He glanced at his sensor screen again. There had to be a thousand of them coming.

"Waiting for your turn, Five."

"I'm experiencing a control malfunction, Six. Give me a visual check, would you?"

"You've got some new debris scarring. We don't see anything wrong. What do your diagnostics say?"

"I don't know."

"Five?"

"Let's get them, Six." Kell's X-wing continued on its course out of the line of fire.

Atril felt the blow, saw the lunar landscape and the starfield above begin spinning, saw her diagnostics board light up in the red. "Gray Two, this is One. I'm hit." Sparks shot up from her control board, defying her to do anything but hold on to her control yoke and pray.

"One, your starboard wing is gone, repeat, completely gone. Punch out!"

"No ejection seat, Two." Atril felt a deep sense of regret-compounded by sudden nausea. Her inertial compensator must have failed, leaving her at the mercy of her ruined fighter's spinning motion. "Get clear."

"Leader, Four. Traverse due astern five meters."

Grinder snap-rolled and dove, antic.i.p.ating the fire from a turbolaser battery that seemed to be tracking him, then rose and rolled up on his starboard wing to watch as a new column of deadly light shot up from the billowing dust cloud beneath Implacable. This beam fired straight into the hole in the capital ship's keel, filling it with light. Glowing debris, tons of it, began pouring from the hole. "Right there! Fix on that spot and keep hitting it."

Kell ignored Runt's persistent, annoying inquiries and continued to wrestle with his stick.

Finally it cooperated. He regained control, saw open starfield in front of him, and relaxed.

His sensor monitor showed those millions of red dots a closing on the position of Implacable and Night Caller. Behind him. Increasingly behind him as he headed toward open s.p.a.ce.

His breathing began to slow. That was better. Always bad to be in a starfighter when the controls failed. He was lucky he'd survived it so many times.

"Leader, Narra has tractored Gray One," Janson reported.

"Good to hear, Gray Three. Gray Two, your usual wing-man is underneath Implacable's keel. He could use some help."

"I'm already there, sir. Sir, I see an opportunity to do some real harm to Implacable. Request permission to enter through the hole we've made in her keel."

"Gray Two, negative, repeat, negative. Too much loose material in there, and we have Implacable's TIE fighters returning. Set up for them."

"There's not that much material. You've slagged so much of it. I think you're hitting internal bulkheads now, though. If I can get in there, I can direct fire laterally, hit machinery at an angle you can't match."

"That's still a negative, Gray Two."

"Leader, I'm not reading you. My comm unit-" Crackling and buzzing followed.

Wedge made a noise of exasperation. She was rubbing her gloves together over the mike, just as he'd done a dozen times during his career. "Wraith Four, can you prevent her?"

Wraith Four responded with crackling and buzzing.

Kell's R2 unit shrieked as his sensor display lit up with a new threat: a torpedo lock on his stern.

Kell read the information, puzzled. "Wraith Six, is that you?"

"We are."

"Are you going to shoot me?"

"No, Five. We're just trying to get your attention. To get the attention of Kell. Not of the bad mind." Runt's voice was slow and sad, even across comm distortion.

"What do you want?"

"We just wanted you to know we're leaving you. We're returning to the fight."

"Don't do that. It's nasty back there."

"Good-bye, Kell." Wraith Six vectored away, looping around to head back toward the Implacable.

Kell felt a keen sense of loss at his friend's departure.

Well, at least Runt hadn't vaped him.

Of course, somebody would be along soon to do that.

Probably Janson.

Janson was in a TIE fighter. He could catch up to Kell's X-wing. Kell checked his sensor board and saw no sign that any craft was pursuing him.

With his lead, he could be in hypers.p.a.ce before anyone caught up to him.

He breathed a sigh of relief.

He was safe for now. Pursuit would come some other day.

Maybe it would be Face. Or Phanan. Or Tyria - The shock of that idea hit him like a snap-kick to the chest. What if Tyria had to come shoot him down?

What would it do to her, knowing she had sent her own lover to oblivion?

She had lost everyone she loved on Toprawa and would now lose him, too.

It would be Kell's own fault, Kell's signature on the scars she would carry - As though he were rising to the surface after a deep dive, his mind came free of the thoughts in which it had been submerged. Tyria. He was klicks away from her and the distance was growing every second. TIE fighters were now reaching the fight.

He looped around and put all his vehicle's discretionary energy toward acceleration.

Falynn rose smoothly toward the largest hole the Wraiths' series of attacks had made in Implacable's keel. It was broad enough to accommodate her TIE fighter, even broad enough to allow the pa.s.sage of Grinder's X-wing behind her.

Falling debris bounced off her bow viewport. Some of it came at her from an angle, clattering off her solar wing arrays.

She eased through the gap into the darkness beyond. Above would be the giant array of power cells that enabled Implacable to move. Without them, the mighty Star Destroyer would be a gigantic ma.s.s of worthless junk.

No one, so far as she knew, had ever done this. Flown into an enemy Star Destroyer and reamed it out from the inside. She would be the first.

Number one, for all time.

Carefully, she rotated so that she was pointing to the side and upward.

She fired.

Seventy-two TIEs-four squadrons of fighters, one of Interceptors, and one of bombers-swept into the engagement zone, firing as they came.

