Wedge registered that something was wrong. Luke released Eirriss and Janson from escort and took it on himself. Why?
Samoc’s guns flashed once, twice, and the last of the garrison’s TIEs exploded.
“Good kill, Six,” he said. “I’ve got lead. We’re forty seconds from the TIE Interceptors.” Luke can handle his problem. “Two Flight, arm torpedoes. Fire the moment you have tone. This one’s gonna be ugly.”
“Three and Eleven, get ready to pounce,” Luke ordered. “Those Interceptors are going to try to punch through and swing for Two Flight’s tails. Don’t make it easy for them.”
Wedge spared a glance at his scopes. Several freighters were trying to lift as most of the Rogues turned to face the TIE Interceptors. Commander Salm’s Y-wings were vectoring on them in three-ship sections, pouring ion cannon fire into anything lifting out of the city. Zev and Karie were riding top cover over one section, Luke and Mara over the other.
He returned his attention forward. The 128th TIE Interceptor group. TIE Corps organization puts three squadrons to a group, but they often don’t deploy all three squadrons together to the same place. Twenty-four on scope, which means one of their squadrons is deployed somewhere. They outnumber us two to one. Deal with what’s in front of us. Wedge switched his targeting over to proton torpedoes. “Acey,” he called to his R2, “designate targets for Two Flight so we don’t waste fire.”
His targeting reticle turned yellow as he dropped it over one of the leading Interceptors. Acey began to beep as he calculated a targeting solution. The gap closed rapidly, and the Interceptors began long-range probing fire on the Rogues before Acey let out the long, solid trill indicating a solid lock.
Proton torpedoes rode pink fire into the Interceptor formation. Three Interceptors winked out; Wedge’s target, however, fired back, inhumanly precise, and his torpedo detonated mid-air before it could reach the Imperial formation.
Damn. They might be as good as their reputation claims. “Switch to lasers if you haven’t already,” Wedge called on the squadron channel, flicking his weapons selection back to cannons. The TIE Interceptor he’d tried to take with a torpedo was already firing on him again, but the moment Wedge started blasting, it juked hard away in a spiral almost impossible to follow.
“Your target wants to stay alive, Five,” Samoc commented, her voice strained.
“Unfortunately,” Wedge agreed. He feathered his rudder, fired past his target, and caught another Interceptor squarely. It exploded, an ugly punctuation of fire and smoke. Wedge’s X-wing shuddered as green laserfire hammered his forward shield – the first Interceptor again – and then the X-wing and TIEs flashed past each other. Wedge rolled and dived into a split-S. Samoc trailed him off his starboard wing the entire way, losing meters but stubbornly holding on.
Cesi and Wes were climbing toward the engagement from the city, firing lasers and torpedoes alike wildly. They couldn’t get locks that quickly. What are they doing? The warheads began to explode in staccato, hammering the TIE sections with overlapping shockwaves and shrapnel, forcing them apart.
Timed detonations, Wedge realized. No lock necessary. Explosions to break the formation so they can pounce. Astromechs probably programming on the fly to get it right with how fast the distances are changing.
He came out the bottom of his split-S when laserfire hammered his forward shield again. Acey squealed, a scolding tone. It’s that same kriffing TIE, Wedge growled internally. He’s good. He’s very good. He pulled the stick hard to the left, sending the X-wing into a tight port turn. “Call it out if someone vectors on our rear, Six,” he said. “I’m focused forward.”
“Kill him, Five.”
“That’s the plan.”
And then a pained voice on the comm.
“I’m hit! Shields down, engines on fire!”
Hobbie.
“Eject!” Puck called.
Wedge couldn’t afford to look or he and Samoc would be next.
“Two, talk to me,” Luke said urgently.
No response.
He nudged his stick to the right, a starboard drift. A few moments later, Mara’s X-wing corrected and followed.
Reflexes. She’s flying on reflexes. “Two. Come in, Two.”
Artoo whistled a low warning tone, and Luke looked back at the engagement. Six TIEs were down. Wedge was tied up in a dogfight with the Interceptor that Artoo had tagged as the leader of the 128th, Samoc barely holding on by her fingernails while the Interceptor leader’s wingmen looked similarly stressed. Cesi and Wes were in the middle of the engagement now, along with Tycho and Kit, four Rogues fighting against nine TIE Interceptors.
