Star Wars - X-Wing - Starfighters of Adumar

by Aaron Allston

  Rogriss shook his head. "Intelligence does have a team here. Good luck

  finding them; I won't tell you how. But they don't have a holocomm. You have

  the time you wanted... at the expense of my career."

  Wedge offered his hand. "For what it's worth, you have my respect."

  Rogriss took it. "You'll still get word to my children?"

  "Yes."

  "Even if General Phennir shoots you down when the Imperial forces return?

  "

  "So he did survive... Yes, even then. First thing, I'll put together some

  orders concerning you that will be carried out in case of my death."

  "And even if I don't come over to the New Republic?"

  "Where would you go instead?"

  Rogriss looked around. "I've spent considerable time lately planning how

  I was going to exploit the Adumari military weaknesses. Perhaps I can now show

  the Adumari where those weaknesses are, how to put armor over them. Perhaps

  they'd offer me a position here where I could do so."

  "I imagine they would. Either way, I'll arrange to get word to your

  children."

  "Thank you."

  14

  Wedge stood at the edge of the magcon field separating the atmosphere of

  Allegiance's main starfighter bay from the vacuum of space beyond. Below, he

  could see MOM Casima, the Mon Calamari cruiser now assigned to the Adumar

  operation, less than two kilometers below. Other New Republic ships were out

  there, not visible to him but on-stationfrigates, corvettes, aging cruisers

  that had once served the Empire or even the old Republic before it, as big a

  fleet as the New Republic could spare and assemble on such short notice. Not

  even Lusankya, the flagshipand sometimes only shipof the task force Wedge

  normally commanded, would be present; in his absence, it had been dispatched

  on other duties.

  The air was cold, as was common with starfighter bays in space; magcon

  fields were not good at retaining heat. The piercing noises of repulsorlifts

  being brought on-line cut through him, and the sound of engines being tested

  vibrated him to the bone.

  To Wedge, it was almost like being at home.

  Almost. From now on, he knew, home would be where he and Iella chose to

  be togetherquarters on Coruscant with its overwhelming press of population, a

  small house on some grassy patch on an insignificant colony world, even

  Corellia, someday, if things changed in the way that system was governed.

  But that was a problem to solve tomorrow or the day after that. For now,

  there was Adumar.

  Cartann City and a number of smaller metropolises had been seriously

  damaged during the Adumari Union raid. Hundreds of Blades and other vehicles

  on both sides had been lost, and many brave pilots. Wedge had been sorry to

  hear that Liak ke Mattino, captain of Strike the Moons Flightknife, who had

  risked his perator's displeasure to give Red Flight a chance at escape, was

  among the dead, as were many of the pilots Wedge had trained against in the

  days before the outbreak of war.

  The former perator was now hidden away on an estate somewhere within

  Cartann's borders, formally protected by his son from prosecution at the hands

  of the Adumari Union Council. Many of the world's other perators had

  protested, but Balass ke Teldan had stood fast by the terms he demanded for

  Cartann's peaceful and quick admission into the union, so it appeared that

  Pekaelic would avoid prosecution for his poor judgment and autocratic

  politics.

  That would not be the case with Tomer Darpen. The onetime regional head

  of New Republic Intelligence was safely locked away in prison quarters,

  plotting his trial defense, blissfully unaware of the recording Hallis had

  made of the conversation that would doom him.

  Tomer's temporary replacement would not be the detriment Tomer had been.

  Appointed by General Cracken, Iella Wessiri was now managing the New

  Republic's Intelligence matters on Adumar with her usual efficiency.

  "Are you sure you don't want to direct your forces from Allegiance's

  bridge?" Iella asked.

  Wedge looked up, startled. Iella had appeared beside him, in deceptive

  clothing, a naval lieutenant's uniform, and had joined Wedge in studying the

  skies beneath them.

  Wedge looked around, saw that no one was near them, and affected

  surprise. "I'd swear you were talking to me. What an odd question to put to a

  pilot."

  Iella managed a little smile. "Sorry. Lost my head for a moment. You

  can't blame me for trying."

  "No, I can't."

  She put an arm around his waist, rested her head on his shoulder. "I'm

  proud of you," she said.

  "We haven't won, yet."

  "Not for winning. For being willing to lose. For standing by your guns

  when the whole galaxy seemed to be arrayed against your decision."

  "That wasn't fun. But when I was sure I was about to lose everything, and

  I discovered that I hadn't lost you after all... that made it all livable."

  "But that leaves me with one big worry about the future."

  "That I'm still flying?"

  He felt her shake her head. She said, "No, that you're almost as stubborn

  as I am. I"

  Whatever her next words might have been, they were cut short by the

  single blare of an alarm, followed by words that echoed throughout the bay

  and, Wedge knew, throughout th e ship "Reconnaissance unit High Flight Three

  Beta reports arrival of Imperial vessels in Adumari space. Three repeat three

  Imperial-class Star Destroyers and numerous secondary vessels inbound. All

  personnel to battle stations. All pilots to muster stations."

  Wedge sighed. "That's it." He pulled her to him for a quick kiss.

