Star Wars: X-Wing V: Wraith Squadron

by Aaron Allston

  Face rose toward the huge hole in Implacable’s underside. Blue energy emissions crackled across the ruined metal surfaces within and made Face’s comm unit pop. “Looks like a good landing zone for some more torps, Seven.”

  “Take it, Eight. I’m your wing.”

  Face fired. His torpedoes and Phanan’s flashed instantly into the gradually growing abscess in Implacable’s belly. Their detonation forced its way back out as a glowing ball of energy and debris.

  Ever more debris, raining down on the lunar surface. Wraith Seven and Wraith Eight vectored away from the cloud of destructiveness, sideslipping to avoid return fire from the capital ship’s guns.

  “Recall all TIE squadrons,” Trigit said.

  His starfighter coordinator was dead, locked in with the vacuum in the bridge. Gara moved to an unoccupied console and issued the order.

  Trigit’s officers were too well trained to protest that the command left the TIE fighter manufacturing facility on the planet’s surface open to the Rebel assault. Some knew that the plant would have a few TIE fighters on hand to reduce the assault’s effectiveness.

  But the plant only mattered to Trigit in the long term. For now, he had to keep Implacable in one piece. And that meant throwing as many resources at the treacherous Captain Darillian as he could.

  If it was Darillian. Trigit cursed silently. He’d allowed himself to be convinced by that man’s persuasive knowledge of Ysanne Isard. He should have followed his original instincts.

  “Sir, maneuvers?” That was from the man who’d replaced the slain chief pilot.

  Trigit gave him a frosty little smile. “Do you see a need for it? When our shields are equally down on all facings and every other craft on the battlefield is faster and more maneuverable than we are?”

  “Uh, no, sir.”

  The admiral turned to the main weapons board. “Weapons, is Night Caller destroyed?”

  “No, sir. We’re suffering sensor malfunction.”

  “Target her visually, you idiot! We’re close enough.”

  “There’s a problem. We can’t see her.”

  “All right, Lieutenant, we’re going to try some lateral drift.” Wedge saw the lieutenant gulp and nod.

  He eased the yoke sideways, just a touch. Night Caller jerked as she strained in a new direction against the tractor, then jumped as the officer released it and immediately reestablished it farther to port. Wedge boosted the repulsors to compensate for the maneuver’s clumsiness, but the corvette slid to port, kicking up an entirely new cloud of dust and debris as she did so.

  “Think we can do that a little more smoothly next time?”

  “Yes, sir. This time, I’ll lay down a second beam, minimum power, and then transfer power at a smooth rate from one to the other.”

  “Good.” He turned to the weapons officer. “Transfer control of one of the bow guns to my station, Lieutenant. I’m not here just to drive.”

  The weapons officer grinned. A moment later the thumb trigger on Wedge’s yoke lit up.

  Kell and Runt cleared the Implacable’s bow, spiraling and juking to throw off the aim of the vessel’s gunners, and raced back toward the stern, a duplicate of the attack run of Gray One and Gray Two. In fact, those two TIE fighters were just vectoring off from a second strafing run; the damage they’d done to the ship’s hull below the bridge was evident.

  “That’s our target, Six. Stay evasive until we reach half a klick, then fire and vector away.”

  “We’re ready, Five.”

  They stayed close to the Implacable’s hull, making it all but impossible for any gunnery emplacement to have them in sight for more than a split second.

  It was tricky flying. Implacable’s hull rose in steep angles like the sides of a ziggurat. The instant they cleared the final rise before the command pylon, Kell aimed and fired. His proton torpedoes hit just as Runt fired; the two X-wings vectored away before they could assess the damage they’d done.

  “Wraith Five, Six, this is Gray Two. We’re going in for another run. Looks like you two penetrated.”

  “Finish the job up for us, would you?”

  “Oh, sure. Afterward, can we do your laundry, too?”

  Wedge waited until Donos and Tyria finished their pass before firing.

