Star Wars X-Wing Book 5 Wraith Squadron by Aaron Allston ######################################################################### ###### TEST OF WILLS Myn Donos, the X-wing squadron commander, looked around in confusion. This wasn't right. He'd been through this already. This mission could only lead to... Death. The ambush. They were all about to die. "Talon Leader to squad, break off! Omega Signal!" He rolled up on his port wing and curved in a tight arc. Away from death. The other Talons did not follow. They sped down their destined path toward annihilation. "Leader to group! Break off! Follow me!" A woman's voice: "Can't do it, sir." "Follow me. That's an order!" "No sir. What does it matter whether I die down there or on the way out?" Donos continued his arc until he completed a full circle. He now sped on in the wake of his pilots, heedlessly rushing toward their doom. He felt an unfamiliar weight crushing his chest. It wasn't acceleration; it was the inevitability of those pilots' needless deaths. "Please." "Don't 'please' me, Lieutenant. You don't care enough about yourself to live. So you don't give a damn about us." "You're wrong. Turn back." "Swear it." "I swear it! Turn back!" The canopy of his X-wing went black and the roar of his engines died.... 1 Twelve X-wing snubfighters roared down into the atmosphere. The world below, Coruscant, former throne world of the Empire, was an unbroken landscape of urban construction, a vast city reaching from pole to pole, blanketed by gray clouds shot through with white and yellow flashes of lightning. The squadron commander, piloting a black fighter with an incongruously cheerful green and gold checkerboard pattern on the bow, shook his head over the grim vista of the world below. Even after all the time he'd spent here-even after the crucial role he'd played in conquering this world for the New Republic-he still could not get used to the arrogance of Coruscant. It was a world that could only rule or perish, for it produced nothing but soldiers, officers, and bureaucrats, and could not feed its population without importing massive quantities of food from around the galaxy. He took a visual scan of his immediate surroundings. "Rogue Three, tighten up. We're putting on a show here." A green X-wing closed in tighter to the formation. "Yes, sir." Though distorted by the comm system, the voice sounded indulgent rather than military. "That's 'Yes, Wedge' until we're formally returned to duty." The commander smiled. "Or perhaps, 'Yes, Exalted One.' Or 'Yes, O envy of all Corellia.' Or-" A chorus of groans interrupted him. The voice of Nawara Ven, the squadron's Twi'lek executive officer, cut through it: "Stop complaining. He's earned his little vacation from reality." Then the voice of Tycho Celchu, Wedge's second-in-command, sharp and military: "Sensors register a squadron of fighters rising toward us. Speed is X-wing or better; sensor profiles suggest X-wings." "Maintain formation," Wedge said, then switched his comm unit over from squadron frequency to New Republic military frequency. "Rogue Squadron to approaching X-wing formation, please identify yourselves." The voice responding was brisk, amused, and familiar. "Wrong designations, sir. We're Rogue Squadron. You're simply a rogue squadron. But for the next few minutes we'll do you the courtesy of designating ourselves Red Squadron to avoid confusion. We're your escort." "Hobbie? Is that you, Lieutenant Klivan?" "That's Captain Klivan... again, just for the next few minutes." The other X-wing unit rose into view, gradually attaining the altitude of Wedge's squadron. Wedge was startled to see that the dozen snubfighters were painted in Rogue Squadron's traditional red stripes and twelve- pointed insignia. "Hobbie, explain this." "No time, sir. We have a course change for you. High Command has decided to broadcast this entire event across the HoloNet..." "Oh, no." "...so set your new course to ninety-three, follow my rate of descent, and we'll get you there in one piece. After that, you're on your own." Within moments their destination was clear: Imperial Plaza, a ground- level ferrocrete circle so broad that in spite of the surrounding skyscrapers, it could be seen from high in the air at angles other than directly overhead. The plaza was packed with spectators; even at this altitude Wedge could see banners and fluttering haze that looked like chaff but had to be some sort of celebratory confetti. A speakers platform had been erected on the plaza's west side, with barricaded open areas north and south of it-obvious landing zones for the two squadrons. As they descended toward the plaza, Wedge flipped his comm system back to the squadron channel. "Once around the park, outbound port, return starboard, at