Star Wars: X-Wing VI: Iron Fist Read online

Only the Wraiths would be going as far as Lavisar. The Rogues would accompany them as far as the Lavisar system’s outermost planetary ring, and would wait there. If, though odds were against it, this mission was a Zsinj trap against Mon Remonda, the Rogues would be ready to jump in and give Zsinj’s forces a surprise they might not be ready to withstand.

  A sudden chill passed through her, one not even her insulated pilot’s suit and cockpit heater could immediately dispel. The Wraiths were supposed to fire a few shots, even land a few hits if they thought they could do so without unnecessarily taking life, and then flee.

  But anything could happen. A laser blast aimed at a solar wing array could miss and hull a starfighter’s cockpit. A sudden maneuver could startle a TIE-fighter pilot into veering straight into the path of one of his fellows.

  Lara didn’t want to kill today, and it wasn’t for the apparently altruistic reasons demonstrated by the Wraiths. If she killed an Imperial pilot, how would she be regarded when she returned to Imperial employ?

  “Wraith Twelve, ready for lift.” That was Piggy’s mechanical voice. She’d left a note to herself, in the portions of her mind that were so usefully automatic, for his voice to cue her own response. She shook away all the thoughts distracting her and said, “Wraith Thirteen, four green and topped off.”

  “Exit by current formation, by proximity to the magcon field, then form up by wings and units.”

  That made her first.

  She began to run through the checklist in her mind that covered repulsorlift backing, rotating, exiting this type of facility—but no, it was not a good idea to overintellectualize among these pilots. She took the pilot’s yoke, engaged the repulsorlift, and pulled up and backward with a smooth motion, beginning her rotation before she was two meters into the air. She smoothly cruised through the magcon field, which permitted her passage without the slightest discernible resistance. And she was in space.

  Not for the first time; she’d flown training missions with the Y-wings of Screaming Wookiee training squadron after Repness’s arrest, had soloed in both Y-wings and Repness’s X-wing, had flown her own choice of course to rendezvous with Mon Remonda. But this was her first action.

  She continued with repulsorlifts and rose until her stern pointed into empty space well above the entrance to the hangar, then engaged her thrust engines and pulled smoothly away from the Mon Calamari cruiser. Smooth, and by the numbers—but she was still acutely aware of the eyes that were and would be upon her.

  Moments later, Wedge pulled beside and slightly ahead of her, and Face Loran took up position on the other side of the commander, drawn back level with her. As the ninth pilot of a unit that normally flew by paired wingmen, Lara had been assigned as the temporary third member of an existing pair.

  They’d timed their arrival so that the face of Lavisar featuring its capital city, Syward, would be dead ahead when they emerged from hyperspace. And so it was: When the dazzling light show that was the end of a hyperspace jump faded, the Wraiths were aimed squarely at the portion of Lavisar’s red-brown face that featured the largest recognizable glowing dot. Off to their starboard and ahead was the planet’s largest moon, black in the eclipse shadow of the planet. The moon’s gravity well, whose influence extended into hyperspace, had, as they’d intended it to, plucked them back into realspace. While this close to the moon, they would not be able to reenter hyperspace, and as they got closer to the planet’s surface, the situation got even trickier; Lavisar had a number of moons, all of them large enough to hinder hyperspace jumps.

  “Great placement, Twelve.” Wedge’s voice again. “All right. We should have a five-to-ten-minute window before they can bring online any secondary sensor arrays worth worrying about. Remember, you’ll be aiming for a complex three times as long as wide, featuring sky-blue buildings—”

  “Leader, this is Eight.” Face’s voice. “Visual sensors on the Syward military base show TIE fighters scrambling. I see two full squadrons mobilizing. They’re wearing planetary defense colors.”

  “They can’t be coming after us, Eight. Their sensors—can you visually scan their main sensor station?”

  “Working on it, Leader.”

  Lara smiled. Though their transmissions were encrypted, she had to assume the Wraiths would be using a code sequence that had been in use for a while—one whose useful lifetime was nearing an end. If the planetary defenders recorded enough of these transmissions and could crack them, the Wraiths’ pre-scripted dialogue would sound perfectly normal for a botched mission in progress.

