Star Wars_ X-Wing 05_ Wraith Squadron - Aaron Allston [98]
He reversed his lateral slide, turning portward again, gaining altitude, and spinning into a corkscrew.
Falynn shot out ahead of him, then abruptly climbed into a loop. In a moment she’d be inverted, then diving, firing. It was a canny move, considering her inexperience in the TIE fighter: If she maintained a course without the slightest port or starboard deviation, regardless of how she gained or lost altitude, she wouldn’t suffer the buffeting TIE fighters took in atmosphere and could keep her engines at full thrust, full speed.
One of the oncoming Uglies, a ball-shaped TIE fuselage attached to a top-mounted fixed wing and a rear-mounted rudder, took the bait and climbed to follow. Wedge oriented toward him, fighting with his stick, and almost immediately got the jittery glow of a laser lock. He fired into the Ugly’s underside, scoring a direct hit on the ionic engines. The Ugly detonated into a brilliant shower of sparks and flaming debris.
At less than a klick, the third Ugly, which looked like a wingless, rudderless Imperial shuttle, fired on Wedge—thin streams of red lasers, a seemingly endless number of them. He juked left, continued that way as the broadening pattern of energy pursued.
He saw the Ugly’s side gout—a side-mounted tube firing a concussion missile. There had been no warning from the TIE’s sensor-lock alarm and the missile came in straight at him at less than a klick’s distance, a blur accelerating so fast there was no chance he could maneuver out of its way.
“Ten, you’re my wing. Let’s go high road.” Kell stood his X-wing on its tail and bled power from his bow shields into his thrusters. He’d have to trust his sensors to warn him of weapons locks for a few long moments.
“Five, acknowledged.” Tyria followed his maneuver almost point for point.
“Nine is away. Two, I’m your wing.”
“Nine, understood.”
Sensors reported twin concussion missile launches from the oncoming squads of Uglies. Kell put on a bit more speed, but Thirteen gave him no indication they were coming after him. Two fighters at the rear of the Ugly formation were showing increasing altitude, however—climbing after him and Tyria.
“Six are away! Bring on your Uglies, your wretched rigs of cast-off parts, your—”
“Six, Twelve. No recitations.”
“Yes, Twelve.”
Kell frowned. Runt wasn’t in his pilot mind; that personality never spoke intelligibly. More changes going on in his usual wingman’s mental processes …
“Four away. Six, I’m your wing.”
Wedge relaxed the pressure on the pilot’s yoke. In the split second his twin ion engines lost thrust, he dropped back into the wash of laser fire he’d been avoiding.
Lasers splashed across him. The concussion missile flashed past his viewport, missing him by maybe ten meters. Then he emerged from the other side of the laser pattern … unscratched.
He smiled grimly. He’d realized almost too late that there were two ways a fighter that size could fire lasers so continuously. One was to have a highly advanced, experimental power generator worth a squad of A-wings. The other was to fire targeting lasers, beams bright enough to see but not to do damage … bright enough to spook a fighter into fleeing before them in a predictable path, right into the line of a fixed missile tube.
Falynn’s TIE fighter roared down from above, linked lasers firing. Her shot hit the shuttle fuselage, crisping a black circle at the aft end. Wedge expected the shot to destroy the shuttle’s engines, sending it into a helpless dive, but the Ugly merely lost