28

Let Me Live

Pellaeon watched the timer tick down on his tactical display, tapping his fingers idly on the console.

'Sir, with all due respect, Daala's promise is a load of crap.'

The other two surviving shipmasters, Forta and Darrow, weren't exactly keen on surrender. Darrow in particular had been straining at the leash to continue the fight.

'We saw what Daala's men did to Heavy Metal Queen's escape pods,' Darrow argued.

Colonel Jurik of the 344th grimaced. 'She wasn't exactly keen on letting us retrieve ejected pilots, either, sir.'

They had a point. Even during her stint as a leader of the Galactic Alliance, Daala had never been one for mercy. Her actions here only further proved just how much he could entrust her with the lives of his subordinates. No, their lives were in his hands and his alone. And he'd bring them out of this forsaken star system even if it cost him his life.

Sighing, Pellaeon moved the other unit commanders' holograms to the side of his hololith and brought up a battle map.

'Alright, then. Listen closely because we only have time to go over this once.'


'Are you sure this is going to work, Admiral?'

Daala nodded, checking her wristwatch. Time was almost up.

'He'll agree to my terms. Grand Admiral Pellaeon lives for his men and always has.'

And sure enough, as the clock reached zero, Warhammer's comms officer called out. 'Admiral, we're being hailed by Bloodfin.'

'Put them on, Lieutenant.' Daala smirked. Someone had finally outdone the Old Man of the Empire. 'Pellaeon. Have you made your decision?'

'I have, Daala,' Pellaeon said wearily. 'You've won this fight. I'm bringing my ships in to dock with you.'

Daala glanced at Captain Varis. He nodded, watching the remains of Pellaeon's battle group line up and limp towards Warhammer, just as she'd predicted. The old man had gotten soft in his old age, she supposed. Still, he had managed to put up a good fight. The battle had wrecked her Carrack-class ships and the CR90 had defeated her CR92 in a one-on-one battle. She would have to send out engineering crews later to see whether they were salvageable. She made a mental note to merely decimate the prisoners rather than order them all executed.


The atmosphere on Bloodfin's bridge was tense as the ship passed underneath Warhammer's guns. Just a few kilometers away, the Interdictor sat in the void. They would only have one shot at this. It would have to be executed perfectly.

'Maintain present course and velocity,' he said, watching the distance counter tick. Slowly, they edged closer to the Interdictor. Bloodfin's proton torpedo launchers were loaded and armed, her turbolasers and hyperdrive running hot. Just a little more, Pellaeon thought as he watched his ships move across the battle map.

After a few more seconds, they reached point-blank range.

'Unload everything we have on that Interdictor,' he said. 'All units, engage at will.'

On the tactical display, Pellaeon saw Black Reef and Firelance fan out, unloading on the engines of each of the enemy ImpStar Deuces as the remaining fighter strengths broke formation. Caught by surprise, the enemy Star Destroyers still had their shields concentrated in the forward fire arc, leaving their rears relatively unprotected. Though the Nebulon-B and CR90 lacked heavy firepower, they had the aid of the Alliance's B-wings and Pellaeon's surviving TIE Avengers.

'Guns, slave all proton torpedo tubes to my command. Concentrate ion fire on the Super Star Destroyer and focus turbolasers on the Interdictor.'

'Aye, sir!'

Bloodfin rumbled as her guns opened up. As one, her heavy turbolaser batteries unloaded on the Interdictor at point-blank range, tearing a gaping hole in its shields. Before its captain could hope to divert even a fraction of its shield power to the wound, Pellaeon fired Bloodfin's torpedo launchers. Describing it as overkilll would be an understatement. Its midsection pulverized by a volley of capital-grade torpedoes, Daala's final Interdictor died. Then, to make absolutely sure, Bloodfin rammed the Interdictor's ruined hulk, bisecting the smaller ship as she passed. Hyperdrive charged and free of the interdiction field, Bloodfin recalled her fighters and made the jump.

Pellaeon hoped that the two Alliance ships would make it out as well.


'Interdictor neutralized,' Captain Forta announced. 'All units, prepare for hyperspace jump.'

'Firelance, jumping now!'

With a flicker of pseudo-motion, the CR90 exited the battlefield. There had been no time to match up hyperspace coordinates. Every single ship would be jumping to parts unknown based on the calculations of their own navigators or squadron mates. It was, by all accounts, a potential death sentence to make a random jump in the Maw. The odds of surviving that, however, were higher than the ones they had right now.

