“That sounds like an invitation.” I snort a laugh. “Do you want to try that again, Porkins?”
He grins and pushes me to the side. “Oh, I’m far out of your league, nerf herder.”
It’s not till the hangar that I catch up to my old friend as he runs his hand along the fuselage of a T-65 with the same wistful expression he wore when we parted at Tosche Station just a few short weeks ago. He’s dressed in a flight suit now.
“Hey, Luke!” I shout.
He wheels around, a bright farmboy grin already on his face. “Biggs?”
I laugh. “I don’t believe it!” I throw an arm over his shoulder, questions tumbling out. “How are ya? How’d you get here? You coming up with us?”
He doesn’t miss a beat. “I’ll be right up there with you, and have I got stories to tell you.”
Him and me both. How the hell did he end up in this? There’s no time to ask, and even less time to tell him how happy I am he’s here.
“Skywalker.” Garven Dreis, Red Squadron leader, approaches from behind and nods to the rusted T-65. “You sure you can handle this ship?”
I see the panic in Luke’s eyes, and I cut in before he can answer. “Sir, Luke is the best bush pilot in the Outer Rim Territories.”
Garven grins, knowing I don’t give compliments lightly. “You’ll do all right.”
Luke smiles. “Thank you, sir. I’ll try.”
Garven heads to his ship as Luke and I head down the line to our own. “Gotta get aboard,” I say, wishing we had more time. “We’ll hear all your stories when we get back, all right?”
He grins at me. “Hey, Biggs, I told you I’d make it someday.”
He did, and I never doubted him once. Warm pride swells up in me like a twin desert sunrise, and I think how fitting it is that we are here. Two sons of Tatooine.
“It’ll be like old times, Luke. They’ll never stop us.”
I leave Luke behind and find Wedge sitting on the boarding ladder to his cockpit. “Biggs,” he says with a distant smile. “Who’s the kid?”
“Friend from home,” I say. “Always said he’d join the Rebellion.”
“Shame we don’t have more Corellians.” He grins. “We’d have the Imperials running for Coruscant in a blink.”
“We got them right where we want them!” I say. “Good luck out there, Wedge.”
“And to you, Biggs.” We shake hands.
I board my X-wing and begin the preflight checklist with my astromech. As nearby technicians sheath their hydrospanners and shimmy off the aluminum engineer ladders, I feel happy. Knowing that all my boyhood competition and camaraderie with Luke has led us here, prepared us for this moment.
We leave Base One behind, taxiing up away from the ancient temple, past the observation obelisks where sentries wave good luck, up from the sea of jungle toward the pregnant red hulk of Yavin. We breach orbit, and I feel space untether me from gravity. My heart rushes in my chest while at the same time it seems as if my stomach has made a migration up into my throat. I’m thanking the stars I passed on the jet juice that Porkins was dishing out last night.
Our squadron circles Yavin, and we see it for the first time. A pale-gray orb hanging in space like an untethered moon. Men built this. I’d say it was impossible if I didn’t see it with my own eyes. Our thirty tiny ships are nothing but gnats on a bantha.
The joy I felt in the hangar is eroded by fear. So long as I was the only one exposed to this fight, the fear was something manageable. Something I could shove deep down into my stomach and forget like it was my private dark secret. But with Luke here, the fragile memory of home, friends, and family feels so very exposed, as if it could be broken at any moment. And the leviathan is what will do the breaking.
Garven’s voice comes over the comm unit. “All wings report in.”
“Red Ten standing by.”
“Red Seven standing by.”
“Red Three standing by,” I say.
The confirmation rattles down the rest of the squadron until I hear Luke’s voice. The fear fades. It might not be sand under our wings, but we’ve yet to face a run we can’t manage together.
“Lock S-foils into attack position,” Garven says. The Death Star expands till it consumes my entire viewport. There’s still no sign of enemy fighters. Can they really be so arrogant? My ship begins to shake; the control stick bucks against my hands like an unruly eel. “We’re passing through a magnetic field, hold tight. Switch your deflectors on double front.”
“Look at the size of that thing,” Wedge murmurs. I hear the fear in my friend’s voice, the same fear that would steal the courage from me. It sweeps through the squadron as we coast toward the killing station. Inside are the men who destroyed Alderaan, a peaceful planet if ever there was one. How many more will suffer if this evil is not taken down here and now?
