moved up in his place. I had to outrun her when she was commanding a Customs
corvette. Tactics weren't innovativestandard Imp, utterly by the bookbut
tactics for an Imperial Star Destroyer have never really been subtle anyway."
Corran nodded as the serving droid put tumblers of Corellian whisky in front of
them, then accompanied it with a steaming, tentacled mass of noodles and
thin-sliced vegetables drenched in a green sauce. "Thanks, I think." He glanced
at Mirax as the droid retreated. "Is this what we ordered?"
"I think so." She stabbed a fork into it, twirled it and lifted a dripping
noodle coil to her mouth. She chewed for a
moment, then swallowed. "Unrecognizable, but not inedi-
"Your enthusiasm is un derwhelming." Corran poked around the food with his fork,
speared something crunchy and popped it into his mouth. The sauce seemed a bit
hot, but
it was flavorful and cleared his sinuses, so he decided against complaining.
"Not bad. I also think you're right on in point-ing out that we have been
underestimating Isard and her peo-ple Part of it is because Erisi joined themI
think we have a vested interest in seeing her in a negative light. That could
easily be a fatal mistake. We need our edge back, and I think Wedge is going to
beat that idea into our brains from this point forward."
Corran looked up as Ooryl entered the tapcaf and waved him over. The Gand
hesitated for a moment, looked back out into the concourse, then nodded. As he
made his way through the jumble of tables, Corran saw three other Gands trailing
in his wake, like mynock splitlings drafting off their parent. Only one of them
equaled Ooryl's sizethe other two probably massed as much as Ooryl but wore
most of it around their middles. / wonder how that works with an exoskeleton?
Ooryl stopped at the edge of the table. "Greetings Corran and Mirax. It is
Qrygg's honor to present to you three Gands from Qrygg's homeworld of Gand. They
are Ussar Vice, Syron Aalun, and Vviir Wiamdi."
The larger of the three bowed his head. "I speak for all three of us when I say
we are most pleased to make your acquaintance."
Though the Gand's speech had the guttural tones and clicks of Ooryl's normal
voice, Corran found himself having a hard time comprehending what was said. He
knew he should have understood it easilyit was only a greetingbut the use of
personal pronouns surprised him. Ooryl explained long ago that Gands considered
it the height of presumption to use personal pronouns to refer to themselves,
because it arrogantly assumes the listeners know who the speaker is. Only after
having done something so memorable that such an assumption can be made can a
Gand refer to himself as "I."
Mirax covered for Corran. "We're very pleased to meet you as well. Ooryl is a
good friend, so we are honored to meet his friends."
Ooryl quivered for a second. "Qrygg is sorry for your misinterpretation because
Qrygg knows it is Qrygg's fault, Mirax. These Gands are not Qrygg's friends.
They are ruet-savii." Ooryl's mouth parts closed for a moment, then snapped back
open. "In Basic they would be something like observers or examiners, but more
than either."
Corran raised an eyebrow. "They're your superiors?"
The taller GandVviir Wiamdi by order of introductionexaggerated the shaking
of his head. "We have been sent by the Elders of Gand to watch Ooryl Qrygg. We
are to
chronicle Qrygg's existence and to criticize it. It is a great honor."
Ooryl doesn't seem to think it's that great an honor by the look of him. Corran
smiled. "If there is any way I may be of assistance to you, please do not
hesitate to let me know what I can do. Ooryl and I have spent much time
together, and he's saved my life more times than I care to remember."
All three Gands nodded their heads sagely, but Corran was uncertain he was
reading their body language correctly. I'm not sure I can read them at all, and
I doubt I'm going to get a good explanation from Ooryl. Corran looked over at
Mirax, but she didn't seem to be any more confident of her judgment of the Gands
than he was. One more thing to learn about, which is why this galaxy will never
be dull.
Corran pointed to the open area in the booth. "Would you care to join us?"
Ooryl shook his head. "Now it is time for Qrygg to interface with Zraii and
tend to Qrygg's X-wing. After that, the schedule allows for dining."
Vviir bowed his head again. "I beg your forgiveness for this interruption. We
will watch you interact with Qrygg at a later date." He turned and led the
procession back out of the tapcaf with Ooryl drawn along in the trio's wake like
an X-wing tractored to a freighter.
Mirax raised an eyebrow. "What was all that about?"
"Not a clue."
"And Ooryl's not going to tell you anything, either." She pointed in their
direction with her fork. "I've never heard of, let alone seen, a group of Gands
wandering around together. Very odd."
Corran shrugged and attacked his food. "Twi'leks have joined us, and now we have
some Gands with us. I don't understand it, nor do I need to understand it. I
just hope Iceheart gets as confused by it as I am."
21
Under other circumstances Wedge Antilles thought he might have liked Qretu 5.
