Star Wars: X-Wing V: Wraith Squadron

by Aaron Allston

  “Negative. If you had a clue about the vessel, I might, but since you’re just as likely to shoot each other as the quarry, you’ll hold the bracket.”

  More acknowledgments, but without much enthusiasm. He couldn’t blame his squad—they hadn’t had any action except drills since they’d been assigned to this project—but his secondary goal was to bring all his men back alive. The primary, of course, was to accomplish their mission. He didn’t need a squad for this; any fighter pilot worth his spit should be able to deal with a lumbering shuttle, even one with the new-vehicle smell still in it. The Lambda’s delta vee wasn’t all that efficient, but with constant drive it could get above the solar plane and far enough out of the planet’s gravity well to engage its hyperdrive fairly soon—and once it was in the chute, they’d never find it.

  But that wasn’t going to happen.

  The pyramid-shaped formation zipped past the fleeing shuttle, close enough for Vil to see the pilot sitting in the command seat. He didn’t look surprised, of course—he would have seen them coming on the sensors. But he couldn’t outrun them, couldn’t dodge, and no way could he take out a full squad of TIE fighters even if he was the best gunner who’d ever lived, not in that boat. And anyway, Vil wasn’t going to give him the opportunity to try.

  The squad flowered into the dispersal maneuver as ordered, looping out and away to their assigned positions, angled pressor beams in their arrays providing maneuverability. Vil pulled a high-g tight turn and came around to parallel the shuttle a few hundred meters away, slightly above it. He watched the wing turrets closely. As soon as they started to track him, he jinked to port, then to starboard, slowed, then sped up. They tried to keep up with him, but they were a hair too slow.

  Vil toggled to a wide-band channel. They’d hear this back in the Destroyer, he knew.

  “Attention, shuttle RLH-One. Turn the craft around and proceed immediately to Star Destroyer Steel Talon’s tractor beam range.”

  There was no answer; nothing but the slight hiss of the carrier.

  “Shuttle craft, do you copy my transmission?”

  Another pause. Then: “Yeah, we hear you, rocketjock. We aren’t of a mind to do that.”

  Vil looked at his control panel. They were two minutes away from Minimum Safe Distance—the point far enough from Despayre where they could safely attempt the jump to lightspeed. Jump too close to a planet’s gravity well and the shift would tear the vessel apart. If the guy he was talking to had enough skill to fly the shuttle, he’d know that. His control panel would tell him when he reached MSD, and then it would be over. Lieutenant Dance would have failed a mission, for the first time.

  Never happen, he thought. “Turn it around, or we will fire,” he said.

  “You’d do that? Just blow us apart? Essentially murder fifteen men—and two women? One of them is old enough to be your granny. You can live with that?”

  He was stalling for time, Vil knew. The beings on that shuttle were bad enough to have been sent to the galaxy’s number one prison planet, and the Imperial courts didn’t bother to do that with petty thieves or traffic violators. His granny hadn’t robbed any banks or killed anybody. Not that he knew of, anyway.

  “Shuttle pilot, I say again—”

  Vil saw the port turret on the shuttle open up. He cut across the craft’s flight path, angling away aft as the starboard gun began firing. He hit his thrusters full, coming up in a half loop and twisting away from the incoming laser-fire.

  Even a good gunner couldn’t have spiked him at this angle, and these guys weren’t anywhere close to good enough. Still, the pulsed incandescent beams came close.

  “Lieutenant—!” That from Benjo.

  “Hold your position, Alpha Squad, there’s no problem here.” Cool and calm. Like discussing what they might be having for dinner.

  He zipped Black-11 out of range.

  The clock was running down. Less than a minute to MSD.

  “Last chance, shuttle. Turn it around. Now.”

  In answer, the pilot pulled the shuttle topward so his gunners could get a better angle. They started shooting again.

  The shots were wild, but there was always a chance a stray beam could hit you, even by accident. And wouldn’t that be a glorious end to an unblemished career? To be killed by a convict on a milking shuttle?

  Enough of this. Vil hit the drive controls and damped the thrust to zero. Then he pushed the throttles to full, angled to port and topside, did a roll and loop, and came around, driving at the shuttle amidships.

