Star Wars - X-Wing - Krytos Trap Read online

  world. "You have failed me and yourself."

  "Please," he croaked, but her silhouette gave no indica-

  tion she had heard him.

  "One more chance, perhaps."

  "Yes, yes."

  "If you fail again . . ."

  Corran shook his head adamantly. "I won't, I won't."

  "No, for your next failure will be your last, Nemesis

  One." The silhouette folded its arms together. "Disappoint

  me again and what is left of your life will be spent in agoniz-

  ing atonement, disgrace, and, after a long time, death."

  7

  The reversion to realspace brought Wedge and the Rogues

  out into a situation that just seemed like another simulator

  run, with one minor variation. As he expected, Wedge saw

  the space station slowly revolving in a star-stained void. Way

  off toward the right, closer to the yellow star burning at the

  center of the solar system, sat Yag'Dhul. The planet's grey

  cloud cover made it only slightly more colorful than the

  Givin who called it home.

  The only variation from the opsims was the appearance

  of a flight of four TIE starfighters patrolling the area around

  the space station. Mynock, the R5 unit in Wedge's X-wing,

  immediately screeched out a warning when he noticed them

  off to port. Wedge glanced at his monitor, noted how the

  TIEs moved into an attack formation, and smiled.

  Action beats inaction every time. He keyed his corem

  unit. "One flight, on me. Rogue Twelve, take the Defenders

  in."

  "As ordered," Aril Nunb replied.

  Committing only one flight of fighters against an equal

  number of TIEs, especially when he could have had two

  dozen Y-wings and seven more X-wings join the fight, might

  have seemed the height of arrogance, though Wedge knew it

  was quite the opposite. While TIE pilots seldom managed to

  amass the experience of their Rebel counterparts, they were

  quite competent, and more than capable of killing in a dog-

  fight. Warlord Zsinj's pilots had proved to be good fighters in

  the past, and Wedge expected them to be nothing less in this

  engagement.

  The reasons he only pulled one flight from his formation

  to deal with the TIEs were twofold. First, and most impor-

  tant, their operation demanded that the threat to the station

  caused it to scramble its fighters. The X- and Y-wings were

  to draw the TIEs out and away from the station to a point in

  the system where the B-wings would come in. The B-wings

  were in hyperspace, already on their way, so if surprise were

  to be achieved, Zsinj's troops had to be lured into position in

  a timely manner.

  The second reason to match forces with Zsinj was be-

  cause having too many fighters involved in a battle tended to

  wreak havoc on the efficacy of the pilots. The difference be-

  tween a good pilot and a bad one, all other things being

  equal, came down to situational awareness. A pilot who

  could handle more variables, and keep track of more ships in

  his mind would do better in combat than one who could only

  deal with less in the way of distractions. Wedge had seen

  statistical analyses that showed that kill ratios fell as the

  number of fighters in a dogfight increased; so by keeping

  the fight small, he made it easier for his people to grasp all

  the aspects of the fight.

  "Three, you and Four have the trailers. Two, I have lead.

  Target the second TIE."

  "As ordered, Rogue Leader." Rhysati Ynr led Erisi

  Dlarit in a dive and sweeping turn that brought them around

  toward the following pair of TIEs. Rhysati's attack vector

  was intended to push the TIEs farther from the space station

  and the rest of the Rebel force. Wedge saw the TIEs begin to

  react to her maneuver, but they seemed content to let her

  dictate the direction of the fight.

  Wedge flipped his weapon's controls over to lasers and

  set them for dual-firing. He pumped his shields up to full and

  picked the lead eyeball as his target. They started to close,

  coming head to head, with their wingmen off starboard and

  hanging slightly back, each formation being the mirror image

  of the other. He smiled. Just where I want him. "Rogue Two, do you have your target?"

  "Confirmed, lead." Asyr's voice came through the

  comm unit cool and steady.

  "Get ready. On my mark, I'm going to foul your target.

  Shoot immediately after that with a proton torpedo."

  "As ordered."

  "Three, two, one, mark!" Wedge rolled the X-wing up

  and over in a barrel-roll to port. His target did the same

  thing, sweeping his fighter across his wingman's flight path.

  That momentarily blinded the second TIE and caused him to

  shy. Wedge glanced at his monitor and saw a report of a

  proton torpedo launch, then touched the starboard rudder

  pedal a second before inver ting the X-wing and making his

  pass on the TIE fighter.

  Before Wedge applied rudder, the two ships had been

  heading straight at each other. The rudder drifted the

  X-wing's nose about ten degrees to starboard, pulling him

  out of line with the TIE. The inversion flopped the

  starfighter, bringing the nose back into line with the TIE.

  Before Zsinj's pilot could react, Wedge's fighter streaked in

  at him and started shooting.

