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“Good.” That was Hobbie’s voice, more intent than usual. “Damage.”

“Three, is Four all right?”

“He’s fine, chief. Still deliriously happy from his missile barrage, I think.”

The path of the oncoming TIEs changed slightly, continuing from what must have been an evasive move. Wedge sent his Blade into a hard vector to starboard. Now there was no way to get in the path of TIEs, but they could still fire upon them—

And there they were, two wing pairs streaking in from port. Wedge opened fire with his lasers, concentrating on the lead TIE, and was gratified to see three other pairs of lasers joining his.

The Interceptor exploded as if hit by a missile, leaving only an orange-and-yellow fireball and a spray of shrapnel behind. Wedge’s Blade shook as he crossed in the wake of the TIEs and was hit by the explosion shock wave.

But because of their changed flight plan they hadn’t concluded the exchange with their rear lasers pointed toward the TIEs. Wedge saw the three remaining enemy fighters split off, two one direction and one another, and begin to loop around at impossible speeds toward his Blades. “Whoops,” Wedge said. “Red Flight, scatter.” He rose and vectored to starboard, toward what looked like an incoming wing pair of friendly Blades.

A TIE Interceptor rose in his wake. He fired upon it, but the nimbler craft juked and jinked far too quickly for him to get a fix on it. It responded with lasers that hammered away at his rear fuselage; he felt his Blade shudder and text suddenly started scrawling across his diagnostics board.

“Red One, come to one-six-five.” That was Iella’s voice. He complied, as hard a turn as he could manage, the TIE adhering to his tail as if glued there.

As Wedge completed his maneuver, he found himself heading almost due west and into the path of something huge.

Shaped like a single curved wing, with a dozen laser cupolas atop the wing and a dozen below, the Meteor-class Aerial Fort was the largest flying vehicle the Adumari made, and among the most punishing. Each cupola held paired lasers the equal of the ones on the Blades and could turn 360 degrees around and depress to cover an entire hemisphere.

As Wedge turned into the craft’s path, a half dozen of its gunners opened up on him—or so it looked, for their laser fire flashed all around him, above and below.

The TIE on his tail broke off with an almost ninety-degree turn and flashed out to the side faster than the Meteor’s gunners could turn their weapons. In a second he was out of sight.

“Thanks—” Wedge tapped the lightboard—“Meteor Six. Much appreciated.”

“Our pleasure, Red Leader.”

The Cartann Blades were not yet approaching the Meteor. Wedge saw some forming up into half squads, presumably for strafing runs at the enormous aircraft, but they weren’t ready yet. He took the opportunity to catch up on his breathing. He also checked visually for the other members of his flight, couldn’t spot them immediately. Into the lightboard microphone, he said, “Red Flight.”

Three blips lit up.

Three.

He tapped each one in turn. Red Leader. Red Four. Red Three.

“Red Two, come in. Tycho, where are you?”

Janson’s voice came back, strained. “I think he’s gone, Lead. I saw him hammered by a TIE’s laser fire, really bad. He banked away from me, not maneuvering well, and then a Blade’s missile took him.”

“Four to Red Flight, negative, negative. I was just queried by a Yedagon Blade-28, Sandstorm Six, who’s following him down. Tycho punched out. No serious damage.”

Wedge nearly slumped. Fear for Tycho had tightened every muscle in his body like they were an instrument’s strings being tuned. “Red Leader to Eye Three.”

“Eye Three.”

“Please track Sandstorm Six. He’s following Red Two down; Two is extravehicular. Send whatever you can to pick him up. We want him back in the air and with us, whatever it takes.”

“Understood. And we have good news on another front. Cheriss with Holdout reports that her group has found your X-wings.”

“That was fast.”

“She said it was simple. They picked up your astromech’s broadcasts.”