumbled free. With them were smaller, more irregular shapes.

  Wedge activated the ship’s intercom. “Rogue, Green, and Blue Squadrons are emerging.” Green Squadron was a unit of Y-wing bombers from General Salm on the world of Borleias; Blue Squadron was a unit of A-wings commanded by General Crespin. Between them and the X-wings of Rogue Squadron, this mission was being handled by a versatile set of attack craft. “Gray Flight, stand by for the command from Implacable. Wraith Squadron, are you ready?”

  Kell’s voice: “R-ready, sir.”

  “You all right, Lieutenant Tainer?”

  “Fine, sir. Something caught in my throat.”

  The containers that had been ejected first began to glow from friction with the atmosphere.

  Wedge’s comm officer turned toward him. “Transmission from Implacable. ‘Launch all TIE fighters.’ ”

  “Acknowledge.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Wedge hit the intercom. “Launch Gray Flight.”

  Atril, Falynn, and Janson launched smoothly. Piggy was a little slower, more tentative. He brought up the rear, acting as Janson’s wing, but seemed to handle his TIE fighter competently.

  Above, Implacable’s belly hangar was disgorging flight after flight of TIE fighters, Interceptors, bombers. Atril led her group in a climb that carried them far to the side of the emerging streams of fighters, past the starboard leading edge of the Star Destroyer, and over the bow until they came to a halt fifty meters ahead of and above the point of Implacable’s prow. “Gray Flight on station,” she transmitted, and was very pleased to note that there was no quake in her voice.

  She sat in a laser-armed foil can and waited for her chance to destroy one of the most powerful vessels ever created.

  Wedge watched the sensors as seventy-two TIE fighters sped along the half-million klicks that separated Ession from her largest moon.

  Meanwhile, more explosions, blasts that looked to Wedge’s eyes like carefully placed munitions rather than a self-destruct array, broke Red Feathers’s hull into huge sheets that began to tumble, burning, into the atmosphere. The entire cargo of containment units and smaller pieces of wreckage also descended.

  All those pieces ignited as they fell, but only someone looking as closely as Wedge was, with equipment as sophisticated, would see that thirty-six of those pieces ignited only at one end—their sterns—and descended in a controlled fashion that matched the fall rate of the debris.

  The TIE fighters were nearly to the original site of Red Feathers’s destruction. Wedge activated the comm system. “Face, mount up. Wraiths, prepare to execute the Loran Spit-ball.” He stood and moved to the chief pilot’s seat; the officer yielded it to him and moved to the secondary weapons console. Wedge asked him, “Ready for tractor duty?”

  The young man cracked his knuckles and grinned. “It’ll be the biggest thing I’ve ever tried to tractor in.”

  Face galloped down the narrow metal stairs into the bow hold and down to floor level. The other pilots, already sealed in, stared at him from their X-wing cockpits.

  His fighter’s canopy was already open, but mounted as it was in the holding brackets, it couldn’t open all the way. He bounded up the ladder someone had left for him, squeezed into the cockpit like a snake seeking safety, and twisted until he was in position to close the canopy and start the engines. “Wraith Eight lighting up. We have four good starts.” Outside, Cubber emerged from the shadow of Runt’s wing, grabbed up the ladder, saluted, and ran to the hold exit.

  Wedge’s voice came back immediately. “Preparing bow hold for departure.” The lights went out; only a glow from the open doorway out of the hold lit the edges of the X-wings. As soon as it shut behind Cubber, the hold went dark.

  Face’s canopy suddenly creaked as air pressure changed outside it.

  “Wraiths, this is Five. Remember, do not activate targeting computers until ordered. Use my targeting data for torp launch.”

  Face silently ran through his checklist as fast as each item came up in the green.

  “Wraiths, this is Leader. Wishing you good luck. Be strong in the Force. Even you, Wraith Ten. Thirty seconds to Loran Spitball … Twenty-five … Twenty … Fifteen …”

  A thin vertical line of light appeared before the Wraiths and widened into a narrow view of the lunar vista. Face felt a slight sense of motion as that view swung upward. Within moments, he could see the world of Ession a half-million klicks away, then the stern of the Implacable above them. The view broadened as the bow hold continued to open. “Ten … Five …”

  “Admiral, Night Caller is maneuvering. Bow elevating. It looks like she’s preparing to head toward Ession.”