“Cut the chatter, Red Two,” Garven says. “Accelerate to attack speed.” I shake myself in my cockpit and push forward on the throttle. We race closer. Closer, till the station seems all there is, a hulking, impossible sphere of bone-hued metal and turbolaser towers and defense installations that jut up from the station’s skin like ingrown hairs. “This is it, boys.”
“Red Leader, this is Gold Leader. We’re heading for the target shaft now.”
“We’re in position. I’m going to cut across the access and try to draw their fire.” Garven’s X-wing banks hard diagonally down at the surface of the Death Star. I bank my ship to follow in a lazy corkscrew. A fury of green laser bolts lance up from the gray landscape, burning through the black of space. They pass harmlessly, the towers too slow to track us as Luke, Wedge, and I skim close to the surface of the station.
“Heavy fire, boss, twenty-three degrees,” someone says.
“I see it,” Garven replies. “Stay low.”
Our three ships dip and weave through the communication and antiaircraft towers. “This is Red Five: I’m going in,” Luke says as he peels off from Wedge and me and dives toward a heavy turbolaser tower. His lasers burn across a trench line, digging furrows in the metal. But he’s going in too hot.
“Luke! Pull up!” I shout. At the last moment, his ship pivots up from its collision course with the station and bounds away. “Are you all right?”
“I got a little cooked, but I’m okay.”
I sigh in relief as Luke forms up on Wedge and me. There’s hardly time to reorient. Fire from dozens of turbolaser cannons laces the dogfight. Garven, cool under pressure, identifies the source. “There’s a lot of fire coming from the right side of that deflection tower.”
“I’m on it.” Luke says, hungry for another attack run. He was always the more eager of the two of us. Aunt Beru was more than half certain he’d end up engine paste on the side of a Beggar’s Canyon rock shelf. To be honest, so was I. But I’ve never seen anyone with the run of luck Luke has.
I form up on his flank to help with his attack run on the laser towers. I look on the scope to see who is nearby to offer support. “I’m going in. Cover me, Porkins.”
“I’m right with you, Red Three.” The sound of his voice is a surprising comfort. Luke and I swoop low to the deck, weaving between towers, and concentrate our fire on the laser tower that was chewing up Garven’s wingmates. It flashes and glows as our cannons melt into its reflector shields, and then detonates as Luke and I soar past. Just like bull’s-eyeing womp rats. I whoop in exhilaration.
Then Porkins’s voice comes frantic over the comm.
“I’ve got a problem here,” he says from above. I watch him on my scope. He’s pinned in a field of overlapping fire and hit bad in the fuselage.
“Eject…” I say.
“No, I can hold it.” A second later, a laser enters the belly of his ship and detonates it from the inside. I look for sign of an ejection, but there is none. Porkins is dead. I barely have time to register the loss when Base One hails us.
“Squad leaders, we’ve picked up a new group of signals. Enemy fighters coming your w
ay.”
“My scope’s negative, I don’t see anything,” Luke says. And neither do I. I crane my neck around to scan the space above me for the eyeballs.
“Pick up your visual scanning.”
“Here they come.”
“Watch it. You’ve got one on your tail!”
A cloud of fire ignites and dies as an X-wing disintegrates to starboard.
“You’ve picked one up, watch it,” Luke shouts at me. I wheel my head around, juking and spiraling to confuse the TIE’s targeting computer. I still haven’t spotted him. “I can’t see him.” I veer away from the Death Star to gain room to maneuver. The TIE’s lasers lick past me. The hairs on my arms stand up. A weight grows in my gut. I jerk on the control stick. This guy is good. “He’s on me tight. I can’t shake him.”
“I’ll be right there,” Luke says. I even out, presenting the TIE pilot with a clean shot, making him an easier target for Luke. He drops in behind the TIE and sends a salvo of lasers into its rear fuselage for a clean kill.
“All right! Good shooting, Luke!”
“Thanks, Biggs, but we’re not out of this yet!”
