by Timothy Zahn
"That was them, Captain," Thrawn said, his voice unreadable. "That ship straight ahead. That was the Millennium Falcon. And it was towing an X-wing starfighter behind it."
Pellaeon frowned past the other. The glow of a drive was indeed barely visible past the flashing laser bolts of the battle, already pretty well out of combat range and trying hard to be even more so. But as to the design of the craft, much less its identity . . . "Yes, sir," he said, keeping his tone neutral. "Cloak Leader reports a successful breakout, and that the command section of the freighter is making its escape to the periphery. They're encountering some resistance from escort vehicles and a squadron of X-wings, but the general response has so far been weak and diffuse."
Thrawn took a deep breath and turned away from viewport. "That will change," he told Pellaeon, back in control again. "Remind him not to push his envelope too far, or to waste excessive time in choosing his targets. Also that the spacetrooper mole miners should concentrate on Calamari Star Cruisers-they're likely to have the largest number of defenders aboard." The red eyes glittered. "And inform him that the Millennium Falcon is on its way in."
"Yes, sir," Pellaeon said. He glanced out the viewport again, at the distant fleeing ship. Towing an X-wing . . . ? "You don't think . . . Skywalker?"
Thrawn's face hardened. "We'll know soon," he said quietly. "And if so, Talon Karrde will have a great deal to answer for. A great deal."
"Watch it, Rogue Five," Wedge warned as a flash of laser fire from somewhere behind him shot past and nicked the wing of one of the X-wings ahead. "We've picked up a tail."
"I noticed," the other came back. "Pincer?"
"On my mark," Wedge confirmed as a second bolt shot past him. Directly ahead, a Calamari Star Cruiser was pulling sluggishly away, trying to get out of the battle zone. Perfect cover for this kind of maneuver. Together, he and Rogue Five dived underneath it-
"Now." Leaning hard on his etheric rudder, he peeled off hard to the right. Rogue Five did the same thing to the left. The pursuing TIE fighter hesitated between his diverging targets a split second too long; and even as he swung around to follow Wedge, Rogue Five blew him out of the sky.
"Nice shooting," Wedge said, giving the area a quick scan. The TIE fighters still seemed to be everywhere, but for the moment, at least, none of them was close enough to give them any trouble.
Five noticed that, too. "We seem to be out of it, Rogue Leader," he commented.
"Easy enough to fix," Wedge told him. His momentum was taking him farther under the Star Cruiser they'd used for cover. Curving up and around it, he started to spiral back toward the main battle area.
He was just swinging up along the Star Cruiser's side when he noticed the small cone-shaped thing nestled up against the larger ship's hull.
He craned his neck for a better look as he shot past. It was one of the little craft that had come out with the TIE fighters, all right. Sitting pressed up against the Star Cruiser's bridge blister as if it were welded in place.
There was a battle going on nearby, a battle in which his people were fighting and very possibly dying. But something told Wedge that this was important. "Hang on a minute," he told Five. "I want to check this out."
His momentum had already taken him to the Star Cruiser's bow. He curved around in front of the ship, leaning back into a spiral again-
And suddenly his canopy lit up with laser fire, and his X-wing jolted like a startled animal beneath him.
The Star Cruiser had fired on him.
In his ear, he heard Five shout something. "Stay back," Wedge snapped, fighting against a sudden drop in power and giving his scopes a quick scan. "I'm hit, but not bad."
"They fired on you!"
"Yeah, I know," Wedge said, trying to maintain some kind of evasive maneuvering with what little control he had left. Fortunately, the systems were starting to come back on line as his R2 unit did some fast rerouting. Even more fortunately, the Star Cruiser didn't seem inclined to shoot at him again.
But why had it fired in the first place?
Unless . . .
His own R2 was too busy with rerouting chores to handle anything else at the moment. "Rogue Five, I need a fast sensor scan," he called. "Where are the rest of those cone things?"
"Hang on, I'll check," the other replied. "Scope shows . . . I don't find more than about fifteen of them. Nearest one's ten kilometers away-bearing one-one-eight mark four."
Wedge felt something hard settle into his stomach. Fifteen, out of the fifty that had been in that freighter with the TIE fighters. So where had the rest of them gone? "Let's go take a look," he said, turning into an intercept vector.
The cone thing was heading toward another Escort Frigate like the Larkhess, he saw, with four TIE fighters running interference for it. Not that there was much potential for interference- if the Frigate was manned anywhere near as sparsely as the Larkhess, it would have precious little chance of fighting back. "Let's see if we can take them before they notice us," he told Five as they closed the distance.
Abruptly, all four TIE fighters peeled off and came around. So much for surprise. "Take the two on the right, Rogue Five; I'll take the others."
