THIRTY-SIX

Caet laid out a very simple plan to boost me into the ranks of Bolt Squadron, but we ran into some unexpected complications over the next several months. The first, and most frustrating, was the paucity of challenging missions for us. While the Invidious made a number of forays out, the Survivors weren’t always chosen to accompany Tavira’s taskforce. The Red Nova crew, the LazerLords, the Fastblast crew, Riistar’s Raiders, the Blackstar pirates and even Shala the Hutt’s gang got their chances to go on missions. Rotating the forces kept them all sharp and let everyone know they were not indispensable.

Even when the Survivors were sent out, Rock Squadron didn’t always go on the mission. Except when Tavira called for the Bolts specifically, Nive chose among us by lot. Rock Squadron got roughly one Invid mission per month. On our other missions we flew cover for smaller ships, much in the same way the Red Nova’s people had flown cover for the Booty Full. Rogue Squadron never jumped us, but on one of our Invid missions the Invidious vanished from the system shortly after arrival. We found ourselves fighting with a fighter group of Y-wings and homegrown Uglies in that engagement and lost two pilots from one flight, including Captain Kech.

If there had been New Republic capital ships waiting at the edge of the system, I saw no evidence of them, nor was there any trace in the sensor data I pulled from Backstab. After vanquishing the local fighters, we strafed a settlement and looted some warehouses, but even with a couple of bulging shuttles, the raid had hardly seemed worth it.

It was only later, when Rock Squadron elected me Captain, that I learned from Jacob Nive that the Invidious had headed out because another Invid operation had run into trouble and Tavira wanted to ambush the ambushers. The threat to us had not been dire enough to cause her to stick around, and I couldn’t disagree. In the other situation three New Republic corvettes had engaged some Invid freighters and fighters, then withdrawn when the Invidious showed up.

It took a couple of weeks, but I learned details on that other operation. Shala’s gang had been in position to take off a spice shipment in the Kessel system when the New Republic ships had appeared. They had a running lightfight for twenty minutes, during which one of Shala’s freighters took damage, lost maneuvering, and sailed off to be sucked into the Maw—the big black hole near Kessel. At roughly that point in the battle, the Invidious arrived and drove the New Republic ships away, all but killing the Freedom of Sullust.

This rescue increased the fame of the Invidious and general sense of immortality among the crews, but it sent a chill down my spine. It struck me as unlikely that the New Republic would send three corvettes into a system where they expected to run into the Invidious. Three corvettes wouldn’t be unusual for a patrol, especially with old Imps like Teradoc and Harssk or Admiral Daala still hyping around. My gut told me the corvettes had happened on Shala’s people by accident.

That’s not so terrifying, but the implication of the Invidious getting there in time to save Shala was. The flank speed time from the system where we were to Kessel was eighteen hours, and that was if the astrogator wanted to pull a Solo and skirt the fringes of the Maw. That meant that somehow Admiral Tavira knew of a chance meeting eighteen hours in advance and hustled her ship along to get her there. The fact that it would have been just as easy to open a HoloNet connection with Shala and warn him off the Kessel run meant that Tavira clearly liked the idea of a split second rescue. Her solution definitely enhanced her reputation among us, and had to have been that much more galling to the New Republic.

The question was, however, how did she know the trouble would be taking place eighteen hours in the future? There seemed only one answer to me: the advisor Exar Kun had showed me near her was adept in using the Force and warned her of Shala’s peril. I’d sensed no overt Force usage from the Invidious, but I was keeping myself as shut down on missions as I’d been when approaching Exar Kun’s temple, so it wasn’t much of a surprise that I wasn’t picking anything up.

Under my leadership, with Timmser heading up three flight and Caet in charge of two flight, Rock Squadron got good. We weren’t the Bolts, but we weren’t so far behind them that they should have felt complacent. I tightened up our training methods and broke pilots of bad habits. By making them better, I increased my chances of attracting Tavira’s notice, and that brought me closer to finding and freeing Mirax.

The primary advantage the Bolts had over us was in the area of combat hours, but our average was quickly approaching theirs. They tended to get included in more Invid missions, which carried a lot of prestige, but the Invids’ presence often stopped opposition before it started. The resulting lack of fatalities among the Bolts meant my avenue to that path effectively remained blocked.

Blocked, that was, until the Xa Fel mission. Xa Fel, a world in the Kanchen Sector, served the Kuat Drive Yards as a major manufacturer of starship hyperdrives. Grand Admiral Thrawn targeted the world for the same reason Tavira hit it: ready-made hyperdrives were a boon to anyone who could get away with them. Because of her connections within the Imperial community, Tavira could find countless warlords willing to purchase them and make them beholden to her at the same time. I assumed the latter reason was even more of a motivator than the former.

