it out of Wedge's range.
As his targeting brackets edged toward the Defender, its pilot detected
the attempted targeting lock and went evasive, executing the kind of side-to-
side maneuvers that only a TIE-style vehicle could manage. He also put on a
burst of acceleration, drawing away from the
X-wing at a prodigious rate, and began a tight loop upward that would
inevitably put him at Wedge's stern.
Wedge shook his head and held his fire. Instead, he maneuvered his
brackets around and across his target, seeing which way the Defender jumped
whenever threatened with an imminent hit. The Defender's response was always a
spiraling loop down and to starboard, a fatal predictability... Wedge ran his
brackets toward the Defender one last time, then, not waiting for the
Defender's response, sent his X-wing into a loop down and to starboard.
The Defender rolled right into his targeting brackets. The pilot saw his
mistake, began a reverse, but Wedge fired, quad-linked lasers punching through
the vehicle's engines and into the cockpit. Fire flared through the hole he'd
made, then the vehicle detonated.
Wedge found the B-wing on his sensors. "Red Leader to Solar Wind Eight.
Tag Red Two, calculate his course and velocity, and transmit that data to
Allegiance with a request for rescue."
"Will do, Red Leader."
Wedge turned back toward the heart of the engagement.
He could see, in the distancenot so great a distance as beforethe B-
wings, Y-wings, and Blades beginning their attack run on Agonizer. A little
flare of light within the Y-wing formation had to be one of the wishbones
intercepting a turbolaser blast, with fatal results.
Then bright lights began erupting on Agonizer's hull, proton torpedo and
Adumari missile impacts. A moment later the first barrage was done and Wedge
could see char marks and buckled hull plates where the attack had hit.
No substantial penetration. "Red Leader to all Blade-Thirty-twos.
Concentrate your fire or you'll never get penetration. Flightknife leaders,
pick a target and transmit its location to your pilots for your next barrage
or you might as well be throwing spitwads."
He heard the trio of acknowledgments, barely registering them, the
Blades' problem already washed from his mental processes. Ahead, another TIE
Defender, this one with red paint on its solar wing arrays, was turning into
his path and accelerating toward him.
Red paintthat probably meant red horizontal stripes on the solar wings,
and that meant it was piloted by a member of the 181st. Not many pilots of any
unit, no matter how prestigious, rated a Defender. Turr Phennir was the
logical candidate.
Wedge set logic aside. He needed his experience and his instincts now.
The Defender came straight at him, accelerating at full. Wedge bared a
carnivore's grin. If he survived the head-to-head run, he'd have more time to
turn about and confront the Defender againthe Defender's high rate of speed
would make him overshoot Wedge and take his time turning around.
As he tried to target the madly maneuvering Defender, his brackets
flickered from yellow to green and back again at a rate too quick for him to
respond toby the time he saw green and pulled his trigger, the brackets would
have cycled through colors two or three more times. As the Defender came into
optimal range, he fired anyway, saw his lasers flash through the gap between
his target's solar wing arrays, felt an impact, and then he was past and
looping around toward the Defender once more.
Diagnostics said his forward landing strut actuator was gone and
indicated progressive problems with the launch mechanism for his proton
torpedoes. He didn't need the diagnostics to see the black hole that had
appeared in his X-wing's nose. For the laser shot to have pierced the top side
of his fuselage and hit both proton torpedo launchers and landing strut, it
would have had to have been a hard and accurate hit.
Not his problem now. He got turned around and headed toward the Defender
again. He was aware of fa - miliar voices over the comlink, but his call sign
was not being used and he ignored them.
This time, he ignored the color changes on his brackets. He settled into
his pilot's couch, felt its familiar contours around him, allowed his senses
to spread out through his X-wing and ahead toand intothe Defender rushing at
him.
This wasn't use of the Force; to Wedge, the Force was as incomprehensible
as astronavigation was to a bantha. But his long experience allowed him focus
and responses that others sometimes considered mystical. He knew the change in
engine pitch that said one of his generators was malfunctioning, the flash of
light from his lasers that said one had drifted out of alignment, the subtle
variations in acceleration that said his power was surging erratically.
He thought past the armor of the Defender, past the TIE pilot's suit, to
the human beyond. He felt the pilot's twitch of response when he sent his X-
wing swerving out of the pilot's own targeting brackets.
