Galaxies Apart
Seventeen
The hangar bay contained X-Wings. A-Wings. Y-Wings. V-Wings. Wedge knew every type of ship instinctually; he'd clocked up enough flight time in all four types over the past few years. The grace and power of the X-Wing…the speed of the A-Wing…the payload of the Y-Wing…the advanced weaponry and manoeuvrability of the V-Wing.
Vital of the Rebellion each one of them, an individual marvel of engineering that was a joy to fly and a deadly weapon in the right hands.
And then…there was the Speeder.
He hated Speeders. Sure, they had an efficient design with a big viewscreen and a fair top speed. They also had the turning prowess of a duracrete girder in quicksand, and acceleration comparable to that of a medium sized and inexpertly aimed puddle.
They were unique in that they were the only ships in the hangar bay that weren't designed for combat. In their original designation Speeders were reconnaissance and rescue craft. Which was why, to compensate, each had been retrofitted with the sort of armour that would have put a Star Destroyer's hull to shame.
Only the protection a Speeder enjoyed could have endured the pounding the AT-ATs were dishing out with their turbolasers. Just, he amended, as a shower of electric sparks rained in the cabin, legacy of another glancing blow by the lumbering beasts ahead.
Speeders were also the only two-person snubfighters; pilot and gunner were required to get any kind of accuracy with the onboard weaponry. OK, so it meant he didn't have to worry about avoiding death and striking back, but Wedge liked that worry. He didn't like the fact that he was having to rely on an inexperienced gunner to stave off the attack.
Below him, a few stray stormtroopers never had time to scream as they were systematically incinerated. Wedge realised the shots had originated from his Speeder.
"That's good shooting, Konnik," he called behind him to where his gunner sat.
A familiar laugh answered him. "Konnik's with Dack this time, Chief. I figured you could use a little extra help."
Wedge almost crashed the Speeder. "Winter?"
As she confirmed her identity again he saw her squeeze off another few shots, each one finding an Imperial target. Her gunnery was actually succeeding in pushing the stormtrooper companies back. He grinned. Suddenly, having to fly his least favourite ship didn't seem so bad after all…
An explosion to his right startled him from that train of thought. He watched in anger as a fellow Rogue went down under a hail of AT-AT fire. Much as they were enjoying some limited success against the troops, the Speeders were doing precisely squat damage to the AT-ATs.
"We're getting hammered by those things," he called back.
"Wedge," she called back, "what are our secondary weapons?"
He shook his head. "No major firepower - just tow cables and harpoons. Speeders are search and rescue, the occasional recon mission. We had to weld the blasters on manually."
A silence from the aft told him she was thinking. "What about using the harpoons and cables on the legs of the walkers? Tie them up, get them to crash under their own power?"
He threw the Speeder into a steep banking dive, barely managing to drop below another volley. The idea was crazy, untested, unproven, and would take a group of pilots with incredible skills to pull off.
"Good plan," he called back, and used the next four-second lull in the fighting to transmit the plan to the rest of the Squadron, grateful that the communications blackout only applied to orbital transmissions.
He selected the nearest walker, and came in from the back, decreasing speed until he was almost parallel with the leftmost pair of legs. "Firing," Winter said. Wedge had little doubt about this part, and was not surprised to see the harpoon impact the nearest leg.
Now came the tricky bit. Working out protocol for this even as he prepared to perform it, Wedge figured that the best way would be to slow the Speeder almost to a crawl and use the standard brakes to pull it gently around the AT-AT; thereby keeping it out of reach of the twin turbolasers on the 'head'.
Or…you could increase speed to maximum, and use the airbrakes to turn the Speeder on each corner of the turn. Which would mean turning with next to zero visibility and reaction time, and effectively racing the tracking systems of the turbolasers around the walker.
Wedge felt like grinning again. He wondered what the point of even debating the matter was, when he knew only too well what he and the rest of Rogue Squadron would invariably opt for.
He gunned the throttle.
The tow cable spun out behind him, tracing his erratic path around the walker. As he moved into his second circuit the cable took up the slack and wrapped itself tightly against the legs of the AT-AT.
The walker attempted to move forward and found itself curtailed. Wedge moved into his third and last circuit, the turbolasers tearing holes in the surface milliseconds behind his racing Speeder.
Leaning on the controls one more time he hit the right airbrake, banked sharply and cut an exit path between the front and back legs, having to avoid the snare of his own cable.
