In the speeder's backseat was something roughly the size of a grown human woman, wrapped in a brown cloak from its calves to the crown of its head. Only feet protruded, clad in brown leather boots.
Heart suddenly pounding, Jaina slid out from under Zekk and leapt over to that backseat even as Doran said, “It's not what you think.”
Jaina whipped the cloak away from the head and shoulders of the body—and revealed the features of a brightly polished silver protocol droid, its photoreceptors dim. “What's this?” she asked. “Where's Tiu?”
Doran offered her a pained smile. “She's in Thrackan Sal-Solo's mansion.”
“Captured?”
“No,” Tahiri said. “Hiding.”
“Hiding?”
“We ran into a trap,” Doran said. “It sounds like you did, too. Lots of guards. Several combat probots. A couple of YVH droids. Not a tenable situation. So we decided to run away.”
Tahiri gave him a reproving look. “There was nothing we could accomplish there. So I ordered a nice, clean withdrawal. Which would have been fine if Brilliant Notions here hadn't had his great idea.”
Now Jaina fixed Doran with a hard stare. “Which was what?”
Doran shrugged. “We ran into this deactivated protocol droid in the room from which we decided to stage our retreat. And it occurred to me—I could dress it in my clothes, Tahiri and Tiu could carry it out, and it would look like they were taking the body of a fallen comrade to safety. They knew three of us had gone in, they'd watch three of us escape . . . and I'd hide there, see what I could find out in the wake of this disaster.”
“And a naked man the size of a dwarf Wookiee is going to stay hidden for how long?” Jaina demanded.
Doran winced. “That's what Tiu asked. In almost those exact words, as a matter of fact. So I said, 'Forget it.' And she said, 'No, it's a good plan, except for the fact that, as usual, you introduced a fatal flaw. We pull out the fatal flaw and it's viable again.' “
Jaina nodded. “And fixing the plan meant substituting a tiny Omwati woman for a big slab of hanging meat.” She seethed, but held her anger deep. She didn't want any member of her operation left behind on Corellia . . . but she had to admit that a resource, hiding out in Thrackan Sal-Solo's opulent home, could prove invaluable in the days to come. And Tiu, despite bearing the distinctive delicate blue skin and opalescent pale hair of her species, was very, very good at stealth and hiding games.
She covered the protocol droid's face and stood back from it, then pointed at Doran. “You. Get some bacta patches for Zekk's burns and whatever Kolir needs to deal with her mouth.” Then her gaze fell on Thann. “You. Get us a vehicle.”
CORELLIAN ORBIT
Han Solo sent Millennium Falcon down a course that was in a slightly lower orbit than Klauskin's formation of ships and back in the direction from which they'd come. In his wake came the squadron of A-9 Vigilances.
“They're not breaking off,” Leia said.
“I can see that,” Han said, his voice testy. “Do they not believe their transponders? Do they think I'm pretending to be Han Solo?”
Green laserfire flashed past the cockpit's starboard viewports. Then the Falcon shook as her stern took a hit from one of the pursuers' shots. Both Leia and Han could hear C-3PO's wail of “Oh, dear . . .” waft out from the transport's central areas.
Han added some side-to-side slew to their movement and rose, climbing into a higher orbit—almost into the path of a Mon Calamari heavy carrier, Blue Diver
“Han, what are you doing?” Leia's voice conveyed a hint of worry.
“These vessels won't fire on me,” he said, his tone cocksure even if his words sounded a bit unlikely. “I've already talked to Dodonna, remember? But they may fire on our attackers.”
“They may.”
Ahead, Blue Diver's shields were already up—it was clear she was sustaining some long-distance fire from opportunistic Corellian starfighters—and now her bow and starboard turbolasers began to track the small-craft parade the Falcon was leading. At this distance, it was impossible to tell whether the turbolasers were aimed at the Falcon herself.
The Falcon shook again and again, harder, as the speedy A-9s came closer toward her stern. Two of them shot past the transport's bow and moved on ahead.
