Darron himself acknowledged that there were cruel and even evil policies carried out under the Emperor. Still, he saw the anarchy promulgated by the New Republic as even worse. His role in the galaxy was to preserve order and allow people to live in peace. He and the Direption’s crew were the bulwark behind which those whom the New Republic’s forces would devour could hide.
When Krennel had made himself into a warlord, Darron had followed and brought his family with him. While Krennel’s mental stability—or lack thereof—did bother him, Darron feared more a world in which his children would be forced to cohabit with aliens. Such things went against the natural order of life, and he couldn’t consider himself true to his responsibilities as a father if he did not fight against such things.
But wholesale murder did not make him comfortable, either, so he found a creative solution to the village problem. With the Direption in orbit above Liinade III, Darron took a shuttle down to the village and addressed the people there. He told them that because an assassin had arisen from their ranks, their village had to be destroyed. In exquisite detail he laid out how the village would be destroyed, grid coordinate by grid coordinate. He told them that when he returned to his ship, the assault would begin, and that it would not end until every building in the whole place had been slagged.
Then he returned to his shuttle, but before it lifted off, he discussed his plans with his weapons-officers. He had them run full checks on their heavy turbolaser batteries, targeting arrays, and planetary survey data. He demanded that everything be perfect for his demonstration against these people, and when he was satisfied that all was ready, nearly three hours after he had spoken to the villagers, his shuttle returned to the Direption.
The village was razed, but no one died in the attack. Darron filed a full report that Krennel had not liked, but Darron pointed out that the homeless refugees were taken into other communities on Liinade III and carried with them their tale of Krennel’s swift retribution. The implication was that future rebellion would bring quick and probably more dire attacks. Krennel reluctantly agreed to how the situation had been handled, but had warned Darron never to fail him again.
At the front of the bridge, Darron looked out at the green-blue, cloud-streaked ball of Liinade III spinning below him. To me falls the duty of preventing the New Republic from taking this world. He sighed. Liinade III was clearly the most viable target for the New Republic. Darron had made a strong case for that point to Krennel, but the Prince-Admiral had refused to allot any more troops to its defense. At least he gave me full control of deployment. When they come, we’ll be ready.
A warning klaxon began to sound, and the blondhaired man spun around. “Lieutenant Harsis, report!”
A small, slender, dark-skinned man looked up from the sensor station. “I have two contacts, Commander. They came out of hyperspace two klicks to our aft. Looks like an Imperial Star Destroyer and a Victory-class Destroyer. Broadcast codes make them New Republic. They’re deploying fighters, X-wings, and B-wings.”
“Helm, roll us to port and bring us about. Flight Command, have our TIEs deploy while we’re turning so they can’t see them coming. Shields, I want full power now.” Darron smiled. “The mongrels have arrived, people. They aren’t welcome and we’d best let them know that.”
Admiral Areta Bell watched the holograph of the Direption roll and begin its turn from her Combat Command Center deep in the heart of the Swift Liberty. She stood there, arms folded across her chest, her booted feet firmly planted on the deck, and narrowed her blue eyes. “Helm, give me three-quarters full, heading zero-seven degrees, mark twenty. Roll me forty-five degrees to starboard.
“As ordered, Admiral.”
“Guns, give me firing solutions for the starboard guns. Pick a point and have everything hit it.” She raised her left hand to her mouth and gnawed on the flesh of her index finger for a moment. “Flight Control, get the Rogues out there. Tell them Direption is launching something while we’re blind.”
“Relaying the order now, Admiral.”
Areta nodded slowly. Given her angle of attack, she’d exchange broadsides with Direption, which would hurt her ship badly. Still, the way Moonshadow would be coming in meant that the attention paid to Swift Liberty by Krennel’s ship would leave it open to a devastating broadside from Moonshadow. And if Direption’s Captain deals with Moonshadow, I get to hammer him. His turning to attack both of us makes no sense. He should be remaining at range and fighting a delaying action until he can get reinforcements here.
