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He switched his comm unit over to the command frequency he shared with the Ralroost. “Rogue Leader here. We have contacts and are investigating.”

“Understood, Rogue Leader. Good hunting.”

Gavin forced himself to take a deep breath, then to exhale slowly. While he trusted Inyri’s judgment about the ships they’d be flushing from the asteroids, he couldn’t shake the sense of dread that came with the memory of his first sim encounter with the coralskippers. Even though we’ve run sims against skips, coming up against them for real will be very dangerous.

From behind the big asteroid burned opposition. Catch painted contact after contact on Gavin’s secondary monitor. All of the ships were, in fact, uglies, cobbled together from parts of older fighters. They included TIE-wings, which were TIE fighter cockpits married to Y-wing engine nacelles; X-ceptors, which were X-wing bodies with TIE interceptor wings; and triple-finned tri-fighters, nicknamed clutches because the ball cockpit was held in the grip of the three fins’ forward edges. All the ships were as common in pirate fleets as hydrogen was in the galaxy, and all of them could be very deadly.

Gavin dropped his targeting reticle on the lead clutch and flicked his weapons over to lasers. He linked them for dual fire, then glanced at his targeting monitor. The range to target scrolled down quickly, but that concerned him less than another detail the sensor scan provided him.

The clutch had no shields. There was no reason any pilot going into combat wouldn’t bring his shields up to full power. The tri-fighter was known to possess shields—which was one of the reasons it had become a successful pirate-ship design. Without shields the pirates would never stand a chance against the Rogues.

“Catch, get me their tactical frequency.” Gavin nudged his stick to the right and triggered a burst that burned red past the clutch’s nose. “Five, you show any shields on these guys?”

“Negative, Lead. Hulls are weak, too.”

What’s happening here? Gavin lined up another shot at the clutch and waited for it to fire first. The clutch kept coming, closing well within optimal range, then finally shot a green laser bolt at Gavin’s X-wing. The energy sent a static hiss through the comm unit’s speakers as it dissipated against the shields. It had done less damage to them than it should have, and only one of the two lasers on the clutch had fired.

And the only reason a pilot has to get that close is if he’s shooting with visual data—his sensors must be out.

The clutch flashed past, and Gavin rolled to starboard, then hauled back on the stick and started chasing the clutch. He inverted, then dived and goosed his throttle to follow the tri-fighter through its evasive maneuvers. He switched his lasers over to quad fire, then settled his middle finger on the stick’s secondary trigger button. This modification was meant to use against the skips, but could be of use here, I think.

He lined up his shot, then pulled the secondary trigger. The lasers cycled quickly, producing a hail of down-powered laser darts that stippled little burn marks all over the clutch’s fins. The fire gnawed away at the pirate ship, burning off black-and-white droid-fist insignia emblazoned there.

The clutch rolled to port, then climbed sharply. Gavin chopped his throttle back, inverted, and started to climb after the clutch. He let the pirate fighter climb into his sights, then sprayed more laserfire over the ship. These bolts struck on the forward canopy and clearly surprised the pilot. The clutch jerked to starboard, then one of the ion engines belched a long jet of flaming exhaust. The other engine flared for a moment, then both shut down.

Gavin started to cruise in for a closer look at the fighter when a heavy turbolaser bolt slashed through the void between him and it. Catch shrilled a warning, so Gavin rolled to port and dove toward the large asteroid that had been his goal.

The climb after the clutch had taken him above the asteroid’s horizon, exposing him to the