by James Luceno
“His code cylinder identified him as Commander LaSal.”
“One moment, Administrator,” Tarkin said, stepping out of cam range and turning to the nearest specialist in the command post. “Run the hologram through the roster database. If indeed there is a Commander LaSal, find out where he is currently deployed.”
“Yes, sir,” the specialist said.
Tarkin moved back into view of the holocam. “You were saying, Administrator …”
“Only that LaSal’s rank plaque insignia and command cap disk looked legitimate.”
Tarkin wasn’t surprised. With all the shipjackers had already accomplished, forging command cylinder codes and insignias must have been child’s play.
“Sir,” the specialist said from his station, “the roster shows a Commander Abel LaSal deployed aboard the Star Destroyer Sovereign, currently docked at Fondor. But the likenesses don’t match up the way they should. Shall I contact the Sovereign?”
Tarkin shook his head. “That won’t be necessary.”
The words had scarcely left his mouth when a starfighter signals officer entered in a rush. “Governor Tarkin, Lord Vader requests that you join him in the bay soonest.”
Tarkin ended the duplex transmission and hurried through the hatch and across the deck to where a yellow-and-gray V-wing was powering up. The canopy was open, and a red astromech occupied a socket aft of the cockpit. Vader’s black Eta-2 warmed nearby. Catching sight of Tarkin, the Dark Lord grabbed a flight helmet and life-support chest pack and carried them to him.
“Highly recommended,” Vader said, handing over the gear.
Tarkin began to slip into the chest pack.
“It seems your calculations were correct, Governor.”
“Yes, but coming all this way had to be a stretch for them. There’s good reason to suspect that they did in fact refuel before launching from Murkhana.”
“Then someone may have warned them away from Gromas.”
“A point worth considering,” Tarkin said. “In addition, they’ve betrayed themselves in other ways. Not only are they conversant with the Carrion Spike’s instruments, they are also well acquainted with Imperial procedure. The self-styled commander looks every bit an officer, and he used code cylinders to requisition the fuel cells.” He looked up at Vader. “Some of the Empire’s own?”
“The Emperor has limited patience for puzzles, Governor. Whoever they are, we need to put an end to their game.”
The tanker orbited above hospitable Phindar. A lengthy cylinder of unshielded alloy, the enormous station’s aft bridge was elevated above a trapezoid of shielding that protected a quartet of sublight engines and a generic hyperdrive. Pressurized radioactive gas, liquid metal, and composites were housed in proprietary sections. Extravehicular droids of several varieties carried out refueling operations by installing fresh fuel cells in starships and removing and transporting spent cells to storage bins anchored along the tanker’s starboard side. The Carrion Spike was still umbilicaled to the station, its bow facing the huge tanker’s trapezoidal stern, as Teller hastened through the docking ring air lock and into the main cabin.
“Retract the transfer tube and get us out of here,” he shouted toward the command cabin.
“Trouble?” Anora asked, leaping from her chair.
Teller shook his head while he peeled the scar from his cheek and the fake implant from his left eye. “That’s the problem. Everything went way too smoothly. The Phindian didn’t question anything, didn’t even ask about the ship or the special fuel cells.”
“You said yourself we’re just another corvette out here,” Anora said.
“Not up close we’re not.” Hearing the segmented umbilical retract into the hull, Teller hurried for the command cabin, Anora right on his heels.
“Easing us away,” Salikk said from the captain’s chair.
The corvette lurched slightly as maneuvering jets separated it from the tanker. Teller moved to the forward viewports to sweep his gaze over local space.
“What are you looking for?” Artoz asked from one of the other chairs.
“I won’t know till I see it,” Teller started to say when Cala cut him off.
“Ship reverting Rimward!” He paused to study the sensors. “Imperial escort carrier. On screen.”
Teller, Anora, Hask, and Artoz crowded behind Cala’s chair as an image resolved of a boxy vessel with a curved upper hull and a flat ventral one. Aft, the hull extended over the carrier’s engines.
