The Bacta War (28 page)

Without waiting to pick up TIE fighters or escape pods, the
Aggregator
suddenly jetted forward. On Wedge’s console, the range finder scrolled off numbers; then the cruiser vanished into hyperspace.
Running was his only choice
.

Wedge glanced at his sensors and saw no hostile fighters near him. Safe for the moment, he keyed his comm unit. “Tapper, don’t run very far. Booster, report on your fleet.”

“We’re all still here, Wedge. We took some hits from TIEs, but shields mostly held so we’re all operational.”

“I copy, Booster. Rogues and
Chir’daki
, protect yourselves, but hold back from killing anyone who isn’t being
actively hostile for a moment.” Wedge glanced back over his shoulder. “Mynock, scan comm frequencies and get me the command frequency the TIEs are using. I also need the escape pod frequency.”

The droid’s muted beep acknowledged the command, and data began to scroll up on the main screen.

“Thanks.” He punched up the frequency for the TIE fighters. “Imperial pilots, this is Wedge Antilles. You have a choice: get killed here, stranded here, or surrender. If you want to surrender, power down your weapons and engines. If you’re moving under power we will consider you hostile. We’ve got no more reason to want you dead than I would hope you have to be dead.”

A lone male voice came back over the comm unit. “Captain Ardle from
Corrupter
here. We’re Thyferran Home Defense Corps pilots. Does that make a difference in your offer?”

“Is Erisi Dlarit flying with you?”

“No, sir. I was in her command, but was picked to head up one of the two squadrons coming here with the
Corrupter
. Mostly trainees. I’ve got eight left. The
Aggregator
’s squadron only has four left and they’re THDC, too.”

“I copy, Captain Ardle. Follow the instructions I gave you and you’ll not be hurt.”

“What about the escape pods?”

“We’ll recover them, too.”

“And the
Corrupter
?”

Wedge switched his main screen to a plot of ship positions in the system over time and set his viewpoint from within the Graveyard. “The
Corrupter
is currently not under power and is drifting down into the Graveyard. Inside two hours the Graveyard’s asteroids will chew it up into unrecognizable bits.”

“Oh.” Ardle sounded subdued. “Alderaan has its revenge on the Empire.”

“And exacts revenge for Halanit. We don’t have the tractor beams to pull it back up, and I sincerely doubt it could be made operational again. Running as fast as possible to Coruscant we couldn’t get anything back here in time to save it.”
Wedge knew the run to Corellia would be shorter, but he expected no help from his homeworld and the Diktat. “The
Corrupter
is gone.”

“I copy, Antilles. I’ll give the order to my people, and we’ll wait to be rescued.”

Wedge switched over to the escape pod frequency and repeated his offer of rescue, then arranged with Quelev Tapper for his ships to pick up as many pods as they could and exact whatever ransom they wanted from the passengers. Tapper sounded more interested in getting the TIEs and their pilots, but Wedge declared them “prisoners of war” and refused to let Tapper have them.

“Okay, Antilles, I’ll let it go, but only because I know you’ll be buying spare parts for those TIEs from us before too long.”

“That’s probably truer than I’d like to admit, Tapper. Have a safe trip home.”

Tycho’s voice broke through on the comm frequency. “Wedge, I have a situation.”

“Yes?”

“Remember that cruiser that took a piece out of the
Corrupter
?”

“Kind of hard to forget it, isn’t it?”

“Well, it was the source of the IFF queries earlier on. It appears to think I’m the
Another Chance
. It has identified itself as the
Valiant
, and now it wants to know where we’re going to go from here.”

Wedge brought his X-wing around so he could see the light cruiser again. There it hung in space, three hundred meters of lethal starship.
Having it as part of our fleet would be very good, but how can we convince it to join us?
“Tycho, any sign of intelligent life on board?”

“Ah, Wedge, it thinks I’m an Alderaanian war frigate, so I think we can rule out intelligence. If I had to guess, I’d assume this cruiser was slaved to
Another Chance
as an escort. They got separated and it returned here to wait for
Another Chance
to show up. I arrived with the IFF code, started broadcasting targeting information, and it did its job.”

