moment. A violent tremor shook the Lusankya, snapping free a blackened chunk of
the bow.
Fast and nimble, Pash's A-wings slashed in at the Lusankya. They flitted over
the massive ship's surface, shooting concussion missiles at gunnery towers and
sensor domes. Fiery craters stippled the Lusankya in their wake. What few
weapons did remain on the Lusankya fired ineffectively at the A-wings; all of
their destructive power proved impotent against a target they could not hit.
"Rogue Lead, this is Three. We're going in for a strafing run."
"I copy, Gavin." Wedge glanced at his monitors, but the only TIEs he saw were
the ones escorting the shuttle. Can't catch them now. "If you don't mind, Three,
I think I'll join you."
Closing with the squints Corran switched his weapon's-con-trol over to lasers
and linked them for dual-fire. While a quad burst would be certain to burn a
squint down, dual-fire allowed the guns to cycle that much faster. One shot
should still be a kill, but if these guys can put the maneuverability of
those squints to good use, I'll need all the shots I can get. His X-wing still
had an advantage because of its shields, but that still didn't make him immune
to damage.
"Nine, let's be careful."
"As ordered, Seven. Ten, on me."
"Ooryl copies."
"Whistler, scan comm frequencies and bring up whatever one they're using.
Squelch scrambled messages. I don't care what they're saying to each other. I
just want to be able to talk to them."
Whistler moaned in a low tone.
"Yes, I do think Erisi is flying with them. I want to let her know who's coming
after her."
The droid hooted derisively.
"She can decide to flame me all she wants, doesn't matter." Corran let himself
smile. "She already knows I can play hard to get. She's the reason I went down
on Coruscant, and I'm bringing her down here."
He picked one of the squints in the middle of the formation as a target, but
kept his flight path pointed as if he were preparing to attack one of the closer
Interceptors. As the close Interceptors broke, Corran rolled on his starboard
stabilizers as if he were going to follow them, but then applied some rudder and
spitted his target on his aiming reticle. He tightened up on his trigger.
Two sets of two bolts skewered the squint's ball cockpit. The twin ion engines
exploded, launching debris into space from amid a silvery fireball. Pieces of
the fighter struck sparks from Corran's shields, but he reinforced them quickly
enough. "Scratch one squint."
Whistler keened at him so Corran punched a previously unlit button on his comm
unit. "Hope that wasn't you, Erisi. I'd hate to think your flying skill had
atrophied so much."
"It's my killing skill that should be concerning you, Corran."
"Eight here. I have a pair on my tail."
"Seven on the way, Eight, hold tight."
Corran rolled and came out in a loop with Ooryl in his aft port quarter. Two
TIEs were lining up for a run on
Nawara's X-wing. Tycho pulled a right turn that brought him around quickly, but
he only managed to pick off the trailing TIE. Nawara broke hard to port, then
twisted back again to starboard, but the squint stayed with him throughout his
maneuvers.
That's got to be Erisi.
The Interceptor fired four times, the first two pairs of green laser bolts
burning through Nawara's aft shield. The other two blew out the port engines and
hit the fuselage right behind the cockpit. Nawara's astromech exploded, then the
cockpit canopy flew apart. When fire filled the cockpit Corran feared for the
worst, then he saw the X-wing's command couch jet out from the stricken fighter.
"Eight is extravehicular!" Corran's green eyes narrowed. "Ten, keep them off
him. I'm going after Erisi. Whistler, give me her comm frequency again."
The droid complied with the order silently.
"Always did pick off the easy targets, didn't you, Erisi? Couldn't stand to work
hard, could you?"
"Is that you on my tail, Corran? All alone?" Her laughter filled his cockpit. "I
thought you'd learned from your father that dying alone wasn't something to do."
"That should be your concern, Erisi, because I'm not dying here. Horn out." He
punched the comm unit button that cut frequency off. "Come on. Whistler, it's
time we collect the debt she owes us."
Corran's X-wing streaked in on Erisi's trail, but the squint juked and danced,
making it impossible for him to get a good shot at her. As she broke to port,
Corran rolled out into a long starboard loop and began a head-to-head run with
her. The squint broke to starboard before they could close, forcing him to turn
to port to pursue. Okay, she knew head to head would be suicide.
As her ship began to pull away from his, Corran realized killing her wasn't
going to be as easy as he expected. While she hadn't been a bad pilot in an
X-wing, she wasn't as good as he was. Her Interceptor, on the other hand, has
more speed and maneuverability than my X-wing. That might give
her the edge she lacked before. And she knows very well all the performance
capabilities of my ship.
Corran smiled. You don't fly against a fighter, you fly against the pilot, and
her arrogance is one huge flaw I can exploit. Corran pulled his throttle back to
85 percent of full power, letting her stretch her lead on him. He rolled up on
his port stabilizer and started a long loop that would take him back toward the
main dogfight. He started in on an attack vector for one of the Interceptors.