“Sensors, be sharp. Someone else is coming in, or something is going to intervene. Watch for dirtside action, or something popping into our aft.”
“As ordered, Admiral. Scopes clear at the moment.”
“Sing out when they’re not.” She stared hard at the holograph of the unfolding battle. “The only surprises I want here are the ones we bring to the fight.”
Wedge jammed his throttle forward as the X-wing cleared the Victory-class Destroyer’s belly. He rolled out to port, getting himself well away from Swift Liberty as the capital ship started to maneuver in toward Direption. Further starboard, driving in at a sharper angle but still level, Moonshadow disgorged its B-wings, which formed up and flew toward the Direption. Already Wedge could see TIE starfighters and Interceptors coming up around the enemy Deuce’s hull.
Looks like they launched a whole wing. With seventy-two TIEs in the battle up against an equal number of B-wings, it looked like Corran’s comment was accurate. Then again, just because B-wings have shields and TIEs don’t, there’s no guarantee our side will prevail.
Wedge opened his comm channel. “Rogues, on me. Come up over the top of Swift Liberty and down on the squints. They’ll be outdistancing the slower TIEs. We’ll pounce, break them up, then let Salm and the others pick up our crumbs.”
He rolled his X-wing up onto its right S-foil, then pulled back on the stick. He pointed the nose up over the Swift Liberty’s knife-edge, then inverted as he came over the top. The X-wing flashed over the capital ship’s white hull, then rolled to starboard to bring the Direption into view.
The Hegemony Impstar had already leveled out to match Moonshadow’s profile. He’ll accept what Bell’s ship can do just to pound Moonshadow. Wedge shook his head. I don’t understand those tactics, which is why I’m better in this cockpit than I will ever be on the bridge of a capital ship.
Wedge nudged his stick around and, with the flick of a thumb, switched his weapons over to proton torpedo control. He centered the box on his heads-up display over the distant spark that was the lead Interceptor speeding toward the B-wings. The box started green, but quickly went yellow and, when Gate started piping in a constant tone, the box went red. Wedge pulled the trigger on his stick and launched a proton torpedo.
His target immediately rolled and broke toward the planet. There wasn’t much of a chance that he could outrun the torpedo, but Wedge knew what he was trying to do. If the Interceptor pilot could get the torpedo pointed at Liinade III, then break sharply at the last second, the missile would slam into the planet’s atmosphere and would be reduced to so much space junk.
Three other squints broke off their run on the B-wings to follow their flight leader, which suggested to Wedge that the pilots were a lot more green than they should be. Switching his weapons back to lasers and quading them up, he dropped the aiming reticle over another squint’s outline. When the crosshairs pulsed green, he tightened up on the trigger.
The four laser bolts converged on the Interceptor’s starboard wing, slicing down through it. Sparks exploded from the blaster cannons and the panel disintegrated. The squint flew on, slowly rolling over and over, functionally out of the fight.
Asyr’s X-wing flashed past Wedge’s, so he dropped in behind and starboard of her fighter. She rolled onto her port S-foil as she dove at a climbing Interceptor. The two fighters twisted around, each one’s energy weapons firing above and below the target. Then Asyr’s X-wing snaprolled ninety degrees and c
lipped off a quad burst before she began to climb up and out of the way.
Her four bolts hit. Two burst through the inside of the starboard wing, melting long gashes in it. The other two pierced the transparisteel bubble between the pilot and the vacuum of space. Something burned red and hot in the cockpit for a second, then a roiling gold explosion ripped the dead craft apart.
Wedge rolled out to the right to avoid the explosion and pulled the stick back to his chest. He brought his X-wing around, ready for another pass up through the Interceptor formation. Liinade III loomed above him for a moment, then a trio of daggerlike ships filled his vision of the sky. All three had moved into range and cut loose.
Moonshadow’s gunners concentrated their fire along Direption’s port edge, seeking to destroy the other ship’s weaponry. Heavy turbolasers, heavy turbolaser cannons, and ion beams all played out, splashing red and blue energy across the Direption’s shields. The weapons’ energy bled into the sphere of the shields, nibbling away at it, shrinking it like a balloon with a slow leak. Then suddenly the shields collapsed and beams played along the hull. Turbolaser batteries exploded and hull plates evaporated. Fire jetted into space as shots burned through the hull and consumed the atmosphere within.