“In just a minute,” Leia said, “they'll get far enough ahead that they can come around and head back toward us. Meaning you'll have to distribute your shield power equally all around, meaning some of those overcharged lasers might start punching through.”
“I know,” Han said. There was misery in his voice.
“Han, we have to return fire. Make them duck and scatter.”
“I can't fire on Corellians, Leia. Not when I . . . when I . . .”
Leia didn't finish the statement for him. Caused this.
The Falcon and her pursuers reached firing range for Blue Diver's weapons and those guns opened up, their energy flashing past the Falcon—and past the madly dodging A-9s, as well. Leia was relieved to see that the Falcon did not appear to be among the vessel's targets. But the battery fire came awfully close, and a single aiming mishap could put them square in the vessel's targeting brackets.
Then they were parallel to Blue Diver, blasting far too close along her starboard side, her guns tracking and firing.
The Falcon shot past Blue Diver's stern. Six A-9 Vigilances continued to pursue her. The two that had gone ahead were intact and beginning their turn.
“Han,” Leia said, “you're going to lose the Falcon.”
It was unfair of her. Simple as they were, her words had additional, unspoken meaning. You're going to lose your first love. You're going to lose your freedom.
Han growled as though the sound were being pulled out of him with a fishhook. Then, through clenched teeth, he said, “Yeah. Hold on.”
It wasn't just a command to wait. He threw the Falcon into a starboard turn that sent the transport shooting out past Blue Diver's stern, up into the open space between the Galactic Alliance and Corellian task forces, where starfighter squadrons were mixing it up in touch-and-go firing runs and dogfights. Then he said, “Get to the guns.”
Leia unstrapped and headed back into the transport's main body. “Meewalh!” she shouted. “Bottom cannon turret.” When she reached the tube and ladder accessing the laser cannon turrets, she climbed into the top-side turret and rapidly strapped herself in.
Syal and her temporary wingmate, a male Mon Cal flying VibroSword Ten, shot out one side of the ever-broadening starfighter combat zone and began a loop around to reenter from another angle.
Things were getting uglier. More squadrons from both sides had joined the furball accumulating halfway between the two vessel formations. Now other gunships, larger than starfighters but smaller than vessels of the line, were turning in to join the combat.
“Dodonna to VibroSword Squadron.”
Syal spotted the gleam of a larger craft leaving the Corellian formation and heading in toward the combat zone. Even at this distance, she identified it by sight as a Nebulon-series light frigate—its ax-headshaped bow, its cubical stern, and the spindly, lengthy spine connecting the two were giveaways at any visual range. It was the largest craft yet headed for the furball. Syal tapped its blip on her sensor board, causing it to flash there and on her wingmate's board. She adjusted her course for the frigate.
Meanwhile, Dodonna's message continued to flare through her cockpit speakers. “Return to Dodonna. Upon arrival, do not stand down. Be ready for immediate relaunch.”
Syal swore to herself. If she turned back now, she'd give up any shot at the frigate. If she didn't turn back now, she'd be disobeying orders. If she could stall by half a minute to a minute, she could adjust her current flight path .. .
She switched to task force frequency. “V-Sword Seven to Dodonna,” she said. “Please repeat message.” There. Five crucial seconds gone. And the comm operator probably wouldn't be able to reply instantly; he'd be fielding other confirmation requ
ests, and higher-ranking pilots would get the information first.
It was ten more seconds before Dodonna's message repeated, fifteen more before the message was completed. Syal acknowledged and began a slow loop back toward the carrier. Her course would take her through the middle of the combat zone . . . and across the frigate's path.
CORONET, CORELLIA
Luke roared in toward Mara's X-wing, which closed toward him, their combined speed causing the numbers on the snubfighter's range meter to scroll too fast to read.
As they reached the point where Luke could almost see his wife's face, a point at which most pilots would be unable to react in time to save themselves, Mara dived, flashing mere meters beneath Luke's X-wing . . . and revealing the attack fighter tailing her.
