6

Whistler’s warble made Corran look up at the timer on his green and white X-wing’s main display. “Five minutes until we come out of hyperspace, thanks.” The countdown marked the end of a two-leg run from Borleias to Mrisst that took a total of five hours to complete. Taking the precaution of hitting a transit system before arriving at Mrisst struck Corran as unnecessary, if the intelligence they were reacting to was correct. Our target already knows where we live.

Mirax Terrik had arrived at Borleias aboard her ship, the Pulsar Skate, after a trade run that had included a visit to Mrisst. Being a smuggler of no small amount of skill, she had pulled a copy of the local system traffic reports from Mrisst control to see who was operating in her area and might prove to be competition. One of the ships on the list was a freighter by the name of Vengeance Derra IV. When she arrived on Borleias she asked Emtrey for any information he had on the ship, and that resulted in their recon flight.

Corran fought to clear his mind and focus on the mission. That was not an easy task because of two bits of information the squadron had received a couple of hours prior to the mission being planned and launched. The first was confirmation by Thyferran officials of Bror Jace’s death. He had been the hottest Rogue pilot in the squadron’s first five missions, amassing twenty-two kills to eclipse Corran’s mark by one. Upon his return from his last mission, he was called back to Thyferra because of a relative’s impending death, but he had never arrived at his destination. Everyone had feared the worst, but until Thyferran officials backtracking his intended route had found debris from a destroyed X-wing, everyone had hoped for the best.

Though Corran and Bror had been rivals, they had also understood each other. Without that understanding, Corran probably would have accepted news of his death as easily as the others did. The Thyferrans reported that an Imperial Interdictor cruiser had been working in that general area, so the scenario appeared to be that Jace had been pulled out of hyperspace a bit prematurely and jumped by TIEs and destroyed. It seemed plausible to Corran except that no one reported finding any TIE fighter debris.

If I got jumped, I would have taken some of them with me. Corran did admit to himself that Bror could have been surprised and killed with a lucky shot or two, but that struck him as unlikely. If his ship had malfunctioned or something else had gone wrong, then Bror would have been helpless. The problem with that theory was that the unit’s chief tech, a Verpine named Zraii, kept the X-wings in prime condition. Unless someone had tampered with the ship, the chances of a malfunction were slim and none.

The Interdictor cruiser had been reported to be the Black Asp. It might have been coincidence, but the Rogues had fought against that ship in their first engagement. Corran had come as close to dying in that fight—one where they had been dragged out of hyperspace by accident—as he ever wanted to get again. If not for Tycho Celchu’s intervention he would have been dead or, worse yet, a guest at some Imperial penal colony.

He would have been inclined to let the Black Asp’s appearance pass for coincidence except for the second bit of information that came through to him. Emtrey had been trying to locate information on Gil Bastra, the man who had been Corran’s superior at CorSec. Gil had been the one to fabricate the identities under which Corran, his human partner, and her husband had fled from Corellia. Corran had asked the droid to look for information because of a spurious report indicating that Gil had been caught and killed by Imperial authorities.

Emtrey had found a report that confirmed the original death notice, but this one elaborated on the cause of death. Gil had been killed during a botched interrogation by Intelligence Agent Kirtan Loor. Loor had been the Imperial Liaison to Corran’s CorSec division and no love had been lost between them. I never liked him even before he let my father’s murderer walk free.

A lump rose in Corran’s throat. He rubbed at it with his right hand, the heel of which pressed his medallion against his breastbone. His father had kept the medal as a lucky charm. It was the only memento of his father he had left since he fled from Corellia and Mirax had identified it as a commemorative medal struck to mark a Corellian Jedi Knight’s elevation to the rank of Master. The feel of the gold medallion helped him remember the good times with his father, and that eased the tension in his throat.

Corran knew it was a fallacy to think that two facts linked by time had a causal relationship, but he could not shake the gut feeling that Kirtan Loor had been involved somehow with Bror Jace’s ambush and death. The report about Gil’s death had indicated Loor had been summoned to Coruscant and assigned “new duties.” Corran had no doubt that no matter what Loor was supposed to be doing, he would continue to look for a way to get back at Corran for eluding capture at Corellia. If Loor found out that I was with Rogue Squadron, he’d do anything he could to strike at me, even if he could only kill my friends.

Corran bounced his helmet back against the ejection seat’s headrest. “Think about Loor later, now you have a mission to run.” He glanced at the cockpit chronometer. “Ten seconds to reversion to realspace. Hang on, Whistler, we’re going in hot.”

The wall of light outside the cockpit exploded into a million pinpoints of light as Rogue Squadron burst into the GaTir system. Their jump had been plotted with spectacular precision—exceeding even that for which Sullustans were renowned—so they appeared below the planetary plane, heading in toward Mrisst via the south pole. Pash Cracken had suggested that approach since the austral-polar continent was known to be too geologically unstable for the Mrisst Trade and Science Academy to have set up any astronomical observation posts.