'Black Reef, jumping n-'

The Nebulon-B's captain never got to finish that sentence. A stray turbolaser shot from Warhammer tore into its shields, punching into the side of the bridge. Its power reduced by the shields, the weakened laser bolt failed to give the Nebulon-B's bridge crew a clean death, instead setting the compartment aflame. Syal cut the feed as screams filled the comm. A second turbolaser shot cut the Neb-B in two, blowing apart the spar connecting the engines to the command section. Immobilized, Black Reef made for an easy target as Daala's Star Destroyers pounded it to dust.

'Damn,' Syal said. 'Rogues, form up. Use Black Reef as cover for the jump. There's nothing we can do for them.'

'Bastards,' Aresh spat.

'Seven, you have a solution calculated?'

Nodra responded in affirmative. 'Stand by for data transfer. Had to rush the number-crunching, so it won't be very precise.'

'Whatever gets us the hell out of here works, Seven,' Twelve responded.

Shielded by the dying frigate, the Rogues made the jump.


Aresh breathed a sigh of relief as the vista of hyperspace gave way to realspace. No new alarms rang. For now, at least, they seemed to be safe. the Rogues had all made it out safely, though their X-wings had all taken a beating during the battle.

'Nine to Lead, should we take a short stop for repairs or do we keep on going?'

There was a brief pause as Syal considered their options.

'We'll stop for now,' she said. 'I'm seeing a large asteroid at eleven o'clock. Sensors tell me it's big enough to have a gravitational pull. We set down on that, get our X-wings into cover, and run what maintenance we can. Hyperdrives, life support, and engines have priority. Keep your stealth systems running. We've still got plenty of fuel.'

The Rogues passed low and slow over the surface of the asteroid, sensors scanning for threats and life signs. Running into an exogorth now, of all times, would be inconvenient, to say the least. They need not have worried, however. The asteroid was as dead as the rest of this end of space. Barren rock and deep void dominated the view, save for a brilliant effusion of light in the distance. Visual sensors marked it as a black hole. The light radiated from both the accretion disk and the star orbiting it. At this distance, the Rogues' radiation sensors didn't come up with anything that reached dangerous levels outside of their fighters. It was as good a time as any to touch down and patch up their fighters.


Daala clenched her fists, furious at the allied forces' escape. Around her command chair, the holograms of her two Star Destroyers' captains stood patiently, hoping that they and their crews would be able to avoid her wrath.

'My fault, gentlemen, not yours,' she said, letting out a long, slow breath. 'How bad is the damage?'

Tarak frowned. 'My engines took a beating, Admiral. We're going to need a day or two to get them fixed up, at least a week in dry dock to get them fully repaired.'

'It's the same situation with us, ma'am,' said Tarak's counterpart. 'I'm afraid Warhammer is the only one here with any sort of mobility.'

It was even worse than she'd thought. All these dead fighters and capital ships for nothing. There was no doubt that Pellaeon would return with a force capable of taking on her Super Star Destroyer. At least the damage to the fighter base on the surface was reparable. Perhaps with some added defenses and reinforcements, she would be able to take the old man on in a fight. Her Imperial ally had provided her with plenty of resources, many of which had yet to be used. The only cards she'd revealed at this point had been Tarak, the TIE Hunters, and the Dread Masters. She could still win this.

'Very well,' Daala replied. 'We hold position here. Get your ships patched up as quickly as possible. I'll send some of our own engineers over to help. In the mean time, let's see what we can do about fortification.'

'Thank you, Admiral,' said Tarak. 'We'll commence repairs now.'

And with that, Daala cut the connection. Before she could resume her duties, however, the comm beeped again. This time, it was a call from Omega Squadron's commander. The aggressor unit had acquitted itself well in the battle, accounting for most of the damage done to the Empire's fighter squadrons. She made a mental note to mark them down for a pay raise later.

'Commander,' she said, 'what can I do for you?'

'Admiral, requesting permission to pursue Rogue Squadron.' Right to the point. At least they were eager.

'They've already jumped to hyperspace. It's no use, Commander. Let your men stand down for now.'

'With respect, ma'am, we know where they are. My men and I have studied Alliance Starfighter Command tactics. Judging by how rushed their jump was, they should be no more than one light-year away. They took a beating during the fight, which means they'll be stopping for repairs. Admiral, my men can kill Rogue Squadron. Our TIEs are almost fully reloaded and refueled. We can take them, but only if we go now.'

Daala took a second to consider the notion. Omega Leader's pitch was impressive, certainly, but if his search proved fruitless, it would leave her fleet without one of its most powerful assets. Then again, the murder of Rogue Squadron was a tempting prospect.