five hundred, Rogues. They're here for a show; let's give them one." Immediately he heard Hobbie's answer on the same channel: "Same, Reds, but starboard to port return at six hundred meters. Sloppiest flight group buys drinks." The two squadrons parted, circling the plaza at its perimeter, the wingtips of the X-wings sometimes only meters from the faces of admirers piled up against the skyscraper windows. The squadrons crossed one another's positions on the far side of the plaza and rejoined at their first position, then spiraled down toward the landing zones. Rogue Squadron angled toward the northern area, Red Squadron toward the southern. At three hundred meters, Wedge said, "Landing gear and repulsorlifts, people," and both squadrons began the safe, vertical descents allowed by the snubfighters' antigravity engines. Wedge smiled. "Your Red Squadron looks pretty good, Hobbie. A pity you haven't had time to teach them anything about precision flying." "What?" "Rogue Squadron, Three Diamonds Parade Formation, execute!" After a moment's hesitation-it had been some time since the unit had practiced the intricate parade formations-the Rogues split into their three flight groups, each group maneuvering into a diamond-shaped formation-one X- wing forward, one back, the two others side by side in the middle-with Wedge's group forward and the other two side by side behind, making a triangle of diamonds, all facing eastward. Even over the sound of the repulsorlifts, Wedge could hear the cheers from the crowd. Hobbie's voice came back immediately: "Red Squadron, same maneuver, but one-eighty to their orientation." He sounded amused rather than angry. And in moments his squadron was in the same Three Diamonds Formation, but his X-wings faced west. More cheers-the crowd was going wild over the aerial demonstration. "A little wobbly, Hobbie." "We haven't been together that long, Wedge, but we still know a few tricks. And you started this. Red Group Three, deny Rogue Group One!" The three-fighter triangle to Hobbie's starboard rear broke away from the Red Squadron formation, sideslipped and reversed orientation while maintaining the same internal order, and came into position a mere ten meters beneath Wedge's group, descending toward the spot where Wedge would have landed. "Not bad, Hobbie. Rogue Group Two, deny Red Group One!" Corran Horn, in his green X-wing with the black and white trim, led his group in a similar maneuver and positioned them directly beneath Hobbie Klivan's group. "You mynock. Red Group Two, deny Rogue Group Three!" "Rogue Group One, substitute Red Two!" The two squadrons' flight groups crisscrossed above the speakers platform as they descended, a dazzling display of precision flying, until, when all were a mere ten meters above the ground, Rogue Squadron was reassembled over the southern landing zone, Red Squadron over the northern. The two dozen snubfighters set down within moments of one another. Their pilots climbed down from their cockpits into a whirlwind of celebration: New Republic diplomats and old friends dragging them up onto the speakers platform, clouds of confetti raining down from the skyscrapers ringing the plaza, roars of appreciation and exuberance from the thousands in the plaza. Wedge managed to get handshakes and backslaps from Hobbie and Red Squadron's second-in-command, Wes Janson, before being dragged into line formation with all the pilots; the crowd's roar was too overwhelming to allow them to hear one another's words. At the front of the platform, at the speakers lectern, stood the New Republic Provisional Council's best-loved speaker, Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan. Unlike most of the New Republic's representatives present, she was dressed simply, in a belted robe of senatorial white. She caught Wedge's eye and gave him a smile and half shake of the head, acknowledging their mutual dislike of public spectacles such as this, then turned back toward the crowd. With a few waves of her hand she managed to reduce the crowd's roar to the point her amplified voice could be heard above it. "Citizens of the New Republic, I present to you Rogue Squadron!" Another protracted roar, and then she continued, "Before I bring Commander Antilles up to speak, I think I should put the squadron's recent accomplishments in perspective. With their efforts, we now have, once again, a steady supply of bacta-a supply sufficient to stamp out the last lingering effects of the Krytos Plague. With their efforts-" Wedge tuned her out. This was all old news to him. Weeks before, he'd led Rogue Squadron-the true Rogue Squadron, the men and women now in civilian dress-on a mission that the New Republic military command could not support. Resigning their commissions, the