24

Wedge’s X-wing reverted to realspace above the plane of the elliptic in the Alderaan system. Spread out in a flat disk, the rubble that had once been Alderaan looked like the crumbs left behind after the cutting of a ryshcate. He slowly shook his head. Dying only once isn’t nearly enough punishment for the Emperor to atone for this evil.

Mynock beeped with each ship entering the system. The Rogues in their X-wings had come in first and oriented themselves toward the Graveyard. The most likely threat to them would come from there, from pirates or others hidden amid the debris. Some of the chunks are large enough to screen even a Star Destroyer. If there was one there, the plan was clean and simple: The X-wings would target it with a full salvo of proton torpedoes, giving the other ships a chance to run.

The dozen freighters Booster had rounded up came in next with the Pulsar Skate in the lead. Moments after reversion they made course corrections to get themselves pointed toward their exit vectors. The Chir’daki came in last and split their squadron up so each freighter had a fighter escort. If trouble erupted, the Twi’lek and Gand squadron could reassemble and screen the escaping freighters from any TIEs or other snubfighters, then head out themselves.

Wedge glanced at his screen and saw the names of the various ships in his fleet scroll up. Green letters indicated they were all set to fulfill their part in the mission. At least we’ve gotten here in one piece. Now we need Karrde to do his job.

Booster’s grudging respect for Karrde counted for a lot with Wedge. He’d actually met Karrde years earlier, back in the days before he joined the Rebellion. Wedge had owned a freighter and was hauling cargo all over the Empire. Karrde had inquired if Wedge wanted to move some cargo for him, but Wedge had turned down the offer. He’d heard nothing bad about Karrde and that had set him back a bit. No negative rumors means too little is known about the man, and I wasn’t inclined to trust him as a result.

Since joining the Rebellion, Wedge had not run across Karrde, but he didn’t doubt Karrde’s ability to produce the weapons and equipment they needed. The fact that Booster went to him first is proof enough that Karrde is genuine and can be trusted to deal straight with his clients. The munitions, launchers, and sensor systems would give them what they needed to complete Isard’s downfall.

“Lead, this is Seven.”

“Go ahead, Tycho.”

“Wedge, I’m getting anomalous contacts from the Graveyard on my IFF frequency.”

Wedge frowned. The Identify Friend/Foe system involved the identification beacon all ships carried. It sent out a signal that other ships picked up, telling them the name of the ship and its identification designation. Smugglers often had two or three IFF modules that they could swap in and out to run under clean names. Contacts on the IFF frequency were simple rechecks of a ship’s identity. And if Imps are waiting in the asteroids it’s an unbelievably stupid way to tip us to their presence.

“Tycho, is it the same signal over and over again?”

“Seems so. You thinking an automated beacon of some sort?”

“You are running an Alderaanian code. Perhaps there is an old system traffic satellite in the asteroids wanting to check you for Alderaan control.”

“Probably. I’ll punch up the gain on my passive sensors and see if I find anything in that direction.”

“I copy.” Wedge looked at his main screen as Mynock began beeping again. “Heads up, people, we have incoming traffic.”

A string of freighters entered the system, led by a ship tagged Starry Ice by the IFF system. A half-dozen ships drifted in behind Ice, staggering their positions so strafing runs along any one particular vector would pick up only two targets. Because Karrde’s ships were bigger than most of the freighters Booster had collected, the smuggler only needed half as many to deliver his goods.

A man’s voice broke in on the comm channel. “This is Quelev Tapper for Karrde. We’ve gotten the initial payment for this lot and you’ve got fifty million credits still in your account. In another month we should have another thirty percent of your order ready.”

Booster responded to him over the comm channel. “Fine with us. Begin the transfer.”

One of the freighters began to move forward, but as it cruised in right below the Ice, a huge patch of space went from black and star-strewn to white, angular, and deadly. The Interdictor Cruiser’s bulk eclipsed a massive slice of the Graveyard. The sight of its quartet of domed gravity well projectors caused Wedge’s stomach to fold in on itself. The cruiser will stop us from running into hyperspace, but it’s far too weak to engage us by itself. It’s going to be carrying a dozen TIEs at best, and the freighters can maneuver out of the effective range of its guns. Going after two squadrons of snubfighters, half of us with proton torpedoes, means this cruiser has gotten itself into a fight it really can’t win.

Before Wedge could begin to issue orders, two things happened. The first, the lighting-up of a red warning light on his console, was something he expected. It told him that the Interdictor Cruiser had powered up the gravity well projectors and that none of the ships in the system could jump to hyperspace to escape. Not a wise move to trap us here.

