Star Wars_ X-Wing 05_ Wraith Squadron - Aaron Allston [64]
He couldn’t wait for his eyes to adjust. He squeezed out of the compartment.
He was on his back on a metal floor. It was a miniature hangar space, mostly filled with four gigantic metal racks situated side by side; the two end racks held TIE fighters upright. He was almost directly beneath the starboard-side TIE fighter. Forward was the open hold door framing starfield and the planet Xobome 6. He could not see the magnetic containment field holding in the hold’s atmosphere, but if it were not there, he’d already be strangling on vacuum.
The sound of a laser blaster’s discharge and the impact of the bolt on the metal bracket nearest him made him jerk. He rolled over onto his belly, dragging the chopped-down laser cannon out of the compartment after him, and aimed the blaster pistol.
Nothing directly ahead but metal stairs going up. But above them was a gray catwalk, and on it men in mechanics’ overalls running toward an exit. And two men in standard stormtrooper armor, aiming rifles his way …
He snap-fired at one, hitting the wall behind the man, and tried to crawl backward from the smuggler’s compartment and under the cover offered by the nearest TIE fighter. But as he crawled the Lunatic came after him. It wasn’t as heavy as it should have been; he saw that Gadget was no longer attached, and the brackets that had held him there were bent and broken.
He swore to himself, a Gamorrean grunt, as he realized the power cable from his belt generator was still plugged in to the compartment’s electronics. He got two fingers of his blaster hand on the cable and yanked it free; a blast from the second stormtrooper hit the compartment dead-on, chewing a head-sized hole in its metal side.
Piggy got back under the cockpit of the TIE fighter. A marginal improvement; they couldn’t see him, but he couldn’t see them.
He felt the air pressure change, then a wash of heated gas rolled over him from behind. Shrapnel clattered across the TIE fighters and little pieces stung the back of his legs. Something had happened just outside the bow hold door, but he couldn’t turn back to look.
Tactics. The stormtroopers would be separating on the catwalk, moving in either direction to bracket him with fire. He half stood and put his shoulder against the TIE fighter’s wing.
The sturdy starfighter resisted his efforts, but some of the brackets holding it in place broke. The TIE fighter rotated, the remaining brackets acting as a pivot, and suddenly he could see the right-most stormtrooper. The trooper fired at him but the TIE fighter’s solar wing, held before Piggy like a shield, absorbed the bolt. Piggy returned fire with the blaster pistol, saw black charring appear on the stormtrooper’s chest, saw the trooper collapse to the catwalk, twitching.
He continued pushing against the wing, rotating the eyeball farther still, firing almost blindly as he went, until the second stormtrooper came under his gun. He hit the trooper twice. The trooper smashed back into the wall behind the catwalk, then stumbled forward and went over the rail.
A moment’s breather. The hold crewmen had all escaped through the door. Then there was also the open hold door leading to space. These were the only ways out.
“Gadget?”
An irritable, nearly musical chittering from the far side of the hold reassured him that the R2 was functional.
Tactics. If he were the ship’s captain, he’d shut the internal door and turn off the magcon field, venting the bay’s atmosphere into space and suffocating Piggy or launching him into the void. Well, he’d have to do something about that possibility.
Wedge saw both of the TIE fighters rotate, trying to track the Lunatic, but only one managed to maneuver fast enough to get off a shot. The shot missed the wildly rocking assembly of parts. Then, at full speed, the Lunatic shot into the open bay door.
Wedge realized his mouth was open. “I’ll be damned. They did it.” He hit his comm key. “Wraiths, power up