“Transponder signature identifies it as the Goliath,” Cala continued. “Capable of carrying a wing of starfighters. Armed with ten Taim and Bak H-eights and a Krupx missile delivery system. Not much in the way of shields—”
“I’m not interested in testing its mettle,” Teller said.
“It could be here simply to refuel,” Artoz said, sounding unconvinced.
Abruptly, the escort vanished from the screen.
“Where’d it go?” Anora asked.
And just as abruptly the escort reappeared—now visible through the forward viewports.
“Microjump!” Cala said. “And deploying starfighters!”
Teller watched as starfighters dropped from the escort’s deployment chute. “V-wings, led by an Eta-Two Actis.”
“Bets on who’s piloting the black one?” Hask said.
Anora was shaking her head in dismay. “How did they know?”
Teller’s dark eyes were wide with surprise. “Tarkin may have figured if he could scare us away from Gromas by sending ships, we’d come to Phindar.”
“Or he hedged his bet,” Artoz said. “Capital ships at Gromas, he and Vader here.”
Teller shook himself alert. “Doesn’t much matter now.” He turned to Cala. “How much time do we have?”
“A quarter hour,” the Koorivar told him.
“Marking that,” Artoz said.
“How far to the nearest jump point?”
Salikk swung to the navicomputer. “We need to get out of the way of Phindar and the principal moon.”
“Then you’ve got some fancy flying to do first,” Teller said. “Keep us as close to the tanker as possible and protect the hyperdrive generator at all costs. A couple of errant beams and everything’s toast.”
“Don’t we know it,” Cala said.
Salikk laughed shortly and madly. “If you think that’ll keep Vader and Tarkin from firing, you’re your own worst enemies.”
Teller ignored the remark and looked at Anora. “Get your cams ready.”
“Stay on my left wing,” Vader told Tarkin over the tactical net as they fairly fell out of the escort, five additional pairs of V-wings at their backs.
The mammoth cylindrical tanker was straight ahead of them, profiled against the planet and with the Carrion Spike just beginning to drop beneath it, the shipjackers intent on putting the tanker between themselves and the approaching starfighters. With the corvette all but wedded bow-to-stern to the tanker, there was little point in enabling the ship’s stealth system.
Schematics of the Carrion Spike’s airframe and hyperdrive generator had been uploaded into the targeting computer of each starfighter and astromech, as well as into the fire-control systems of the Goliath, a precise strike from whose larger guns could be enough to immobilize the corvette.
The squadron pilots reported in by call signs—Yellows Three through Twelve—as they formed up on Vader’s black starfighter and accelerated toward the tanker.
“Our goal is to force the corvette to lower its deflector shields before we return fire,” Tarkin said through his helmet headset. “Once we’ve done so, our priority will be to target the hyperdrive generator, which is aft of the main guns along the corvette’s spine.”
A chorus of distorted voices acknowledged the directives.
“Affirmative, Yellow Two.”
Tarkin’s right hand nudged the joystick while his left made adjustments to the instruments. Little more than a single-pilot fuselage pod sitting on vertically stacked i
on engines and flanked by deployable heat-radiating stability foils, the V-wing had been designed for speed and nimbleness, at the expense of a reliable life-support system or hyperdrive. Twin ion cannons bracketed the long, wedge-shaped prow. It had been years since he had piloted one, and despite the spaciousness of the cockpit and the broad view through the paned transparisteel canopy, he felt claustrophobic, strapped into the seat by safety webbing and encumbered by gloves, flight boots, and helmet. With the hinged targeting computer intruding on his port-side view, the cockpit seemed more suitable to a double-jointed Geonosian. The old Delta-7 Aethersprite was roomy by comparison, the ARC-170 luxurious. Things could have been worse, however. The Goliath could have been carrying a squadron of the new—and seemingly disposable—TIE fighters.
“Commencing attack run,” Vader said.
