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“I see it, boss. Still functional.”

Tycho pulled into wingman position behind and to the starboard of Wedge’s Blade. Through his viewport, Wedge could see that Tycho’s canopy was cracked and starred, with char marks indicating laser hits.

Wedge swore to himself. Tycho couldn’t make space either; a canopy damaged that way would blow out under the pressure of its internal atmosphere. And these pilot suits weren’t self-contained environment suits the way TIE fighter rigs were.

That left Janson the only one of them with a spaceworthy Blade, the only one who could reach Allegiance and tell the story of what had happened to them on Adumar.

Then Janson’s Blade was enveloped in an explosion cloud.

He emerged from the far side of the cloud intact, or so Wedge thought at first; then his Blade began rolling to port and Wedge could see that the starboard wing was completely gone. “Punch out, Three,” he said. “Janson, come in.”

An enemy Blade diving in from directly above tore his attention away from Janson. He looped to starboard, causing the incoming Blade to alter his dive angle to follow. Tycho decelerated, slowing to the Blade’s rated stall speed, and stitched the enemy with lasers from below. Wedge felt a tremendous bang to his rear quarters but watched, through his rear viewport and on the lightboard, as his attacker exploded. “Good shot, Tycho.”

He heeled over until he could see Janson again. Janson’s Blade was now sideways, its lone wing pointed toward the ground, and was beginning a looping descent to the ground.

But Janson was free of it. The pilot was in open air, a meter-square flat device above him; he hung by straps from it. Wedge nodded; this had to be the Blade’s pilot-descent mechanism, a primitive repulsorlift device that lowered the pilot at a safe speed.

Safe, that is, unless someone was still shooting at the pilot. Wedge saw a Blade diving toward the defenseless pilot. He saw Janson pulling out his blaster pistol, as though a weapon that small could do any significant damage to a fighter, and open fire.

The incoming fighter exploded. Wedge resolved to find out just what sort of pistol Janson was carrying—and then saw Hobbie’s Blade whip through the new debris cloud, lasers still flashing.

That left six enemies against three damaged Red Flight Blades.

“Stay with Three, Four,” Wedge said. “When he reaches ground, land, join him, and tell him to take you to that club where he ate pastries the other night.”

“Acknowledged, Lead.”

“Two, you and I are going to finish this.”

“I’m your wing.”

“No, drift out in case they keep up the same tactics.”

The six enemy Blades had gathered into formation, two triangles, and were on an approach vector. Wedge saw the two formations drift apart, each triangle heading toward one of the Red Flight fliers. He nodded; they’d finally learned something about not just mindlessly prosecuting the most prestigious enemy. That was too bad; now was not the time for them to get smart.

In these slow-maneuvering Blades, missiles gave his opponents a serious edge. He had to take that edge away.

He slammed his control yoke forward, diving straight toward the Cartann streets beneath him. He thought he detected a moment of hesitation in his enemies before they dove to follow.

It was a gambit he was reluctant to take. Back at the air base, he’d taken steps not to endanger civilians. He could afford to do so then; that choice did not have a direct bearing on his continued survival. But now it did, and he had to make use of available cover … or die.

Below, he could see only traces of lights indicating the outlines of streets.

But those streets were often blanketed by wires and cables at all altitudes, impediments that, even if they didn’t tear his fighter’s wings off, would throw him into a building side …

He nodded, remembering. They didn’t have all those cross wires at street intersections. He made for the square light pattern of an intersection.

Columns of light poured past him toward the ground, his pursuers’ lasers. He felt his stern rock from