While flying along it, he watched his main monitor. The rate of change for the
range between his ship and Erisi's Interceptor slowed as the distance
stabilized, then the distance started to decrease. The rate of change
accelerated, and when the range hit three kilometers, Corran hauled back on his
stick. He tightened his loop considerably, then punched his throttle forward and
headed straight for her.
Her hastily snapped shots splashed harmlessly over his forward shields. Corran
fired back, catching her squint on the port wing. He inverted and dove, then
i nverted again and cruised out into a long loop that took him past Thyferra's
cloudy face. "How badly is she hit, Whistler?"
The droid graphed performance statistics on the main monitor. The Interceptor
had suffered a 5 percent reduction in speed, which still left it faster than the
X-wing, but not by that much. There also appeared to be a reduction in
maneuverability, but not enough to cripple her performance. This is going to
take a while.
"Nine, are you chasing Erisi?"
"Yes, Seven."
"Finish her fast."
"You need help?"
"Ten is handling things, but the shuttle is running. It can clear to lightspeed
if we don't stop it."
"I copy, Seven. I'm on it." He glanced at his monitor. "Whistler, give me range
to the freighters who were tied to my torpedo telemetry."
The droid whistled mournfully. "No, it's okay that they're all out of range. I
didn't want them wasting any torps."
Just to be on the safe side, he hit the switch that turned the telemet
ry
transponder off, then shifted his weapon's-con-trol over to proton torpedoes.
Coming about, he picked Erisi up and started after her again. He nudged his nose
up and to port, getting a stuttered beeping from Whistler as the droid tried to
get a firing solution for the Interceptor. The tone went constant as the reticle
went red.
Corran hit the trigger and launched both torpedoes at Erisi. His last two proton
torpedoes streaked out at her and she immediately began maneuvering to avoid
them.
/ have thirty seconds to kill her. Corran switched back to lasers, then drained
energy from his aft shield and fed it into his engines. That kicked his speed up
to better them that of an unhurt Interceptor, allowing him to close the gap
between their ships fast.
As the missiles approached her Interceptor, Erisi rolled to port and broke hard
toward Thyferra's largest moon. The missiles overshot where she had been, then
turned and started in pursuit again. She kept her ship pointed straight at the
bone white moon and as the torpedoes closed with her again, she rolled to port
and pulled her fighter into a glide path that followed the rough terrain of the
lunar surface.
One torpedo, unable to fight inertia and lunar gravity both, slammed into the
moon and exploded. The second sailed through the gout of lunar dust and started
closing with the Interceptor. Erisi bounced her squint up and over a ridgeline
and back down again, interposing it between her and the torpedo.
The ridge shielded her from the torpedo's blast.
It also blinded her aft sensors to Corran's presence.
As Erisi pulled her squint up to climb away from the moon's surface, Corran came
up over the ridge and pounced. Pairs of scarlet bolts burned into the squint,
shredding both solar panels. As the stabilizers disintegrated, the Interceptor's
climb became a loop into a dive that brought it in on a collision course with
the moon. Both engines thrusting fully, the Interceptor plowed into the lunar
surface, gouging out a huge furrow. The Interceptor hit the edge of a small
impact crater, skipped up, then battered itself again and again against the
moon. Finally, crushed into a shape that was unrecognizable as any part of a
fighter, it rolled to a stop as the engines sputtered out.
Corran circled the spot once. "No explosion, nothing spectacular. Erisi would
have hated it."
Whistler blatted harshly.
"Right who cares what she would have wanted." Corran pulled his X-wing away
from the moon. "Find me that shuttle, Whistler. I don't care who's on it, we're
going to stop it."
Another salvo from the Virulence ripped into the Lusankya as Wedge swooped low
over the Super Star Destroyer and peppered its hull with laser bolts. The
Lusankya tried to defend itself, but the surface-mounted turbolaser cannons
simply made themselves targets for strafing runs by X-wings, A-wings, Twi'leki
Chir'daki, and the Gands' curious ships. What shots the Super Star Destroyer did
get off at the Virulence failed to penetrate the smaller ship's shields.
The Lusankya is fast becoming defenseless. Much more of this hammering and the
ship could begin to break up, and that would jeopardize the prisoners we want to
rescue from her. Wedge pulled up and flashed past the bridge. "Gate, get me an
open comm channel to the Lusankya."
The droid complied with the order instantly. "This is Commander Wedge Antilles
to the Captain of the Lusankya. We'll accept your surrender at any time."
An angry, shrill voice arced through the comm unit. "This is Captain Joak
Dryssono, Admiral Dryssoof the Lusankya. We will never give up."
"Captain . . ."
"How dare you insult me!"
"Admiral, then, even Grand Admiral, if it will make you see sense. Your shields
are down. Your engines are hit. You have no fighter cover, you can't hurt your
opposition." Wedge let his damage assessment sink in for a moment. "It's
hopeless. No one else needs to die. Give up."