  "I can't ask you to be safe," she said.

  He shook his head.

  "So shoot straight. And faster than they do."

  "Count on it. I love you."

  "I love you." She broke from him and hurried off to her station, casting

  one last look over her shoulder at him before she joined the personnel

  streaming out the exit and was gone.

  They formed up a kilometer off Allegiance's bow, an impressive fighter

  group Wedge's Red Flight, two shield-equipped TIE fighter squadrons, one

  slightly understrength A-wing squadron, a unit of B-wings, a Y-wing squadron,

  the High Flight X-wing unit off Allegiance, and three space-equipped Blade-32

  flightknives from the planet's surfacetwo from Yedagon and one from Cartann.

  They were 106 fighters in strength.

  "Allegiance's sensors show the enemy TIE squadrons issuing from the Star

  Destroyers," Wedge said. "Fighters escorting bombersa lot of bombers. They

  expect us to try to intercept with our fighters. Here's how we're going to

  play it instead.

  "Our advance screen is Red Flight, High Flight Squadron, Lightflash

  Squad, and Contender and Skylight Squadrons." That put the X-wings, A-wings,

  and TIE fighters at the fore of Wedge's group. "The rest of you hang back in

  formation until we're fully engaged and you can calculate where the action is

  thickestand where the enemy is less likely to be able to break away to engage

  you. Approach by those vectors and unload everything you have on Agonizer."

&n
bsp; That put the B-wings of Solar Wind Squadron, Y-wings of Remember Derra

  Squadron, and Blades of the Ice Edge, Frozen Death, and Sunwhip Flightknives

  behind on missiling duty. "You Blades remember to fire on the command of your

  flightknife commanders, in unison; your missiles lack the punch of proton

  torpedoes, so you're going to have to land precisely timed mass fire if you're

  going to do any harm to a Star Destroyer. Understood?"

  He was answered by confirmations from each of the squadron commanders.

  "All right. Let's go." He transmitted the intercept course to the group

  and vectored to lead the way to the enemy.

  As his group formed up on him, he switched the comm board over to the

  main Adumari broadcast frequency. The two-dimensional image that was the

  continuous flatscreen broadcast filled his main screen. It showed an older

  man, a patch over one eye not quite concealing the scar that both rose and

  descended from his eye socket, addressing the flatcam.

  "... continues to hold out against Adumari Union forces," the man said.

  "Despite reports that Pekaelic's forces decline in number every day, assaults

  by units of his informal force continue to occupy Union attention and slow the

  Union efforts to bring peace to Adumar. At sunrise, Yedagon time, this

  morning, units of the Cartannese Lords of Dismay Flightknife, now allied with

  the former perator, escorted a bombing raid that destroyed six residential

  blocks in Yedagon's prestigious Accolux Township..."

  Wedge switched it off. This was the third day of broadcasts that were, in

  essence, all lies. Scripted by Hallis Saper with the input of the Adumari

  Union's military advisors, the broadcasts told the tale of the former perator,

  Pekaelic ke Teldan, still mounting a mighty struggle against the conquering

  Adumari Union, keeping war raging across all the civilized nations of Adumar.

  The public followed the news accounts keenly. The guerrilla warfare always

  took place in communities that could be, and were, shut off from the outer

  world by military occupation... meaning that Imperial Intelligence agents on

  the ground would have a hard time disproving them.

  Meanwhile, the true Pekaelic rested in the Cartannese township his son

  had chosen for his exile, barely aware of the events that were being

  attributed to him. All he knew was that he had a broadcast to make and a

  script to follow when instructed to do so.

  If all went as it was supposed to, the Empire's Intelligence team or

  Adumar would have been recording all these transmissions for the last three

  days, analyzing them and interpreting them, but not discovering that they were

  all lies. Even now, they'd be transmitting their findings to the Imperial task

  force headed toward the planet. With luck, the task force would believe the

  accounts of a world still at war, its military might scattered.

  Well before Wedge's group spotted the enemy Star Destroyers, Allegiance

  reported that elements of the 181st Imperial Fighter Group, escorting numerous

  squadrons of TIE bombers, was descending into Cartann airspace. Blips

  representing other Imperial fighter units were also detected in descent.

  And then the Star Destroyer formation came into view, Agonizer at the

  point, Retaliator and Master Stroke well behind, other, smaller vessels

  throughout the convoy. Wedge set his course straight for the flagship.

  "Pilots, arm your weapons. X-wings, S-foils to attack position. Squadron

  commanders, you are free for individual deployment." He was not surprised to

  see the speed-happy A-wing pilots jump out ahead almost instantly. He switched

  to squadron frequency. "Red Flight, High Flight Squadron, call 'em as you see

  'em."

  "Red One, High Flight Twelve. I detect incoming TIE fighters and

  Interceptors... and two wing pairs of TIE Defenders. They've left behind a

  pretty ferocious screen."

  Wedge grimaced. The TIE Defender was one of the best starfighters known.