  “Tonin, scan normal Imperial frequencies,” she said. “Send anything you hear that sounds like pilot traffic to my helmet comlink. When Wraith transmissions and Imperial transmissions conflict, continue recording the Imperial transmissions but let me hear only the Wraiths.”

  The display unit set aside for communication with the astromech popped up with a quick reply: UNDERSTOOD.

  And almost immediately she began to hear faint, fuzzy transmissions, garbled words: “—ming up. Deploy by fists—”.; “—file suggests still in approach vec—”

  “Leader, Eight. Visual sensors show the ground sensor complex intact. There seems to be some scoring damage on the northeast wall and civilian crews there. It looks like our ground team fouled up.”

  Even distorted by New Republic comm equipment, Wedge’s voice was hard. “They’re going to be sorry they got back to us. They’ll wish they only had Lavisar authorities to deal with. Wraiths, come about in formation. Twelve, confirm and then transmit our escape vector.”

  “Twelve, understood.”

  The Wraiths began a slow sweep, bringing them around toward deep space again, taking them back out the way they had come.

  “—trol indicates enemy force is flee—”; “Stay in formation, we’re chasing them all the way—”; “—like banthas to the hunters. Stay tight.”

  Lara frowned. That last transmission had not sounded right. “Tonin, can you plot the origins of the Imperial transmissions you’ve received so far?”

  APPROXIMATELY.

  “Do so. Put them up on my sensor board.”

  Her sensor screen, which previously had shown only the two nearby planetary bodies and a single blue blip representing all the Wraiths, now added two fuzzy red fields—one at the planet’s surface, one near the nearest moon’s surface at a point not too distant from the Wraiths’ escape vector. The fields wavered as the astromech continuously recalculated probable points of origin and projected them onto the screen.

  “Tonin, subtract the Lavisar transmissions from the image.”

  DONE.

  “Transmit the image to Wraith Leader’s R2 and ask him to put it on his sensor screen.”

  DONE.

  She activated her comm system. “Leader, this is Thirteen. I’m picking up indications that we have company ahead. Probably the garrison of a lunar station.”

  “Understood, Thirteen. Good work. Wraiths, break to starboard on my lead. Twelve, give us a new escape course.”

  “Twelve, understood.”

  Wedge rolled out to starboard, a course that would take the Wraiths past one of Lavisar’s secondary moons—and keep them within troublesome gravity wells, unable to jump to hyperspace, even longer, but now the shortest course away from the planet and new enemies. Lara followed, her maneuver as smooth as that of the commander’s other wingman.

  New activity on the sensor board: a single red blip distancing itself from the primary moon, heading toward the Wraiths on an intercept course. As Lara watched, the blip became two, one ahead, one lagging behind. She adjusted the display to zoom in on the image and saw that the forward blip was registering as a full squad of TIE fighters, moving at maximum speed, while the rear blip was four units “unknown type” with a 75 percent probability that they were Lambda-class shuttles.

  That made sense. A manufacturer making Lambda-type vehicles probably had a production combat model, one with heavier armor and equipped with heavy guns, to supplement its space f
orces.

  “Wraiths, this is Leader. My astromech calculates that the lunar unit will be on us before we clear the gravity well of that second moon. Once they encounter us—assuming we engage them—we’ll have about three minutes before the planetary units catch up to us. Mission Order One is rescinded. Engage and eliminate the lunar force with all dispatch. Then form up and get back to our escape course. Twelve?”

  “I have a flexible escape course plotted, lacking only the crucial variable—the exact point we join up and prepare to exit.”

  “Good. Get ready.”

  9

  When the incoming TIE fighters were only a handful of kilometers away, Wedge announced, “S-foils to attack position. Break by pairs, choose your targets, make it fast.” He suited action to words by rolling out, a smooth maneuver that carried him directly toward the enemy force.

  Lara followed suit, with Face Loran a split second late but equally sure-handed. The sound of someone’s breathing, harsh and ragged, filled her ears, then she realized she was listening to herself. She forced her breathing to slow, forced herself to concentrate.

