“Good,” Wedge said. “Let me ask a few questions. On Adumari lightboards, a squadron tends to be a single signal until it’s close enough to be perceived as individual fighter-craft. How many Blades return the same-sized signal, at distance, as Scythe-class and Meteor-class vehicles?”
Tycho looked up at one of the uniformed officers standing by. “General ya Sethes?”
The officer, a gray-haired woman built like a champion wrestler, answered without hesitation. “Four for Scythes, six for Meteors. Unless the squadron is Blade-Twenty-eights or earlier, in which case five and eight.”
“I want every bomber and aerial fortress transponder programmed to issue a false response,” Wedge said. “When queried by a lightbounce signal, instead of responding with its true name and other information, it sends back that it’s one Blade in a squadron. Three Scythes end up looking like one squadron, and two Meteors likewise, until they’re close enough.”
“So their projections on our composition are thrown off just when it’s time to mix it up,” Tycho said. “I like that.”
“That’s not all. I want us to assemble a list of, oh, the thirty most prestigious pilots flying in our united force. I want the transponders of at least two Blades in each fighter squadron to be able to toggle between returning their correct data and the data for one of those pilots. Likewise, I want the real pilots on that list to be able to toggle to return the data for a novice pilot. Nobody’s to switch to deceptive transponder data until the furball is under way, and only when they’re not under weapons lock by an enemy.”
General ya Sethes looked dubious. “If we wait until the fighters are all engaged, yes, then the deception will be harder to recognize. But what’s the point?”
Wedge smiled at her. “The point is, within a single squadron’s engagement, the pilots can tend to affect which of them is to be the focus of enemy assaults. Put someone who has good evasive skills up under the name of, say, Major Janson. The enemies will flock to him, possibly allowing the best shooters in his squadron an unanswered salvo or two. Then, if our ersatz Janson gets clear of weapons locks for a moment, he can take off his mask—switch his transponder back to his real identity—and confuse participants scanning for him. Any confusion we can sow in the enemy helps us, hurts them.”
The general still looked unconvinced, but said, “If nothing else, this should be simple to program. I’ll see to it.”
“Thank you.” Wedge turned back to the map. “Are Cartann’s military responses predictable enough that we can map out where our forces will engage theirs?”
“Only if their squadron response drills are good indications.” Tycho shrugged. “Hard to say, since those drills are non-weapon exercises and the Cartann flyers hate that. But my guess is, yes.”
“So we send out one squadron an hour or two ahead of each major formation. Pilots skilled at terrain-following flying. They fly beneath the altitude at which lightbounce sensors start to be active and set up in deep cover beneath the projected engagement zone. Because, until they break up to pursue enemies, Cartann squadrons tend to fly in pretty close formations—”
“So our advance units can fire their missiles up at their squadrons passing overhead,” Janson said. “Perhaps taking out multiple fighters per missile in those first few seconds.”
“Ooh,” Hobbie said. “I volunteer. I want that. Let me do that. Please.” Though his expression was, as usual, somber, he was practically hopping from foot to foot in his excitement.
Wedge and Tycho looked at one another. Wedge asked, “Have you ever seen behavior like this?”
Tycho shook his head. “Only when he really, really needs to run to the refresher. Hobbie, why?”
“Because I am sick of it,” Hobbie said. “I’m sick to death of ‘Hello, I’m so-and-so and I’ve killed this many enemies, and I challenge you, and we bow and go by the rules and say cute things to one another, and isn’t it nice that we’re all dead now?’ Tycho, I want to shoot something. I want to blow something up. No apologies. No advance warning. Just lethal efficiency. Before frustration kills me.”
“More words that he’s strung together at once since I’ve known him,” Tycho said. “All right, Hobbie. You’ll be in charge of the advance squadron for lead group.”
“I don’t think he’s entirely sane right now,” Janson said. “I’d better stay with him.”
“Good idea,” Wedge said. “Anyway, Tycho, that’s all the modifications I had to recommend for your plan. I do want to address the pilots, either directly or by recording, and lay down some rules. I want them flying New Republic-style. I see a pilot flying for glory instead of victory, I’ll be happy to shoot him down myself.”
“Done,” said General ya Sethes.
Wedge caught Cheriss’s eye. “Cheriss, will you be staying here?”
She shook her head. “I’m being flown in hours early, with a special ground unit. I could not bring myself to fire upon my city, or tell others where to drop the bombs… but I can help find your X-wings.”
“I appreciate that. It might prove to be vital if Turr Phennir and his pilots are in their TIE Interceptors. Thanks.” He turned to Hallis. “What about you? Staying here, I hope?”
“Are you crazy?” She frowned. “Let me rephrase that. Haven’t you been paying attention? I’m a documentarian. They’ve granted me a place on one of the Meteors. I’ll be recording all the way in, all the way out.”
Wedge considered his responses, but knew he had no way to persuade her not to come. He could issue orders preventing her… but to do so would suggest, accurately, that he had no respect for her right to choose her own destiny. “Good luck,” he said, and turned to Iella. “If you haven’t already chosen something suicidal, I have a mission for you.”
