Part 22 (1/2)
”The eyes of the Warlord are upon us,” Gavin quipped. ”TIEs inbound.”
Nawara flipped back to his lasers and broke to port with Pash. Coming up over the top, they climbed toward the in-coming eyeb.a.l.l.s. He punched all power to his forward s.h.i.+eld and prepared for a head-to-head pa.s.s. He dropped his crosshairs on the growing speck that was an approaching TIE starfighter. He watched the range close, then popped a quick shot off. A pair of laser-bolts glanced off the eyebali's port panel, imparting a spin to the s.h.i.+p. Nawara started to dive after it, but with his speed, he overshot it. ”I got the other half of it, Six.”
”Thanks, Gavin.” Nawara evened out his s.h.i.+elds and pulled back up.
Inverting his s.h.i.+p, he completed a big loop and followed the rest of squadron back into the fray. In the boiling cloud of fighters, friend and foe flashed past so quickly that it was impossible to account for everyone's posi-tion. Nawara knew a number of the other pilots in the squadron had a ”situational awareness” that was superior to his own, but he figured this battle had to be taxing even them.
And if you take long enough to line up a shot . . . The hiss of lasers gnawing away at his aft s.h.i.+eld completed his thought and sent a jolt through him. ”I have one on my tail. I'm going to try to shake him.”
Nawara hit the right rudder pedal, swinging the X-wing's aft to port. He kicked the s.h.i.+p up onto the star-board S-foil, then pulled the stick back and curled down into a corkscrew dive. He throttled back a bit, hoping his pursuer would overshoot him, but the aft scan showed the pilot pulling a twisting roll and dive that covered more distance, keep-ing him in behind Nawara.
The Twi'lek punched the throttle forward and enlarged the gap between them, then broke hard to port and started to climb again. Maybe that will get rid of him.
Lasers hissing on his aft s.h.i.+elds again told him the tactic hadn't worked. Nawara rocked the X-wing back and forth and bounced it up and down, making it a tough target to hit, but the TIE pilot stayed with him.
! have to do something. Sweat formed on his upper lip and leaked in at the corners of his mouth, coating his tongue with the taste of copper.
His lekku twitched in their fabric prisons. Maybe if I run into the Graveyard . . .
He started to pull up and head for the asteroids, when something behind him exploded. He glanced at his aft moni-tor and saw no TIE there.
”Thanks.”
”My pleasure, Six.” Erisi seemed pleased with herself. ”My wing would be distraught if you were hurt.”
”I owe you, Four, for the both of us.”
”Acknowledged, Six.”
Aril Nunb's voice broke in on the comm channel. ”Lambs are running.”
”Thanks, Twelve, let them go.” Wedge's voice lacked none of its earlier vehemence. ”We've got plenty to do here.”
Nawara brought his X-wing up and evened out the s.h.i.+elds. Trailing Erisi back in toward the fight, he saw two or three TIEs explode. Another came shooting out of the dog-fight, then barrel-rolled in on Erisi for a broadside shot at her.
”Four, break up!” Nawara snapped his fighter up on the port S-foil, then climbed. He swooped in on the eyeball, stayed with it as the pilot juked down, then hit his trigger. The first pair of laser-bolts only melted holes in the starboard solar panel, but the second hit the ball c.o.c.kpit dead on. The TIE began to spin out of control, then exploded in a cloud of brilliant incandescent gas. Debris sparked off his forward s.h.i.+eld as he flew past the outer edges of the fireball.
”Lead, Five here. The TIEs are breaking off. They're heading for the Graveyard.”
”I copy, Five. Rogue Squadron, let them go.”
”You can't be serious, Lead.”
”I am, Gavin.”
”But what they did--”
”Doesn't matter right now. They're dead and they know it. I don't want any of us getting dead. Regroup in your flights and stand by.” A momentary squeal ended Wedge's transmission, telling Nawara that the commander was s.h.i.+ft-ing over to a different comm unit frequency.
Nawara rolled his fighter and dove down to where Pash and the other two members of Two flight were orbiting. Peer-ing out through his c.o.c.kpit canopy, he got the first good look at the remains of the convoy. If humans can bring themselves to do this to a convoy of s.h.i.+ps hauling bacta, I am glad I'm not human.
A few of the freighters were still recognizable as such. Hull compartments had been blown open by explosions. Bacta that had geysered out through the holes had flash-frozen into monuments to the terror the s.h.i.+ps' crews must have felt. Fires burned deep in the hearts of several s.h.i.+ps, consuming the last remnants of atmosphere. Pieces of other s.h.i.+ps drifted through the area, slamming into one another, breaking up yet further to careen into other dead hulks.