members of Rogue Squadron and a handful of professional insurgents had mounted a civilian action against the new government of the world of Thyferra, the world where the overwhelming majority of bacta, the miracle medicine, was produced. That new government was headed by the Empire's former espionage leader, Ysanne Isard, and could have become the core of a reunited Empire. But now Ysanne Isard was dead, and Rogue Squadron's resignations had apparently been creatively misfiled-meaning that they were never civilians-meaning that, with the mission's success, the New Republic was retroactively making the Thyferran mission an officially sanctioned operation. None of which explained the presence of a new Rogue Squadron flying the unit's traditional colors. Wedge traded places with Tycho, his second-in- command, to stand beside Hobbie Klivan. "So tell me about this ersatz Rogue Squadron." The pilot with the perpetually mournful face shook his head. "It's not ersatz. Just sort of auxiliary. For morale purposes, the Alliance needed a visible Rogue Squadron while you were off playing pirate. So they brought me and Wes back from training-squad duty to cobble together a temporary Rogue Squadron." "Temporary." Hobbie nodded. "We brought in some Rogue Squadron veterans-Riemann, Scotian, Carithlee, several more-and a couple of new pilots each out of Gauntlet and Corsair Squadrons. Now that you're back, they all return to their original units. Except-" "Except what?" "Except me and Wes. We're back for good. Subject to your approval. That's the reward we were unofficially promised by High Command." "Well, I'll think about it." At Hobbie's stricken look, Wedge smiled. "I'm kidding you. Welcome home. Is Gauntlet Squadron active? I thought they were still in diapers." "You're behind the times. Corsair was our first squadron, Gauntlet our second, and our third, Talon, was just commissioned." "Who's commanding?" "Lieutenant Myn Donos. A good pilot, smart-" Lieutenant Wes Janson, still baby-faced despite his years flying for the Alliance and New Republic, leaned in grinning from Hobbie's other side. "Smart, egotistical, self-centered, arrogant, insufferable-you know, a typical Corellian." "As a fair, broad-minded officer, I should ignore that. But as a Corellian, of course, I'll manage some sort of revenge." Wedge turned back to Hobbie. "Before your Rogues are disbanded, I want to see their personnel files." "Of course. Why? If I can ask." "You can. I have an idea for another new X-wing unit... something based on our experiences taking Coruscant and Thyferra." "You're going to form a new squadron?" Wedge nodded. "Just like that? Wave your hand and it appears?" "Well, I thought I'd tell High Command so they'll know what they need to give me." Hobbie shook his head. "Wes, you were right. All Corel-Hans are like that. Oh, Wedge, the princess-" Wedge realized belatedly that Leia had called his name and was beckoning to him. He put on his meet-the-crowd smile and advanced, stopping a pace short of the lectern, taking Leia's outstretched hand. She gave him her most infectious grin, the private smile she never turned to crowds or official assemblies. She spoke quietly enough that her words would not carry to the amplifiers. "You looked as though you'd been practicing that formation flying for weeks." "We were," he said, straight-faced. "Liberating Thyferra didn't take up much of our time." "You're such a liar. Go talk to these people so we can all go home." Twelve X-wing snubfighters roared down into the atmosphere. This was a dark world with a polluted sky, its atmosphere formed from gases and smoke hurled from hundreds of active volcanoes. Four kilometers ahead, the TIE interceptor, fastest fighter of the Imperial forces, was distantly visible; it stayed well ahead of the X-wings, though the fact that it was not now outrunning them was a clear indication that its engines were damaged. Further evidence were the sparks and gouts of smoke issuing from its engines, too far away to see except with visual sensors; if the engines failed, the pursuing X-wings could catch the interceptor. Myn Donos, the X-wing squadron commander, toggled his comm system. "Talon Leader to Talon Eight, any change?" His communications specialist answered, "No, sir. He's not broadcasting. As far as I can tell, he's not homing in on any sort of a signal. And I'm still not picking up any engine emissions, other than his or ours, on the scanners." "Very well." The interceptor's speed suddenly dropped and the vehicle began bobbing as if hit by heavy turbulence. It lost altitude, veering to starboard toward a cleft between two enormous volcanoes. Talon Leader saw glittering orange threads of lava crawling down the near slope of one of the black, fire-capped