Rogue Squadron had not expected to arrive unnoticed, but they wanted as little data about them collected for as long as possible. If Vengeance was monitoring the same sort of traffic control reports that Mirax had pulled, the arrival of eight X-wings would attract attention. The arrival of eight mongrel snubfighters—for that was what Rogue Squadron’s navigational beacons proclaimed them to be—would barely be noticed.

Data collection from stations on the planet would eventually be collated with the traffic data and point out that the “Uglies”—to use the Corellian nickname for such rebuilt craft—were performing like X-wings in good repair. With sufficient luck this anomaly wouldn’t be noticed until after the mission was over. Corran was willing to settle for it being overlooked until they’d found Vengeance.

The X-wings swept up and around the fringes of Mrisst’s atmosphere and caught their first glimpse of Vengeance glinting in sunlight. “Whistler, what’s the ship next to Vengeance?”

The droid chittered for a moment, then displayed the answer on Corran’s secondary monitor. The ship was a medium-sized transport calling itself Contruum’s Pride. Whistler appended to his identification a criminal behavior code that Corran recognized as meaning the ships were moving in tandem, remaining steady to facilitate the transfer of cargo. This is just like spotting smugglers back with CorSec.

Before Corran could key his comm unit and let the others know Pride was in league with Vengeance, Pash Cracken’s voice filled the comm channel. “Twelve, Pride is bad.”

“How do you know that, Four?” Captain Nunb asked.

“Contruum’s my homeworld. Naming conventions for ships restrict virtues to capital ships. Transports are named for beasts of burden and rivers.”

Corran keyed his comm unit. “Four is correct, Twelve. Pride is transferring cargo to or taking it from Vengeance.”

“We have two for the taking, then. S-foils in attack position.”

Corran reached up and hit the appropriate switch. The fighter’s stabilizers split and locked into the position that gave the X-wing its name. Off to the starboard side of his ship he saw the four fighters in Two Flight move out under Cracken’s command. Corran served as Captain Nunb’s wingman, with Rhysati Ynr and Erisi Dlarit in Rogues Seven and Eight completing One Flight.

Captain Nunb’s voice filled the comm channel. “Starships Vengeance Derra IV and Contruum’s Pride, this is Captain Aril Nunb of Rogue Squadron. You have violated New Republic space. Stand down. Drop your shields. Prepare to surrender your vessels.”

Corran’s green eyes narrowed as the ships began to move apart. “Be alert, Rogues. They’re moving and the one thing we know Vengeance needs more of is TIEs.”

As if summoned by his words, a dozen TIE starfighters and interceptors boiled out of the gap between the two ships.

“They needed pilots, too, Nine.”

“Which they apparently got, Four.”

“Cut the chatter. Two Flight, take Vengeance. One Flight, we have cover.”

“As ordered, Twelve.” Corran flexed his right hand, then took firm hold on the flightstick. He thumbed his lasers over to dual-offset mode that fired them in pairs. Doing that meant each shot packed less power, but he got a faster rate of fire. In the sort of wheeling, twisting dogfight the eyeballs and squints promised, rapid fire was devoutly to be desired. “I have your wing, Twelve.”

No sooner had he said that than Nunb’s ship sideslipped to port, then dove toward the planet. Corran had no idea why she’d done that, but he followed her as best he could, remaining off her starboard stabilizer and back a bit. As he started to follow her as she pulled up and out of the dive, he saw her lasers flash and the lead eyeball exploded.

“Nice shooting, Twelve.”

Her only reply came in a snap-roll up onto her port stabilizer that she quickly reversed. The stern of her ship slid to starboard as she applied rudder, swinging the nose of her craft to port. It tracked along the course of the TIE that had taken her snap-roll feint. Nunb’s quad shot clipped the port wing on the eyeball and sent it spinning off into space.

“You have lead, Nine.”

“As ordered, Twelve.” Corran glanced at his scanner and found a pair of Interceptors angling in from above. He pulled back on his stick, rolled, and acquired his first target. He set up for a head-to-head pass, then cut his throttle back. Bringing the port stabilizer up, he let the fighter sideslip to the right, then he applied port rudder and repeated Nunb’s tracking shot on the lead squint.

It took him four shots to do what she had done in one, but the effect was no less spectacular. The scarlet laser bolts burned a line of holes in the Interceptor’s canted port wing. It began to tear away from the front and smashed into the ball cockpit. When the top half of the stabilizer finally ripped free, the port wing twisted. The Interceptor began to gyrate and spin, then shook itself apart. Finally the twin ion engines exploded, one after the other, sowing ship shards on the Mrisst atmosphere.

The second squint kept coming and Corran’s maneuver had left him presenting his profile to it. Whistler whooped a warning, but Corran felt no panic at all. He rolled the ship over onto its top, then hit more left rudder. This reversed the effects of his previous move and left him going nose-to-nose with the squint. Corran centered the Imp in his targeting cross and when it went green, he tightened up on the trigger.

The laser bolts perforated the cockpit and filled it with fire. A secondary explosion shredded the squint. The wings sailed away from the fiery red and blue ball, then the ion engines blew, engulfing the remains of the ship in a silvery cloud. It imploded and tiny bits of debris struck sparks from Corran’s shields, but did no damage.