  He pressed the fire-control button.

  Black-11 spat twin laser bolts from the low-temp tips—blip-blip, blip-blip, blip-blip—

  Vil Dance was a better-than-average shooter. The bolts ripped into the shuttle, chewed it up, and as he overflew and peeled away to starboard-downside, the Lambda blew apart, shattering into at least half a dozen large pieces and hundreds of smaller ones amid a cloud of flash-frozen air, liquid, and debris.

  And pinwheeling bodies.

  Vil switched back to tac-five. “Anyell, Lude, move in and check for survivors.” He kept his voice calm, emotionless, no big deal. His pulse was racing, but they didn’t have to know that. Let them think his heart pumped liquid oxy.

  “None of ’em were wearing suits, Lieutenant,” Lude said a moment later. “No survivors. Too bad about that brand-new ship.”

  “Good hit, Vil,” Benjo said. “Congratulations.”

  Vil felt a warm glow of satisfaction. It had been a good hit. And they had been firing at him, so it wasn’t like shooting yorks in a canister. It had been a righteous response.

  He switched back to the main op-chan. “Fighter Control, this is ST-One-One, Lieutenant Vil Dance of TIE fighter Alpha Squadron. Mission accomplished. You might want to send out a recovery vessel to pick up the pieces.”

  “Copy, ST-One-One,” said Captain Exeter. “Good job.”

  “Thank you, sir. Let’s return to base, Alpha Squad.”

  Vil smiled as he waited for his team to form up again. This was the best job in the galaxy, being a fighter pilot. He couldn’t imagine a better one. He was young, not even twenty-five yet, and already a legend among his peers—and among the ladies as well. Life was good.

  As they started for the Destroyer, Vil saw in the distance the frame of the gigantic battle station that was being built in planetary orbit. They were a hundred kilometers away from the structure, and it was still skeletal, its interior construction only just begun, but even so, it looked impossibly huge at this distance. It was to be the size of a small moon when it was finished, dwarfing the largest Star Destroyer.

  Incredible to think about. And if he kept racking up missions like the one just completed, there was a very good chance that he would be assigned as unit commander on board the new station.

  He led his squad back to the equatorial launching bay. Looking at the awe-inspiring base, he felt a surge of pride in the Empire, and a feeling of gratitude at being a part of the Tarkin Doctrine’s glorious mission. There was no official appellation or designation, other than battle station, that he knew of for the Grand Moff’s vision, but there was a name for it that everybody he knew, officers and enlisted alike, used.

  They called it the Death Star.

  THE NEW REPUBLIC

  (5–25 YEARS AFTER STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE)

  The destruction of the second Death Star and the death of Emperor Palpatine—the climactic conclusion of Return of the Jedi—has shaken the Empire to its core. While the remnant of the loyal Imperials settles in for a long, drawn-out last stand, the victorious Rebel Alliance and its supporters found a galactic governing authority they name the New Republic. Troops and warships are donated to the cause, as New Republic military leaders forge plans to seize Imperial fortress worlds, invade the Core Worlds, and retake Coruscant itself. Eventually, the Imperial Remnant is pushed back to a small part of the Outer Rim, and the New Republic is finally able to focus on restoring just and democratic government to the galaxy.<
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  At last the heroes of the Rebellion are free to pursue their own lives. Han and Leia marry … but before the birth of their twins, Jacen and Jaina, the galaxy is once again torn asunder by war, as the Imperial forces—under the control of military mastermind Grand Admiral Thrawn—step up their campaign of raids against the New Republic. Even after Thrawn is defeated, the Imperial forces forge on, harrying the New Republic and Luke’s nascent Jedi academy—the start of Luke’s dream to rebuild the Jedi Order from the ground up. Plagues, insurrections, and rogue warlords add to the chaos and push the New Republic back a step for every two steps it takes forward in its quest for peace and prosperity for all. Meanwhile, Leia becomes Chief of State of the New Republic, and the Solos’ third child, a boy they name Anakin, after his grandfather, is born; Luke has met Mara Jade, a secret dark side apprentice to the Emperor whom he helps bring into the light, and the two subsequently fall in love and marry.

