“Beginning my run now!”
Wedge felt a moment’s joy at the collapse of the Corrupter’s shields, but it died as the big ship began to maneuver. It rotated in space above him, executing a roll that swapped up for down and presented the squadron with its undamaged starboard shields as a target. Convarion knows we have a limited supply of proton torpedoes. If he survived this salvo, we’ve got one last shot to take him down. If he repairs his shields and rolls again, we’re done, because then he can take all the time he wants to come after us.
Wedge keyed his comm unit. “Corran, set up for the third run.”
“I copy, Wedge. Lots of eyeballs out here.”
“Here, too.” Wedge pulled back on his stick and brought his X-wing up between the Aggregator and the Corrupter. He got a good look at the damage the torpedoes had done to the Destroyer and saw fire in the ship’s interior. He knew bulkheads had already been sealed and the fires would go out as soon as the atmosphere drained away. So it’s time to see if I can add to the problem. He started to angle in at the Corrupter, but green laser bolts slashed past him from behind, causing him to break off the run, roll, and dive.
Tycho’s voice boomed over the comm unit. “On my mark. Five, four, three, two, one. Get into firing position.”
Right. The pair of TIEs on Wedge’s tail had no intention of letting him set up on the Corrupter. Wedge chopped his throttle back, then reversed his thrust and ran it up to full. The TIE fighters immediately closed and snapped off quick shots, then bypassed him. Hitting the right rudder pedal, Wedge brought the X-wing’s nose around on the track of one of them. Switching over to quad-fire lasers, he hit the trigger. Three of the bolts hit the TIE. Two lanced through the cockpit while one boiled away a corner of a solar panel. The fighter immediately went into a flat spin and arced out toward the system’s outer orbits.
More rudder brought the X-wing around to point back up at the Corrupter. Wedge killed his reverse thrust and started it forward as Tycho said, “Mark! Fire now!” Wedge thumbed his fire control over to missiles and got a lock, but never pulled the trigger. Sithspawn! What is that?
A ship the size of a Carrack-class light cruiser ranged up from the Graveyard, cutting in past the Aggregator’s stern and in at the Corrupter’s bridge. The ship’s white nose was separated from the bloodred after portion by a big black stripe slashed on the diagonal across it. Wedge realized he’d seen that color scheme on a ship before, but he didn’t connect it with Tycho’s X-wing until the cruiser opened up on the Corrupter with its weaponry.
Five heavy turbolasers and ten laser cannons poured scarlet energy into the Destroyer’s unshielded hull. The laser cannon shots skittered across the white surface, stippling it with black marks and exploding turbolaser batteries. The heavy turbolasers concentrated their fire on the Destroyer’s tower, burning through the hull on deck after deck.
Wedge kicked his thrust in at full and rolled his X-wing so he put the Graveyard over his head and the Destroyer’s hull beneath his fighter. Off his starboard S-foils a silvery glow built as the first of the proton torpedoes hit. The energy storm they created splashed up and around the edges of the shield. Wedge pushed the X-wing lower, skimming it along the Destroyer’s hull. Just like being back in the trenches.
Wedge jinked the ship as turbolasers and the starfighter behind him tried to target him, then hauled back on his stick. The aiming reticle for his proton torpedoes had burned red for the entirety of his flight, but Wedge held back until his true target sank down into the reticle. He saw one Imperial officer standing in the middle of the bridge viewport and watched his mouth open in surprise.
Wedge hit the trigger.
A pair of proton torpedoes stabbed through the transparisteel viewport, filling the bridge with blue fire, then detonated. The bridge’s blocky outline plumped and softened for a second before the aft port corner blew out, vomiting golden fire. Backblast sent smaller golden geysers back out through the forward viewports, but Wedge pulled up between them, then rolled and dove past the Destroyer’s aft.
“Tycho, hit the cruiser!”
“I copy. On me, Rogues. Beginning my run now.”
Coming up over the belly of the Destroyer Wedge got a good look at the battle. Sporadic turbolaser and ion cannon fire came from the Corrupter, but far more numerous were the escape pods exploding from its hull. The Aggregator tried to shoot at the snubfighters, but most were using the dying Destroyer as a shield as they approached, and the Aggregator’s commander seemed reluctant to shoot in that direction.