With the astromech chirping commands to the inertial compensator, Tarkin fed more power to the engines to stay abreast of and slightly behind Vader, and plummeted toward the tanker. Immediately he realized that the shipjackers were not simply attempting to hide; they were executing what amounted to a slow roll that was keeping the vulnerable dorsal surface of the Carrion Spike facing the curved hull of the much larger vessel. As the corvette disappeared behind the port side, Vader climbed, determined to fall on the ship, only to find when he and Tarkin arrived that the Carrion Spike was showing them her belly rather than her spine. They unleashed a hail of ion cannon fire regardless and came about for another rapacious run, the corvette upside down on top of the tanker by then and beginning to arc down along the vessel’s starboard hull, her positioning jets flaring.
Descending, the Carrion Spike fell prey to four starfighters, which unloaded on her, taxing the resiliency of her powerful shields but emerging from the confrontation unscathed. Not until the corvette was tucked safely beneath the tanker once more did she reply, with powerful volleys from the lateral laser cannons that caught Yellows Seven and Eight and disintegrated them.
Jinking at the outer edge of the field of fire, Vader and Tarkin followed the ship into her second revolution, hammering away at her as she crawled out from beneath the tanker, but with no tangible results.
With Tarkin still clinging to the Eta-2’s left wing, Vader powered out of his dive, rolled over, and rushed to re-engage, coming dangerously close to the tanker in an effort to squeeze himself between it and the ascending Carrion Spike and forcing Tarkin to decelerate into a tandem position. Fire from Vader’s ion cannons coruscated across the corvette from bow to stern, but the shields continued to hold, strengthened, Tarkin guessed, by rerouting power from the cannons and sublight maneuvering jets.
The Carrion Spike slowed considerably as she reached the crest of her tortuous loop, but once arrived the ship delivered a triple barrage of laserfire that forced four of the starfighters to diverge, one of them shearing away a piece of the tanker’s elevated aft bridge before spinning out of control and exploding.
Vader’s voice boomed through the net. “Yellows Three and Four, Ten and Twelve, form up on Yellow Two and follow our attack run. Direct continuous fire at the corvette’s command center.”
Tarkin mimicked Vader’s evasive maneuvers while the four starfighters raced in to join them; then the half dozen banked as one to begin their runs. Maintaining fire discipline, Tarkin tightened his hand on the joystick and swooped in, the astromech transmitting targeting data to the cockpit’s display screen. Beams began to find their way through the shields and pock the corvette’s gleaming hull. One after the next, the starfighters harried the larger ship, drenching the shields with ion fire as she dropped under the lightly armored hull of the tanker for a third time.
“They can’t hide inside those shields for much longer,” Vader said over the net. “Echelon formation on Yellow Two, and re-engage.”
They launched their attack as the Carrion Spike was drifting up alongside the tanker’s starboard side. Tarkin’s targeting reticle went red and a laser-lock tone filled the cockpit. He dived and was going for a kill-shot when proximity alarms began to blare, and he glanced up in time to see six ARC-170s spring from one of the tanker’s forward bays. Leaning on the joystick, he slued hard to starboard, his shots going wide of their mark as the tactical net grew cacophonous with shouts of caution. Vader’s Eta-2 and the rest of the V-wings fanned out in search of clear space as the ARC-170s reeled into their midst, narrowly avoiding collisions.
“Abort the run,” Vader told everyone.
Tarkin opened the battle net to the Goliath. “Contact the tanker administrator. Order him to recall his fighters at once. They’re creating chaos out here.”
The specialist at the far end of the communications link acknowledged the request, then returned a moment later to deliver the bad news. “Governor Tarkin, the administrator has refused the order.”
“Refused? On what pretext?”
“Sir, he replies that the tanker is his property and that you are not his governor.”
“Goliath, do you have a clear visual on the Carrion Spike?”
“Affirmative, sir.”
“Then ready your proton torpedoes to target the corvette as soon as she appears at the crest of the tanker hull.”
“All due respect, sir, the tanker and the corvette might as well be joined at the hip.” It was the voice of the Goliath’s commander. “And with our starfighters all over the field, one stray torpedo—”
“I’m well aware of the risk, Commander,” Tarkin said, giving full vent to his anger. “Inform your casualty notification officers that I’ll assume personal responsibility for any collateral damage.”
