easier without the interference. Flying required use of all the senses and the
compensator cut out most kinesthetic sensations.
And that kills pilots. Wedge was convinced that some pilots had died
unnecessarily because they couldn't feel where they were. Jek Porkins, a
heavyset man who always had his compensator on at full, had plowed into the
first Death Star while trying to pull out of a dive. His repeated assurances of
"I can hold it, I can hold it" died in a burst of static as his X-wing slammed
into the Emperor's toy. Had
Porkins not been compensated, he could have realized he wasn't pulling up and
he might have had time to do something else.
Flying without full compensation is just one more thing we need to teach these
kids. Wedge laughed at himself. Aside from Gavin the whole crew in Rogue
Squadron was almost his own age or older. He thought of them as kids because
they hadn't seen the sort of duty he and Tycho had. And with what we'll teach
them, maybe they'll survive longer than the rest did.
Wedge rolled the X-wing again as he hit the terminator line and daylight
flopped into darkness. Punching a console button he changed his screen over to a
tactical scanner and picked up a dozen other traces. The screen reported and
tagged eleven X-wings and one Z-95XT Trainerthe benign version of the X-wing's
little brother.
He switched his comm over to the tactical frequency he shared with Tycho.
"Everyone green and running, Tycho?"
"Affirmative. Systems are go. There's been some grumbling about feeding at the
pig trough, however."
"No surprise there. Shifting to Tac-One."
"I copy."
Flipping the comm over to the frequency shared by the rest of the squadron,
Wedge caught the last of a comment by Rogue Nine, Corran Horn. "... blind,
wallowing pigs, and slow."
"I'm sure, Rogue Nine, your comrades who fly Y-wings will be pleased to know
what you think of their ships."
"Sorry, sir."
"Good." The unit commander throttled back and fed his repulsorlift generators
enough power to counter the moon's gravity. The reference to
Y-wings, their slow speed and the underpowered nature of their sensors, had
been heard in Rebel camps since the earliest days of the fight against the
Empire. The B-wings had been developed to counter the flaws with the Y-wing and
replace it in service, but production had yet to meet demand, so plenty of
Y-wings still saw service.
Their reputation as "wallowing pigs" had led to the naming of the Folor gunnery
and bombing range the "pig trough." Alliance command had originally designated
it the "Trench" as a memorial to the pilots who had died running the artificial
canyon on the Death Star, but pilots saw no reason to stand on ceremony. Y-wings
practiced their bombing runs in the twists and turns of the lunar canyon while
fighter pilots preferred the rolling and looping demanded of them in the
satellite field circling the moon.
"Today I want you all to do some basic work on the gunnery range. Laser targets
have been set up to provide you a number of flying and targeting challenges.
Your run will be graded for accuracy and speed, and if you get hit, you'll lose
points. If you suffer an equipment failure, pull out and you'll get another run
after things are fixed. We don't want to lose you or the equipment, so try not
to do anything stupid. Any questions?"
Horn's voice squawked through the helmet headset. "Sir, our lasers are zeroed at
250 meters, which is a little short for ground attack missions."
"I guess, then, you'll have to be very good and very quick in shooting, won't
you, Mr. Horn?"
"Yes, sir."
Wedge smiled. "Good, then perhaps you'd like to go first. mr. Qrygg will fly
your wing."
"Yes, sir." The enthusiasm in Horn's voice
matched the energy in the roll and dive his X-wing executed. "Shirting to ground
attack mode."
"Good luck, Mr. Horn." Wedge killed his comm unit. "Mynock, pull a sensor feed
from Horn's R2. Shoot it to Captain Celchu on Tac-Three." He popped his comm
over to Tac-Two. "Captain, you'll be getting a datafeed from Rogue Nine."
"It will be interesting to watch. He's going in hot."
"That he is, Tycho, very hot. He wants to set a mark the others can't possibly
hit." Wedge nodded slowly. "I think he needs to get a different lesson today.
Here's what we'll do ..."
8
Corran pulled out of his dive and skimmed the surface of Folor. He aimed the
nose of his snubfighter at the paired mountains that marked the opening of the
pig trough. A line of red lights burned on and off in sequence, seeming to send
the light from plains to the peaks of the grey mountains. Below him the rough
rims of countless craters flashed past. "Nine, should Ten shift shields
forward?" "Negative, Ten. Even them out. We'll probably have targets at our
backs." Corran glanced at his datascreen. "Whistler, can you boost my forward
sensors? Screen for background formations and pick out what's anomalous. Yes,
yes, take care of your communications link first, but just do it. Thanks." After
a couple of seconds the astromech droid complied with the request and the image
on the datascreen refined itself. The mountains appeared in a light shade of
green and likely targetsin this case the lights on the mountainswere
translated into red circles that began to blink when he had a clear shot at
them. From past experience he knew Whis-
tler would turn the circles into diamonds if they proved to be hostile.
