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He started a second later than Corran had, which, at his speed, brought him closer still to the pass’s narrow mouth.

And the Interceptor’s design gave it serious yaw problems.

The pilot succeeded in rolling up onto the starboard wing, but as he tried to rudder around to vertical, air caught on the inside of the port wing. This kicked the Interceptor into a flat spin that brought it all the way around so the front end was pointing back along the path it had been traveling.

The aft end slammed into the rocks beside the pass’s mouth. The Interceptor vanished in a scintillating ball of sparks, debris, and smoke as the engines exploded. A crumpled bit of the cockpit rolled back toward the south, trailing smoke, while fire flashed up the pass wall and ignited small plants.

Inyri’s X-wing pulled parallel with Corran’s as he rolled out to port and pointed his ship north. “Nice kill, Nine.”

“Not mine, Twelve, you were the one shooting him.”

“He got himself.”

“Works for me.” Corran brought the X-wing back down to the deck. “Let’s move, and hope we’re not too late to help out if they need it.”

8

“I copy, Nine. Four squints blinded.” Wedge Antilles glanced at his rear sensors. “Gate, do we have anything else back there?”

Gate, Wedge’s R5 astromech droid, swiveled its flowerpot head around, then tootled negatively. The scopes showed nothing but the rest of the squadron following him. Wedge glanced at the chronometer on the command console. “Heads up, Rogues. Estimated time of arrival is thirty seconds. First pass, shoot at what shoots at us. One Flight will draw fire. Two, you lace them.”

“As ordered, Lead,” came Janson’s terse reply.

Pulling back on his X-wing’s stick, Wedge brought the nose up to crest the last line of hills between him and the target. The XV facility had been built on a small rise in the heart of a wide valley. In the distance Wedge could see a number of small communities, and scattered even further around were dimly lit homesteads in the middle of farmland. The Xenovet compound had been situated equidistant between client communities, which made the Rogues’ mission much easier by cutting down the chances of collateral damage.

Wedge cruised his fighter down into the valley and began a low run at the site. He beefed up his forward shields and directed his fighter to overfly the large barn in the middle of the property. He saw nothing as he made his pass. Once beyond the barn, he rolled up on his starboard S-foil, cut his throttle, and pulled into a tight turn.

“Three is taking fire from the barn.”

Janson confirmed the report. “E-web in the loft. Don’t have a clean shot.”

Wedge leveled the X-wing and hit some rudder. “Lead is on it.”

As his X-wing came about, he killed the thrust and cut in his repulsorlift coils. The X-wing glided down to twenty meters of altitude and sideslipped left to give Wedge a good look at the pair of soldiers operating the heavy blaster. Standing in the barn’s loft, firing out of a feed-loading door, they were spraying green blaster bolts into the air, occasionally hitting shields on a passing fighter.

“Infantry weapons never work well on spacefighter targets.” Wedge shook his head and swung his crosshairs on their outline. “The reverse is not true.”

The X-wing’s lasers fired in sequence, peppering the barn’s upper story with coherent light. Bolts burned through the thin metal walls and lanced out the far side. Two red energy darts drilled through the heavy blaster itself, even as the gunner tried to shift his aim and shoot back at Wedge. The weapon exploded, killing the gunner instantly and pitching the other man out of the barn to the ground below.

The man got up and started to limp toward the main building, but he never got very far. From the shadow of a smaller building a blue ion bolt flashed out and caught him in the chest. He pitched down, then two figures in black converged to check him. Others, looking more like shadows than people, moved further in. One group closed in on the main building while a smaller knot moved toward the barn.

A small