Star Wars - X-Wing 8 - Isard's Revenge

by Michael A. Stackpole

  As with other TIEs, the Defender worked with a wheel and yoke control system. Pulling back and pushing forward would make the fighter climb and dive respectively, just as the X-wing stick would do the same on that fighter. To get the ship to bank and turn, however, the pilot twisted the blocky panel mounted to the top of the yoke. As with a landspeeder's controls, turning to the left would send the ship left and vice versa. The grips on either end of the panel had trigger switches to fire weapons, and between them lay an array of buttons and switches that controlled the throttle, weapon selection, target acquisition, data streaming to the primary monitor, and a variety of lesser functions. Each was manipulate with a flick of a thumb, and though Cor-ran preferred the X-wing's stick, he didn't find this system that tough to work with.

  Rudder pedals contracted and expanded maneuvering planes that vectored engine thrust, swinging the fighter's tail around for quick course alterations. This contributed to the fighter's added maneuverability, which, along with the shields, would make the ship very hard to kill.

  "Red Nine is good to go." He glanced low left at the auxiliary monitor showing the status of his shields, and then up at the lines of lights representing his weapons. Dead center in the weapons display bar was two counters indicating he was carrying eight concussion missiles. This is a lot of firepower for a fighter-more than enough to fight a B-wing to a standstill.

  The instructor's voice filled his helmet. "The mission is simple: You will engage your hyperdrive on your current heading and drop out of hyperspace in thirty seconds. You will find a small space station and some freighter traffic around it. Approach the freighter and station closely enough to scan their cargoes. Expect possible Reb...pirate activities in the area and deal with them as warranted."

  "Red Lead copies. Hyperdrive on my mark. Three, I two, one, mark."

  The computer-generated display in the fighter's various viewpoints became a shifting tunnel of light. Corran began to yawn and lifted his hand to cover it, but his bounced off his helmet. He growled mildly. Having to these helmets is reason enough for any Imp pilot to come over to the Rebellion.

  He watched the chronometer on his main display trickle down to zero, and then his ship reverted to realspace. A space station with three wedge-shaped platforms grafted at regular angles to the middle of its long central spindle came into view. He dropped his crosshairs on it and called up a sensor scan. The computer designated it Yag-prime and a chill ran through Corran. It's the station at Yag'Dhul, the one we used as our base for ending Isard's rule of Thyferra. Some one here is being very cute.

  Corran brushed his right thumb over a targeting selection switch, toggling his way through the variety of ships in the system. One freighter came up as the Pulsar Skate, another as the Last Chance, and yet another as the Millennium Falcon. They even have the Star's Delight here, the freighter that took me off Garqi and brought me to the Rebellion. Isard's tossing up here all the freighters I mentioned in my Lusankya interrogations, reminding me how much she'd gotten out of me.

  He keyed his comlink. "They're playing some games with us, Lead. Not a problem for me, but we need to stay sharp."

  "My thoughts, too, Nine." Wedge's voice faded for a moment. "Five, take Two Flight and head along two-four mark two-seven-three to check the two bulk freighters, and then take a run by the station."

  "As ordered, Lead." Tycho's voice crackled along the comm frequency. "Two Flight on me."

  Corran rolled his trip to starboard, and then leveled out and swooped in behind Tycho's fighter. Inyri brought Red Six up on Tycho's port side and Ooryl dropped Seven aft right of Corran's fighter. Nrin cruised Eight into a high cover position to the formation's aft. Their course brought them in below the Falcon and sensors reported it was hauling droids and weapons. Corran snorted, half expecting Isard to have filled the imaginary freighter's hold with spice.

  Next came the Pulsar Skate, but sensors showed it as carrying passengers. Neither of the freighters reacted in any way to the fighter fly-by, but Corran kept watching them on his aft scope. If the shields come up, they could be the backstop for an ambush. He ruddered his fighter around to starboard, following the course correction Tycho made to bring the flight in on a long loop toward the station. Way out to port he could see flashes of One Flight lining up to do the same thing.

  "Six has readings of ships powering up in the station."

  "Seven confirms. Profile is that of Defenders."

  Corran frowned as a dozen TIE Defenders came up out of the station. A red light began blinking on his HUD, indicating that something had a target lock on him, and then a second burned to let him know a missile had been launched at him. "Nine has incoming missiles."

  "Evasive, all, now!"

  Tycho's fighter rolled hard to port, while Corran went starboard. He hesitated for a second, and then began to thumb his way through the various threats in the system. He found the missile heading his way and turned his ship until it was coming straight in at his tail. He watched its range scroll down on the main display, and when it hit a hundred meters, he snaprolled to port, inverting his fighter, and then he dove for a second.

  The missile shot past and its momentum took it well beyond his ship. Reversing his roll, Corran brought the Defender's nose back up and targeted the missile. He ruddered his ship around, keeping his fighter facing the missile as it cruised through the arc that would bring it back on target to him. When it oriented on him again, he hit the trigger under his right index finger. Two pairs of green laser bolts hissed out. The second pair hit the missile, melting it. The propel-lant combusted into a big ball of flame, and an explosion by the warhead a second later snuffed it.