mountains. "Leader to squad, it looks like he's losing thrust and going low to lose us with terrain-following flying. Don't give him the opportunity. Get close and force him down." He led his squadron in a lazy arc toward the same gap. He watched the numbers changing on his distance-to-target register: three kilometers, two point five; the interceptor was now emerging from the gap on the far side as the X-wings were entering it. Talon Eight's voice broke, high-pitched and nervous, over the comm system: "Engines powering up, sir! Directly ahead! I count four, seven, thirteen-" "S-foils to attack position!" Donos shouted. "Scatter and-" Shiner, his R2 unit, issued a sharp squeal of alarm. Donos's console echoed it with beeps and indicators showing that someone ahead had a sensor lock on him-two locks - three locks - Donos veered sharply to port-directly toward a volcanic flue and the impenetrable stream of gray- black smoke belching from it. As he hit the cloud he pulled back on the stick, rising straight up the concealing smoke. The sensor locks on him disappeared. He heard explosions, some near, some far, and the excited comm chatter of his pilots. He added to it: "Talon Two, go skyward in the smoke screen; we'll hit them from above." No answer. There was other comm traffic: "Five, Five, he's on your tail!" "Can't get clear, vape him for me, Six-" "Can't, I've got-I've got-" "Nine banked into the volcano wall, she's gone-" Another explosion. Moments later, at two thousand meters Donos angled to starboard, getting clear of the smoke and emerging directly over the gap between volcanoes. No one was on his tail. He checked the sensor board - didn't believe what it showed him, checked it again. He and Talon Twelve were the only New Republic forces remaining on the board. He counted twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five Imperial blips. A dozen were veering toward Twelve, the remainder toward Donos. In a matter of seconds, Talon Squadron had been all but destroyed. Glittering pieces of X-wings were still streaming down toward the planet's broken surface. In another few seconds, he and Twelve would be vaped, and the destruction would be complete. Through the shock of it, he said, "Talon Twelve, dive for the surface. Trench Run Defense. Omega Signal. Acknowledge." "Omega Signal understood. Diving." The sensor register on Talon Twelve showed decreasing altitude. Donos followed suit, standing his X-wing on its nose and blasting toward the ground. He hadn't even gotten a shot off at the enemy. Ten pilots dead and he had a full rack of proton torpedoes left, laser batteries charged to full. Time to change that. The sensors showed an ominous cloud of TIE fighters - eyeballs, in Alliance fighter-jock parlance-pursuing Twelve toward the ground. If she reached the planet's broken surface, which was pocked with craters and crisscrossed with rifts, she might be able to elude them; there, her piloting skill rather than the relative speeds of the fighters could allow her to lose pursuit, and any pilot who tried to follow her from above would quickly lose sight of her-this was the classic Trench Run Defense used against the first Death Star. But for now, Twelve would remain within the enemy's weapons range for long, deadly seconds. Within moments his sensors indicated that he was coming within range of the weapons of the rising cloud of TIE fighters. He switched his lasers over to dual fire, giving him greater recycling speed, and put the rest of his discretionary power on forward shields, then began firing as quickly as his targeting computer gave him the bracket color changes and pure audible tones of good target locks. He put his X-wing into a corkscrew descent, making it harder for him to hit his enemies, but making it much harder for them to hit him. Most of his shots hit the ground. One missed his intended target but vaped its wingman. Two more shots hit their intended targets, one shearing off a wing and sending the fighter spinning into the nearest volcanic mountainside, the other having no immediate effect Donos could see - but the TIE fighter ceased all evasive maneuvering, its flight path becoming an easy-to-calculate ballistic curve. Donos almost smiled: It had been a surgical strike, the pilot killed by a beautiful shot straight into the cockpit, leaving the rest of the fighter craft unharmed. His assault had its desired effect. The oncoming cloud of TIEs spread out and he shot through the gap in the center of their formation. They wheeled, an angry insect cloud, to follow, but now the TIEs pursuing Twelve into the rugged terrain below were in sight. Donos continued firing, vaping one starfighter before the others knew he was upon them; that fighter's wingman, startled by the sudden