He felt his laser's aim rest on the pilot and he fired.
Then he was past, and looping around for another run.
The Defender, in the distance, wasn't looping back toward him. In fact,
it wasn't quite a TIE Defender, anymore. The top solar wing array was gone,
its pylon destroyed where it met the hull, and the Defender was venting
atmosphere into space.
But it was still under control. The Defender picked up speed, heading out
of the engagement zone at full acceleration. The pilot was supplied breathing
air by his flight suit, but the loss of his cockpit atmosphere to space meant
he was getting cold, and fast; he had only a few minutes before he'd freeze to
death. He was out of the combat.
"Good shot, boss."
Wedge checked his sensor board, then looked to either side. "When did you
get here?"
Red Three flew to his port side, Red Four to his starboard.
"Just now," Janson said. "You had a couple of opportunistic squints
headed toward you. We scraped 'em off."
"Thanks." Wedge shook his head, trying to force himself out of the flow
state he'd entered. "Was that Phennir?"
"According to our sensors, probably so."
"Tycho?"
"There's a damaged A-wing pacing him. The rescue shuttle has him on its
list."
They were out of the main fight area and not engaged with enemies. Wedge
turned back toward Agonizer just in time to see a brilliant fire flare up from
its surfacethe result of multiple missile hits breaching the shields and then
the hull. The impact area, far starboard of the ship's center line, suggested
that the damage would not be fatal to the Star Destroyer... but loss of
atmosphere, structural integrity, and human life would be considerable. If the
commander had any sense, the vessel would pull out of the engagement.
If.
"Red Leader to Allegiance. Give me a conflict status update, please."
"Allegiance here." It was, as he'd hoped, Iella's voice. "Imperial forces
assaulting Aduma's surface are suffering heavy losse
s. They appear to have
been anticipating a disorganized response and have been taken off-guard by the
Adumari Union counterattacks. The TIE bombers have been especially hard-hit.
The Imps also appear to have mounted a rescue operation to retrieve the
perator of Cartann and, presumably, install him as a puppet ruler... but two
transports full of stormtrooper elites are in Union hands now."
"Good to hear."
"In your group, the Blade squadrons were particularly hard-hit, with over
thirty percent casualties and fatalities, but your group has inflicted heavy
damage to Agonizer."
Indeed, as Wedge watched, the prow of t he Star Destroyer slowly began to
come about, away from Adumar's sun and the system's inner planets. In the
distance, a point on the bow of the Star Destroyer Master Stroke flared into
incandescence, sign of a serious detonation.
Wedge breathed a sigh of relief. This battle wasn't done, but the
Imperials, calculating that the New Republic would be the only organized
forces defending Adumar, had had the heavy end of the hammer dropped on them
by united Adumari forces. When the spasms of pain from devastated TIE
squadrons and damaged Star Destroyers finally hit the mission commanderswhich
appeared to be happening nowthe Imperial forces would withdraw.
They'd be back someday. But before then, Wedge hoped, the New Republic
would have taught Adumar more about defending itself.
"Thanks, Allegiance. Out." He switched back to squadron frequency. "Red
Flight, let's do some hitting while we still have the chance."
15
He'd already made his good-byes to Adumar, another speech from the plaza
receiving stand in Cartann City before a crowd.
The crowd wasn't quite so mindlessly enthusiastic this time. Some of its
members chose to recall that Wedge had flown against them just days before.
But others, still caught up in the worship of pilot excellence, or
appreciative of the new configuration of Adumar's government, still cheered.
And now he stood as the centerpiece of the farewell party for Wedge
Antilles, Ambassador. He was back in his Cartann quarters, once again in New
Republic dress uniform, among a crowd made up of New Republic pilots and
Adumari noblesincluding pilots, ministers, and the perators of Cartann and
the Yedagon Confederacy. And he had signs of progress to cheer himsuch as
Cartann's recent request for a set of flight simulators.
Iella took his arm. She was dressed once more in the moving-fire dress;
he'd told her he liked it. "I know Intelligence has tried to recruit you once
or twice," she said.
"But I have a feeling that the diplomatic corps just isn't going to."
Wedge smiled. "Good. I'd be obliged to shoot whoever came to me with the
offer. Saves me a murder trial."