The attack fighter's pilot tried to vector out of Luke's way. He succeeded. He didn't succeed in dodging Luke's lasers. Red flashes converged on the cockpit, and suddenly the fighter was a cloud of smoke and shrapnel. Luke flew through it, pieces of attack fighter fuselage bouncing off his deflectors and scraping off his hull. He emerged into blue sky on the other side.
The maneuver was called the Corellian Slip. Fighter pilot legend had it that the maneuver had been developed here, by the madmen and madwomen who flew for this system. Luke shook his head, a little saddened by the irony.
On his sensor board, he saw Mara looping around to return to his wingmate position. The latest detachment of attack fighters was down to two viable starfighters—and now, realizing the depletion of their numbers, they suddenly veered off, leaving the dogfight. Nine Jedi X-wings, increasingly battered but all still in fighting condition, remained.
“Leader, this is Three.”
“Go ahead, Three.” Luke checked his diagnostics board. R2-D2 was reporting some increasing fluctuation in one of the X-wing's laser cannons, the port bottom cannon, and indicated that R2 himself was showing some damage, mobility-controlling circuits cooked by a grazing laser hit from one of the attack fighters.
“The landing party has reported in. They have a shuttle and are ready to launch. They're expecting heavy pursuit once they climb above the no-fly altitude.”
Luke brought up a map of Coronet. It showed his squadron's location and, courtesy of Hardpoint Three, a blip indicating the location of Jaina's crew. Luke tapped the screen to designate a point much closer to the landing party's position than his own. “Artoo, designate that point as location Linkup. Three, tell the landing party to make their way to Linkup without attracting pursuit. We'll join them there and everyone will take off for space from that point.”
“Acknowledged.”
“Hardpoint, form up on me.” Luke waited until seven more X-wings joined him in formation . . . and then dived, heading straight for the low, broad buildings that dominated this portion of Coronet.
A few hundred meters from the planet's surface, he began pulling up, but his rate of descent carried him low enough that he came horizontal slightly below the level of the surrounding buildings. Centering himself along the widest boulevard in the area, he shot off in the general direction of Jaina's crew, the Hardpoints maintaining formation behind him. “Artoo,” he said, “plot a course to Jaina's position. Wide streets only, please.”
R2 tweetled a cheerful acknowledgment.
Syal and VibroSword Ten hurtled into the furball at full interceptor speed. Syal's sensor board crawled with swirling red and blue blips; space outside her forward viewport was similarly crowded with the reflections, glows, and detonation patterns of a growing battle. Using every speed and maneuverability advantage the Eta-5 design gave her, Syal jittered her vehicle around, port, starboard, up, down, making it a maddeningly difficult target to get a lock on or hit with a spray of laser-fire.
Ahead, growing in her viewport, was the Nebulon-series frigate. As she approached, it was moving from her port to starboard, from a relative higher to lower position, its forward laser cannon and turbolaser arrays flashing continuously.
“Ten,” Syal said, “we're going for the deflector shield generator. Concussion missiles for maximum close-range results.” They were now close enough that a schematic of the Nebulon frigates popped up on her sensor board; she tapped the top side of the rear nodule on the wire-frame image and it expanded on the screen, word labels and arrow-tipped lines appearing on the schematic to explain what was what. She tapped the words DEFLECTOR SHIELD GENERATOR to highlight them, dragged a targeting bracket from the corner of the screen over them, dragged an Eta-5 interceptor silhouette from the same corner to the same spot. Now her targeting computer would automatically seek out the shield generators and V-Sword Ten would receive a data transmission pointing to that target.
“Negative, Seven, negative,” Ten said. “Even if we achieve fantastic results, all we do is knock down the shields—and someone else will get the kill before we can get back. I say we try to put our missiles into their squadron bays. The main hatches might still be open. We might get lucky.”
“You can't plan for luck, Ten.” It was weird to hear those words in her own voice, not her father's. “Plan smart and let luck land where it will. We're going for the shield generators.”