The last six TIEs were the source of Artoo’s warning. The half squadron of Interceptors had climbed out of the initial engagement, had revectored, and were now diving on Luke, Mara, and their section of Y-wings.
“Mara,” Luke said urgently, abandoning call signs. “Mara, talk to me.“
Artoo splashed an estimate on his monitor. Twelve seconds until the Interceptors reached firing range.
Use the Force, Luke. Ben’s words echoed in his ears.
The small-unit tactical part of his brain, the part he and Wedge had worked so hard to develop since Yavin, laid out the facts with cold, impersonal precision.
I’m responsible for covering those three Y-wings. Mara isn’t responding. Something’s wrong in her cockpit. I have no idea what it is. And in twelve seconds, no, eleven, those TIE Interceptors will open fire.
If I go full thrust on the engines and climb, I can engage the Interceptors. I can disrupt their attack on the Y-wings. There are six lives on those three bombers. I can save them.
And if I do that, I’ll leave Mara behind. And she will die. The Interceptors will pounce on her.
I can stay with Mara. Force the Interceptors to come to me. I can protect her and maybe get her through the engagement.
And the Y-wings will die.
It was an impossible choice. Nine seconds. Choose.
Luke chose to break his promise.
The few times he’d used the Force consciously while flying, it had guided his hand. It gave him insight, a quiet nudge of which way to turn, the right angle to deflect the control stick, the precise moment to squeeze the trigger regardless of the targeting computer’s protests. He’d never tried to reach out while flying.
But he had practiced the meditation.
Mara.
He’d felt her in the Force before – once as a star, during the ambush on the Independence task force. There, she’d consciously reached for the Force to keep her alive after his command mistake almost killed her. Twice in meditation he’d reached for her and found only the faintest traces, an eclipse, the star obstructed by a moon or whatever she did to hide herself.
Luke found neither the burning star nor the nearly-invisible eclipse. He found a shattered moon. Behind it, light leaking through the debris, was the star.
Mara.
He had no technique nor training. All he could do was reach. Reach for the star.
And he found Mara. Mara, ferocious and coldly disciplined and eager for battle and afraid. His wingman. Lost. Drowning.
He reached for her. Reached for Mara, drowning in memory and terror. Luke reached.
And when he finally touched her, she grabbed onto him. Hard. With the desperation of a drowning woman offered a chance to live. But it wasn’t two hands that grabbed his. It was four.
A terrified five-year-old girl, every bit as much Mara as his eighteen-year-old wingman, just as desperate to hold on.
And then he saw what she saw.
Lightning. Rain. The stink of ozone, left by blaster rifles, attacked his nose. The copper smell and taste of blood.
An alien woman, her cloak soaked, towered over him. “Come on, little one,” she urged. Luke could see orange skin and white markings.
The child hesitated.
“Stop!” a stormtrooper barked.
Lightsabers ignited, and Luke felt the terror redouble. The woman stepped in front, lightsabers flaring and hissing in the rain as they intercepted and turned aside blaster bolts. Stormtroopers crumbled, struck by their own fire.
“Come,” the woman repeated.
“Who are you?” the words tumbled out of Luke’s mouth, but the voice wasn’t Luke’s. “Why do they want me?” The child stumbled, weak and dizzy. Drugged? Luke wasn’t sure.
“I’m Fulcrum. Come, little one,” she said yet again. She scooped the child up. “The Emperor will be hunting us. He’ll be angry he lost his prize.”
“Where are we going?”
“To my ship. We’ll figure out the rest after.”
Mara!
Artoo screeched a warning. Four seconds!
Luke’s left hand jammed the throttle forward, his right hand pulled the stick back. Lasers fired, eight streams of reddish plasma splitting the air.
The first Interceptor exploded.
Cold tactical calculations, hard numbers, flicked through his mind.
Her mind.
He nudged the stick, chased the numbers, firing even while his own instincts told him the third Interceptor was going to break high.
Luke’s lasers found the second Interceptor. Mara’s caught the third on the break.
Fear poured into him: a child’s fear, a five-year-old girl outdoors in a thunderstorm on Gerrard V, watching stormtroopers die trying to reclaim her. A combat pilot’s fear, fear that her own weakness had killed friends and allies depending on her. His own fear that his indecision and choices were going to kill his wingman and six good people, first felt as his own, then echoed again and again.
It threatened to drown him. He could barely keep his head in the fight.
