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Wedge glanced at his sensors and saw no hostile fighters near him. Safe for the moment, he keyed his comm unit. “Tapper, don’t run very far. Booster, report on your fleet.”

“We’re all still here, Wedge. We took some hits from TIEs, but shields mostly held so we’re all operational.”

“I copy, Booster. Rogues and Chir’daki, protect yourselves, but hold back from killing anyone who isn’t being actively hostile for a moment.” Wedge glanced back over his shoulder. “Mynock, scan comm frequencies and get me the command frequency the TIEs are using. I also need the escape pod frequency.”

The droid’s muted beep acknowledged the command, and data began to scroll up on the main screen.

“Thanks.” He punched up the frequency for the TIE fighters. “Imperial pilots, this is Wedge Antilles. You have a choice: get killed here, stranded here, or surrender. If you want to surrender, power down your weapons and engines. If you’re moving under power we will consider you hostile. We’ve got no more reason to want you dead than I would hope you have to be dead.”

A lone male voice came back over the comm unit. “Captain Ardle from Corrupter here. We’re Thyferran Home Defense Corps pilots. Does that make a difference in your offer?”

“Is Erisi Dlarit flying with you?”

“No, sir. I was in her command, but was picked to head up one of the two squadrons coming here with the Corrupter. Mostly trainees. I’ve got eight left. The Aggregator’s squadron only has four left and they’re THDC, too.”

“I copy, Captain Ardle. Follow the instructions I gave you and you’ll not be hurt.”

“What about the escape pods?”

“We’ll recover them, too.”

“And the Corrupter?”

Wedge switched his main screen to a plot of ship positions in the system over time and set his viewpoint from within the Graveyard. “The Corrupter is currently not under power and is drifting down into the Graveyard. Inside two hours the Graveyard’s asteroids will chew it up into unrecognizable bits.”

“Oh.” Ardle sounded subdued. “Alderaan has its revenge on the Empire.”

“And exacts revenge for Halanit. We don’t have the tractor beams to pull it back up, and I sincerely doubt it could be made operational again. Running as fast as possible to Coruscant we couldn’t get anything back here in time to save it.” Wedge knew the run to Corellia would be shorter, but he expected no help from his homeworld and the Diktat. “The Corrupter is gone.”

“I copy, Antilles. I’ll give the order to my people, and we’ll wait to be rescued.”

Wedge switched over to the escape pod frequency and repeated his offer of rescue, then arranged with Quelev Tapper for his ships to pick up as many pods as they could and exact whatever ransom they wanted from the passengers. Tapper sounded more interested in getting the TIEs and their pilots, but Wedge declared them “prisoners of war” and refused to let Tapper have them.

“Okay, Antilles, I’ll let it go, but only because I know you’ll be buying spare parts for those TIEs from us before too long.”

“That’s probably truer than I’d like to admit, Tapper. Have a safe trip home.”

Tycho’s voice broke through on the comm frequency. “Wedge, I have a situation.”

“Yes?”

“Remember that cruiser that took a piece out of the Corrupter?”

“Kind of hard to forget it, isn’t it?”

“Well, it was the source of the IFF queries earlier on. It appears to think I’m the Another Chance. It has identified itself as the Valiant, and now it wants to know where we’re going to go from here.”

Wedge brought his X-wing around so he could see the light cruiser again. There it hung in space, three hundred meters of lethal starship. Having it as part of our fleet would be very good, but how can we convince it to join us? “Tycho, any sign of intelligent life on board?”

“Ah, Wedge, it thinks I’m an Alderaanian war frigate, so I think we can rule out intelligence. If I had to guess, I’d assume this cruiser was slaved to Another Chance as an escort. They got separated and it returned here to wait for Another Chance to show up. I arrived with the IFF code, started broadcasting targeting information, and it did its