“First good news I’ve heard today,” Wedge grunted. “All right, here’s the scheme. You detail four of your group to hit those drop ships; the rest of us will concentrate on the TIE fighters. With luck, we can clear them out before the next wave gets here. I don’t suppose we’ve got any backup of our own coming?”
“Captain says there’s a Star Cruiser on the way,” Gold Leader said. “Don’t know when it’ll get here, though.”
Probably not soon enough, Wedge told himself silently. “Okay,” he said aloud. “Let’s do it.”
A new set of drive trails had appeared near the Star Destroyer’s docking bay: the second wave of TIE fighters had launched. That was going to be trouble down the line; but for the moment, the X-wings had this batch of Imperials outnumbered. And the Imperials knew it. They were spreading out, trying to draw their attackers apart where they couldn’t cover each other. Wedge did a quick evaluation of the situation— “All X-wings: we’ll do a one-on-one,” he said. “Choose your target and go.”
Closer now, he could see that two of the Imperial starfighters were the faster and more advanced TIE interceptors. Picking one of them for himself, he broke formation and headed after it.
Whatever erosion the Empire had experienced in the way of ships and trained personnel over the past five years, it was quickly clear that their starfighter training program hadn’t suffered a lot. Wedge’s target TIE interceptor slipped adroitly away from his initial attack, doing a sideways skid that simultaneously braked him out of the X-wing’s way and swiveled his lasers around to track along its flight vector. Wedge threw the X-wing into a drop loop, wincing as the other’s shot came close enough to trigger the starboard engines’ heat sensors, and turned sharply to starboard. He braced himself for a second shot, but it didn’t come. Bringing the X-wing out of its combination loop/turn, he looked around for his opponent.
“Watch your back, Rogue Leader!” the voice of Rogue Three snapped in his ear; and Wedge again threw the X-wing into a drop loop just as another laser blast sizzled past his canopy. Not only had the Imperial not been fooled by Wedge’s corkscrew maneuver, he’d even managed to follow him through it. “He’s still with you,” Rogue Three confirmed. “Go evasive—I can be there in a minute.”
“Don’t bother,” Wedge told him. Through the spinning sky outside his canopy he’d caught a glimpse of another Imperial moving past him to portside. Hauling hard on his controls, he broke out of his loop and drove directly toward it. The TIE fighter jerked slightly as its pilot suddenly became aware of the threat bearing down on him and tried to veer out of the way.
Which was exactly what Wedge had counted on. Ducking beneath the TIE fighter, he threw the X-wing into a upward rolling turn, swinging perilously close to the Imperial’s canopy and bringing his nose around to point back the way he’d come.
The TIE interceptor, which had instinctively swerved off Wedge’s tail to keep from ramming one of his own ships, was caught flat-footed. A single point-blank blast from the X-wing’s lasers blew it out of the sky.
“Nice flying, Rogue Leader,” Gold Leader commented. “My turn.”
Wedge understood. Throwing power to his drive, he shot away from the TIE fighter he’d used for cover, getting clear just as Gold Leader’s lasers caught it. “How we doing?” Wedge asked as his canopy lit up briefly with the reflected light of the explosion.
“We’re done,” Gold Leader said.
“We are?” Wedge frowned, bringing his X-wing around in a wide circle. Sure enough, the only things visible nearby were X-wings. Apart from expanding clouds of glowing debris, of course. “What about the drop ships?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” the other admitted. “Gold Three, Gold Four; report.”
“We got six of them, Gold Leader,” a new voice said. “I don’t know what happened to the seventh.”
Wedge swore under his breath, switching comm channels as he glanced back toward the Star Destroyer. The new group of TIE fighters was coming up fast. No time for him to do anything for the Katana except maybe warn them. “Luke? You’ve got company coming.”
“We know,” Luke’s tight voice came back. “They’re already here.”
They came out of the drop ship with lasers blazing, laying down a heavy cover fire as they moved toward the two sets of blast doors that led forward from the docking bay. Luke couldn’t see them from where he was, any more than he could see Han’s group waiting silently for them behind the edge of the portside blast doors. But he could hear the Imperials’ blaster fire, and he could sense their approach.