  That first proton torpedo barrage from Night Caller’s bow hold, the maneuver they’d nicknamed the Loran Spit-ball, had targeted the heavy durasteel hull protecting the Star Destroyer’s huge array of power cells. Fourteen proton torpedoes had slammed into the unshielded hull, chewing it to pieces but not destroying it completely. Subsequent runs had widened individual holes.

  Wedge fired, pouring a linked turbolaser cannon’s destructiveness against the Implacable’s hull.

  He couldn’t see what sort of damage he’d done; he was nearly as blind, visually and by sensor, as the Star Destroyer. But his sensors could pick out the larger craft’s silhouette and give him accurate aiming against specific points on the underside.

  The dust cloud immediately to starboard of Night Caller lit up, became a brilliant column of whiteness as return fire from the Star Destroyer superheated and atomized Wedge’s protective cloud. He resisted the urge to flinch. “Cease firing,” he said. The larger ship’s gunners were doubtless aiming at the source of the turbolaser barrages. “Lieutenant, we’re going backward, relative ascent. We’ll keep movement constant but unpredictable—and keep up our random firing. No constant fire. Understood?”

  He got confirmations from the bridge officers and set Night Caller in motion again. The corvette’s nose tipped backward, threatening a fall, until he brought the repulsorlifts up to compensate; then they were drifting backward.

  Much smoother. The officer on the tractor beam was starting to get it.

  “Leader, Four. That last shot hit just ahead of the largest hole in the hull. If you can drop back a few meters astern and to starboard, you’ll pop right into the hole.”

  “Four, you can’t just hover out there and do my spotting for me.”

  “I’m not hovering, sir. I’m dancing. Besides, these guys can’t hit the side of a bantha. Whoa! Close one.”

  Wedge sighed. Grinder was trying to get himself killed. On the other hand, accurate damage to the Star Destroyer’s fuel cells meant more than any damage Grinder’s X-wing was likely to inflict now. “Sensors, plot my shots against a holo of the Implacable’s silhouette. We need that to adjust for Grinder’s directions.” He positioned his thumb over the firing button. “Resuming fire.”

  · · ·

  “We’re getting reports from the manufacturing plant,” Gara said.

  “Wait,” Trigit said. “Estimated time of arrival on our TIE fighters?”

  “One minute.”

  “All right. Go ahead.”

  “The Pakkerd TIE fighters never made it off the ground.”

  “What?”

  “The Rebels apparently had commando forces on the ground. The launch tubes were destroyed. They have two squads of TIE fighters sitting around uselessly in the hangars … and a squadron of Rebel Y-wing bombers blowing the whole facility to pieces. The other two squadrons are pursuing our TIEs back here.”

  Trigit hissed in vexation. “This is not good. Zsinj will be furious. Lieutenant, this time tomorrow, Implacable may be running as an independent instead of as part of the warlord’s fleet.”

  “That’s actually a fine alternative, compared to some.”

  “True.”

  “Five, Six. We have incoming fighters.”

  Kell glanced at his sensors … and froze.

  Red dots were approaching from the direction of Ession. Countless dots.

  “Right, Six. Let’s, uh …”

  His back locked up in a painful knot. He tried to maneuver, to aim toward the incoming TIE fighters, but his flight stick resisted him, jerking uncontrollably.

  “Five, what?”

  “Let’s get them …” Kell strained against the flight stick, but it would not cooperate, would not bring his
X-wing’s nose around toward the attackers.

  He glanced at his sensor screen again. There had to be a thousand of them coming.

  “Waiting for your turn, Five.”

  “I’m experiencing a control malfunction, Six. Give me a visual check, would you?”

  “You’ve got some new debris scarring. We don’t see anything wrong. What do your diagnostics say?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Five?”

  “Let’s get them, Six.” Kell’s X-wing continued on its course out of the line of fire.

  Atril felt the blow, saw the lunar landscape and the starfield above begin spinning, saw her diagnostics board light up in the red. “Gray Two, this is One. I’m hit.” Sparks shot up from her control board, defying her to do anything but hold on to her control yoke and pray.

  “One, your starboard wing is gone, repeat, completely gone. Punch out!”

