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“A chip shouldn’t have taken off an S-foil. Shouldn’t have gotten through your shields.”

“I shifted power forward and they caught me in an engine.” Another warning light started to burn on his command console. “Ten, I’m losing engine coolant and will lose my other engines if I don’t do something soon. I’ve got to set down. You’ve got the flight. Warn Control about the chips here. There must be something else of value here, too, otherwise they wouldn’t have guarded it that way.”

“I copy. We’ll fly cover for you until they pull you out.”

“No, get out of here, all of you. They might have other weapons to take an X-wing down. Leave, but promise me you’ll be back with help.”

“As fast as Ooryl is able.” The faint clicking of the Gand’s mandibles came through the comm channel. “May the Force be with you.”

“Thanks, I’m going to need it. Nine out.”

Corran rolled the X-wing once to give himself a quick look at the terrain below, then pushed his fighter over another ridge about three kilometers away from the dam. He would have liked to have gotten further away, but the heat indicators on his engines were spiking enough that the computer reported the numbers in blinking red numbers.

Gotta get down now. “Hang on, Whistler, this isn’t going to be much fun.”

He picked a spot uphill of a rocky outcropping and clipped off a series of laser shots at it. The red bolts scythed through the underbrush, melted snow, and exploded venerable evergreens. Smoke from a small fire obscured the landing zone, but he nosed the craft toward it nonetheless. He shifted power into his repulsorlift coils, lowered the landing gear, and slowly, awkwardly settled the fighter into place. The aft port landing gear ended up planted on the stump of a tree, making the craft list heavily to starboard, but Corran shut down the engines rather than risk a total meltdown to shift the X-wing to another position.

A chill settled over Corran as he hit the release on his restraining straps. “Think it’s over for this fighter, Whistler? We’ve seen a lot of action together.”

The droid mewed weakly.

Corran cracked the cockpit canopy, then swung himself out and under the cockpit lip. He moved up to the fuselage and crouched on the back end of the canopy. The chip missile’s blast had peppered the left side of the fighter with engine shrapnel and Whistler had caught a chunk in his left shoulder joint. Corran reached out to touch it, but Whistler squawked sharply at him.

“Okay, okay, I won’t touch it. No, I don’t want to do more damage.” He shook his head slowly and felt his stomach begin to knot up. “I’ll get you out of here somehow, Whistler. Not a problem.”

The R2 unit piped bravely.

“Thanks.” Corran returned to the cockpit and pulled the small survival kit from the compartment beneath his seat. He opened it and transferred a couple of spare powerpacks for his blaster to the gunbelt pouch over his right hip. He stuffed some survival ration bars into his green flight suit’s pockets, though he thought of them as fairly lethal weapons. If only I could get stormies to eat them.

He looked up and was going to share that thought with Whistler, but he saw the little droid’s lights blinking painfully slowly. His throat immediately thickened.

“I will get you out of here, my friend.” Corran brandished the lightsaber he pulled from the survival kit. “We’ll teach these Imp-wannabes that by grounding me they haven’t made me switch from hunter to hunted, just switched the direction I’ll be coming at them from.”

14

General Wedge Antilles leveled his X-wing out and glanced at the range indicator to his target. Fifty kilometers, we’ll be on it in no time. I wonder what they’ve got waiting for us there.

He punched up the flight’s tactical channel. “Okay, Rogues, Three Flight ran into trouble in blue sector. Ground fire damaged one. They think it was from chip missiles, so keep your shields strong and eyes open.”

The rest of the flight acknowledged his message, then followed Wedge down onto the deck for the final run at the Valleyport spaceport