We’re in each other’s heads, he realized. The Force. She realized? He wasn’t sure who had the thought first.
He could feel her holding onto him in the Force with the grip of the drowning woman. Or was he holding onto her? He wasn’t sure where the boundary was.
Then they were engaging the other three Interceptors, all fire and light and smoke trails and intention and fear and anger and calculation.
It was the most terrified Luke Skywalker had ever been in his life.
Wedge leaned hard into the turn, cheating the climbing spiral, trying to finally end the contest.
Straight across from him, off his port wing, the TIE Interceptor that Acey had tagged the group leader was locked in the same climbing turn.
Both trying to find the edge to win the contest.
It had gone on too long.
Hobbie’s X-wing was down, crashed in the city. Kit ejected. Cesi flying on three engines. Tycho’s X-wing trailing smoke. Wes missing two laser cannons after a glancing collision with an Interceptor. Zev crippled and withdrawing while Karie, one of the rookies, fought with an unexpected ferocity to keep a TIE off her wingman.
I have to finish this. I just need one mistake.
It occurred to him that the opposing squadron commander was thinking the same thing.
The Imperial’s wingmates were in the same spiral, high and low, trying to lose enough ground on the climbing turn that Wedge would pass between them and allow them to fall on his tail. Samoc, by herself, was providing enough threat from her position behind Wedge that they were stuck, still covering their leader but unable to break out of the maneuver or Samoc would pounce.
Samoc was caught in the same trap; if she tried to break out of the spiral, the trailing TIEs would threaten Wedge or the leader would latch onto her.
Five starfighters caught in a fast, tight spiral, jockeying for the position to end the contest. One mistake would be enough.
The remaining Rogues were exchanging hard light with the surviving TIE Interceptors.
And then Wedge saw it.
Luke and Mara, covering the second section of Y-wings, tearing through three TIE Interceptors. Weren’t there six? The fight was too big to track in his mind. His situational awareness was exceptional, but with so much of his focus tied up in his duel with the Interceptor leader, he knew he was missing pieces of the fight.
The two X-wings maneuvering hard, head-to-head with the Interceptors. The TIEs lanced them with fire, and for a moment Wedge couldn’t tell which X-wing was lead and which was wing. They’re leapfrogging, he realized, his jaw dropping. Taking turns taking hits. How the hell are they doing that? And then there was a complicated burst of laserfire, red and green, an unexpected proton torpedo detonation, and all three TIEs were gone.
What?
The distraction should have killed him.
Instead, the TIE commander rolled out of the spiral, breaking off with both wingmen. Wedge cursed and reversed his turn, banking after him. Already lost the shot. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
He brought his targeting reticle up just in time to see the Interceptor commander reduce his forward speed, hard. Both his wingmen overshot their leader.
The leader fired. Once. Twice. The first wingman started a long, uncontrolled descent toward the ocean. The second exploded in the air, vaporized by a precision shot.
The comm crackled with a call on an open frequency, a woman’s voice. “This is Captain Kasan Moor of the 128th TIE Interceptor Group. I request asylum with the Rebel Alliance.”
Wedge slammed his hand down on the comm board. “Say again,” he sputtered.
“Captain Kasan Moor, 128th TIE Interceptor Group, requesting asylum with the Rebel Alliance.” The woman’s voice was taut. “Please do not fire on me, X-wings.”
“Acey, tag that Interceptor as friendly and broadcast it to all Rebel fighters,” Wedge ordered his astromech. “Kasan Moor, power down your weapons and you will not be considered a hostile.” He glanced at his board in time to see Luke and Mara vaporize another Interceptor. “Set course due west at half throttle and do not divert.”
Luke’s voice cut in on the squadron channel. “Four, Seven, form up on that defector and keep anyone interested away from her. Commander Salm, pull your Y-wings back and form up with them, too. I show all freighter targets as down, and the local resistance is in the streets now that we broke the defenses.”
Sweat stung Wedge’s eyes. He slipped a glove off and wiped the offending moisture away, blinking until he could see clearly.
“Rogues, sound off,” Luke continued.
It occurred to Wedge that Luke sounded rough. But even more oddly, he could see distantly that Luke and Mara were tangling with a stray pair of Interceptors. Instead of focusing on the fight in front of him, he’s asking about the squadron. Wedge frowned, watching as the two X-wings bracketed; the Interceptors picked Luke as their target, and Mara started to swing for the kill position. Then suddenly she was reversing, the TIEs were reversing, and Luke was in the kill position. The first Interceptor exploded, the second dove away from the trap, and then both X-wings were together on its tail closing for the kill.
