Star Wars_ The Han Solo Adventures - Brian Daley [23]
“I’ll make this simple. Keep your eyes open and make sure it’s your guns, not your tail, that’s pointed at the enemy. since we’re protecting a ground installation, we’ll have to ride our kills. That means if you’re not sure whether the opposition is hit or faking, you sit on his tail and make sure he goes down and stays down. Don’t think just because he’s nosediving and leaving a vapor trail that he’s out of it. That’s an old trick. If you get an explosion from him, fine. If you get a flamer, let him go; he’s finished. But otherwise you ride your kill all the way down to the cellar. We’ve got too much to lose here.”
He made that last remark thinking of the Falcon, shutting out human factors, telling himself his ship was the reason he was about to hang his hide out in the air. Strictly business.
Jessa had thrust his helmet into his hands. He tried it on again; it was a perfect fit. He turned to say thanks and noticed for the first time that she was carrying a flight helmet, too.
“Jess, no. Absolutely not.”
She sniffed. “They’re my ships, in the first place. Doc taught me everything; I’ve been flying since I was five. And who d’you think taught these others the basics? Besides, there’s no one else even nearly qualified.”
“Training exercises are different!” Of all things, he didn’t want to have to worry about her up there. “I’ll get Chewie; he’s done some—”
“Oh, brilliant, Solo! We can just build a dormer onto the canopy bubble and that hyperthyroid dust-mop of yours can fly the ship with his kneecaps!”
Han resigned himself to the fact that she was the logical one to fly. She turned to her other pilots. “Solo’s right; this one’ll be a toughie. We don’t want to engage them out in space, because all the advantages out there are theirs, but we don’t want to let them get too close to the surface, either. Our ground defenses couldn’t cope with a fighter spread. So somewhere in the middle we’ll have to draw the line, depending on how they play it when they come at us. If we can buy time, the ground personnel will have a chance to complete evacuation.”
She turned to Han. “Including the Falcon. I gave orders to finish her and close her up as soon as possible. I had to divert men to do it, but a deal’s a deal. And I sent word to Chewie what’s happened.”
She pulled her helmet on. “Han’s flight leader. I’ll assign wing men. Let’s move.”
With high screeches the six Z-95 Headhunters, like so many mottled arrowheads, sped off into the sky. Han pulled down and adjusted his tinted visor. He checked his weapons again, three blaster cannons in each wing. Satisfied, he maneuvered so that his wing man was above and behind him, relative to the plane of ascent. Seated in his sloped-back easy chair, situated high in the canopy bubble, he had something near 360-degrees’ visibility, one of the things he liked most about these old Z-95s.
His wing man was a lanky, soft-spoken young man. Han hoped the guy wouldn’t forget to stick close when The Show started.
He thought, The Show—fighter-pilot jargon. He’d never thought he’d be using it again, with his blood up and a million things to keep track of, including allies, enemies, and his own ship. And anything that went wrong could blow him out of The Show for good.
Besides, The Show was the province of youth. A fighter could hold only so much gee-compensation equipment, enough to lessen simple linear stress and get to a target or scrap in a hurry, but not enough to offset the punishment of tight maneuvering and sudden acceleration. Dogfighting remained the testing ground of young reflexes, resilience, and coordination.
Once, Han had lived, eaten, and slept high-speed flying. He’d trained under men who thought of little else. Even off-duty life had revolved around hand-eye skills, control, balance. Drunk, he’d stood on his head and played ring-toss, and been flung aloft from a blanket with a handful of darts to twist in midair