Starfighters of Adumar

by Aaron Allston

  The transport crashed into the gates, shuddering from the impact—and the gates flew open. The transport rolled through. Janson, Hobbie, and Tycho continued pouring suppression fire out the back.

  One of the guards stood, hands up, and ran after the transport. “Wait, wait!”

  “Another madman,” Janson said. “Think I should shoot him?”

  “If we shot every Adumari who was crazy, there’d be no one left,” Wedge said. “Let’s hear what he has to say.” He slowed the transport’s speed fractionally, allowing the guard to catch up.

  “Cease fire, lord pilots,” said the man, “please. You’re upon air base grounds. You’re safe until you take off again.”

  In fact, the crowd at the gate was no longer firing at the pilots. Nor were they entering the air base. Some were kicking the walls in frustration, shouting after the pilots.

  An eerie wail bit into the air, rising and falling, its pitch and volume cutting at Wedge’s ears. He resisted the urge to clap his hands over his ears. “What’s that?”

  The guard said, “Notification that you’re on base. Now the street hunters will go home and the air hunters will know it’s time to meet you. Your Blades are in the Lovely Carrion Flightknife hangar.”

  “That’s somehow fitting.” Wedge patted the rail. “Come aboard and guide us to our starfighters.”

  Liveried base personnel stood by at the hangar, ready with pilot’s suits, helmets, personal gear. The four Blade-32s standing ready were colored a glossy red rather than black. “Seized from the pilots of the nation of Yedagon,” one of the hangar mechanics said, a touch of apology to his voice. “The palace wanted declared enemies to look like enemies.”

  “Live weapons,” Wedge said, “instead of paint, this time, I trust.”

  The mechanic nodded. Though he was a small man, his spadelike black beard made his face appear larger. “To sabotage your craft would be to sabotage your killers’ honor—and our own. Your vehicles are in exquisite condition.”

  While Wedge and pilots ran through an abbreviated checklist, flight after flight of Blade-32s flew by the open hangar doors, close enough in to be seen easily. Declaring their presence, announcing challenges we can’t refuse this time, Wedge decided. “Keep personal comlinks on Red Flight frequencies,” Wedge said. “Tune Blade comm system defaults to the following frequencies: Allegiance, Rogue Squadron, Red Flight.”

  He got four acknowledgments. He switched to Allegiance’s frequency. “Red Flight to Allegiance, come in. This is General Antilles, and this is a direct order. Allegiance, come in. Acknowledge our transmission.”

  There was no answer. He hadn’t expected any. The pilots of Red Flight were on their own. He switched back to Red Flight frequency. “Announce readiness. Leader had two lit and in the green.”

  “Two standing by, one hundred percent.”

  “Three, ready for a furball.”

  “Four is green-lighted.”

  “Up on repulsors.” Wedge suited action to words by bringing his Blade-32 straight up two meters. Ahead of him, at the hangar exits, mechanics’ crews cheered, but whether it was for Red Flight’s success or merely for the fight to come, Wedge didn’t know.

  “What’s our first order?” Wedge asked.

  Tycho’s voice came back immediately: “‘Whatever they expect us to do, we don’t do.’”

  “Correct, Two. Red Flight, come around one-eighty degrees.” He swung the nose of his Blade around until it was pointed directly toward the thin sheet-metal rear of the hangar. “Arm missile systems. On my command, fire your missiles and all speed forward. Ready—fire.”

  Four missiles flashed instantaneously to the rear of the hangar and blew the sheet-metal panel into oblivion.

  Wedge kicked his Blade-32 forward and began climbing as soon as he emerged through the hole.

  His lightboard sensor data was confused, made erratic by the tremendous smoke cloud he was climbing through, but it clearly showed a half-dozen Blades hovering over the hangar, noses depressed, pointed toward the exit. Had Red Flight emerged the way they were supposed to, they would have done so right under the guns of this ambush party.

  Wedge switched his weapons control to rear lasers—then switched them back again. “Red Flight, hold your fire until we’re clear.” He put his attention into climbing as fast as he could.

  Had he fired and missed, had an ambusher Blade been hit and exploded, collateral damage would have punched through into the hangar, toward the front, just where the Lovely Carrion Flightknife mechanics waited.

  His lightboard showed his pilots tucked in so close that he couldn’t detect them as individual signals. Below, the ambushers above the Lovely Carrion Flightknife hangar were breaking up, beginning their climb in Red Flight’s wake.

  Other groups of flyers, circling at some distance, were turning in toward Red Flight. Two high-altitude formations began descents. Altogether, Wedge counted at least thirty enemy aircraft arrayed against Red Flight.

  Thirty against four. In the past, he’d bullied his way through such impossible odds, usually through use of stratagems set up well in advance. Here he had nothing like that working in his favor.

  Red Flight was barely a thousand meters up when the first enemies, two separate half flightknives, neared attack range from overhead. “Loosen up the formation,” Wedge said. “Remember it’s me they’re likely to concentrate on. Tycho, stand off, we’re not in a normal wingman situation here. Fire at will.”

