“Let’s get up there, Sparks,” he said.
The droid whistled eager agreement.
—
Dex broke atmo and the blue gave way to the black. Sparks ran through a quick instrument and weapons check, beeped that all was in order. He followed that with a whirred query about Dex’s vital signs.
“No, I’m fine,” Dex told the droid. He was just giddy. He’d gone from hopeless to hopeful so quickly he was still spinning from it. He took a few deep, calming breaths, brought himself down and found his focus.
“On me, Gold Squadron,” said Gold Leader over the comm.
Affirmatives around.
The squad fell into attack formation, Dex on the starboard end of the V-pattern. Through the cockpit glass, he saw Red and Green squadrons’ X-wings in formation to his right, slightly lagging Gold’s lead. They sped around and away from the moon, the usual banter carrying across the comms.
As the Death Star came into view, the comm chatter fell silent, quieted by the enormity of the station. Even from a distance, Dex could see the differentiated structures all over the station’s surface, the huge convex disk that he knew served to focus the station’s planet-busting weapon. He went over the broad strokes of the attack in his mind: first the turbolasers, then the deflector stations, then Gold and Red would take the trench by turn.
“No support craft,” he said.
“Not yet,” said Davish. “We get to eat some turbolasers first.”
Gold Leader’s stern voice crackled through the comm. “Less chatter and more focus. You know your jobs. Do them.”
“We fly our run,” Dex said.
“And hit what we can,” Davish answered.
The station grew in size as they sped toward it, until it filled Dex’s field of view. Sparks scanned the station, fed pertinent information to Dex’s heads-up display. Dex noted the location of the turbolasers.
“Accelerate to attack speed,” said Gold Leader.
Dex fired his engines. “Deflectors at full, Sparks. Here we go.”
As they closed on the Death Star, turbolasers swung toward them and painted red lines across space. Dex pulled hard on the stick, rose, spun a circle, shoved it down, and opened up with his weapons. The Y-wing’s cannons sprayed the surface of the Death Star and birthed plumes of flame. He jerked hard right, locked on to a turbolaser turret, fired, and watched it explode. Pulling back on the stick, he shot high over the surface of the battle station, chased by laserfire. He glanced down, saw the rest of Gold and Red squadrons darting over the surface of the station. The turbolasers—designed as they were to defend the station against capital ships rather than fighters—had trouble tracking the elusive X- and Y-wings.
“Find me something else to blow up, Sparks,” he said, and the droid fed him the coordinates for a deflector tower.
He slammed the stick down and closed on the tower, flying straight into a spray of fire from a turbolaser. He spun the ship, dancing between the ionized lines, while Sparks whooped. He sprayed the turbolaser with his cannons, took it out, and turned hard at the deflector tower. He locked on, fired, and watched it blossom into flame.
“Nice shot, Gold Two,” said Davish.
“Someone’s gotta be a hero,” Dex answered.
He pulled up, went high, and noticed that the turbolasers had stopped firing. They could not have destroyed them all so fast, so that could mean only one thing.
Gold Leader’s voice affirmed his thinking. “Fighters incoming. Gold Two and Five on me for the trench. The rest of the squad, engage the TIEs. Hold them off.”
“Active scan, Sparks,” Dex said, wheeling his Y-wing in beside Gold Leader and Davish. “Let me know if we get any attention from the TIEs.”
Sparks beeped agreement. Below them, elements of Red squadron engaged with the TIEs that had poured out of the station’s launch bays.
“It’ll be tight in the trench,” Gold Leader said. “Hold formation whatever comes. I lead. You two lagging on my nacelles. Copy?”
“Copy,” Davish and Dex said in sequence.
A few moments of quiet, then Gold Leader said, “We go.”
The three Y-wings streaked toward the trench. Dex’s vision distilled down to the dark line of it, a gash crosscutting the battle station. In his mind, he pictured the exhaust port at its end. They needed to fly in the trench to allow their targeting computers to properly calculate the shot.
“All systems square, Sparks?”
The droid beeped an affirmative.
