There was no flash of light, no noise of the impact - Wedge was racing away
too fast for the sound to catch him. There was only the grisly image of the
coralskipper tearing through the creature, emerging in a different, narrower
shape, the rakamat being flung in two pieces away from the point of impact, the
remains of the coralskipper arching up in a ballistic course and then gradually
down toward the ground.
Wedge looped around to mop up. There was unaccustomed tension in his arm,
and he realized that he was gripping the yoke too hard.
"I'm not going to say it," he told himself. ''I'm not."
I'm getting too old for this.
Lusankya was visible to the naked eye now, a tiny needle pointed straight
for Domain Hul.
Czulkang Lah squinted up at it, irritable, his diminished eyesight
insufficient to provide him with any details of what he was seeing. He gestured
at an aide, who correctly interpreted the nonspecific motion and stroked the
enormous circular lens in the center of the command chamber's ceiling. It
distorted, stretching details at its periphery into blurriness, magnifying the
enemy ship's image until it dominated the scene.
The ship had already sustained tremendous damage. The deckplating
everywhere was torn, rough, like a road that had once been smooth and then had
been traveled over by herds of rakamats with spike weapons on their feet. Flame
jetted out from its hull in dozens of places. Its guns were mostly silent;
Czulkang Lah saw only two batteries that were still active, and they seemed to
be firing at random. They posed little threat to his coralskippcrs.
But there were still squadrons of enemy starfighters out there, mostly
concentrated at Lusankya's stern, maintaining a savage defense over that area of
the ship.
Kasdakh Bhul moved to stand beside him. "Our pilots report that the
Lusankya abomination is almost destroyed. Lack of responsiveness indicates that
most of her crew must be dead and most of her weapons eliminated. She will not
be able to send her lasers and bolts against us."
Czulkang Lah carefully positioned his feet so that the blow would not cause
him to lose his balance; that would be unseemly. Then he swung his arm. His
vonduun crab armor correctly interpreted his haste and snapped his arm forward.
His armored forearm cracked across the back of Kasdakh BhuPs helmet, sending his
second-in-command staggering forward.
Kasdakh Bhul regained his balance and spun. Czulkang Lah could see the
younger officer's features graduate from an expression of anger to one of
surprise.
"You see, but you do not understand," Czulkang Lah said. "They never
intended to use their weapons upon us."
"Oh." The younger officer's voice became unreasonably reasonable, a type of
mockery useful in that it could be persuasively denied afterward. "So this was
simply an infidel sacrifice? An apology? They are saying, We are sorry for being
bad; here, have our greatest weapon?'"
Czulkang Lah offered him a smile nearly devoid of teeth. "You persist in
being an idiot. I am proud to say I did not train you; you would have been my
most repellent failure. Did you not notice? They never protected their weapons.
They only protected their engines. What does that tell you?"
The younger officer scowled. "That they wanted the thing to get here
quickly?"
"That their engines are their weapons. Are you sure you are not an ooglith
masquer with nothing actually inside?"
Kasdakh Bhul ignored the undisguised insult. "Then their intention-is to
ram us?"
"Wisdom. At last. So, even an ooglith masquer can learn a little when
submerged in knowledge."
"Then we must make sure the abomination is incapable of reaching us. Of
maneuvering adequately to ram us."
"Very good. Issue the orders, Ooglith Masquer."
Three coralskippers, all that remained of the latest wave, turned and sped
away.
Doubtless they'd regroup with reinforcements in a minute and return. Luke
checked his sensor and status boards. He was now two pilots down, and the
remainder of his units were battered; he had some plasma scoring on his
starboard top S-wing and engine. "Blackmoon Leader to squadron," he said. "We
have a moment. Anyone with stripped shields, now's the time to commence a power
restart." He goosed his thruster to come up behind and below Lusankya's port-
side thruster banks; he kept well to port of them. This position gave him a good
view of the Yuuzhan Vong worldship ahead. "Anything I should know?"
"We have Blackmoon Eleven back on the status board." That was the voice of
Lieutenant Ninora Birt, Black-moon Ten, the squad's new communications
specialist. A freelance smuggler, she'd loaned her expertise and her freighter,
Record Time, to the cause of this operation. Her freighter had been half
destroyed during the taking of Borleias, and the job had been completed above
Cor-uscant weeks later; now, with a new military officer's commission, she was
still fighting the good fight.
Luke glanced at his status board. It did indeed indicate that Blackmoon
Eleven was active. Distance and direction suggested that the X-wing was on
Borleias.
"No way." That was Blackmoon Five. "Koril's in bacta somewhere. I saw the
medics haul him off."
"Doesn't matter," Luke said. "Concentrate on what's at hand."
"Blackmoon Leader, this is Twin Suns Leader."
"Go, Goddess.''
