STARFIGHTERS OF ADUMAR

Wedge is sent to help bring a pilot-worshiping planet into the New Republic.

He then realizes that he has been playing by Darpen's game, and refuses to do it any more. Instead of wearing Adumari dress, he forces his pilots to use their dress uniforms. He refuses any more challenges from the people of Adumar. And when the leader of Cartann decides to take over the world, he refuses to help. Of course, the Imperial pilots agree to help with the conquest, knowing what a good standing it would put them in with these people. 

Unbeknownst to Wedge, Darpen tells the Cartann leader that his pilots must be killed, for honor's sake. So the leader declares open season on the four pilots, and a chase begins. It is not a very interesting chase, as they hijack several vehicles, get to the air base and take off in some local fighters. They fight an unimpressive and unlikely battle against thirty enemies, and all of them survive, but the ships are not spaceworthy after that fight. So they go to ground. And there are no more ships after them then. I thought this was a free-for-all. After thirty ships fail, no more come? Why is that? 

Getting the help of Iella, who earlier refused to disobey her boss, is relatively easy this time. At first, she refuses, even though her love's life is about to be cut short. Realistic? I don't think so. But then the mission documentarian (yes, a documentarian!) shows her a recording of Darpen telling the Cartann leader to kill Wedge, and she changes her mind. She goes with the pilots to a neighboring nation, who is allied against Cartann. I think she would have been more useful staying where she was, with her contacts. 

Wedge manages to gather the remaining Adumari nations together, and they stage a preemptive strike against Cartann. They succeed, not that I was worried. The only real resistance they encountered was from the TIE Interceptors the Imperial pilots were flying. But once they recover their X-Wings, the battle turns and they are easily victorious. 

But the war is not over. The decisive outcome means the people of Adumar have sided with the New Republic. Rogriss leaves his Star Destroyer, for some reason, to come down to the surface. But the Destroyer leaves orbit, going to get reinforcements. Was it a mutiny? Could I think Rogriss could have kept his promise to leave Adumar peacefully and join another Imperial faction, without compromising his honor. Instead, he alone seeks sanctuary with the New Republic, and none of his officers defect with him, as has normally happened when the respected ship leader decides not to serve anymore. It has happened so often in other stories, where entire ships have defected. At the least, he could have found a planet and settled down like Daala did in Planet of Twilight, which was happening at the same time.

So we get another battle, this time between a small New Republic fleet and the reinforced Imperial fleet. Why the Imperials didn't expect more resistance is something I cannot explain. If the New Republic was going to admit Adumar into its folds, they would protect it, and they knew (from Rogriss' defection, if nothing else) that the New Republic would be expecting them. They did send in some TIE Defenders, which made their debut in Isard's Revenge, which made Wedge's job very much harder. 

But by sowing propaganda in the news feeds, the Imperials were led to believe that Adumar was still fighting a bloody civil war. And somehow the fact that these were lies made them go away. Certainly, they lost many TIE Bombers because of overconfidence, but a single Star Destroyer could bombard the planet's surface much more easily, even while being attacked by starfighters (the Mon Calamari cruiser apparently didn't enter the fight). And it's not as if they were facing Rogue Squadron. The author didn't even dignify us with a last look at some of the beloved characters that made up a real X-Wing novel.

The characters we did get were one-note, not even consistently written from the last books this author wrote. Janson was a womanizer, and was constantly cracking jokes and sarcastic one-liners. The action and fights seemed to stop to give him time to do this. Hobbie was always depressed, expecting the worst from any situation. But he didn't even get much time to do that. Tycho fared better, though he didn't get too much time, either. And he was shot down in almost every encounter they had with live guns! 

There was a local fighter champion who was assigned as their guide, who obviously wanted a relationship with Wedge. It was obvious to me what her signals meant, though the author felt the need to spell it out for the readers. She was a master at the blastsword art, and helped protect them in many situations. But she got jealous of Iella, even though the relationship was supposed to be secret. If Cheriss could figure it out, couldn't the others? Wedge never checked to see if he was being followed. She is critically injured just before Cartann's leader announces his plan for the forceful unification of their world, so she conveniently can't help Wedge with his flight to the airbase. 

I did like the situations where Wedge defies Darpen, because, as I mentioned during my review of Hung Out, I love to see such idiots and bullies get their dues. But, as with that book, this was just a minor part of a very tedious book. The battles were alright, but way too technical with "the craft dipped to the right" and then "he shifted over just a notch", and "they were not quite lined up right", closing in by centimeters, and so on, that it looked like they were extended with more words just to drag the story onwards. And no, Darpen was not killed, but the recording of him asking for Wedge's death was sent to his superiors at Intelligence. Once the story is out, he will probably be killed for treason. 

This was certainly not a terrible book, but it is far from being a good book. I cannot recommend it, even though it contains a critical part of the Star Wars mythology: the reactivation of the relationship between Wedge and Iella. This is the piece I was missing when I read Union, where I expected Wedge to still be with Qui Xux. But thank goodness that relationship was done with. I felt like the X-Wing authors teamed up against Anderson's storyline from Jedi Search. They didn't like it, so Stackpole began really budding Wedge with Iella in Isard's Revenge, and Allston re-cemented it here, giving Anderson a stuck-out tongue along the way. I feel the same way.

I just wish it could have been put together in a better package. Much better. The concept of plopping a character into an unfamiliar situation is too well-worn to work here, when continuity (not to mention interest!) requires that Wedge get a full briefing from Cracken or others. With that, the whole situation could have been resolved without having to tell this story.