"Five, Seven."

"I hear you, Seven."

"We've lost the bridge."

"What?"

"She took a direct hit from the frigate's stern battery, Five. The bridge is gone."

Kell swore and began to swing around for his next pa.s.s. Runt was now on his tail. "Was anyone still in the hold?"

"Face's fighter. He wasn't in it. I think Night Caller is drifting."

Indeed, the corvette seemed to be locked in the starboard turn that was supposed to bring its bow away from its enemies. In a minute, the maneuver would bring the bow toward the other two ships again.

Kell activated his comm unit and personal comlink si - multaneously.

"Night Caller, this is Wraith Five. Does anybody read me?"

Wedge and Falynn roared past the Constrictor''s bow, reversed, and fired almost before they looked.

The enemy corvette's bow hold was opening and her bow shields were down to allow her TIE fighters to emerge. The Wraiths' linked laser fire went straight down the throat of the enemy ship. As they dove, losing relative alt.i.tude rather than follow their shots in, they saw energy spill right back out of the hold at them, evidence that something had lit off in the hold-probably the ion engines of one of the TIE fighters preparing to launch.

The corvette's belly turret swung after them, firing as they pa.s.sed, but then the guns froze in position, their last blast being half the intensity of a standard barrage.

Wedge checked his sensors. This close, the corvette's shields would have lit up the sensor board, but the only thing doing that was the increasing brightness from the corvette's engines. He swung around to bring the corvette into his firing brackets and switched his comm unit to broad-spectrum Imperial frequencies. "Constrictor, this is the New Republic.

You are helpless under our guns. I'll give you ten seconds to surrender.

If you don't, I'm going to blow a hole through I your bridge and fly through it for fun."

It was only a moment before a strangled voice replied: "Constrictor to Rebel forces. We surrender. Please bring up rescue craft. Our engines are on fire. And please don't fire on our escape pods." Two of the escape craft ejected from the corvette's center section and began a slow drift toward Talasea.

"Acknowledged, Constrictor."

Janson's voice cut in. "Wedge, Night Caller's in trouble."

At a dead run, Face worked his way down to deck four and to the combined security hold and auxiliary bridge situated just forward of the engines.

The door opened to his voice but the chamber beyond was dark, unoccupied.

He slid into the command chair and hit his comlink. "Grinder! You still among the living?"

"I'm here."

"I'm in the backup bridge. What do I do to bring it up?"

"Why does everyone think that I-"

"Grinder."

"Type in command wormturns, W-O-R-M-T-U-R-N-S, then ID yourself by voice and issue the vocal pa.s.sword 'Agamar Rules the Galaxy.' "

Face did as he was told and a moment later the auxiliary bridge sprang to life. He redirected all officers' stations to his command console and immediately stopped the ship's port-ward spin.

On the main sensor monitor, Constrictor was reading green-safe, pacified.

Provocateur was still red. The board showed a variety of blue dots already in the fight and more onrushing from Talasea and her moons.

First things first. He activated the bow hold door and closed it, then brought bow shields up to full power. "Cubber."

"Here."

"Get a crew up to the deck two bridge door. The bridge is gone and the door is losing integrity. Weld it down or something before it blows out completely and takes half the crew with it."

"We're on it."

As fast as he could process the information, Face flipped between the screens for each of the bridge positions he now commanded. I used to think bridge officer was such an easy post.

Provocateur was outbound at full speed, again gathering up the last of her TIE fighters, taking advantage of Night Caller's momentary lack of responsiveness and the Wraiths' inability to do her harm.

"Wraiths, form up," Kell said. "We're not getting through their shields alone. I want a torpedo barrage. I'll transmit targeting data; have your torps follow it in. Everyone fire on my mark, except Seven and Nine-you fire exactly one second later."

He counted off their acknowledgments until he was sure all were accounted for. Tyria and Piggy had finally emerged from the topside hold, and that gave them a total of seven X-wings, fourteen torpedoes, to fire in this barrage.

He finished his arc and swung into position at the head of the X-wing formation. Runt settled in beside him. "Night Caller, come in."

