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Wedge watched the tactical feed coming from the Valiant and felt a cold chill creep up his spine. “What are they doing? Why are they coming in at us like that?”

His R5 unit whistled curtly.

Wedge glanced at his monitor and smiled. “That was a rhetorical question, Gate. You wouldn’t have sufficient data to be able to calculate an answer.” After his last outing, Wedge had let the techs wipe Mynock’s memory and upgrade his software. Because of the modifications Zraii made on the droid, he also learned the droid’s designation had been changed to R5-G8, which he just truncated into Gate. “Give me a check on the transponder.”

Another quick whistle announced it was in full working order.

Wedge keyed his comm unit. “Thirty seconds to the first wave of TIEs. Remember, our goal is to get at the Lusankya, not to spend our time dogfighting up here. Kill what you must, but keep with the mission. Two, stay with me.”

“As ordered, Lead,” came Asyr’s reply.

Wedge flicked his lasers over to dual-fire mode, picked a target among the incoming TIEs, then waited for his aiming reticle to go red. As it did he tightened up on the trigger, letting two bursts of fire go, then dove away from the hissing green laser fire splashing against his forward screen.

His maneuver prevented him from seeing what happened to his target, but Gate dispassionately flashed the message “Target eliminated” in bloodred letters at the bottom of the monitor. Maybe Mynock wasn’t really that bad. Wedge glanced at his sensor readouts and saw only a pair of TIEs in his wake. Everyone got one, nice shooting. He decided to leave the other two for the Twi’lek Chir’daki pilots following them in.

Gate hooted at him.

“Thanks, Gate, I’ve got thirty seconds to the next TIE wave.” He opened the tactical comm channel. “Tighten it up, Rogues. Two more squadrons, then we should be clear to go in.”

37

Corran suppressed a laugh. “Only two more flights, Lead? I count five, including one of squints.”

“Agreed, Nine, but there is a two-minute gap between three and four, and another two minutes between five and the squints. I thought we could use that time to down the Lusankya. With your permission.”

“Granted, Lead.”

Corran hauled back on his stick as the second TIE flight came in, then barrel-rolled to starboard and came over the top. The X-wing pointed itself straight at a pair of TIEs that broke to follow his climb, but his inversion brought him in below their flight arc. One of them tried to pull a quick loop to bear down in on him while the other tried to force his TIE fighter down into a dive to spot Corran again.

Corran triggered two quad bursts of fire at the diving TIE. Two of the four laser bolts in the first shot missed, but the other two seared scars along the bottom of the starboard hexagonal wing. The second burst struck the bottom of the ball cockpit, slicing off the bottom third of it and severely warping the fighter’s structural elements. The twin ion engines ripped free of their supports and blew through the cockpit canopy, then exploded.

Corran rolled away to port to escape the blast, then hit the right rudder pedal and brought the X-wing’s nose around to starboard. The looping TIE came out of its maneuver and spitted itself on his aiming reticle. It went red, and Corran triggered a shot at it. All four laser bolts converged on its starboard solar panel and punched through to the cockpit. Corran saw a brief flash of light, then the TIE started a corkscrew down toward Thyferra.

“Ten has the next flight, Nine.”

Corran tucked his X-wing back in behind and to port of Ooryl’s fighter. The Gand rolled his X-wing up on the port stabilizers, presenting the incoming TIEs with a very narrow profile to shoot at. Corran aped his maneuver and watched as four TIEs separated themselves from the rest of the formation to come after Ooryl. He glanced at his sensors.

“Whistler, why didn’t you say we were getting ahead of the rest?”

The droid hooted a quick response.

“I would too have listened to you.” Corran keyed his comm unit. “Ten, we