39

Despite his fatigue, Wedge couldn’t remember having felt better. Strapped into the cockpit of his X-wing, with Mynock behind him, Asyr on his starboard wing, and atmosphere below his fighter, Wedge felt as if the galaxy’s reset button had been hit. His mission was clear: safeguard the forces making a run on an Imperial terrorist cell. He didn’t know if this was all that was left of the Palpatine Counter-insurgency Front, or if this was just one tentacle of that foul kraken, but he had no doubts they’d destroy it.

Gone were the ambiguities that had been forced on him. Tycho’s trial was political. The run to Ryloth and the convoy escort mission from Alderaan had both been political. Even the raid on Zsinj’s space station had been political. While he realized the whole Rebellion had, in essence, been political, his role in it had been military. The targets we were given were military, picked because of their military value, and the mission parameters were ones that could be fulfilled through a military effort.

Wedge keyed his comm unit. “Hunter One, this is Rogue Lead. We are on-station.”

“I copy, Rogue Lead. Stand by for tactical team directives.”

“As ordered.” Wedge glanced down at his scanner. The squadron had broken itself down into five pairs of fighters. Four of the pairs orbited the target district with 90 degrees of separation between their positions. The last pair, Erisi Dlarit and Rhysati Ynr, flew high cover up around the level of the skyhooks. The lower fighters were meant to assist the raid and pick up stragglers, while the high-orbit pair would cut off any PCF terrorists that made it out of the district and in toward their target.

“Rogue Lead, this is Hunter One. We are taking heavy fire from the western approach. Help is needed.”

“I copy. On the way.” Wedge hit a button on his console, shifting the comm unit to the squadron’s tactical channel. “Rogue Two, did you get that?”

“I copied, Lead.” Asyr’s voice betrayed no nervousness. “After you.”

“Five, you and Ten with the next call, then Seven’s element, then Twelve’s element.”

“As ordered.”

Wedge kicked his X-wing up on the port S-foil, then hit the left rudder and pointed the fighter’s nose at the ground. He let the fighter succumb to gravity, then rolled it and prepared to glide out onto the target. The Justice Court building flashed past, then Wedge hauled back on the stick and leveled out. Target is five kilometers out and coming up fast.

Even in the distance he could see blaster fire spraying out to cover the approaches on the west side of the building. As he swooped in, he saw one smoking speeder-ferry slowly drifting down toward the unseen ground. Wedge flicked his lasers over to single fire and dropped the crosshairs on the focal point for the blaster fire. As range dropped to a kilometer, he tightened down on the trigger and feathered the left rudder pedal to keep his fire tracking on target.

The X-wing’s four lasers fired in sequence, peppering the middle level of the building with a staccato hail of energy darts. They swept across the wide doorway, some of them scattering half-hidden individuals inside the warehouse. Other laser-bolts shredded one of the two E-Web Heavy Repeating Blasters just inside the doorway, killing the soldiers crewing the weapon.

Asyr’s X-wing came in right behind Wedge’s and repeated his strafing run. As she flew through the area, Wedge chopped his thrust back, hit his rudder, and turned his fighter around. He punched the throttle, killing his momentum, then cut his repulsorlift coils in. Asyr sailed on past him and pulled up to begin a loop, while Wedge goosed his X-wing forward and brought it up in line with the warehouse opening.

“They’re running!” Wedge hit the trigger and scythed fire back and forth across the gaping warehouse entryway. Two laser-bolts caught a small airspeeder in the middle and aft, slicing it into three equal parts. The pieces flew across the open area and rebounded off a neighboring building, then tumbled into the urban canyon depths.

The rest of his shots missed the legion of targets because what he was trying to hit tended to be small and moving very fast. Speeder bikes with and without sidecars corkscrewed their way out and down or up to elude him. One airspeeder just sailed out and dropped like a freefalling Hutt, sinking out of sight before he could track it. Others banked hard and flew fast to escape, though from comm unit chatter, each of them had been tagged and had pursuit on its way.

An ugly green light strobed through the warehouse. Wedge nudged the X-wing forward, and saw boxy silhouettes, each supported on twin pillars, bobbing up and down in the warehouse. A shiver ran down his spine, then he keyed his comm unit. “Scout walkers, three of them, with two coming our way. I’ve got them.”

Wedge flicked his weapon’s-control over to proton torpedoes. His aiming reticle went from yellow to red as the targeting computer locked on. Mynock shrieked with a lock-tone and Wedge hit his trigger. A proton torpedo streaked out, crossing the fifty meters between the X-wing and the warehouse in the blink of an eye.

The proton torpedo caught the rightmost AT-ST in the outside leg, just below the upper joint. The torpedo sheered the leg off, and the impact spun the scout walker around. It crashed into the walker next to it, then rebounded and bounced to the ground. Ten meters behind it the proton torpedo exploded, detonating the walker’s concussion grenade magazine.

The second walker, which had awkwardly skipped forward after being bumped, ended up being slightly off balance when the grenades went off. A burst of green light from deeper within the warehouse outlined the upright walker as the downed walker’s good leg whipped around and caught it across the ankles. The standing walker staggered as the pilot tried to widen its stance and remain upright. His efforts almost paid off and the walker had begun to straighten up, when its left foot ran out of warehouse floor. The machine wavered for a moment, then slowly keeled over in an ungainly plunge toward the ground.

The green light, from the last AT-ST’s twin blaster cannon, again lit the interior of the warehouse. What is it shooting at? In the time it took him to form that question in his mind, he also came up with the answer. No, can’t let that happen.

He nudged the throttle forward and picked up some speed. Flying into the warehouse, Wedge got to see the AT-ST fire one last shot at the far wall, widening the breach. An airspeeder—heavily laden, judging from the way the aft end struck sparks as it slewed around the scout walker—shot in toward the hole. The remaining walker squared off to face him and protect the airspeeder.

The other vehicles were decoys! This one is the bomb. Wedge hit enough left rudder to track the airspeeder, then fired a proton torpedo. The projectile hit the ferrocrete decking and skipped off, rising quickly. Instead of passing between the AT-ST’s legs, it slammed full into the cockpit. The explosion filled the end of the warehouse with a firestorm. A black cloud billowed up with red-gold flame-claws slashing their way clear of it, while pieces of debris and shrapnel ricocheted and bounced throughout the warehouse.

Swirling tendrils of smoke curled out through the hole, and Wedge knew instantly where the airspeeder had gone. He guided the X-wing straight for the center of the hole the scout walker had opened in the other side of the warehouse. He made it through with centimeters to spare on both sides, then cut the repulsorlift generators and dove.

“This is Rogue Leader. The warehouse is clear. I’m out the other side.”

Hunter One sounded faintly amused. “We would have let you come back out this way, Rogue Leader.”

“Thanks, Hunter One, but I’m in pursuit of the bomb.” Deep below him he saw the airspeeder level off and head toward Invisec. “Let the bacta storehouse know it’s incoming, and so am I. With luck, only one of us will get there.”