It was a lesson he’d learned in the aftermath of the Roona attacks, years before. The tactics of the Rebel Alliance had struck him as cruel, then. Perhaps attacking from a position of weakness required cruelty.
“Patrol craft sighted,” Gablerone announced. “Enemies incoming.”
“As we discussed,” Soran answered. “Do not engage.”
He turned his attention to the tactical maps and watched the TIE flights increase speed as they wove through the colony. The local militia was confined to atmospheric vehicles—according to the intelligence Soran had been able to obtain, there were no enemy starfighters in-system—but so close to ground level the TIEs had no natural advantage over armored cloud cars. The TIEs took evasive action through the streets, firing on targets of opportunity while avoiding closing range with the patrols.
Soran knew his people well enough to understand the restraint they exerted—none of them was comfortable running from a threat. Yet they maneuvered well. Outnumbered and in unfamiliar territory, utilizing tactics they’d lacked even a simulator to practice, they outflew their enemies with ease. An enemy patrol craft disappeared from the tactical map, and Lieutenant Seedia called out the cause: a collision with a garbage silo by an enemy attempting to outflank the TIEs. “Convenient,” she added, “for whatever cleanup crew comes after.” Soran heard pride in her aristocratic enunciation.
Afraid or not, doubting or not, the men and women who flew over Jarbanov were still pilots of the 204th. They were still Shadow Wing. If their execution was imperfect, it was because they’d flown through the gates of hell and returned to fight a war they hadn’t trained for—not because a backwater colony militia could match them blow for blow.
“How much more time?” he asked, striding lazily behind Rassus.
“Three minutes. Maybe four,” the gray-haired major said.
“Good.” Soran clapped a hand on Rassus’s shoulder and began to pace the bridge, attempting to project confidence.
He listened to reports of recycling yards burning and junker caravans scattered, updating his profile of Squadron Four and its pilots. Every call and response reminded him of how much the unit had changed—he had found Shadow Wing decimated, reeling from the loss of Colonel Shakara Nuress and with a roster of dead longer than any he’d predicted.
He’d called Nuress Grandmother. They all had once, in sly admiration of the woman who had made the 204th into one of the Empire’s finest fighter wings. She had been his friend, and in honor of her memory—among other reasons—he had come to take command, to reshape the unit, after once refusing to shed his blood with his pilots in their darkest hour.
His homecoming had been…difficult. Command was not what he had been given.
He checked the tactical map again. “Captain Gablerone? May I make a suggestion?”
Gablerone paused for longer than Soran would have liked. “Go ahead.”
“You’re outnumbered. Crossfire situations are to your advantage. You may wish to adjust formation accordingly.”
“I’ll keep it in mind, Major,” Gablerone said.
Gablerone did not adjust his squadron’s positioning, and Soran didn’t press the matter.
He had been a different man during his absence from Shadow Wing. He remembered being Devon and mourned the loss.
Devon had never truly treasured his own existence—his freedom from all responsibility, save for those he chose. He had not appreciated the luxuries of mercy and time.
“One minute!” Rassus called.
“Withdraw your forces when ready,” Soran said.
Devon could never have survived in the 204th.
Soran watched Squadron Four shake its pursuers and skim the surface of the planet Jarbanov before rapidly ascending. Seedia hung at the rear of her flight, straying off course long enough to puncture a row of hazard vaults on the colony outskirts—an act Soran had advised against during planning, out of an abundance of caution. He tried to picture how the young lieutenant had bypassed the defenses and made a note to warn the ground crew.
“Congratulations, Lieutenant Seedia,” he said. “You may have just rendered the entire Jarbanov colony radioactive.”
“Do you object, adviser?”
Adviser. Her voice suggested no hint of disrespect, but even Gablerone had called him by his rank.
“I don’t,” he said, “but I suggest you remain in your cockpit until all trace radiation has been scrubbed from your ship.”
“I’m comfortable in my flight suit,” Seedia replied. “Proceeding with the extraction.”
Someone snickered over the comm channel.
The single Republic corvette in orbit would attempt to intercept Squadron Four, but the TIEs had speed and planning on their side. They headed directly for the far side of Jarbanov’s moon, where they would soon rendezvous with the cruiser-carrier Allegiance and jump directly to hyperspace. Escape would not be difficult, even if the squadron’s discipline appeared lax.
Which meant Soran could turn his attention to other matters.
He looked from the tactical screens to the viewport, studying the massive junk field where the Aerie drifted. With its systems at low power and the colonists otherwise occupied, the vessel had maneuvered deep into the inner system, dangerously close to Jarbanov.
Jarbanov was on the outskirts of the junker systems—not officially affiliated with the guild, but nonetheless a major processing center for everything from starship wrecks to obsolete planetary mining rigs. It had taken Soran considerable time, effort, and expenditure of personal influence, but he had managed to make contact with a reliable ally inside the Jarbanov Orbital Sorting Association.
“Do we have a visual?” Soran asked.
Rassus nodded, flipping a switch on his console. “Activating the tractor beam now,” he said.
The secondary viewscreen flashed, replacing an image of Jarbanov’s moon with a low-resolution feed from the Aerie’s main hangar. Beyond the magnetic field, outside the ship, local space was cluttered with unidentifiable plastoid lumps and pitted bulkheads. Moving toward the Aerie, caught in the grip of the tractor beam, was a salvage sled: an autonomous vehicle fifty meters long, little more than a spindly platform with magnetic clamps protruding from its body like a centipede’s legs.
As the tractor beam urged the sled closer, the sled’s cargo came into view: Attached to nine clamps was the wreckage of nine TIE/ln starfighters. One vessel was missing the solar collectors on its port wing, leaving its naked side albino white. Another lacked its cockpit viewport, as if someone had gouged out its eye. A third TIE had had both wings amputated altogether. All were smeared with ash and carbon scoring, and many dangled cables and piping from exposed wounds.