Rogriss shook his head. "Intelligence does have a team here. Good luck
finding them; I won't tell you how. But they don't have a holocomm. You have
the time you wanted... at the expense of my career."
Wedge offered his hand. "For what it's worth, you have my respect."
Rogriss took it. "You'll still get word to my children?"
"Yes."
"Even if General Phennir shoots you down when the Imperial forces return?
"
"So he did survive... Yes, even then. First thing, I'll put together some
orders concerning you that will be carried out in case of my death."
"And even if I don't come over to the New Republic?"
"Where would you go instead?"
Rogriss looked around. "I've spent considerable time lately planning how
I was going to exploit the Adumari military weaknesses. Perhaps I can now show
the Adumari where those weaknesses are, how to put armor over them. Perhaps
they'd offer me a position here where I could do so."
"I imagine they would. Either way, I'll arrange to get word to your
children."
"Thank you."
14
Wedge stood at the edge of the magcon field separating the atmosphere of
Allegiance's main starfighter bay from the vacuum of space beyond. Below, he
could see MOM Casima, the Mon Calamari cruiser now assigned to the Adumar
operation, less than two kilometers below. Other New Republic ships were out
there, not visible to him but on-stationfrigates, corvettes, aging cruisers
that had once served the Empire or even the old Republic before it, as big a
fleet as the New Republic could spare and assemble on such short notice. Not
even Lusankya, the flagshipand sometimes only shipof the task force Wedge
normally commanded, would be present; in his absence, it had been dispatched
on other duties.
The air was cold, as was common with starfighter bays in space; magcon
fields were not good at retaining heat. The piercing noises of repulsorlifts
being brought on-line cut through him, and the sound of engines being tested
vibrated him to the bone.
To Wedge, it was almost like being at home.
Almost. From now on, he knew, home would be where he and Iella chose to
be togetherquarters on Coruscant with its overwhelming press of population, a
small house on some grassy patch on an insignificant colony world, even
Corellia, someday, if things changed in the way that system was governed.
But that was a problem to solve tomorrow or the day after that. For now,
there was Adumar.
Cartann City and a number of smaller metropolises had been seriously
damaged during the Adumari Union raid. Hundreds of Blades and other vehicles
on both sides had been lost, and many brave pilots. Wedge had been sorry to
hear that Liak ke Mattino, captain of Strike the Moons Flightknife, who had
risked his perator's displeasure to give Red Flight a chance at escape, was
among the dead, as were many of the pilots Wedge had trained against in the
days before the outbreak of war.
The former perator was now hidden away on an estate somewhere within
Cartann's borders, formally protected by his son from prosecution at the hands
of the Adumari Union Council. Many of the world's other perators had
protested, but Balass ke Teldan had stood fast by the terms he demanded for
Cartann's peaceful and quick admission into the union, so it appeared that
Pekaelic would avoid prosecution for his poor judgment and autocratic
politics.
That would not be the case with Tomer Darpen. The onetime regional head
of New Republic Intelligence was safely locked away in prison quarters,
plotting his trial defense, blissfully unaware of the recording Hallis had
made of the conversation that would doom him.
Tomer's temporary replacement would not be the detriment Tomer had been.
Appointed by General Cracken, Iella Wessiri was now managing the New
Republic's Intelligence matters on Adumar with her usual efficiency.
"Are you sure you don't want to direct your forces from Allegiance's
bridge?" Iella asked.
Wedge looked up, startled. Iella had appeared beside him, in deceptive
clothing, a naval lieutenant's uniform, and had joined Wedge in studying the
skies beneath them.
Wedge looked around, saw that no one was near them, and affected
surprise. "I'd swear you were talking to me. What an odd question to put to a
pilot."
Iella managed a little smile. "Sorry. Lost my head for a moment. You
can't blame me for trying."
"No, I can't."
She put an arm around his waist, rested her head on his shoulder. "I'm
proud of you," she said.
"We haven't won, yet."
"Not for winning. For being willing to lose. For standing by your guns
when the whole galaxy seemed to be arrayed against your decision."
"That wasn't fun. But when I was sure I was about to lose everything, and
I discovered that I hadn't lost you after all... that made it all livable."
"But that leaves me with one big worry about the future."
"That I'm still flying?"
He felt her shake her head. She said, "No, that you're almost as stubborn
as I am. I"
Whatever her next words might have been, they were cut short by the
single blare of an alarm, followed by words that echoed throughout the bay
and, Wedge knew, throughout th e ship "Reconnaissance unit High Flight Three
Beta reports arrival of Imperial vessels in Adumari space. Three repeat three
Imperial-class Star Destroyers and numerous secondary vessels inbound. All
personnel to battle stations. All pilots to muster stations."
Wedge sighed. "That's it." He pulled her to him for a quick kiss.
"I can't ask you to be safe," she said.