  Equipped with three sets of solar wing arrays, equally spaced around the

  spherical fuselage, instead of two, and outfitted with shields equal to an X-

  wing's and weapons and speed superior to the X-wing, it was an extraordinary

  and extraordinarily costlystarfighter. "Red Leader to Solar Wind Squadron.

  Solar Wind Seven through Twelve, move up to join the screen. We're going to

  need your help with the TIE Defenders."

  "Acknowledged, Red Leader."

  Space ahead lit up like interplanetary fireworks as Agonizer's

  turbolasers and ion cannons went active. That meant the A-wings had come

  within range. Seconds later, he spotted the first of the incoming TIE

  fighters-mere blips on his sensor board that materialized into fast-moving

  blurs in his forward viewport.

  He linked his lasers for quad fire, giving them a harder punch but a

  slower cycle rate. "Break by pairs and fire at will," he said.

  The X-wings around him spread out, maintaining their course straight

  toward the incoming enemies. Head-to-head combat approaches were among the

  most dangerous tactics for starfighters, but they favored the shielded X-wings

  slightly over the unshielded TIEs.

  On the heads-up display projected onto his forward viewport, Wedge's

  yellow targeting brackets tracked an incoming TIE Interceptor, the brackets

  trailing slightly behind the vehicle's lateral evasive movements. He sent his

  X-wing into the juking and jinking maneuvers that made it a more difficult

  target and manually swept his targeting brackets across the path he suspected

  the TIE would take next. His suspicion was right; the TIE dove straight

  through the path his brackets were tracing and the brackets went green. Wedge

  fired. He was rewarded only with a graze as one of his lasers charred the

  Interceptor's starboard solar wing black. The TIE veered off its intended

  course, away from Wedge and the X-wings.

  Incoming green lasers matched outgoing red ones in number and intensity,

  and Wedge saw, in his peripheral vision, one of the High Flight X-wings

  explode, leaving only burning gas and rapidly cooking shrapnel behind.

  Then the lines of TIEs and New Republic fighters met, merged, and

  separated again, the TIE squadrons flashing past. In a second the TIEs were

  behind him but coming around in their impossibly tight loops to come up behind

  the slower New Republic craft.

  "Red Leader, got an eyeball," Tycho said.

  Wedge checked by sensors and visually. A TIE fighter, or eyeball in

  pilot's parlance, had come up behind Tycho and was unloading a continuous

  stream of laser fire at him, though Tycho's erratic side-to-side motions had

  kept him from sustaining any but the most grazing of laser impacts.

  "Read you, Two. I'm your wing." Wedge turned in Tycho's wake.

  Tycho dove"downward" being the direction of Adumar's orbital planein a

  shallow arc the most inexperienced of pilots could have followed. Less easy to

  follow would have been his extraordinary evasive maneuvering within the simple

  arc. The TIE fighter followed, keeping up his laser fire, and Wedge came up

  behind.

  He fired once, his four lasers flashing through empty space where, a

  quarter second before, the TIE had been. T
he nimble eyeball flashed off to

  port, breaking away from its pursuit of Tycho.

  "You'd think he wanted to stay alive or something, Lead."

  "Let's disabuse him of the notion. Back to the fur-ball." Wedge turned

  toward the most active portion of the engagement zone.

  He could see on his sensor board the second wave of fighters, the

  missile-bearing craft, heading in two columns around the engagement zone

  toward Agonizer. And what he could see, the enemy could see. It would be best

  not to give the TIE Defenders a crack at those columns; Defenders would tear

  the slow-moving Y-wings and Blades to pieces. He identified the nearest

  Defender on his sensor board and headed straight for it.

  It was engaged with two Allegiance TIE fighters and a B-wing operating in

  concert. As Wedge approached, the Defender's lasers chewed through one of the

  TIE fighters; the eyeball vented the gases in its cockpit and went dark. A

  linked ion-cannon blast from the B-wing missed the Defender by thirty meters

  or more, and the Defender's return ion blast eliminated the other TIE fighter,

  filling its cockpit with sparks before the vehicle went dark.

  "Red Two, go wide. Let's give him nothing but guns to run toward." Wedge

  looped to starboard, away from his wingman, and Tycho looped to port; they

  arced toward the B-wing and Defender from opposite directions.

  The Defender, itself looping around for a run at the B-wing, instead

  swung wide to keep clear of its original target and accelerated toward Tycho,

  Wedge's targeting brackets flickered green across the Defender. He fired,

  but his lasers were meters off the mark.

  Tycho and the Defender, skittering around like drops of ale on a cooking

  surface, came toward one another, Tycho unloading lasers, the Defender firing

  ion cannons. They passed one another seemingly undamaged... until Wedge

  noticed that Tycho was no longer maneuvering. Red Two's X-wing was dark,

  headed out to space like a missile with no guidance control.

  Wedge bit back a curse. He didn't bother trying to raise Tycho on the

  comlink. Ion cannons tended to wipe out all a vehicle's electronics. Tycho was

  out of the game unless he could manage a cold start on his engines, an

  unlikely eventuality.

  Instead, Wedge turned in the Defender's wake. He'd have only a shot or

  two before the other vehicle's superior speed and maneuverability would take