Star Wars_ X-Wing 05_ Wraith Squadron - Aaron Allston [65]
The two TIE fighters ceased drifting. One came up to speed, heading toward the corvette, and the other spun back toward Phanan’s X-wing. That eyeball fired, its green lasers shredding the derelict snubfighter.
Wedge grimaced. “Amateurs. Wraiths, open fire.”
Not all the Wraiths had angles on the eyeballs, but enough did. The fighter approaching the corvette was hit by two quad-linked bursts, the one that had destroyed Phanan’s craft by three. Both exploded.
His blaster pistol once again tucked away and the chopped-down laser cannon hanging from its power cable, Piggy climbed the TIE fighters’ landing brackets. He kept a strong grip on those brackets; if the atmosphere vented, he didn’t want to be pulled out with it. He saw the door through which the hold crew had run begin to close.
At the top of the brackets, he was only three feet from the hold ceiling. If he remembered the layout of Corellian corvettes from the training he’d received, there would be a floor of officer and guest quarters above the hold, and the ship’s bridge would be immediately above that. If his cannon would chew holes in both ceilings and he could find a means to keep climbing, he could be in the bridge before anyone knew he was coming.
He dragged up the cannon, pointed it at the ceiling, averted his eyes, and fired.
The light produced by the shot was overwhelming, dazzling him even when reflected from the canopy of the TIE fighter below. The noise was incredible, a shriek of metal and displaced air. Melting metal scraps fell all around him—and on him, burning through his pilot’s suit.
He ignored the pain. As his eyes cleared, he clambered up atop the bracket beams and leaped up through the hole he’d made—
Into the bridge. Around him, lying on the floor where they’d leaped for cover, running toward the exit, reaching toward holsters for blasters they’d never grasp, were the members of the bridge crew.
Where was the officers’ quarters floor? It didn’t matter. Piggy shouted, “Stop where you are! One move and I fire!”
And he aimed the still-smoking laser cannon toward the bow of the bridge, where metal walls and transparisteel windows were all that held in the chamber’s atmosphere.
The bridge officers glanced at one another, then at an officer wearing the insignia of an Imperial naval lieutenant. The lieutenant nodded glumly and raised his hands.
Only when ash began to drift down from the ceiling did Piggy glance up, there to see what was left of another ship’s officer.
“Captain Voort saBinring of the New Republic corvette Night Caller hailing Wraith Squadron. Wraith Squadron, come in.”
Wedge couldn’t restrain his grin. “Captain? That’s a sudden promotion.”
“A temporary promotion, sir. I am in command of this vessel. I thought a captaincy would be most appropriate.”
“Oh, it is. Permission to come aboard?”
“Granted. And please hurry.”
12
Inconvenient as the planet’s weather was, they brought Night Caller down to the surface of Xobome 6 to perform their examination. Jesmin Ackbar remained on station in orbit to alert them to any other enemy arrivals.
Wedge stayed on the bridge, accumulating information, while the Wraiths performed their duties as fast as possible. Wedge could see them, dim shapes moving among the rocking X-wings while the wind drove ice particles past the bridge windows and obscured his vision. He was careful to stay well away from the hole melted in the floor. The object fried to the ceiling above that hole, remains that had once been a man named Captain Zurel Darillian, had fallen free during the ship’s landing and dropped into the TIE fighter hold; Falynn Sandskimmer, unperturbed by their grisly nature, was dealing with them.
Squeaky, just back from his initial tour of the ship, seemed fascinated by what he’d seen. “It’s all so very clean, sir. The captain must have been quite