“Execute Governor Tarkin’s orders, Commander,” Vader said in a calm voice that at once managed to be full of menace.
“Yes, Lord Vader. Readying the warhead launch system.”
The Carrion Spike was just short of crowning when her ion engines blazed to life and the ship hurtled away from the tanker in the direction of the escort carrier, firing all guns as she fled. All vigilance abandoned, Vader and Tarkin broke Rimward in a flurry of evasive maneuvers while lines of destruction probed for them.
Vader ordered what remained of the squadron to tighten up their ragged formation. “Enable countermeasures and pursue. That ship must not be allowed to jump.”
But the Carrion Spike’s laser cannons were already beginning to find their marks. Yellows Five and Twelve vanished in blinding explosions, adding debris to the obstacle course Vader and Tarkin had embarked on.
Tarkin reopened the battle net to the Goliath. “What are you waiting for? Why aren’t you firing?”
“Sir, the corvette has disappeared from our scanners!”
“Fire along the path of her last logged vector,” Tarkin said. “Engage the tractor beam.”
The escort carrier began firing at extreme range, its energy beams lancing off into local space.
Vader and Tarkin were still spearheading the chase when a massive, rippling explosion erupted behind them. Tarkin looked over his left shoulder to see the tanker burst open in a roiling outpouring of fire and gas that annihilated all the ARC-170s and singed the tails of Yellow Squadron’s trailing starfighters. When the expanding shock wave caught up with him, it overwhelmed the V-wing, propelling it through end-over-end spins and lateral gyrations that refused to abate.
After a long moment, the starfighter’s systems came back online and he heard Vader’s voice over the tactical net. “The Carrion Spike has jumped to hyperspace.”
“Anyone else survive?” Tarkin managed to ask.
The Goliath responded: “Two starfighters. In addition to the escort carrier.”
Tarkin lifted his face to the canopy to find that he was facing what was left of the tanker, still belching fire and beginning a spiraling death plummet into Phindar’s atmosphere.
What struck him, however, as he regained his senses, was that neither the Carrion Spike nor the Goliath had fired the shot that had doomed it.
THE CARRION SPIKE DRIFTED aimlessly between worlds in anoth
er nameless star system, an unscheduled stop this time, the result of a split-second decision on Salikk’s part, executed as the corvette was scudding away from the exploding fuel tanker, chased by starfighters and with the escort carrier’s cannons, tractor beam, and torpedoes desperately trying to find it.
The ordeal at Phindar had left the corvette battered, bruised, and shaken. The armored hull was rashed with melt circles, and most of the exterior lights were molten heaps. The effects of the tractor beam, which had grabbed the ship more by chance than as the result of any skill on the part of the Goliath’s crew, had ripped away part of the rectenna array. The interior looked as if a whirlwind had blown through, and surges of energy had fried most of the appliances in the galley and medical bay. Areas of the ship were now off limits because of air lock damage and radiation leaks. The toilets and showers had stopped working, and emergency illumination prevailed. Most of the alarms had been disabled to prevent them from sounding. Telltales were flashing across the command center’s console, and some of the comp routines were refusing to reboot. Weapons and stealth systems, sensor suite, hyperdrive, and navicomputer had fared better, but the shield generators were functioning only at fifty percent capacity.
“On the bright side,” Teller was telling his fellow shipjackers, “close calls make for captivating holovids.”
All six of them were in the dimly lighted command cabin, nursing their wounds when they weren’t fiddling with various instruments. Anora’s forehead bore a square of bacta patch, and some of her brownish curls had been clipped away to accommodate a second patch on her scalp.
“The Empire has suspended HoloNet service to most of the sector,” she said in a weak, defeated voice. “I doubt our transmission reached more than half a dozen systems.”
“We only need to’ve reached one,” Teller said, trying to sound encouraging. “Give it time and the holovid will spread to other sectors.”
“I didn’t have a chance to edit out the lag before the tanker explosion,” Hask said. “But there’s one sequence showing the starfighters ganging up on us.”