Direption’s return salvo proved no less deadly to Moonshadow. The Hegemony’s gunners concentrated their fire on several points, driving energy wedges deep into the shields. Breaches opened and beams ripped long, jagged scars over Moonshadow’s surface. Sensor towers exploded and ion cannons melted beneath the withering assault.
Swift Liberty had swung down and around beneath Direption on a sharply angled course that took the ship across the Hegemony ship’s line of flight. When the gunners cut loose, half of them pounded on the pristine ventral shields, while the forward gunners hit bits of the ship left naked after Moonshadow’s assault. The Victory-class Destroyer’s weaponry was neither as extensive nor as powerful as that of the larger ships, but the turbolasers and double turbolaser batteries still ate away at the Hegemony Deuce. Liquefied weapons congealed into metal threads, and at least one secondary explosion blasted a small chunk of Direption into space.
The joyful spike that sent Wedge’s spirits soaring as he watched the damage inflicted on the enemy crashed back down as another ship materialized in the system. Smaller and blocky, it appeared slashing across Swift Liberty’s aft. That’s a Dreadnaught. It’s not that powerful, but in that close, in Bell’s aft, it can cripple her.
Tycho’s voice filled the comm channel. “Direption has a friend. Shall we introduce ourselves?”
“Squints and eyeballs first, Rogues. The big ships play with the big ships.” Wedge felt a knot tightening in his stomach. “When it comes to the point where they depend on us for a rescue, we’re all in worse shape than we ever wanted to be.”
Chapter Thirteen
Admiral Bell staggered for a second when the Dreadnaught’s attack blasted into Swift Liberty’s aft. “Did their attack breach the shields?”
“Negative, Admiral.” The Twi’lek sensor officer, Commander Tal’kina, looked up from his sensor array. “We lost gravity for a second because I had to shunt power to reinforce them.”
“Well done, Commander.” Bell flicked long locks of red hair back over her shoulder. “Helm, heading zero-four-five and level us out.”
The helmsman looked up, surprise on his face. “That will leave the Dreadnaught in our aft, Admiral.”
“Thought occurred to you, too, did it, Lieutenant Cyslo? We can weather another of their shots, and we want them watching us.” She gave the man a quick nod. “Do it, now!”
“As ordered, Admiral.”
“Good. And Guns, pour more fire into the Direption. I want it hurt and hurt now.”
Wedge snaprolled his X-wing onto the port S-foils and followed Asyr through a quick split-S maneuver that let the squints that had been on their tails overshoot them. They leveled out again and broke to starboard, applying rudder to get their noses around, then cruised in on the Hegemony fighters. Wedge chopped his throttle back a bit as he made his approach, but Asyr shot ahead and closed fast with her target.
The Bothan pilot fired off a quad burst of lasers that converged on the squint’s cockpit. The scarlet beams burned the top off the cockpit, instantly liquefying the Quadanium steel. It condensed into tiny round pellets that sparked off Asyr’s forward shields, but that was as much of a threat as the Interceptor posed to her. Fire flared in the engines, and the ship started a slow spiral down toward Liinade III.
Wedge settled in on his target and dropped his aiming reticle over it much too easily. Part of him wanted the pilot to juke and move the ship, to make the shot tough for him. He realized instantly that his desire did not come because he wanted to prove himself the superior. It’s just that I’d rather not slaughter some kid on his first mission.
Wedge immediately pushed that thought aside and tightened up on his trigger. The quad burst of laserfire drilled the Interceptor in its twin ion engines. The engine housing began to melt, warping out of shape, which compressed the reaction chamber. The engine exploded with a great gout of golden flame, jetting the Interceptor forward. The fire at the squint’s aft winked out, snuffed by the vacuum of space, leaving the fighter to fly on powerlessly.