I swerve my X-wing back toward the Death Star and strafe several turbolaser towers that are peppering the Y-wing Gold Squadron. Two detonate spectacularly. Above me, Luke has picked up a TIE on his tail. Debris shears off the top of the X-wing, just behind the pilot’s canopy. I shouldn’t have gone for the laser towers. I left him exposed. “I can’t shake him!” he says.
In a panic, I’m about to come at the TIE from underneath when Wedge vapes the ship with a bold head-on attack run and soars straight through the debris. Damn, that man can fly. I form up on the two and check out the damage done to Luke’s ship.
“You got some damage there,” I say. “How’s the stick?”
“Still got maneuverability,” Luke says. “We gotta stay tight. No more running off!”
“Copy that,” I say, surprised and somewhat relieved that he’s taken control of our flight wing. If Wedge hadn’t been there, Luke would’ve been in some real trouble. That’s on me. I got hungry for a kill and I left my wingmate. Not again. We form tight on each other.
“Red Leader, this is Gold Leader. We are starting our attack run.”
“I copy, Gold Leader. Move into position.”
Free from the harassment of the destroyed laser towers, the Y-wings dive into the trench. Slower and older than our T-65s, they’re more vulnerable to the enemy fighters, and stronger against entrenched elements. Red Squadron provides cover for the Y-wings as they continue down the trench. Luke, Wedge, and I tangle with a trio of TIE fighters. Lasers splash against my front deflectors. I juke upward and let off a stream of fire, clipping the solar panel of the TIE. It careens sideways into its wingmate, which Luke shreds with his lasers. Wedge spirals downward and kills the last fighter as it heads for the Y-wings.
But as we tangle with them, three marks slip underneath our dogfight and dive into the trench after the Y-wings.
“Three marks at four ten,” I say.
“We gotta keep them off the Y-wings,” Wedge says. We never get the chance. Another squadron of TIEs appears on our sensors, swarming us and cutting off our path. There’s no time to think. The chatter dies and Luke and I flow together wordlessly through the dogfight as if attached together with tow cables. Synced in perfect precision, one baiting the TIEs as the other hits them from the flank or rear. But even as we destroy the squadron, we hear the Y-wings dying over the comms.
“Gold Five to Red Leader, I’ve lost…Hutch. Came…from behind—”
“Red boys, this is Red Leader. Rendezvous at mark six point one.”
Wedge and I both copy. There’s only six Red Squadron pilots left. The rest of the squadrons have been wiped out by the guns and the TIEs and whoever killed Gold Squadron in the trench.
“Luke, take Red Two and Three. Hold up here and wait for my signal to start your run,” Garven says as his two wingmates dive into the trench. We form up at the end of it, where a hole has been carved in the turbolaser defenses, and watch the skies for TIEs. Sweat stings my eyes. Our window is shrinking.
Garven’s comms crackle, almost inaudible as he carries down the trench into the teeth of the turbolasers. One of his wingmates’ comms gets through. “There’s too much interference. Red Five…can…you…”
“Coming in at point three five,” Luke says.
“I see them.”
A flight of three TIEs diving down into the trench dozens of klicks away. One is larger than the others, swollen like a beetle with armor and advanced sensors. They disappear into the trench and all we can do is watch. Holding for our attack run, we’re too far away to help. They’re sitting ducks in there! I want to break free of our holding pattern and charge after them, but there’s no time.
“Just hold them off for a few…” I hear through the chatter. “Almost there…” A ball of fire flashes far ahead in the trench. One of the X-wings disappears from my sensors. Then the second goes with it. Garven’s alone, without wingmates, but he’s in range. They bought him enough time.
“It’s away!” he shouts and peels up out of the trench. His proton torpedoes fire at the exhaust port.
“It’s a hit?”
“Negative, negative. Didn’t go in. It impacted on the surface,” Garven says grimly. The armored TIE that destroyed his wingmates has pursued him up out of the trench, spewing acid-green laserfire at his engines.
“Red One, we’re right above you. Turn to point oh five and we’ll cover for you,” Luke says.
“Stay there,” Garven orders. “I just lost my starboard engine.” Wedge and Luke are silent in their ships. I feel a chill go through me. Garven knows he’s going to die. If we go help him, we’ll lose our chance. “Get set up for your attack run,” he says bravely. The words are barely out of his mouth when he’s clipped in the rear by a laser. He loses lateral controls and careens down into the surface of the Death Star, screaming.
