by Paul S. Kemp
“Scans show no other ships in the system,” Vader said.
“Confirmed,” the squadron commander replied.
The voice of one of the pilots carried over the comm: “They’re powering up for another jump, Lord Vader.”
“Follow my lead,” Vader ordered, and accelerated to attack speed. “Do not allow them to jump again.”
The V-wings and Vader’s interceptor were far faster and more maneuverable than the transport and closed on it rapidly, devouring the space between. Vader did not bother consulting his instrumentation. He fell into the Force, flying by feel, as he always did.
Even before the interceptor and the V-wings closed to within blaster range, one of the freighter’s engines burped a gout of blue flame and burned out. The hijackers had overtaxed the transport in their escape attempt.
“I want the shields down and the remaining two engines disabled,” Vader said. Disabling the engines would prevent another hyperspace jump. “Do not destroy that ship.”
The heavier armaments of the transport had a longer range than the interceptor and V-wings’ blasters and opened up before the starfighters got within blaster range.
“Weapons are hot, go evasive,” said the squadron leader as the transport’s automated gun turrets filled the space between the ships with green lines. The starfighter squadron veered apart, twisting and diving.
Vader felt as much as saw the transport’s blasters. He cut left, then hard right, then dived a few degrees down, still closing on the transport. One of the V-wings to his left caught a green line. Its wing fragmented and it went spinning and flaming off into the system.
The larger, crewed, swivel-mounted gun bubbles on either side of the transport’s midline swung around and opened fire, fat pulses of red plasma.
“Widen your spacing,” the squadron commander said over the comm. “Spacing!”
A burst of red plasma caught one of the V-wings squarely and vaporized it.
“Focus your fire on the aft shields,” Vader said, his interceptor wheeling and spinning, sliding between the red and the green, until he was within range. He fired and his blasters sent twin beams of plasma into the aft shields. He angled the shot to maximize deflection. He did not want to pierce them and damage the ship, just drain them and bring them down.
The rest of the squadron did the same, hitting the transport from multiple angles. The transport bucked under the onslaught, the shields flaring under the energy load and visibly weakening with each shot. The entire squad overtook and passed the freighter, the green and red shots of its weapons chasing them along.
“Maintain spacing, stay evasive, and swing around for another pass,” the squadron commander ordered. “Split squadron and come underneath.”
The squadron’s ships peeled right and left, circling back and down, and set themselves on another intercept vector. Vader decelerated enough to fall back to the rear.
“Bring the shields down on this pass, Commander,” he said. “I have something in mind.”
—
Pok had left the channel open so Cham and his crew could hear the activity aboard the hijacked freighter’s bridge—Pok barking orders, someone calling the attack vectors of the V-wings, the boom of blasterfire on shields.
“Pok!” Cham said. “We can help!”
“No!” Pok said. “We’re already down one engine. We can’t power up yet, and there’s a Star Destroyer somewhere behind these V-wings. There’s nothing you can do for us, Cham.” To one of his crew, Pok shouted, “Get the hyperdrive back online!”
An explosion sent a crackle of static and a scream of feedback along the channel.
“Shields at ten percent,” someone on Pok’s bridge called out.
“Hyperdrive still nonoperational,” said someone else.
Isval grabbed Cham by the arm, hard enough for it to hurt. She spoke in a low, harsh voice. “We have to help them.”
But Cham didn’t see how they could. If he left the shelter of the rings, the V-wings or interceptors or whatever they were would pick them up on scan, and Cham had no illusions about the ability of his helm or his ship should they be discovered.
“No,” Cham said to the helm. “Stay put.”
—
Vader watched the transport go hard to port, taking an angle that would allow both of the midline weapons bubbles to fire on the approaching starfighters. As soon as they entered the transport’s range, the automated turrets and gun bubbles opened fire, filling space with beams of superheated plasma. The V-wings swooped and twisted and dodged, spiraling through the net of green and red energy.