"Copy."
Wedge waited until the last second before firing on the first of his targets, swinging around instantly to avoid collision with the other. It swept past beneath him, his X-wing shuddering as it took another hit. He leaned hard into the turn, catching a glimpse of the TIE fighter dropping into a pursuit slot as he did so-
And suddenly something shot past him, spitting laser fire and twisting back and around in some kind of insane variant on a drunkard's-walk evasive maneuver. The TIE fighter caught a direct hit and blew into a spectacular cloud of fiery gas. Wedge finished his turn, just as Rogue Five's second target fighter did likewise.
"All clear, Wedge," a familiar voice called into his ear. "You damaged?"
"I'm fine, Luke," Wedge assured him. "Thanks."
"Look-there it goes," Han's voice cut in. "Over by the Frigate. It's one of Lando's mole miners, all right."
"I see it," Luke said. "What's it doing out here?"
"I saw one stuck onto the Star Cruiser back there," Wedge told him, swinging back on course for the Frigate. "Looks like this one's trying to do the same thing. I don't know why."
"Whatever it's doing, let's stop it," Han said.
"Right."
It was, Wedge saw, going to be a close race; but it was quickly clear that the mole miner was going to win it. Already it had turned its base around toward the Frigate and was starting to nestle up against the hull.
And just before it closed the gap completely, he caught a glimpse of an acridly brilliant light.
"What was that?" Luke asked.
"I don't know," Wedge said, blinking away the afterimage. "It looked too bright for laser fire."
"It was a plasma jet," Han grunted as the Falcon came up alongside him. "Right on top of the bridge emergency escape hatch. That's what they wanted the mole miners for. They're using them to burn through the hulls-"
He broke off; and, abruptly, he swore. "Luke-we got it backwards. They're not here to wreck the fleet.
"They're here to steal it."
For a long heartbeat Luke just stared at the Frigate . . . and then, like pieces clicking together in a puzzle, it all fell into place. The mole miners, the undermanned and underdefended capital ships that the New Republic had been forced to press into shipping service, the Imperial fleet out there that seemed to be making no real effort to push its way past the system's defenses-
And a New Republic Star Cruiser, mole miner planted firmly on its side, that had just fired on Wedge's X-wing.
He took a moment to scan the sky around him. Moving with deceptive slowness through the continuing starfighter battle, a number of warships were beginning to pull out. "We've got to stop them," he told the others.
"Good thinking," Han agreed. "How?"
"Is there any way we can get aboard them ourselves?" he a
sked. "Lando said the mole miners were two-man ships-the Imperials can't possibly have packed more than four or five stormtroopers in each one of them."
"The way those warships are manned at the moment, four stormtroopers would be plenty," Wedge pointed out.
"Yes, but I could take them," Luke said.
"On all fifty ships?" Han countered. "Besides, you blast a hatch open to vacuum and you'll have pressure bulkheads closing all over the ship. Take you forever to even get to the bridge."
Luke gritted his teeth; but Han was right. "Then we have to disable them," he said. "Knock out their engines or control systems or something. If they get out to the perimeter and those Star Destroyers, we'll never see them again."
"Oh, we'll see them again," Han growled. "Pointed straight back at us. You're right-disabling as many as we can is our best shot. We're never going to stop all fifty, though."
"We don't have fifty to stop, at least not yet," Wedge put in. "There are still twelve mole miners that haven't attached themselves to ships."
"Good-let's take them out first," Han said. "You got vectors on them?"
"Feeding your computer now."
"Okay . . . okay, here we go." The Falcon twisted around and headed off in a new direction. "Luke, get on the comm and tell Sluis Control what's happening," he added. "Tell them not to let any ships out of the orbit-dock area."
"Right." Luke switched channels on the comm; and as he did so, he was suddenly aware of a slight change in sense from the Falcon's cockpit. "Han? You all right?"
"Huh? Sure. Why?"
"I don't know. You seemed to change."
"I had half a grip on some idea," Han said. "But it's gone now. Come on, make that call. I want you back on the quads when we get there."
The call to Sluis Control was over well before they reached their target mole miner. "They thank us for the information," Luke reported to the others, "but they say they don't have anything to spare at the moment to help us."
"Probably don't," Han agreed. "Okay, I see two TIE fighters running escort. Wedge, you and Rogue Five take them out while Luke and I hit the mole miner."
"Got it," Wedge confirmed. The two X-wings shot past Luke's canopy, flaring apart into intercept mode as the TIE fighters broke formation and came around to meet the attack.
"Luke, try to blow it apart instead of disintegrating it," Han suggested. "Let's see how many people the Imperials have got stuffed inside."