We’re alone. Our squadron gone. Out of thirty ships, only three of us remain, and the Death Star is drawing around Yavin, mere seconds left before it can fire down at the moon and obliterate the Rebellion as it obliterated Alderaan. We are the last hope.
“Biggs, Wedge, let’s close it up,” Luke says, more authority in his voice than I’ve ever heard. Before today, we were friends, equals as boys, though the world always put me above him. I was older, wealthier, better with the girls at Tosche Station. When I saw him in the hangar, I thought I’d show him the ropes. But he doesn’t need me to teach him any longer. He’s different today from the boy I knew on Tatooine. He’s a man now, and something, some strange calm fills his voice and soothes my nerves. “We’re going in, we’re going in full throttle. That ought to keep those fighters off our backs.”
“Right with you, boss,” Wedge says.
“Luke, at that speed will you be able to pull out in time?” I ask.
I can practically hear him smile. “It’ll be just like Beggar’s Canyon back home.”
Grinning ear-to-ear, I follow him into a dive toward the trench, my ship vibrating as the engines are pushed to their limits. Luke’s in the lead now, and good for it. He was always the better shot.
“We’ll stay back just far enough to cover you,” I say, remembering how easily Gold Squadron and Garven’s wingmates were picked apart. I have to buy him more time than they did. He has to have a chance at the shot. And a hell of a shot it’ll have to be.
“My scope sees the tower, but I can’t see the exhaust port. You sure the computer can hit it?” Wedge asks.
Lasers spray fire down the trench at us.
“Watch yourself. Increase speed full throttle,” Luke replies.
“What about that tower,” Wedge presses nervously.
“You worry about those fighters. I’ll worry about the tower,” Luke snaps.
We race through the trench like womp rats with their tails on fire. Lasers burn past us, their green lances filling our viewports as we juke
manically within the narrow confines of the trench. It’s a miracle we don’t collide with one another or the walls. I spare a glance up through my canopy to look for the enemy TIEs and almost careen into the wall. I correct myself and chance a look back up. Wedge spots them before I do.
“Fighters coming in point three,” he says. They’re directly on our engines, matching our breakneck pace. Their lasers flash between our S-foils before connecting with the engines of Wedge’s ship. His X-wing bucks sideways, almost colliding with mine. I bank hard on my stick and skim a handsbreadth from the walls, nearly shaving off my right S-foils. I jerk back toward the center of the trench, wary of Wedge’s wobbling ship. He could take us both out with his internal stabilizer malfunctioning.
“I’m hit. I can’t stay with you,” he says.
“Get clear, Wedge. You can’t do any more good back there,” Luke replies.
“Sorry!” Wedge pulls out, and I’m left alone. My sensors are scrambled from the interference of the trench. I crane my head around to see the TIEs behind me. They’re accelerating, not just matching my velocity now but outstripping it. Reeling me in for the easy kill.
“Hurry, Luke,” I rush. “They’re coming in much faster this time. We can’t hold them.” I could bug out, like Wedge, and they wouldn’t follow. I could shunt the remaining power from my overworked reactor to my rear deflectors to keep myself alive. But without power for the engines, I’d fall behind. They’d leap past me and shoot Luke down. What do I do?
I feel a sudden, inexplicable joy open up in me. A powerful feeling of purpose, of peace, urging me to make the choice I always would have made: to save my friend.
I strip all power from my deflector shields and guns and put it into my engines, gunning them past the redline. My ship leaps forward, a shield for Luke. But there’s more power in the advanced TIE behind me than in my X-wing. It accelerates after me. I glance back and hear the warning of a target lock.
The calm disintegrates.
“Wait…” I hear myself saying. To whom, I don’t know. Some man who cannot hear me. It wasn’t supposed to end this way. I can’t leave Luke yet. We have so much yet to do. First the Death Star, I thought when I saw him. Then the liberation of home, Coruscant, all the planets in the galaxy. Together, we’d be unstoppable. But a cold feeling of dread enters me now as I see the green lasers leap through space and collide with my engines. They shear through the hull of my ship and out the other side. A fire starts in my controls. Then another salvo eviscerates my ship.