“Name it.”
“I want you to go up to Allegiance, and beg, bribe, and bully your way aboard, and get a copy of our Tomer Darpen recording into their hands.”
“Did that already.”
“What?”
Heads raised all across the room at Wedge’s shout. He waved people’s attention away, then took Iella’s arm and led her a few steps from the table. “How is that again?”
She smiled at him, her enjoyment at his discomposure very evident. “While you were sleeping. I asked Escalion for a spaceworthy Blade and a pilot. She flew me up to Allegiance.”
“I wish you’d waited.”
“For you to ask me to do exactly what I was going to do? What I was obliged by my duties as an Intelligence officer to do?”
“That’s right.” He grinned. “All right, so it’s illogical. How did it go?”
“Strange,” she said. “Allegiance’s officers, I found out later, were not happy with the no-communications order from Tomer. All we knew is that the ship wouldn’t respond to our hails. So, very carefully and slowly, we flew up to her and into the main starfighter bay. There were a lot of soldiers there, a lot of blaster rifles there pointed at us… but things relaxed a lot when I identified myself, and I spoke with Captain Salaban. He’s as frantic and resentful as a fighter pilot in a tractor beam with the orders he’s under.”
“What did you tell him?”
“Well, it was obvious that he intended to obey his orders no matter how hateful they were to him. Which is nothing more than what I expected. And even if I’d told him the whole story, it would have been my word—and a juicy bit of corroborating recorded evidence—against anything Tomer Darpen told him, just enough to cause Salaban distress but not enough to cause him to violate his orders, in my opinion. So I decided not to hang him on the hook of that dilemma. I told him about the war that was brewing, and how it came about—not including Tomer Darpen’s role in it. I gave him a copy of the recording with a request that he forward it to General Cracken’s office at the point the communications blackout was lifted. I also left a copy mislabeled as my will, and broadcast encrypted copies with a time-based decryption order to the R5 and R2 units of the X-wing squadron aboard.”
“
I would say you’ve done more than I could ask you to.” He added, a growl to his voice, “Other than helpfully being out of harm’s way when the shooting starts.”
“I’m going to be in one of their reconnaissance craft,” she said. “Doing unit coordination. Well away from the battlefront.”
“Battlefronts tend not to have fixed lines, and missiles don’t acknowledge what lines there are.”
“That’s the best you’re going to get, Wedge. Don’t push.”
He sighed, exasperated. “Were you always this way?”
“No,” she said. “I was pretty stubborn when I was younger.”
“Just don’t feel you have to stay close if things go bad,” he said. “Our chances are still pretty low, even with all those new people and resources flooding in…” His voice trailed off as a new thought occurred to him.
“What is it?”
“I’ve commanded large forces before. The Lusankya has more combined firepower than the entire force I’ll be leading today. But until now all the forces I’ve led have been assigned to me, routine unit assignments, with a healthy dose of volunteers. This is the first time that such a large group, so many recruits, have come in just on the strength of my name. It’s disconcerting.”
“Don’t let it go to your head, Wedge. You won’t be able to fit into your helmet.”
“Thanks for the reassurance.” He swung her back toward the planning table. “Back to work.”
In the hours before dawn, Wedge stood on the ladder to his Blade’s cockpit, a spotlight on him, a comlink on his collar to broadcast his words, and prepared to address the troops.
He’d never really understood the pre-mission pep talk—or, rather, had never shared the psychology of the pilots and soldiers who needed and expected one. He never flew a mission without becoming, at some point before the first laser was fired, completely committed to it; that was the only way to achieve the objective and maybe stay alive while doing it.
But since inheriting command of Rogue Squadron from Luke Skywalker a decade ago, he’d learned the hard fact that he often saved lives with the right words. He wondered if he had the right words with him now. He thumbed on the comlink and looked out over the vista before him—what seemed like an endless stretch of duracrete thick with fighter-craft, pilots, crewmen, mechanics. Most common were the dark red jumpsuits worn by Yedagon Confederacy pilots and workers; each person’s was decorated by scarves, medals, piping, or other expressions of individuality. Jumpsuits of other colors, representing other nations, were in evidence. Wedge himself wore the garish orange of the New Republic starfighter pilot; Hallis had told the Yedagonians what to look for and they had obligingly equipped Red Flight with the familiar colors.
“People of Adumar,” he said. “That’s the phrase I have to use to address you, because it’s not appropriate to refer to you by the nations of your birth. Today you’re flying as pilots of your world, with the goal of keeping personal greed and ambition from ruining your world.
“Today, from this base and countless others, we’re going to lift off and form the greatest air force your world has ever seen—except one. The forces of Cartann are greater. They’re bigger. So to defeat them, we’re going to have to be better. Here’s how we’re going to do that.
“Every pilot you line up in your weapon brackets is someone concerned with what he’s going to get out of this conflict. How he’s going to profit. Most plan to profit in the accumulation of honor. Honor bought with your blood.