  The first part would be a head-on confrontation between TIEs and X-wings, the two forces approaching at maximum speed, firing as they came. Once the lines crossed, the more maneuverable TIE fighters would whip around to try to get on the slower X-wings’ tails—simple strategy. And the X-wing pilots would be doing everything they could, using all their combined experience, to shake this deadly pursuit.

  She put all shield power to her bow shields for the head-to-head approach. Wedge and Face had to have done the same by now.

  That was an interesting thought. Wedge Antilles, flying mere meters ahead of her with no power to his stern shields. She could put a quad-linked laser blast into his engines and erase his name, so hated by Imperial pilots, from the roster of New Republic warriors.

  Rebel warriors, that is. Then—what? Take out Face Loran with an identical shot, transmit a surrender to the Lavisar forces, get an escort down to the planet’s surface … and live the rest of her life in the fame that belonged to the pilot who shot down Wedge Antilles.

  Such an odd feeling. Wedge Antilles was under her guns, yet he trusted her with his life.

  He had no reason not to, of course. But he did. No one had in—how long? Forever.

  She could eliminate him with a twitch of the finger.

  It should have been tempting. Yet, somehow, it wasn’t.

  Such an attack would be treacherous.

  She laughed. Listen to yourself. There’s no such thing as treachery. Only efficiency. That was one of the basic tenets of Imperial Intelligence, and she had lived by those words.

  But at a certain point she had decided that Admiral Apwar Trigit was treacherous. He’d chosen to sacrifice a shipload of dedicated servicemen so their vessel would not fall into the hands of the New Republic, and she had engineered his destruction because of that decision. She had taken revenge on him for a concept as simple, and as out of place for an Intelligence officer, as personal honor.

  Tonin beeped a warning. The range meter dropped to two kilometers, the distance at which New Republic targeting systems could begin to place shots in an almost accurate fashion. The numbers continued to drop, and Wedge and Face both fired, their red laser blasts, quad-linked beams of pure destruction, lashing out toward Lavisar’s defenders.

  Her breath became ragged again as something, a fog that thoughts couldn’t quite penetrate, closed down over her brain. Defend your wingman. Can’t kill Imperial pilots. The price on Wedge Antilles’s head means years of security. Zsinj is the same as Trigit.

  She switched her lasers to single fire, fast cycle, which would allow her to fire an almost continuous stream of low-powered blasts, and brought up her targeting computer. Immediately the system’s yellow brackets settled in a jittery fashion around one of the oncoming TIE fighters and turned green, indicating a lock. The cockpit audio system howled in confirmation.

  Reflexively, she fired. Her red laser streaked past the oncoming TIE fighter, but she held the stick down and the system cycled, blast after blast emerging. She shook the yoke in her hand, spraying fire around as though using a nozzle to water a patch of grass, and saw one of the beams strike home, charring a hole in the starfighter’s port solar array wing.

  It was so close—she tried to keep her spray of fire concentrated on it, and then there was a tremendous bang and her X-wing shook from bow to stern. The module holding the S-foil configuration switch popped out of its housing and dropped before her eyes, swaying there, held to the upper bank of controls by wires.

  She swatted it out of the way, tried to look out the viewports, at the diagnostic display, at the sensor display all at the same time. The viewport snowed Wedge rolling out up and to port. She gave up on the viewscreens and followed. “Tonin, give me a loud beep if we’re badly hit.”

  No beep.

  “Good job, Thirteen.” That was Three, she thought. “That’s a confirmed kill.”

  “Thanks, Three.” His words hovered outside the shield of stray thoughts that seemed to be insulating her brain.

  Behind—the enemy would be coming up behind. She looked back, saw only the top of Tonin’s dome head, and checked the sensors again. Yes, two TIE fighters were coming around fast, trying to take up positions behind her. But they were making a broad loop to do it, perhaps intimidated by the firepower they’d just come through. She could try to cut hard to starboard and might be in position for another head-to-head by the time they got their guns fixed on her—

  No. Her job was to follow her wingman. Protect him.