'Very well, Commander. You may deploy when ready.'


'Boss, you got a moment?'

Syal, elbow-deep in her X-wing's power plant, pulled a hand out of the fighter's innards to activate her commlink. Damn, it was cold. Alliance flight suits had superb insulation, but even in deep space, they were only cleared for two hours of void exposure. Only IG-90 could conceivably last indefinitely out in space. Damned meatbag biology.

'Go ahead, Aresh. What's up?'

Her colleague dropped off his X-wing and walked over to her, a datapad in hand.

'You know how Daala was buying up concussion missiles from all over the Rim?'

Syal raised an eyebrow. 'Yeah. Why?'

Aresh handed her the datapad, tapping his finger on a sales report from a subsidiary of Arakyd. It showed a massive sale of various UT-9 missile variants-quick-maneuver, cluster, extended range, and more.

'The UT-9 is made for starfighters.' Syal frowned. 'Wait, I thought she was buying up capital-grade ordnance for the Super Star.'

'She was, but she was also looking into starfighter ordnance. What do you think of it?'

'The UT-9's too expensive and cutting-edge for equipping pirates,' she said. 'You think they're for Omega Squadron and her other elite TIE units?'

Aresh shrugged. 'Let's hope so. I don't want to think about the alternative.'

'What alt-Oh. Oh.' The blood drained from her face. 'Crapbaskets. You think she's really got her hands on one of those?'

'I wouldn't put it past her,' Aresh said gravely. 'Remember where Imperial superweapon R&D used to live?'

'It could be worse,' Syal said wearily. 'At least it's not another Death Star.'


'I spy with my little eye-'

'We're not doing this again, Three.'

'Whoa, a little salty there, Two,' said Beiner.

Leda groaned, resting her head on her X-wing's flank. She'd been in the process of patching up a laser-damaged power coupling. 'Sorry. It's the fatigue. We've been on mission after mission, sortie after sortie. We've had, what, one break in the past few months? And that lasted a day or two. And most of us spent that time asleep.'

'Hey, it's what you signed up for.'

To be fair, Leda had a point. Beiner sat back in his seat, looking out at the stars. They'd all barely had time to get to know one another. Hell, most of them hadn't even shared backstories. Where was Ten even from?

'Might as well make up for all that flight time now, Two,' he said. 'Screw it. What did you do before you signed up?'

Leda shrugged, pausing to shut an access panel. 'Nothing, really. Civilian flight school, did a short stint as a courier pilot before I signed up for Alliance Starfighter Weapons School. You guys?'

'Mechanic,' Beiner said. 'Used to work at Sluis Van's shipyards until I decided to do something useful with my life.'

'Hunter,' Windspeaker grumbled. 'Well, I didn't do much of the shooting, obviously. I mostly did the flying for the teams. You can bullseye as many womp rats as you want from a Skyhopper or shuttle, but those laser cannons won't leave you with anything to take home.'

Beiner raised an eyebrow. 'Huh. You bag any krayt dragons?'

'Mmhm. The spoils are back home with the folks. Even snagged a couple of dragon pearls from a job. I can show you holos of the family jewels later if you want.'

Leda snorted. 'Pass, thanks. Family, huh? Brothers and sisters? You have a girl back home?'

'Oh, I've seen this holovid,' Windspeaker said. 'Cut that crap out. We're not talking about family out here.'

'What?' Leda asked indignantly. 'Come on, those are holovids. I'll tell you about my folks, then.'

'NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE,' Beiner yelled. 'No family talk. We've been lucky enough as is that the only one who's gotten vaped so far is Six. And he can come back from that.'

Leda groaned. 'You guys are crazy, you know that?'

With a chuckle, Windspeaker replied, 'Were you expecting Rogues to not be crazy?'


'Hey, Seven,' Vigil said.

'What?'

'Doing anything fun?'

'Combat jack.' To his credit, Nodra remained completely deadpan about it.

'Ah. Dry jack or have you got any literature?'

'Aqualicious, this month's issue.'

Aqualish. Huh. At some point in his youth, Vigil would have balked at the idea of polishing the lightsaber to imagery of Aqualish, but the lack of gentleman's literature in Starfighter Command had broadened his horizons considerably. When you don't have many options, anything with lady bits, canards, or thrust-vectored engines would do. Even Quarren chicks had their own appeal if one was feeling a squiddle bit inkquisitive. Out of Vigil's flight, only Nodra had come away with damage that could be repaired by his astromech alone. While he was warm and cozy in his cockpit, Vigil and the others were extravehicular, shivering and fumbling about with toolkits and spare parts.

