The Bacta War

by Michael A. Stackpole

  “Double-lock for Seven. Two away.” He pulled the trigger, sending two proton torpedoes streaking on jets of blue flame at the Lusankya. From all around the larger ship other blue lights suddenly ignited and began to cruise in toward the point Tycho had targeted.

  From the very beginning of their operations, Wedge and Tycho had agreed that the only way they could defeat the Lusankya was to overwhelm it with proton torpedoes and concussion missiles. The problem they had was that to do the job correctly they would require twelve or more X-wing squadrons—squadrons they didn’t have. Taking a lesson from the conquest of Coruscant, they decided that freighters equipped with launchers and missiles would give them the launching platforms they needed. By slaving the freighters’ missiles to the X-wing telemetry, they eliminated the need for target acquisition sensors on the freighters—the use of which would have immediately designated the freighters as targets for the Lusankya.

  To prevent anyone from figuring out their strategy, Wedge had Booster buy launchers, munitions, and sensor units from Talon Karrde. Reluctant to buy something and not use it, Booster hooked the sensors up to the station, noting that just lighting them up would be enough to make even the Lusankya think twice about engaging the station. As their plans evolved, Booster agreed to stay behind and make the Lusankya think it had been trapped while the Rogues left the system, rendezvoused with Sair Yonka’s Freedom, and rode the rest of the way in relative comfort to Thyferra. The freighters moved on in to set up the ambush while the Freedom waited at the fringes of the system for the arrival of the Lusankya.

  Tycho’s missiles exploded against the ship’s shields, but they buckled quickly enough as the rest of the missiles locked into his telemetry hit the ship. Nawara’s shots likewise raced in, sowing explosions over the ship’s surface. Other Rogues continued the assault on the ship’s starboard gun decks, destroying turbolasers, ion cannons, and concussion missile launchers. If we can kill Lusankya’s ability to strike from one side, our ships can operate with impunity.

  Toward the other end of the Super Star Destroyer, Tycho saw the Alderaanian War Cruiser Valiant pour fire into the ship. The Lusankya’s tail guns exchanged shots with the Valiant, but Aril Nunb’s droid crew managed to maneuver the smaller ship so shots impacted against shields that were still strong. The Super Star Destroyer’s aft shields appeared to be holding, but the Valiant’s constant battery had to be draining energy that could have been used elsewhere to great effect.

  Rolling to port and diving, Tycho sailed his fighter beneath some return fire and noticed the Lusankya had begun to strike out at the freighters. They presented a diverse choice of targets and began to scatter as the big ship turned its guns on them. Evasive maneuvers, as per orders, but that’s going to make missile launching tougher. He glanced at his monitor. Only two missiles left anyway, enough for one more run.

  He checked the location of the Interceptor squadron, but saw it had not closed as quickly as anticipated. “Lead, Seven is set for one more run.”

  “Negative, Seven. The squints have picked up a lamb and are running it clear of here. You and Nine, with your wings, are to pursue.”

  Tycho’s astromech flashed a quick scan of the shuttle onto his monitor. “Shuttle is positive for one lifeform. You think that’s Isard?”

  “Like as not. She’s not getting away. Go, Tycho, go.”

  “I copy, Jesfa.” Iella crouched and quickly ducked her head around the corner. She jerked her head back and rolled away as three blaster bolts gouged a divot out of the ferrocrete wall. That was closer than I have any interest in getting in the future.

  Iella keyed her comlink. “Your report was dead on, Jesfa. Keep telling me what holocams he’s killing and we’ll get to him.”

  Elscol came running up and dropped to one knee at Iella’s side. “What have you got?”

  Iella jerked a thumb at the corridor. “Trapped rat, it appears. Your people secured the stairwells?”

  “Yeah. He’s trapped here on the fifth level.” Elscol gave Iella a half-smile. “You want us to evacuate innocents, or do we just track this guy down?”

  “Let’s get him.”

  Elscol waved a team of two men and two Vratix forward. “We have a live one. Be careful.”