He shook his head.
"So shoot straight. And faster than they do."
"Count on it. I love you."
"I love you." She broke from him and hurried off to her station, casting
one last look over her shoulder at him before she joined the personnel
streaming out the exit and was gone.
They formed up a kilometer off Allegiance's bow, an impressive fighter
group Wedge's Red Flight, two shield-equipped TIE fighter squadrons, one
slightly understrength A-wing squadron, a unit of B-wings, a Y-wing squadron,
the High Flight X-wing unit off Allegiance, and three space-equipped Blade-32
flightknives from the planet's surfacetwo from Yedagon and one from Cartann.
They were 106 fighters in strength.
"Allegiance's sensors show the enemy TIE squadrons issuing from the Star
Destroyers," Wedge said. "Fighters escorting bombersa lot of bombers. They
expect us to try to intercept with our fighters. Here's how we're going to
play it instead.
"Our advance screen is Red Flight, High Flight Squadron, Lightflash
Squad, and Contender and Skylight Squadrons." That put the X-wings, A-wings,
and TIE fighters at the fore of Wedge's group. "The rest of you hang back in
formation until we're fully engaged and you can calculate where the action is
thickestand where the enemy is less likely to be able to break away to engage
you. Approach by those vectors and unload everything you have on Agonizer."
&n
bsp; That put the B-wings of Solar Wind Squadron, Y-wings of Remember Derra
Squadron, and Blades of the Ice Edge, Frozen Death, and Sunwhip Flightknives
behind on missiling duty. "You Blades remember to fire on the command of your
flightknife commanders, in unison; your missiles lack the punch of proton
torpedoes, so you're going to have to land precisely timed mass fire if you're
going to do any harm to a Star Destroyer. Understood?"
He was answered by confirmations from each of the squadron commanders.
"All right. Let's go." He transmitted the intercept course to the group
and vectored to lead the way to the enemy.
As his group formed up on him, he switched the comm board over to the
main Adumari broadcast frequency. The two-dimensional image that was the
continuous flatscreen broadcast filled his main screen. It showed an older
man, a patch over one eye not quite concealing the scar that both rose and
descended from his eye socket, addressing the flatcam.
"... continues to hold out against Adumari Union forces," the man said.
"Despite reports that Pekaelic's forces decline in number every day, assaults
by units of his informal force continue to occupy Union attention and slow the
Union efforts to bring peace to Adumar. At sunrise, Yedagon time, this
morning, units of the Cartannese Lords of Dismay Flightknife, now allied with
the former perator, escorted a bombing raid that destroyed six residential
blocks in Yedagon's prestigious Accolux Township..."
Wedge switched it off. This was the third day of broadcasts that were, in
essence, all lies. Scripted by Hallis Saper with the input of the Adumari
Union's military advisors, the broadcasts told the tale of the former perator,
Pekaelic ke Teldan, still mounting a mighty struggle against the conquering
Adumari Union, keeping war raging across all the civilized nations of Adumar.
The public followed the news accounts keenly. The guerrilla warfare always
took place in communities that could be, and were, shut off from the outer
world by military occupation... meaning that Imperial Intelligence agents on
the ground would have a hard time disproving them.
Meanwhile, the true Pekaelic rested in the Cartannese township his son
had chosen for his exile, barely aware of the events that were being
attributed to him. All he knew was that he had a broadcast to make and a
script to follow when instructed to do so.
If all went as it was supposed to, the Empire's Intelligence team or
Adumar would have been recording all these transmissions for the last three
days, analyzing them and interpreting them, but not discovering that they were
all lies. Even now, they'd be transmitting their findings to the Imperial task
force headed toward the planet. With luck, the task force would believe the
accounts of a world still at war, its military might scattered.
Well before Wedge's group spotted the enemy Star Destroyers, Allegiance
reported that elements of the 181st Imperial Fighter Group, escorting numerous
squadrons of TIE bombers, was descending into Cartann airspace. Blips
representing other Imperial fighter units were also detected in descent.
And then the Star Destroyer formation came into view, Agonizer at the
point, Retaliator and Master Stroke well behind, other, smaller vessels
throughout the convoy. Wedge set his course straight for the flagship.
"Pilots, arm your weapons. X-wings, S-foils to attack position. Squadron
commanders, you are free for individual deployment." He was not surprised to
see the speed-happy A-wing pilots jump out ahead almost instantly. He switched
to squadron frequency. "Red Flight, High Flight Squadron, call 'em as you see
'em."
"Red One, High Flight Twelve. I detect incoming TIE fighters and
Interceptors... and two wing pairs of TIE Defenders. They've left behind a
pretty ferocious screen."
Wedge grimaced. The TIE Defender was one of the best starfighters known.
