When the squadron reverted to realspace, the dark craggy ball hanging in space before them reduced Borleias to a slender blue-green crescent streaked with white. The moon’s thin atmosphere blurred Borleias’s image, making it beautiful—which was definitely not how Corran had remembered it. Corran inverted his X-wing, then reached up with his right hand to hit the switch that brought his S-foils into attack position. Ahead of him Wedge’s X-wing similarly spread its wings, twisting around and bearing down on the moon.
The X-wings maintained comm silence as they leveled out and skimmed the black lunar surface. Corran brought his snubfighter in behind and to the left of Wedge’s fighter. With their scanners in passive mode to avoid detection, they’d only register threats that had scanners up and seeking targets. As a result visual scanning by pilots and astromech droids became the primary defense against ambush.
“Not that much should be here.” While the simulations had represented this run as threading their way through an asteroid ring around a planet to remain hidden, all the parameters used were taken from Borleias. As nearly as they knew the Imperials had not stationed fighters or remote detection units on the moon. Still, that possibility did exist, so the squadron did all it could to keep their presence a secret.
Volcanic glass teeth lined gaps in crater walls. They reflected scant little starlight, but strange shapes did appear in silhouette against the starfield. Whipping along at near maximum speed in the pitch-darkness of the moon’s nightside did seem reckless and foolish, but no more so than the rest of the mission. They raced through the blackness, heading toward a point on the ever-changing horizon.
When the horizon appeared as a white crown, Wedge’s X-wing pulled up and shot away from the moon. Down on Borleias the moon only appeared to be half full and the Rogues made their approach against the background of the moon’s dark side. They plunged down into Borleias’s gravity well. They let the planet draw them in, but before they hit the outer edges of the planet’s atmosphere, Corran brought his ship around in a looping turn to starboard and inverted to have Borleias’s dark face above him.
Pulling back on the stick, he eased the fighter’s nose into the atmosphere. The ablative shell Zraii had applied to his fighter began to glow red, then came apart in a shower of sparks that momentarily blanketed his cockpit canopy. Once the fiery cloud passed, he pulled back even more on the stick and started a sharper descent into Borleias’s night.
The ablative shell had given his ship the appearance of yet one more of the Versied meteors streaking through the night sky. Corran checked his scanners and had no indication of hostile sensors directed at him. Entry is clean. Glancing at his instruments, he came around to a heading and chopped his speed back so he would reach the rendezvous point exactly on time.
Flipping a switch, he engaged the fuel pod pump so it would start to refill his onboard fuel tank. A red-lined error message scrolled up on his main screen. “Whistler, the T65-AFP pump isn’t working. Is there anything you can do?”
A negative hoot replied to his question.
Corran shrugged. I have to run with the pod a little longer. No big deal.
Suddenly Nawara’s voice crackled over the helmet speakers. “Leader, twelve, repeat one-two, eyeballs coming in from the west, angels ten. On intercept for run. Patrol formation.”
Corran felt his stomach clench. Lucky bastards. He smiled. Or very unlucky.
“Two Flight, Three Flight, pounce on them. Nine, we’re to the deck and in. Are you ready?”
“Telemetry feed started, you are lead.” Corran tightened his grip on the stick and shoved the fighter over into a steep dive. “This is it, Whistler. Keep your domed head down and enjoy the ride.”
Wedge flipped his scanners into active mode and swooped his X-wing into the narrow end of the rift valley. The computer used muted greens to impose holographic highlights on the canopy that corresponded to the terrain outside. Nudging the stick to port and starboard he sliced his craft through the sleeping canyon. He rolled up on his port wing to slip through a narrow passage, then noted that behind him Corran had remained level to make the same run.
“No need to be fancy, Nine.”
“Yes, sir.” Corran’s voice drifted off for a second. “Lead, I have two hostiles coming in behind us.”
Wedge hit a switch on his console. “Power to rear deflector shields.”
“Done.”
“Mynock, bring up data on the trailers.” The monitor flashed images of two TIE starfighters. We should be faster than they are maneuvering through atmosphere here, but I’d rather they weren’t there.
Wedge keyed his comm. “Four, we have two down here. Can you help?”
Bror answered immediately. “Negative, Lead. Our plates are full, and long-range scans indicate squints coming in.”