"Night Caller here."

"Face?"

"Never mind. What do you want?"

"Sensor data on Provocateur. Where are her shields weakest?"

"Uh, wait a second. Uh-"

"Face, hurry." The frigate's guns were beginning to converge on the X-wing formation. A graze from one of Provocateur's stern laser cannons missed Kell's X-wing but came close enough to blow through its bow shields, dropping them to zero power. Kell swore and redirected power from aft shields and acceleration to bring them back on-line and sh.o.r.e them up.

"If I'm reading this right, topside, just astern of the short-range communications array."

Kell gained alt.i.tude relative to the frigate, saw the Wraiths following him smoothly through the maneuver, and dove toward the frigate's topside.

His targeting brackets went red as soon as they pa.s.sed over the frigate, but he carefully positioned them over the antenna rig. "Wraiths, three, two, one-mark."

He watched the reddish trails of ten proton torpedoes leap away from the X-wings and slam into the frigate's topside. The next four torpedoes were away before the detonation and debris cloud began to clear; he saw their trails enter the expanding ball and disappear within. The ball continued to swell as the X-wings pulled up and arced away.

"Five, this is Eight. Sensors show shield failure and four hull hits. I-wait a second, something's wrong, I'm reading two Provocateurs-" Dead silence for a moment. Then: "Five, Eight. The frigate has separated amidships. She's in two pieces. Her threat index is zero. Do you read?"

"We read you, Eight, and thanks." Kell tried to wipe away the sweat stinging his eyes, but his hand encountered the eye shield of his helmet.

He banged the shield up and mopped at his eyes.

His hands wouldn't stop shaking.

27.

"Foolish of us," General Crespin said, "to bring along Rogue Squadron, all those A-wings, Home One, and a pair of frigates when all it takes is Wraith Squadron and a battered corvette to deal with the enemy."

They were in the inflatable dome that served the temporary Talasea camp as an officers' mess, unwinding over beer and brandy that tasted something like ship's fuel. The general's words were sarcastic, but his tone was more regretful than anything.

Wedge said, "If Implacable had come through, we'd have I been dead without those extra forces. As it is, we had the

element of surprise-a couple of different ways-going for us. Even so, we lost a good, experienced bridge crew."

Crespin nodded. "I didn't mean to be facetious. I was just itching to give Trigit back some of what he gave us on Folor."

"You may yet." Wedge took another pull from his petrochemical-flavored brandy. "We hit their communications systems hard and fast. They never got off a reply to Trigit. As soon as we're able, Night Caller is going back out... and we'll tell Zsinj a story of survival against terrible odds. I'm going to do whatever it takes for us to sidle up next to Zsinj or Trigit and stick a vibroblade in his kidneys."

The general smiled. "If you have any opportunity to set up a real engagement-"

"Yours and Rogue Squadron will be the first units I call on, sir."

The general took a look around as though to make sure no one was listening. He leaned close. "By the way, Antilles, about your pilot, Face Loran..."

"Yes?"

"You're about to receive some news pertaining to him. Now, I've had my problems with him, but I've also been keeping track of his progress. So, when you receive that news, keep in mind that I had nothing to do with it-one way or the other."

"Very well." Wedge gave the general a quizzical look, but the older man merely rose and departed.

Wedge took a look around. The table where Lieutenants Wes Janson and Hobbie Klivan had been swapping stories was empty. Wedge would track down the Rogues again later to catch up on their news. For now, it was time to check up on Night Caller's progress. He headed out into Talasea's fog-muted sunlight.

The New Republic encampment was a creeper-overgrown field surrounded by trees. The field was now dotted with inflatable domes and various forms of fighter craft and fighting vessels. All were dimmed by the near-permanent haze that shrouded the planet.

In the middle of the field were the two corvettes, Night Caller and Constrictor, both ships showing considerable damage.

Night Caller's bridge had been cored, leaving behind a blackened hole with peeling edges. Work crews were hard at work welding armor plates and a single transparisteel sheet across the gap. Wedge had insisted that the repairs look sloppy, unsophisticated; they were supposed to be all his crew had been able to throw together in a few hours.

