Chapter Text
Chapter One
It was one of the worst dogfights that Biggles had ever seen in his life. Even as he yanked the stick back in the beginnings of a steep upward climb in an attempt to dislodge the 109 clinging stubbornly to his tail, he caught out of the corner of his eye the spectacle of two planes plummeting to earth, locked in a deadly embrace of metal and flame, their make impossible to detect. Around him, the leaden winter's sky was alive with the roar of aircraft engines taking unusual strain and the rattling of guns. Spitfire, Messerschmitt, Heinkel and Hurricane; they were flashing all round him. But his attention was focused on the steady stream of lead that he knew was pouring out of the guns of the enemy machine behind him.
Thud, thud - a few bullets were hitting his machine, splintering through the Spit; as always, he prayed they were hitting nothing vital. Time to try a trick or two. He kicked the rudder-bar and dragged the stick sideways, whirling the machine around; but his opponent, obviously an experienced pilot, had anticipated such a move, and was already moving in a tight circle to get behind him again. All the while, snapshots of the fight around him were imprinting themselves on his brain; a Spitfire, trailing smoke, being pursued by a 109; a Dornier going down in flames, two parachutes blossoming in its wake. Even as he throttled down, hard, an old trick to get the pilot on his tail to overshoot, a Spitfire flashed by right across his nose, at a proximity that made him gasp. The white letters on the fuselage told him it was Algy. Such was the unpredictability of war that if he had not throttled back as soon as he did, he would probably have flown straight into his old comrade.
The pilot of the 109 on his tail, startled by something else in the dogfight perhaps, failed to notice Biggles' sudden loss of speed and flew straight on overhead - only to explode, with a sickening crash that made itself heard inside Biggles' cockpit, as it collided with another machine directly in its path. Biggles' heart jumped. For a second he had thought it was Algy. But no - Algy's machine had flashed by seconds before the collision, and he could now see the insignia on the remains of both doomed machines as they spiraled downwards - Maltese crosses, the both of them. With a lurch in the pit of his stomach Biggles realised that his pursuer had actually crashed into a German machine that, moments ago, had been bent on destroying Algy. In a split-second, both machines, perhaps from the same enemy squadron, perhaps piloted by friends as close as Biggles and Algy themselves, had gotten rid of each other, wiping the pursuit off both British pilots. He had heard about such things before, but never actually experienced it. The coincidence made Biggles feel sick. He could imagine Algy's alarm as he twisted back in his seat to see the explosion; could almost hear his hysterical laugh as he, too, realised what had happened. Biggles was feeling a little hysterical himself as he sent his machine zooming back into the conflict.
* * *
Wedge Antilles put all power to his forward shields and sent his X-Wing skidding across the starfield that had suddenly become a killing ground. Over his headset the excited comm chatter of his pilots broke out; they had half-expected this ambush, but the exact coordinates from which two squadrons of TIE Interceptors now swept in among them had been a surprise. Above them was a Star Destroyer, the origin of the two Interceptor squads. Below them was the Interdictor which had dragged Rogue Squadron out of hyperspace en route to Commenor, its four gravity-well generators gleaming bulbous and obscene in the starry half-light. Beyond the Interdictor was an orange-coloured world swathed in clouds, the stripey pattern of white on the orange globe reminding Wedge, incongrously, of a favourite piece of confectionery he'd enjoyed as a child.
"Rogue Lead, break port!" He broke hard port, and the green lasers of a squint flashed past right where his starboard S-foils had been before. Behind it flashed the red-and-white body of an X-Wing, red light streaming out of its laser reflectors - and into the cockpit of the TIE. There was a blinding flash, and the red dot on Wedge's light display that represented the TIE winked out.
"Thanks for the save, Nine."
"No problem, Lead."
On his next pass at a TIE Interceptor, he winced as, among the green and red streaks of lethal light, he noticed a speck of New Republic starfighter pilot orange, garish against the black backgroud. That meant that one of his pilots was EV, extra-vehicular, and was rapidly using up the limited store of oxygen in his life-support system, and losing heat fast. He hoped the shuttle was on its way to whoever it was. As long as it hadn't been shot down itself, that is. His targeting brackets jittered around the TIE, and then he could hear Gate protesting as the X-Wing slewed to starboard, missing the TIE by inches; he imagined the harsh scream of the squint's engines as its solar wing arrays swept past, the sound of the Empire.
* * *
The sky was clearing, patches of blue appearing. At the very foot of a massive pillar of cloud a lone Spitfire was wallowing, responding shallowly to the frantic efforts of its pilot to evade attack by a pair of Me-109s working together. The cloud stood by like an impassive giant who ignores a child drowning at his toes. It was the hopelessness of the situation that sent Biggles into a dive, rushing to rescue the cornered Spitfire. His hunch was right; it was Ginger. Often nowadays he caught himself wondering if he had been right to take Ginger under his wing - literally - instead of sending him back home to Smettleworth, to an abusive father - and to comparative safety. Then he would have been miserable - but he wouldn't have to face death every day.
Who am I kidding, though. Knowing the kid, he'd have wangled himself into the air force anyway, as soon as war broke out. And at least this way he'd gotten valuable flying experience before the war, which has probably done more to keep him alive than anything else.
* * *
Hobbie's voice, urgent, choppy: "I've been hit! Port en... engines in the red, in...ertial com...pensator malfun...ctioning..."
* * *
Biggles was too late. He caught the Me-109 pilots by surprise, shooting one down with a well-placed stream of lead, but even as he watched, a plume of smoke blossomed from Ginger's engine. The Spitfire turned lazily on its back, and began a slow spiral down to earth. There was no parachute.