"Let her go!" he whooped. Winter complied.
The walker's computer propulsion systems, not built to accept that the gargantuan machine could ever be stopped, dealt with this unexpected problem by increasing the power. The walker shuddered, and Wedge's heart leapt two foot higher as the cable stretched under the strain, close to breaking point.
Close, but not close enough. The cable held, and as Wedge watched, the entire AT-AT ponderously toppled forward into the jungle, crushing an entire squad of stormtroopers in the process.
He hollered for all he was worth. The impact should serve to completely destroy the walker's computer guidance systems. The entire network would go down - including the damage control systems.
Winter strafed the prone giant, and was rewarded when after only a few shots it blew spectacularly.
As quickly and as decisively as that, the tide of battle had turned. With the ground troops confused and disorientated by this unprecedented disaster, the Rebel ground forces pressed forward with renewed vigour.
Wedge watched as the remaining five walkers failed totally to deal with their acquisition of a spinning, biting piloted parasite. One by one, they too succumbed to the fate of the first AT-AT.
What had started as a hasty tactical retreat had ended, unbelievably, as a most unlikely triumph for the Rebellion. Wedge doubted anything like this had been seen for years.
A hand reached over and squeezed his shoulder. "Great flying."
"Not so bad yourself, ace," he replied, trying to stop himself from blushing and failing miserably. "So…what the hell do we do now?"
It was a valid question. Though reinforcements would assuredly arrive for the Empire soon, it seemed somehow inappropriate simply to continue the evacuation where they'd left off. Wedge had almost forgotten what victory against the Empire felt like, and he itched for more.
"This is Rogue Leader to Base One," he transmitted, "requesting new orders, Base One. Repeat-"
"We hear you, Rogue Leader," the reply came instantly. The voice didn't sound particularly thrilled. Something else was wrong. "We've just detected a focussed gravity well from the shipyards. It's targeted at the Death Star. We can't warn them."
"Gravity well?" he repeated incredulously. "Why in the worlds would the Imperials want to stop the Death Star from leaving?"
"Because they have less than three minutes before Prathuus hits them."
The words washed over him for a moment, before he was able to digest them. He hard Winter gasp behind him at the news. Almost without thinking he turned the Speeder toward the distant yards, opened up the throttle to maximum.
"Why can't they just use the superlaser?"
"They haven't seen it yet, Rogue Leader, and we can't get word to them through the blackout. By the time they do detect it, it could be too late. Proceed to the yards and destroy the source of the gravity well."
"That's an affirmative, Base One," Wedge replied, and sent the orders to the rest of Rogue Squadron. "Looks like this might not be over yet," he called back.
"It's Thrawn," Winter said, sounding despondent. "I knew it. I knew he would change the rules."
"Well, he didn't count on this little ambush coming unstuck, did he?" Wedge pointed out, "so that's one mistake he's made today. Looks like he's not as omniscient as he'd like us to believe," he grunted, charging the lasers, "we just have to make sure that he pays for that small oversight."
He glanced at his readouts. "We're going to reach the shipyards in about fifteen seconds. I want you to search for the source of that gravity well. It could be anywhere, and we don't have much time."
She was silent for a moment. "Wedge - Base One said the Death Star can't get to hyperspace. Don't you think that sounds like the work of an Interdictor Cruiser?"
Choosing his approach vector and checking on the status of his wingmates, Wedge considered this. "I certainly don't know of any other ship capable of generating a gravity well…but those shipyards are absolutely huge. Miles across at their narrowest point. There's no way to tell…" and he trailed off in realisation, for this was Winter, the woman with the eidetic memory.
The woman who'd been stationed here for the past two months.
"You know where they are, don't you?"
Winter nodded. "I took a quick glance at the schematics for this place the day I finally gained access to Commodore Jurstt's office. The Interdictor Cruisers are in the south-south-west sector. Change your approach heading to…" she paused, calculating, "…one-three-eight mark nine."
He did so, unable to help himself from wondering precisely how a woman like Winter had managed to 'gain access' to Jurstt's private sanctum. The rest of Rogue Squadron were duly informed of the new co-ordinates; he saw them bank to follow him.
"I wonder where-" he began, before ten TIE Interceptors screamed into vision. Satisfied, he shut up.
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Pellaeon went over the plan again. It seemed so simple, when taken in its component parts; yet when it was digested all at once it was so staggering in scope that he found himself dumbstruck with the audacity of it all.