Wedge nodded. “I copy. I think I need you to take it back
to our base. Emtrey, if I recall his introductory monologue, is supposed to know the rules, regs, and procedures of over six million military organizations past and present. Perhaps he can figure out a way to communicate with the
Valiant
so we can make full use of it.”

“Got it. Do I leave now, or wait and escort the rest of you back?”

“We’ll go together.” Wedge smiled. “Victory like this deserves a parade, and I’d be happy to have you and your cruiser in the lead.”

25

Corran Horn dropped into the seat beside Mirax at the black round table in the briefing room. He felt bone weary from the fight at Alderaan, which surprised him because he’d actually not shot down any of the eyeballs. Because he had been waiting for fire orders to send proton torpedoes at the larger ships, all he could do was evade their attacks. While the pilots had been clearly green—a fact that 66 percent losses on their part made abundantly clear—their lasers still burned hot and could have vaped him had he not outflown them.

He took Mirax’s left hand in his right beneath the edge of the table. “Sorry I couldn’t cover the
Skate
out there.”

Mirax gave him a smile that helped energize him. “I’d have felt safer, but that would have spoiled Booster ‘One-Man-Army’ Terrik’s fun. He manned the laser cannon and was a general hazard to any eyeball peeking at us. He says he winged a couple of them.”

Corran gave her hand a squeeze, then looked up and saw Booster glowering at him from the other side of the table.
If looks were lasers, he’d be more than winging me right now
. “I’m glad there weren’t more in the way of complications. Your father looks ready to rip something apart with his bare hands—like me.”

“Being ambushed by Imps has him in a bad mood. We’ll be heading out soon for a meeting with Talon Karrde concerning security.”

“The leak came from his people?”

Mirax nodded. “My father thinks so. I want you to look over some stuff on it for me—give me your professional opinion about this spy thing.”

“Ah, sure, Mirax, glad to, but you should remember from the Erisi thing, I’m not that sharp on spotting spies.”

“This one isn’t that good.” Mirax gave him a wink. “Let me know what you think. We’ll see if Karrde concurs.”

Wedge and Winter entered the room, followed closely by Tal’dira, Aril Nunb, and Tycho. Winter sat down at the datapad built in at the far end of the table and hit some keys. A holographic image of the Yag’Dhul station hovered over the holopad in the center of the oval table. Wedge took a position at the head of the table, Tycho sat between him and Booster, and Tal’dira took the seat at Booster’s left hand. The Sullustan seated herself to Mirax’s right, facing Tal’dira.

Wedge covered a yawn, then leaned forward on the end of the table. “I apologize for asking you here to this debriefing so quickly after your return, but I want to talk about what happened in the Graveyard while details are still fresh in our minds. We have two issues to discuss: the arrival of the Imps and what to do with the
Valiant
.

“Before that, however, I want to thank each of you for your action and the action of your people at Alderaan. There is no question about it—we got very lucky at Alderaan. The
Valiant
’s appearance and action hurt both the
Corrupter
and the
Aggregator
. Even so, it was the discipline of our people that provided us the opportunity for such luck to come into play. If it weren’t for your
Chir’daki
pilots covering Tycho and me on our runs, we wouldn’t have been able to do what we did to either Imp ship.”

The Twi’lek’s braintails twitched strongly. “Your praise is most appreciated, Wedgan’tilles. The loss of two of my pilots is grave, but nothing in comparison to what all of us would have lost were our leadership not so clear thinking in a time of trouble.”

Tycho nodded in agreement. “It was your torps that vaped the
Corrupter
, Wedge. Zraii’s going to waste a lot of paint adding it to your display of kills.”

Wedge shook his head. “Look, your shots hurt it, I was just in a position to pinpoint a target. Imps have forever dismissed the threat our torps are to their ships. You’d think, after losing two Death Stars to X-wings they’d learn, but their ignorance is our margin of safety.”

Corran smiled. “So you’ll order Zraii to pull the kill from your X-wing?”

Wedge hesitated, then smiled sheepishly. “Let’s not go too far—it
was
a good pair of shots.” His eyes narrowed. “Convarion got what he deserved, especially in getting the tables turned on him. The fact that he was able to show up,
and
had an Interdictor Cruiser with him is most disturbing. Winter, any idea where the
Aggregator
came from?”

