“Elscol joined the squadron just after Bakura and flew a few missions with us.” Wedge jerked a thumb toward her taciturn, dark-skinned companion. “Sixtus Quin was a Special Intelligence Operative who was betrayed by his Imperial commander, so he helped us out in a mission on Tatooine.”
Corran nodded. “We can always use more pilots.”
“But that’s not why we’re here, kid.” She shot Wedge a sidelong glance. “The reason we got here so soon was because we were inbound before your summons reached us. We’d heard of the coup on Thyferra and figured we’d ply our trade there.”
Corran stiffened. “And what would that trade be?”
A lopsided grin contorted the left side of her face. “I do what I was doing at the time Wedge recruited me—I find worlds with Imperial tyrants, and I liberate them. Sixtus, what’s left of his squad, and a group of other ne’er-do-wells come with me. We organize local resistance movements; provide them with expertise, weapons, and support; and help them get rid of their local Imperial officials.”
Wedge smiled. “I think you’ll recall that no one at our first meeting had any good idea about how to go about overthrowing a planetary government. Elscol has had more practice at it than anyone I know. She’s never been much of a joiner, so she’s been working outside the New Republic.”
She shrugged. “Haven’t formed an opinion about the New Republic yet, though during Tycho’s trial my thoughts were none-too-positive. The Empire, on the other hand, left me without my family, so I’m doing what I can to strip them of theirs.”
“Have you had a chance to review the material I sent you?”
Elscol nodded. “If the ratio of loyal humans to Vratix is at all accurate, the actual conquest of the world should be simple. The big problem there is the presence of those Imp ships. Anything we do can be undone by a planetary bombardment. If those ships can be scattered or neutralized—preferably both—we can stage an uprising that should topple Ysanne Isard. I’m confident we can do it, but I’ll have a better idea of exactly what we’re going to do after I get in there and take a look.”
Mirax raised an eyebrow. “You’re talking about going to Thyferra?”
“Yes, the sooner the better.” Elscol held up a hand and started ticking points off on her fingers. “We have to liaise with the Ashern, or we’ll fight them as much as we’ll fight the Imps and their Xucphra allies. We have to determine the nature of the targets we’ll hit, so we can be properly supplied for the strikes. We need to gauge the reaction of the populace to a countercoup, and we have to find a local leader who can handle being put in charge. If this were just some backwater world that no one cared about, we could be a bit more hasty. Thyferra, however, is of vital importance, so we have to be careful and surgical in what we’re doing.”
“Agreed.” Wedge folded his arms across his chest. “We don’t have enough in the way of personnel or equipment to allow us to be sloppy.”
Sixtus rested his fists on his narrow hips. “How long do you anticipate being able to keep the location of this station a secret from Isard?”
Wedge shrugged. “I have no way of judging that. We’ll take all precautions possible, but we’re as vulnerable here as the Alliance was on Hoth or Yavin 4. If Isard finds us, we’re in for a difficult time.”
“Then the sooner we’re on Thyferra, the sooner she’ll have to think about leaving at least part of her fleet at home.”
Gavin frowned. “But I thought the fleet needed to be scattered.”
“True enough, but scattered in a way that you can nibble it to death. I know you Rogues are hot hands on a stick, but a dozen snubfighters can’t take four capital ships all by themselves. Isard has to be induced to send the ships out so you can eliminate them, but she also needs a reason to leave some of them at home so you don’t get overwhelmed.”
Corran raised an eyebrow. “Sounds like you’re suggesting the only way we win this thing is if Iceheart starts getting stupid.”
“Not at all, flyboy. What we need to do is to give Isard too many things to think about. She likes to be in control—that’s clear—and she’ll do outrageous things to remain in control.” Sixtus smiled in a way that made it seem as if smiling were an effort for him. “We have to present her with enough problems that she’s reacting to what we do, not acting by herself. We set the pace and determine what she does.”
Tycho’s eyes narrowed. “And if she doesn’t dance to the tune we call?”
