Star Wars_ X-Wing 04_ The Bacta War - Michael A. Stackpole [142]
He pointed out the main viewport. “Out there you have people in freighters and snubfighters pounding on that behemoth. They’re gnats compared to the Lusankya. They can sting it, but they can’t kill it. That job is up to us and we’re going to do it because if we have to die, it isn’t going to be dying while we’re running. The Empire’s dead—we all know that—so this is our buy-in to whatever follows it.”
Wedge saw the Freedom begin a roll as turbolaser fire lanced from the Lusankya at the freighters. One salvo caught a disk-shaped Corellian light freighter and snapped it in half. He saw shields glow and shrink as other ships got hit by one or two shots, but none exploded. He knew that was more luck than skill, and that a lot of the freighters weren’t going to survive to the end of the battle.
“Lead to Two, time for our last run.”
“Negative, Lead, I have a TIE on me.”
“Coming, Two.”
Wedge pulled back on his stick and brought his fighter up into a loop, then rolled out to starboard as Asyr’s X-wing shot past. A TIE streaked by, hot on her tail. As Wedge dropped in behind him, the TIE fired a volley of shots that pierced Asyr’s aft shield. Something at the back of her fighter exploded, then she rolled down and out of sight.
“Two, report.”
Asyr didn’t answer his call. “Gate, assess damage on Two.”
The droid beeped a response, but Wedge ignored the information filling his secondary monitor. Got something to do first.
The TIE rolled to starboard then started to climb. Wedge pulled his X-wing into a steep climb, then snap-rolled starboard and powered the fighter over the top. The TIE danced before him for a second, prompting Wedge to snap a shot off. The dual burst of lasers clipped one of the TIE’s solar panels, but did no serious damage.
This guy is good.
The TIE rolled to port and pulled a tight loop back along its line of flight. Wedge let himself overshoot the TIE, then throttled back as the TIE swung onto his tail. The TIE closed faster than the pilot expected because of Wedge’s chopping the throttle back. Wedge tugged back on his stick, nosing the fighter into a climb. He held it for a second, then shoved the stick forward and broke the climb off.
Green laser fire hissed off his shields, but he didn’t panic. And Gate isn’t screaming! The TIE shot past his position, having started to climb to blast Wedge, then trying to follow him as he started flying straight again. Wedge pulled his X-wing’s nose back up and triggered two more bursts of laser fire.
Both hit the TIE in the undamaged wing, burning it free of the ship’s fuselage. The hexagonal wing went one way while the TIE spun out of control toward Thyferra.
Wedge didn’t watch to see if it exploded. He brought his fighter around and found himself staring at the broad expanse of the Lusankya’s belly. Nearly an eighth of the ship had been nibbled off at the front, but the guns still fired relentlessly. It’s hurt, but not enough. “Lead here. Starting my third run.”
The fact that no one acknowledged his call sent a chill through him, but he shrugged it off. Now’s not the time to mourn the dead. That waits until the mission is done. He tossed his fighter into a weave and pointed it at the giant egress hatch in the bottom of the Super Star Destroyer. We’ve broken your nose, now it’s a shot to the guts.
Switching over to proton torpedoes, he immediately got a red box and a solid tone from Gate. He waited until his transponder button went red, then pulled the trigger. Two jets of blue fire shot away from his ship and another half dozen joined them. It took four of them to blast a hole in the ventral shields, but that left a quartet of missiles to plow into the Lusankya’s hangar deck. The explosions spat decking and debris back out into space, then