Vader, lingering behind, piloted his ship between the bolts, above them, below them. A third V-wing caught a shot from a gun turret and exploded, debris peppering Vader’s cockpit canopy as he flew through the flames.
When the V-wings got within range, they opened fire and the freighter’s shields fell almost immediately.
“Shields down, Lord Vader,” the squadron leader reported.
“I’ll take the engines,” Vader said. “Destroy the turrets and the starboard-side midline gun bubble.”
The pilots of his squadron, selected for their piloting excellence and a demonstrated record of kills, did exactly as he’d ordered. Small explosions lit up the hull, and the gun emplacements disappeared in flowers of fire. The transport shook from the impact as the V-wings swooped past it, up, and started to circle back around.
Meanwhile Vader veered to his left and down, locked onto the engines, and fired, once, twice. Explosions rocked the transport aft, and chunks of both engines spun off into space. Secondary explosions rocked the vessel, but it otherwise remained intact. Vader slowed still more, trailing the transport.
“She’s running on inertia now, sir,” said the squadron commander. “When the Perilous arrives, she can tractor the transport into one of her bays.”
“I have no intention of leaving the hijackers aboard the ship that long,” Vader said. He knew the hijackers would try to blow the ship, and there were enough weapons in the cargo bay to do just that. “I’m going to board her.”
“Sir, the docking clamp on that ship is too damaged, and there’s no landing bay,” said the squadron commander.
“I am aware of that, Commander,” Vader said.
The sole remaining gun bubble—operated by one of the hijackers—swung around and opened fire on Vader’s ship. Still using the Force to guide him, Vader slung his ship side to side, up and down, staying just ahead of the blasterfire as he headed straight for the bubble. He could see the gunner inside the transparent canopy, feel his presence, insignificant and small, through the web of the Force.
“Sir…,” the commander said as the V-wing squadron circled back around, but Vader did not acknowledge him.
Vader hit a switch and depressurized the interceptor’s cockpit, his armor shielding him from the vacuum. Then, as he neared the transport’s midline, still swinging his ship left and right to dodge the incoming fire, he selected a spot on the transport adjacent to the gun bubble and, using the Force, took a firm mental hold on it.
His interceptor streaked toward the gun bubble, aimed directly at it. Content with the trajectory, he unstrapped himself, overrode the interceptor’s safeties, threw open the cockpit hatch, and ejected into space.
Immediately he was spinning in the zero-g, the ship and stars alternating positions with rapidity. Yet he kept his mental hold on the air-lock handle, and his armor, sealed and pressurized, sustained him in the vacuum. The respirator was loud in his ears.
His ship slammed into the gun bubble and the transport, the inability of the vacuum to transmit sound causing the collision to occur in eerie silence. Fire flared for a moment, but only a moment before the vacuum extinguished it. Chunks of debris exploded outward into space and the transport lurched.
—
A great boom sounded through the connection. Alarms wailed, and Pok’s bridge exploded in a cacophony of competing conversations.
“Pok, what just
happened?” Cham asked. “Are you all right?”
“We had a collision. We’re all right. Get me status on the damage,” Pok said to someone on his bridge. “Get someone over there now.”
—
“Sir! Sir!” the squadron commander called, his voice frantic in Vader’s helmet comm. “Lord Vader! What’s happening, sir?”
Vader’s voice was calm. “I’m docking with the transport, Commander.”
Using the Force, Vader stopped his rotation and reeled himself in toward the large, jagged, smoking hole his interceptor had torn in the transport’s hull. Loose hoses and electrical lines dangled from the edges of the opening, leaking gases and shooting sparks into space. A portion of his ship’s wing had survived the impact and was lodged in the bulkhead. The rest had been vaporized on impact.
Vader pulled himself through the destruction until he stood in the remains of a depressurized corridor. Chunks of metal and electronics littered the torn deck, the whole of it smoking from the heat of impact. The V-wings buzzed past the transport, visible through the hole in the bulkhead.
“Sir?” said the squadron commander.
“All is under control, Commander,” Vader said.
