Star Wars_ X-Wing 06_ Iron Fist - Aaron Allston [73]
“Five to One, we have a problem. Do you read?”
Forest, with occasional rivers and lakes, had replaced waves beneath the Hawk-bats. Wedge was sure, in fact, that he’d felt a treetop scrape the underside of his cockpit a moment ago. All around him, the squadron’s fighters and interceptors bobbed and weaved like fighters in an arena as they adjusted to changes in the terrain below.
The range meter put them at twenty seconds from their target. Ten, five—and then Face and Phanan were firing just as the Imperial base came into Wedge’s view.
It was a landing platform, one long, durable landing deck suitable for shuttles or starfighters, supported by two massive columns containing turbolifts and crew quarters. Beneath the deck was an enclosed crossover walkway providing easy passage from one column to the other, and there should have been nothing other than the support columns to the ground. But with this design, below the crossway, almost out of sight below treetop level, was an enclosed hangar deck as large as the landing deck.
Wedge noted these details without taking out time for analysis. He brought the interceptor’s aiming brackets around his target of preference, the standard landing platform’s tractor beam emitter up on the landing deck, and fired.
Then he was past, following Face’s lead in looping around for another run.
“Good shooting, Hawk-bats.” That was the gravelly voice of Face’s persona.
“Leader, this is Four. We hit shields.”
“Four, what did you say? There were no shields.”
“Not as we were approaching, sir. They came up as we opened fire. The platform has sustained no, repeat no, damage.”
Their arc was nearly complete, and it was obvious that Dia’s report was correct: the landing platform was solidly in place, and the Hawk-bats’ sensors now showed shielding protecting the facility.
Then TIE fighters and interceptors came up out of the trees, easily a score of them, from points all around the Hawk-bats and the landing platform.
More than a score. The second flight of TIEs emerged. Wedge checked the sensor board. Thirty-six unfriendlies, three full squadrons.
Shalla spoke next, her voice subdued even in its distorted form: “We are so dead.”
Bastion shuddered.
Runt looked over the diagnostics board. “Are we hit?”
“No, we’re tractored. By that.” Kell tapped the sensor board and the huge shape on it. “Look at this. We’re gaining altitude.”
Donos’s voice came over the intercom. “What’s happening?”
“They’ve got us. Our mission is scrubbed, and so are we, if we can’t figure out a way to get clear of them. Hold on a second. Runt, fire up the comm system and put all the power you can into our signal.”
“Done.”
“Five to One, do you read? Over.”
His reply was a static hiss.
“Five to Eleven, do you read? Over”
“—leven, read—you. Sig—breaking up.”
“Abort mission. Repeat, abort mission. Over.”
“Neg—ve. Standing—your departure. Over.”
“Do not stand by. This is a direct order. Abort mission. Acknowledge. Over.”
There was no reply.
“We have incoming starfighters from the capital ship,” Runt said.
“Of course we do. Our day wouldn’t be complete without them, would it?”
Tyria’s voice came back, “Ack—ed. Aborting. Over.” On the sensor screen, the blips representing her TIE fighter and Piggy’s veered off on an escape vector.
Kell took a deep breath. He wanted to make one final transmission. I love you. But he couldn’t give the enemy forces any clue, any extra information to help them pry into the Hawk-bats’ identities. He shut down the comm system. As he settled on his next course of action, he felt his body, his spirit, grow heavy.
Donos’s voice came over the intercom again. “What’s the plan, Five?”
“Runt joins you in the shuttle. At a time of my choosing, probably when we’re as close as we’re going to get to that capital ship without being trapped inside, you launch and get a few seconds of acceleration before another tractor beam grabs you. In that time, I set off our explosive charges.”
Runt’s eyes went wide. Kell saw them flicker, a sign that Runt