On ahead Corran spotted Vengeance because of the sheer volume of laser fire coming from its bow and waist lasers. The green darts formed striated cones of fire that spiraled around as the gunners attempted to hit their targets. While the freighter’s guns had not been intended as antifighter weapons, the tight spirals meant the gunners were having a very difficult time tracking their targets.

Apparently Lieutenant Cracken can fly very well.

Corran saw four pairs of proton torpedoes head in at the waspy freighter from widely disparate angles. Even if the gunners had been good enough to actually shoot the torpedoes out of the void, covering all the shots would have been difficult. Some shots were going to get through, the only question remaining was how many.

All the torpedoes hit, bringing down Vengeance’s forward and aft shields amid a storm of brilliant explosions. Vengeance began to rotate in space, exposing a gaping hole in the port side. Escape pods shot out in all directions. The freighter continued to move away from Mrisst, but it was clearly drifting and would eventually succumb to the planet’s gravitational pull.

“Nine, break starboard.”

Corran rolled his ship to the right hard, but still caught a couple of green laser bolts on his aft shield. He shunted power from his lasers to the shields, then evened their strength out. Back where he had been, a TIE starfighter swooped through a dive, and one of the squadron’s X-wing’s flashed past, hot on its tail.

“I can’t shake this squint on me.”

“Twelve is on the way, Eight.”

Erisi has one on her and Captain Nunb is on her way to help. Corran saw two TIE starfighters streak down and past him, coming in on an oddly angled vector. He wondered what they were doing until Whistler put a track up on his screen that showed them to be on an intercept for Rogue Seven, the ship that had called for him to break. Her target is pulling through a tight loop and she’s following, while the two garrals try to cut across the circle and nail Rhysati. Not if I can help it

“Seven, watch your aft. I’m coming, but be prepared to break up and right if I call.”

“I copy, Nine. Almost have him.”

Corran rolled the ship to port, then hit enough rudder to stand the X-wing on its nose. He punched the throttle full forward and angled in at the two fighters following Rhysati’s ship. He switched his targeting system over to proton torpedoes, but didn’t target the TIEs immediately. Some models have a target lock warning system. If I give them a chance to dodge, they will. He took a quick breath, blew it out, then let his range on the lead TIE drop to one kilometer. Nudging his stick forward, he impaled the eyeball on his targeting crosshairs. The HUD went red, Whistler sounded a solid tone, and Corran hit his trigger.

The proton torpedo lanced out and hit the lead eyeball dead on. It pierced the starfighter’s port wing, then exploded right in front of the cockpit. The central ball crumpled as the wing disintegrated. The bulk of the craft went tumbling off down Mrisst’s gravity well.

Corran switched back to lasers and sideslipped right. He snapped a quick shot off that dinged the other TIE’s starboard wing, but failed to get enough of it to do significant damage. The TIE broke hard to port, so Corran rolled the X-wing to the port, applied some rudder, and cut his speed back to remain on the TIE’s tail.

The eyeball rolled right, then climbed sharply. Corran started to climb, then the TIE came over to complete a loop. Corran snapped the X-wing over on its right S-foil, presented his port side to the TIE. The starfighter’s first shots passed wide on either side of the snubfighter, but the eyeball started to roll to correct his aim.

Corran hit hard left rudder, then rolled ninety degrees to starboard to face the eyeball head on and give him the worst targeting profile possible. With a flick of his thumb he brought the torpedo targeting program up and immediately got a tone from Whistler. Ignoring the hail of green laser bolts hammering his forward shield, Corran squeezed the trigger.

The proton torpedo tore the TIE’s starboard wing off, sending the starfighter into a flat spin. Whistler reported the ship’s thrust had cut in half. Corran would have put that down to damage done to the starboard engine, but the spin began to slow. The pilot had clearly shut down the port engine so he could counter the spin. Restarting the port engine would give the pilot maneuvering power, but an explosion on the port side of the fighter showed the restart had not worked as intended. Blue lightning played over the fighter, then it burst into a fireball that streaked in toward the system’s sun.

“Whistler, targets.”

The droid displayed an image of Contruum’s Pride on the scope, but it wasn’t going anywhere. Corran hit a few buttons on his console, shifting around to see if there were any more fighters available, but he found none. Whistler’s negative bleat chastened him for doubting the droid.

“Just checking.”

Whistle rebleated his comment.

“Yes, perhaps I should know better.” Corran keyed his comm unit. “Nine is clear, Twelve.”

“I copy, Nine. Come to a heading of 173 and orbit Vengeance at three klicks. Four has convinced Pride that it wants to help stabilize Vengeance so it doesn’t do an atmosphere dive. Mrisst Disaster Control is scrambling for recovery operations.”

“As ordered, Twelve.” Corran smiled. “And, Captain?”

“Yes, Nine?”

“Impressive flying out there. Welcome to Rogue Squadron. You’re definitely one of us.”

“Thanks, Nine. It’s nice to be home.”