Free Star Wars Journal - The Fight for Justice by Luke Skywalker by John Peel Page B

fighters to keep us busy. They launched several waves of them, which came out to intercept us before we could reach the Death Star. We’d been expecting this, of course. My group, Red Flight, was assigned to run interference. Gold Flight, Y-wing fighters, were going to go for the exhaust port. They had stronger armaments and a better chance of hitting the target.
    Leia had given me a kiss for luck before I’d taken off. Han, almost ready to leave, had called, “May the Force be with you.” Not that he believed in it, but he obviously wanted to say something other than, “Good-bye, kid.” Threepio had told Artoo to come back in one piece. All our friends were thinking of us, even if they couldn’t be up there with us.
    And then the battle began.
    I can’t remember all the details because it was so hectic. TIE fighters were at us, cannons blazing. Artoo kept plotting and replotting courses, and watching the ship’s systems closely. I just flew and fired. Biggs was close by me, and I know we saved each other’s lives at least once during the fight. I’m not sure how many TIE fighters I got exactly. We were hit once, but it wasn’t too bad, and Artoo had the problem under control pretty quickly.
    Still, the Imperials were launching more and more TIE fighters. How many did the Death Star have aboard? There was no way of telling, but they seemed to have an endless supply of them! Of course, there were bound to be more TIE fighters than X-wings, but I couldn’t help wondering what we were up against. The only thing I knew for sure was this: the longer the battle lasted, the more likely we were to lose.
    Gold Flight went in for the attack, while we covered them. Between the TIE fighters and the turret guns on the Death Star itself, it wasn’t easy, but we did our best. Everyone was being rocked by explosions as the Y-wings went in. They switched on their targeting computers and entered the trench. The rest of us passed overhead, firing alternately at the TIE fighters and then at the guns below.
    It was total chaos, explosions everywhere. But no matter how many we took out, there were always more. Gold Flight ran into trouble, too. The trench was long but narrow. One of the Gold Flight slammed into a wall and went down in flames. Another was hit by guns. But Gold Leader made it and let his torpedoes go.
    And they missed. After all that, they missed.
    They exploded harmlessly just about the same second the guns got Gold Leader.
    And then it was just the remnants of Red Flight, as we whirled about as fast as we could, heading back into action again. We didn’t have any option but to try again. The Reds weren’t carrying very strong torpedoes—but theoretically, a couple of good shots from one of them could knock out the exhaust port. Theoretically.
    Red Leader and two men went into the trench. Biggs, Wedge, and I provided their cover.
    We dove for the trench together, trying to avoid the fire from the guns below. If we got low enough, they couldn’t fire down. Of course, we had to virtually scrape paint off the Death Star to get that low, but Biggs and I had done worse back home on Tatooine. We’d taken some crazy risks as kids, and the experience was starting to pay off. It was just like blasting womp rats, even if the rats were fighting back.
    I took another minor hit, and Artoo managed to reroute the systems. A stabilizer had broken loose, but the droid managed to get it operational again. Then the attack was on.
    Flying low and firing like crazy, Biggs, Wedge, and I covered Red Leader. But we weren’t good enough to stop everything. One of our ships went down, and then the second. Red leader fired his torpedoes, but once again he missed.
    Maybe Han was right. Maybe this was impossible.
    Red Leader went down in flames, and there were just the three of us left. And three enemy TIE fighters, including one that was being flown as if a demon piloted it. I was almost certain one was, and that his name was Darth