This he knew and had the sensor reports to back it up. Isard herself had made it
very clear that preserving the Lusankya was vital, so disengaging when given the
opportunity to do so was the only choice he had. With the station being as
heavily armed as it was, the only prudent course of action would be to cordon it
off and let the inhabitants starve until they chose to surrender.
Once disengagement had been mandated, the next course of action had also been
obvious. He had sensor reports to indicate Antilles, the War Cruiser, and dozens
of freighters had headed out for Thyferra. That was a much larger taskforce than
Isard had anticipated being used against Thyferra. Only by returning home at
flank speed could the Lusankya be in position to destroy that taskforce. In
fact, it
seemed rather obvious, that without the Lusankya's help, the Thyferran Home
Defense Corps would be overwhelmed.
He had no choice but to return to Thyferra.
He realized that abandoning his TIE fighters at Yag'Dhul could be criticized,
but he could even explain that away. The TIEs were meant to supplement the
Virulence's defensesthe fighters could track and shoot down missiles before
they could strike the Imperial Star Destroyer. He also expected them to get in
close enough to the station to destroy launchers and then complete the
destruction of the station. That his pilots were dead if both the station and
the Virulence were destroyed meant little to himthey had their duty to do just
as he had his. If he remained to pick them up, he would have been destroyed.
Standing before the bridge viewport, he anticipated reversion into a
battlefield. As the light tunnel melted away into a scattering of stars, he saw
the green-and-white ball of Thyferra above him. No X-wings swooped about. No
TIEs filled the void with green laser fire. He saw nothing out of the ordinary,
just freighter traffic and a few system patrols.
Drysso slammed a fist off the transparisteel viewport. He'd been had by
Antilles. The feint at Thyferra had drawn him off, causing him to sacrifice the
Virulence. The Rogues probably abandoned the station except for a handful of
volunteers who were willing to trade their lives for that of the Virulence. The
convoy I saw heading away from Yag'Dhul probably moved to another basea base
we'll have to search out, all the while enduring more hit-and-run attacks by the
Rogues.
Lieutenant Waroen's voice cut through the cocoon of mortification closing around
Drysso's mind. "Captain, we have an Imperial Star Destroyer reverting to
realspace twenty-five kilometers to our aft."
How did Varrscha get the Virulence out of there? Drysso looked over at the
holoprojector pad. "Yesti, open a comm channel to that ship. Captain Varrscha,
how did you get away?"
It took him a moment to recognize the holographic image facing him, but when he
did he felt a cold hand tighten
around his heart. "Captain Drysso, I fear you've mistaken my Freedom for your
Virulence." Captain Sair Yonka smiled at him. "Don't say you're happy to see
meyou won't be."
"Captain Drysso, the Freedom is deploying snubfighters, X-wings and Uglies."
Drysso stopped before he ordered his own nonexistent fighters into battle.
"Contact the planet and have the THDC's squadrons scrambled. I want all their
fighters up here protecting me. Helm, bring us about to engage the Freedom." He
pointed a finger at Yonka's image. "I don't think, sir, when all is said and
done, you will be happy that I've seen you."
The abundant undergrowth around the Xucphra corporate headquarters provided
Iella and her people the means to get within twenty-five meters of the back
entrance. They had expected to walk up to it, set a little lock-popping charge
on it, blow it open, and be inside before much of an alarm could be raised. Ten
meters along the corridor beyond the transparisteel door they'd be in the
building's security center and would be able to control alarms and access to
corridors and turbolifts.
But now there are two stormtroopers standing guard at the door. At first glance
they looked to be the genuine articles, but Iella noticed they chatted back and
forth quite a bit. THDC banthas in rancor clothing. Even so, the strip of open
ground she needed to cover was enough that the guards, no matter how poorly
trained, should be able to cut her down. Because they had been prepared for a
pistols, so killing both of them from cover was impossible. We might hit them
with carbine shots at this range, but the armor means we don't have a guaranteed
kill.
She needed a diversion, but the only real option she had was to use an explosive
charge to distract them. The problem with that idea was that if it didn't kill
them, they'd undoubtedly report the explosion, providing more of an alert to
the forces inside than she wanted. She reached for her comlink to
ask Elscol to divert some of her people to help out, when a TIE fighter screamed
overhead at treetop level.
As a second and third TIE screeched past, Iella saw the door guards look up and
point at the starfighters. One even took his helmet off to get a better look,
tucking his headgear under his arm. Without a second thought Iella stood and
strode from the undergrowth in their direction, shielding her carbine from sight
with her body and turning her head to likewise watch the starfighters fly past.
A full dozen of the fighters roared out of their hangar, letting Iella know
Wedge and his people had finally arrived. Now if I can just do my part. She
looked up at the guards, smiling at them, as she reached the base of the stairs
leading to the door.