"Sharr is detecting skips regrouping in a bunch of different units. All at
a uniform distance away from Lusankya."
"We'll set up for a new wave, then. Thanks, Exalted One."
Finally Jaina could see the incoming squadrons on her sensors. There were a
lot of them, eight groupings at least, and the three squadrons at Lusankya's
stern were losing strength. "Time for a Goddess chase, don't you think, Sharr?"
"Ooh, your words thrill me, Great One,"
"Don't be so thrilled that you screw up."
"Ooh, your supportiveness thrills me-"
"Get back to business, Sharr."
"Right." Sharr was silent for a long moment, during which the units of
coralskippers got closer, moving in from all directions. Then: "Nearest dovin
basal minefield is ahead and to port. The Goddess should aim for that. Piggy,
when do the incoming units get close enough to recognize us by sight?"
"Forty seconds, but if the Goddess goes off straight toward that minefield,
she'll pass close enough for them to see her."
"Ooh, right. Adjusting course... Twin Suns Leader, prepare yourself for the
chase. Three, two, one... chase."
A missile roared away from Twin Suns Ten, streaking off to port at nearly a
ninety-degree angle to their current course, aiming toward the largest gap
between any of the inbound squadrons. Jaina activated her gravitic signature and
transponder switches. Abruptly her designation on the sensor board went to Twin
Suns Nine, while the ourbound missile, just as instantaneously, became Twin Suns
One.
There was a momentary wobble in the movements of skip squadrons to port.
Then four of the squads in that direction
changed course, converging on the
missile.
"Well done, Sharr," Jaina said. When she'd switched to the Twin Suns Nine
identity, her comm system should have activated a program to alter her vocal
characteristics, making her sound like an older woman, one with a deeper voice.
"Thanks, Nine. And nice to have Leader gone. She's so bossy."
Kyp cut into the conversation: "Heads up. We still have incoming contacts
to starboard. Prepare to repel boarders. Break by shield trios on my command...
three, two, one, break."
While Beelyath held position within the Twin Suns Ten-Eleven-Twelve shield
trio, Sharr kept his attention on his special sensor and comm boards. The
distant missile code-named Goddess, and now, courtesy of Cilghal's biotechnical
magic, characterized by the precise gravitic signature of Jaina's X-wing, had
onboard computers and logic programs that allowed it to execute its mission on
its own, but Sharr could still feed it priority updates.
He switched to a wire-frame view of local space as the Goddess missile and
the coralskippers pursuing it entered the dovin basal minefield. The green wire
frame superimposed on the scene showed the spatial distortions caused by the
mines and their gravitic influence on their surroundings.
Sharr kept the missile's speed down to that of an X-wing's standard cruise
rate, allowing the pursuing skips to gain on it. So far, they were still far
enough in its wake that the pilots could not see it with their naked eyes, could
not realize that it wasn't the true Jaina Solo.
The Yuuzhan Vong pursuers were good. They were gaining faster than he
expected on the missile. With his sensors, superior to the missile's, Sharr drew
a course revision on his screen, sending the missile on a path that would take
it past mine after mine, while giving more and more pursuers the chance to
approach it. He executed and sent the course revision, then lost sight of his
sensor board as Beelyath sent the B-wing into a veering turn that crushed Sharr
into his restraints and caused his vision to blur, all despite the starfighter's
inertial compensators.
"Comfortable?" Beelyath croaked.
"Huh?" Sharr grunted. "Sorry, I was sleeping."
EIGHTEEN
Though he could not see the distant X-wing, Charat Kraal's cognition hood
created a glow in in the distance, a glow he knew actually existed only in his
mind, showing the enemy vehicle's position.
And his opponent was good, as he knew Jaina Solo to be, but this day she
was flying with more skillful reckless abandon than he had ever before seen,
leading the coral-skippers deep into the dovin basal minefield, doubtless hoping
to elude them by passing through such a difficult and dangerous area at high
speed.
For a moment, doubt flickered in Charat Kraal's mind. Why would she have
left the relative safety of numbers, of her personal squadron, to lead the
Yuuzhan Vong here by herself? There seemed to be only one possible answer: so
she could attempt to kill them all without any of her fellow pilots to share the
glory.
Was she that overconfident? Was she that mad?
Could her confidence be warranted?
The pilot to Charat Kraal's port side opened fire with his plasma cannon,
sending a stream of red glows oft toward the distant target.
Charat Kraal cursed to himself. Of all the traits of the infidels'
starfighters, the one he truly envied was the ability they gave their pilots to
talk to one another, voice to voice. The yammosk war coordinator kept this
flight of pursuers coordinated and pointed in the right direction, but could not
prevent a pilot with a rogue streak from firing on an enemy they were supposed
to capture alive.