explosion, reflexively banked rightward, directly into the side of the rift in which they were flying. His fighter also detonated, filling the rift with flame and shrapnel. Donos dropped into the rift, pulling out of his dive just before he could scrape his keel on the ground. He had stone formations to either side of him-black rock so blurry from his speed that he could make out no details. "Leader to Twelve, report condition," he said. "Minor damage to lower port strike foil," she answered. "It's giving me a little vibration, which should go away if we can get out of atmosphere. Some starring on the canopy. Pursuit is hanging back - Wait, here comes one! He's trying to get a lock on me!" Donos put on more speed, increasing the risk that he would not be able to make some difficult turn ahead. He whipped around a bend in the rift and almost slammed into the ion engines of a slow-moving TIE fighter immediately ahead. He snapped off a laser shot out of reflex, saw it lance straight into the starfighter's starboard engine. The TIE fighter instantly became a glowing fireball of yellow and orange flame and debris. Donos's X-wing rocked as he roared through the fireball; his helmet and hull were barely sufficient to keep the sound of the explosion from deafening him. Then he was through. One more turn, a tight starboard bank that almost flung him into the rock wall to port, and he had Twelve in sight. Twelve, and the vehicle pursuing her-the interceptor that had led them into this trap. This was the first time Donos had seen it visually, and he fleetingly noted the nonstandard red stripes painted horizontally on the starfighter's wing arrays before something else occurred to him: there were no sparks or smoke plumes emerging from its engines now. With the deception done, all the false signs of the interceptor's weakness had been shut off. The interceptor had crept up to within meters of Twelve's aft end and was now skillfully matching all of the X-wing pilot's frantic maneuvers. This was a demonstration of superior flying technique, a show of contempt by one pilot for his enemy, and there was no doubt that the interceptor could begin firing on the defenseless Twelve at any second. Donos fired off a desperate snap-shot. At the same moment, the interceptor took its kill shot. Donos saw his lasers strike and play across the interceptor's main body, slashing across the engines and burning into the cockpit. The interceptor's lasers intersected at Twelve's X-wing, hitting her aft shields in spite of her desperate maneuvers... and then they penetrated. Both of Twelve's starboard engines flamed out. The starboard strike foils, softened by the lasers' intense heat, began to deform under atmospheric friction. The interceptor slowed. Sparks and flame, real ones now, issued from the engines. It rose, jumping out of the rocky rift, and was immediately lost to Donos's sight. Twelve's X-wing began a portward roll. Donos's next command was half a shout: "Twelve, bail out! Twelve, eject!" "Ejecting now! Leader, get out of here!" Donos watched helplessly as Twelve's cockpit filled with the fire of an ejection thruster, but the canopy failed to open. The ejector seat smashed Twelve into it. Its transparisteel construction kept the canopy in one piece as the X-wing continued to rotate to port. Under continued pressure from the thrust of the ejection seat, the cockpit finally broke away from the X-wing, but Twelve sat limp in the seat as the ejection seat carried her mere meters from the doomed snubfighter, slamming her into the rift wall to port. In a split second she was gone, lost behind Donos, and her X-wing was nosing over to crash into the rift wall below. Donos forced himself to look away, to return his mind to mission parameters. A few minutes of terrain-following flying and he should be able to jump free of these rifts and head for space. But suddenly the prospect of survival didn't appeal much to him. Donos's R2 shrieked at him. Startled back to attention, he looked around, saw that a pair of TIE fighters had gained on him during his reverie. He could stay and be killed, or flee and describe his failure to his commanders in cruel, humbling detail. He'd prefer to die. But the families of eleven good men and women deserved to know how their loved ones had met their fates. With an anguished cry, Donos hit the thrusters again and rounded the next turn. 2 The New Republic guard, his face as emotionless as a ferrocrete bunker, admitted Wedge to the office. Within, the walls were a soothing blue, the furniture smooth and rounded with colors of the sea, the air cool but uncomfortably moist. Still, Wedge was back in New Republic uniform, and that alone made him more comfortable than the office's environment conditioner could have.