Star Wars_ X-Wing 09_ Starfighters of Adumar - Aaron Allston [105]
He kicked the X-wing forward, firing as his strike foils locked in attack formation and his targeting brackets flickered from yellow to green. He saw the red pulses of his quad-linked weapons flash toward the incoming Blades, hammering through the bow of one of them, chewing mercilessly through its contents. That Blade banked to starboard and disappeared once more behind the line of buildings; even at this distance Wedge heard a tremendous impact, saw the fireball erupt from the crash site.
He was first out of the hangar, with none of the other members of his flight firing—they were too close in behind him. The lasers of the surviving incoming Blade hit his front shields. Reduced to negligible power, the laser strike played across the fuselage just in front of his canopy, doing nothing more than burning away at paint. He replied with another linked laser blast, a miss as the incoming pilot veered … then a laser shot from behind him caught the Blade-32, shredding the port wing. Wedge saw the pilot punch out. The Blade seemed to aim straight in toward the hangar, a ballistic course, and flashed by over Wedge’s head, over the hangar roof, straight toward the perator’s palace. In his rear viewport, Wedge saw the bank of palace guns swing toward the out-of-control vehicle and burn it from the sky.
Wedge added power to acceleration. “Good shooting, Red Three. Now let’s see what we can show General Phennir.”
After so much work with the Blades, flying the X-wing again was more than mere improvement—it was a delight. He sent it up in an ascent that no Adumari vehicle could match, jinking and juking to give the laser battery gunners fits, and did a roll just for the sheer joy of it. This wasn’t just flying; it was dancing in the air.
“Red Two, this is Three. Am I crazy, or is the general doing what he tells us never to do?”
“Three, Two. Yes you are, and yes he is. Pay no attention.”
“Understood.”
Wedge grinned and set his course due west.
In the time it had taken Red Flight to retrieve its X-wings, the engagement zone had drifted over the western portions of Cartann City. There, the laser batteries were silent, but they were the only thing that was. The sky was rocked from second to second by missile detonations, the ripping noise of Blades crossing the sky at full speed, the deadly scream of doomed fighters making their final, uncontrolled descents.
Red Flight came at the engagement zone from a higher altitude, the sun at their backs, and Wedge’s sensors were quick to spot the three remaining TIE Interceptors, now making another lethal run through the thickest part of the zone. He plotted their likely return course and transmitted a simple intercept course to his pilots. “Between here and there,” he said, “shoot anything in Cartann colors.”
His X-wing flashed through the engagement zone. He fired when his brackets went live around an enemy, went evasive when his sensor board told him an enemy was seeking him with a target lock. Seconds later, he could visually spot the TIEs, approaching and heading across his path. He got the green of a laser lock on his targeting brackets and opened fire.
The three TIEs reacted almost instantly. The solo pilot returned fire while going evasive in a corkscrew maneuver, a dazzling demonstration of evasive flying. The leader of the remaining wing turned straight toward Red Flight, a head-to-head that lasted fractions of a second; it fired, green lasers trying to find a target among the members of Red Flight, and then had flashed by and was behind them in an instant.
The third Interceptor, Wedge’s target, detonated in a brilliant flash. He saw Tycho fly through the debris cloud. “Two, you all right?”
“Unhurt.”
“I’m not.” That was Hobbie’s voice.