" 'Scuse us, ma'am, but you can't be here." The helmet-less guard leaned his
blaster carbine against the wall and began to fumble with his helmet again.
"Restricted area."
"Oh, sorry." Iella reinforced her smile, then brought her blaster carbine up.
She scythed fire back and forth, burning holes in the white plastoid arm or over
the guards' chests and bellies. The helmet fell from lifeless hands and bounced
down the ferrocrete stairs as she ran up past it. She stepped over the body of
one guard, then leveled her carbine at the door's lock and triggered a burst of
scarlet fire that vaporized it.
Before she could push the door in with her foot, two Ashern Vratix reached the
landing. With their powerful legs they kicked the guards' bodies off the
landing. Brandishing blaster pistols fitted with adapters to accommodate their
thick-fingered hands, the Ashern warriors bulled their way through the door and
stalked down the hallway.
The security station's duraplast door crumpled beneath a Vratix kick. The Vratix
went in, and lurid blue backlighting accompanied their assault. Iella arrived at
the doorway seconds behind them and went in with her carbine ready, but all
three of the Xucphra security police were out. Two had never even had a chance
to draw their blasters and all three lay in pools of steaming caf.
"Definitely picked the wrong time to be taking a break. Secure them so they
won't be a problem when they wake up."
Two human resistance fighters complied with her orders while a third dropped
into the chair at the center of the building's security console. "Can you shut
this place down, Jesfa?"
"Can a Vratix jump?" The dark-haired commando pointed at the twin banks of four
monitors atop the console. "These provide views of various sites around the
building one for each of six floors and the two towers. I can see everything
and," he added as he settled his fingers on the keyboard, "from here I can shut
everything down. This is the same system I used to use when I worked security
for Zaltin."
"Good. Lock everything down except for one turbolift. Secure the shuttle hangars
in the towers and open up the main entrance."
"Consider it done. I'll shift my comlink to Tac-two so I can keep you apprised
of anything I see."
Iella smiled. "Do that, but don't be surprised if they shoot the holocams out. I
would."
She patted him on the shoulder, then fished her comlink out of her pocket. "Hook
to Blade, we're in. The way is clear for you."
"On our way, Hook." Elscol sounded happy for the first time Iella could
remember. "Good work."
Erisi Dlarit's anger at having her squadron last in the long line of Thyferran
Home Defense Corps fliers heading out to engage the Rebels made her tighten her
grip on the Interceptor's controls. Might Squadron, a group of green pilots
that shared hangar facilities with her Elite Squadron, had been scrambled
immediately. They take their name to mean strength, but we've always considered
it the answer to the question "Will they fight?"
. She'd had to place a call to Isard's office to find out why her pilots had not
been called up, but no one there answered. Exercising the discretion her
position gave her, Erisi immediately scrambled her own squadron. Better we're
destroyed in space than destroyed on the ground.
The instant she became airborne, Erisi pulled tactical data from ground control
and didn't like what she saw. An
Imperial Star Destroyer and an Alderaanian War Cruiser were moving to engage the
Lusankya. The Imperial Star Destroyer had rolled and was flying along so its
hull was perpendicular to that of the Lusankya. This would allow the Impstar's
port gunners to be shooting down the top of the Super Star Destroyer. The
Alderaanian War Cruiser worked back toward the Lusankya's aft; and once it
worked its way in past the system's freighter traffic, it would be able to
attack the larger ship's engines.
The snubfighters deployed by the Impstar were closing in formation on the
Lusankya. The THDC fighter squadrons coming up to oppose them were not flying
together, but were strung out so the Rogues would engage them piecemeal. That's
suicidal.
Erisi punched up a tactical frequency on her comm unit. "Elite Lead to Virile
Lead. Slack your speed and let Might Squadron join up with you."
"No can do, Elite Lead. We have our orders."
"Consider them countermanded. Make sense, this is Rogue Squadron you're facing."
"And it's Rogue Squadron we'll be killing. For the glory of Thyferra."
Erisi popped her comm unit over the tactical frequency the Elites used. "Stay
tight, Elites. We're going for the Rogues. Let's hope our comrades tire them
out."
Wedge watched the tactical feed coming from the Valiant and felt a cold chill
creep up his spine. "What are they doing? Why are they coming in at us like
that?"
His R5 unit whistled curtly.
Wedge glanced at his monitor and smiled. "That was a rhetorical question, Gate.
You wouldn't have sufficient data to be able to calculate an answer." After his
last outing, Wedge had let the techs wipe Mynock's memory and upgrade his
software. Because of the modifications Zraii made on the droid, he also learned
the droid's designation had been changed to R5-G8, which he just truncated into
Gate. "Give me a check on the transponder."
Another quick whistle announced it was in full working order.
Wedge keyed his comm unit. "Thirty seconds to the first wave of TIEs. Remember,
our goal is to get at the Lusankya, not to spend our time dogfighting up here.