Face looped and dove, trying to keep clear of the incoming fire from both the cloud of TIEs and the still-mighty Star Destroyer. He rolled out a few hundred meters below and arced up again, got an immediate green flash on his targeting brackets, and fired. His target, a fast-moving Interceptor, took the blast as a graze across its top viewport and kept coming, still in control. He saw Phanan's lasers pa.s.s above him, hitting the next Interceptor at the juncture of its fuselage and its wing pylon, separating them. The squint rolled, out of control, and began its dive toward the moon's surface. "Nice shooting, Seven."

Janson and Piggy roared down on the nearest TIE squadron, looping in from behind and opening fire before the squad had a chance to break and engage individual targets.

Janson's first shot entered his target's port ion engine, vaping the eyeball in a spectacular explosion. Piggy's first blast missed his target below, but he continued to fire, tracking up and left, until a burst hit the vehicle's port wing. The TIE spun out of control and Piggy's next shot hulled its c.o.c.kpit.

Janson heard confused chatter on the Imperial comm channel. "Let's go right down the middle, Twelve," he said, and accelerated until he was in the midst of the breaking squadron formation. The Ackbar Slash, starfighter style. Let them fire now, he thought.

They did.

Donos gritted his teeth and abandoned his attack run on Implacable. On the murderer of Talon Squadron. He veered toward the oncoming TIEs. A full squadron of eyeb.a.l.l.s was coming in at him and Tyria. "Ten, we are in trouble." Tyria was firing already. She didn't answer.

The A-wings flashed through the screen of TIE fighters, shooting continuously as they came, snap-shots not a detriment in the target-rich field of battle. Kell saw them both on screen and through his canopy as he approached.

He got laser lock at maximum range on an Interceptor, fired his quad-linked lasers, saw his shot carve away the upper half of a solar wing.

The Interceptor, damaged but still in control, arced away from him.

"Who's that? Five? Is that you?"

"That's right, Eight. How're you doing?"

"It's unpleasant as a Hutt's b.u.t.t in here! Where were you?"

"It's my sister's birthday. I had to take her a present. Hold tight."

Kell aimed at the thickest concentration of TIEs and dove in, firing as fast as his lasers would cycle.

Suddenly there were new blue dots among the red on the sensor board, friendlies overtaking the TIE fighters from the rear. Wedge said, "Blue Squadron, is that you?"

"Good to hear you're among the living, Wraith Leader." These were clipped, precise tones, the voice of General Crespin. "We thought we'd show you the virtues of A-wing speed."

"For once I don't mind. But I'm transmitting you our sensor profiles.

Four, correction, three TIE fighters are our people. Fire only when you confirm they're red."

"Acknowledged."

Wedge saw the communications officer jump to the task of transmitting the proper blue and red designations to the incoming force. Wedge concentrated on sending a different kind of message, a series of turbolaser blasts against Implacable's weapon batteries.

The hair stood up on his head and arms and all monitors flickered as an ion beam struck within forty meters of Night Caller's position.

Another near miss. Another charge against the credcard where he banked his luck.

30.

"Admiral, we're going to lose Implacable."

Trigit fixed Gara with a cold stare. "With the TIE fighters now chewing the attackers to pieces? I don't believe it."

"Something is in the power cell section. Methodically destroying every cell. We've already lost computer backup power. In ten minutes, maybe less, we're going to lose all main power, and that's the end of Implacable, even if every one of those Rebel pilots dies."

He brushed past her and looked at the damage report.

She was right.

He felt faint for a moment. All these years of loyal service, the skill he'd shown Ysanne Isard and then the warlord, were suddenly worth precisely nothing. Destiny was balancing accounts and he was coming up short. He was about to lose his ship. His true love.

"Do we surrender, sir?"

Still dizzied by his sense of loss, he shook his head. "Don't be ridiculous. We've lost... but we're not going to give those Rebel sc.u.m another operational Star Destroyer they can repair and use for their own purposes. Implacable will take as many of them with her as she can."

"Sir... that will be more than thirty-five thousand people dead."

"And how many dead can we count on if the Rebels repair this ship and turn her guns on the Empire? Really, Lieutenant. Yes, we preserve the lives of those who depend on us... but only until their continued existence threatens even more lives."

Her response was a stony silence.

He leaned in close. His voice dropped. "But for those who are most necessary to me, there are ways to survive. Tell me, can you fly an Interceptor?"

Wary, she shook her head. "I always wanted to go through pilot training.

I never had an opportunity. They put me in intrusions instead."

"Pity. I have my personal Interceptor standing by. It is equipped with a hyperdrive, as are its two escort Interceptors. I was going to offer one of them to you. Instead, I must recommend you make your way to the launch bay and take out a shuttle. At least you will survive that way."

"Thank you for thinking of me. But, sir... the Rebels don't recognize Warlord Zsinj or you as a legitimate government. They won't treat me as an Intelligence operative and trade me back... they'll try me as a traitor and execute me." She looked regretful. "I won't let them have that satisfaction. I'll stay here, sir."

"You're a brave woman, Lieutenant." Unwilling to show her the sense of loss he felt, Trigit turned from her. "Attention! I'm moving to the auxiliary bridge to complete our victory there. Don't inform the officers there: I want to see how they're doing as I walk in." His officers nodded.

He gave Gara Petothel one last solemn look, a nod of respect from one officer to another, and then he entered the turbolift.

Kell twisted, dove, sideslipped, all to avoid the ma.s.s of TIE fighters and Interceptors in his path. He fired as he came on, paying no attention to sensor readings of his. .h.i.ts or misses - there was no time for anything but firing and dodging.