The seriousness of the assault was underscored by Admiral Tavira specifying Bolt, Hawk and Rock Squadrons from the Survivors, and allowing us to come up to the Invidious and ship aboard the Star Destroyer for the run in at the world. Corvettes and bulk cruisers accompanied us in a huge task force, with Slash Squadron covering Backstab and the other crews from Courkrus similarly having fighter cover. The grouping of ships was the largest task force I’d ever seen while with the Invids and underscored how serious Tavira was about staging this raid.

The three Survivor squadrons aboard the Invidious were each paired with one of the Invidious’ native clutch squadrons. Their pilots and ours eyed each other suspiciously. I noticed on a couple of them the red sleeves that marked them as once having served in the 181st Imperial Fighter Group, but nothing else indicated these pilots were anything special. All of us hoped for a chance to prove ourselves against them, though chances were that anyone with access to a fighter on Xa Fel would keep it on the ground.

I wasn’t really looking forward to the raid for two reasons. The first was that Xa Fel had been so badly polluted by the Kuat Drive Yards’ factories that even visiting could be painful. Breather masks and protective clothing were recommended, and while my clutch pilot’s outfit might suffice, spending time down on that hot rock in my environmental gear did not sound like fun. While I had no intention of getting shot down or crashing, when looking at a potential survival situation, I hate the idea of having to battle a world for my life.

The second reason was one that plagued me with each mission, and had been a concern even back during undercover operations with CorSec. I had to ask myself where I drew the line in what I was going to do to fit in with the Invids. In a CorSec undercover operation the lines of responsibility were very clear: I could participate in crimes against property, but once any person was under threat of death or serious bodily injury, my duty to protect them kicked in. Here with the pirates, things were nowhere near so clear or clean.

I encouraged my squadron to use ion cannons, noting that hardware we didn’t destroy we could always haul back to Courkrus. I’d even had two Headhunters with hyperdrives salvaged from one raid and was having my unit’s tech looking into finding a way to mount the drive on my clutch. The better pilots among my people followed my lead, but I still had two or three who went for lasers in dogfights.

On ground attack missions I stressed minimizing attacks on civilian targets. “Yeah, a refueling station might blow up really pretty, and might even set half a city on fire, but that’s not the object here.” I shook my head in a briefing session. “Look, you can kill a woolly-nerf and make a coat out of its skin, or you can shear the beast’s coat and come back year after year for more wool. We play this right, six months from now we show up in the system, send a list of demands and they’ll freighter the loot out to us.”

Most of my pilots seemed to get the message and only a couple of times did we have to run some of the other Invids away from our zones of control. Once I caught Remart poaching on a lonely stretch of roadway, just blasting landspeeders for the simple pleasure he found in murder. I put an ion bolt into his clutch and commed to Captain Gurtt to recall him, which she did. I also attached his portion of the loot from the raid and had it sent to the families of the people he’d killed as recompense.

And, I vowed, I’d bring him to justice for their murders when all was said and done.

Fifteen minutes prior to reversion to realspace, we got the orders to get into our clutches. I mounted up, powered up and collected reports from my pilots. I relayed them to Captain Gurtt who was acting as the commander of Survivor Group. Invidious Group consisted of their Blade, Saber and Pike Squadrons, with Rock and Pike Squadrons being paired up for missions.

I felt a little jolt run through my ship as we reverted seven seconds early. Before I could figure out what had happened, Launch Control gave us immediate clearance to launch, which we did. I rolled out to port and headed toward my rendezvous position. My mouth went dry and I knew it was from more than sympathy for the grey, thick-aired world below me.

We’d come out of hyperspace early because an Interdictor Cruiser hung in space over Xa Fel. In formation with it were a Mon Calamari Star Cruiser and a Victory-class Mark II Star Destroyer. A host of smaller ships surrounded the three capital ships, including a number of assault shuttles that I assumed were conveying troops to the planet below. The presence of the Interdictor meant the Invidious couldn’t flee, and already the New Republic ships had begun to orient themselves for battle.

Worse yet, to my mind, were the swarms of fighters beginning runs in at us. Gigs of data poured over my screens. There had to be at least two squadrons of Y-wings and A-wings out there. I spotted other ships that had to be B-wings. They, along with the A-wings, moved toward our escorts like the Backstab. And the only reason they would leave the clutches to the Y-wings was if the Y-wings had help.

Then I saw them and my heart sank. I keyed the comm unit. “We have serious trouble here, Invidious. You have fighters coming up from Xa Fel.”

“It will be impossible for them to get through our fighter screen, Rock Lead.”

“Don’t say impossible.” I punched up a datafeed and sent it along to the Invidious. “That’s Rogue Squadron, and impossible is their stock in trade.”