on a dot would bring up information about it, as was the case with the
lightboards on Blade-32s.
Tycho gestured at various units as he spoke. "Squadrons of Blades.
Scythe-class bombers. Meteor-class Aerial Forts. Cutting Lens-class
reconnaissance/intelligence craft. Farumme-class haulers configured as troop
transports. The numbers are continuously updating on the main board as we get
word of new units being added to our resources. Cartann's forces are similar
to ours in compositionjust superior in numbers and age.
"Here's Yedagon City." Tycho gestured at the grayish blob on the map
indicating their current location. "If history is any judge, the forces of
Cartann will be heading here and to the capitals and other major cities of all
'rebellious' nations. The perator of Cartann has demonstrated that he has a
pretty limited agenda and consistent deployment tactics. A screen of fighters
to engage enemy fighters, plus fighters acting as support for his bombers. The
fighter engagements are the ones that get all the attention, but it's the
bomber usage that does the real damage. He starts by bombing military bases
and any area that has demonstrated high comm traffic within the most recent
observation period. Then he graduates to government buildings and the homes of
higher-ranking nobles."
"What sort of bombs?"
"They're officially named Broadcaps, for the shape of the cloud that
results, but they're commonly called Punch-and-Pops. They hit the ground and
penetrate several metersthe idea being that they can get into underground
chambers like this onebefore detonating. A single one can level several city
blocks."
"Charming," Wedge said. "All right. What's your plan?"
"The perator of Cartann likes noontime assaults. They look very nice on
the recordings, and a lot of his pilots enjoy diving down at their targets
with the sun at their backs. We can expect his attack on Yedagon City perhaps
as early as noon tom orrow... so we're not going to give him the opportunity.
We'll be launching before dawn to be in Cartann airspace at sunrise."
Wedge nodded. Getting the hard-living, hard-drinking Cartann pilots out
of their bunks a mere handful of hours after they reached them would provide
the allied forces with one more desperately needed advantage. "Go on."
"From there, our first tactic is to deny them their strength by busting
up their chain of command wherever possible. The standard assault group of
several fighter squadrons and associated bombers and fortresses will analyze
the approach of Cartann forces. When they know which portion of the formation
is the Cartann target the 'center'that portion will slow its approach and
mill. The outer edges will swing out farther and increase speed, forming horns
to either side of the Cartann formation and at a lower altitude, at distances
that put our horns out of range of one another's weaponsbut keep the Cartann
forces within range of both sets of weapons. Since our firing plane is below
the target plane, misses by missiles will not endanger our own forcesthey'll
just reach their programmed range limits and detonate themselves. Meanwhile,
the Cartann forces will have to suffer an initial barrage in which we can
concentrate fire and they have to diffuse theirs, and then will have to choose
to maintain their original plan or break up to assault the diverse elements of
our formation. Once they've committed themselves, we can choose whether to
collapse our formation and pin them there, or send the hornswith their
bomberson to their primary objectives, the air bases and communications
centers."
"Good," Wedge said. "Let me ask a few questions. On Adumari lightboards,
a squadron tends to be a single signal until it's close enough to be perceived
as individual fighter-craft. How many Blades return the same-sized signal, at
distance, as Scythe-class and Meteor-class vehicles?"
Tycho looked up at one of the uniformed officers standing by. "General ya
Sethes?"
The officer, a gray-haired woman built like a champion wrestler, answered
without hesitation. "Four for Scythes, six for Meteors. Unless the squadron is
Blade-Twenty-eights or earlier, in which case five and eight."
"I want every bomber and aerial fortress transponder programmed to issue
a false response," Wedge said. "When queried by a lightbounce signal, instead
of responding with its true name and other information, it sends back that
it's one Blade in a squadron. Three Scythes end up looking like one squadron,
and two Meteors likewise, until they're close enough."
"So their projections on our composition are thrown off just when it's
time to mix it up," Tycho said. "I like that."
"That's not all. I want us to assemble a list of, oh, the thirty most
prestigious pilots flying in our united force. I want the transponders of at
least two Blades in each fighter squadron to be able to toggle between
returning their correct data and the data for one of those pilots. Likewise, I
want the real pilots on that list to be able to toggle to return the data for
a novice pilot. Nobody's to switch to deceptive transponder data until the
furball is under way, and only when they're not under weapons lock by an
enemy."
General ya Sethes looked dubious. "If we wait until the fighters are all
engaged, yes, then the deception will be harder to recognize. But what's the
point?"