  Wedge cut hard to starboard. She followed, her turn not quite as precise. The maneuver was too much for the X-wing’s inertial compensator and the metal box holding the S-foil configuration switch swung on its wires, slamming into the side of her helmet. She ignored it, tried to stay with her leader, and held to his port rear quarter, though space opened up between them. A glance out her own port viewport showed Face there, struggling to maintain formation.

  A green laser blast appeared, blindingly bright, between her and Face. Wedge finished his maneuver, firing already at the two oncoming TIE fighters. Lara tried to place her targeting brackets on one of the two, couldn’t manage it—the starfighter was too maneuverable, jittering out of the way. She fired anyway, her spray of single-shot lasers slicing through vacuum near the TIE fighter’s starboard wing.

  The TIE pilot jerked away from the bombardment of red fire, drifted to port … straight into Wedge Antilles’s quad-linked blast. The quartet of lasers sliced cleanly through the fighter’s spherical cockpit. The TIE fighter disappeared in a glorious explosion of red, orange, and yellow, and Lara heard clanks and pings as her X-wing sliced through the cloud.

  There were also the echoes of a scream. Lara shook her head. She couldn’t have heard the pilot.

  Unless he was transmitting. “Tonin, cut my reception of Imperial comm traffic at once.”

  DONE.

  “Two for Leader, one for Thirteen.” That was Two again. Lara swatted at his intrusive voice as though it were that damned configuration switch. She tried to find the other TIE fighter on her sensors, but the closest enemy was outbound, head toward the cloud of red blips representing the two full squadrons from Lavisar’s surface.

  In fact, all the remaining TIE fighters—five of them—were outbound.

  “Wraiths, Leader. Form up. Twelve, make your calculations and get us out of here. I make it less than a minute before they overtake us. Give me status reports by number.”

  “This is Three. No kills. Minor damage to port topside fuzial engine. I’m shutting it down.”

  “Four. Two kills. No damage.”

  It was there, battering at her head as insistently as the switch housing swinging into her helmet, a thought that wouldn’t let her go. Zsinj is the same as Trigit. Why had she thought that?

  Because it was true. Raptor forces had not risen against the Wraiths. Had this been a Zsinj-controlled
planet, Raptors would have been the first forces up—they had to maintain their reputation for brutality and efficiency. So this world was independent and the intercepted Raptor transmission a false lead, as the Wraiths had said.

  And since the forces of Lavisar weren’t set up for the Wraiths—else there would have been a lot more of them—this was just what Commander Antilles had said: a plan by Zsinj to have New Republic—

  Rebel.

  —Rebel forces hurt the planet’s defenses, maybe knock them down. So Zsinj could move in, either as a conqueror or a defending hero. Those two choices were the same: Zsinj in control.

  She wanted to admire the plan, especially as it extended to the other worlds Mon Remonda had been assaulting. It was clever, efficient.

  But those pilots, who’d just been sacrificed, who’d died to satisfy Zsinj’s sense of efficiency. It was like Admiral Trigit. And it wasn’t—

  “Thirteen.”

  —honorable. There was no honor in it.

  And the last fifteen years of Gara Petothel’s life closed in around Lara Notsil like a coffin. Her parents’ work for Imperial Intelligence. Their arrest and execution for unspecified treason. How Gara had hated them, missed them. How she’d learned, so eagerly, and demonstrated such loyalty, so that nothing like that would ever happen to her.

  “Thirteen.”

  All her life, she’d known not to believe the Rebels and their simplistically optimistic propaganda. Now she could no longer put her faith in the forces that had taken her, trained her, shaped her. There was nothing for her.

  Tonin’s irritable beeping finally caught her attention. LEADER WANTS TO KNOW IF YOU’RE HURT.

  “Oh. Uh …” She keyed her comlink. “Sorry, Leader. Thirteen reporting—” She finally scanned her diagnostic board. “Forward shields down to forty-seven percent but climbing. I think I took a hit in that first head-to-head. Some gauges out.” She grabbed the S-foil switch where it hung and switched it. Her S-foils did not close up into cruise configuration. “S-foil actuator seems to be out. And I think I hit my head.”