Elscol opened her hands. “Then we dance around her. Make no mistake about it, defeating her is going to be neither pretty nor swift, but it can be done. People are going to die, but if she remains in charge of the bacta supply in the galaxy, that’s a given anyway.”
Wedge nodded and felt his shoulders begin to ache as if someone had settled a lead-lined cloak across them. While none of the Rogues had ever attempted to minimize the difficulty of what they had set out to do, neither had they taken a close look at the realities of it. It is almost as if we began to believe in the legend of Rogue Squadron—that impossible missions are for us just run of the mill. We know death and dying are part of any operation, but since we’re the ones putting our lives on the line, we’re accepting responsibility for our own lives. Elscol’s pointing out, quite correctly, that a lot of other people can and will be hurt in all this.
He nodded slowly. “Okay, we’ve got to start planning this all in earnest. We’re gathering weapons and the ships we need already, but now we’re going to have to designate mission goals, outline parameters, set rules of engagement, and establish just how far we’re willing to go to accomplish the end we desire: the liberation of Thyferra. I take it that the fact that you’re here means you’re willing to help us do this, Elscol?”
She winked at Wedge. “Actually I was coming here to give you folks the joy of flying cover for me while my people handled the problem, but I think throwing in with you is the only way to get this done. We’re in.”
“Great.” Wedge clapped her on the shoulders. “So, where do you suggest we begin?”
Elscol’s smile blossomed. “I think the first thing we want to do is to make Isard very mad.”
Chapter Ten
Corran made one last check on his instruments, but everything seemed fine. His screen showed him to be fifteen seconds from reversion to realspace. “Hang on, Whistler, this could be very strange.”
He knew it shouldn’t be at all out of the ordinary, but he couldn’t escape the feeling that something odd would happen. He felt it was not because of any unknown factors attached to the mission, because there really were none. Their intelligence about the bacta convoy had been very good and double-checked. The squadron should be able to hit it and get away well before Iceheart could mount any sort of rescue operation.
Corran’s uneasiness came from the fact that in this mission he was being asked to do something against which he had fought all his life. His father and grandfather had fought against it all their lives. Even Nejaa Halcyon had ventured out against pirates who preyed on interstellar convoys. Corran, who had once been an officer in the Corellian Security Force’s antismuggling, division, had become a pirate.
Rationalizing and justifying what he was about to do was simple in the extreme. Elscol Loro had said from the start that getting Isard angry was important, and stealing a convoy of bacta certainly would do that. It would also force her to devote some of her resources to safeguarding future convoys. Even if Rogue Squadron never engaged any of Isard’s troops, the sheer volume of runs the destroyers would have to make would tax the crew and the equipment, forcing her to obtain more supplies from the black market at inflated prices.
All the while wearing her down for us.
The counter in the upper corner of his screen spun down to zero, then the white tunnel outside his cockpit shattered into pinpoints of light that resolved themselves into stars. Out ahead of him, the yellow sun at the heart of the Chorax system took up a quarter of the sky, while the single large planet in the system stood silhouet
ted against it like the pupil in some huge yellow eye.
Streaming away from the planet like tears, the ships of the bacta convoy headed out, their exit vector identical to Rogue Squadron’s entry vector. Though closing fast with them, Corran could not make out any visual detail on the Thyferran ships, yet Whistler flashed a schematic of them on his screen in short order. Three hundred meters in length, from prow bridge to hyperdrives, the bacta tankers had an almost insectoid feel about them. The ship’s central section had two parts, each of which held six cargo cylinders. In the various systems where the convoy stopped, smaller ships would fly up to the convoy, tease one of the cylinders free from the tanker’s belly, then slip a return cylinder into its place. The returned cylinder might be empty, but most of them contained the world’s native goods, to be sent back to Thyferra or traded yet further along the line.
Corran keyed his comm unit. “Nine here, Rogue Leader. The convoy is right where it is supposed to be. No hostiles yet.”
“I copy, Nine. Stand by.” Wedge’s voice broke for a moment, then flooded through the helmet speakers. “Bacta convoy, this is Wedge Antilles. Prepare to alter course to coordinates I will supply you.”