"Give up? An Imperial Grand Admiral never gives up. If you think one would,
you'll rue the day you engaged one!"
"That could be, sir, but that day isn't today!. We'll treat all your people with
all due respect." Wedge fought to keep his voice even. "Surrender."
"Never! We are all loyal sons of the Empire. We are not afraid to put death
before dishonor. Helm, give me all speed. We're going to ram the planet! There,
Antilles, see, a Grand Admiral never . . ." The comm unit popped and abruptly
went silent.
"Drysso!"
"Captain Drysso isn't here anymore, sir. Ah, this is acting-Captain Waroen."
"Are you going to crash your ship into the planet, Waroen?"
"Not if I can help it, sir. If you could get the War Cruiser to stop shooting my
engines, and if Virulence will pull us a bit further out into orbit so we don't
crash of our own accord, we'll accept any conditions for surrender you want to
offer us."
"I'm happy to be working with you, Captain Waroen. What you're doing is no
dishonor."
"I know that, sir, and I think it beats death all hollow."
Corran found the shuttle easily enough and brought his X-wing in on its aft
without a problem. He flipped his lasers over to quad fire. "Whistler, see if
you can open a comm channel to the shuttle." Corran fired his lasers across the
the shuttle was using.
"Just pick one." Corran punched the button on his comm unit. "This is Corran
Horn to shuttle Thyfonian. Stop now and turn back to Thyferra, or I'll be forced
to destroy you."
A moment's delay ended with a voice Corran had never expected to hear again
coming through the comm channel. "I should have known it would be you, Horn. Go
away. You can't stop me with your lasers."
"Maybe this will warm your heart, Ysanne." Corran dropped his aiming reticle on
the shuttle's rear and pulled the trigger. Burst after burst of laser fire
splashed against the spacecraft's shields, but did not penetrate them. What?
Shuttle's shields aren't that good,
"You can thank Fliry Vorru for me, if he's still alive. He ordered
heavy-capacity shield generators for his shuttle. Cuts down on the passenger
room, but I don't mind. Quite simply, your X-wing lacks the power to burn
through them."
Maybe one will. Corran shifted his comm unit over to the squadron's tactical
frequency. "Nine could use some help here. It's Isard. I can't get through the
shuttle's shields."
"Seven here, Nine. Coming as fast as I can. Keep her from jumping to
lightspeed."
"I'll do my best, but I need your lasers to stop her."
"I copy, Nine. I'll hurry."
"Whistler, project how long it will be before she's clear to go to lightspeed."
The droid splashed an image of the solar system up on Corran's secondary
monitor. He used overlapping circles of color to indicate the boundaries for
gravitational effects of the bodies in the system and showed the shuttle as a
pinpoint of light at the edge of Thyferra's hyperspace mass shadow.
Sithspawn, she's almost there. Corran trigge
red another burst of laser fire, but
it only washed a bloody hue over the aft shield. What if she's bluffing and just
has all power going to the aft shield! That's just the sort of thing she'd do.
He punched power to his throttle and let the X-wing surge forward. He brought it
around in a loop that would give him an oblique shot at the shuttle's port side.
As he sailed in, the shuttle shifted direction and came about to face him.
Corran hit his trigger and pulsed energy into the shuttle's shields.
The shuttle fired back. Green energy darts blew through the X-wing's forward
shield and hit the port stabilizer. Corran rolled immediately and dove, then
came back up in a weave that took him in behind the shuttle. "Whistler, what
just happened?"
Isard's voice crackled over the comm channel. "Did I mention that Vorru also
upgraded the lasers on this ship?"
I'll give you an upgrade, Iceheart. Corran snarled as he looked at the
diagnostics listing Whistler scrolled op on his main monitor. He winced, then
looked to his port S-foil. Where once there had been a pair of laser cannons he
had melted metal. And about a meter less of S-foil. A glance at the secondary
monitor showed Isard had a kilometer before she could begin the run to
lightspeed. Once she gets clear, it's just level flying and she's out of here.
Corran slowly smiled. Upgraded that thing, did he, Iceheart? The Corellian pilot
flipped his weapon's-control over to proton torpedoes and dropped it on the
shuttle's outline. Whistler began to beep as he tried for a firing solution.
Out ahead of the X-wing the shuttle began to juke, broadening Corran's smile.
Yes, he supplied the shuttle with a missile targeting lock warning system. Only
good thing you've done in your black life, Vorru.
"So your shields won't stop a proton torpedo, eh, Iceheart?"
"You'll find out if you ever get a lock on me, Horn."
Corran glanced at his monitor and saw Tycho's X-wing eight kilometers back and
closing slowly. As long as you keep dancing, Iceheart, you can't run up to
lightspeed. That means we can burn you down. "I'll get a lock on you, then
you're done."
He painted her with a target lock again, but allowed her to break it. He
reacquired it again and shifted his ship around to herd her back toward
Thyferra's mass shadow. The shuttle rolled in the other direction, breaking the