  “Damned glory hound. Instruct them to stay on station. Transmit a routine query about their intentions.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  · · ·

  “Transmit ‘Talon Strike,’ ” Wedge told the comm officer. He hit the intercom again precisely on cue. “Zero.”

  Then he held his breath.

  Atril heard “Talon Strike” and responded.

  She inverted her TIE fighter, rolling over backward as though she were in a dogfighting loop, but moving not one meter. A moment later the Implacable was before her, above her, upside down.

  She brought up her targeting sensor, zoomed it in on the Implacable’s bridge a klick and a half away, and fired.

  Kell activated his targeting computer, bracketed Implacable’s hull halfway between her solar ionization reactor and her stern. He shouted, “Fire fire fire!” and triggered his proton torpedoes.

  The sensors officer in the crew pit waved to get the admiral’s attention. “Sir, we have multiple weapons locks below—”

  Another shouted, “Admiral, we have laser painting on our bridge—”

  Admiral Trigit shouted down to them, “All shields on full!”

  The weapons officer reached for his shielding controls.

  The main bow viewport made a noise as though a rancor’s fist had hit it. It darkened to near-complete opacity as its phototropic shielding held the first laser blast at bay. A split second later a second blast hit it.

  The viewport blew in, raining shards of transparisteel among them, shards that reversed direction and immediately fled into space as the bridge atmosphere vented over Ession’s moon.

  29

  The air screamed from the bridge, flooding into the vacuum. An alarm klaxon sounded, muted by the roar of the wind.

  Admiral Trigit turned and tried to force himself against the wind toward the security foyer due aft of the bridge. He saw one of the foyer’s stormtroopers, buffeted by the flow of air, stagger forward and fall headlong into the crew pit.

  Ahead, the blast doors separating bridge from security foyer began to close. Trigit gave up all pretense at dignity and dropped flat, elbow crawling with the speed of a much younger man. He scrambled into the foyer moments ahead of the door closing and was helped up by a stormtrooper.

  He looked around. The foyer’s communications crew was mostly intact, though wild-eyed and windblown. The turbolift doors opened and Gara Petothel and a few other officers who had been stationed in the crew pit emerged, similarly rattled.

  Trigit pointed at the chief communications officer. “Get the auxiliary bridge to transfer bridge functions to the consoles here.” The deck shuddered faintly under his feet. “Are our shields up?”

  “Checking.” The officer brought up a diagnostics readout. He winced. “Sir, they took out the shield generator domes when they hit the bridge.”

  Trigit hissed in vexation. “Take your positions. We’re going to spend some time trading body blows.”

  “Five away!”

  “Four’s away!”
r />   “Six are on your tail!”

  Wedge listened to the Wraiths’ launch announcements, silently begging them to get clear faster. He continued to raise the bow of Night Caller until the ship was pointed straight upward. He felt a shudder in the keel as the ship’s repulsors were called upon to hold a position they were not designed to assume; only the moon’s four-tenths of a standard gravity permitted the maneuver at all.

  “Wraith Nine away.”

  “Ten is clear.”

  He triggered a switch on the console’s underside. Up swung a piloting yoke, a lightweight version of the sort of control found in fighters. Night Caller was not supposed to go through the sorts of precise, intricate maneuvers that would normally call for such a control, but Corellian engineers knew it happened sometimes. He powered up the yoke. “Ready on tractors?”

  “Ready.”

  “On zero. Three, two, one, zero!” He hit Night Caller’s thrusters.

  The corvette jerked and her engines moaned. She rose a few meters more above the moon’s surface—then hovered, thrusters blasting away, tethered to the moon by her own tractor beam.

  The thrust emission kicked lunar dust and stones up in a billowing cloud all around the corvette. In moments, Wedge lost sight of the Star Destroyer above them. But it was still on sensors, distorted but not completely screened by the distant dish emissions. “Bow guns, fire at will,” he said.

  “Narra is launching.” Cubber, in the shuttle, was under orders to hang well away from the conflict but offer help to pilots if they went extravehicular.

  “Wraith Seven gone, and I’m coughing up dust!”

  “Wraith Eight launching. Eight clear. Bridge, the hangar is empty.”

  Gray One and Gray Two fired continuously as they raced back toward the command pylon by the Star Destroyer’s stern. Atril saw the communications tower disintegrate under their sustained fire.

  She shifted her aim to the innocuous hull plating that protected the auxiliary power for the ship’s computers. She doubted the TIE fighter’s lasers could penetrate the armor, but perhaps, if she and Falynn were just accurate enough, perhaps …