Star Wars_ X-Wing 04_ The Bacta War - Michael A. Stackpole [78]
He had not intended to have the Gands come along on the mission, but Ooryl had insisted they would anyway since they were ruetsavii—and what exactly that meant Wedge was as yet uncertain. In the preliminary and simulator runs they made on the mission, the Gands had proved very competent and skillful, though Wedge thought Ooryl could outfly all of them.
Wedge checked the chronographic readout on his main screen, then glanced up at the horizon. The mountains are right where they’re supposed to be. Over the rise and the valley should take us right in on target. Pulling back on the X-wing’s stick, he brought his fighter up so the sun rising at his back could illuminate his X-wing. He reached up with his right hand, flicking the switch that brought the S-foils into attack position, the keyed his comm unit. “Rogues, we go in. Chir’daki, stand by.”
Tugging his stick to the right, he kicked the X-wing into a barrel roll to starboard, then leveled out and began his run through the valley. The mountains rose up off both S-foils but were far enough away that Wedge didn’t feel as cramped as he did on the Death Star trench run or even the conduit mission on Borleias. His onboard computer matched the terrain to the mission map it had in memory, sounded a mild drift alarm and Wedge corrected the problem almost unconsciously.
Wedge thumbed the controls over to proton torpedoes and linked the fire of both launch tubes. He kept his hand easy on the stick, nudging the craft this way and that, then shot out over the edge of a three-hundred-meter-tall cliff. As he rolled, he saw a black valley dotted with lights and brought his fighter around on a heading for a large dark block with flashing red and yellow lights on each of its corners. His targeting crosshairs dropped into the shadowed outline and he pulled the trigger.
Two proton torpedoes shot out on tongues of blue flame and streaked away at the building. They hit barely nanoseconds apart and detonated just after punching through the ferrocrete wall. Their subsequent explosions vomited argent fire out through their entry holes, then through the roof and out the windows on the upper three floors. The roof collapsed in on itself, leaving the fire on the building’s interior lighting up the night like magma in a volcano’s heart.
With a flick of his thumb Wedge shifted the X-wing over to laser fire and left it firing single shots in sequence. Triggering a burst of fire, he sent a hail of red laser bolts burning through the night. His shots tracked over the main refinery building and down through the darkness. Something he hit exploded brilliantly, sending a red-gold fireball into the air. It imploded but still bumped him around as he flew through where it had been, then he was over the bay and starting a long loop over Qretu 5’s largest ocean.
As he came around he got a chance to look back at the Q5A7 plant and felt his stomach fold in on itself. The cliff wall and the waters of the bay reflected the light from the burning refinery, magnifying it and spreading it all over the valley. The X-wings that had come in behind him had similarly launched proton torpedoes at ground targets. The missiles, which were powerful enough to put quite a dent in an Imperial Star Destroyer, blasted apart unarmored buildings. Lasers filled the night like lightning strikes, melting roads, setting trees on fire and exploding anything even vaguely incendiary when they hit.
Though the targets they had specified had been strictly industrial, collateral damage was inescapable. At least one bright fire burned