Wedge smiled at her. "The point is, within a single squadron's
engagement, the pilots can tend to affect which of them is to be the focus of
enemy assaults. Put someone who has good evasive skills up under the name of,
say, Major Janson. The enemies will flock to him, possibly allowing the best
shooters in his squadron an unanswered salvo or two. Then, if our ersatz
Janson gets clear of weapons locks for a moment, he can take off his mask
switch his transponder back to his real identity and confuse participants
scanning for him. Any confusion we can sow in the enemy helps us, hurts them."
The general still looked unconvinced, but said, "If nothing else, this
should be simple to program. I'll see to it."
"Thank you." Wedge turned back to the map. "Are Cartann's military
responses predictable enough that we can map out where our forces will engage
theirs?"
"Only if their squadron response drills are good indications." Tycho
shrugged. "Hard to say, since those drills are non-weapon exercises and the
Cartann flyers hate that. But my guess is, yes."
"So we send out one squadron an hour or two ahead of each major
formation. Pilots skilled at terrain-following flying. They fly beneath the
altitude at which lightbounce sensors start to be active and set up in deep
cover beneath the projected engagement zone. Because, until they break up to
pursue enemies, Cartann squadrons tend to fly in pretty close formations"
"So our advance units can fire their missiles up at their squadrons
passing overhead," Janson said. "Perhaps taking out multiple fighters per
missile in those first few seconds."
"Ooh," Hobbie said. "I volunteer. I want that. Let me do that. Please."
&
nbsp; Though his expression was, as usual, somber, he was practically hopping from
foot to foot in his excitement.
Wedge and Tycho looked at one another. Wedge asked, "Have you ever seen
behavior like this?"
Tycho shook his head. "Only when he really, really needs to run to the
refresher. Hobbie, why?"
"Because I am sick of it," Hobbie said. "I'm sick to death of 'Hello, I'm
so-and-so and I've killed this many enemies, and I challenge you, and we bow
and go by the rules and say cute things to one another, and isn't it nice that
we're all dead now?' Tycho, I want to shoot something. I want to blow
something up. No apologies. No advance warning. Just lethal efficiency. Before
frustration kills me."
"More words that he's strung together at once since I've known him,"
Tycho said. "All right, Hobbie. You'll be in charge of the advance squadron
for lead group."
"I don't think he's entirely sane right now," Janson said. "I'd better
stay with him."
"Good idea," Wedge said. "Anyway, Tycho, that's all the modifications I
had to recommend for your plan. I do want to address the pilots, either
directly or by recording, and lay down some rules. I want them flying New
Republic-style. I see a pilot flying for glory instead of victory, I'll be
happy to shoot him down myself."
"Done," said General ya Sethes.
Wedge caught Cheriss's eye. "Cheriss, will you be staying here?"
She shook her head. "I'm being flown in hours early, with a special
ground unit. I could not bring myself to fire upon my city, or tell others
where to drop the bombs... but 1 can help find your X-wings."
"I appreciate that. It might prove to be vital if Turr Phennir and his
pilots are in their TIE Interceptors. Thanks." He turned to Hallis. "What
about you? Staying here, I hope?"
"Are you crazy?" She frowned. "Let me rephrase that. Haven't you been
paying attention? I'm a documentarian. They've granted me a place on one of
the Meteors. I'll be recording all the way in, all the way out."
Wedge considered his responses, but knew he had no way to persuade her
not to come. He could issue orders preventing her... but to do so would
suggest, accurately, that he had no respect for her right to choose her own
destiny. "Good luck," he said, and turned to Iella. "If you haven't already
chosen something suicidal, I have a mission for you."
"Name it."
"I want you to go up to Allegiance, and beg, bribe, and bully your way
aboard, and get a copy of our Tomer Darpen recording into their hands."
"Did that already."
"What?"
Heads raised all across the room at Wedge's shout. He waved people's
attention away, then took Iella's arm and led her a few steps from the table.
"How is that again?"
She smiled at him, her enjoyment at his discomposure very evident. "While
you were sleeping. I asked Escalion for a spaceworthy Blade and a pilot. She
flew me up to Allegiance."
"I wish you'd waited."
"For you to ask me to do exactly what I was going to do? What I was
obliged by my duties as an Intelligence officer to do?"
"That's right." He grinned. "All right, so it's illogical. How did it go?
"
"Strange," she said. "Allegiance's officers, I found out later, were not
happy with the no-communications order from Tomer. All we knew is that the
ship wouldn't respond to our hails. So, very carefully and slowly, we flew up
to her and into the main starfighter bay. There were a lot of soldiers there,
a lot of blaster rifles there pointed at us... but things relaxed a lot when I
identified myself, and I spoke with Captain Salaban. He's as frantic and
resentful as a fighter pilot in a tractor beam with the orders he's under."
"What did you tell him?"
