the airspeeder and compared it with the maps. As the air-
speeder sank to his level and below it, something clicked in
the back of his mind. That's it. I've got them.
"Give me the lowest route in you can find, Mynock."
Wedge banked starboard, chopped his thrust back, and
brought the repulsorlift coils online. He hovered and drifted
forward, remaining just outside the corridor described by the
map Mynock had brought up. As he watched he saw the
airspeeder move onto the route and begin to follow it in.
Wedge smiled. It struck sparks in the warehouse and
dropped like a rock outside. It's still going down because it's
carrying too much weight. The speeder-ferry that was going
down when I first flew in must have been meant to haul this
bomb to a point where it could head down in at the bacta
store. Now they have to go low because they don't have
enough power to go high.
He switched his fire control over to lasers and linked all
four to give him a quad burst. As he did so, the airspeeder
cruised through the thoroughfare. Wedge picked his speed up
and dropped straight in behind it. Someone in the speeder
spotted him and started shooting at him with a blaster rifle,
but the bolts harmlessly impacted on Wedge's forward
shield. The pilot tried to make the airspeeder juke, but every
sideslip and turn just brought the vehicle lower and lower.
And into Wedge's sights.
He hit the trigger and sent a quartet of scarlet laser-bolts
to converge on the blocky vehicle. The lasers vaporized the
roof and filled the passenger compartment with fire. The
speeder began to fall faster, with the aft end sagging down-
ward. Something exploded up front, starting the speeder into
a backward somersault. Two more quad bursts from the
X-wing reduced the large chunks of vehicle into mist and
metal hail.
The vapor cloudamade up mostly of gaseous explo-
sives-ignited in a flash, momentarily blinding Wedge and
prompting a scream from Mynock. Wedge kept a light but
steady hand on the stick and rode out the shockwave. The
X-wing's shields held, saving the fighter from damage. As his
vision cleared and he flew through the smoke, he saw no
trace of the airspeeder.
He smiled. "See that, Mynock? That mission wasn't so
tough."
The droid brayed in what Wedge took to be a vaguely
triumphant manner.
"Rogue Leader here. The bomb is gone. Report."
"Three here, Lead. We are over the Manarai Mountain
district and have big anomalies out to the southwest. I have
TIEs coming in, at least one wing."
"I copy, Three. On my way." Wedge hauled back on the
stick and jammed his throttle full forward. The X-wing rock-
eted straight up. "Confirm thirty-six TIEs, Three."
"Confirm thirty-six, Lead, eyeballs and squints. They're
coming this way and there's something else out there."
Rhysati sounded shaken. "My sensors aren't picking it up at
all well."
"Standby, Three." Wedge punched his comm unit over
to another opchannel. "Antilles here. What's down there to
the southwest?"
"Palace district control here, Rogue Leader. We're not
sure. Civilian side is reporting groundquakes and massive
destruction. We're just turning a satellite in that direction.
Data coming up--I'll give you the raw feed."
"I copy, control." Wedge looked at the scan splaying
itself across his sensor monitor and felt his spirits sinking as
low as Mynock's mournful whistle. "That can't be. It just
can't be."
"You're getting what we're getting, Rogue Leader."
Wedge flicked the comm unit back to the squadron's
tactical frequency. "Three and Four, get back here. Now."
"What's out there, Lead?"
Wedge shivered. "It's something that shouldn't be there,
Three. IFF beacons report it's a Super Star Destroyer that
goes by the name Lusankya."
42
Admiral Ackbar took his seat at the high bench, with Gener-
tively. He waited for the defendant and prosecutor to be
seated, then he looked out over the sparsely populated court-
room. "Today's session will be abbreviated. Even the most
simple voyage can be ended by an unanticipated wave, and
the wave affecting us here was titanic in proportions."
He glanced down at Tycho Celchu and the two droids at
the defense table. "Captain Celchu, your lawyer is not here
because approximately an hour ago he was shot and seri-
ously wounded in the parking facility on the upper floors of
this building. The assassin has been killed, but we have
sealed the building for security reasons nonetheless. Nawara
Ven was shot while in the process of bringing to court a
witness who had recently surfaced to provide proof of your
innocence. The witness offered his testimony on your behalf
in return for a new identity and repatriation to another
world. He provided a datacard filled with encrypted infor-
mation that backed his claims concerning you as well as
claims concerning the Imperial espionage net here on Corus-
cant.
"Unfortunately the assassin who wounded Counselor
Ven succeeded in killing this witness." Ackbar looked over
toward where Airen Cracken sat on the prosecution side of
the court. "General Cracken has assured me he has people
working on the datacard to see if they can slice the informa-
tion out, but there is no telling if or when they will succeed."
