Star Wars_ X-Wing 01_ Rogue Squadron - Michael A. Stackpole [132]
“Negative, Lead.” The anxiety in Nawara’s voice sank like ice through Wedge. “I’ve checked. Nine is nowhere on my forward scan.”
Angry with himself, Corran considered violating Commander Antilles’s order and shadowing him anyway. That thought survived about as long as Peshk had in the first fight for Blackmoon. He’s right. Your fuel reserves are down. He’s given you a mission, and you’re to complete it. Head out and make sure the run is clear.
“Whistler, boost my sensors. I want as complete a picture of the theater here as you can give me. Full threat assessments.”
The astromech droid chirped happily. His first list of fighters showed only three eyeballs left in the dogfight with Rogue Squadron. A full squadron of squints was inbound, but their threat assessments were in decimal points. They were no threat to him, and scant little threat to his squadron mates. While he could not ignore them, there was no reason they would interfere with his run out of the system.
The numbers on two of them climbed slightly higher. “What’s with those two?”
Whistler splashed a tactical display on Corran’s monitor. Two of the squints had broken off to run a flyby and possible intercept on a body moving through the atmosphere. The numbers Whistler used to describe that falling object showed its fall to be controlled, and Corran was fairly certain that little fact would not have been lost upon the TIE pilots.
“Whistler, do you think they’re closing on one of our assault shuttles?”
A crisp note answered him as Whistler tagged the shuttle as the Devonian.
“Yeah, I thought so.” Yanking his stick back to his breastbone, Corran brought the snubfighter over in a big loop. “Page, you’re going to owe me big time for this one.”
The droid tootled at him with low tones.
“Yes, I do know what I’m doing. If I let my dive drive me instead of burning up fuel, we’ll be fine.” Corran eased his throttle back. “And, no, I don’t want you to calculate the odds on this. I’ve never asked for the odds before, and I don’t want them now. Odds only matter when you’re engaged in games of chance, and if Page’s people are going to have any chance, this can’t be a game.”
Corran’s dive was bringing him high, hot, and on an angle at the rear arc for the Interceptors. He focused his attention on the second squint. He couldn’t switch over to proton torpedoes because a target lock would warn them of the threat they faced. If he was going to succeed, he needed things to be fast and that meant the first Interceptor had to die on his first pass.
Just over a kilometer out, Corran pushed his throttle forward and leveled out to come straight in at the Interceptors. A bit more angle and maybe I can get both of them at the same time. He switched his weapon over to lasers and linked them so they would fire in tandem. He dropped his targeting crosshairs on the rear ship and when they flashed green, he pulled the trigger and kept it down.
Four pairs of red energy darts perforated the slant-winged Interceptor. The first hits on the right wing started the ship rolling, then it jinked up into Corran’s line of fire. Four laser bolts converged, puncturing the cockpit and filling the interior of the ship with fire. A roiling explosion blasted the squint apart and forced Corran to roll and dive to avoid the worst of the debris cloud. Snapping back to his previous orientation, he looked up at where the other Interceptor should have been. He didn’t see it, but before he could even begin to wonder if it had somehow died, too, laser fire carved into the strength of his aft shield.
Great, all I need is some Sithspawn hotshot pilot in that squint! He reinforced the aft shield, rolled, then hit the left rudder and slewed his ship around to try to give him an angle on the Interceptor. He couldn’t see it on his forward or rear scope, so he hauled back on the stick and started a climbing loop.
The Interceptor appeared dead-center in