Star Wars_ X-Wing 05_ Wraith Squadron - Aaron Allston [158]
Above, Implacable’s belly hangar was disgorging flight after flight of TIE fighters, Interceptors, bombers. Atril led her group in a climb that carried them far to the side of the emerging streams of fighters, past the starboard leading edge of the Star Destroyer, and over the bow until they came to a halt fifty meters ahead of and above the point of Implacable’s prow. “Gray Flight on station,” she transmitted, and was very pleased to note that there was no quake in her voice.
She sat in a laser-armed foil can and waited for her chance to destroy one of the most powerful vessels ever created.
Wedge watched the sensors as seventy-two TIE fighters sped along the half-million klicks that separated Ession from her largest moon.
Meanwhile, more explosions, blasts that looked to Wedge’s eyes like carefully placed munitions rather than a self-destruct array, broke Red Feathers’s hull into huge sheets that began to tumble, burning, into the atmosphere. The entire cargo of containment units and smaller pieces of wreckage also descended.
All those pieces ignited as they fell, but only someone looking as closely as Wedge was, with equipment as sophisticated, would see that thirty-six of those pieces ignited only at one end—their sterns—and descended in a controlled fashion that matched the fall rate of the debris.
The TIE fighters were nearly to the original site of Red Feathers’s destruction. Wedge activated the comm system. “Face, mount up. Wraiths, prepare to execute the Loran Spit-ball.” He stood and moved to the chief pilot’s seat; the officer yielded it to him and moved to the secondary weapons console. Wedge asked him, “Ready for tractor duty?”
The young man cracked his knuckles and grinned. “It’ll be the biggest thing I’ve ever tried to tractor in.”
Face galloped down the narrow metal stairs into the bow hold and down to floor level. The other pilots, already sealed in, stared at him from their X-wing cockpits.
His fighter’s canopy was already open, but mounted as it was in the holding brackets, it couldn’t open all the way. He bounded up the ladder someone had left for him, squeezed into the cockpit like a snake seeking safety, and twisted until he was in position to close the canopy and start the engines. “Wraith Eight lighting up. We have four good starts.” Outside, Cubber emerged from the shadow of Runt’s wing, grabbed up the ladder, saluted, and ran to the hold exit.
Wedge’s voice came back immediately. “Preparing bow hold for departure.” The lights went out; only a glow from the open doorway out of the hold lit the edges of the X-wings. As soon as it shut behind Cubber, the hold went dark.
Face’s canopy suddenly creaked as air pressure changed outside it.
“Wraiths, this is Five. Remember, do not activate targeting computers until ordered. Use my targeting data for torp launch.”
Face silently ran through his checklist as fast as each item came up in the green.
“Wraiths, this is Leader. Wishing you good luck. Be strong in the Force. Even you, Wraith Ten. Thirty seconds to Loran Spitball … Twenty-five … Twenty … Fifteen …”
A thin vertical line of light appeared before the Wraiths and widened into a narrow view of the lunar vista. Face felt a slight sense of motion as that view swung upward. Within moments, he could see the world of Ession a half-million klicks away, then the stern of the Implacable above them. The view broadened as the bow hold continued to open. “Ten … Five …”
“Admiral, Night Caller is maneuvering. Bow elevating. It looks like she’s preparing to head toward Ession.”
“Damned glory hound. Instruct them to stay on station. Transmit a routine query about their intentions.”
“Yes, sir.”
· · ·
“Transmit ‘Talon Strike,’ ” Wedge told the comm officer. He hit the intercom again precisely on cue. “Zero.”
Then he held his breath.
Atril heard “Talon Strike” and responded.
She inverted her TIE fighter, rolling over backward