  Two of Elscol’s people took up positions at the mouth of the corridor. Their efforts to look down it produced no fire, so they gave the all-clear signal. The two Vratix then rushed forward to flank the only door in that hallway and then checked it. They indicated it was locked. Elscol and Iella went running down the hall to its end and crouched there, preparing to glance down either branch after their quarry.

  Iella pressed her back against the corridor’s left wall. She started to nod to Elscol, inviting her to check her end of the corridor first, but she saw movement back the way she had come. The duraplast door exploded out into the hallway as blasterfire chewed it in half. Two bolts caught the Vratix on the right side of the door in the abdomen, spinning him further into the corridor. As the fire swung back through the doorway the second Vratix took a pair of shots to the thorax, dropping him to the floor with his sextet of limbs twitching.

  The two men at the far end of the corridor came running up and rushed the doorway before Iella or Elscol could call them off. The second man in straightened up abruptly, then flew back into the corridor all loose-limbed and burning from a trio of shots to the chest.

  Of the first man Iella only saw booted feet that jerked twice, then lay still.

  “Jesfa, get me a six-man team up here now.” Iella looked over at Elscol. “We wait, right?”

  “For that guy to escape? If he got in that room, he knows override codes. He could have a secret turbolift in there and be on his way out.”

  “I doubt it.” Iella keyed her comlink again. “Jesfa, have them bring concussion grenades.”

  Smoke drifted out of the doorway, then a blaster carbine came sailing out of it and clattered to the floor in the midst of the dead commandos. “I give up.”

  Iella and Elscol exchanged glances, then Iella snapped a command. “Come out with your hands in the air.”

  “Do I recognize that voice?”

  Iella’s jaw dropped open. Fliry Vorru? She slowly smiled. “Vorru? I’m expecting those hands raised.”

  The small white-haired man appeared in the doorway and gingerly stepped between the legs lying therein. “Ah, Iella Wessiri. Someone I can trust to do the right thing.”

  Elscol stood and leveled her blaster carbine at the man. “You want the right thing? I have justice in a clip right here for you, murderer.”

  Iella reached up and laid a hand on Elscol’s carbine. “You can’t. He’s surrendered.”

  “Surrendered? He just burned down four people.”

  “More crimes for him to be tried for.”

  “Exactly.” Vorru smiled rather smugly. “I’m sure the people of Thyferra will want to try me, if the New Republic will let them.”

  Iella frowned as she stood. “Oh, once the New Republic is through with you, the Thyferrans will have their chance.”

  “I hope you’re right, Iella, because I know the Thyferran people have a strong sense of justice.” Vorru’s hands slipped down to the level of his shoulders. “Of course, since I know which of the New Republic officials have been hoarding bacta and I know the backdoor deals made by member states to get bacta, well, I suspect this is information they won’t want to have come to light.”

  Iella laughed. “You think you’re not going to pay for your crimes because you’ll make some political deal?”

  “Alas, Iella, that is the reality of the situation.”

  Iella sharpened her laugh and her expression. “You’re assuming, of course, that I don’t have my own brand of justice in mind. I wanted Isard because she killed my husband. If I can’t have her, you’ll do.” She raised her carbine and pointed it at his head. “One shot and a lot of crime files are closed.”

  Vorru brought his hands together and applauded her. “Nice bluff, but I’ve
read the Imperial and Corellian files on you, my dear. You could never shoot me.”

  “True.” Iella lowered her blaster. “But she can.”

  Elscol’s single shot caught Vorru in the throat. It pitched him against the doorjamb, from which he rebounded and fell on top of his blaster.

  “Nice shooting.”

  Elscol looked down at her blaster. “I don’t remember setting this weapon on stun.”

  Iella smiled. “I do, when I stopped you from shooting him the first time.”

  Elscol frowned. “Why only stun him? Why the charade?”

  “Vorru always likes being in control. He was expecting you to burn him down—it would have been his victory because you would have killed a man who had surrendered, and that would make you as much of a murderer as he is. Once he realized I was out here, he decided to play another game. He was in control until the last second, when I let you shoot him.”

  The other woman nodded, then snapped her carbine’s selector lever off stun. “What he said, though, about paying for his crimes is probably true. The New Republic will make a deal with him.”