Charat Kraal dropped back a few lengths and slid in behind the errant
pilot. From this close distance, he could see that the yorik coral of the
coralskipper ahead was marked with the symbols of Domain Hul. Making no effort
to disguise his action, he carefully aimed at that coralskipper's stern and
fired a single plasma cannon shot straight at it. As he expected, a void from
the other coralskipper appeared in the path of the plasma projectile and
swallowed it.
That pilot ignored the warning. He continued firing at the distant Jaina
Solo and now sideslipped to starboard, distancing himself from Charat Kraal,
indicating in no uncertain terms his intent to continue following his own
warrior spirit, even if it meant disobeying direct orders.
Charat Kraal growled to himself and followed. He fired again, this time a
continuous stream of plasma, intending to kill rather than to warn. The Hul
pilot banked away more sharply, his voids intercepting the incoming plasma, and
then rolled into a maneuver designed to swing him around behind Charat Kraal.
Finally, Charat Kraal grinned. In a moment, he would have another kill,
this one a disobedient pilot from another domain, and would have reinforced his
reputation for order and ruthlessness in his own unit.
The other coralskippers of the unit continued on their original course,
closing on Jaina Solo.
Czulkang Lah made a noise of displeasure. The pattern of blaze bugs in the
darkened sensor niche told the whole story of Charat Kraal's pursuit. He did not
blame Charat Kraal for this momentary diversion, but was not happy at the lack
of discipline shown by the other pilot. It would be best when that warrior was
dead, best if he died painfully and ignobly enough to discourage other warriors
from similar acts of self-glorifying disobedience.
"What is wrong?" Harrar asked. "This is the Jaina Solo pursuit?"
"It is." Czulkang Lah pointed into the mass of blaze bugs, though he
doubted that the priest, unused to the complexity of battlefield images, would
be able to interpret what he saw. "The pursuers are not acting in concert. It
appears that one wishes to kill Jaina Solo. If we are lucky, this notion will
not spread to the others."
"We cannot have that. We must capture her. Must extract from her the truth
about her trickery, the truth that she has nothing to do with our gods." Harrar
turned to another of the command chamber's officers. "Have my ship alerted and
readied. I will enter the minefield and join the pursuit."
At Czulkang Lah's reinforcing nod, the officer did as instructed.
Then something changed in the blaze bug image, and for a moment Czulkang
Lah thought that perhaps he, too, was misinterpreting what he was seeing. Two of
the coralskippers closest to Jaina Solo, though too far away for her infidel
lasers to have hit them, had disappeared, simply winked out. Even with his
enfeebled eyes, Czulkang Lah could see the blaze bugs that had represented them,
now darkened, flying to the darkened back of the display niche, ready to reenter
as a new contact when needed.
What had happened?
Sharr Latt was getting the hang of it now, the method of calculating the
gravitic pull of a dovin basal mine on one of the Goddess missile's passes, then
coming near it again and using its own gravitic attraction to whip the missile
around and slingshot it in a new direction.
The miss
ile, mostly solid-state, not disadvantaged by the physical
limitations of a living pilot, could survive much tighter turns and more
strenuous g-forces than the pursuing coralskippers. On the last pass the missile
made past one specific mine, the two closest pursuers had followed the missile's
path exactly, had been caught by the mine's gravity, had been torn to pieces by
their own daring.
Plasma projectiles flashed past the bubble viewport of the B-wing's crew
compartment. Fascinated with his deadly toy, Sharr ignored them, relying on
Beelyath to keep him alive.
The squadrons protecting Lusankya broke toward different incoming
squadrons. Jaina, still masquerading as Twin Suns Nine, kept her silence as Kyp
Durron scattered Her shield trios in the path of incoming coralskippers.
As the distant skips came within maximum laser-effective range, she reached
for Kyp in the Force, found nim there, found him waiting for a better shot. She
reached for Jag as well, detected him, could even faintly feel the intensity of
his focus, his state of alert relaxation. But she could not interact with him as
she could with Kyp, could not afford to be distracted, so she withdrew from that
contact.
Then Kyp was firing and her hand was automatically squeezing her lasers'
trigger, firing a quad-linked blast at one incoming skip. Both her shot and
Kyp's were intercepted by voids, but Jag's, a fraction of a second later, plowed
into the enemy star fighter's nose, destroying the dovin basal there, depriving
the craft of its capabilities of flight and defense. Kyp and Jaina each poured
another salvo of laser energy into the craft; it burst, exploding as the lasers
superheated internal moisture to the state of gas, and vented atmosphere into
space.
"One Flight, Twin Suns Five." That was Piggy. "Suggest you come to zero-
one-zero ecliptic, hold that course for ten seconds, take targets of
opportunity."
"Twin Suns Two, copy." Kyp led Jag and Jaina around in the indicated
direction. Ahead, Jaina could see where Four Flight-Beelyath and Tilath-had
gotten on the tails of two skips and were chasing them directly across One
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