"Got it," Luke said. The mole miner was in his sights now. Adjusting his power level down, he fired.
The truncated cone flared as the metal dead center of the shot boiled away into glowing gas. The rest of the craft seemed intact, though, and Luke was just lining up for a second shot when the hatch at the top abruptly popped open.
And through the opening, a monstrous, robotlike figure came charging out.
"What-?"
"It's a spacetrooper," Han snapped back. "A stormtrooper in zero-gee armor. Hang on."
He spun the Falcon around away from the spacetrooper, but not before there was a flash from a protuberance atop the other's backpack and the hull around Luke slammed with a violent concussion. Han rolled the ship around, blocking Luke's view, as another concussion rocked them.
And then they were pulling away-pulling away, but with agonizing slowness. Luke swallowed hard, wondering what kind of damage they'd taken.
"Han, Luke-you all right?" Wedge's voice called anxiously.
"Yeah, for now," Han called back. "You get the TIE fighters?"
"Yes. I think the mole miner's still underway, though."
"Well, then, blast it," Han said. "Nothing cute; just blow it apart. But watch out for that spacetrooper-he's using miniature proton torpedoes or something. I'm trying to draw him away; I don't know if he'll fall for it."
"He's not," Wedge said grimly. "He's staying right on top of the mole miner. They're heading for a passenger liner-looks like they'll make it, too."
Han swore under his breath. "Probably got a few regular stormtrooper buddies still in there. All right, I guess we do this the hard way. Hang on, Luke-we're going to ram him."
"We're what?"
Luke's last word was lost in the roar from the engines as Han sent the Falcon flying straight out and then around in a hard turn. The mole miner and spacetrooper came back into Luke's line of sight-
Wedge had been wrong. The spacetrooper wasn't standing by the damaged mole miner; he was, in fact, sidling quickly away from it. The twin protuberances on top of his backpack began flashing again, and a couple of seconds later the Falcon's hull began ringing with proton torpedo blasts. "Get ready," Han called.
Luke braced himself, trying not to think about what would happen if one of those torpedoes hit his canopy-and trying, too, not to wonder if Han could really ram the spacetrooper without also plowing into the passenger liner directly behind him. Ignoring the proton blasts, the Falcon continued accelerating-
And without warning, Han dropped the ship beneath the spacetrooper's line of fire. "Wedge: go!"
From beneath Luke's line of sight an X-wing flashed upward, laser cannon blazing.
And the mole miner shattered into flaming dust.
"Good shot," Han told him, a note of satisfaction in his voice as he veered underneath the liner, nearly taking the Falcon's main sensor dish off in the process. "There you go, hotshot-enjoy your view of the battle."
Belatedly, the light dawned. "He was listening in on our channel," Luke said. "You just wanted to decoy him into moving away from the mole miner."
"You got it," Han said. "I figured he'd tap in-Imperials always do when they can . . ."
He trailed off. "What is it?" Luke asked.
"I don't know," Han said slowly. "There's something about this whole thing that keeps poking at me, but I can't figure out what it is. Never mind. Our hotshot spacetrooper will keep for now-let's go hit some more mole miners."
It was just as well, Pellaeon thought, that they were only here to keep the enemy tied up. The Sluissi and their New Republic allies were putting up one terrific fight.
On his status board, a section of the Chimera's shield schematic went red. "Get that starboard shield back up," he ordered, giving the sky in that direction a quick scan. There were half a dozen warships out there, all of them firing like mad, with a battle station in backstop position behind them. If their sensors showed that the Chimera's starboard shields were starting to go-
"Starboard turbolasers: focus all fire on the Assault Frigate at thirty-two mark forty," Thrawn spoke up calmly. "Concentrate on the starboard side of the ship only."
The Chimaera gun crews responded with a withering hail of laser fire. The Assault Frigate tried to swerve away; but even as it turned, its entire starboard side seemed to flash with vaporized metal. The weapons from that section, which had been firing nonstop, went abruptly silent.
"Excellent," Thrawn said. "Starboard tractor crews: lock on and bring it in close. Try to keep it between the damaged shields and the enemy. And be sure to keep its starboard side facing toward us; the port side may still have active weapons and a crew to use them."
Clearly against its will, the Assault Frigate began to move inward. Pellaeon watched it for a moment, then returned his attention to the overall battle. He had no doubt the tractor crew would do the job right; they'd shown a remarkable increase in efficiency and competence lately. "TIE Squadron Four, keep after that B-wing group," he instructed. "Port ion cannon: keep up the pressure on that command center." He looked at Thrawn. "Any specific orders, Admiral?"