  Something inside of Corran kind of gave way as he glanced at his scopes. The Yag'Dhul station bristled with turbolaser batteries and was filling the space around it with lots of cohesive light. A dozen enemy trips twisted and spun through the system, while the Rogues scattered via evasive maneuvers. Part of him realized it was only an exercise, and the fact that the Imps would ambush them just to show the cocky Rebels how good they were didn't surprise him. He even allowed as how, in their boots, he'd have seriously contemplated the same thing. It probably was good for both groups of pilots.

  Another part of him disagreed though. For these Imps, this simulator battle was redemption and justification. If they could beat the Rogues, and then the Empire for which they worked, the Empire that had been their mentor and provider, that Empire suddenly had been lost only because they had not been employed in its defense. The frustration they felt at not having been present at Endor could be erased. In their minds the Emperor could have lived, his Empire could have continued, and Coruscant would never have fallen, if only they had been there to defeat the Rebels, to defeat Rogue Squadron.

  But they weren't there. Corran snorted angrily. Time to show them why it was just as well they weren't.

  Hitting switches on his control panel, he flipped his weapons over to concussion missiles and doubled them up. Then he dialed his throttle back to two-thirds of maximum. By hitting another switch, he shunted the energy stored in the energy weapon capacitors into the engines, bringing his speed back up to the maximum the fighter could do while fully recharging weapons and shields. Rolling to port and starting to climb, he oriented himself toward a pair of trips that were cruising in on Ooryl's fighter. The Gand had his Defender dancing, making it tough for the Imps to do more than hit him with grazing shots.

  "Seven, this is Nine. Move to two-four-oh mark ten, now. Break port on my mark."

  A double-click came back on the frequency to let him know Ooryl heard the order and would comply. The Defender leveled out and started off on the vector Corran had indicated. The Imps made course corrections to keep coming on Ooryl's tail. Corran pointed his Defender at an intercept point, and then kicked the throttle in at full.

  His speed climbed, as did his closure rate with the two trips following Ooryl. "Seven, mark."

  Ooryl's Defender rolled hard to port and the Imp trips trailed
after him like hatchlings after a mother mynock. They cruised right across Corran's crosshairs and his target acquisition system gave him a hard lock fast, since he'd closed to point-blank range faster than the Imps expected. He hit his trigger, drilling two concussion missiles into the first trip, and then ruddered around and launched two more at the second one.

  The first pair of missiles hit the Defender's aft shield simultaneously and collapsed it, only expending half the energy released by"their detonations. The rest of the burning plasma ball they created melted away the top fin and took with it the top of the cockpit. It also fused thrust louvers, whirling the Defender into a spin that sent it back toward the Yag'Dhul station.

  The next pair of missiles hit their target in sequence. The first missile blast took down the aft shield, while the second missile flew straight into one of the two ion engines. Ion thrust flared into a silver-white cone, and then the missile's explosion blew the cockpit's forward viewport out. The Defender ripped itself into huge pieces and Corran flew through the middle of the dying explosion.

  He nodded grimly. Given the Defenders' warning systems for target locks, any long-distance shots would give his prey the same chance to destroy the missile or begin to evade that he would have. Only by refusing to aim at them until the last second could he take them by surprise. The only true surprise he had to work with was the enemy's failure to realize that he could manufacture strategies that would work with their equipment as well as they could, if not better.

  Two of the enemy Defenders vectored in on his aft, so he rolled to starboard and began a weaving run in at the space station. Green laser bolts flashed past him from the rear, while curling lines of red bolts rose toward him from the station. Course correcting a bit to the right, he raced in at the station's central spire. His flight path set him up to run a bit starboard of it, and on his rear scope he saw the Defenders split to pursue him as he came around.

  As he came in tight he chopped his throttle back, and then activated the Defender's tractor beam. It latched hold of the space station, but since it massed far more than the star-fighter, it didn't go anywhere. Instead the tractor beam acted like a line that shortened the arc of Corran's turn. The pilot flicked the beam off again, and then throttled up and hauled back on the yoke to climb.

  His HUD went red as his crosshairs swept over one of the Defenders coming after him. He launched another pair of concussion missiles, which drilled into the trip and ripped it apart. Then the missile-lock warning light flashed on his display, prompting him to invert and dive. The concussion missile that had been coming at him shot past, but his dive carried him straight into a turbolaser salvo from the station.

  The simulator screens went black, and then the egress hatch's emergency release triggers snapped back into the safe position and the hatch opened. Corran pulled off his helmet, released his restraining belts, and hauled himself up out of the simulator. Sweat poured down his face and stung his eyes. He licked salt from his lips and sat perched on the hatch, luxuriating in the cool air of the simulator chamber.

  Looking around he saw some of the Rogues chatting with Imperial pilots. That surprised him, but as he watched the men and women weave their hands through simple pantomimes of the battles they'd fought, he began to smile. They ambushed us, but they ended up being as surprised as we were by it. Toward the back of the room he saw Wedge and the Imperial leader, Colonel Vessery, smiling as they conversed closely.