The light cruiser came back around and made a run across the Aggregator’s stern. The ships exchanged fire, but the Interdictor Cruiser could only bring a few of its weapons to bear on the other ship. Neither ship did significant damage to the other, though the Aggregator’s starboard shields did go down.
“On my mark, launch torpedoes. Mark.”
On Tycho’s command the X-wings launched their missiles. Blue pinpoints of fire blossomed from various points around the Graveyard and shot in at the Interdictor Cruiser. The red light on Wedge’s console went out as the ship’s commander shunted power from the gravity well projectors to his shields. That’s the move to make, but did he do it in time?
Most of the proton torpedoes, beginning with the two Tycho launched, slammed into the port shield. They exploded into a silvery firestorm that billowed up and out, then pressed in on the shield. Unlike the Corrupter’s shield, however, the Aggregator’s did not collapse all at once. Gaps appeared at a couple of points, allowing a handful of torpedoes to skip through and blast into the ship’s hull. Armor plates peeled away like dead, dry skin and secondary explosions ripped gaping holes in the Interdictor’s hull.
Without waiting to pick up TIE fighters or escape pods, the Aggregator suddenly jetted forward. On Wedge’s console, the range finder scrolled off numbers; then the cruiser vanished into hyperspace. Running was his only choice.
Wedge glanced at his sensors and saw no hostile fighters near him. Safe for the moment, he keyed his comm unit. “Tapper, don’t run very far. Booster, report on your fleet.”
“We’re all still here, Wedge. We took some hits from TIEs, but shields mostly held so we’re all operational.”
“I copy, Booster. Rogues and Chir’daki, protect yourselves, but hold back from killing anyone who isn’t being actively hostile for a moment.” Wedge glanced back over his shoulder. “Mynock, scan comm frequencies and get me the command frequency the TIEs are using. I also need the escape pod frequency.”
The droid’s muted beep acknowledged the command, and data began to scroll up on the main screen.
“Thanks.” He punched up the frequency for the TIE fighters. “Imperial pilots, this is Wedge Antilles. You have a choice: get killed here, stranded here, or surrender. If you want to surrender, power down your weapons and engines. If you’re moving under power we will consider you hostile. We’ve got no more reason to want you dead than I would hope you have to be dead.”
A lone male voice came back over the comm unit. “Captain Ardle from Corrupter here. We’re Thyferran Home Defense Corps pilots. Does that make a difference in your offer?”
“Is Erisi Dlarit flying with you?”
“No, sir. I was in her command, but was picked to head up one of the two squadrons coming here with the Corrupter. Mostly trainees. I’ve got eight left. The Aggregator’s squadron only has four left and they’re THDC, too.”
“I copy, Captain Ardle. Follow the instructions I gave you and you’ll not be hurt.”
“What about the escape pods?”
“We’ll recover them, too.”
“And the Corrupter?”
Wedge switched his main screen to a plot of ship positions in the system over time and set his viewpoint from within the Graveyard. “The Corrupter is currently not under power and is drifting down into the Graveyard. Inside two hours the Graveyard’s asteroids will chew it up into unrecognizable bits.”
“Oh.” Ardle sounded subdued. “Alde
raan has its revenge on the Empire.”
“And exacts revenge for Halanit. We don’t have the tractor beams to pull it back up, and I sincerely doubt it could be made operational again. Running as fast as possible to Coruscant we couldn’t get anything back here in time to save it.” Wedge knew the run to Corellia would be shorter, but he expected no help from his homeworld and the Diktat. “The Corrupter is gone.”
“I copy, Antilles. I’ll give the order to my people, and we’ll wait to be rescued.”
Wedge switched over to the escape pod frequency and repeated his offer of rescue, then arranged with Quelev Tapper for his ships to pick up as many pods as they could and exact whatever ransom they wanted from the passengers. Tapper sounded more interested in getting the TIEs and their pilots, but Wedge declared them “prisoners of war” and refused to let Tapper have them.
