signal on the lightboard, a sw arm of fighters and a pair of larger vehicles
following them.
He descended on repulsorlifts to the duracrete just outside the hangar
doors, intending to whirl around and present his missiles to their pursuers,
but his comm unit kicked in with Cheriss's voice. "Holdout to Red Flight,
please come into the hangar."
"We have incoming"
"They're ours. We need you in here."
Wedge glided forward. As he crossed into the comparative darkness of the
hangar, his goggles depolarized and he could see the building's contents.
It was a spacious hangar, the duracrete floor meticulously clean,
completely absent of the sort of lubricant spills he associated with a hangar
that saw real use. He would have rated it as being spacious enough for two and
a half to three squadrons of Blades, but there were only eight vehicles
present the four X-wings clustered against the back wall, toward the center,
three Blade-32s lined up for quick departure to the left, and a brilliant gold
Blade-28 all alone to the right.
The hangar's living occupants included at least a dozen men and women in
unmemorable dark clothing. There were dead occupants, too, six guards in the
livery of the perator's palace, lying motionless on the duracrete. The members
of the Holdout invasion force clustered near the hangar doors, returning
blaster fire against the balcony snipers across the avenue.
Cheriss stood near the fabulous gold Blade-28. She held a comlink in one
hand and a blaster pistol in the other. "We need you to hit that with missiles
before you go." She pointed with the pistol to a bunkerlike cube of duracrete
in the right rear of the hangar, then fired on it to illuminate it better. Her
blaster shot did no perceptible harm to the hardened metal door at the front
of the bunker.
"Will do," Wedge said. He gained a little altitude, putting his Blade
halfway between floor and ceiling, and said, "Take cover." He waited until
Cheriss ran to what he estimated to be a safe distance, then targeted the
bunker and let fly with a missile.
The shock wave rocked his Blade-32, but when the smoke cleared, the
bunker was merely singed.
"That's really reinforced, Cheriss." Wedge armed both missile ports and
carefully targeted the front of the metal door. "What's behind it?"
"A tunnel... we think."
He glided backward on his repulsorlifts until he was nearly at the exit
once more, and incoming sniper fire hammered away at his rear fuselage. Red
Three, Red Four, and Blastpike Ten set down on the far side of the hangar,
near Cheriss.
Wedge fired again. The shock wave actually pushed him halfway out into
daylight. But when the smoke cleared, the metal door was gone and the bunker's
ceiling was blown out. Wedge saw the roof lying atop one of the Cartann Blade-
32s, which was now crushed.
Wedge's sensors showed that pursuit flight arriving. He turned around to
see them A half-dozen Blades in Yedagon red, most of them thickly decorated
with burn marks, several of them trailing smoke, came across the near rooftops
and set down on the duracrete outside, spinning on their repulsors to land
with their missiles faced outward.
"Gate, begin power-on sequence and run through the portions of the start-
up checklist you can handle. Instruct the other astromechs to do likewise." He
waited for the astromech's confirmation, then shut down most power systems to
his Blade-32. He raised his canopy manually and levered himself out to drop to
the duracrete. The other members of Red Flight hurried to join him, but
Cheriss reached him first. "What is all this?" he asked, and gestured at the
destroyed bunker.
"When Gate broadcast the image of the inside of this hangar to us, we saw
that." She pointed to the gold Blade-28. "There's only one Blade like it in
existence. The Golden Yoke, Perator Pekaelic's own Blade, in which he won his
greatest military victories. If it's here, this is the perator's personal
hangar... and you can be sure the perator is not going to be crossing the
street and waving traffic to stop whenever he wishes to visit his favorite
fighter."
"Meaning that tunnel has to be a direct access..."
"To the palace itself. If we act fast enough, perhaps they won't be able
to array defenses against us like they have on the surface."
Outside, a farumme-class transport in Halbegardian blue settled down to
the duracrete. Its front portions were afire. Side hatches opened and ground
troops wearing the uniforms of Halbegardian elites poured out, streaming into
the hangar in spite of the small-arms fire from the distant balconies.
Ricochets flashed through the hangar sounding like bad musical notes when they
hit metal, like meat sizzling when they hit duracrete.
"Good luck," Wedge said. There wasn't time for more. He hurried to his X-
wing and its canopy rose for him.
It took moments to strap on the flak vest, systems controls, helmet and
gloves, a ritual he could undertake in his sleep... and then he was behind the
controls of his X-wing once more. "No time for full prep," he said. "Be
prepared to go unless you spot a critical failure. Red Leader has four lit and
looking optimal."
"Red Two. Four on-line, ready to fly."
"Red Three. Anxious to show 'em what we can do."
"Red Four. Four lit and in the green."