  The first pair of red laser-bolts missed low, but the next

  two pairs swept up and across the ball cockpit. One of the

  TIE's lasers died in a cloud of duraplast mist. Wedge's third

  shot lanced through the transparisteel viewport, igniting and

  melting all manner of components and equipment. The TIE

  starfighter rolled up on the starboard solar panel, then tight-

  ened down into a screw-spiral before exploding.

  A second later a blue proton torpedo slammed into the

  port wing on the second TIE. The black solar panel closed

  around the torpedo like cloth around a thrown stone. The

  torpedo itself punched through the panel and penetrated the

  fighter's hull before detonating. The blast ripped the back

  half off the cockpit pod, freeing the engines to soar further

  in-system while the shattered husk of a fighter tumbled on

  through the void.

  "Nice shot, Deuce."

  "Thanks for the setup, lead."

  Wedge brought the X-wing up and around to the origi-

  nal heading and saw a proton torpedo from Erisi's ship

  finish off a TIE. Farther along he saw streams of green

  laser-bolts spraying out from the space station. At the ex-

  tremes of range the fire did not seriously threaten the incom-

  ing fighters, but it did keep them away long enough for the

  station to scramble its TIEs. Zsinj's fliers boiled up and out

  from the station and rose on an intercept course with the

  Rebel fighters.

  "Lead, I have a dozen Interceptors and eight starfight-

  ers."

  "I copy, Twelve." That should be everything they have,

  unless they're holding something back. Keeping ships in re-

  serve made little or no sense to Wedge, but he'd long since
>
  learned that warfare and tactics seldom make a lot of sense

  to the opposition. I just hope our run away from the station

  looks believable.

  Aril Nunb led the Rogues and Y-wings up and away

  from the station. The squints and eyeballs came on in pur-

  suit, hot to thin the ranks of the Y-wings. The Interceptors

  opened a lead on the TIE starfighters and started to close fast

  with the Y-wings. Aril brought her X-wing over, and the rest

  of the Rogues followed her through a loop that took them

  back toward the Interceptors while the Y-wings continued

  heading away from their pursuers.

  As the X-wing and Interceptor formations began to

  spread out into clouds, the B-wings burst into realspace and

  shot straight into the gap between the squints and the eye-

  balls from the station. Wedge marveled at how each cruci-

  form ship flew with its wings and fuselage whirling around

  to keep the cockpit stable despite a wild series of maneuvers

  and course corrections. Having flown a B-wing a few times,

  he could appreciate the ship's firepower, but the way it

  moved and flew made him feel less like a pilot than a driver.

  The B-wings slashed in at the Interceptors. Half of them

  seemed content to attack using lasers or blasters, while the

  other half employed ion cannons to take the squints out of

  the fight without killing them. Blue ion-bolts caught In-

  terceptors in full flight, sending electricity skitter-jagging

  over the hulls. Laser and blaster fire ripped into other In-

  terceptors, burning holes through solar panels and cockpits.

  The B-wing ambush scattered the Interceptors, but the

  X-wings coming in at them did not break off ill pursuit. They

  left that to the B-wings. The Rogues pushed on through the

  crumbling Interceptor formation, shot past the B-wings and,

  as One Flight reunited with the squadron, sailed on in at the

  eyeball formation.

  The first pass came head to head. Static hissed through

  the X-wing cockpit as TIE lasers stung his forward shields

  repeatedly. Wave after wave of green light washed over the

  shields, but Wedge ignored it. He concentrated instead on his

  monitor and shifted the X-wing a bit to starboard, trapping a

  TIE fighter in the center of his targeting crosshairs. He tight-

  ened down on the trigger, pulsing kilojoules of scarlet energy

  into an eyebali's cockpit.

  A roiling explosion shredded that ship. Wedge kicked

  the X-wing up onto the starboard S-foil, then climbed up and

  away from the expanding ball of gas. Letting his roll con-

  tinue over the top, he dropped the X-wing into a dive, then

  rolled out to port and came around on an arc between the

  cloud of fighters and the station. He glanced off to starboard

  and saw Asyr still with him, which prompted him to toss her

  a salute. "Glad you stayed with me." "That's my job."

  From his vantage point at the periphery of the battle he

  could see a number of things that impressed him. The

  Rogues had hit the eyeballs very hard, but Zsinj's people

  regrouped in good order instead of scattering. Without

  shields, the TIE starfighters were really no match for the

  X-wings, but remaining together made them far more dan-

  gerous than individual ships fleeing. Whoever the leader of

  that squadron was, he was sharp enough to keep his people

  together and head them out and away from the fray.

  "Rogue flights Two and Three, leave the flight of eye-

  balls alone and join the Y-wings. One flight, we're watching

  the eyeballs." Wedge hit two buttons on his flight console.

  "Mynock, see if you can get me a frequency for the comm

  unit communications between the eyeballs."

  The droid hooted his understanding of the order.

