Star Wars_ X-Wing 09_ Starfighters of Adumar - Aaron Allston [83]
Wedge put his repulsorlifts on at full power and pulled back on his yoke, a full-strength effort to pull out of his dive. He angled to slide in under the unseen canopy of wires and cables, hoping he’d correctly calculated their height aboveground, and a moment later found himself roaring down a mere three meters above street level. Ahead, a repulsorlift transport clumsily turned out of his path.
Behind him, his two pursuers imitated his maneuver. The first one came in too high; Wedge saw it shudder, then saw its port wing disintegrate from an impact with one or more of the cables. The Blade spun, its other wing crumpling under multiple successive impacts, then crashed down onto the street, skidding forward almost as fast as Wedge was flying. In his rear viewport Wedge saw pedestrians dive out of the way of the flaming thing, saw it brush aside an abandoned wheeled transport as though the thing were a millimeter-thin flatscreen.
The other Blade continued relentlessly onward.
As he reached the next intersection, Wedge yanked the controls hard to port, turning into the new lane … and reduced strength to his repulsorlifts. His Blade dropped nearly to the street’s surface and continued its spin until it was pointed back the way it had come. He brought strength up to the forward repulsorlifts, canting his bow upward, and slammed his thrusters forward as hard as he could.
His pursuer whipped around the corner, making better time than Wedge, coming so close to the building face on the outside of his turn that only his repulsors kept him from grazing the building. His nose was elevated far above Wedge’s position, the pilot obviously expecting to catch Wedge in his sights farther down the street.
Wedge fired, his lasers raking the Blade from bow to stern at close range. He saw the underside of the Blade open up like a seam bursting under pressure. The Blade wobbled, roared past over Wedge’s head, and slammed down into the street, skidding for a block in the direction it had been going, knocking wheeled transports aside like toys.
Wedge’s lightboard showed only buildings all around him. “Red Two, report status.”
“All clear,” Tycho said.
“Let’s see how clear we can get. Coming up to join you.” Wedge sent his Blade forward to the intersection, then rose on repulsorlifts until he was well clear of the ubiquitous cabling. He pointed his nose up and climbed.
In seconds, Tycho joined him from points east. If anything, he looked worse than before, with laser scoring all along the starboard side of his fuselage. His cockpit was now shattered; his Blade couldn’t hit very high speeds without wind hammering Tycho. “We’re not going to make space, boss,” he said.
“If I recall the maps right, Cartann’s border to Halbegardia isn’t outside our flight range,” Wedge said. “We’ll use terrain-following flying to stay below their lightbounce sensors, and—”
His lightboard suddenly showed two fuzzy blips moving toward them, one from Giltella Air Base, one from Cartann Bladedrome. Within moments they resolved themselves into clouds of smaller blips, two entire flightknives. In the distance, Wedge could see the running lights of the incoming Blades; they were closer to one another than they were to Wedge and Tycho, but they would be on the New Republic pilots within seconds.
The tactical part of Wedge’s mind, the one that was often at odds with the Corellian part, calculated odds and strategy. The answer wasn’t good. Even if they could have ordinarily managed twelve-to-one odds, their equipment was too badly damaged to let them compete at full strength. Nor did they have time to land and get into hiding. Even if they punched out, experience had shown that the enemy pilots could spot them and were willing to shoot them out of the air as they descended.
Wedge suppressed a pang of regret. Not fair of