“That pilot is thinking about himself. You’re not going to do that. You’re going to stay focused on your objective. Don’t permit yourself to think about personal duels, about the accolades you’re going to receive. Don’t respond to challenges or personal remarks from the enemy; they don’t deserve your answer. Don’t worry about becoming heroes. The moment you committed yourself to defeating your enemy, at the possible cost of your own lives, you became heroes. That part is done. Now we move on to something more important.
“Focus on your enemy. How he moves. How he fires. What he must be thinking. Where his thoughts will take him. Shoot both at him and at where he’s going. Fight now and a few moments in the future. That gives you the chance to kill him twice. That gives you twice as many guns as he has. And that’s the only way you’re going to win.
“If you let your thoughts stray from your enemy, focus them on what’s waiting for you at home. Not the adulation. The wives, the husbands, the children, the parents. If we fail, they will be defenseless before the forces of Cartann. That should be enough to put your concentration back where it belongs… on the enemy.
“It’s time to go. I salute you, Adumar.” He paused, then said it again: “Adumar.”
A moment later, the nearest fringe of people, including Tycho and Iella, took it up as a chant: “Adumar. Adumar. Adumar.” It rolled across the assembled air armada, gaining in strength and volume.
Wedge let it go only for a few moments, only long enough for every one present to be caught up in it. Then he nodded to Tycho. Tycho thumbed his own comlink, and suddenly the air was split with the sound of a keening siren.
Like an insect mound suddenly disturbed by a giant intruder, the air base abruptly became a sea of running bodies as pilots returned to their fighters, mechanics scrambled to get last-second details in order, flight workers rushed to get late-arriving missiles loaded into aircraft.
Wedge stepped down to the duracrete. Iella came up to him. “You understand,” she said, “if you let yourself get hurt, it’s going to go very badly for you. I’ll make you regret it.”
“I had that figured out,” he said.
She waited as if hoping for him to say something more. The smile she gave him was an uncertain one. “That’s Wedge. So honest he can’t even reassure me.”
He looked around to make sure no one was close enough to hear. “Here’s some reassurance,” he told her. “Two reasons why I’m not going to let anything happen to me. One: I’m the best there is. Two: I finally have someone to come back to.”
She wrapped herself around him. “Don’t forget that.”
“I won’t.”
“I have to get to my station.”
He kissed her, then watched her run—or perhaps flee—toward the large aircraft that was her assignment for the mission. It was built like a spoke-and-wheel space station whose every joining of spoke and wheel was a spherical sensor array.
He climbed back up to his cockpit. His mechanic, a middle-aged woman whose face was striped, tattoolike, with Blade-32 greases, was astride the fuselage, just behind the cockpit, dogging down the rear of the canopy with a hydrospanner. “How’s it look, Grembae?” he asked.
“They gave you the best,” she said. “And it’s in as fine a shape as I can make it.”
His helmet lay in the pilot’s seat. He picked it up to put it on, then noticed the decorations upon it. Recently dried paint in gold on the dark red surface showed up as a succession of delta-shaped wedges, the decorative motif Wedge had added to most of the helmets he’d worn throughout his career. “Who did this?” he asked.
“My son,” she said. “A mechanic on my team. Your lady said you’d like it.”
“My lady.” He put the helmet on, cinched it under his chin. “My lady.” The words weren’t new to him, but they were in a new combination, a configuration that had never meant anything to him before. He decided he liked them.
He levered himself into the pilot’s chair. “She was right. Thanks, Grembae.”
Chapter Twelve
They rose from the Yedagon City air base, hundreds strong, fighters and bombers and fortresses and aircraft of all colors and description, and they were only one group of several involved in this all-out assault on Cartann and her satellite nations. One of the Blade units moving ahead of the group as a skirmish line was Running Crimson Flightknife, now being led by Wedge and Tycho.
This was a much faster flight than Wedge’s departure from Cartann, and much more agreeable—it had just fel
t wrong to be in a vehicle he wasn’t piloting. He watched moonlit forest tops and cultivated fields flash by beneath him. It was oddly peaceful, despite the fact that he was at the spearpoint position of hundreds of engines of war, for there was no comm chatter.
A few klicks from the Cartann border, the lightboard offered up a throbbing noise, indicating that he’d been hit by a lightbounce from ahead. Wedge nodded. That would be a border sensor installation. As the noise continued, Wedge got a fix on it with his lightboard. He looped away from the Running Crimson formation with Tycho tucked in beside him and headed straight for the source of the lightbounce signals.
The enemy sensor operators tried to save their installation: The lightbounce signals cut off. But the installation’s coordinates were already locked into the Blade-32’s computers. Wedge brought it up on his sensor board and designated those coordinates as the sole target. He armed his lasers, and as soon as the sensor board solidified the lasers’ targeting brackets, he fired. He saw his lasers and Tycho’s flash down into the forest below, and some hard target erupted into flaming explosion.
On the way back, they took a closer look. They’d hit a squarish bunker, perhaps fifteen meters on a side, and it was burning fiercely. Elaborate sensor gear on top was now char and slag. Satisfied, Wedge headed back to rejoin Running Crimson Flightknife.
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