“Okay, Antilles, I’ll let it go, but only because I know you’ll be buying spare parts for those TIEs from us before too long.”
“That’s probably truer than I’d like to admit, Tapper. Have a safe trip home.”
Tycho’s voice broke through on the comm frequency. “Wedge, I have a situation.”
“Yes?”
“Remember that cruiser that took a piece out of the Corrupter?”
“Kind of hard to forget it, isn’t it?”
“Well, it was the source of the IFF queries earlier on. It appears to think I’m the Another Chance. It has identified itself as the Valiant, and now it wants to know where we’re going to go from here.”
Wedge brought his X-wing around so he could see the light cruiser again. There it hung in space, three hundred meters of lethal starship. Having it as part of our fleet would be very good, but how can we convince it to join us? “Tycho, any sign of intelligent life on board?”
“Ah, Wedge, it thinks I’m an Alderaanian war frigate, so I think we can rule out intelligence. If I had to guess, I’d assume this cruiser was slaved to Another Chance as an escort. They got separated and it returned here to wait for Another Chance to show up. I arrived with the IFF code, started broadcasting targeting information, and it did its job.”
Wedge nodded. “I copy. I think I need you to take it back to our base. Emtrey, if I recall his introductory monologue, is supposed to know the rules, regs, and procedures of over six million military organizations past and present. Perhaps he can figure out a way to communicate with the Valiant so we can make full use of it.”
“Got it. Do I leave now, or wait and escort the rest of you back?”
“We’ll go together.” Wedge smiled. “Victory like this deserves a parade, and I’d be happy to have you and your cruiser in the lead.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Corran Horn dropped into the seat beside Mirax at the black round table in the briefing room. He felt bone weary from the fight at Alderaan, which surprised him because he’d actually not shot down any of the eyeballs. Because he had been waiting for fire orders to send proton torpedoes at the larger ships, all he could do was evade their attacks. While the pilots had been clearly green—a fact that 66 percent losses on their part made abundantly clear—their lasers still burned hot and could have vaped him had he not outflown them.
He took Mirax’s left hand in his right beneath the edge of the table. “Sorry I couldn’t cover the Skate out there.”
Mirax gave him a smile that helped energize him. “I’d have felt safer, but that would have spoiled Booster ‘One-Man-Army’ Terrik’s fun. He manned the laser cannon and was a general hazard to any eyeball peeking at us. He says he winged a couple of them.”
Corran gave her hand a squeeze, then looked up and saw Booster glowering at him from the other side of the table. If looks were lasers, he’d be more than winging me right now. “I’m glad there weren’t more in the way of complications. Your father looks ready to rip something apart with his bare hands—like me.”
“Being ambushed by Imps has him in a bad mood. We’ll be heading out soon for a meeting with Talon Karrde concerning security.”
“The leak came from his people?”
Mirax nodded. “My father thinks so. I want you to look over some stuff on it for me—give me your professional opinion about this spy thing.”
“Ah, sure, Mirax, glad to, but you should remember from the Erisi thing, I’m not that sharp on spotting spies.”
“This one isn’t that good.” Mirax gave him a wink. “Let me know what you think. We’ll see if Karrde concurs.”
Wedge and Winter entered the room, followed closely by Tal’dira, Aril Nunb, and Tycho. Winter sat down at the datapad built in at the far end of the table and hit some keys. A holographic image of the Yag’Dhul station hovered over the holopad in the center of the oval table. Wedge took a position at the head of the table, Tycho sat between him and Booster, and Tal’dira took the seat at Booster’s left hand. The Sullustan seated herself to Mirax’s right, facing Tal’dira.
Wedge covered a yawn, then leaned forward on the end of the table. “I apologize for asking you here to this debriefing so quickly after your return, but I want to talk about what happened in the Graveyard while details are still fresh in our minds. We have two issues to discuss: the arrival of the Imps and what to do with the Valiant.