The fighter shot forward into the trench. Tall, jagged walls rose tall on either
side of him. Unlike canyons carved through stone by the relentless flow of
water, this one boasted sharp walls that would grind a fighter into dust. It
seems as if I'm flying between teeth, not stones.
He guided the fighter up over a small rise and then down into a valley where two
red circles became diamonds. His cannons tracked left and lit up the first
target while laser fire from the Gand hit the second. "Nice shooting, Ten."
"Ooryl was anxious. Ooryl will wait for clearance to fire in future."
"Not at all. Two more targets. I've got them." Corran let his fighter drift to
the right. "Pick up what I drop."
"As ordered."
Corran pulled back on his stick and climbed sharply to get at the first target.
He shot it before its laser could depress enough to shoot back at him. Rolling
his ship to the left, he moved back to the center of the canyon, then finished
the roll with an inside loop that brought him down to target the second
diamond. It hit him once before he took it out, but the shot from the target did
not penetrate his shields.
Climbing back up, Corran stood the fighter on its right S-foil and arced around
a corner in the trench. Coming up to let his sensors read the valley beyond a
steep rise, he took laser fire from two bunkers nearly a kilometer distant. He
pushed the stick forward and brought the X-wing down to the deck, then worked
his way back up to the rise "Ive got the one on the port side, you take
starboard."
A brief, high-p
itched whistle came through the comm to signal Ooryl's
understanding of the order.
The X-wing streaked over the ridgeline and immediately started taking fire from
the target on the left. Corran dipped below it, intending to repeat his
steep-climb run from before when Whistler started wailing. A threat light burned
in the aft position. "Full shields aft, Whistler!"
Laser bolts shot past the X-wing as Corran jinked to the left. He punched the
right rudder pedal, vectoring thrust to kick the tail of his fighter into a bit
of a skid to port. Doing that took him out of line with both guns, while
allowing him to keep his nose on his intended target. He triggered four bursts
of fire, hitting with the second and third.
He rolled the fighter to present its belly to the mountain wall that had housed
the gun he'd silenced, then he cut in his repulsorlift generators. They created
a field that bounced him off the wall and pushed him back toward the center of
the canyon. Rolling back down to starboard, he killed the repulsorlift
generators and dove to pick up a little speed. In doing so he came out beneath
Ooryl and still had laser bolts popping past him.
Whistler shifted views of the canyon for a moment and showed Corran what had
been happening in that section. An emplacement had been located on the reverse
slope of the rise. Had Corran not ducked his ship back down when he took fire
the first time, his sensors might have picked up its location.
/ would have come up, looped, bit it, then rolled out and picked up the right
side target. Ooryl could have nailed the left target and we'd have been set.
"Forward view again, Whistler." Seeing the array of targets upcoming, Corran
trimmed his speed back
to allow him more time on target. "It's going to get busy."
Whistler hooted something about understatement.
Targets came fast and seemed to get more accurate the deeper he ran into the
trench. Corran tapped his lucky charm once, then forced himself to concentrate.
He analyzed target locations and plotted angles of attack. Rolling his fighter,
diving and climbing, he wove his way through the gunnery course. He didn't get
every target he shot at, but fewer of them hit him.
Two thirds of the way through the course Corran and Ooryl approached another
ridge like the one that had hidden a gun position on its back slope. "Drop back,
Ten. Let me draw fire from any back slope guns, then you can roll in and nail
them."
A squeal answered him. Corran sailed up over the rim prematurely and snapped a
shot off at the guns to the left. Rolling wide to the right, he sideslipped out
of fire from below. "Midslope down, Ten." Without waiting for confirmation
Corran corkscrewed his X-wing around and lased the starboard target. The port
target still fired at him, but he dove below its line of bolts and cruised
farther into the canyon.
"Ooryl got it, Nine."
"Congrats, Ten."
Coming around the last sweeping turn Corran saw a narrowing of the canyon down
toward the deeper part of it. Above that crevasse four laser targets had a
perfect field of fire for blowing any X-wing out of the sky, but they couldn't
shoot down into the split in the rocks. "Whistler, give me the width of the
crevasse."
The droid mournfully reported it was 15 meters
on average, 12.3 meters wide at the most narrow point.
"Good. The walls will cover me." Behind him, anticipating him, Ooryl had already
rolled his X-wing up on its starboard S-foil. Corran smiled and dipped toward
the crevasse while keeping his wings parallel to the ground.
"Nine, you need to roll."
"Negative, Ten. It's wide enougha meter to spare on each side."
"If you go dead down the middle."
"If I don't I'll be dead." Taking a deep breath, Corran focused on an imaginary
point about ten meters off the nose of his fighter. He kept his hand gentle on
the stick and steered for that point. He kept it in the middle of the crevasse,
floating left and right as sections of the wall jutted out from one side or the
other.