Balass ke Teldan, Cartann's new perator, approached. "I am so sorry," he
said.
"For what?"
"Your last flight in Adumar space and it gives you only a single kill."
Wedge shrugged away that concern. "That kill was a TIE Defender. Very
prestigious. If prestige is your aim."
"Which, I know, is not one of your worries." The perator lost his slight
smile. "My father's ways are old-fashioned. Not suited even to the world he
wanted to build. But he is an honorable man, within the code he embraces, and
wishes to offer you an apology. He is furious that Tomer Darpen was able to
convince him that you sought death when you did not, and deeply saddened that
he offered it. I think he does not care for your forms of honor... but he
recognizes them."
Wedge lowered his gaze for a moment. He had no doubt that the perator
best served now by remaining in exile, with little or no influence on Cartann.
Wedge had imagined that the former ruler would while away his remaining years,
doing little but polishing his memories of the successes of his youth,
offering others little but bad advice and a growing dissatisfaction with what
his world would become. But that was, perhaps, doing Pekaelic a disservice.
The old man might change, might adapt. He might even lead again, by example,
someday.
Wedge returned his gaze to Balass's. "Please tell him I accept."
"I shall. For now, though, I offer my last farewell. Duty calls." He
offered a minimal bow, shook Wedge's hand, and was gone.
Iella said, "Poor boy."
"How do you mean?"
"He's a perator now. He can't lavish praise upon you and beg you to teach
"As if he would."
"He would. Our profile on him says he's one of your biggest admirers. But
now he's locked behind the ruler's mask and can never admit it."
"That's politics for you." Wedge looked around the chamber.
Janson and a crowd of admirers occupied a corner. Janson was in his dress
uniform, but, in violation of regulations, had his favorite cloak on over it.
The flatscreen panels on the cloak showed a line of Jansons, arms linked,
doing high kicks like a dancing chorus. Wedge wondered where he'd gotten the
image. He also wondered if there was any way to space that cloak, once they
were headed back to Coruscant, without Janson knowing.
Tycho and Hobbie stood in a cluster of pilots, their hands moving,
showing the respective positions of starfighters from some past dogfight.
Hallis was at the counter that served as the party's bar, her expression
perplexed, as it had been for the last few days. The recordings she had made
ever since Red Flight had been condemned to run its gauntlet had been
increasingly inappropriate for the documentary she'd hoped to assemble. Some
were now even classified. Yet the Adumari Union had settled a small fortune on
her for her hard work in scripting the broadcasts that had successfully misled
the Imperial invaders, and Wedge suspected, though Iella would not confirm it,
that New Republic Intelligence had made an offer for her future services in
the field of propaganda and deception. She looked like a woman with too many
choices to make and not enough time to make them.
He turned, looking for Cheriss, and there she was beside him. "Ah.
Cheriss. I wanted you to know that I've transmitted your application to the
academy, along with my recommendation."
"Thank you. May I ask another favor?"
"Certainly."
"May I leave Adumar with your ship?"
Wedge hesitated. The last thing he needed was for her crush on him to
interfere with his time with Iella...
"You see," she continued, "the new perator is obliged to dislike me. I
was a member, the chief guide actually, of the party that captured his father.
Mywhat did Hobbie call it? endorsement arrangement has already been
canceled, and the owner of the building where I keep my quarters has issued a
decree of eviction. If I'm to move, I might as well move all at once. Even if
your academy does not accept me"
"You'll find work teaching the art of the sword, believe me. Of course,
Cheriss. I'll arrange it with Captain Salaban."
"Thank you." With a smile, she returned to the group Hobbie and Tycho
were entertaining.
Wedge couldn't quite suppress
a rueful grin, and Iella saw it. "What?"
"I was in the process of flattering myself," Wedge said, "and I got
caught doing it."
"You just flatter yourself anytime you want. I'll always be here to bring
you back to ground."
He drew her hands up around his neck, took her about the waist, and began
a slow dance of Corellia.
"Wedge, there's no music."
"Well, for the next few hours anyway, until we pack up and jump out of
system, I can snap my fingers and have anything I want. One of the rewards of
fame. You want music?"
"No." She rested her head on his shoulder. "This is perfect."
He nodded, feeling her hair soft beneath his chin.
Perfect it was.