The worst image Nawara saw was of one small s.h.i.+p - one barely bigger than the Skate - that appeared, from the prow to mids.h.i.+ps, to be intact. Back of that point the s.h.i.+p did not really exist--at least, nothing recognizable as a s.h.i.+p. Turbolaser fire had hit so fast that the latter half of the s.h.i.+p had been liquified. An amorphous blob of metal fringed with condensed metal mist, like the down from a silvery bird, trailed in the s.h.i.+p's wake.
The sheer violence of the attack that had destroyed that s.h.i.+p shook Nawara. The transparisteel c.o.c.kpit panels on the s.h.i.+p had blown out. He realized the Super Star Destroyer's turbolasers would have superheated the atmosphere in the s.h.i.+p. The crew would have been cooked inside and out in the blink of an eye. They would have been dead before they knew what had happened to them, but their last moments must have been full of terror because of the SSD's presence.
Nawara keyed his comm unit. ”Hypothetical question: you're part of a convoy with minimal arms and you come out of hypers.p.a.ce in the shadow of a Super Star Destroyer and a Strike Cruiser that's deployed its TIEs. Do you pro-voke an attack?”
”Ooryl cannot see how anyone would be that suicidal.”
”Right, so you'd surrender and tell the SSD that you're hauling bacta, which is currently very valuable.” Nawara frowned. ”It makes no sense for anyone to have killed the convoy.”
”That's why to know Warlord Zsinj is to wonder about his sanity.” Disgust filled Pash's voice. ”He's definitely some-one who needs a lot of killing.”
”Count me in.”
”Me, too.”
A squeal came through the comm unit, then Wedge spoke. ”I've just had word with the TIEs. They're giving up---they were uneasy with the mission and they don't like the fact that we showed up. They're going to recon the han-gar sections of Termagant and see if they can reboard.”
”Why, that hulk's not going anywhere? The engines are in the other half and it's headed for the Graveyard.”
”I noticed, Four. They're going to check for survivors and try to pick up enough oxygen to survive for as long as they can. Pash, ! want you to take Two flight out of here and make for Tatooine. It's about eight hours out, give or take. Gavin can guide you in to Mos Eisley. Refuel there and hire a freighter that can carry a dozen TIEs. Get it here and haul the pilots clear. I'm sure your father would like to debrief them, so you should probably bring them to Coruscant with you.”
”As ordered. We fly cover for the freighter in case our friends have any ideas about trying to commandeer it?”
”Right, though I don't think you'll find much opposi-tion.”
”How so?”
”Scan the debris. There's a lot of TIE parts out there and--”
Nawara looked at the readout his R5 scrolled up his screen. ”X-wing debris. But we didn't lose anyone.”
”No, we didn't.” Some of the anger drained from Wedge's voice. ”Of course, that's not what Zsinj's people say. They say they already killed off Rogue Squadron, right here, defending the convoy the way it was supposed to. Then we arrived and showed them we were tougher to kill the second time around.”
Nawara blinked. ”But that makes no more sense than attacking the convoy in the first place.”
”No it doesn't, but there's no time to try to figure it out now. You get to Tatooine. We'll check for survivors here, then head back to Coruscant and report. See you there in a day or so.” Wedge sighed. ”If by then you come up with any brilliant thoughts on what's happened here, I know I, for one, will be more than willing to listen to them.”
3O.
Kirtan Loor would have been trembling with outrage, but the lethargy of despair had a higher priority. He knew his days were numbered, and he wouldn't have bet on double digits even if given the longest of odds. He freely a.s.sumed the only reason he still lived was because Ysanne Isard enjoyed the thought of him cowering in fear, dreading each new day.
Yet even facing certain death at her hands, Loor did greatly admire how lsard had gotten him and Warlord Zsinj and the New Republic in one simple set of maneuvers. Rogue Squadron would also have been caught in the trap had their operation not fallen behind schedule--and if ! had not been playing my game.
Within 24 hours of the ambush at Alderaan, Zsinj had sent a message to Coruscant via what was left of the Imperial HoloNet system, indicating he and his people had attacked the bacta convoy because, according to his sources, the bacta was tainted and would have exacerbated the Krytos virus problem. He further claimed that Rogue Squadron had been present, had indicated they knew the bacta was tainted, and had fully intended that it should be distributed on Coruscant to ”get rid of the xeno-trash”
the Empire had left behind. He said he had no choice but to destroy the convoy and Rogue Squadron, then beseeched people to overthrow the New Re-public's government and flock to his banner.