Star Wars_ X-Wing 06_ Iron Fist - Aaron Allston [138]
There was an additional squeal from Vape, Face’s R2 unit, and Face wished the whole universe would just shut up for a while.
“Squad, this is Thirteen. We need help here. I can’t handle these two—”
“Wraith Three here. Four and I are coming in. Hold on.”
“Five here, I’m almost there.”
It took Face another long moment to understand. He was hit, he was done. He couldn’t move for the pain. Iron Fist loomed in the near distance ahead. He was going to crash and his debt would be paid.
He should have felt at peace with that. Peace was what he’d expected all this time. But it eluded him. Was something left undone?
Well, there was that second shield projector dome. If he could make his hand move, he might be able to steer straight into it. If the Destroyer’s guns didn’t get him, if its shields didn’t destroy him, he might, just might be able to angle into that dome and destroy it, too.
The odds one in a million. Less, really. But it seemed like a good way to go out. He brought his cold, cold hand up to the pilot’s yoke and gripped it. He couldn’t feel his fingers close on it, but could see them.
“Got him, got him—dammit, he’s slipped by.”
“This is Five, I’m on the second one.”
“Hold him, hold him—”
“He’s not shaking me, Three. You see after Eight.”
Oh, yes, he was Eight. Why were they worried about him? Didn’t they realize he was already dead?
No, they didn’t. Bless their optimistic little hearts, they actually thought he was going to make it. Now he knew how Phanan had felt with Face fussing over him. The Wraiths didn’t realize it was his time, time to balance the account.
The account doesn’t need balancing. Ton Phanan’s voice from some forgotten conversation. You can’t reduce sapient lives to numbers and exchange them like credits.
The snubfighter shuddered again as more laser fire hit him. It must have hit the X-wing’s rear; at least he wasn’t feeling any more pain. Iron Fist was getting bigger.
And Ton was right. Ton, who had suffered from the Empire’s success as much as anyone he’d ever met, should know. He didn’t have to close out his account now.
An X-wing blasted past him to port, juking and jinking. He thought he recognized it as Wraith Eleven. Tyria.
If she was doing that, she was being pursued. With his numbed fingers, he brought up his targeting system and swung it just to port of his flight path.
An interceptor flashed into his brackets and he fired. With detached interest, he watched the laser blast shear through its starboard wing and pylon, straight through the canopy. The interceptor exploded and bits of it glowed as they bounced off his forward shields.
Donos’s voice: “Nice shot, Eight! Are you back with us?”
“ ’M here.”
“Eight, this is Thirteen. I’m coming up beside you.” Lara slid in place to his starboard, then ahead. “I’m going to lead you back to Tedevium. Will you follow me?”
“Sure.”
“Can you make it?”
“Sure. Wake me up if I fall asleep.”
“Will do.”
Another TIE fighter went to pieces under Wedge’s lasers and he had a clear path to the center of the engagement, where members of the 181st—where Baron Fel—awaited him.
But those fighters veered off toward Iron Fist.
All the TIEs began veering off toward Iron Fist, even if it meant exposing their backs to New Republic guns.
And Iron Fist was picking up speed.
“Oh, no, you don’t.” Wedge kicked his thrusters as high as they’d go and added some discretionary power to them. But the faster TIEs leaped out ahead, arcing down beneath the Super Star Destroyer and toward her landing bay. Wraiths, Rogues, Polearms, and Novas took parting shots, achieving more kills in those few seconds than in the entire dogfight, but still the TIEs ran.
Iron Fist cruised past Mon Remonda, lying at a dead stop, her engines flaming, mere kilometers away. The two capital ships exchanged barrage after barrage. Wedge, looping well around the corridor of fire between them, saw laser batteries take out chunks from the hulls of both vessels. Nova Squadron’s B-wings continued pouring heavy fire into Iron Fist’s stern from as close a distance