If the pilot wasn't already dead, hanging limply from his straps, he would soon be if he didn't leave the plane and fast. Biggles didn't know of anyone who'd been able to get out of their plane under such circumstances, much less survive. He circled, following the doomed Spitfire down. The other 109 had disappeared into the cloud. The dogfight was over.
But to make matters worse, one of the wings of the Spitfire tore away at the roots. Now the machine began tumbling, tumbling over and over... it would only be a few seconds before it smashed on the ground.
Good God, he thought. I've lost the kid.
***
"Eject, Six, eject! Punch out, now!"
"Can't... Lead."
Inside the cockpit of Hobbie's X-Wing, Hobbie was fighting with his controls. Inertial compensator shot. This meant that the extraordinarily high G-forces encountered by pilots of the high-performance X-Wing were no longer being absorbed by the machine. Hobbie was being buffeted; now crushed into his seat, now crushed against his restraining straps. He could not reach the eject button; the jerky rolls of his ship knocked his straining hand away from it, every time. He could picture his X-Wing tumbling in space, driven by only starboard engines; it was only with the utmost brute force that he was preventing his ship from launching into the deadly circle which would pin him in his seat and render him unable to reach his controls, or even breathe; from which no pilot with a dead inertial compensator ever recovered. As it was, he was going to black out soon anyway. Sithspawn! This was it. He was going to die at last. His only consolation was that the tractor beam exerted on him by the Interdictor would probably send his dying X-Wing on a collision course with a gravity well. Hopefully, it'd hit with enough force for him to go out with a bang, causing some worthwhile destruction so that his death wouldn't entirely be in vain.
* * *
Inside the cockpit of Ginger's Spitfire, G-forces, too, were rendering him unable to do anything. He knew he was a goner. The Spit turned over and over, compressing him in his seat - he could not even reach the latch of the cockpit, and did not dare to loosen the safety belt. His end would be in a matter of seconds now.
Biggles watched, helplessly. There was something terrible about being an observer of this awful tragedy, rather than a participant in trying to avert it.
* * *
There was a blinding flash of lightning - brighter than lightning - that lit up the wintry sky over the English Channel. The pilots of Biggles' squadron, breaking away after the dogfight, flung their gloved hands over their eyes. When they could see again, four Spitfires had gone.
* * *
Four unidentified blips winked into existence on Wedge's light display. The blips were in the atmosphere of the orange giant beyond the Interdictor. Somehow, Wedge knew the strange ships needed help just as effectively as if a voice had spoken in his head with the word "HELP!", but tried to ignore the premonition angrily as he dodged turbolasers. He was worried about Hobbie, who'd dodged death once too many and might not be able to to do it again.
* * *
When the blinding lightning disappeared, Biggles saw Ginger hit the ground.. and go right through it. He could see the roundels of the aircraft drifting just below the surface. The ground was orange. He blinked in disbelief. No - it wasn't ground. It was gas. He himself was skimming over the surface of... the ORANGE surface of an unfamiliar planet. This wasn't Earth! How could it be? A few minutes ago he had been engaged in a dogfight over the English Channel. To his relief, he was not alone; two Spitfires came roaring down into formation beside him. The pilot on his right pushed up his goggles and gestured wildly. Algy. The one on his left was gesturing equally wildly. Light reflected off a mirror in his face - oh, it was Bertie wearing his monocle, the ass. He didn't pretend to understand. By a miracle, Ginger hadn't been smashed all over the carpet - but where was he and what new danger were they in?
* * *
Standard protocol for attacking the Interdictor had worked so far. While a number of Rogue Squadron's X-Wings held off the TIEs at any given time, the few X-Wings which were momentarily free of antagonists divided themselves into two groups, synchronised proton torpedoes and fired at a specific gravity-well generator, one group firing slightly after the other. The first strike to take out the shield, the second to destroy the generator itself. In this way Rogue Squadron had destroyed two out of four generators - but two of its pilots were already extravehicular, and Hobbie's lurching ship was still headed on a collision course with the Interdictor. Then a slight lurch, a change in the tone of his engines, gave Wedge an inkling of what had happened. For confirmation he glanced at his sensor board. The Interdictor had shut down its remaining two gravity-well generators, and with the Star Destroyer was heading back out of system! That capital ship was in such a hurry to leave it did not even stop to pick up the TIE Interceptors. Wedge could not imagine why - and then he noticed the blue blips lighting up all over his light display, as General Salm's Aggressor Wing shot into the scene. The Y-Wings had recently taken a beating in the battle against Krennel's forces for Sate Pestage, but their numbers were still sufficient to impress. Though the threat was not large, if, as Wedge already suspected, the Star Destroyer and Interdictor belonged to a petty warlord, a renegade Imperial official acting for personal gain and not for the Empire, he would not risk his only capital ships being damaged, possibly captured, by the New Republic, hence his hasty retreat.
"This is General Salm of New Republic Starfighter Command. All TIE Interceptors, you know you don't stand a chance without hyperdrive transport. You are welcome to surrender."
"Rogues, it's Wishbones to the rescue again!"
"Yee-hah! X-jocks, behold the might of the Y-Wing!"
"Stuff it, Gold Squad! We had them distracted! Or you wouldn't have had a chance!"
"Drinks on you tonight, Rogues!"
Wedge switched to a private comm channel with General Salm. "General, there's something I need you to do, fast!"
He knew that after he rescued Hobbie, he'd have to rescue the strangers in the atmosphere of the gas giant below. The voice in his head had called him clearly for help, hadn't it? What was this anyway, some Force projection? He didn't have a clear idea of how it worked, and would have to ask Luke about it. He sighed.
* * *