  “No ejection seat, Two.” Atril felt a deep sense of regret—compounded by sudden nausea. Her inertial compensator must have failed, leaving her at the mercy of her ruined fighter’s spinning motion. “Get clear.”

  “Leader, Four. Traverse due astern five meters.”

  Grinder snap-rolled and dove, anticipating the fire from a turbolaser battery that seemed to be tracking him, then rose and rolled up on his starboard wing to watch as a new column of deadly light shot up from the billowing dust cloud beneath Implacable. This beam fired straight into the hole in the capital ship’s keel, filling it with light. Glowing debris, tons of it, began pouring from the hole. “Right there! Fix on that spot and keep hitting it.”

  Kell ignored Runt’s persistent, annoying inquiries and continued to wrestle with his stick.

  Finally it cooperated. He regained control, saw open starfield in front of him, and relaxed.

  His sensor monitor showed those millions of red dots closing on the position of Implacable and Night Caller. Behind him. Increasingly behind him as he headed toward open space.

  His breathing began to slow. That was better. Always bad to be in a starfighter when the controls failed. He was lucky he’d survived it so many times.

  “Leader, Narra has tractored Gray One,” Janson reported.

  “Good to hear, Gray Three. Gray Two, your usual wingman is underneath Implacable’s keel. He could use some help.”

  “I’m already there, sir. Sir, I see an opportunity to do some real harm to Implacable. Request permission to enter through the hole we’ve made in her keel.”

  “Gray Two, negative, repeat, negative. Too much loose material in there, and we have Implacable’s TIE fighters returning. Set up for them.”

  “There’s not that much material. You’ve slagged so much of it. I think you’re hitting internal bulkheads now, though. If I can get in there, I can direct fire laterally, hit machinery at an angle you can’t match.”

  “That’s still a negative, Gray Two.”

  “Leader, I’m not reading you. My comm unit—” Crackling and buzzing followed.

  Wedge made a noise of exasperation. She was rubbing her gloves together over the mike, just as he’d done a dozen times during his career. “Wraith Four, can you prevent her?”

  Wraith Four responded with crackling and buzzing.

  Kell’s R2 unit shrieked as his sensor display lit up with a new threat: a torpedo lock on his stern.

  Kell read the information, puzzled. “Wraith Six, is that you?”

  “We are.”

  “Are you going to shoot me?”

  “No, Five. We’re just trying to get your attention. To get the attention of Kell. Not of the bad mind.” Runt’s voice was slow and sad, even across comm distortion.

  “What do you want?”

  “We just wanted you to know we’re leaving you. We’re returning to the fight.”

  “Don’t do that. It’s nasty back there.”

  “Good-bye, Kell.” Wraith Six vectored away, looping around to head back toward the Implacable.

  Kell felt a keen sense of loss at his friend’s departure.

  Well, at least Runt hadn’t vaped him.

  Of course, somebody would be along soon to do that.

  Probably Janson.

  Janson was in a TIE fighter. He could catch up to Kell’s X-wing. Kell checked his sensor board and saw no sign that any craft was pursuing him. With his lead, he could be in hyperspace before anyone caught up to him. He breathed a sigh of relief.

  He was safe for now. Pursuit would come some other day.

  Maybe it would be Face. Or Phanan. Or Tyria—

  The shock of that idea hit him like a snap-kick to the chest. What if Tyria had to come shoot him down?

  What would it do to her, knowing she had sent her own lover to oblivion? She had lost everyone she loved on Toprawa and would now lose him, too. It would be Kell’s own fault, Kell’s signature on the scars she would carry—

  As though he were rising to the surface after a deep dive, his mind came free of the thoughts in which it had been submerged. Tyria. He was klicks away from her and the distance was growing every second. TIE fighters were now reaching the fight.

  He looped around and put all his vehicle’s discretionary energy toward acceleration.

  Falynn rose smoothly toward the largest hole the Wraiths’ series of attacks had made in Implacable’s keel. It was broad enough to accommodate her TIE fighter, even broad enough to allow the passage of Grinder’s X-wing behind her.

  Falling debris bounced off her bow viewport. Some of it came at her from an angle, clattering off her solar wing arrays.