“I want everyone’s status before we extract, in case that missing squadron jumps us,” Luke continued.
Not a single word to Rogue Two. What?
“I’ve got a beacon on Rogue Three. It looks like he’s inside the area the local resistance is already holding. Four?”
“Four, three torpedoes left, a bit banged up but still flying,” Puck said. “No major damage.”
Wedge flicked his eyes over his displays. “Five here, five torpedoes in the rack. Carbon scoring on the nose, but no system failures. Still fit to fight.”
“Six here, no major damage,” Samoc reported, though exhaustion was evident.
“Seven here, long-range sensors are down and the torpedo system is completely unresponsive. I’ve still got torps in the rack, but I can’t fire.” Tycho reported the damage clinically. “I had a fire in the fuselage but my astromech put it out.” He hesitated. “Eight punched out. Rescue beacon shows him on the ground.”
“Nine,” Zev reported in, coughing. “I’ve got all four engines, but barely above half power. Not sure what took a hit. Astromech is gone.”
“Ten,” Karie added. “No major damage. Two torpedoes left. I’ve still got fight in me.”
“Eleven,” Cesi reported. “Flying on three engines. Racks are dry.”
“Twelve,” Wes finished out, “down to two lasers. Torpedoes empty. Shield generator’s offline.”
The remaining TIE Interceptors fled, accelerating away at a prodigious rate the X-wings couldn’t match. “The 128th is done,” Luke said. “Five, Six, take one more pass over the city and make sure we didn’t miss anything critical. Then form up and let’s climb for orbit.”
“We’ve still got people on the ground,” Puck protested.
“Friendlies are holding the ground, Four,” Luke pointed out. “Ten, raise the Independence and tell them we need a SAR shuttle down here.” He was silent for a moment. “Seven, what’s our defector doing?”
“Exactly what she was ordered to do,” Tycho said. “Looks like her guns are offline and she’s holding the exact course Five gave her.”
“Then we take her back to the Independence, too. Ten, tell Flight Control we’re bringing a TIE with us.”
Wedge led Samoc on a pass over the city. There was clearly fighting in the streets below, though at a glance it appeared to mostly be Imperial crews abandoning their disabled ships and retreating toward the city garrison. What goal they still thought they could achieve, he had no idea, but the battle was effectively won.
He couldn’t help but wonder why Mara hadn’t spoken a single word throughout their fight with the last Interceptors, nor when Luke had asked everyone for status reports.
And why Luke hadn’t asked.
Kasan felt numb. Surreal. I did it. I survived it. I’m out.
An X-wing had settled on either side of her TIE Interceptor. Her scopes, still complaining, showed a trio of Y-wings trailing her. BTL-S3 model, she noted mechanically. Top-side ion cannon. All three of them are currently locked on me. Prudent.
I survived. I was at the tip of the spear and got away without my own people killing me.
She looked at her tactical readout again. Because this squadron of X-wings broke my people.
Because two X-wings broke my people.
I thought the first pilot I engaged was the best they had. She slid past the implications of their fight, not wanting to dwell on the aborted outcome, because that was the closest she’d come to death in at least a year. And then those two X-wings on escort duty took apart six of my people like they were first-year Academy students. Kordane was almost as good as I am. Holtzer and Rellan were triple aces. Tavier and Melken were transferees, but they came in on merit after the battle of Scarif. And Dresk was the oldest TIE pilot I’ve ever known.
And those two X-wings…
Kasan shivered.
It wasn’t that good, though, was it? You were watching while tied up in the fight of your life with that squadron commander. They’re very good, sure. This whole Rebel squadron is by far the best I’ve ever fought. But don’t start exaggerating this in your head. The Alliance is about to interrogate you about why you defected, and the last thing you want to do is make yourself sound insane.
No one can fly the way you thought you saw them fly. It’s impossible.
You wanted a way out. Desperately, after Alderaan. So you made good flying out to be impossible flying.
Logic, Kasan. These people are good. Very good. You couldn’t have seen that, because that isn’t possible.
The formation began to climb toward orbit.
Your time with the Empire is over. Done. Don’t screw up your entry into the next part of your life by sounding like a madwoman to whoever questions you.