Star Wars_ X-Wing 07_ Solo Command - Aaron Allston [145]
Mon Remonda began a slow maneuver, veering to starboard inside the path of the asteroid. As the bow of the cruiser entered the uncleared portion of the debris field, Solo heard ominous clankings and felt trembling under his heels.
Red lights flashed across more portions of Mon Remonda’s diagnostics display.
The numbers on the gauge showing the distance between Mon Remonda and Iron Fist slowed their rapid descent. The numbers stopped and then began climbing.
Mon Remonda was falling behind.
Lara’s sensor board had shown the Rogues and Wraiths descending into Selcaron’s atmosphere, and the ten strange TIEs she pursued did likewise. She entered the moon’s atmosphere at the angle necessary to keep air friction from burning her alive, then set her S-foils to attack position.
When she broke through the cloud cover she could see, ahead and below, the unusual fighters split up by pairs, most heading to the main engagement, four vectoring to the south.
Her sensor board said Rogue One, Rogue Two, and one unfriendly lay in that direction. Then it updated and only Rogue One and the unfriendly were left.
She looped around to the south and dropped nearly to the surface of the water.
Janson hit his trigger and the distant TIE interceptor detonated in a brilliant flash, leaving behind one of the hundred-meter-diameter fireballs the Rogues and Wraiths were coming to expect. The jamming technique had been a spectacular success—this unit of droids and humans had been trained to function under coordination and fell to pieces without that benefit. In the first thirty seconds, the Rogues and Wraiths had reduced the number of interceptors by half. Then they sustained a one-minute jamming period … and the last of the interceptors had now fallen to Janson.
The communications jamming fell away. “Group, Wraith Eight. We have incoming traffic descending from high altitude from the east-northeast.”
Janson veered in that direction and climbed. Yes, there were more starfighters coming in.
He gave them a second look. “What in the world are those?”
Wedge swung his legs over the lip of his cockpit and slid with reckless haste to the ground. He drew his blaster and moved at a full run across the sand toward Baron Fel.
Fel, evidently injured, was crawling at a good pace away from his smoking interceptor. Fel was not in a traditional TIE fighter pilot’s gear; the black jumpsuit was standard, but the red featureless mask, gloves, and boots, and the poisonous yellow piping on those accouterments were pure Raptor uniform.
Wedge reached him and prodded his boot with his toe. Fel rolled over on his back. His right leg did not turn the way it should have; Wedge could see it was badly broken beneath the knee.
Wedge aimed his blaster. “Mind answering a few questions?”
“Not at all.” Fel’s voice was muffled. He reached up to pull his helmet free.
Wedge blinked. The man under his gun had Fel’s height and build, but his blond hair and homely features were not Fel’s. “Who are you?”
The man offered him a pained smile. “My name is Tetran Cowall.”
“I know that name.” Wedge frowned. “Some sort of actor. Face Loran doesn’t think much of you.”
“That’s because he is my inferior in every way,” the man said. His voice did not resemble Fel’s. It was higher in pitch, though melodious.
“You used computer voice enhancement to sound like Fel.”
“Very good.”
“Where is Fel?”
The man shrugged. “You should know. You had him last. Where was he when you last saw him?” He gave Wedge a smirk. “Really, we have no idea.”
“So this was all a ploy.” Wedge felt sudden exhaustion begin to eat at him. All these months, hoping that this man would have some word of his sister … and this man turned out to be the wrong one. “Why?”
Cowall slowly put his hands behind his head, a posture of relaxation and contentment that was belied by the sweat on his face and the odd