  Finally, after a series of further setbacks and plots against the young galactic government and Luke’s Jedi, a peace treaty formally ends the long conflict between the New Republic and the remnants of the Empire. The events of these years are the answer to the question … “What happened after the movies?”

  If you’re a reader looking to dive into the New Republic era, here are three great starting points:

  • X-Wing: Rogue Squadron, by Michael A. Stackpole: A taste of life at the edge, Rogue Squadron and the subsequent X-Wing novels bring to life Wedge Antilles and his brave, sometimes rambunctious fellow pilots in fast-paced adventures that switch smoothly and easily between entertaining repartee and tense battlefield action.

  • Heir to the Empire, by Timothy Zahn: The book that reintroduced a generation of fans to Star Wars is full of the elements that made the movies great—space battles, intriguing villains, and derring-do.

  • Before the Storm, by Michael P. Kube-McDowell: With a harder sci-fi edge to Star Wars, this novel features the classic heroes Han, Luke, and Leia, and explores everything from military forensics to the nature of the Force.

  Read on for an excerpt from a Star Wars novel set in the New Republic era.

  CHAPTER

  1

  Slowly, silently, its lights a faint glitter of life amid the darkness, the Imperial Star Destroyer Chimaera glided through space.

  Empty space. Oppressively dark space. Long, lonely light-years from the nearest of the tiny islands that were the star systems of the galaxy, drifting at the edge of the boundary between the Outer Rim worlds and the vast regions of territory known as Unknown Space. At the very edge of the Empire.

  Or rather, at the edge of the pitiful scraps of what had once been the Empire.

  Standing beside one of the Chimaera’s side viewports, Admiral Pellaeon, Supreme Commander of the Imperial Fleet, gazed out at the emptiness, the weight of all too many years pressing heavily across his shoulders. Too many years, too many battles, too many defeats.

  Perhaps the Chimaera’s bridge crew was feeling the weight, too. Certainly the sounds of activity going on behind him seemed more muted than usual today. But perhaps it was merely the effect of being out here, so far from anywhere at all.

  No, of course that had to be it. The men of the Chimaera were the finest the Fleet had to offer. They were Imperial officers and crewers, and Imperials didn’t give up. Ever.

  There was a tentative footstep at his side. “Admiral?” Captain Ardiff said quietly. “We’re ready to begin, sir.”

  For a moment Pellaeon’s mind flashed back ten years, to another very similar moment. Then, it had been Pellaeon and Grand Admiral Thrawn who’d been here on the Chimaera’s bridge, watching the final test of the prototype cloaking shield Thrawn had recovered from among the Emperor’s trophies inside Mount Tantiss. Pellaeon could remember the excitement he’d felt then, despite his misgivings about the insane Jedi clone Joruus C’baoth, as he watched Thrawn single-handedly breathing new life and vigor back into the Empire.

  But Mount Tantiss was gone, destroyed by agents of the New Republic and C’baoth’s own madness and treason. And Grand Admiral Thrawn was dead.

  And the Empire was dying.

  With an effort, Pellaeon shook the shadows of the past away. He was an Imperial officer, and Imperials didn’t give up. “Thank you,” he said to Ardiff. “At your convenience, Captain.”

  “Yes, sir.” Ardiff half turned, gestured to the fighter coordinator in the portside crew pit. “Signal the attack,” he ordered.

  The officer acknowledged and gestured in turn to one of his crewers. Pellaeon turned his attention back to the viewport—

  Just in time to see eight SoroSuub Preybird-class starfighters in tight formation roar in from behind them. Cutting tight to the Chimaera’s command superstructure, they passed over the forward ridgeline, raking it with low-power blaster fire, then split smoothly out in eight different directions. Corkscrewing out and forward, they kept up their fire until they were out of the Star Destroyer’s primary attack zone. Then, curving smoothly around, they swung around and regrouped.

  “Admiral?” Ardiff prompted.

  “Let’s give them one more pass, Captain,” Pellaeon said. “The more flight data the Predictor has to work with, the better it should function.” He caught the eye of one of the crew pit officers. “Damage report?”

  “Minor damage to the forward ridgeline, sir,” the officer reported. “One sensor array knocked out, leaving five turbolasers without ranging data.”

