everything is nominal. Ready to go.” Those were the mechanical tones of Piggy, the Gamorrean. Kell was interested in seeing how that pilot flew; Piggy was the one candidate trainee who was physically even broader than Kell, even more uncomfortable in the standard X-wing cockpit.
“Gold Four, everything nominal, ready to go.” A female voice. Kell had met several female candidates trying out for places in this squadron, but comm distortion kept him from being able to match this voice to anyone he’d met.
Lieutenant Janson’s voice crackled in his ear, not distorted at all; Kell stiffened. “Launch in sixty,” Janson said. “We have incoming spacecraft, eyeballs and squints, screening a capital ship. Engage and hold them ten klicks from base. Your job is to keep them off us long enough to launch our transports. You fail, we die. Training protocol one-seven-nine is in effect. Control out.”
Kell tried to force his shoulder muscles to relax. He switched the comm over to a direct channel to his wingman. “Gold Two, what’s training protocol one-seven-nine?”
“We don’t know, One.”
“We? Who’s we?”
“Gold Two, One.”
Kell opened his mouth to ask for a clarification, saw that the chrono was down to ten seconds, and decided to wait.
At five seconds he activated his repulsorlift engines and rose a few meters into the air. At one second he nudged the stick forward, made sure he was aligned perfectly with the tunnel exit from the hangar, and kicked in the thrusters. A visual check showed the other members of his group doing the same.
His X-wing punched out through the magnetic containment field at the end of the tunnel, into hard vacuum—
Straight into the incoming fire from a group of four TIE bombers, dupes already so close he could clearly see them with the naked eye.
Kell snapped up on his starboard wing, put all shields forward, bracketed one of the oncoming dupes and pulled the trigger even before the brackets could glow with the green of a laser lock, and pulled up in an arc that carried him to starboard and away from the lunar surface. He saw the rear edges of his control surfaces brighten with the glow of an explosion behind him. Communication from his R2 unit scrolled over his data screen: CONFIRM ONE KILL GOLD ONE .
Panicky, incomprehensible chatter came over his comm system; Kell shouted it down. “Quiet! Strike foils to attack position! Intelligence was wrong, the intruders are already all over the base. Two, stay with me, we’re going up after our original objective. Three, Four, do a fly-by over the base and report damage.”
He heard a chorus of subdued acknowledgments and saw Gold Two pull up to his port rear quarter. Then he tried the comm again: “Control, come in. Gold One to Control.”
No answer.
His sensor unit showed three remaining TIE dupes below, at just above ground level—then two, as Gold Three scored a kill. But ahead and above, now at a distance of four klicks and closing, were thirty-six TIE fighter blips: three full squadrons. They maintained separation, were not converging on Gold One and Two.
Gold Four’s voice crackled over the comm system. “One, the launch tunnels are down, all of them. They’ve been bombed out of existence.”
“Even the main tube? The transport exit? That’s the only one that concerns us.”
“A hundred meters of collapsed rubble, One. Nobody’s coming out of that.” Four’s voice sounded upset even across comm distortion. Kell wanted to tell her, Calm down, it’s only a simulator run. Nobody real is dead .
But he had other problems. Control had given him a clear set of mission goals … and then had changed the mission parameters and invalidated all of them. What should hedo now? And what was that damned training protocol Control had cited just before they launched?
“One Group, our mission is scrubbed,” he said. “Our status is omega. Three, Four, get to us and we’ll punch a hole out of here.”
Three and Four
“Gold Four, everything nominal, ready to go.” A female voice. Kell had met several female candidates trying out for places in this squadron, but comm distortion kept him from being able to match this voice to anyone he’d met.
Lieutenant Janson’s voice crackled in his ear, not distorted at all; Kell stiffened. “Launch in sixty,” Janson said. “We have incoming spacecraft, eyeballs and squints, screening a capital ship. Engage and hold them ten klicks from base. Your job is to keep them off us long enough to launch our transports. You fail, we die. Training protocol one-seven-nine is in effect. Control out.”
Kell tried to force his shoulder muscles to relax. He switched the comm over to a direct channel to his wingman. “Gold Two, what’s training protocol one-seven-nine?”
“We don’t know, One.”
“We? Who’s we?”
“Gold Two, One.”
Kell opened his mouth to ask for a clarification, saw that the chrono was down to ten seconds, and decided to wait.
At five seconds he activated his repulsorlift engines and rose a few meters into the air. At one second he nudged the stick forward, made sure he was aligned perfectly with the tunnel exit from the hangar, and kicked in the thrusters. A visual check showed the other members of his group doing the same.
His X-wing punched out through the magnetic containment field at the end of the tunnel, into hard vacuum—
Straight into the incoming fire from a group of four TIE bombers, dupes already so close he could clearly see them with the naked eye.
Kell snapped up on his starboard wing, put all shields forward, bracketed one of the oncoming dupes and pulled the trigger even before the brackets could glow with the green of a laser lock, and pulled up in an arc that carried him to starboard and away from the lunar surface. He saw the rear edges of his control surfaces brighten with the glow of an explosion behind him. Communication from his R2 unit scrolled over his data screen: CONFIRM ONE KILL GOLD ONE .
Panicky, incomprehensible chatter came over his comm system; Kell shouted it down. “Quiet! Strike foils to attack position! Intelligence was wrong, the intruders are already all over the base. Two, stay with me, we’re going up after our original objective. Three, Four, do a fly-by over the base and report damage.”
He heard a chorus of subdued acknowledgments and saw Gold Two pull up to his port rear quarter. Then he tried the comm again: “Control, come in. Gold One to Control.”
No answer.
His sensor unit showed three remaining TIE dupes below, at just above ground level—then two, as Gold Three scored a kill. But ahead and above, now at a distance of four klicks and closing, were thirty-six TIE fighter blips: three full squadrons. They maintained separation, were not converging on Gold One and Two.
Gold Four’s voice crackled over the comm system. “One, the launch tunnels are down, all of them. They’ve been bombed out of existence.”
“Even the main tube? The transport exit? That’s the only one that concerns us.”
“A hundred meters of collapsed rubble, One. Nobody’s coming out of that.” Four’s voice sounded upset even across comm distortion. Kell wanted to tell her, Calm down, it’s only a simulator run. Nobody real is dead .
But he had other problems. Control had given him a clear set of mission goals … and then had changed the mission parameters and invalidated all of them. What should hedo now? And what was that damned training protocol Control had cited just before they launched?
“One Group, our mission is scrubbed,” he said. “Our status is omega. Three, Four, get to us and we’ll punch a hole out of here.”
Three and Four
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