The three Y-wings swooped down into the shadowed trench, Dex and Davish right behind Gold Leader’s engine nacelles. The flying felt claustrophobic. The sides of the trench were a blur, whipping past at a dizzying speed. Dex kept his eyes forward and on his instruments so as not to get disoriented.
The distance to the exhaust port showed as a countdown on his heads-up. They were getting close.
Small sparks, he thought. Small sparks.
Sparks beeped a warning a moment before Gold Leader said, “They’re coming in! Three marks at two ten.”
The scanner showed TIEs in the trench behind them, closing fast. Dex compared their closing speed with the remaining distance to the exhaust port.
It would be close.
“Engines at full,” Gold Leader said. “And hold formation, damn it.”
Sparks adjusted power settings, increasing the engine’s output, and the Y-wing accelerated.
“Rear deflectors at full,” Dex said, and Sparks redirected power. Dex was sweating under his flight suit, his breath coming fast, white-knuckling the stick. The narrowness of the trench gave him no room to maneuver. He stared at the display that showed the approaching exhaust port. He was just waiting for his targeting computer to affirm a lock.
Almost there. Almost.
Come on. Come on.
A shot from one of the TIEs struck the side of the trench, exploded, and the blast wave wobbled Dex’s Y-wing. He scraped the side of the trench wall but straightened up.
“I’m good,” he said. “I’m good.”
The TIEs had closed faster than expected. He checked the heads-up again. So close.
“Hold formation,” Gold Leader said, his normally emotionless voice tight with tension. “Wobble as best you can but do not break off.”
There was no real room to wobble the craft, though, not without risking a collision. They’d just have to rely on their deflectors. They were nearly to the port.
“Everything we have to the rear deflectors, Sparks.”
More shots from the TIEs put red lines over his cockpit.
Almost there.
His ship shook with a sudden impact, as if kicked from behind. Sirens screamed, the depressurization warning. Sparks beeped in alarm.
“I’m hit,” Dex said, calmer than he would have expected. “Deflector down. I’m holding formation. I’m holding.”
Smoke leaked from his control panel, sparks sizzling from an electrical short somewhere deep in the electronics. The stick felt heavy in his hand, unresponsive. He found it hard to breathe.
The ship lurched again and the pressure wave from an explosion in the rear caused him to see sparks. Sparks let out an alarmed squeal that cut short.
Dex flashed on his mom, her smile, his dad and his mustache, his sister’s giggle.
Someone had to be the hero. Someone had to be—
A flash of orange, a brief moment of searing heat, a roar in his ears, as much felt as heard, then nothing more.
“You know I hate that nickname,” Col said.
He knew immediately that he’d made another mistake—Puck Naeco was immune to fear and disinclined to mercy, whether behind the stick of a T-65 starfighter or killing time in the ready room deep within Yavin 4’s Massassi temple.
A corner of Puck’s mouth twitched upward. As had happened too many times in simulations, Col had let the older pilot maneuver him into position for the kill shot.
Two other pilots, John D. Branon and Theron Nett, exchanged an amu
sed glance.
“What have I told you about taking the bait?” Puck asked Col.
Col sighed. “Not to.”
“And what did you just do?”
“Took the bait. Can’t you think of something else, though? I mean, we don’t even look alike.”
“You do to me,” rumbled the Mon Calamari ground tech Kelemah, one lamplike eye swiveling up from patching a leaking oxygen hose. “But then you all do.”
“Very helpful, Kel,” Col muttered.
“And you sound exactly alike. It’s uncanny, really. I’d swear you were the same person.”
Puck grinned. “He’s got you there, Fa—”
“Don’t,” Col said, his voice loud enough that the other pilots looked over.
“I mean it, Puck,” he said more quietly. “Don’t. Today of all days, don’t.”
Somehow that succeeded where previous efforts hadn’t. Puck nodded and raised his hands peaceably.
“So what exactly did the kid say that set you off, Col?” asked John D. “In all the excitement I missed that.”
“Well, I’d just said that it’s impossible to hit a two-meter target with a proton torpedo, even with a computer.”
A glance passed between Puck and John D.