The ring of asteroids surrounding the planet that provided his people with cover
against ground-based early-warning systems had looked wonderful in the night sky
in all the holograms he had studied. The world's moist and warm climate
encouraged the growth of lush green foliage, over the tops of which Wedge's
X-wing whisked at dizzying speed. Mountains upthrust by colliding tectonic
plates also hid the fighters from their target, providing the personnel at the
Q5A7 Bacta Refinement Plant no warning about the impending attack.
Wedge's force was flying in at a strength of twenty-fourtwo squadrons' worth of
snubfighters. The three losses to the Corrupter had been replaced by the Gand
ruetsavii and their curious ships. The Gands flew heavily modified TIE bombers.
The Quadanium solar panels at the front had been cut on the diagonal bias like
those of TIE Interceptors and had a central cutout to provide the pilot with
peripheral vision. The bomb delivery system in the secondary hull had been
scrapped in favor of a concussion missile launching system with a six-missile
magazine, then a hyperdrive motivator
and shield generators had been added. Two lasers completed their weapons array.
While the Gand bombers were still slow, the shields were strong; and Wedge found
the ships preferable to Y-wings for the long-range raid they were making.
He had not intended to have the Gands come along on the mission, but Ooryl had
insisted they would anyway since they were ruetsaviiand what exactly that meant
Wedge was as yet uncertain. In the preliminary and simulator runs they made on
the mission, the Gands had proved very competent and skillful, though Wedge
thought Ooryl could outfly all of them.
Wedge checked the chronographic readout on his main screen, then glanced up at
the horizon. The mountains are right where they're supposed to be. Over the rise
and t
he valley should take us right in on target. Pulling back on the X-wing's
stick, he brought his fighter up so the sun rising at his back could illuminate
his X-wing. He reached up with his right hand, flicking the switch that brought
the S-foils into attack position, the keyed his comm unit. "Rogues, we go in.
Chir'daki, stand by."
Tugging his stick to the right, he kicked the X-wing into a barrel roll to
starboard, then leveled out and began his run through the valley. The mountains
rose up off both S-foils but were far enough away that Wedge didn't feel as
cramped as he did on the Death Star trench run or even the conduit mission on
Borleias. His onboard computer matched the terrain to the mission map it had in
memory, sounded a mild drift alarm and Wedge corrected the problem almost
unconsciously.
Wedge thumbed the controls over to proton torpedoes and linked the fire of both
launch tubes. He kept his hand easy on the stick, nudging the craft this way and
that, then
shot out over the edge of a three-hundred-meter-tall cliff. As
he rolled, he saw a black valley dotted with lights and
brought his fighter around on a heading for a large dark
block with flashing red and yellow lights on each of its cor-
ners. His targeting crosshairs dropped into the shadowed outline and he pulled
the trigger.
Two proton torpedoes shot out on tongues of blue flame
and streaked away at the building. They hit barely nanoseconds apart and
detonated just after punching through the ferrocrete wall. Their subsequent
explosions vomited argent fire out through their entry holes, then through the
roof and out the windows on the upper three floors. The roof collapsed in on
itself, leaving the fire on the building's interior lighting up the night like
magma in a volcano's heart.
With a flick of his thumb Wedge shifted the X-wing over to laser fire and left
it firing single shots in sequence. Triggering a burst of fire, he sent a hail
of red laser bolts burning through the night. His shots tracked over the main
refinery building and down through the darkness. Something he hit exploded
brilliantly, sending a red-gold fireball into the air. It imploded but still
bumped him around as he flew through where it had been, then he was over the bay
and starting a long loop over Qretu 5's largest ocean.
As he came around he got a chance to look back at the Q5A7 plant and felt his
stomach fold in on itself. The cliff wall and the waters of the bay reflected
the light from the burning refinery, magnifying it and spreading it all over the
valley. The X-wings that had come in behind him had similarly launched proton
torpedoes at ground targets. The missiles, which were powerful enough to put
quite a dent in an Imperial Star Destroyer, blasted apart unarmored buildings.
Lasers filled the night like lightning strikes, melting roads, setting trees on
fire and exploding anything even vaguely incendiary when they hit.
Though the targets they had specified had been strictly industrial, collateral
damage was inescapable. At least one bright fire burned in what should have been
a residential complex for plant workersclearly one of the proton torpedoes had
overshot its markand Wedge didn't know if the ground target his lasers had
destroyed had been droid-driven or if it contained innocent bystanders. Coming
in prior to dawn had been an attempt to minimize the presence of innocents in
the target zones, but even minimal involvement of noncombatants meant some of
them would die.
Part of Wedge didn't want to care because the raid was meant to make Isard pay
for Halanit's destruction. That raid
had been collateral damage through and through, but murdering Thyferrans,
Vratix, and assorted resident alien workers would hardly make Isard atone for
what she had done. The only pain she would feel would be the loss of bacta and
her ability to produce it. To her, those we kill are reason enough for
continuing her predations, whereas those innocents she kills are just
punishment for our misdeeds.