  The dozen enemies screamed down at them with lasers blazing—eight or nine of them concentrating fire on Wedge. Wedge returned fire with his lasers but mostly concentrated on evasive maneuvering. He juked and jinked from side to side, set his Blade into an axial rotation to constantly change the image he offered to enemy lightboards, and fired by reflex as targets presented themselves.

  He saw his lasers shear through one incoming Blade and stitch scoring marks on the fuselage of a second. He felt his own craft shudder as lasers hammered at his fuselage. Then he was past the diving wave of enemies, seeing them—seven, not twelve—turn in his wake and follow. Behind him, Reds Two, Three, and Four followed in very loose formation.

  Ahead of his flight path at several thousand meters was another blip, diffusing into a new squad of foes. Below, the fighters who had intended to ambush Red Flight at the hangar were now joining the Blades who had just exchanged shots with them.

  “I have an idea,” Wedge said. “Two, Three, Four, pull back and climb. Stay within a half kilometer of me. Set one missile each to detonate at a proximity of two hundred fifty meters. On my command, fire at me, then be prepared to prey on targets of opportunity.”

  “Leader, this is Three. Are you crazy? Acknowledge.”

  “Three, Leader. That’s affirmative.” Wedge put most of his attention on heading toward the new incoming enemies, but kept track of two sets of range-to-target numbers: those for the Blades ahead and the ones for those behind.

  When the two sets of numbers were approximately equal, and just out of standard weapons-lock range, Wedge fired one missile at the targets ahead and then pulled a tight vector to port. In doing so, he rotated axially to expose his belly to the enemies ahead, his top hull to the enemies coming on from behind.

  He saw puffs of smoke, the beginnings of missile trails, from the enemies ahead. “Fire,” he said. He rotated again to narrow his cross section and climbed.

  And his own pilots fired on him, as he’d instructed.

  He felt a momentary chill of fear. What if the missiles malfunctioned? What if their proximity fuses ignited at a much closer distance than the quarter kilometer he’d dictated? He’d be dead before he felt the impact.

  But three missiles detonated into huge clouds of opaque fire directly above and ahead of him. His Blade-32 rocked and shuddered as it met the overlapping shock waves from the explosions, and he heard countless metallic pings and clanks as shrapnel hit his hull.

  A moment later, he was enveloped in fire and smoke. In his mind was
a picture of the three explosions, placing him toward the westmost edge of one of the blasts; he snap-rolled, emerging belly-up from the cloud, then dove into it again. There was a moment of clear air as he crossed the open space between explosion clouds, then he was in fire and darkness again.

  There was another detonation nearby, close enough to rattle his fighter and hurt his teeth. He heard equipment shattering within his Blade. Then he was in open air again. He glanced left and right, then at his lightboard, which now featured a crack across its crystal surface.

  A moment ago, twenty-three Blades had been aimed at him. Now, only thirteen remained, their formations scattering, and the other members of Red Flight were now diving upon them, loosing lasers and missiles as fast as fingers could pull triggers.

  Wedge could see it in his mind’s eye, the way the opportunistic fighters had seen his lightbounce image improve to offer a target lock, the way they’d armed missiles and lasers and opened fire. He’d risen into friendly smoke clouds and the incoming missiles, deprived for a crucial second of their original target, sought out new ones… and found them in the oncoming friendly Blades. He looped after Tycho, dropping two missiles into the enemy formation before switching to lasers as he closed.

  “One, Two. You all right?”

  “I’m unhurt, Two.” He glanced at the board that was supposed to display damage diagnostics. Text scrolled across it at a rate too fast for him to read, and he wished fervently that the Blades offered a diagrammatic display of damage the way New Republic fighters did. “Some damage to my Blade.” He cocked his head as he realized he was hearing a new, persistent noise.

  His stomach sank as he recognized it. Whistling. Air was passing through his cockpit making a constant, unmusical sound as it did so. “I’ve experienced a hull breach,” he said, keeping his voice unemotional.

  If he couldn’t patch the breach, he couldn’t reach space. Couldn’t make the Allegiance.

  Now was not the time to worry about it. Ten enemies still remained, and his Blade shuddered as he suffered a hit from the rear lasers of the fighter he was pursuing. He put more of his personal attention to evasive maneuvering and continued stitching his target with linked laser blasts.

  Fire and smoke erupted from its cockpit and it began a slow descent toward distant grain fields. Nine enemies to go. No, eight. The fighter in Hobbie’s sights exploded spectacularly, turning into a ball of black and red and gold that would have been beautiful if it had not been fueled by a human life.

  Hobbie’s Blade was now trailing smoke, a thin stream of it emerging from beneath his cockpit. “Four—”

  “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 a graze impact. He returned fire with his rear lasers, was satisfied to see one shot punch through a canopy. It didn’t kill the pilot, at least not immediately; that Blade turned clumsily away, heading off toward the air base or the forests beyond.

  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.