How to destroy a Death Star in three easy steps. Granted, Thrawn had enjoyed certain advantages he might not have elsewhere. The Alliance's reluctance to fire on their own, the moon had been ideally suited, the shipyards had exactly the right facilities and so on.
Could Pellaeon himself, then, have come up with the same plan?
He knew what the answer to that was.
Pellaeon regarded the man of the moment, who currently was sitting placidly, awaiting results. The latest figures placed the moon's impact at about a minute. One minute before the final defeat of the Rebel Alliance.
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"Incoming!" Wedge hollered over the whine of the Speeder's complaining airbrakes.
TIE Interceptors were good little ships, as TIEs went. They had excellent blasters, a good top speed, a small size, good turning ability and were even equipped with marginal shields.
Pound for pound they were the vast superior of the Speeders, and ordinarily would have made short work of the seven craft.
However, the Rebels had one huge advantage. T
They were Rogue Squadron. The Imperials weren't.
"Scratch one!" Winter whooped from the aft, as an Interceptor bloomed to flame.
As Winter began to engage another Interceptor, aided by a cunning drop-feint-roll from Wedge, she felt almost sorry for the Imperial pilots, hopelessly outmatched by their maverick Rebel counterparts.
Almost.
Wedge nodded, satisfied. The three remaining Interceptors were being looked after by three of Rogue Squadron; he had little doubt about the outcome of that particular battle.
Which left him and the other three Rogues with a clear run at the Interdictor gravitational relay.
"Ready back there," he warned Winter, "we're going in full throttle. Try to take out the power couplings on the north-west tower."
"I see them," she confirmed.
He prodded the Speeder into the ideal approach, and let her own systems keep the nose even. The tactic worked perfectly; he was able to watch laser blast after laser blast streak out. The damn things were ray-shielded, so it would take four or five really good hits to knock them out.
"Wedge-"
"I see them," he cut her off, grimly. Arcing slowly toward them were five proton torpedoes.
"I was afraid of this," he admitted. The Imperials had finally figured out that they had several nearby ships with fully operational weapons systems. All it took were a few remote control commands…
"Winter," he said tightly, "do you see that Star Destroyer skeleton to starboard?"
The torpedoes, growing in size by the second, caused her to pause in her answer.
"Yes…?" she replied.
"Harpoon it," he ordered. Sensing her reaction, he added, "Trust me, Winter. Do it."
Tethered to the immense scaffolding, the Speeder shot past it, tow cable unreeling at alarming speed. Ahead, a partially-skinned Star Destroyer hung suspended above a moderate-sized repulsorlift bank. Wedge angled their nose downward.
"Target the repulsorlifts and fire!" he ordered.
The bank, totally unshielded, withstood only a few direct hits before erupting in a cloud of flame.
Above them, thousands of tons of Star Destroyer found itself unsupported. Aft first, it began to fall.
Behind them, five proton torpedoes closed to within three seconds of impact.
"Wedge…!" Winter croaked. The Speeder's interior darkened, a huge shadow encompassing it.
Who needs airbrakes?, Wedge thought, and threw the Speeder into a sharp turn. With a Star Destroyer acting as a pivot, the Speeder was able to shoot an escape curve at an otherwise impossible speed.
Equipped with no such advantage, the pursuing torpedoes took a fatal second too long to do the same.
Caught astern in mid-fall, the embryonic Star Destroyer blew apart.
Now free of all pursuit, Wedge was able to angle the Speeder back on course for the relay. By this time the remainder of Rogue Squadron had eventually caught up; all five ships fired together.
He held his breath. They might have time for another pass; they might not. It really needed to go right-
Boom.
-now. The billowing flames accelerated with alarming speed. He hit the throttle again, jinking the Speeder up and left to avoid the bulk of the explosion. A quick survey reassured him that the rest of the Squadron had likewise managed to elude oblivion. Over the sound of Winter celebrating he craned his neck to look upwards. If they had been too late…
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Crix Madine couldn't pull away from the viewscreen, couldn't help but watch Prathuus bear down-
And the Death Star moved.
Madine didn't have time to think. Neither did Ackbar. Neither did the helmsman. Fortunately all of their instincts were screaming the exact same thing. The helmsman felt his hands fly across the consoles. The course was accepted. He pulled the lever for all he was worth.
The Palpatine stretched, flared and was gone.
Five years after it should have happened, the Rebel Alliance had been saved at the last possible moment.