• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“I copy, Nine. Stand by.” Wedge’s voice broke for a moment, then flooded through the helmet speakers. “Bacta convoy, this is Wedge Antilles. Prepare to alter course to coordinates I will supply you.”

A new voice came back on the comm unit. “Antilles, this is Thyferran Convoy Delta-Two-Niner. We do not recognize your authority to give us orders.”

“You will. Two flight, make a run.”

“I copy, Rogue Leader.” Confidence bubbled through Tycho’s voice. “Eight, Nine, and Ten on me. Lock S-foils into attack position.”

“As ordered, sir.” Corran nudged his stick to the left and pushed the throttle forward to bring his X-wing up on Tycho’s left. Nawara Ven, in Eight, dropped in back and starboard of Tycho while Ooryl pulled his X-wing into the formation to the port and in back of Corran. As a unit they sped on in at the long string of tankers and tending vessels. The tenders will be the ones that are armed.

The boxy tenders, which really were just freighters hauling food and other supplies for the convoy, quickly outstripped the tankers and positioned themselves to make the fighters shy off their targets. The strategy of forming a wall in front of the freighters might well have worked had the battle been taking place on a planet with the Rogues in land-speeders, but in space the tight grouping of the freighters just made eluding them all that much more easy.

Corran hit a key on his console. “Seven, I show six freighters in that block in front of us, but there were eight originally. They’re screening something.”

“I copy, Nine. The two missing ones are the largest of them. Keep your eyes open for something tricky.”

Suddenly the freighter formation opened up like a flower blossoming and eight snubfighters burst up through the opening at full attack speed. Led by four Z-95 Headhunters with blasters blazing, the Thyferran fighters zeroed in on the Rogue formation. Corran threw all shield power to the forward shields, dropped his crosshairs on one of the speeding Headhunters and hit his trigger.

The quad burst of laser fire pierced the Headhunter’s shields. The red beams sliced into the joint where the port wing joined the fuselage, sheering it off. The engine on that wing exploded and the ship itself whirled off in a flat spin. Corran sideslipped to starboard to cut beneath its flight path, then hauled back on his stick to loop up and onto the trail of the Thyferran fighters.

Evening his shields out, he inverted the X-wing and dove onto the tail of the second set of Thyferran fighters. It was a mixed group consisting of two TIE fighters and two “Uglies”—hybrid ships consisting of a TIE’s ball cockpit married to Y-wing engine nacelles.

“Ten, do you want the Die-wings, or shall I take them?”

“Ooryl would be pleased to take them.”

“Ten, I have your wing.” Corran smiled as Ooryl cruised up and broke to starboard as the pair of Uglies veered away to shake them. While affordable and effective for most convoy security duty, the Uglies were not well suited to engagements against military-grade snubfighters. The Die-wing variant—often referred to as TIE-wing among those who flew them—suffered from the deficits of their component parts. They had a Y-wing’s sloth mated with a TIE fighter’s lack of shields. Corran would have preferred to be handed a blaster and allowed to float his way into a fight than pilot one of those things.

He kept an eye on the location of the TIE fighters as Ooryl went in after the Uglies. Though the Gand’s exoskeleton made him look blocky and clumsy on the ground, his handling of an X-wing was nothing short of fluid and even delicate. Whereas Corran’s passing shot on the Headhunter had been lucky, Ooryl had a facility for doing exactly that sort of damage on purpose. He shoots as if laser bolts were being rationed.

Ooryl triggered a double burst of laser fire, sending two scarlet bolts lancing through the lead Die-wing’s ball cockpit. Nothing exploded, though leaking atmosphere did combust and flare for a moment. The Die-wing hurtled on through space, but