Star Wars_ Death Star - Michael Reaves [106]
The newbie said something excited that Vil didn’t quite catch, but prayer or curse, it didn’t help him: Vil had reversed their positions, finishing the loop lined up on the newbie’s rear.
Gotcha, kid …
Vil thumbed the firing control and painted the newbie’s backside with the scoring lasers. If his guns had been at full power, the kid would be dodging debris now, and both of them knew it.
“No big, kid,” he said over the comm. “We all got to slide down the learning curve—”
“Attention, all squadrons, attention! Break off your drill immediately, I say again, break off all maneuvers immediately! Arm your laser cannons to combat mode, defensive pattern Prime, and stand by!”
What the kark?
The order was completely out of the black, but Vil was too well trained to question it. He swerved away and toggled his op-chan to his squad’s frequency.
“Alpha One, on me, pyramid formation, green and blue, one, one, two!”
He punched the control button, and the signal diodes on his fighter began flashing in the sequence he’d given them, so that his squad would know his fighter and get to their positions. Green, one count. Green, one count. Blue, two counts, then repeated. Dit-dit-dah … dit-dit-dah …
“What’s up, Loot?” That was Anyell, of course.
“How should I know? Stow the chatter and listen!”
The other pilots quickly assembled and moved into the pattern. It was the most basic of fighter maneuvers, practiced hundreds of times, and it didn’t take more than a few seconds for all twelve to line up properly.
Vil switched to the main operations report-in channel: “Alpha One is ready.”
Other squads logged on. There were 10 of them out there, 120 fighters in all.
After a moment, Command Channel took over:
“All units, this is Grand Moff Tarkin. We have detected an enemy carrier shifting into realspace from lightspeed in Sector Seven, at two thousand, two hundred kilometers’ distance from the station, repeat, enemy carrier in Sector Seven. The vessel is identified as the Fortressa, a Lucre-hulk-class carrier. Star Destroyers are moving to engage, but we expect the enemy to launch fighters. They pose a risk to the station. Stop them.”
The local op-chan sig flashed, then overrode the main:
“All fighters, all squadrons, this is Flight Commander Drolan, Dee Ess One One. We are deploying in Zone Defense Delta, I say again, Zee-Dee-Delta. We are about to get our feet wet, boys, and I’m buying for the pilot who shoots the most of the fatherless scum out of the vac.”
Vil’s mind was awhirl. Lucrehulk-class vessels were originally Trade Federation ships, mostly modified commercial freighters. They were huge, circular craft, the biggest three thousand meters in length. After the Clone Wars, some of them had fallen under Rebel control. Unless the Alliance had done some major refitting, they weren’t heavily armed, nor were they well shielded compared with a Star Destroyer, but they could carry a lot of fighters. Originally they’d spaced vulture droids, but the Rebels would have no doubt switched to X-wings. There might be a thousand of them in that ship, maybe more.
Vil swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. This was it—the real thing, a full-scale engagement, and his squad was going to be among the first ones to arrive at the party.
It was both exciting and terrifying. This was what all the training had been for: not some police action on a back-rocket planet but an actual battle with Rebel pilots, some of whom were vets who had flown TIE ships before they defected. This wouldn’t be like shooting targets on a range or painting newbies with low-powered beams; this was do or die.
This was why Vil Dance had signed on.
Now it was time to see who had the right stuff and who didn’t.
COMMAND CENTER, OVERBRIDGE, DEATH STAR
“Our first wave of TIE fighters will arrive on zone station momentarily, sir. We have scrambled an additional thousand craft from the station.” Admiral Motti didn’t seem disturbed, but then he didn’t have the primary responsibility. Tarkin did, and he was most aware