The second thing squeezed an icy fist around his heart. One third larger than the Interdictor Cruiser, the Corrupter appeared to interpose its bulk between the cruiser Aggregator and the snubfighters. Its turbolaser batteries and ion cannons immediately began spraying green-and-blue energy bolts out toward the waiting freighters. Wedge knew instantly the barrage was untargeted, meant more to inspire panic than do damage.

As TIE fighters started pouring from the Destroyer’s belly, Wedge immediately started snapping orders to his people. “Booster, scatter freighters. Move! Tal’dira, give me a flight to orient on me and another to orient on Tycho. Use the others to vape those TIEs, but don’t close with Corrupter. Rogues, slave your torpedo targeting to my signal. Transmitting now. Tycho, I go first, then you follow.”

“I copy, Wedge.”

Wedge’s droid, Mynock, shrieked furiously as Wedge punched the throttle forward and drove straight at the Victory II-class Star Destroyer. “Shut up, Mynock. Distract me with your screaming, and we’ll both end up dead!” The droid fell silent, and Wedge promised himself that if he survived the run, he would get the droid’s memory wiped and rename it something suitably heroic.

Though the droid lacked courage, his assessment of the current situation was dead on. And worth screaming about. The Destroyer and cruiser carried, between them, three squadrons of TIEs. Wedge’s confidence in his people knew no limits, but the Rogues were standing off to shoot their proton torpedoes, which left the Twi’leks to fight against the TIEs. The chances that some TIEs would get through to harass the freighters were overwhelming.

The TIE threat was the least of the problems they faced in the system. The only way to counter the Corrupter’s threat was for the X-wings to hit it with a spread of proton torpedoes. The squadron, firing double shots, could pump out twenty-two proton torpedoes. If they hit—and missing a nearly kilometer-long ship was tough—they could blow through the shields and do some damage. Wedge would fly in close to target the ship for the first volley, then have Tycho follow up for a second, hopefully catching the Corrupter without shields in place. If the second spread hits the Star Destroyer in an unshielded area, it could rip it apart. We’ll get damage on the first spread, but it will be the second that knocks it out.

Wedge pushed all power to his forward shields as he hit a wall of TIE fighters six kilometers out from the Corrupter. Once past them he evened his shields out with a flick of his thumb and then started draining his lasers of energy and pumping it into his shields. At two and a half kilometers he would get a firing solution for the Corrupter. He’d hold it until his squadron had launched, launch himself, then pull up and out. “Coming up on targeting. On my mark. Five, four, three, two, one. Get ready.”

The targeting reticle on his head-up display went red. “Mark!” Wedge pulled the trigger on his stick, launching two proton torpedoes. Launch report after launch report from his squadron scrolled up on his screen. Hey, even the Gands got off two concussion missiles.

Preparing to break off and run, Wedge glanced at his sensors and saw four TIEs in his rear arc. Realizing that pulling up and away would allow them to pounce on him, Wedge rolled his X-wing to port, then took the snubfighter down in a long loop that would carry him below the Corrupter’s hull. If they want to come after me, they get to brave their own fire, too. Juking right and left, Wedge bounced the fighter back and forth between streams of turbolaser fire.

A brilliant incandescence blossomed above him. The proton torpedoes slammed into the Corrupter’s shields all along the ship’s length. The shields acted like huge, invisible parasols to ward off the fierce energy unleashed by the proton torpedoes’ detonations. Roiling plasma curved up and around, following the arc of the Corrupter’s port shields as if some energy creature were trying to take a bite out of the ship. Then several torpedoes arrived late and pierced the shield at its heart, causing it to collapse. The tardy torpedoes and two concussion missiles pounded the destroyer’s hull, blasting apart armor plates and crushing turbolaser batteries.

“Beginning my run now!”

Wedge felt a moment’s joy at the collapse of the Corrupter’s shields, but it died as the big ship began to maneuver. It rotated in space above him, executing a roll that swapped up for down and presented the squadron with its undamaged starboard shields as a target. Convarion knows we have a limited supply of proton torpedoes. If he survived this salvo, we’ve got one last shot to take him down. If he repairs his shields and rolls again, we’re done, because then he can take all the time he wants to come after us.

Wedge keyed his comm unit. “Corran, set up for the third run.”

“I copy, Wedge. Lots of eyeballs out here.”