Another part of Wedge wanted to abort the Twi'leks' run on the valley. The
damage done had been rather ample. The Deathseeds would only be able to strafe
the ground, sowing more terror in the populace, but probably not doing much to
further cripple the refinery. What has already been done should be enough, but I
know it isn't. He keyed his comm unit. "Chir'daki, you are good to go."
He got a double-click acknowledgment from Tal'dira, then Corran's voice broke
in. "Lead, I have multiple eyeball contacts coming up off the deck to the
north."
"I copy, Nine. Seven, you have command of the ground op. Two, Nine, and Ten, on
me to deal with the intruders." Wedge hauled back on his stick and brought the
X-wing up in a loop. Rolling out to port, he saw Asyr pull up on his star-board
S-foil while Corran and Ooryl joined him to the left. "How many, Nine?"
"Eight, sir."
"I copy. Engage at will, but save your last two torpe-does." Standing off and
shooting the TIE fighters down with proton torpedoes would be the safest means
of defeating them, but Wedge wanted to save some torpedoes in case they
ran into a heavy ship as they tried to get away. As nearly as I
can tell all of Isard's capital ships are five hours or more
distant from here, but if one shows up I want to give it a
barage that will keep it off us long enough for us to escape.
The intervention of Thyferran Home Defense Corps pi-
lots had been anticipated. Their intelligence reports about
qretu 5 had indicated the placement of such troops on the
world, though after Gavin had described burning three of them down on Halanit,
there was open debate as to whether or not the THDC pilots would dare come up
and fight. Eight starfighters were enough to discourage someone from bring-
ing their own freighter into Qretu 5's spaceport and demanding it be filled
with bacta or to protect freighters going out to or coming back in from a
convoy.
Isard didn't anticipate our coming in to this place in such strength and with
the intention of wreaking total havoc. Wedge linked the fire on his lasers,
pairing them, and evened out his shields fore and aft. A pair of missiles from
his port sizzled through the dawning sky and impaled distant specks of black.
Twin stars twinkled for a moment before the sound of the explosion collided with
his fighter, then Wedge was on the TIEs and firing.
Two bursts of laser fire bracketed one of the TIE fighters. The first pair of
bolts liquefied one of the hexagonal solar panels, immediately pitching the
fighter into a decaying flat spin. The second pair lopped off the upper half of
the remaining solar panel, adding a loopy, wobbling element to the spin. The
wounded TIE dropped from the sky like the asymmetrical rock it resembled and
exploded on impact with the ground.
Pulling back on the stick, Wedge brought the X-wing's nose up until it pointed
away from the planet. He let the climb bleed off just a little of his speed,
trading it for altitude, then he came back over the top and started back down
into the fight. He selected
one target and began to close, but it died in a quad
burst of laser fire, so he ruddered the nose to the right and swooped in on a
TIE angling for a deflection shot at Asyr's X-wing.
These pilots know nothing. Coming in from above and in front of the TIE fighter,
Wedge knew he should have been easy to spot. The TIE pilots had clearly focused
in on getting Asyr, to the exclusion of everyone else. While that kind of focus
and concentration might be useful in all sorts of endeavors, in a fighter pilot
without situational awareness, it was suicide.
Wedge knew, from looking out his canopy and studying his sensors, where his
other fighters were and where the dwindling supply of TIEs was. He couldn't
feel their presence in the way Luke described being able to fix people and
machines in relation to himself through the Force, but he did have a
sense of where they were. This situational awareness meant he would know if a
TIE had begun to close on him and would be able to take the appropriate
response, from calling for help to outmaneuvering the other pilot.
Without it I would have died hundreds of times over. Applying a little rudder,
Wedge tracked his crosshairs over to cover the TIE and tightened up on the
trigger. Four red lances of light converged, melding into one, then skewered the
fighter's ball cockpit. The ion engines exploded, spinning the solar panels away
like sabacc cards. Flaming debris sprayed out like sparks in the wake of a
passing meteorite, igniting a fire in the foliage below.
Mynock trumpeted triumphantly.
Wedge glanced at his main sensor screen. "That was the last of them, true." He
activated the comm unit. "Nine, take Ten and swing over the spaceport. Suppress
ground fire if you get any and report all clear."
"As ordered, Lead."
"Chir'daki One to Rogue Leader."
"Go ahead, Tal'dira."
"Chir'daki pass complete. We had secondary explosions in the vehicle sheds and
machining shops."
"Good going, Tal'dira. Stand by for phase two of the operation."
Tycho's voice entered the frequency. "Wedge, I have someone on the deck
complaining. Claims to be the plant manager."
"I copy, Tycho. Tell him to evacuate the whole area and consider a career
change. Resistance means we grid the surrounding town and start melting parts