Several members of the fighter squadron whispered awed oaths into their comms.
“Maintain comm discipline,” the squadron leader barked, though Vader could hear the disbelief in his tone, too. “My lord…there are dozens of hijackers aboard that transport.”
“Not for much longer, Commander,” Vader said. “You are on escort duty now. I will notify you if anything else is required.”
A pause, then, “Of course, sir.”
The transport’s automatic safeties had sealed off the corridor with a blast door, but he knew the codes to override them. He strode through the ruin and entered the code. The huge door slid open, and pressurized air from the hall beyond poured out with a hiss. He stepped through and resealed the door behind him. A few more taps on a wall comp and he’d repressurized the hall. The shrill sound of the transport’s hull-breach alarm wailed from wall speakers.
A hatch on the far side of the hall slid open to reveal a purple-skinned Twi’lek man in makeshift armor. Seeing Vader, the Twi’lek’s head-tails twitched, his eyes widened in surprise, and he grabbed for the blaster at his belt. By the time the Twi’lek had the blaster drawn and the trigger pulled, Vader had his lightsaber in hand and ignited. He deflected the blaster shot into the wall, raised his off hand, and with it reached out with the Force. He made a pincer motion with his two fingers, using the Force to squeeze closed the Twi’lek’s trachea.
The Twi’lek pawed frantically at his throat as Vader’s power lifted him off the deck, but to his credit he held on to his weapon, and gagging, dying, he managed to aim and fire his blaster at Vader again and again. Vader simply held his grip on the alien’s throat while casually deflecting the blasts into the bulkhead with his lightsaber. Then, not wanting to waste time, he moved his raised hand left and then right, using the Force to smash the Twi’lek into the bulkhead. The impacts shattered bone, and Vader let the body fall to the deck. A voice carried over a comlink on the Twi’lek’s belt.
“Tymo! Tymo! What is going on there? Do you copy? Can you hear me?”
Vader deactivated his lightsaber, picked up the comlink, opened the channel, and let the sound of his respirator carry over the connection.
“Who is that?”
Vader answered only with his breathing.
“Tymo, is that you? Are you all right?”
“I’m coming for you now,” Vader said.
He crushed the communicator in his fist, reignited his lightsaber, stepped over the dead Twi’lek, and strode into the corridor beyond.
CHAPTER TWO
Cham and Isval shared a look of alarm. They’d heard the communication through the open channel. They knew the sound of the respirator.
“Was that…?” Isval asked.
“Vader,” Cham said. “Had to be. Pok?”
“I agree,” Pok said. “That had to be Vader.”
They knew Vader by reputation.
Silence weighed heavy on the bridge.
“What do we know?” Cham asked Isval in a whisper.
She shook her head, her lekku squirming in agitation. “Not much. Second- and thirdhand stories. I’ve heard that the regular officers hate him, but the Stormtrooper Corps almost worships him.”
“How did he get aboard Pok’s ship?”
Isval shrugged. She wasn’t pacing. A bad sign. “They say he can do things no being should be able to do. Everyone is terrified of him. This is bad, Cham.”
“I know.” Cham’s eyes followed hers to the viewscreen. They couldn’t see the hijacked freighter, of course, but Cham could imagine it in his mind’s eye. And now he imagined Vader aboard it.
“Situation, Pok.”
For a moment, Pok didn’t answer. Perhaps his attention was on something else, then, “Engines are dead, Cham. Weapons are destroyed. We’re…boarded somehow. You heard.”
“How’d he board?” Cham asked. “Is he alone?”
“I don’t know,” Pok said, then to someone on the bridge, he added, “I need that information now,” then, “Cham, there are twenty-six of us here. We can fight. Make them pay, at least.”
“Pok…,” Cham began, but Pok spared him the need to say it.
“Don’t worry. We won’t be taken. My crew knew the risks when they volunteered for this. Unfortunately I can’t self-destruct with the engines offline, but I’ve got a team of my best on the way to the cargo hold. We can use the weapons there as a fail-safe…What? Hold, Cham.” Some background chatter that Cham could not make out, then Pok’s voice: “Well, raise them. Raise them right now.”