Constrictor's bow hold doors were gone. In fact, the hold itself was gone, its hemispherical outer hull torn away by explosions from within; the bow now looked eerily like a skull whose lower jaw had been lost. The ship also had scoring damage along its sides.

Provocateur had been unrecoverable. Internal explosions and venting atmosphere had claimed the lives of any crewman surviving the torpedo attack. The frigate was a drifting tomb well before New Republic rescue forces could reach her.

"Commander Antilles."

Wedge turned toward the source of that familiar, gravelly voice.

"Admiral." He saluted.

Admiral Ackbar, accompanied by a major, approached. He returned the salute. "My crews tell me you are almost ready for s.p.a.ce. Are you sure you want to go back after Trigit so soon?"

"The more time he has to think, the greater the chance he'll see through our disguise."

"I'll leave that decision to your initiative, then." The Mon Calamari lowered his voice. "I did want to thank you for your kind words regarding my niece."

"You're very welcome, sir. I wish-" The extent to which Wedge wished stopped him short. I wish we could have saved her. I wish I could have found words to help your family hurt less. I wish a bad-smelling pocket of womp rats shaped like men hadn't been there to endanger her. I wish every legacy of the Empire were wiped clean from the galaxy. He gave the admiral a regretful look. "I wish.

"I understand." Ackbar looked around, at the people moving between vehicles and vessels, at the areas where inflatable domes were already being brought down. "I, myself, wish I could find the pilot who went to such efforts to save her life. I would like to offer him my thanks."

"I'll make sure Flight Officer Tainer wanders across your path."

Ackbar held out his hand to the major, who placed a large case upon it.

This Ackbar handed to Wedge. "It has taken some time for the New Republic bureaucracy to catch up to Wraith Squadron's exploits. Even this morning I had to modify the contents of this package. I thought it most appropriate for you to issue these items."

Wedge opened the case and whistled at what he saw.

Wedge had the Wraiths and Lieutenant Atril Tabanne line up in Night Caller's forward lounge. From their faces, it was evident that no one felt much like celebrating; some of them were somber, others looked more than ready to head s.p.a.ceward and get back into their fighter c.o.c.kpits.

"Your sins have caught up with you, Wraiths," Wedge said. "And just as significantly, High Command has not managed to lose my reports on our mission progress, and appears actually to have read them. Flight Officer Tyria Sarkin. "

She straightened, became impa.s.sive.

"I have only a little to offer you, Sarkin. Home One has delivered us a pair of X-wings to bring us back to full operational capacity. And that, plus the fact that your behavior has in recent weeks been exemplary, means I'm restoring you to full operations and to your own snubfighter."

She smiled. "That's plenty to offer me, sir."

Wedge took a step to the side. "Flight Officer Garik Lo - ran."

Face looked startled, came to attention.

"In our tour of duty since being made operational, you have consistently shown fine piloting skills and an exceptional apt.i.tude for leadership, both in planning and in the field. For this reason, it is my pleasure to convey to you your promotion to the rank of lieutenant in the New Republic's Starfighter Command. Congratulations, Face." Wedge handed Face his new rank insignia and saluted.

Face, looking surprised, returned the salute. "Thank you, sir."

"Flight Officer Kell Tainer."

Kell came to attention, looking uneasy.

"Likewise, you have shown fine piloting skills and a facility for battlefield tactics that benefit the group. In fact, we have noted on several occasions your pursuit of unusual strategies that cost you the opportunity for personal gain but kept your fellows, and those you are charged with protecting, alive. So I'm happy to convey to you also a promotion to the rank of lieutenant." He handed Kell his rank insignia and saluted. "Congratulations, Kell."

Kell returned the salute. "Thank you, sir." Wedge was surprised to see that the pilot was as pale and stiff as he had ever been when confronting Wes Janson.

Wedge chose not to notice and took another step to the side. "Lieutenant Atril Tabanne."