“What? Don’t tell me you weren’t thinking the same thing while Dodonna was showing us those schematics.”
“Maybe,” John D. said. “I’m guessing the kid thought it was possible. What did he say?”
The door opened and other pilots began entering the room in twos and threes. Col spotted Biggs Darklighter, a newcomer whose carefully groomed mustache was another of Puck’s favorite targets; grim, gravel-voiced Elyhek Rue; the talented, volatile Bren Quersey; and cool, analytically minded Wenton Chan.
And trailing behind them, the last person Col wanted to see: Wedge Antilles, the young pilot he was sure had been sent to Yavin 4 solely to bedevil him.
“Look, it was nothing,” Col told John D. “Forget it.”
“Really?” Puck asked. “A minute ago, you were having one of your fits.”
Rue, at the end of the line for the caf dispenser, looked up absently.
“What’s this about, Antilles?” he began, then peered more closely at Col. “Oh. Sorry.”
Col knew his face was reddening even before the laughter began.
Puck slung an arm around his shoulder: “And that, Col Takbright, is why you are and will always be known around here as Fake Wedge.”
—
In his calmer moments, Col knew the nickname had stuck for reasons beyond his superficial resemblance to Antilles.
During mission briefings, Antilles limited himself to a few specific questions, while Col wanted to know if Starfighter Command had analyzed all the alternatives. When things went wrong in the simulator, Antilles reviewed telemetry while Col vented his rage on helmets and furniture. Even their helmets were opposites—Wedge’s a matte green, Col’s a riot of yellow racing stripes.
Garven Dreis—Red Squadron’s craggy-faced, sad-eyed commander—had lectured Col after his eruptions. So had General Merrick, who’d died with too many others at Scarif. And veterans such as Puck and John D. had tried to reinforce the message. Col knew Puck’s teasing was meant to help him develop thicker skin.
Col had tried to be more like the pilots praised for their placid exteriors—pilots like Chan and Antilles. But inevitably, another feeling would steal over him as he lay in his bunk staring at the stone ceiling.
Every day, the Empire was devouring worlds for ore and fuel and murdering those who dared to oppose it. Col had watched in increasing agitation as evil crept across the galaxy, until he’d realized he couldn’t spend another day on his placid homeworld doing nothing. He’d left Uquine that night with some credits, a duffel bag, and a vow to avenge those the Empire had wronged.
Maybe, he’d lie in the darkness and think, the Rebellion’s problem wasn’t that Col Takbright was too angry. Maybe it was that people like Wedge Antilles weren’t angry enough.
—
The other pilots laughed, but Antilles looked pained and turned away—Col assumed he was embarrassed at being mistaken for the squadron’s scapegoat.
Rue, meanwhile, had abandoned the caf line.
“Sorry, Takbright,” he said quietly. “I wasn’t trying to be funny. My mind was somewhere else, that’s all.”
“Forget it,” Col said, knowing this time Puck hadn’t set him up—the next practical joke Rue played would be his first.
John D. caught Col’s eye and inclined his head—sit. Col choked down his anger and did so. A moment later, Antilles settled into the chair next to him with a sigh.
“I think it’s time to switch things up,” he said. “Hey guys, it’s me—Fake Col.”
Col’s first instinct was to knock Antilles onto the floor and show the whole squadron the joke ended here. But Red Leader would arrive soon with the pilot roster for the Death Star mission—and Col would be an easy cut if found brawling with a fellow pilot.
And that wouldn’t be right. Col had earned the right to be part of the most important mission in Alliance history. No, he hadn’t flown at Scarif—the last place in the squadron had gone to Pedrin Gaul, who’d died there. But Dreis had praised his performance in recent raids, and Col had racked up patrols and recon missions. He just had to keep his cool and hope for the best.
“Takbright! You still haven’t told us what the kid said.”
That was John D. again, like a nek with a bone. Still, it was better than this embarrassed silence—or whatever torment Puck might think up next.
“He told me he used to bull’s-eye some kind of varmint back home. In—get this—a T-16.”
