Star Wars_ X-Wing 07_ Solo Command - Aaron Allston [140]
“Wraith Five to Leader. They’re descending toward the west coast of the primary continent. I think that’s where the colony used to be. Atmospheric conditions not helpful. Heavy rain, heavy winds.”
“Acknowledged, Five. Do not engage. Continue to update us on their progress. Transmit us your sensor data.” Wedge suppressed a curse. He preferred the X-wing to every other starfighter ever made, for its nearly ideal balance of ruggedness, speed, and firepower, but sometimes—such as now—he devoutly wished for more speed.
“They’re banking toward a set of ruins—the colony, I guess. No sign of life in the ruins—they’re strafing! There has to be a living target down there, Leader. Permission to engage.”
Wedge closed his eyes. He’d already confirmed that there was no native comm traffic from Selcaron. Mon Remonda’s records had reported no survivors from Zsinj’s barrage of five months ago. And yet Zsinj was dedicating his best pilot, his best-trained starfighter unit, to pound those ruins flatter.
It had to be a trap. Had to be. But if it wasn’t …
The New Republic wasn’t here to protect itself, but to protect innocents. There might be colony survivors down there. It was that simple.
He opened his eyes again. One second had clicked by on his console chrono. “Permission granted.”
Kell banked and dove toward one of two rearmost pairs of interceptors. It was difficult to see them; the sky was overcast, and fierce winds blew sheeting rain almost horizontally across his path. His heart hammered—in his throat, it felt like—and he knew that he might at any moment introduce his lunch to the inside of his helmet.
The old fear. It had paralyzed him at the Implacable fight. In the months since, it had never entirely left him. It might never leave him.
It made him feel like hell. He decided to take it out on the enemy.
The rearmost interceptor of the wingpair he’d targeted chittered for a split second in his targeting brackets, then broke to starboard. Its wingmate made a sudden deceleration, seeming to blast backwards past Kell’s port side, preparatory to setting up for an attack on him—
It exploded, vanishing from his sensor screen. “Good shot, Nine.” He banked tighter, trying to stay inside his target’s turn radius, but the enemy interceptor’s maneuver was sharper than any Kell had ever made. A moment later the interceptor came up behind him, a quarter klick back. Kell heard his sensor system howl with the confirmation of his enemy’s targeting lock on him.
He dove toward the ground—a two-tone surface, gray seas to his port, brown soil to starboard, the wreckage of prefabricated dome buildings where the two colors met. Lasers flashed above him, visible through his top viewport. He angled over toward the sea, dropping almost straight toward the shoreline.
As the range meter dropped, he felt wind kicking him to port. He struggled with the piloting yoke, heard the howl of his sensors again, and juked to throw off his pursuer’s aim. He was kicked to port again, and from the sensor’s unmusical complaints, this time it had to have been from a laser graze rather than atmospheric conditions.
At a mere couple of hundred meters from the ocean’s surface he fired his lasers and hauled back on the yoke. The lasers hit the water’s surface, boiling it, sending up a column of steam. He flashed through it, actually felt the drag of the mist as his interceptor hit the column, and banked to port, a maneuver so fast and tight his vision began to gray out.
His pursuer emerged from the column of steam, not banking instantly—its pilot had to be taking a moment to find Kell.
That was the moment he needed. He held his turn, struggled against the centrifugal forces trying to slam him into the starboard side of his cockpit, and came around behind his enemy. The TIE vibrated in his targeting brackets and he fired.
The TIE exploded spectacularly, transformed into the biggest fireball Kell had ever seen yielded by an