The Bacta War

  Another explosion shook the ship. “Not anymore, sir.”

  “Captain,” yelled his communications officer, “I have a priority message from Director Isard. She’s ordering us out of here. We’re to follow the shuttle.”

  “What?”

  “That was the message, sir. She said you should get out of here before you get killed.”

  “Killed!” Drysso’s laugh quieted the bridge. “Killed? We are winning here. The Freedom is dead. Freighters are dying. That War Cruiser is next and we’ve weathered the worst those X-wings can throw at us. We have won! She can run if she wants, but the Lusankya stays here. If she wants to abandon Thyferra, I will take her place and reap what she has sown.”

  The crew stared at him, gape-mouthed and silent for a moment, then a cheer spread through the bridge, beginning at Lieutenant Waroen’s station and building around through the crew. For a handful of heartbeats Drysso thought they were cheering him, but those nearest the viewport stared past him, prompting Drysso to turn.

  Out there, hovering off the Lusankya’s port bow, was the Virulence.

  Drysso clapped his hands. “It’s the Virulence and they have our TIE squadrons. Order Virulence to deploy its fighters! Now nothing stands between us and total victory!”

  Chapter Fourty

  Three squadrons of fighters poured from the Virulence and entered the fray.

  Wedge’s heart had sunk when Gate reported the launching of the Virulence’s fighters. He brought his X-wing around and resigned himself to one last glorious battle. That Impstar only carries six TIE squadrons. I always sort of figured Rogue Squadron would go out in a blaze of glory, and this looks like it is it. “Gate, target me one of Virulence’s fighters.”

  The droid complied with a beep. Wedge glanced down at the image the droid painted on his monitor. “That’s an A-wing.”

  Gate corrected him with a bleat.

  “Okay, a Mark II A-wing.” Wedge shook his head to clear it. A-wings? Where did Isard get A-wings?

  A familiar voice crackled through Wedge’s comm unit. “Ace Lead to Rogue Leader. Mind if we crash your party, Wedge?”

  “Pash Cracken? Where in the Emperor’s dark heart did you come from?”

  “Booster’s flagship. The gravity well pulled my unit out of hyperspace right on top of Virulence during their little standoff. Booster talked the captain into believing it was all part of the trap, so she surrendered the ship to him.”

  So he finally found a ship that was big enough for him. “The Lusankya is all yours, Captain Cracken.”

  “Obliged, Wedge. We’re going in.”

  Inverting and rolling out, Wedge reoriented his X-wing toward the Lusankya as the Virulence fired a full broadside into the Super Star Destroyer. The smaller ship’s turbolasers and ion cannons wrought havoc upon the Lusankya’s port gunnery decks. A ribbon of fire raced along the port gunwale and secondary explosions kept it alive long after the Virulence’s weapons stopped firing.

  To the Lusankya’s aft, the Valiant closed to point-blank range and blasted away at the big ship’s engines. Sparks cascaded away as turbolasers drilled deep into the Super Star Destroyer. A brilliant flash eclipsed the Valiant for a 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-control 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 tight 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 ha
dn’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 inverted 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 telemetry transponder off, then shifted his weapon’s-control 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.

  I 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 than 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 Drysso—no, Admiral Drysso—of 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 Thyfonian’s flight path when Whistler announced he’d found the two frequencies 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 triggered 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?”