  “Sure, if they get a chance.” Elscol smiled. “The Rogues pulled him off Kessel. We can always dump him back there. No deals, only justice.”

  Elscol laughed aloud. “You know, you keep this up and you might convince me there’s more to do with unreconstructed Imperials than kill them.”

  “Let’s work on it, Elscol, but only after Thyferra is free.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Captain Sair Yonka picked himself up off the Freedom’s bridge deck and staggered to his feet. He swiped a hand at his forehead—it came away bloody so he tore a strip of cloth from the tail of his tunic and jammed it against the wound. Antilles, you paid me a lot, but it wasn’t enough.

  “Someone give me a report on what’s going on out there. Lieutenant Carsa?”

  “Carsa’s dead, sir. His monitor blew up in his face.”

  “Are we blind then, Ensign?”

  “Issen, sir. No, sir, not blind. The Lusankya has been hit again by torps and missiles, but it’s beginning to shoot at the freighters. We’re being left alone.”

  “Then it’s not all bad news.” Yonka leaned against a bulkhead. “Helm, can we maneuver?”

  A pained voice called to him from the depths of the bridge. “We’ve lost fifty percent of our maneuverability, Captain. We can roll, but speed and turns are going to be tough. I can muster enough to get us out of here, though, sir.”

  “Weapons, what’s our status?”

  “We’ve still got most of our port weapons, sir, but starboard weaponry is shot. No realistic judgment about repairs.”

  “What’s the status of our shields?”

  A bald man punched a button on a console, then clapped his hands. “Shields are coming back up. I’ve got seventy percent of power. They’ll hold while we run away.”

  Sair Yonka shook his head. “We’re going nowhere. Lieutenant Phelly, roll us so we can bring our starboard weapons to bear.”

  “Begging your pardon, sir, but we’re not being paid enough to die here.”

  “Then let’s make sure we don’t die.” Yonka flung his arms wide open. “We all knew that staying with Isard would get us killed. We also knew that if we left her service, she’d hunt us down right after she killed Antilles. Now we’ve got to kill the Lusankya here, or it will kill us someplace else. This isn’t about money, it’s about our survival, our freedom.”

  He pointed out the main viewport. “Out there you have people in freighters and snubfighters pounding on that behemoth. They’re gnats compared to the Lusankya. They can sting it, but they can’t kill it. That job is up to us and we’re going to do it because if we have to die, it isn’t going to be dying while we’re running. The Empire’s dead—we all know that—so this is our buy-in to whatever follows it.”

  Wedge saw the Freedom begin a roll as turbolaser fire lanced from the Lusankya at the freighters. One salvo caught a disk-shaped Corellian light freighter and snapped it in half. He saw shields glow and shrink as other ships got hit by one or two shots, but none exploded. He knew that was more luck than skill, and that a lot of the freighters weren’t going to survive to the end of the battle.

  “Lead to Two, time for our last run.”

  “Negative, Lead, I have a TIE on me.”

  “Coming, Two.”

  Wedge pulled back on his stick and brought his fighter up into a loop, then rolled out to starboard as Asyr’s X-wing shot past. A TIE streaked by, hot on her tail. As Wedge dropped in behind him, the TIE fired a volley of shots that pierced Asyr’s aft shield. Something at the back of her fighter exploded, then she rolled down and out of sight.

  “Two, report.”

  Asyr didn’t answer his call. “Gate, assess damage on Two.”

  The droid beeped a response, but Wedge ignored the information filling his secondary monitor. Got something to do first.

  The TIE rolled to starboard then started to climb. Wedge pulled his X-wing into a steep climb, then snap-rolled starboard and powered the fighter over the top. The TIE danced before him for a second, prompting Wedge to snap a shot off. The dual burst of lasers clipped one of the TIE’s solar panels, but did no serious damage.

  This guy is good.

  The TIE rolled to port and pulled a tight loop back along its line of flight. Wedge let himself overshoot the TIE, then throttled back as the TIE swung onto his tail. The TIE closed faster than the pilot expected because of Wedge’s chopping the throttle back. Wedge tugged back on his stick, nosing the fighter into a climb. He held it for a second, then shoved the stick forward and broke the climb off.