  While Wedge waited for the droid to get him that infor-

  mation, he watched the B-wings finish off the squints and

  head in toward the station. Wedge's monitor showed seven

  Interceptors hanging dead in space. That number was im-

  pressive, even in spite of the ambush, because blowing ships

  up was far easier than taking their electrical systems down.

  While he appreciated the fact that the pilots had not been

  killed when their ships had been stopped, he knew the choice

  to use ion cannons on them had been made for practical

  rather than altruistic reasons.

  Each of those pilots will be debriefed, and what they

  know will be added to our store of inlrmation concerning

  Zsinj. It is entirely possible some or all of them served on the

  Iron Fist, and learning about the ship's condition is of vital

  importance. It represents the core of Zsinj's might, and will

  let us determine how truly dangerous he is.

  ]'he Rebel fighters all converged on the Empress-class

  space station with the Y-wings in the lead. While ungainly,

  the Y-wings were still not easy targets to hit. The station's

  weaponry sent energy beams shooting out at the attackers,

  but the incoming fighters supplied three targets for each

  weapon system, overwhelming the crews defending the sta-

  tion. Added to that was the ability of fighters to approach

  while using part of the station to shield them from many of

  the lasers. Using targeting data supplied by other ships, the

  fighters were able to pop from cover and fire at targets that

  had previously been unseen.

  The swooping, diving, rolling, and climbing cloud of

  fighters boiled around the station like insects around a bright

  light. Direct hits on a fighter would make the craft break off

  and loop away until its shields were recharged, then head

  back in. The battle to defend the station was lost from the

  very start, but the fear Zsinj inspired in his people clearly

  kept them fighting long after it made sense for them to do so.

  Mynock beeped, and Wedge saw a corem unit frequency

  come up on his monitor. He punched the number into his

  comm unit and keyed his microphone. "Starfighter flight,

  this is Commander Antilles of the New Republic Armed

  Forces. If you power down your weapons, we'll consider you

  noncombatants. The same offer goes for the people on the

  station."

  "I copy, Antilles." The voice coming back to Wedge

  through the comm unit had the metallic echo commonly in-

  jected in speech by Imperial equipment. "My flight is disarm-

  ing itself. I'll pass your message on to the station chief, Valsil

  Torr."

  "Obliged, starfighter." Wedge checked his sensors for

  hostiles as he waited for a return message.

  "Antilles, Torr has the message and is powering down

  his weapons. The station is yours. Be careful, though, he's a

  wily old Twi'lek."

  Wedge smiled. Though the communications gear had

  robbed the voice of any humanity, it couldn't kill the person-

  ality in it. He might have been amazed that someone who

  had just been shooting at him and his people would so

  quickly offer helpful advice, but he'd long since learned that

  warriors from all sides of any conflict had more in common<
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  than not. "I copy the advice. I appreciate it."

  "One thing, Antilles."

  "Yes?"

  "If we surrender to you, will you haul us out of here?"

  "Don't want to be around when the Iron Fist gets here?"

  "Not especially."

  No surprise, that. Unlike the starfighters the Rebellion

  used, the TIE fighters were not equipped with hyperdrives.

  TIEs traveled between battles in the bellies of ships like the

  Iron Fist. The flight of starfighters was trapped unless Wedge

  arranged transport for them out of the system. Zsinj had a

  reputation for being short-tempered, so leaving them behind

  was tantamount to murdering them, and Wedge had no de-

  sire to have their murders on his conscience.

  "Starfighter, surrendering to me means you'll lose your

  ship."

  "That's a problem, Antilles. We're all mercenaries. We

  lose our ships and we starve." The TIE pilot fell silent for a

  moment, then continued. "Of course, no reason to eat and

  live if you can't fly."

  "I understand, starfighter." Wedge thought for a mo-

  ment. "I have an idea. If you hire on as guards to fly cover

  for one of the freighters coming in, you can get out of here

  and be free."

  "Freighters?"

  "Coming for the bacta."

  "Bacta. So that's what we were guarding."

  "And you can continue guarding it all the way to Corus-

  cant, where it's needed. Give me your word you won't fight

  against the New Republic in the future, and you've got a

  deal."

  "You have it, Antilles."

  Right on cue, a dozen and 'a half bulk freighters and

  specialty haulers started coming out of hyperspace and cruis-

  ing in toward the space station. Most were blocky, squared-

  off craft that had seen better days, but a few were more

  elegant ships whose very designs were tributes to the roman-

  ticism of space travel. One, a converted Baudo-class yacht,

  glided through the void like a metal simulacrum of the Corel-

  lian sea creature that gave the ship her name.

  "Starfighter, the Baudo-class yacht there is the Pulsar

  Skate. I'll have the captain contact you on this frequency.

  Stand by."

  "I copy."

  Wedge opened a channel to the Skate. "Skate, this is

  Rogue Leader."

  "Mirax here, Wedge. We're fourth in line to head in.