"Well, it was obvious that he intended to obey his orders no matter how
hateful they were to him. Which is nothing more than what I expected. And even
if I'd told him the whole story, it would have been my wordand a juicy bit of
corroborating recorded evidenceagainst anything Tomer Darpen told him, just
enough to cause Salaban distress but not enough to cause him to violate his
orders, in my opinion. So I decided not to hang him on the hook of that
dilemma. I told him about the war that was brewing, and how it came aboutnot
including Tomer Darpen's role in it. I gave him a copy of the recording with a
request that he forward it to Gene ral Cracken's office at the point the
communications blackout was lifted. I also left a copy mislabeled as my will,
and broadcast encrypted copies with a time-based decryption order to the R5
and R2 units of the X-wing squadron aboard."
"I would say you've done more than I could ask you to." He added, a growl
to his voice, "Other than helpfully being out of harm's way when the shooting
starts."
"I'm going to be in one of their reconnaissance craft," she said. "Doing
unit coordination. Well away from the battlefront."
"Battlefronts tend not to have fixed lines, and missiles don't
acknowledge what lines there are."
"That's the best you're going to get, Wedge. Don't push."
He sighed, exasperated. "Were you always this way?"
"No," she said. "I was pretty stubborn when I was younger."
"Just don't feel you have to stay close if things go bad," he said. "Our
chances are still pretty low, even with all those new people and resources
"What is it?"
"I've commanded large forces before. The Lusankya has more combined
firepower than the entire force I'll be leading today. But until now all the
forces I've led have been assigned to me, routine unit assignments, with a
healthy dose of volunteers. This is the first time that such a large group, so
many recruits, have come in just on the strength of my name. It's
disconcerting."
"Don't let it go to your head, Wedge. You won't be able to fit into your
helmet."
"Thanks for the reassurance." He swung her back toward the planning
table. "Back to work."
In the hours before dawn, Wedge stood on the ladder to his Blade's
cockpit, a spotlight on him, a comlink on his collar to broadcast his words,
and prepared to address the troops.
He'd never really understood the pre-mission pep talkor, rather, had
never shared the psychology of the pilots and soldiers who needed and expected
one. He never flew a mission without becoming, at some point before the first
laser was fired, completely committed it; that was the only way to achieve the
objective and maybe stay alive while doing it.
But since inheriting command of Rogue Squadron from Luke Skywalker a
decade ago, he'd learned the hard fact that he often saved lives with the
right words. He wondered if he had the right words with him now. He thumbed on
the comlink and looked out over the vista before himwhat seemed like an
endless stretch of duracrete thick with fighter-craft, pilots, crewmen,
mechanics. Most common were the dark red jumpsuits worn by Yedagon Confederacy
pilots and workers; each person's was deco
rated by scarves, medals, piping, or
other expressions of individuality. Jumpsuits of other colors, representing
other nations, were in evidence. Wedge himself wore the garish orange of the
New Republic starfighter pilot; Hallis had told the Yedagonians what to look
for and they had obligingly equipped Red Flight with the familiar colors.
"People of Adumar," he said. "That's the phrase I have to use to address
you, because it's not appropriate to refer to you by the nations of your
birth. Today you're flying as pilots of your world, with the goal of keeping
personal greed and ambition from ruining your world.
"Today, from this base and countless others, we're going to lift off and
form the greatest air force your world has ever seenexcept one. The forces of
Cartann are greater. They're bigger. So to defeat them, we're going to have to
be better. Here's how we're going to do that.
"Every pilot you line up in your weapon brackets is someone concerned
with what he's going to get out of this conflict. How he's going to profit.
Most plan to profit in the accumulation of honor. Honor bought with your
blood.
"That pilot is thinking about himself. You're not going to do that.
You're going to stay focused on your objective. Don't permit yourself to think
about personal duels, about the accolades you're going to receive. Don't
respond to challenges or personal remarks from the enemy; they don't deserve
your answer. Don't worry about becoming heroes. The moment you committed
yourself to defeating your enemy, at the possible cost of your own lives, you
became heroes. That part is done. Now we move on to something more important.
"Focus on your enemy. How he moves. How he fires. What he must be
thinking. Where his thoughts will take him. Shoot both at him and at where
he's going. Fight now and a few moments in the future. That gives you the
chance to kill him twice. That gives you twice as many guns as he has. And
that's the only way you're going to win.
"If you let your thoughts stray from your enemy, focus them on what's
waiting for you at home. Not the adulation. The wives, the husbands, the
children, the parents. If we fail, they will be defenseless before the forces
of Cartann. That should be enough to put your concentration back where it
belongs... on the enemy.
"It's time to go. I salute you, Adumar." He paused, then said it again