Wedge's sensor board howled, announcing an enemy target lock. He could
see two black Blade-32s just coming over the horizon of buildings ahead of
him. "Launch, S-foils to attack position, fire at will!" He rose on his
repulsorlift, too fast and jerky, and saw incoming laser fire flash beneath
him to strike the hangar wall. Flame erupted behind him. He couldn't tell
whether Cheriss or any of the troops there had gotten clear, and there was no
time to wait and find out.
He kicked the X-wing forward, firing as his strike foils locked in attack
formation and his targeting brackets flickered from yellow to green. He saw
the red pulses of his quad-linked weapons flash toward the incoming Blades,
hammering through the bow of one of them, chewing mercilessly through its
contents. That Blade banked to starboard and disappeared once more behind the
line of buildings; even at this distance Wedge heard a tremendous impact, saw
the fireball erupt from the crash site.
He was first out of the hangar, with none of the other members of his
flight firingthey were too close in behind him. The lasers of the surviving
incoming Blade hit his front shields. Reduced to negligible power, the laser
strike played across the fuselage just in front of his canopy, doing nothing
more than burning away at paint. He replied with another linked laser blast, a
miss as the incoming pilot veered... then a laser shot from behind him caught
the Blade-32, shredding the port wing. Wedge saw the pilot punch out. The
Blade seemed to aim straight in toward the hangar, a ballistic course, and
flashed by over Wedge's head, over the hangar roof, straight toward the
perator's palace. In his rear viewport, Wedge saw the bank of palace g
uns
swing toward the out-of-control vehicle and burn it from the sky.
Wedge added power to acceleration. "Good shooting, Red Three. Now let's
see what we can show General Phennir."
After so much work with the Blades, flying the X-wing again was more than
mere improvementit was a delight. He sent it up in an ascent that no Adumari
vehicle could match, jinking and juking to give the laser battery gunners
fits, and did a roll just for the sheer joy of it. This wasn't just flying; it
was dancing in the air.
"Red Two, this is Three. Am I crazy, or is the general doing what he
tells us never to do?"
"Three, Two. Yes you are, and yes he is. Pay no attention."
"Understood."
Wedge grinned and set his course due west.
In the time it had taken Red Flight to retrieve its X-wings, the
engagement zone had drifted over the western portions of Cartann City. There,
the laser batteries were silent, but they were the only thing that was. The
sky was rocked from second to second by missile detonations, the ripping noise
of Blades crossing the sky at full speed, the deadly scream of doomed fighters
making their final, uncontrolled descents.
Red Flight came at the engagement zone from a higher altitude, the sun at
their backs, and Wedge's sensors were quick to spot the three remaining TIE
Interceptors, now making another lethal run through the thickest part of the
zone. He plotted their likely return course and transmitted a simple intercept
course to his pilots. "Between here and there," he said, "shoot anything in
Cartann colors."
His X-wing flashed through the engagement zone. He fired when his
brackets went live around an enemy, went evasive when his sensor board told
him an enemy was seeking him with a target lock. Seconds later, he could
visually spot the TIEs, approaching and heading across his path. He got the
green of a laser lock on his targeting brackets and opened fire.
The three TIEs reacted almost instantly. The solo pilot returned fire
while going evasive in a corkscrew maneuver, a dazzling demonstration of
evasive flying. The leader of the remaining wing turned straight toward Red
Flight, a head-to-head that lasted fractions of a second; it fired, green
lasers trying to find a target among the members of Red Flight, and then had
flashed by and was behind them in an instant.
The third Interceptor, Wedge's target, detonated in a brilliant flash. He
saw Tycho fly through the debris cloud. "Two, you all right?"
"Unhurt."
"I'm not." That was Hobbie's voice. "Took a couple of shots from the
head-to-head. Power down to fifty-eight percent. Starboard lasers gone."
On the sensor board, the two Interceptors had joined up and were looping
around to come in behind the X-wings.
"Four, full speed ahead, whatever you can manage," Wedge said. "Three,
stay with him. Two, you and I play crippled." He reduced speed and began
slewing back and forth in a manner that suggested damaged air surfaces and
malfunctioning controls. "Gate, can you give me some smoke, sparks, anything
to suggest I'm hit?"
I WILL APPLY A LASER TORCH TO THE SURFACE OF THE REAR HULL. THE PAINT
WILL IGNITE AND CAUSE SMOKE. THE DAMAGE WILL BE COSMETIC ONLY.
"Do it." This was a gamble, drawing the Interceptors to him and Tycho,
but if the enemy pursued Hobbie instead, they were more than likely to shoot
down the damaged X-wing.
The enemy took the bait. The two Interceptors stayed together and arced
to follow Wedge and Tycho.
Wedge switched to proton torpedoes and reduced forward speed, hard, a
gambit normally used to force a novice or inattentive pursuer to overshoot. It
didn't; the TIE pilot on his tail was too experienced, and fired off a laser
salvo that hammered at the tail of Wedge's X-wing.