Biggs looked over and wagged a finger at Col. “Hey, don’t knock T-16s. I learned to fly on them—if you can handle a skyhopper, you can handle an X-wing.”
“Before Biggs crafts another ode to the galaxy’s noble bush pilots, I wanna hear more about the varmint,” Puck said.
Col furrowed his brow. “He called it a…a womp rat. Whatever that is.”
Biggs turned so quickly that caf sloshed out of his cup.
“A womp rat? You’re sure that’s what he said?”
“Would I make up a name like that?”
“No way. It can’t be.”
And then Biggs was rushing for the door, nearly toppling Dreis as he entered the ready room with Zal Dinnes and Ralo Surrel at his heels. The squadron leader shot a curious look in Biggs’s direction—pilots tended to rush in when the Old Man arrived, not hurry out—then shrugged.
Chairs scraped on the ancient stone floor as the pilots stood. Col spotted the muscles of jaws working and fingers tugging at uniforms. These men and women would be all business in their cockpits, but this part made them nervous. These were the moments in which they’d learn who’d fly and who’d be left dirtside, to lunge for control yokes and triggers that weren’t there.
“At ease,” Dreis said. “Save it for zero hour.”
No one sat.
“Like that, huh? Can’t say I blame you. Let’s get to it. You all know we have more pilots than birds. Given our losses at Scarif, we’re trying to figure out if we can even put Green and Blue squadrons together. I’d fly with anyone in this room—and you all deserve a place on this hop. But unfortunately that can’t happen.”
Silence hung over the room.
“First flight,” Dreis began. “I’m flying lead. Theron, starboard wing as Red Ten. Puck, you’re port as Red Twelve.”
As usual, Nett had no reaction. But Puck blew his breath out and nodded to himself—the first time Col had ever seen him look nervous.
Col tried to think along with Dreis. Red Squadron’s twelve X-wings were divided into four flights of three starfighters each. Dreis normally flew with Nett and Surrel as his wingmates. Since he’d subbed Puck for Ralo, in all likelihood he’d decided…
“Ralo, you’ll lead second flight as Red Eleven,” Dreis said. “Wings are Branon and Binli, as Red Four and Red
Seven.”
That wasn’t a surprise either—John D. was a veteran and Harb Binli had flown well at Scarif.
“Third flight,” Dreis said, and Col noticed eyes narrowing and postures growing rigid. Third and fourth flights were where Dreis had needed to make tough choices.
“Zal, you’ll fly lead as Red Eight. Wings are Naytaan and Porkins, as Red Nine and Red Six.”
Dinnes’s only reaction was to nod briefly at Nozzo Naytaan and Jek Porkins.
One flight to go. Col’s eyes skittered over Antilles and Chan, Rue and Quersey, and the other pilots on the bubble.
“Fourth flight will be led by the new kid, Luke Skywalker,” Dreis said.
That was not expected. The pilots muttered and exchanged startled looks.
“The womp rat kid?” Col demanded, drawing an exasperated look from Puck.
“Is that what we’re calling him?” Dreis asked. “He’ll fly as Red Five—assuming his simulator run checks out. Before anyone else has something to say, remember that without Skywalker the princess would have been executed—and we’d be going up against that battle station with nothing but prayers.”
Two slots left in the squadron. Puck fixed Col with a stern look that he didn’t need to interpret.
“Darklighter will be Luke’s starboard wingman, flying as Red Three,” Dreis said. “Assuming someone can find Biggs by the time we fly.”
One seat left. Col prayed that the Old Man wouldn’t let him down.
“Wedge, you’ll be port wing, flying as Red Two. But see Kelemah about your bird—he’s got a couple of things to go over with you.”
Col leaned against the wall and stared down at his flight suit, numbly registering the chest-mounted life-support unit and the band of signal flares around his lower leg. Both useless—he didn’t need gear to sit and wait while others did the job he’d been meant to do.
“I’m not much for speeches, but seems like the occasion calls for one,” Dreis said. “You know there’s a tough target waiting for us. Just like you know that a lot of brave people—including friends of ours—gave their lives so we’d have a chance to take that target down.”