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Maybe it would be Face. Or Phanan. Or Tyria—

The shock of that idea hit him like a snap-kick to the chest. What if Tyria had to come shoot him down?

What would it do to her, knowing she had sent her own lover to oblivion? She had lost everyone she loved on Toprawa and would now lose him, too. It would be Kell’s own fault, Kell’s signature on the scars she would carry—

As though he were rising to the surface after a deep dive, his mind came free of the thoughts in which it had been submerged. Tyria. He was klicks away from her and the distance was growing every second. TIE fighters were now reaching the fight.

He looped around and put all his vehicle’s discretionary energy toward acceleration.

Falynn rose smoothly toward the largest hole the Wraiths’ series of attacks had made in Implacable’s keel. It was broad enough to accommodate her TIE fighter, even broad enough to allow the passage of Grinder’s X-wing behind her.

Falling debris bounced off her bow viewport. Some of it came at her from an angle, clattering off her solar wing arrays.

She eased through the gap into the darkness beyond. Above would be the giant array of power cells that enabled Implacable to move. Without them, the mighty Star Destroyer would be a gigantic mass of worthless junk.

No one, so far as she knew, had ever done this. Flown into an enemy Star Destroyer and reamed it out from the inside. She would be the first. Number one, for all time.

Carefully, she rotated so that she was pointing to the side and upward.

She fired.

Seventy-two TIEs—four squadrons of fighters, one of Interceptors, and one of bombers—swept into the engagement zone, firing as they came.

Face looped and dove, trying to keep clear of the incoming fire from both the cloud of TIEs and the still-mighty Star Destroyer. He rolled out a few hundred meters below and arced up again, got an immediate green flash on his targeting brackets, and fired. His target, a fast-moving Interceptor, took the blast as a graze across its top viewport and kept coming, still in control. He saw Phanan’s lasers pass above him, hitting the next Interceptor at the juncture of its fuselage and its wing pylon, separating them. The squint rolled, out of control, and began its dive toward the moon’s surface. “Nice shooting, Seven.”

Janson and Piggy roared down on the nearest TIE squadron, looping in from behind and opening fire before the squad had a chance to break and engage individual targets.

Janson’s first shot entered his target’s port ion engine, vaping the eyeball in a spectacular explosion. Piggy’s first blast missed his target below, but he continued to fire, tracking up and left, until a burst hit the vehicle’s port wing. The TIE spun out of control and Piggy’s next shot hulled its cockpit.

Janson heard confused chatter on the Imperial comm channel. “Let’s go right down the middle, Twelve,” he said, and accelerated until he was in the midst of the breaking squadron formation. The Ackbar Slash, starfighter style. Let them fire now, he thought.

They did.

Donos gritted his teeth and abandoned his attack run on Implacable. On the murderer of Talon Squadron. He veered toward the oncoming TIEs. A full squadron of eyeballs was coming in at him and Tyria. “Ten, we are in trouble.”

Tyria was firing already. She didn’t answer.

Suddenly there were new blue dots among the red on the sensor board, friendlies overtaking the TIE fighters from the rear. Wedge said, “Blue Squadron, is that you?”

“Good to hear you’re among the living, Wraith Leader.” These were clipped, precise tones, the voice of General Crespin. “We thought we’d show you the virtues of A-wing speed.”

“For once I don’t mind. But I’m transmitting you our sensor profiles. Four, correction, three TIE fighters are our people. Fire only when you confirm they’re red.”

“Acknowledged.”

Wedge saw the communications officer jump to the task of transmitting the proper blue and red designations to the incoming force. Wedge concentrated on sending a different kind of message, a series of turbolaser blasts against Implacable’s