But Tycho shot on ahead, his pursuer staying tight behind him, and that
pursuer crossed, in a smooth and predictable arc, into Wedge's brackets. The
brackets flickered to red and he fired.
The Interceptor in his sights became a sky full of smoke and debris.
Wedge headed straight into the destruction cloud. As soon as it surrounded
him, he banked down and to port, hoping the Interceptor would lose him for a
critical second or two.
It did; Wedge saw it shoot through the cloud, waver for a second, and
then loop around in pursuit of him.
Then, as Tycho, at the end of his own loop, appeared in Wedge's forward
viewport, the TIE pilot stood the Interceptor on its tail and rose skyward at
a rate no vehicle on Adumari could match.
Wedge rose in its wake and fired after it, one laser barrage... but his
targeting computer couldn't get a lock on the fast-moving, extraordinarily
maneuverable Interceptor. "Phennir?" he asked.
There was no reply from the Interceptor, but Tycho said, "I think so. And
I'll give you odds that he's about to tell his commanding officer that things
aren't going so well down here, and it's time to bring in the rest of the
Imperial fleet."
"If he is, you'd better pray that I've accomplished one thing with
diplomacy while I've been here." He turned back toward the heart of the
engagement zone. "Form up on me. We're going to give the pilots of Cartann
what they've been asking for for so long."
The loss of the Interceptors did have an effect on the forces of Cartann.
diminishing confidence. As their flying became more conservative, the Adumari
forces' focus began to take a greater and greater toll on them.
And then there were the X-wings, roaring among the Blades at speeds none
of them could match, dancing in and out of engagements almost effortlessly,
sending enemy pilot after pilot down in flames, doing exactly what the
Interceptors had been doing to Cartann's enemies moments before. Even Hobbie's
crippled snubfighter could match a Blade's speed, and was superior to it in
defenses, maneuverability, and firepower; Janson and Hobbie acted as a two-
fighter screen for the surviving Meteor as the giant wing-shaped craft picked
off Cartann's fliers with its long-distance lasers.
Wedge set his course for a half squadron of Blades now forming up at high
altitude; doubtless they meant to dive into a strafing run on fighters at
lower altitudes. But as soon as he had his nose pointed up toward them, one of
his targets spoke up "Hold your fire. Skull-Biters surrender."
Wedge rose toward them, his finger still on the trigger. "Say that again.
"
"Skull-Biters Flightknife surrenders to Red Flight. Our weapons are
powered down."
Another voice cut in "Lords of Dismay Flightknife, two reporting,
surrenders to General Wedge Antilles."
Wedge switched hastily to command frequency. "Eye Three, what's going on?
"
"Not sure, Red Leader. A lot of traffic from the perator's palace. Now
surrenderingwait." She was off the comm waves a few seconds. In that time,
Wedge and Tycho surpassed the waiting Blades' altitude and looped over lazily
for a return descent. Then Iella was back. "Surren
ders confirmed. The palace
is commanding air forces to surrender. And they're surrendering to you. Less
honor lost than giving up to the 'lesser nations.' "
"Understood."
"Holdout requests your immediate presence at the perator's palace."
Wedge growled to himself and switched back to the general frequency.
"This is Antilles. I accept the surrender of Skull-Biters and Lords of Dismay.
Red Three and Red Four now authorized to accept surrenders in my name, during
my absence." He switched back to squadron frequency. "Come on, Tycho. We have
a royal appointment."
13
No laser installations fired on them as they crossed the city again.
Small-arms fire from balconies all around struck the X-wings as they descended
toward the perator's palace outer yard, but that stopped as soon as the
snubfighters were below the level of the walls.
In the outer courtyard, laser battery crews stood beside their pop-up
emplacements with their hands up and behind their heads. Soldiers stood in
similar positions. There were Blades, many of them damaged, on the grounds;
their pilots stood by in attitudes of surrender. Wedge saw two men he thought
were members of the elite Halbegardian invasion force keeping at least two
hundred man and women under cover with nothing but their blaster rifles. And
those two Halbegardians took the time to salute him as he slid out of his
cockpit and dropped to the courtyard surface. A woman in the same uniform
beckoned them from the steps up into the palace.
The Outer Court of the palace was not the place of festivities, or even
gentility, it had been during previous visits. The air was thick with the
smell of burned flesh, and the bodies of liveried guards still lay where
they'd fallen. Courtiers were packed against one wall, held at bay by the
blasters of invadersmembers of the Holdout team and Halbegardian elites.
The perator, stripped of his retinue, stood with captors around him.
Wedge saw, with relief, Cheriss among them. The flatscreens on the walls were
bared and active; one showed Escalion, the perator of the Yedagon Confederacy,
surrounded by advisors in the planning room at Yedagon City, while the other
was broken into numerous smaller squares, some of which were blank and some of
which showed scenes similar to the broadcast from Yedagon; the only difference