“Before that, however, I want to thank each of you for your action and the action of your people at Alderaan. There is no question about it—we got very lucky at Alderaan. The Valiant’s appearance and action hurt both the Corrupter and the Aggregator. Even so, it was the discipline of our people that provided us the opportunity for such luck to come into play. If it weren’t for your Chir’daki pilots covering Tycho and me on our runs, we wouldn’t have been able to do what we did to either Imp ship.”
The Twi’lek’s braintails twitched strongly. “Your praise is most appreciated, Wedgan’tilles. The loss of two of my pilots is grave, but nothing in comparison to what all of us would have lost were our leadership not so clear thinking in a time of trouble.”
Tycho nodded in agreement. “It was your torps that vaped the Corrupter, Wedge. Zraii’s going to waste a lot of paint adding it to your display of kills.”
Wedge shook his head. “Look, your shots hurt it, I was just in a position to pinpoint a target. Imps have forever dismissed the threat our torps are to their ships. You’d think, after losing two Death Stars to X-wings they’d learn, but their ignorance is our margin of safety.”
Corran smiled. “So you’ll order Zraii to pull the kill from your X-wing?”
Wedge hesitated, then smiled sheepishly. “Let’s not go too far—it was a good pair of shots.” His eyes narrowed. “Convarion got what he deserved, especially in getting the tables turned on him. The fact that he was able to show up, and had an Interdictor Cruiser with him is most disturbing. Winter, any idea where the Aggregator came from?”
Winter tucked a lock of white hair back behind her left ear, then hit several keys on the datapad. The image floating above the table shifted from that of the station to the triangular form of an Interdictor Cruiser. “The Aggregator was last noted as part of an anti-Rebel taskforce led by High Admiral Teradoc. Intelligence on him—at least the intel I’m able to access from here—is sketchy. Most of his duty stations were Rimward. He was diligent in his duties and virulently anti-Rebel, but beyond that unremarkable. He was not at Endor and remained nominally loyal to the Empire until Coruscant fell.”
As nearly as Corran knew, Teradoc’s history was not unique. A few brave individuals declared themselves Warlords as soon as they heard of the Emperor’s death, but many of the others—especially those in the military—remained loyal to the Empire. Sate Pestage, an Imperial Advisor, held power for six months until a cabal of Imperial Advisors ousted him from power. Most of the military backed this group because it seemed disposed to taking action. It was only after Ysanne Isard supplanted them that members of the military began to grab for power themselves. Even so, a fair number of military leaders and politicians proclaimed their loyalty to the Empire until
Coruscant fell.
At which point they had to fend for themselves, since they no longer had access to the bureaucracy that made the Empire run. While there were administrative areas and sectors that held themselves together—a tribute to the resourcefulness of their Grand Moffs—Corran expected that within two years nearly three-quarters of what had once been the Empire would be under the New Republic’s control.
Winter looked up from the datapad. “If I had to guess how Isard got her hands on the Aggregator, I would guess she traded bacta for it. The fact that the Aggregator’s TIEs were being flown by Thyferran Home Defense Corps pilots suggests that Teradoc is running low on trained personnel. With a supply of bacta he can keep them alive a bit longer. Without unlimited Imperial resources, he’s having to conserve people the way we did.”
Booster narrowed his eyes, both electronic and natural. “I’d also read into the pilot change a lack of confidence by Teradoc in Isard. Right now you have to figure that Teradoc is getting gigabytes of stories from the Aggregator’s crew about how we ambushed the ambushers. I think if I have my people start asking around what someone is willing to pay for a slightly used Interdictor Cruiser, word will get back to Teradoc. He’ll assume we’re suggesting we’re planning on capturing the next one he loans to Isard, so he won’t be free with his ship.”
Wedge nodded. “That’s worth a try. From this point forward we’re going to have to assume, however, that it is possible another Interdictor Cruiser could jump us. Actually, we have to assume it is probable that we might be jumped again. We’ll continue hit-and-run attacks and will just have to make our exchanges more covert. We can do that by having the incoming freighters guided to a location of our choosing, which means they won’t know where they’re going until the last minute.”
Mirax raised her right hand. “Perhaps you can’t remember back when you were hauling cargo, but I’d never go to a rendezvous without knowing where it was.”