Equipped with three sets of solar wing arrays, equally spaced around the
spherical fuselage, instead of two, and outfitted with shields equal to an X-
wing's and weapons and speed superior to the X-wing, it was an extraordinary
and extraordinarily costlystarfighter. "Red Leader to Solar Wind Squadron.
Solar Wind Seven through Twelve, move up to join the screen. We're going to
need your help with the TIE Defenders."
"Acknowledged, Red Leader."
Space ahead lit up like interplanetary fireworks as Agonizer's
turbolasers and ion cannons went active. That meant the A-wings had come
within range. Seconds later, he spotted the first of the incoming TIE
fighters-mere blips on his sensor board that materialized into fast-moving
blurs in his forward viewport.
He linked his lasers for quad fire, giving them a harder punch but a
slower cycle rate. "Break by pairs and fire at will," he said.
The X-wings around him spread out, maintaining their course straight
toward the incoming enemies. Head-to-head combat approaches were among the
most dangerous tactics for starfighters, but they favored the shielded X-wings
slightly over the unshielded TIEs.
On the heads-up display projected onto his forward viewport, Wedge's
yellow targeting brackets tracked an incoming TIE Interceptor, the brackets
X-wing into the juking and jinking maneuvers that made it a more difficult
target and manually swept his targeting brackets across the path he suspected
the TIE would take next. His suspicion was right; the TIE dove straight
through the path his brackets were tracing and the brackets went green. Wedge
fired. He was rewarded only with a graze as one of his lasers charred the
Interceptor's starboard solar wing black. The TIE veered off its intended
course, away from Wedge and the X-wings.
Incoming green lasers matched outgoing red ones in number and intensity,
and Wedge saw, in his peripheral vision, one of the High Flight X-wings
explode, leaving only burning gas and rapidly cooking shrapnel behind.
Then the lines of TIEs and New Republic fighters met, merged, and
separated again, the TIE squadrons flashing past. In a second the TIEs were
behind him but coming around in their impossibly tight loops to come up behind
the slower New Republic craft.
"Red Leader, got an eyeball," Tycho said.
Wedge checked by sensors and visually. A TIE fighter, or eyeball in
pilot's parlance, had come up behind Tycho and was unloading a continuous
stream of laser fire at him, though Tycho's erratic side-to-side motions had
kept him from sustaining any but the most grazing of laser impacts.
"Read you, Two. I'm your wing." Wedge turned in Tycho's wake.
Tycho dove"downward" being the direction of Adumar's orbital planein a
shallow arc the most inexperienced of pilots could have followed. Less easy to
follow would have been his extraordinary evasive maneuvering within the simple
arc. The TIE fighter followed, keeping up his laser fire, and Wedge came up
behind.
He fired once, his four lasers flashing through empty space where, a
quarter second before, the TIE had been. T
he nimble eyeball flashed off to
port, breaking away from its pursuit of Tycho.
"You'd think he wanted to stay alive or something, Lead."
"Let's disabuse him of the notion. Back to the fur-ball." Wedge turned
toward the most active portion of the engagement zone.
He could see on his sensor board the second wave of fighters, the
missile-bearing craft, heading in two columns around the engagement zone
toward Agonizer. And what he could see, the enemy could see. It would be best
not to give the TIE Defenders a crack at those columns; Defenders would tear
the slow-moving Y-wings and Blades to pieces. He identified the nearest
Defender on his sensor board and headed straight for it.
It was engaged with two Allegiance TIE fighters and a B-wing operating in
concert. As Wedge approached, the Defender's lasers chewed through one of the
TIE fighters; the eyeball vented the gases in its cockpit and went dark. A
linked ion-cannon blast from the B-wing missed the Defender by thirty meters
or more, and the Defender's return ion blast eliminated the other TIE fighter,
filling its cockpit with sparks before the vehicle went dark.
"Red Two, go wide. Let's give him nothing but guns to run toward." Wedge
looped to starboard, away from his wingman, and Tycho looped to port; they
arced toward the B-wing and Defender from opposite directions.
The Defender, itself looping around for a run at the B-wing, instead
swung wide to keep clear of its original target and accelerated toward Tycho,
Wedge's targeting brackets flickered green across the Defender. He fired,
but his lasers were meters off the mark.
Tycho and the Defender, skittering around like drops of ale on a cooking
surface, came toward one another, Tycho unloading lasers, the Defender firing
ion cannons. They passed one another seemingly undamaged... until Wedge
noticed that Tycho was no longer maneuvering. Red Two's X-wing was dark,
headed out to space like a missile with no guidance control.
Wedge bit back a curse. He didn't bother trying to raise Tycho on the
comlink. Ion cannons tended to wipe out all a vehicle's electronics. Tycho was
out of the game unless he could manage a cold start on his engines, an
unlikely eventuality.
Instead, Wedge turned in the Defender's wake. He'd have only a shot or
two before the other vehicle's superior speed and maneuverability would take