Kill what you must, but keep with the mission. Two, stay with me."
"As ordered, Lead," came Asyr's reply.
Wedge flicked his lasers over to dual-fire mode, picked a target among the
incoming TIEs, then waited for his aiming reticle to go red. As it did he
tightened up on the trigger, letting two bursts of fire go, then dove away from
the hissing green laser fire splashing against his forward screen.
His maneuver prevented him from seeing what happened to his target, but Gate
dispassionately flashed the message "Target eliminated" in bloodred letters at
the bottom of the monitor. Maybe Mynock wasn't really that bad. Wedge glanced at
his sensor readouts and saw only a pair of TIEs in his wake. Everyone got one,
nice shooting. He decided to leave the other two for the Twi'lek Chir'daki
pilots following them in.
Gate hooted at him.
"Thanks, Gate, I've got thirty seconds to the next TIE wave." He opened the
tactical comm channel. "Tighten it up, Rogues. Two more squadrons, then we
should be clear to go in."
37
Corran suppressed a laugh. "Only two more flights, Lead? I count five, including
one of squints."
"Agreed, Nine, but there is a two-minute gap between three and four, and another
two minutes between five and the squints. I thought we could use that time to
down the Lusankya. With your permission."
"Granted, Lead."
Corran hauled back on his stick as the second TIE flight came in, then
barrel-rolled to starboard and came over the top. The X-wing pointed itself
straight at a pair of TIEs that broke to follow his climb, but his inversion
brought him in below their flight arc. One of them tried to pull a quick loop to
bear down in on him while the other tried to force his TIE fighter down into a
dive to spot Corran again.
Corran triggered two quad bursts of fire at the diving TIE. Two of the four
laser bolts in the first shot missed, but the other two seared scars along the
bottom of the starboard hexagonal wing. The second burst struck the bottom of
the ball cockpit, slicing off the bottom third of it and severely warping the
fighter's structural elements. The twin ion engines ripped free of their
supports and blew through the cockpit canopy, then exploded.
Corran rolled away to port to escape the blast, then hit the right rudder pedal
and brought the X-wing's nose around to starboard. The looping TIE came out of
its maneuver and spitted itself on his aiming reticle. It went red, and Corran
triggered a shot at it. All four laser bolts converged on its starboard solar
panel and punched through to the cockpit. Corran saw a brief flash of light,
then the TIE started a corkscrew down toward Thyferra.
"Ten has the next flight, Nine."
Corran tucked his X-wing back in behind and to port of Ooryl's fighter. The Gand
rolled his X-wing up on the port stabilizers, presenting the incoming TIEs with
a very narrow p
rofile to shoot at. Corran aped his maneuver and watched as four
TIEs separated themselves from the rest of the formation to come after Ooryl. He
glanced at his sensors.
"Whistler, why didn't you say we were getting ahead of the rest?"
The droid hooted a quick response.
"I would too have listened to you." Corran keyed his comm unit. "Ten, we're all
alone here for a bit."
"Ooryl understands, Nine." Corran caught an edge to Ooryl's voice he couldn't
recall hearing before. "Ooryl has them."
Ooryl has them? That sounds like something Jace or I would say.
Ahead of him, Ooryl triggered a quick burst of quad fire that hit a TIE in the
cockpit canopy and blew the engines out the back of it. A little etheric rudder
shifted his aim point to port, then a second shot disintegrated another TIE's
port solar panel. Ooryl rolled out to port, then dove below the remaining
TIEs.
Sithspawn, that's great flying! Corran inverted his X-wing and pulled back on
the stick to follow Ooryl's dive, but by then the Gand had started his fighter
around in a grand loop. Corran rolled again to follow, but a sharp bleat from
Whistler made him glance at his aft monitor. "Ten, your playmates are on my
tail."
"Ooryl copies, Nine. Continue on your arc."
"Continue? They're coming up fast."
"No longer."
Up ahead Corran saw Ooryl's X-wing tighten its arc impossibly quick, swapping
nose for tail in the space of two hundred meters. The ship remained inverted, so
Corran couldn't see the cockpit, but he could imagine the Gand's mouthparts
moving apart in his imitation of a smile. "Ready to break on your mark, Ten."
"Go to port, Nine. Mark."
Corran rolled to port, then, as Ooryl had done, he reversed his thrust. Instead
of looping the ship, Corran applied rudder until his nose swung back along the
path he had just traveled. He came about just in time to see Ooryl melt the wing
off another TIE.
Its wingman dove abruptly away from the Gand's trap.
"Great shooting, Ten. You've got a hot hand."
"Thank you, Nine."
"Three flight, want to tighten it up here?"
"As ordered, Lead." Corran started his thrust pushing his fighter forward. "Come
on, Ooryl. We've got a big target now."
Captain Drysso watched the holopad's display of the battle. "Helm, Freedom is