Winter tucked a lock of white hair back behind her left ear, then hit several keys on the datapad. The image floating above the table shifted from that of the station to the triangular form of an Interdictor Cruiser. “The
Aggregator
was last noted as part of an anti-Rebel taskforce led by High Admiral Teradoc. Intelligence on him—at least the intel I’m able to access from here—is sketchy. Most of his duty stations were Rimward. He was diligent in his duties and virulently anti-Rebel, but beyond that unremarkable. He was
not
at Endor and remained nominally loyal to the Empire until Coruscant fell.”

As nearly as Corran knew, Teradoc’s history was not unique. A few brave individuals declared themselves Warlords as soon as they heard of the Emperor’s death, but many of the others—especially those in the military—remained loyal to the Empire. Sate Pestage, an Imperial Advisor, held power for six months until a cabal of Imperial Advisors ousted him from power. Most of the military backed this group because it seemed disposed to taking action. It was only after Ysanne Isard supplanted them that members of the military began to grab for power themselves. Even so, a fair number of military leaders and politicians proclaimed their loyalty to the Empire until Coruscant fell.

At which point they had to fend for themselves, since they no longer had access to the bureaucracy that made the Empire run
. While there were administrative areas and sectors that held themselves together—a tribute to the resourcefulness of their Grand Moffs—Corran expected that within two years nearly three-quarters of what had once been the Empire would be under the New Republic’s control.

Winter looked up from the datapad. “If I had to guess how Isard got her hands on the
Aggregator
, I would guess she traded bacta for it. The fact that the
Aggregator
’s TIEs were being flown by Thyferran Home Defense Corps pilots suggests that Teradoc is running low on trained personnel. With a supply of bacta he can keep them alive a bit longer. Without unlimited Imperial resources, he’s having to conserve people the way we did.”

Booster narrowed his eyes, both electronic and natural. “I’d also read into the pilot change a lack of confidence by Teradoc in Isard. Right now you have to figure that Teradoc is getting gigabytes of stories from the
Aggregator
’s crew about how we ambushed the ambushers. I think if I have my people start asking around what someone is willing to pay for a slightly used Interdictor Cruiser, word will get back to Teradoc. He’ll assume we’re suggesting we’re planning on capturing the next one he loans to Isard, so he won’t be free with his ship.”

Wedge nodded. “That’s worth a try. From this point forward we’re going to have to assume, however, that it is possible another Interdictor Cruiser could jump us. Actually, we have to assume it is probable that we might be jumped again. We’ll continue hit-and-run attacks and will just have to make our exchanges more covert. We can do that by having the incoming freighters guided to a location of our choosing, which means they won’t know where they’re going until the last minute.”

Mirax raised her right hand. “Perhaps you can’t remember back when you were hauling cargo, but I’d never go to a rendezvous without knowing where it was.”

“Good point, but I suspect Quelev Tapper can convince Karrde that we’re trustworthy.”

Booster laughed. “Continue paying in advance, and Karrde will believe it.”

“That we’ll do.” Wedge straightened up. “Remember, we’ve now eliminated one of Isard’s four ships.”

“Sure,” Corran sighed, “but it was the smallest of them all.”

“Agreed, but Ait Convarion was probably the most aggressive of the commanders Isard had working for her. He knew how to fight a Star Destroyer—what chances you could take with it and what chances you couldn’t. He expected us to scatter and we didn’t, which is why he died. The commanders of the larger ships are likely to be more conservative.” Wedge smiled. “The Empire’s boldest Admirals died at Yavin. Regardless, both
Avarice
and
Virulence
are the newer-model
Imperial-
class Star Destroyers, deuces—so they carry six squadrons of TIEs. No matter how good or bad their commanders are, they can overwhelm us.”

Corran smiled. “With targets.”

“Yes, but targets that shoot back.” Wedge shook his head. “Impstar deuces have a crew of nearly forty-six thousand people, if you count the troops they carry in the mix. They have a lot of fire power. Granted that it’s not terribly well suited for use against snubfighter squadrons, but an Imp-star deuce will take a lot more pounding than a victim like the
Corrupter
before it goes away.”