Wedge felt a moment of remorse for the pilot’s death—whether it had come with the engine explosion or would come from exposure and suffocation as the squint’s lifesupport systems failed. He didn’t let himself dwell on the enemy’s fate, though. The other pilot had accepted the same risks Wedge did when he entered a cockpit and flew into combat. Dead is dead, no matter how you go. Wedge’s brown eyes narrowed. And the object of this exercise for me is to avoid getting dead at all
Wedge glanced at his sensor scopes, and aside from some fighters tied up in a dogfight with the B-wings, the Rogue Squadron area of operations appeared clear. “Rogue Lead to Flight Control. We are negative for targets. Do you want us on the Dreadnaught?”
“Negative, Rogue Squadron. Prepare for targeting run on Alpha target dirtside.”
“I copy, Control.” Wedge punched up the squadron’s tactical frequency. “Form up on me, we’re being cleared to go to ground.”
“There’s more targets up here, Lead.”
“Really?” Wedge smiled. “You mean Asyr left a few?”
The Bothan’s voice came on the comm channel. “I didn’t think I had.”
No, you were on a crusade, Asyr. I wonder why? Wedge shook his head. “Punch up your ground attack data. We need to be ready to go as soon as it comes time to ferry troops down.”
Tycho asked a question. “Swift Liberty doesn’t want help with the Dreadnaught?”
“They seem to think they have that situation under control, Tycho.”
Even as Wedge made that observation, he looked up through his canopy and saw the capital ship battle still under way. The Direption had begun to come about to starboard, swinging its shieldless port side away from Moonshadow. Moonshadow was coming up and turning to port, its port-side batteries firing against Direption’s aft shields. Red and blue laser and ion cannon fire pumped terajoules of energy into the shields, but somehow they stayed up.
Probably shunting energy from the port side shield projectors into the aft shields. Wedge watched as Swift Liberty cut inside Moonshadow’s maneuver and cruised beneath Direption. As Swift Liberty’s gunners got target locks, they blazed away at the larger ship’s naked left side, further compounding the damage done by the Moonshadow’s assault.
In Swift Liberty’s wake came the Dreadnaught. It continued to target the Victory-class ship’s aft shields, finally collapsing them. Red-gold turbolaser blasts scored armor around the Swift Liberty’s engines, but Wedge saw no secondary explosions. Even so, that sort of pounding will eat a ship up if it continues.
But continue it won’t.
Captain Sair Yonka’s Freedom knifed its way from hyperspace and into the battle on a course that drove it beneath Direption and straight at the Dreadnaug
ht. Yonka’s ship had come in perpendicular to Direption’s keel and raked it with shots from all its starboard guns, running from bow to stern as it passed. Heavy turbolaser batteries played shots over the Hegemony ship’s unprotected port side, burning great black pits in the ship’s white hull. Flames exploded and curled away as superheated atmosphere blew out through weakened hull plates. Ion cannons sent blue lightning skittering and leaping across the ship’s hull, with several bolts joining like ivy to grow up over the bridge. In yet more spots more laserfire burned straight through the hull. Wedge could see space through the stricken ship.
Freedom’s port gunners had no intention of being cheated of their chance to wreak havoc on the enemy. As Freedom drove forward, guns started firing on the Dreadnaught as they came into range. The sheer volume of fire filled the smaller ship’s shields with color and seemed to stop the Dreadnaught in mid-flight. Then the shields collapsed and Freedom’s precision fire started burrowing in on the Dreadnaught, right beyond the forward superstructure of the bridge. Hull plates, all twisted and half melted, flew off as secondary explosions racked the vessel. What started with fire-blackened armor became a glowing metal pit that drilled deep into the ship’s interior. Finally one huge explosion shook the ship, and all the lights in the forward section winked out.
Seconds later Wedge watched as the Dreadnaught broke into two at the point of the assault. In the cold silence of space, the bridge began to drift away from the aft, one piece twisting toward the planet and the other toward space. Fires burned at the point of the break, but quickly died as they exhausted the available oxygen.
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