“Here, too.” Wedge pulled back on his stick and brought his X-wing up between the Aggregator and the Corrupter. He got a good look at the damage the torpedoes had done to the Destroyer and saw fire in the ship’s interior. He knew bulkheads had already been sealed and the fires would go out as soon as the atmosphere drained away. So it’s time to see if I can add to the problem. He started to angle in at the Corrupter, but green laser bolts slashed past him from behind, causing him to break off the run, roll, and dive.

Tycho’s voice boomed over the comm unit. “On my mark. Five, four, three, two, one. Get into firing position.”

Right. The pair of TIEs on Wedge’s tail had no intention of letting him set up on the Corrupter. Wedge chopped his throttle back, then reversed his thrust and ran it up to full. The TIE fighters immediately closed and snapped off quick shots, then bypassed him. Hitting the right rudder pedal, Wedge brought the X-wing’s nose around on the track of one of them. Switching over to quad-fire lasers, he hit the trigger. Three of the bolts hit the TIE. Two lanced through the cockpit while one boiled away a corner of a solar panel. The fighter immediately went into a flat spin and arced out toward the system’s outer orbits.

More rudder brought the X-wing around to point back up at the Corrupter. Wedge killed his reverse thrust and started it forward as Tycho said, “Mark! Fire now!” Wedge thumbed his fire control over to missiles and got a lock, but never pulled the trigger. Sithspawn! What is that?

A ship the size of a Carrack-class light cruiser ranged up from the Graveyard, cutting in past the Aggregator’s stern and in at the Corrupter’s bridge. The ship’s white nose was separated from the bloodred after portion by a big black stripe slashed on the diagonal across it. Wedge realized he’d seen that color scheme on a ship before, but he didn’t connect it with Tycho’s X-wing until the cruiser opened up on the Corrupter with its weaponry.

Five heavy turbolasers and ten laser cannons poured scarlet energy into the Destroyer’s unshielded hull. The laser cannon shots skittered across the white surface, stippling it with black marks and exploding turbolaser batteries. The heavy turbolasers concentrated their fire on the Destroyer’s tower, burning through the hull on deck after deck.

Wedge kicked his thrust in at full and rolled his X-wing so he put the Graveyard over his head and the Destroyer’s hull beneath his fighter. Off his starboard S-foils a silvery glow built as the first of the proton torpedoes hit. The energy storm they created splashed up and around the edges of the shield. Wedge pushed the X-wing lower, skimming it along the Destroyer’s hull. Just like being back in the trenches.

Wedge jinked the ship as turbolasers and the starfighter behind him tried to target him, then hauled back on his stick. The aiming reticle for his proton torpedoes had burned red for the entirety of his flight, but Wedge held back until his true target sank down into the reticle. He saw one Imperial officer standing in the middle of the bridge viewport and watched his mouth open in surprise.

Wedge hit the trigger.

A pair of proton torpedoes stabbed through the transparisteel viewport, filling the bridge with blue fire, then detonated. The bridge’s blocky outline plumped and softened for a second before the aft port corner blew out, vomiting golden fire. Backblast sent smaller golden geysers back out through the forward viewports, but Wedge pulled up between them, then rolled and dove past the Destroyer’s aft.

“Tycho, hit the cruiser!”

“I copy. On me, Rogues. Beginning my run now.”

Coming up over the belly of the Destroyer Wedge got a good look at the battle. Sporadic turbolaser and ion cannon fire came from the Corrupter, but far more numerous were the escape pods exploding from its hull. The Aggregator tried to shoot at the snubfighters, but most were using the dying Destroyer as a shield as they approached, and the Aggregator’s commander seemed reluctant to shoot in that direction.

The light cruiser came back around and made a run across the Aggregator’s stern. The ships exchanged fire, but the Interdictor Cruiser could only bring a few of its weapons to bear on the other ship. Neither ship did significant damage to the other, though the Aggregator’s starboard shields did go down.

“On my mark, launch torpedoes. Mark.”

On Tycho’s command the X-wings launched their missiles. Blue pinpoints of fire blossomed from various points around the Graveyard and shot in at the Interdictor Cruiser. The red light on Wedge’s console went out as the ship’s commander shunted power from the gravity well projectors to his shields. That’s the move to make, but did he do it in time?

Most of the proton torpedoes, beginning with the two Tycho launched, slammed into the port shield. They exploded into a silvery firestorm that billowed up and out, then pressed in on the shield. Unlike the Corrupter’s shield, however, the Aggregator’s did not collapse all at once. Gaps appeared at a couple of points, allowing a handful of torpedoes to skip through and blast into the ship’s hull. Armor plates peeled away like dead, dry skin and secondary explosions ripped gaping holes in the Interdictor’s hull.

