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As Wraith Squadron formed up to begin its assault run, Donos suddenly felt uncertain. More than that, he felt awash in unreality.

He’d been here before. He knew he had.

The last time he’d felt this way—above a moon circling the third planet of solar system M2398—he’d witnessed the destruction of his astromech, Shiner. Then the sense of unreality had claimed him and he’d found himself back in the ambush at Gravan Seven, the one that had cost him his squad … and his sanity.

It was happening again—

He clamped down on his feeling of desperation. But neither Gravan Seven nor M2398 had had an asteroid field. Neither resembled the space around him. What was here that threatened to send him back into a state of collapse?

“Break off, break off! It’s an ambush!”

Wedge grimaced. The voice was that of Donos. Wedge had been wrong. The pilot’s mind had snapped back to the Gravan system ambush yet again.

“Group Leader, this is Wraith Three.” Donos’s voice was in control again. “Please order an abort on the assault run. This is an ambush.”

“Group, abort. Pull back and regroup.” Wedge hauled back on his yoke, veering away from Iron Fist. “Wraith Three, this better be good.”

Abruptly the Star Destroyer’s gun batteries went active, pouring laser blasts into the asteroid field all around it. Wedge could see bright flashes as dozens of asteroids detonated. Comm traffic told the story of the other pilots’s conditions. “This is High Flight Three. I’m hit by debris. Experiencing engine shutdown.”

“Shadow Twelve is gone, repeat, is gone! He ran right into a chunk of asteroid.”

“Wraith Three, that’s two casualties and all we did was break off,” Wedge said. “You’d better have a good reason.” Well out of range of Iron Fist’s guns, he put Rogue Squadron into orbit around another planetoid.

“Yes, sir. I thought I was going crazy for a minute. I distinctly remembered going through this exact raid once before. I hadn’t, really—it was a simulator run back when I was first getting pilot training with the Alliance.”

“Go ahead.”

“The sim was based on a story, a lesson from one of my instructors. He’d been a Y-wing pilot. His unit encountered an old Victory-class Star Destroyer in a debris field like this one. Took the same kind of approach in, island-hopping from big asteroid to big asteroid to minimize damage from debris. When they got close enough, the destroyer opened up—shooting the asteroids they were nearest. The rock debris superheated and exploded like bombs. It was a disaster for the Y-wing unit. I ran through the simulation of it several times. It was a nightmare.”

Wedge thought about it. Their target’s barrage had seemed to hit a lot of the asteroids near his starfighters. “Which Victory-class Star Destroyer was it?”

“Iron Fist, sir. The original one. Zsinj’s first command.”

“Good work, Wraith Three. Group, we have a new plan. Squads who feel up to it can still approach laterally, but stay away from any asteroid large enough for them to target and blow up—say, anything half the size of your vehicle or larger. The rest, drop down into Iron Fist’s wake, into the path they’ve already cleared out for us, and strafe her stern. Resume your assault runs.” He heeled his X-wing over, choosing a path between asteroids, and began another run, Rogue Squadron following close behind.

Deep in the automated processes of Iron Fist’s main computer, a watchdog program, recently activated, detected the fact that the ship’s laser batteries had recently fired on targets in a non-drill fashion. A timer associated with the program started up, counting down from three minutes.

Zsinj offered up a heavy sigh. “The starfighter trap appears to have failed,” he told Melvar. “Bring back our own starfighters from Mon Remonda. We’ll need them.”

“They suffered substantial losses before they understood what they were facing there,” the general said. “It’ll be even worse when they have to disengage and run home.”

“I know.” Dispirited, the warlord looked down at his feet, a neutral image that could bring