Star Wars_ X-Wing 08_ Isard's Revenge - Michael A. Stackpole [50]
Corran caught the flash of sunlight off a slender ribbon of water running through a canyon and dropped down toward it. “This should be the outflow from the dam, right, Whistler?” White water churned through the canyon and a small flotilla of boats made its way down through the perilous watercourse.
They have to be freezing down there—there’s snow on the ground. What some folks think of as fun I just don’t understand. He shook his head, then keyed his comm unit. “Target is two klicks out. Ten, with me. Eleven and Twelve, fly high cover.”
Corran brought his fighter down on the deck and Ooryl’s X-wing came in behind him. Corran kicked the X-wing up on its starboard S-foil and tugged back on the stick to curve to the right, then rolled back to port and sailed around to the left. The inertial compensator’s adjustment allowed him to feel the twists and turns he put the fighter through and just for a second he felt the absolute joy and freedom flying had always given him.
Then he came around a bend and saw the dam.
In the simulations they’d run on this mission the dam had always been tall, but seeing the solid edifice of ferrocrete, with spots where moss had grown along seep lines, and seeing the great rush of water pouring from the sluice-gates, that he’d not expected. Evergreen trees and bushes grew thickly through the riparian area along the riverbanks, but thinned a bit up on the hillsides in the canyon. Everything, save the twin Atgar 1.4 FD P-tower units built atop the dam, looked peaceful and sedate.
The antivehicular artillery units, with a laser cannon centered in a round dish, looked decidedly hostile, but they came as no surprise. A single stormtrooper crewed each weapon and the Rogues had known about them going in. Corran tugged back on his stick a bit and ran his throttle down as he dropped the aiming reticle over the outline of the leftmost weapon. “I’ve got port. Ten, you take starboard.”
“As ordered, Nine.”
With the flick of a thumb Corran shunted power from his rear shields to his forward ones. Staggered red bolts from the P-tower hissed as they splashed harmlessly over his reinforced shields. Corran stroked his trigger once, sending a quad burst of laserfire to burn through the P-tower, but even before it exploded, an overwhelming sense of dread pounded him.
Unthinking, he jerked the X-wing stick to the left and saw a small projectile sizzle past him from behind at an angle in from the right. It flew on and impacted to the left of the dam. The warhead exploded, spraying dirty snow and launching a tall evergreen into the air. Other trees sagged and fell on the forested hillside.
“Abort, they’ve got missiles. Ten, pull out.”
Before Corran could punch the throttle forward, something hit his low port stabilizer and detonated. Whistler’s high-pitched shrilling matched the warning buzzers in the cockpit. Corran saw a whole bank of red lights start to burn amid curls of smoke. Power level indicators showed a quarter of the X-wing’s power lost immediately, and the fighter’s nose began to swing around to the right.
Corran stomped on the left rudder to stop the flat spin, then dove toward the river to pick up some airspeed. Pulling back on the stick, he started a climb, then inverted and flew toward the small fire the other missile had started. Rolling again, he righted his craft and carried it over the canyon’s ridge.
“Ten, I’ve been hit. I’ve lost port-two engine.”
“Nine, that S-foil is gone.”
“What was it?”
“Ooryl doesn’t know. Ground-launched and didn’t scan.”
Corran nodded. “Probably