Tycho frowned. "Where does this leave me?"
Halla Ettyk stood. "Admiral, the prosecution would be
amenable to a continuance until Counselor Ven has recov-
ered."
"Granted." Admiral Ackbar raised a gavel. "If there is
nothing more we will stand in recess until Counselor Ven is
able to continue."
Tycho held a hand up. "Wait, please, isn't there some-
thing I can do? Isn't it possible for me to represent myself in
his absence?"
"That has always been your right, Captain Celchu."
Halla looked over at Tycho. "The admiral is correct, but
really there is nothing you can do."
"I can call and question a witness."
The prosecutor shook her head and pointed at her
datapad. "Not really. I have before me the list of witnesses
Counselor Ven said you were going to call. None of the
members of Rogue Squadron are here and available. The
Duros Lai Nootka is not here and, unfortunately, is probably
dead. You have no witnesses." Whistler tooted.
Emtrey's clamshell head came up. "Whistler says we do
have a witness."
Halla frowned. "Who?"
Tycho stood. "I can testify on my own behalf."
"It would be a mistake to do so, Captain. I would rip
you apart on cross."
The R2 unit blatted rudely.
Tycho patted Whistler on the dome. "I agree."
Emtrey canted his head to the side. "Ah, sir, Whistler
was agreeing with Commander Ettyk. You're not his witness.
Your testimony won't put this whole business to rest."
Halla shook her head. "The only witness who could do
that is dead."
Whistler trumpeted loudly, whirling his head full around
in a circle. The droid bounced excitedly and his tone became
a piercing shriek.
Ackbar's gavel cracked once, sharply, jerking Emtrey to
attention. "Tell Whistler to calm down or I'll have a re-
straining bolt put on him."
The little droid stopped and hummed mournfully.
"Now what was he talking about, Emtrey?"
Whistler answered.
Emtrey glanced sharply down at him and gave him a
good clout on the dome. "Make sense, Whistler. They're
waiting."
Whistler repeated his previous answer.
The 3PO unit raised its arms and looked up at Ackbar.
"I am sorry, sir, but he makes no sense. The stress--circuits
must have become polarized. He doesn't know what he's
saying."
Ackbar sighed. "Answer my question. Who is he saying
this witness is?"
Before Emtrey could answer, a man spoke from the
court's open doorway. "Begging your pardon, Admiral, 1
think Whistler intends for me to be called as a witness."
Ackbar's barbels twitched. From the black depths all
manner of beasts can swim. "This is impossible."
"It wasn't easy," Corran Horn smiled, "but as for im-
possible, Admiral, you know impossible is what Rogue
Squadron does best of all."
43
Wedge snaprolled up on the port S-foil, then pulled the stick
back to the box over his breastbone. He rolled the X-wing
into a dive, then came up and around to starboard in a hori-
zontal loop that brought him back head-to-head with the
pair of eyeballs that had been bucking his exhaust. He spit-
ted one on his crosshairs and hit the trigger, filling it with
coherent light. The cockpit instantly combusted, and, trailing
thick black smoke, the TIE fighter corkscrewed down to slam
into a ferrocrete tower.
The TIE's wingman tried to avenge his partner, but
Wedge never gave him a chance. He hit the left rudder pedal,
pulling the aft end of the X-wing off to the right. The maneu-
ver skidded the fighter out of the TIE's line of flight and fire.
The TIE pilot tried to match the stunt, but as he did so he
brought his fighter's hexagonal solar panel perpendicular to
the ship's flight-line. In the vacuum of space that move
would have given him a good shot at Wedge, but in atmo-
sphere, it made the TIE jump and begin to roll.
Wedge brought the X-wing up on its port stabilizers and
dove after the TIE. Just as the pilot began to regain control,
slowing his spin, Rogue Squadron's leader tightened up on
his trigger. A quad burst of laserfire blasted the port solar
panel off the fighter. The TIE began to tumble uncontrollably
toward the ground, but before it could descend into the
black bowels of Coruscant, it bounced off an aerial walkway
and exploded.
Pulling back on his stick, Wedge nosed his fighter
toward the sky. He wanted to feel some remorse for the
pilots he'd just killed. He waited for concern to bubble up in
him for the people who could have been hurt when those
TIEs fell into the city below. He wanted something other
than cold concentration filling him, but he didn't expect it to
come. Those thoughts and emotions are normal, but normal
doesn't exist at this place and time.
All around him TIEs and the X-wings of Rogue Squad-
ron swooped and climbed, rolled, dove, and looped. Laser-
bolts, green and red, filled the air as if each fighter was a
renegade cloud spitting abbreviated lightning bolts at its ene-
mies. TIEs exploded with regularity, showering the cityscape
with half-molten bits of metal and staining the sky with oily
black streaks that were the mortal remains of their pilots.
