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Authors: Michael A. Stackpole
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set them for dual-firing. He pumped his shields up to full and picked the lead eyeball as his target. They started to close,coming head to head, with their wingmen off starboard and hanging slightly back, each formation being the mirror image of the other. He smiled. Just where I want him .
“Rogue Two, do you have your target?”
“Confirmed, lead.” Asyr’s voice came through the comm unit cool and steady.
“Get ready. On my mark, I’m going to foul your target. Shoot immediately after that with a proton torpedo.”
“As ordered.”
“Three, two, one, mark!” Wedge rolled the X-wing up and over in a barrel-roll to port. His target did the same thing, sweeping his fighter across his wingman’s flight path. That momentarily blinded the second TIE and caused him to shy. Wedge glanced at his monitor and saw a report of a proton torpedo launch, then touched the starboard rudder pedal a second before inverting the X-wing and making his pass on the TIE fighter.
Before Wedge applied rudder, the two ships had been heading straight at each other. The rudder drifted the X-wing’s nose about ten degrees to starboard, pulling him out of line with the TIE. The inversion flopped the starfighter, bringing the nose back into line with the TIE. Before Zsinj’s pilot could react, Wedge’s fighter streaked in at him and started shooting.
The first pair of red laser-bolts missed low, but the next two pairs swept up and across the ball cockpit. One of the TIE’s lasers died in a cloud of duraplast mist. Wedge’s third shot lanced through the transparisteel viewport, igniting and melting all manner of components and equipment. The TIE starfighter rolled up on the starboard solar panel, then tightened down into a screw-spiral before exploding.
A second later a blue proton torpedo slammed into the port wing on the second TIE. The black solar panel closed around the torpedo like cloth around a thrown stone. The torpedo itself punched through the panel and penetrated the fighter’s hull before detonating. The blast ripped the back half off the cockpit pod, freeing the engines to soar further in-system while the shattered husk of a fighter tumbled on through the void.
“Nice shot, Deuce.”
“Thanks for the setup, lead.”
Wedge brought the X-wing up and around to the original heading and saw a proton torpedo from Erisi’s ship finish off a TIE. Farther along he saw streams of green laser-bolts spraying out from the space station. At the extremes of range the fire did not seriously threaten the incoming fighters, but it did keep them away long enough for the station to scramble its TIEs. Zsinj’s fliers boiled up and out from the station and rose on an intercept course with the Rebel fighters.
“Lead, I have a dozen Interceptors and eight starfighters.”
“I copy, Twelve.” That should be everything they have, unless they’re holding something back . Keeping ships in reserve made little or no sense to Wedge, but he’d long since learned that warfare and tactics seldom make a lot of sense to the opposition. I just hope our run away from the station looks believable .
Aril Nunb led the Rogues and Y-wings up and away from the station. The squints and eyeballs came on in pursuit, hot to thin the ranks of the Y-wings. The Interceptors opened a lead on the TIE starfighters and started to close fast with the Y-wings. Aril brought her X-wing over, and the rest of the Rogues followed her through a loop that.took them back toward the Interceptors while the Y-wings continued heading away from their pursuers.
As the X-wing and Interceptor formations began to spread out into clouds, the B-wings burst into realspace and shot straight into the gap between the squints and the eyeballs from the station. Wedge marveled at how each cruciform ship flew with its wings and fuselage whirling around to keep the cockpit stable despite a wild series of maneuvers and course corrections. Having flown a B-wing a few times, he could
“Rogue Two, do you have your target?”
“Confirmed, lead.” Asyr’s voice came through the comm unit cool and steady.
“Get ready. On my mark, I’m going to foul your target. Shoot immediately after that with a proton torpedo.”
“As ordered.”
“Three, two, one, mark!” Wedge rolled the X-wing up and over in a barrel-roll to port. His target did the same thing, sweeping his fighter across his wingman’s flight path. That momentarily blinded the second TIE and caused him to shy. Wedge glanced at his monitor and saw a report of a proton torpedo launch, then touched the starboard rudder pedal a second before inverting the X-wing and making his pass on the TIE fighter.
Before Wedge applied rudder, the two ships had been heading straight at each other. The rudder drifted the X-wing’s nose about ten degrees to starboard, pulling him out of line with the TIE. The inversion flopped the starfighter, bringing the nose back into line with the TIE. Before Zsinj’s pilot could react, Wedge’s fighter streaked in at him and started shooting.
The first pair of red laser-bolts missed low, but the next two pairs swept up and across the ball cockpit. One of the TIE’s lasers died in a cloud of duraplast mist. Wedge’s third shot lanced through the transparisteel viewport, igniting and melting all manner of components and equipment. The TIE starfighter rolled up on the starboard solar panel, then tightened down into a screw-spiral before exploding.
A second later a blue proton torpedo slammed into the port wing on the second TIE. The black solar panel closed around the torpedo like cloth around a thrown stone. The torpedo itself punched through the panel and penetrated the fighter’s hull before detonating. The blast ripped the back half off the cockpit pod, freeing the engines to soar further in-system while the shattered husk of a fighter tumbled on through the void.
“Nice shot, Deuce.”
“Thanks for the setup, lead.”
Wedge brought the X-wing up and around to the original heading and saw a proton torpedo from Erisi’s ship finish off a TIE. Farther along he saw streams of green laser-bolts spraying out from the space station. At the extremes of range the fire did not seriously threaten the incoming fighters, but it did keep them away long enough for the station to scramble its TIEs. Zsinj’s fliers boiled up and out from the station and rose on an intercept course with the Rebel fighters.
“Lead, I have a dozen Interceptors and eight starfighters.”
“I copy, Twelve.” That should be everything they have, unless they’re holding something back . Keeping ships in reserve made little or no sense to Wedge, but he’d long since learned that warfare and tactics seldom make a lot of sense to the opposition. I just hope our run away from the station looks believable .
Aril Nunb led the Rogues and Y-wings up and away from the station. The squints and eyeballs came on in pursuit, hot to thin the ranks of the Y-wings. The Interceptors opened a lead on the TIE starfighters and started to close fast with the Y-wings. Aril brought her X-wing over, and the rest of the Rogues followed her through a loop that.took them back toward the Interceptors while the Y-wings continued heading away from their pursuers.
As the X-wing and Interceptor formations began to spread out into clouds, the B-wings burst into realspace and shot straight into the gap between the squints and the eyeballs from the station. Wedge marveled at how each cruciform ship flew with its wings and fuselage whirling around to keep the cockpit stable despite a wild series of maneuvers and course corrections. Having flown a B-wing a few times, he could
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