And there was something about that sense that set the back of his neck tingling. Something not quite right about them …
His comlink beeped. “Luke?” Lando’s voice came softly. “They’re coming. You ready?”
Luke closed down his lightsaber and gave his handiwork one last check. A large section of the corridor’s ceiling was now hanging perilously by a few strands of metal, ready to come crashing down at the slightest provocation. Beyond it, two sections of the wall were similarly booby-trapped. “All set,” he told Lando.
“Okay. Here goes …”
And suddenly, the pitch of a different class of weapons joined the cacophony as the defenders opened up on the Imperials. For a few seconds the two groups of weapons vied with each other. Then, with a screech of strained metal, the sounds were cut off.
The four techs were the first around the corner to where Luke waited, their faces showing the mixture of fear and nervousness and exhilaration of men who’ve just survived their first firefight. Lando was next, with Han and Chewbacca bringing up the rear. “Ready?” Han asked Luke.
“Yes.” Luke indicated the rigged sections of ceiling and wall. “It’s not going to hold them for long, though.”
“Doesn’t have to,” Han grunted. “As long as it takes a few of them out it’s worth it. Let’s go.”
“Hold it,” Luke said, stretching out with the Force. Those strangely disturbing minds … “They’re splitting up,” he told Han. “About half are still at the portside blast doors; the other half are going to the starboard Operations section.”
“Trying to flank us,” Han nodded. “Lando, how well is that area sealed off?”
“Not very,” Lando admitted. “The blast doors from the docking bay itself should hold for a while, but there’s a whole maze of storage rooms and maintenance shops off of Operations that they can probably get back to the main starboard corridor from. There were too many doors for us to close it all off.”
From the blast doors they’d just left came the dull thud of a shaped charge. “So this group keeps us busy thinking they’re all here, while the other one tries to get behind us,” Han decided. “Well, we didn’t want to hold the whole corridor, anyway. Chewie, you and Lando take the others and fall back toward the bridge. Take out as many of them as you can on the way. Luke and I’ll go across to starboard and see if we can slow that batch down a little.”
Chewbacca growled an acknowledgment and headed off, the four tech men already on their way. “Good luck,” Lando said, and followed.
Han looked at Luke. “Still in just the two groups?”
“Yes,” Luke said, straining to locate the enemy. The strange feeling was still there …
“Okay. Let’s go.”
They set off, Han leading the way down a narrow cross corridor lined with the kind of closely spaced doors that indicated crew quarters. “Where are we going?” Luke asked as they hurried along.
“Number two starboard weapons blister,” Han said. “Should be something nasty there we can use to flood the main corridor with—turbolaser coolant or something.”
“Unless they have life-support gear,” Luke pointed out.
“They don’t,” Han said. “At least, they weren’t wearing any when they charged us. They had standard trooper air filters, but if we fill the whole corridor with coolant those won’t do them much good. You never know,” he added reflectively. “The coolant might be flammable, too.”
“Too bad the Katana fleet wasn’t made up of Star Galleons,” Luke said, reaching out again toward the enemy. As near as he could tell, they were in the maze of rooms Lando had mentioned, working their way around toward the main starboard corridor. “We really could have used those anti-intruder defenses they come equipped with.”
“If this was a Star Galleon, the Empire wouldn’t be so anxious to take it away from us in one piece,” Han retorted. “They’d just blow it out of the sky and be done with it.”
Luke grimaced. “Right.”
They reached the main starboard corridor; and they were halfway across it when Han suddenly stopped short. “What in blazes—?”
Luke turned to look. Ten meters down the corridor, sitting in a patch of darkness beneath burned-out light panels, was a large metal box resting at a tilt on a half-seen tangle of cables and struts. Twin blaster cannon protruded from beneath a narrow viewport; the corridor walls immediately around it were warped and blackened, with a half dozen good-sized holes visible. “What is it?” he asked.