Star Wars_ X-Wing 07_ Solo Command - Aaron Allston [84]
“Wonderful. All right, Chewbacca, put them in their default settings. We go with fixed shields for now.”
Another long-range shot struck the Falsehood, rocking the freighter. Wedge heard mechanical crashes as something was jarred loose from a corridor housing. “Break and fire at will,” he said, and saw his escort move out and prepare to engage the enemy again.
Then there was a sensor signal from ahead of the Falsehood—a big, complicated signal. And red lasers flashed from ahead, all around the freighter, into the ranks of the pursuing TIE fighters.
Chewbacca rumbled something.
“He knows that, you walking dirt trap. It’s the Rogues and the Wraiths.”
On Lara’s sensor screen, the cloud of TIE fighters suddenly became bigger, more diffuse, then resolved itself into seven wingpairs and one trio of starfighters.
“Group, this is Rogue Nine.” She could almost recognize Corran Horn’s vocal characteristics in the comm-distorted words. “Remember not to fire on the interceptors. They’re Wraiths, and they might cry. S-foils to attack position. Break by pairs and fire at will.”
Face immediately rose relative to the plane of their flight, heading up and away from the centerline of the conflict to come. He also decelerated, dropping behind the rest of the group. Confused, Lara stayed tucked in behind his starboard. “Wraith One? Two. What’s our tactic?”
Face was a moment in replying. “You’ll see,” he said.
The other Rogues and Wraiths fired, a column of red lasers that passed harmlessly around the Falsehood and her escort but with less delicacy through the oncoming TIEs. Lara saw one fighter ignite and blow apart.
But Face held his fire and so did she.
A moment later, she thought she understood. The screens of TIEs and X-wings crossed, with pairs of starfighters maneuvering wildly to get behind one another. A pair of X-wings shot out of the flurry of activity with a pair of TIEs in close pursuit. Face angled toward them and accelerated, diving opportunistically toward them, and opened fire. His shots caused the TIE fighter to spook and pull away from its prey, but Lara’s laser fire was more accurate—her concentrated fire punched through the TIE fighter’s top hatch. There was no explosion, but the thin atmosphere in the fighter vented and the starfighter went into straight-line flight, out and away from the engagement zone.
“Nice shooting, Wraith Two. Thanks.” The comm unit identified the speaker as Ran Kether.
“Happy to oblige, Rogue Seven.”
Surely Face would now dive into the main body of the fight.
But he didn’t. He circled around the periphery of the battle. Frowning, Lara followed. She knew her duty, even when she didn’t understand it.
Tyria was in the flow of the moment. Even when she wasn’t looking at her sensor board, she had a grasp, a comprehension she’d never really enjoyed before, of where the fighters around her were in relation to her and to one another. She knew what they intended. A moment before they maneuvered, she knew which way they would turn.
Three pairs of starfighters—Corran Horn and Ooryl Qyrgg in the lead, two Kidriff TIE fighters behind them, gaining to optimal distance for a shot, and behind them, Donos and Tyria, unable to gain on the lead Rogues.
Ooryl fell a little behind and Horn swung ahead and slightly below him. The maneuver gave Horn a split second of advantage, since his pursuers couldn’t see the first signs of his next action. Suddenly he was behind Ooryl, losing ground to the TIEs so quickly that they overshot him. One TIE fighter, its pilot obviously experienced, banked to port. The other hung there in place for a moment, and Horn took his shot, a quad-linked laser barrage. Tyria couldn’t tell where it hit the TIE; the enemy starfighter blew so suddenly that she wasn’t able to register the impact.
Both Horn and Ooryl banked in the wake of the escaping TIE.
“How’d they do that?” Tyria asked, surprised. She hadn’t felt the trick maneuver coming, hadn’t predicted