“Copy, Four.” Wedge frowned. The intervention by Interceptors was not good. If both of the squadrons that showed up at the end of the last battle were to scramble against Rogue Squadron, no one would make it home. But that’s not the objective of this mission—blowing the conduit is.
“Nine, push your speed.”
“As ordered.”
The X-wings came out of the canyon leading into the rift valley. To the right grassy plains stretched out through the darkness. On the left a striated escarpment rose up nearly a thousand meters. Its craggy surface reflected enough moonlight to let Wedge see Corran’s X-wing in silhouette as the fighter drew almost parallel to his port stabilizer. Twenty-five kilometers farther on the valley narrowed again and five kilometers beyond that point lay their target.
Verdant laser bolts sizzled past, splitting the space between the Rebel fighters. Wedge juked up and to the starboard, while Corran’s ship sank out of sight on the left. Rolling his ship and letting it move back toward the center of the valley, he saw one TIE dive, its lasers gouging up great chunks of the valley floor in front of Corran’s jinking X-wing.
Wedge hauled his throttle back to half power and pulled a hard turn to port. Punching the throttle forward again, he rolled the ship onto its right S-foil and yanked it back in another hard turn. Leveling out to the left, he slipped into the aft wash of the TIE that had been on his tail. His finger tightened down on the trigger and scarlet laser fire exploded the Imperial fighter.
“Nine, report.”
“Go, Lead, punch it. I’m coming behind.”
“Status.”
“I’ll be good to go in a second.”
Kicking the X-wing up on the starboard stabilizers, Wedge stabbed his fighter into the narrow northern end of the valley. A brilliant flash of light painted shadows against white rock with skeletal clarity. The X-wing bucked a bit as the explosion’s shock wave caught up with it, but Wedge’s steady hand kept the fighter clear of the canyon walls.
“Nine, what was that?”
“Fuel pod exploding.”
“One more time.”
“Misses on the deck kicked up debris that hit my belly pod and I had a slow leak. I jettisoned it. The tank exploded and the guy behind me got an eyeful.”
Wedge looked at his fuel indicators. His fuel pod was still a quarter full. “Fuel status.”
“I’m okay.”
“How much?”
“Three-quarters.” Anger in Corran’s voice transmuted into resolution. “Enough to do the job.”
“Copy.” One run, then you’re out of here, Corran. You’re into your reserve. Wedge clicked his weapons control over to proton torpedoes. “One klick, arming two.”
“Got it. Armed two. Is that light up there?”
Wedge slowly nodded. “Be alert. Power to forward shields.” Banking hard starboard he brought the fighter around the final turn before the run to the conduit. Yanking the stick to the left he snap-rolled the X-wing level, then hit the right rudder pedal and started the fighter skidding to the left. Laser bolts exploded against his forward shields.
He pulled the trigger, sending two proton torpedos sizzling out, but even as he did so he knew they would miss high. As they exploded against the canyon walls beyond the ferrocrete tunnel, Wedge snapped his repulsorlift drives on and bounced his fighter up and out of the canyon. Jamming his throttle full forward, he hauled back on the stick and shot skyward.
He saw the flashes of two more explosions below him as he rocketed away from Borleias. “Nine, report.”
“Mine went low. That was a Juggernaut assault vehicle down there providing that fire.”
“And it looked like they were reinforcing the conduit.”
“I saw that. I nailed a ferrocrete mixer.”
Wedge checked his scanners. “We have a squadron of Interceptors headed in our direction.”
“What do you want to do? I’m good for another run.”
“Another run would be suicide, Nine, and you don’t have the fuel to play.”
“Sir, I’m good for another run.”
Wedge shook his head. “You’re heading home while you can still get there.”
“No.”
“That’s an order, Nine, not an invitation to debate.” Wedge could feel Corran’s disappointment. It’s exactly what I felt when Luke ordered me out of the trench on the first Death Star run. “Get clear, Corran. You can’t do any more good back there.”
Dejection filled Corran’s voice. “As ordered, sir. What are you going to do?”
“Blowing the conduit is our mission and the others can’t break off to do it.” Wedge Antilles slowly smiled. “What the Imps have set up there will stop almost any pilot. I’m going to remind them that in Rogue Squadron we don’t take just any pilot.”