  Green laser fire hissed off his shields, but he didn’t panic. And Gate isn’t screaming! The TIE shot past his position, having started to climb to blast Wedge, then trying to follow him as he started flying straight again. Wedge pulled his X-wing’s nose back up and triggered two more bursts of laser fire.

  Both hit the TIE in the undamaged wing, burning it free of the ship’s fuselage. The hexagonal wing went one way while the TIE spun out of control toward Thyferra.

  Wedge didn’t watch to see if it exploded. He brought his fighter around and found himself staring at the broad expanse of the Lusankya’s belly. Nearly an eighth of the ship had been nibbled off at the front, but the guns still fired relentlessly. It’s hurt, but not enough. “Lead here. Starting my third run.”

  The fact that no one acknowledged his call sent a chill through him, but he shrugged it off. Now’s not the time to mourn the dead. That waits until the mission is done. He tossed his fighter into a weave and pointed it at the giant egress hatch in the bottom of the Super Star Destroyer. We’ve broken your nose, now it’s a shot to the guts.

  Switching over to proton torpedoes, he immediately got a red box and a solid tone from Gate. He waited until his transponder button went red, then pulled the trigger. Two jets of blue fire shot away from his ship and another half dozen joined them. It took four of them to blast a hole in the ventral shields, but that left a quartet of missiles to plow into the Lusankya’s hangar deck. The explosions spat decking and debris back out into space, then secondary explosions told Wedge that at least a couple of the TIE fuel storage tanks had ruptured.

  Out of torpedoes, Wedge shifted over to lasers and started searching for more TIEs. And if there aren’t any more of them, I guess I’ll just have to get in close with the Lusankya and light it up as much as I can.

  “Yes, Madam Director, I understand.” Erisi shivered as the echoes of Isard’s voice died in her ears. When she’d spotted the shuttle coming up she had harbored a hope that it was Vorru, but Isard’s mocking voice dashed that dream to pieces. Erisi switched her comm unit over to her squadron’s tactical frequency. “Elite Leader to squadron. We have a new mission: protect the Lambda-class shuttle Thyfonian. We are to cover it until it gets clear and can go to lightspeed.”

  “Six here, Lead. That means we’ll be left behind.”

  “Nega
tive, Six. The Lusankya is going to be following Thyfonian out and will pick us up.”

  “I copy, Lead.”

  “Twelve here, Lead. We have four X-wings coming up fast.”

  “I copy, Twelve.” Erisi shook her head. Only four? That’s a mistake you’ll rue, Wedge Antilles. “Keep your formations tight and help each other out. These pilots will be good, but we can be better. Don’t lose your heads and you won’t lose your lives.”

  Captain Drysso laughed victoriously. As nearly as he could determine his Lusankya had been hit by over a hundred and fifty proton torpedoes and concussion missiles, but it had lost scarcely thirty-five percent of its combat ability. Maneuvering was hampered and shield power was falling sharply, but the Lusankya still outgunned its opposition. And the freighters have the survival rate of tauntauns on Tatooine.

  Lieutenant Waroen called out to him. “Captain, the Freedom is coming back into the fight.”

  “Guns, let him have everything!”

  “As ordered, Captain.”

  The Lusankya fired its starboard weapons at the Imperial Star Destroyer, mauling it mercilessly. Turbolasers crushed the shields while ion cannon beams skittered over the Freedom’s hull. Concussion missiles peppered the smaller ship, opening huge holes in the hull. Explosions racked the Freedom, spraying debris in all directions.

  Yet even before the Lusankya’s attack left the Freedom adrift in space, the Imperial Star Destroyer blasted back at the Super Star Destroyer. Turbolasers drilled through the dorsal shields and stabbed fire deep into the Lusankya’s heart. Blue ion lightning capered and danced over the hull, teasing fireballs to life in its wake. The Lusankya shook with the violence of those explosions and others.

  Drysso shouted at his staff. “Damage reports!”

  Waroen was first. “Ventral shields, down; dorsal shields, down; bow shields, down; starboard and port shields, down.”

  “You mean to tell me I only have aft shields?”