Without waiting to pick up TIE fighters or escape pods, the Aggregator suddenly jetted forward. On Wedge’s console, the range finder scrolled off numbers; then the cruiser vanished into hyperspace. Running was his only choice.

Wedge glanced at his sensors and saw no hostile fighters near him. Safe for the moment, he keyed his comm unit. “Tapper, don’t run very far. Booster, report on your fleet.”

“We’re all still here, Wedge. We took some hits from TIEs, but shields mostly held so we’re all operational.”

“I copy, Booster. Rogues and Chir’daki, protect yourselves, but hold back from killing anyone who isn’t being actively hostile for a moment.” Wedge glanced back over his shoulder. “Mynock, scan comm frequencies and get me the command frequency the TIEs are using. I also need the escape pod frequency.”

The droid’s muted beep acknowledged the command, and data began to scroll up on the main screen.

“Thanks.” He punched up the frequency for the TIE fighters. “Imperial pilots, this is Wedge Antilles. You have a choice: get killed here, stranded here, or surrender. If you want to surrender, power down your weapons and engines. If you’re moving under power we will consider you hostile. We’ve got no more reason to want you dead than I would hope you have to be dead.”

A lone male voice came back over the comm unit. “Captain Ardle from Corrupter here. We’re Thyferran Home Defense Corps pilots. Does that make a difference in your offer?”

“Is Erisi Dlarit flying with you?”

“No, sir. I was in her command, but was picked to head up one of the two squadrons coming here with the Corrupter. Mostly trainees. I’ve got eight left. The Aggregator’s squadron only has four left and they’re THDC, too.”

“I copy, Captain Ardle. Follow the instructions I gave you and you’ll not be hurt.”

“What about the escape pods?”

“We’ll recover them, too.”

“And the Corrupter?”

Wedge switched his main screen to a plot of ship positions in the system over time and set his viewpoint from within the Graveyard. “The Corrupter is currently not under power and is drifting down into the Graveyard. Inside two hours the Graveyard’s asteroids will chew it up into unrecognizable bits.”

“Oh.” Ardle sounded subdued. “Alderaan has its revenge on the Empire.”

“And exacts revenge for Halanit. We don’t have the tractor beams to pull it back up, and I sincerely doubt it could be made operational again. Running as fast as possible to Coruscant we couldn’t get anything back here in time to save it.” Wedge knew the run to Corellia would be shorter, but he expected no help from his homeworld and the Diktat. “The Corrupter is gone.”

“I copy, Antilles. I’ll give the order to my people, and we’ll wait to be rescued.”

Wedge switched over to the escape pod frequency and repeated his offer of rescue, then arranged with Quelev Tapper for his ships to pick up as many pods as they could and exact whatever ransom they wanted from the passengers. Tapper sounded more interested in getting the TIEs and their pilots, but Wedge declared them “prisoners of war” and refused to let Tapper have them.

“Okay, Antilles, I’ll let it go, but only because I know you’ll be buying spare parts for those TIEs from us before too long.”

“That’s probably truer than I’d like to admit, Tapper. Have a safe trip home.”

Tycho’s voice broke through on the comm frequency. “Wedge, I have a situation.”

“Yes?”

“Remember that cruiser that took a piece out of the Corrupter?”

“Kind of hard to forget it, isn’t it?”

“Well, it was the source of the IFF queries earlier on. It appears to think I’m the Another Chance. It has identified itself as the Valiant, and now it wants to know where we’re going to go from here.”

Wedge brought his X-wing around so he could see the light cruiser again. There it hung in space, three hundred meters of lethal starship. Having it as part of our fleet would be very good, but how can we convince it to join us? “Tycho, any sign of intelligent life on board?”

“Ah, Wedge, it thinks I’m an Alderaanian war frigate, so I think we can rule out intelligence. If I had to guess, I’d assume this cruiser was slaved to Another Chance as an escort. They got separated and it returned here to wait for Another Chance to show up. I arrived with the IFF code, started broadcasting targeting information, and it did its job.”

Wedge nodded. “I copy. I think I need you to take it back to our base. Emtrey, if I recall his introductory monologue, is supposed to know the rules, regs, and procedures of over six million military organizations past and present. Perhaps he can figure out a way to communicate with the Valiant so we can make full use of it.”

“Got it. Do I leave now, or wait and escort the rest of you back?”

“We’ll go together.” Wedge smiled. “Victory like this deserves a parade, and I’d be happy to have you and your cruiser in the lead.”