A new voice came back on the comm unit. “Antilles, this is Thyferran Convoy Delta-Two-Niner. We do not recognize your authority to give us orders.”
“You will. Two flight, make a run.”
“I copy, Rogue Leader.” Confidence bubbled through Tycho’s voice. “Eight, Nine, and Ten on me. Lock S-foils into attack position.”
“As ordered, sir.” Corran nudged his stick to the left and pushed the throttle forward to bring his X-wing up on Tycho’s left. Nawara Ven, in Eight, dropped in back and starboard of Tycho while Ooryl pulled his X-wing into the formation to the port and in back of Corran. As a unit they sped on in at the long string of tankers and tending vessels. The tenders will be the ones that are armed.
The boxy tenders, which really were just freighters hauling food and other supplies for the convoy, quickly outstripped the tankers and positioned themselves to make the fighters shy off their targets. The strategy of forming a wall in front of the freighters might well have worked had the battle been taking place on a planet with the Rogues in land-speeders, but in space the tight grouping of the freighters just made eluding them all that much more easy.
Corran hit a key on his console. “Seven, I show six freighters in that block in front of us, but there were eight originally. They’re screening something.”
“I copy, Nine. The two missing ones are the largest of them. Keep your eyes open for something tricky.”
Suddenly the freighter formation opened up like a flower blossoming and eight snubfighters burst up through the opening at full attack speed. Led by four Z-95 Headhunters with blasters blazing, the Thyferran fighters zeroed in on the Rogue formation. Corran threw all shield power to the forward shields, dropped his crosshairs on one of the speeding Headhunters and hit his trigger.
The quad burst of laser fire pierced the Headhunter’s shields. The red beams sliced into the joint where the port wing joined the fuselage, sheering it off. The engine on that wing exploded and the ship itself whirled off in a flat spin. Corran sideslipped to starboard to cut beneath its flight path, then hauled back on his stick to loop up and onto the trail of the Thyferran fighters.
Evening his shields out, he inverted the X-wing and dove onto the tail of the second set of Thyferran fighters. It was a mixed group consisting of two TIE fighters and two “Uglies”—hybrid ships consisting of a TIE’s ball cockpit married to Y-wing engine nacelles.
“Ten, do you want the Die-wings, or shall I take them?”
“Ooryl would be pleased to take them.”
“Ten, I have your wing.” Corran smiled as Ooryl cruised up and broke to starboard as the pair of Uglies veered away to shake them. While affordable and effective for most convoy security duty, the Uglies were not well suited to engagements against military-grade snubfighters. The Die-wing variant—often referred to as TIE-wing among those who flew them—suffered from the deficits of their component parts. They had a Y-wing’s sloth mated with a TIE fighter’s lack of shields. Corran would have preferred to be handed a blaster and allowed to float his way into a fight than pilot one of those things.
He kept an eye on the location of the TIE fighters as Ooryl went in after the Uglies. Though the Gand’s exoskeleton made him look blocky and clumsy on the ground, his handling of an X-wing was nothing short of fluid and even delicate. Whereas Corran’s passing shot on the Headhunter had been lucky, Ooryl had a facility for doing exactly that sort of damage on purpose. He shoots as if laser bolts were being rationed.
Ooryl triggered a double burst of laser fire, sending two scarlet bolts lancing through the lead Die-wing’s ball cockpit. Nothing exploded, though leaking atmosphere did combust and flare for a moment. The Die-wing hurtled on through space, but began to level out from the looping climb in which it had been engaged. That move invited a second shot, but the first had clearly killed the pilot, leaving the ship to fly on with no intelligence at the controls.
Unfortunately for him, the Die-wing’s wingman failed to realize his partner had died. Flying in perfect formation, he began to level out, too. Ooryl’s sideslip dropped him square on that fighter’s aft. Before the pilot could begin to maneuver, Ooryl fired two laser bursts at him. The first shredded the port nacelle, lacing it with fire before ripping it apart. The second shot weakened the link between the remaining nacelle and the cockpit. The engine ripped free, rocketing off toward Chorax’s sun, while the ball flew on out of control.