A pause, then someone in the background said, “They’re not responding, Pok.”
Cham muted the comm and said to his engineer, “Keep us hidden and tell me instantly if any of those V-wings so much as heads in our direction.”
Cham knew V-wings had little in the way of long-distance sensors, but he had moved the freighter to the edge of the rings. Even the V-wings would pick it up if they got close enough.
“Yes, sir,” the engineer said. “They look like they’re holding formation around the weapons transport.”
“We can’t just let him kill himself,” Isval said to Cham, her voice tense. “Let’s get out there and help them. We can fight our way out.”
“They’re dead in space,” Cham said, and instantly regretted his choice of words.
“Cham—”
Cham ignored her and unmuted the connection. “Pok?”
Pok cleared his throat. His bridge was quiet. “I’ve lost the team I sent to the hold, Cham. I don’t know what…they’re not answering their comms. Vader must have intercepted them.”
Cham clenched a fist but kept his calm. “Understood.”
Isval spoke through clenched teeth, slow for emphasis. “We should help them.”
Cham muted the connection and whirled on her, the thread of his patience finally snapping.
“Help them how, Isval? They’re without engines and surrounded! Even if we could destroy every V-wing, and you know we can’t, it would take time to get them from their ship to ours. There’s a Star Destroyer on the way, and some…man is aboard who managed single-handedly to wipe out a group of Pok’s best people!”
She held her ground in the face of his outburst. The rest of the crew buried their faces in their stations.
“Vader’s not a man,” she said tightly. “Not from what I’ve heard.”
“Yes, he is,” Cham said, loud enough for the entire bridge crew to hear him. “He has to be. But there’s nothing we can do to help that won’t end with all of us dead, too. Pok knows it; they all know it. And we all know it.” He sagged and looked back at the viewscreen. “We don’t like it, but we all know it.”
Pok’s voice came over the comm. “Cham is right, everyone. We knew the risks. We took them willingly.”
Cham
cursed. He thought he’d muted the connection. “Pok, I’m sorry.” Emotion choked his voice. “I thought…”
“I know,” Pok said, and chuckled—actually chuckled. “Is that Isval over there?”
“It is, Pok,” she said.
“Still blowing in like a sandstorm, I see,” Pok said. “That’s good. I’m glad we got to say good-bye. You keep Cham on course, all right? He’s too damn principled for his own good.”
“It doesn’t have to be good-bye,” Isval said, and stared at Cham.
“It does and it is. We’ll see if we can’t kill this Vader first, though. I’ve got an ambush set up…”
Someone on Pok’s bridge crew said, “Blasterfire in the main corridor off the bridge, sir.”
For a moment no one spoke on either bridge. Long moments passed. Then there was some talk on Pok’s bridge in the background. Cham could not make it out.
“Situation?” Pok asked someone in his bridge crew.
“No one is answering the comm,” came the reply.
“How can—There were eight men waiting for him! What is going on out there?”
“Bridge lift is coming up!” another member of Pok’s crew said.
Pok spoke into the comm, his breathing audible over the connection, as if he was leaning in close. “Cham, we’ll kill Vader and blow the ship. No one will get taken alive.”
“Pok…,” Cham began.
“It’s been an honor,” Pok said. “Keep up the fight. All of you.”
Someone on Poks bridge shouted, “For a free Ryloth!” and the rest of the bridge crew echoed the cry.
Isval was gripping Cham’s arm so hard his hand was growing numb. He stared at the open comm as if it held some secret meaning, some hidden thing he could discern that would save Pok and everyone else. But there was nothing.
The rest of his crew sat in silence at their stations, heads down, listening.
“It’s opening!” said someone on Pok’s bridge.
A burst of blasterfire carried across the connection, but only for a moment before falling silent.
“There’s no one,” said a voice. “The lift’s empty.”