The choke point closed with him. Easy, easy. He drifted to port for a half meter
and suddenly the tight spot was behind him without his having left any paint on
either side of it. The walls streaked by, black and grey blurred together.
Corran found himself steering the ship almost effortlessly. He knew he could
have handled the run at full throttle and not had a problem.
It almost feels as if I have kilometers off each S-foil, not a meter or two. The
bright line marking the end of the crevasse yawned open before him. And now I've
got targets.
Swooping up and out of the rock slit, Corran's X-wing spat fire. He started with
the lowest target, hit it squarely with the first shot, then tracked his fire up
and to the starboard with a roll and climb. He blasted the second target, then
continued his roll until he was inverted. Firing two controlled bursts
got him the third gunnery station and Ooryl, threading Corran's loop, tagged the
last one.
Corran came down, around, and shot past Ooryl as they headed out of the range.
Hauling back on the stick, he stood his X-wing on its tail and rocketed away
from Folor. Rolling out into a long loop, he traded distance for time and pulled
up on Ooryl's wing as they both headed in toward where the rest of the squadron
orbited.
Commander Antilles's voice filled Corran's helmet. "Very impressive flying, Mr.
Horn. Your score is 3250 out of a possible 5000. Quite good."
Corran smiled broadly. "Hear that, Whistler? Rogue Leader was impressed." He
activated his comm unit. "Thank you, sir."
"You can head back to base now, Mr. Horn. Your participation in this exercise is
at an end. Consider yourself at liberty for the rest of the day."
"Yes, sir. Rogue Nine heading home."
Yeah, I was at libertyliberty to be humiliated. Muscles bunched at the corners
of Corran's jaw as he ground his teeth. He'd waited in the hangar for the others
to come back to base, hoping to hear his mark had stood through the rest of the
exercise. He knew he was looking for congratulations on his great flying, but
not in the egotistical way Bror Jace would have been. He didn't want to lord it
over the others, but he did want to know they thought he was good.
The others had co me back in pairs and, for the most part, had tried to avoid
him. Lujayne Forge and Andoorni Hui had been the first to return. As he saw
their ships come in his smile became broad. He knew he had blown past any score
they set. They're good pilots, but I was really out there. They couldn't touch
me today.
Andoorni had remained silent, possibly broodingbut who could tell with
Rodians? Lujayne had been almost apologetic. "I got 3300, Corran. Andoorni hit
3750."
"What?"
Lujayne hesitated, tucking a strand of brown hair behind her left ear. "It was
just our day to fly well. You inspired us, really."
"Inspiring, Horn." The Rodian's ears rotated toward him, then back again as
Andoorni wandered away.
Lujayne gave him a sympathetic smile. "Want to head to DownTime and get
&
nbsp; something to eat?" The tone of her voice suggested strongly that he wanted to
take her up on her offer to spare himself from what was headed in his direction.
Despite the unspoken warning, he'd shaken his head. "Thanks. Maybe I'll see you
at the tapcafe later."
Corran continued to wait for the rest of the squadron to return. Peshk Vri'syk
and Ooryl came back together. The ruddy-furred Bothan took great delight in
reporting a score of 4200. The Gand had been very quiet and when he finally
spoke he said, "Qrygg scored 4050."
That answer told Corran something very strange was going on. In reverting to
calling himself by his family name Ooryl had shown himself to be ashamed of his
score, but Corran knew he should have been ecstatic about it instead. The fact
that Ooryl clearly didn't want to speak with Corran, and only relented after
Corran insisted, meant that whatever Ooryl was ashamed of had to do with
Corran.
The others in the squadron didn't say much of anything except to report their
scores. Each pilot had scored better than Corran and most had done so by over
1000 points. That didn't seem possible to
Corran. He knew he had flown that course as best as he could. On subsequent runs
I might score up in that range, but not first time out. That's not possible.
Unless ...
Corran jogged over to where Whistler had plugged himself into a recharging
outlet. "Whistler, at the start of our run, you set up a communications link
with someone. Who?"
The droid's holographic projector began to glow. A miniature image of Wedge
Antilles floated between them.
"You sent him my sensor data, right?"
Sharp scolding whistles followed an affirmative tone.
"I know I didn't prohibit it."
A curt squawk made Corran wince. "Yes, Whistler, I did approve your action.
Never again give out that sort of data without my permission, got it?"
The little droid piped demurely, then shifted to the singsong tone he had used
to warn Corran when Loor had entered the CorSec office. The pilot turned and
saw the Headhunter Trainer come through the magcon bubble, followed closely by
Rogue Leader. Purposely ignoring Whistler's bleats, Corran watched the ship
land.
"Time to get some questions answered."
Corran felt a tug at his flight suit leg as Whistler's pincer attachment closed
on the cloth. He pulled away, tearing the material. "You betrayed me once here,