A small explosion wreathed the top of the cockpit with fire. A round plug shot upward; then the pilot followed, riding a command couch backed by a rocket booster. It carried the pilot clear of the doomed ship and out into space. The command couch gave the pilot marginal control over his fate—he was no longer bound for deep space in a runaway fighter—but without a pickup in a ship within a half hour, he’d suffocate or freeze to death.
Corran keyed his comm unit. “We have one bad guy EV.”
Whistler’s urgent hooting overrode any reply. “Got it, Whistler—TIEs inbound. Ten, you’re my wing again.”
“Ten complying with your order.”
Corran shook his head as he brought the X-wing up on its port stabilizer and pulled back on the stick. Any other pilot in the unit who had picked off the Die-wings would have been ecstatic, or at least would have had his excitement show up in his voice, but not Ooryl. The only way to tell if he was excited or ashamed about something was to listen to how he referred to himself. Gands felt it the height of arrogance to refer to themselves with a personal pronoun unless it was felt by Gand leadership that the Gand in question had done something so great that every Gand would be aware of who was being referred to. As a result, when Ooryl was happy he referred to himself as Ooryl, when he was chagrined as Qrygg, and when he was really mortified as Gand, allowing himself to sink in anonymity as his shame grew greater.
His ego is just as strong as any of the rest of us—he just has a better grip on it.
Corran inverted his X-wing and leveled out for a head-to-head pass with the TIEs. The lead TIE broke off, but the following one began a corkscrew maneuver that jumped him around enough to make him hard to target. Corran snapped a shot at him, then climbed up and off after the fleeing TIE. He’s the lesser of two evils.
The TIE jinked high and low, but did very little side to side maneuvering. He’s a rookie and has been training in atmosphere. The TIE’s octagonal solar panels caused a lot of problems with maneuvering in atmosphere because of the resistance they offered, though climbing and diving were no problem at all in a TIE. In space there was no atmosphere to limit the TIE’s maneuverability, but the pilot he was chasing had not yet had a chance to learn that lesson.
And the lesson he’s going to learn here is one of an entirely different nature. Corran snap-rolled the X-wing up on the port S-foil. Whereas the up and down juking had made the TIE di
fficult to hit before, Corran’s roll left it trapped between the X-wing’s lasers. Corran’s finger tightened up on the trigger, spitting laser fire at his quarry.
The quad burst evaporated the port solar cell wing, letting the TIE trail threadlike tendrils of congealing metal on its left side. Corran pushed his stick forward to correct his aim, but before he could shoot again, the hiss of laser fire hitting his aft shield filled his cockpit. Jamming the stick to the left and shoving it forward, Corran kicked his fighter into a corkscrew dive that took him well away from the wounded TIE.
A glance at his aft sensor readout showed the remaining TIE was staying with him. This guy is really good. “Ten, I have one on my tail.”
“Ten is shaking a lock.”
“I copy, Ten.” Corran frowned. “Whistler, find out what has a lock on Ten.” He knew it had to be one of the freighters that had a concussion missile battery or proton torpedo launcher on board. Most freighters did not carry such weapons systems just because of the space needed for storing the missles and the sensor equipment, but those that did could be very effective against pirates, because they could engage them at the missiles’ longer range.
Whistler shrilled at him.
“Yes, I know I have a fighter on my, er, our, trail.” Corran pulled up into a climb, then rolled and shot off at right angles to the line of his climb. “I’ll take care of him, you just tell me what I want to know.”
The TIE stuck with him. This guy is very good. His fighter can match mine in speed and maneuvering. He’s not going to let me go head to head with him because my shields give me an advantage in doing that. He has to stay in my aft arc and keep nibbling away at my shields to get me, so that’s what I’ll let him do.
Corran switched his fire controls from lasers to proton torpedoes and prepped the fighter to shoot them one at a time. He kept a loose hand on the stick and jinked a bit, but allowed his pursuit to take a couple of shots at him. They sizzled in on the aft shield, but didn’t penetrate it.