As exciting and dramatic as the dogfight raging above
the mountain district was, Wedge remained cold and in
shock. Out there a white needle stabbed skyward. The
Lusankya--a Super Star Destroyer eight kilometers in
length--laid waste to the area beneath which it had lain bur-
ied for years. Green turbolaser bolts pounded the cityscape,
freeing the ship from the ferrocrete and transparisteel prison
in which it had laired.
Wedge knew Super Star Destroyers had only come into
service after the Battle of Yavin, which meant the Lusankya
had to have been created and hidden on Coruscant before
the battle of Endor. Unless the constructor droids just built it
there, then built over it. The idea that a hundred-square-
kilometer area of the planet could have been razed and re-
built to hide a Super Star Destroyer seemed beyond belief,
especially with no one noticing the ship's insertion into the
hole. Could the Emperor's power through the dark side of
the Force have been sufficient to compel thousands or mil-
lions of people to forget having seen the Lusankya being
buried?
As hideous as that idea seemed, Wedge hoped it was the
truth. The likely alternative--that the Emperor had ordered
the deaths of all the witnesses--seemed that much more hor-
rible.
"Lead, you have a squint coming up from below."
"Thanks, Five." Wedge rolled to port, then dove into a
looping roll that took him out and around the Interceptor's
attack vector. He let his dive carry him down into the upper
reaches of the city. Using control telemetry from a skyhook
to keep track of the squint, he cut around one of the star-
raking spires and came up at it on a nearly vertical run.
It started to roll to elude him, but a little left rudder kept
his lasers tracking. Half the quad burst missed, shooting past
the cockpit windscreen, but the other two bolts hid dead on.
They cored through the Interceptor's starboard solar panel
and pierced the cockpit. The squint continued its lazy roll,
then tightened it into a spin that sped the ship in an ugly,
squared-off tower.
Out to the south the Lusankya's aft came free of the
planet. The superstructure of the Super Star Destroyer and its
general outline fit with what he remembered of Vader's Exec-
utor at Hoth and Endor, but the Lusankya hull appeared to
be resting on a massive platform made up of hexagonal cells.
It fit the bottom of the starship perfectly, with openings in
the hexagonal field so weapons could fire down at targets
below and TIE fighters could launch from the ship's belly.
Wedge frowned. What is that? It reminds me of a Hutt's
repulsor-lift couch, but the Lusankya is a warship, not a
lounging crime boss. Suddenly he realized his analogy wasn't
that far off. The Lusankya is built for space travel, not fight-
ing its way free of a planet. That must be a lift-cradle de-
signed to get it up and out of the hole in which it was
entombed.
W,th the prow stabbi
ng up into the sky, the Lusankya's
thrusters ignited. Searing blue plasma vaporized huge chunks
of cityscape beneath the ship's aft end. The destroyer began
to move forward and upward out of the column of smoke
that marked its birth. A ship that boasts a crew of over a
quarter of a million individuals must have killed ten times
that many lifting off.
The massive ship turned its attention on a skyhook float-
ing off its starboard bow. Altering course slightly, the ship
gave more of its turbolasers and ion cannons a chance to
bear. A Super Star Destroyer possessed enough weaponry to
reduce a city to rubble from an orbital assault. At point-
blank range, the weaponless skyhook offered the gunners a
deliciously easy target.
The turbolaser batteries in the bow started firing at the
skyhook as they came into range, then the broadside assault
shifted to other weapons as the ship slid past. The verdant
laser-bolts came so fast and so close that whole sheets of
energy seenled to pulse from the Lusankya to the skyhook.
In seconds what had once been an elegant disk with an
lthorian jungle paradise at its heart became a melted demi-
lune with a forest fire crashing into the mountain district's
towers.
As the Lusankya picked up speed, the gunners shifted
their aimpoints and began firing at the upper atmosphere.
Their shots hit and splashed color into the lower of the two
shield spheres encasing the planet. Created to stop starship
assaults from without, they proved just as powerful against
an attack from within. Even so, after twenty seconds of the
Lusankya's withering barrage, a hole opened in the lower
shield.
The TIEs fighting Rogue Squadron turned and launched
themselves on an intercept course for the Super Star De-
stroyer. Because they were not capable of entering hyper-
space themselves, if they did not rendezvous with the
Lusankya, they would be stuck on Coruscant. Those who
weren't shot down would be taken prisoner. And if my ship
bad done that much damage heading out, I'd not be expect-
ing very gentle treatment at the hands of my enemies, either.
"Mynock, give me the range to the Lusankya."
The droid centered an image of the Lusankya on