  She eased through the gap into the darkness beyond. Above would be the giant array of power cells that enabled Implacable to move. Without them, the mighty Star Destroyer would be a gigantic mass of worthless junk.

  No one, so far as she knew, had ever done this. Flown into an enemy Star Destroyer and reamed it out from the inside. She would be the first. Number one, for all time.

  Carefully, she rotated so that she was pointing to the side and upward.

  She fired.

  Seventy-two TIEs—four squadrons of fighters, one of Interceptors, and one of bombers—swept into the engagement zone, firing as they came.

  Face looped and dove, trying to keep clear of the incoming fire from both the cloud of TIEs and the still-mighty Star Destroyer. He rolled out a few hundred meters below and arced up again, got an immediate green flash on his targeting brackets, and fired. His target, a fast-moving Interceptor, took the blast as a graze across its top viewport and kept coming, still in control. He saw Phanan’s lasers pass above him, hitting the next Interceptor at the juncture of its fuselage and its wing pylon, separating them. The squint rolled, out of control, and began its dive toward the moon’s surface. “Nice shooting, Seven.”

  Janson and Piggy roared down on the nearest TIE squadron, looping in from behind and opening fire before the squad had a chance to break and engage individual targets.

  Janson’s first shot entered his target’s port ion engine, vaping the eyeball in a spectacular explosion. Piggy’s first blast missed his target below, but he continued to fire, tracking up and left, until a burst hit the vehicle’s port wing. The TIE spun out of control and Piggy’s next shot hulled its cockpit.

  Janson heard confused chatter on the Imperial comm channel. “Let’s go right down the middle, Twelve,” he said, and accelerated until he was in the midst of the breaking squadron formation. The Ackbar Slash, starfighter style. Let them fire now, he thought.

  They did.

  Donos gritted his teeth and abandoned his attack run on Implacable. On the murderer of Talon Squadron. He veered toward the oncoming TIEs. A full squadron of eyeballs was coming in at him and Tyria. “Ten, we are in trouble.”

  Tyria was firing already. She didn’t answer.

  Suddenly there were new blue dots among the red on the sensor board, friendlies overtaking the TIE fighters from the rear. Wedge said, “Blue Squadron, is that you?”

  “Good to hear you’re among the l
iving, Wraith Leader.” These were clipped, precise tones, the voice of General Crespin. “We thought we’d show you the virtues of A-wing speed.”

  “For once I don’t mind. But I’m transmitting you our sensor profiles. Four, correction, three TIE fighters are our people. Fire only when you confirm they’re red.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  Wedge saw the communications officer jump to the task of transmitting the proper blue and red designations to the incoming force. Wedge concentrated on sending a different kind of message, a series of turbolaser blasts against Implacable’s weapon batteries.

  The hair stood up on his head and arms and all monitors flickered as an ion beam struck within forty meters of Night Caller’s position.

  Another near miss. Another charge against the credcard where he banked his luck.

  · · ·

  The A-wings flashed through the screen of TIE fighters, shooting continuously as they came, snap-shots not a detriment in the target-rich field of battle. Kell saw them both on screen and through his canopy as he approached.

  He got laser lock at maximum range on an Interceptor, fired his quad-linked lasers, saw his shot carve away the upper half of a solar wing. The Interceptor, damaged but still in control, arced away from him.

  “Who’s that? Five? Is that you?”

  “That’s right, Eight. How’re you doing?”

  “It’s unpleasant as a Hutt’s butt in here! Where were you?”

  “It’s my sister’s birthday. I had to take her a present. Hold tight.” Kell aimed at the thickest concentration of TIEs and dove in, firing as fast as his lasers would cycle.

  30

  “Admiral, we’re going to lose Implacable.”

  Trigit fixed Gara with a cold stare. “With the TIE fighters now chewing the attackers to pieces? I don’t believe it.”

  “Something is in the power cell section. Methodically destroying every cell. We’ve already lost computer backup power. In ten minutes, maybe less, we’re going to lose all main power, and that’s the end of Implacable, even if every one of those Rebel pilots dies.”