“You don't outrank me, Seven.”
“Yeah, but I'm in front.” Syal diverted a quarter of her shield energy to her thrusters—a risky move. But she couldn't risk Ten using the same logic on her, overtaking her, screwing up her tactic. Ten did surge forward, briefly gaining on her, but dropped back, unwilling to devote as much shield power as she was using for thrust.
Syal grinned. Lost your nerve, did you?
They were now too close even to attempt a swerve and attack on the squadron hangars, which were in the bow module of the frigate. Syal returned the shield power to her forward shields.
A turbolaser attack flashed just over her, causing the interceptor's proximity alarms to howl. Syal drove in straight toward the deflector shield generator, as though her intent were to ram it, providing just enough side-to-side and up-and-down movement to throw off some targeting locks.
Her own targeting brackets found the frigate's shield generators, jittered around them, stabilized. Syal held her breath, held her focus, until the targeting computer indicated maximum efficient range for firing—and beyond, waiting until the computer flashed red for optimal range. At last, she fired. She saw white streaks as two missiles flashed away from her interceptor.
Even then she didn't change her course. A lot of pilots bank and begin their run to safety the instant they launch missiles, her father had told her. A lot of gunners know this. You see a target coming in, you see him launch missiles, choose one vector for him and fire in that direction. One time in ten you'll choose right and you'll vape him. Unless you're Tycho Celchu, when it's one time in four.
Syal didn't bank; she blinked as a red laser barrage suddenly filled space just above and to starboard of her course. As soon as the red streaks flashed by, she dived and banked to starboard, away from the frigate, back toward Dodonna.
The sensor board showed a detonation atop the frigate's stern nodule. The extent of the damage, if any, couldn't be displayed yet, but it looked close, closer than if the missiles had detonated against the shields.
Dodonna was free of enemy starfighter assaults as the two Eta-5 interceptors lined up on her, and word came in over the comm boards: V-Sword Leader had bagged the frigate, dropping his entire complement of concussion missiles into the engines, rendering the frigate dead in space, prompting a massive evacuation by escape pods.
“Profiteer,” Ten said. “That's just what I was warning you about, Seven. We do all the work—he gets the prize.”
“What's more important, Ten? A frigate silhouette on your fighter, or knowing that you're responsible for keeping units on your own side alive?”
“Silhouette.”
“You're such a fish. You know you're broadcasting openly on the squadron frequency, don't you?”
“Sith spawn! I didn't—” Then Ten's voice went from shock and fear to anger. “
No, I wasn't. You liar.”
Syal laughed at him and lined up for her landing.
Leia aimed with the targeting computer, aimed with the Force. Her computer chattered to say she had a lock on her target, but she didn't feel her opponent yet. She moved slightly, a tiny adjustment with the quad-linked cannons she commanded, and felt heat, danger—the danger her target was experiencing.
She adjusted down a fraction of a degree of arc and fired. Blinding needles of light hit the Vigilance, shearing through its laser cannons and then the stern of the A-9. She saw the vehicle vent its atmosphere—then the canopy flew up and the pilot ejected, the dim glow of a life-support shield surrounding him as he hit hard vacuum. He was a couple hundred meters away from his doomed craft when it exploded.
A blip representing another A-9, hit by fire from Meewalh and the underside turret, disappeared from Leia's sensor board. Dimly, distantly, she felt the diminishment in the Force that heralded the pilot's death.
“Five down,” Han called over the comm unit. “Four to—never mind. Four breaking off pursuit. I'm returning to our intended course.”
Seconds later Leia was halfway back to the cockpit when Han announced, “Whoa. We're getting out of here.” His sudden port turn threw Leia into a bulkhead, but she was prepared for it, cushioned it with body position and a little help from the Force.
Despite ongoing evasive turns, she managed to push her way back into the cockpit and strap herself into her seat. “What's happening?”
“We're not under fire,” Han said. “We're not even on fire.”
STAR WARS: BETRAYAL Page 16