'You guys do realize you're broadcasting on flight comms, right?' Rosharra said, more than a little disgusted.

'Yep,' Vigil and Nodra chorused.

The Wookiee sighed. 'Outstanding. New topic. Kairos. The captain, Tarak, I think his name was.'

'Yeah, what about him?' Vigil asked.

'How did he get his hands on TIE Hunters? And for that matter, how did he manage to bring in a squadron that just so happened to be assigned to highly experimental fighter craft? I mean, a captain can't have that much pull, can he?'

'Maybe "Captain" just means shipmaster in this case,' Nodra mused. 'I mean, the guy in charge of the ship pretty much is the captain of his ship, even if there's a superior officer on board, right?'

'Statement: Negative.'

Ninety had been silent the whole day. Its sudden talkativeness was a slight shock to Two Flight.

'He finally speaks,' Vigil quipped. 'Alright, Six, talk to us. What do you think of this whole business?'

The droid retracted an arc welder attachment on its right arm, switching it out for a spanner. 'Clarification: Tarak's rank pins when we saw them clearly marked him as one of the captain rank. I do not believe he was the man responsible for Admiral Daala's unusually vast pool of resources.'

'Huh,' Vigil grunted. 'You think there's more than one Imperial mole?'

'Statement: That is correct. Based on past observations, it is likely that Daala's Imperial benefactor is someone of a far higher rank.'

'One of the Moffs?' Nodra ventured. It was widely known that the Empire's Moffs remained an untrustworthy bunch, even after the rise of Jagged Fel as the new Emperor. Many of them remained hardline supporters of the old order. Perhaps one or more had decided to throw their lot in with Daala in the hopes that she could take on the Alliance and the more moderate elements of the Empire.

'Statement: I would bet money on it, Flight Officer Rosharra. In fact, I may even use my next extended leave to "acquire" a journalist's ticket for the Empire's next Mofference.'

Vigil snickered. Ninety's bloodthirst was certainly justified here. Even some people in the Empire would have jumped at the opportunity to give the Council of Moffs a dark greeting of their own.


'No, no, man, that's not how you treat a lady,' Tur'in said. 'Dinner? A movie? Sticking your dick in something? Come on. Everyone knows that the proper way to romance a girl is to take her out on a flight then to spend the rest of the night cleaning out her engines.'

Sund paused, confused. 'Wait, are we talking about the same thing here?'

'Of course we are. Girls. Starships are girls, too. Am I right, Ten?'

From under his X-wing, Bulsara poked a hand out with his thumb up.

'See? Ten knows what's u-Hold on.'

Sund sat up in his seat, hands hovering over his instrument panel. In an instant, his fatigue had given way to the familiar adrenaline rush of combat.

'Something just pinged on passive sensors for a moment.' In order to maintain stealth, the Rogues had to shut off all sensors save for their short-range passive scanning. Long-distance active scans would have returned something more concrete, but they were easy to detect by enemy craft.

'Bandits?'

'Looks like.' Tur'in switched to squadron comms. 'Eleven to all units, cut your repairs short. We have company.'


At the edge of this dead, nameless star system, twelve TIE Spectres dropped out of hyperspace arranged in three finger-four formations.

'Nothing on sensors,' said Omega Three. 'Nothing indicating we've been detected, either.'

'That's expected,' Omega Leader said. The Rogues had to be here. This was the only star system within one light-year, and thus, the only one on the Rogues' escape vector that could contain the elusive Alliance fighters. 'Run a scan for atmosphere and gravity. Anything an X-wing or twelve might land on.'

It was a few minutes before the scans returned something of use. There were two small planets within the system, but their corrosive atmospheres made them unappealing landing spots for the maintenance-heavy and temperamental StealthXs.

'Two large asteroids,' said Omega Five. 'Two o'clock beyond the black hole, one o'clock closer to us.'

'Mark the one o'clock asteroid as a target.'

Based on Antilles' flying and style of command, the close asteroid had to be the logical target. She was too cautious to use the far asteroid as a landing point. He didn't blame her. They would have had to take a flight path that brought them dangerously close to the black hole's event horizon and exposed them to dangerous levels of radiation. Not even the Rogues would have gambled with something so hazardous.

Omega Leader upped the throttle on his fighter and set the master arm switch to active, setting his torpedo tubes to dual-fire. So far, the Rogues hadn't caught on to them yet. As the distance counter dropped, Omega Leader suppressed a predatory smile. Twenty-four torpedoes, more than enough to obliterate that rock and everything inside it. Splash twelve.