  “Acknowledged.” All theoretical damage, of course, calculated under the assumption that the Preybirds were using full-power capital-ship turbolasers. Pellaeon had always loved war games when he was younger; had relished the chance to play with technique and tactics without the risks of true combat. Somewhere in all those years, the excitement had faded away. “Helm, bring us around twenty degrees to starboard,” he ordered. “Starboard turbolasers will lay down dispersion fire as they make their next pass.”

  The Preybirds were back in tight formation now, once again approaching their target. The Chimaera’s turbolasers opened up as they came, their low-level fire splattering across the Preybirds’ overlapping deflector shields. For a few seconds the opponents traded fire; then, the Preybirds broke formation again, splitting apart like the fingertips of an opening hand. Twisting over and under the Chimaera, they shot past, scrambling for the safety of distance.

  “Damage report?” Pellaeon called.

  “Three starboard turbolaser batteries knocked out,” the officer called back. “We’ve also lost one tractor beam projector and two ion cannon.”

  “Enemy damage?”

  “One attacker appears to have lost its deflector shields, and two others are reading diminished turbolaser capability.”

  “Hardly counts as damage,” Ardiff murmured. “Of course, the situation here isn’t exactly fair. Ships that small and maneuverable would never have the kind of shields or firepower we’re crediting them with.”

  “If you want fairness, organize a shockball tournament,” Pellaeon said acidly. “Don’t look for it in warfare.”

  Ardiff’s cheek twitched. “I’m sorry, sir.”

  Pellaeon sighed. The finest the Imperial Fleet had to offer … “Stand by the cloaking shield, Captain,” he ordered, watching the faint drive glows as the Preybirds regrouped again in the distance. “Activate on my command.”

  “Yes, Admiral.”

  There was a sudden flare of drive glow, partially eclipsed by the Preybirds themselves, as the enemy kicked into high acceleration. “Here they come,” Pellaeon said, watching as the single glowing dot rapidly resolved itself into eight close-formation ships. “Lock Predictor into fire control. Stand by cloaking shield.”

  “Predictor and cloaking shield standing by,” Ardiff confirmed.

  Pellaeon nodded, his full attention on the Preybirds. Nearly to the point where they’d broken formation last time … “Cloaking shield: now.”

  And with a brief flicker of bridge lighting, the stars and inco
ming Preybirds vanished as the cloaking shield plunged the Chimaera into total darkness.

  “Cloaking shield activated and stabilized,” Ardiff said.

  “Helm, come around portside: thirty degrees by eight,” Pellaeon ordered. “Ahead acceleration point one. Turbolasers: fire.”

  “Acknowledged,” an officer called. “Turbolasers are firing.”

  Pellaeon took a step closer to the viewport and looked down along the Chimaera’s sides. The faint blasts of low-level fire were visible, lancing a short distance out from the Star Destroyer and then disappearing as they penetrated the spherical edge of the Star Destroyer’s cloaking shield. Blinded by the very device that was now shielding it from its opponents’ view, the Chimaera was firing wildly in an attempt to destroy those opponents.

  Or perhaps not quite so wildly. If the Predictor worked as well as its designers hoped, perhaps the Empire still had a chance in this war.

  It was a long time before the Chimaera’s turbolasers finally ceased fire. Far too long. “Is that it?” he asked Ardiff.

  “Yes, sir,” the other said. “Five hundred shots, as preprogrammed.”

  Pellaeon nodded. “Deactivate cloaking shield. Let’s see how well we did.”

  There was another flicker from the lights, and the stars were back. Mentally crossing his fingers, Pellaeon peered out the viewport.

  For a moment there was nothing. Then, from starboard, he spotted the approaching drive glows. Seven of them.

  “Signal from Adversary Commander, Admiral,” the comm officer called. “Target Three reports receiving a disabling hit and has gone dormant; all other targets have sustained only minimal damage. Requesting orders.”

  Pellaeon grimaced. One. Out of eight targets, the Chimaera had been able to hit exactly one. And that great feat had required five hundred shots to achieve.

  So that was that. The wonderful Computerized Combat Predictor, touted by its creators and sponsors as the best approach to practical use of the cloaking shield, had been put to the test. And to be fair, it had probably done better than simple random shooting.