  Corran nodded slowly. Both leaders had clearly seen that their pilots would be suspicious and defensive, ready to take offense at whatever the other group might say or do; yet both groups needed to work together. This little exercise pointed out that each side had good pilots, and that the pilots had more in common than they might have otherwise expected. Mutual respect will bring us closer faster, and let us compete as equals. That's good.

  He swung his legs up over the edge of the hatch, and slid down to the deck. He stumbled as he landed, but an Imperial pilot helped steady him. "Thanks."

  "Not a problem." The Imp smiled at him. "You were the guy who tractored the station?"

  "Guilty as charged."

  The Imp nodded. "Very impressive. I'll have to keep my eye on you."

  Corran laughed lightly. "Use both of them. I am a Rogue, after all."

  26

  Whistler's lights popped on and the little R2 droid began surveying the room in which he found himself. Aside from the light he produced, he detected no other source of light energy. His scan did reveal power conduits, computer cable conduits, and a fairly large system of air ductwork behind the walls. The room had only one door, which appeared to be quite dense, and he found no thermal bleed-through from any living creatures standing guard near it or against the wall.

  All of this data filtered into a simple program that assessed his situation and made available different options for his future actions. In the past the program had recommended returning to a dormant state, with lights off, monitoring local comm frequencies for any communication from Corran. He had been in that passive wait state from the moment the Imperials had placed him in the room with the rest of Rogue Squadron's astromech droids. Corran had managed to communicate with him via comlink and gave Whistler access to the scramble codes the Imperials used, as well as a way to tap the comm traffic during the training sessions they went through.

  Corran had also informed him of the Rogues' status.

  The circumstances they found themselves in were indeed alarming. Whistler's awareness of this fact was based on his analysis of Corran's speech patterns and the signs of stress in his voice. He catalogued those signs of anxiety along with the key words that seemed to trigger them: Isard [status alive], Imperial Base [secret], TIE Defenders [secret], and mission [secret, dangerous].

  Whistler began a passive scan of comlink frequencies. He catalogued the vocabulary being used on each, and then ran a correlation between them. First he determined that the Rogues and their Imperial counterparts were running yet another simulation that pitted the rival pilots against each other. Over the past two weeks this sort of training mission had become common. On the other frequencies he began picking up comments that indicated Corran's hunch about the base had been correct. The pilot had guessed that in such a small facility, with no serious threats to deal with, watching the simulator battles between the Rogues and the Imps would attract a lot of attention. Whistler's correlations indicated voyeur traffic on 65 percent of the local frequencies and, more importantly, 85 percent of the security frequencies.

  That percentage flipped a bit in a program. A line of code called up Whistler's evasion and escape programming. Such programming was not common in an astromech droid, but few astromech droids had been refitted for work in the Corellian Security Force. Not only had his preparation for that work equipped him with special circuitry that allowed for surveillance and analysis, escape and evasion, and an array of code-slicing programs, but it had even shifted internal components around such that when a restraining bolt was fastened to him it did little more than communicate the result of commands sent by a remote. When the Imperial tech had used the remote on him, Whistler feigned shutting down and starting up again. More than once criminals had assumed a security droid was disabled by a restraining bolt and had learned to regret that assumption.

  Regardless of the fact that the cylindrical device afixed to his torso did nothing to restrain him, Whistler rolled over to the corner of a shelving unit, lodged the cylinder next to the edge, and quickly spun his body. The restraining bolt snapped off and clattered to the floor.

  Whistler allowed himself a low, barely audible whistle. Whirling his head about he spotted Gate and rolled over to the red and white R5 astromech. Whistler reached out with his pincer arm, sent a blue trickle of energy over the restraining bolt on Gate's torso, and then pulled it free.

  Gate's lights flashed on and the droid began to shudder, bouncing from foot to foot.

  Whistler tootled at him to calm down, and then quickly answered the taller
droid's inquiries about location and status. Whistler reassured him that the mission they were being sent on had official sanction. He also informed Gate of the highly risky nature of their mission with a low tone.

  Gate countered sharply that his microprocessing time was too valuable to waste analyzing meaningless odds. In the final analysis, he suggested, they were droids who had been entrusted with a mission and they would accomplish it. All non-vital calculations would only waste time and power.

  Whistler hooted happily and rolled over to the large air intake vent mounted in the wall. He brought out his cutting attachment and sliced through one of the screws holding it in place. Gate joined him, cutting the grate free. Whistler slowly backed away, letting the grate lean into the room, and then he caught hold of one edge with his pincer and pulled it away from the dark cavity beyond.

  Gate entered the ductwork with no difficulty at all. The maintenance and construction droids used to create and repair the environmental system in the base were slightly taller and decidedly broader than the astromech droids. Gate caught hold of the other edge of the grate, allowing Whistler to come around to the opening. The smaller droid took hold of the grate and pulled it into place, while Gate extended his pincer and crimped ductwork around the edge of the grate to hold it in place.