Solo Command (48 page)

As his fighter’s nose came to point at the Interceptor, the Imp pilot rolled his craft and dove away from Corran. The Corellian pilot started down after him, but cut back to 75 percent of his speed. As he anticipated, the Imp cut his speed as well, hoping Corran would race past him. Instead Corran triggered one quick burst of fire that hit high on the Imp’s port wing, burning a black hole through the red stripe. He then stood on his right rudder pedal, keeping his guns on the squint, and poured another quad burst of laserfire into the Interceptor.

All four ruby darts drilled through the port wing, then stabbed deep into the cockpit. A bright light flashed through the hole the lasers had opened, and Corran expected the ship to explode, but it didn’t. Instead it began to come apart, with bits and pieces of it whirling away as if the bright flash had disintegrated all the rivets and welds used in its manufacture.

Corran looped his X-wing away from the dying squint, but before he could vector in on another Interceptor, he heard Commander Wedge Antilles coming through on the squadron’s tactical channel. “All Rogues, come about on a heading of one-two-five, mark one-seven. That Golan Space Defense Station is designated Green One. It’s ours.”

“Ours, Commander?” The same surprise Corran felt in his chest came flooding through Gavin Darklighter’s voice. “That’s a pretty tough target.”

“We’ll just have to be tougher than it is, won’t we, Six?” Wedge’s reply came loaded with grim irony. “If we can get into the shipyard, the Imps will have to think about more than just pounding our fleet. Besides, we have friends coming out. One Flight is on me. Five, you have Two Flight. Nine, you have Three.”

“As ordered, Lead.” Corran brought his fighter around on the appropriate heading and locked the target into his computer. “Estimated time of arrival at missile range is forty seconds. Let’s move, Three Flight.”

Ooryl pulled his X-wing up on Corran’s starboard wing. Inyri Forge brought Rogue Twelve up on Corran’s port wing and Asyr Sei’lar, in Rogue Eleven, hung back off Inyri’s port wing. Corran goosed his ship a bit forward and shifted his attention toward their target, trusting the others to keep him informed if Imps were vectoring in on them from behind.

Not likely, though, since they’ve got plenty to keep them busy
. Throughout the bowl into which the New Republic’s fleet moved, massive salvos of energy shot up and down and side to side, filling the area with a dazzling light show. Corran would have been more than content to watch the turbolaser bursts flow back and forth, but the fact that they were lethal was more than enough to keep him from finding much beauty in them. Behind the squadron, Y-wings, A-wings, and B-wings mixed it up with Interceptors, TIE fighters, and Bombers, punctuating the light show with brilliant explosions.

The larger ships, when hit hard, didn’t explode as quickly. Instead their fire-blackened bulks drifted through the battlefield, atmosphere burning off as it leaked out of broken hulls. Some turbolaser blasts were enough to peel back armor plates and reduce them to floating metal globules that hardened in the vacuum of space. In other places the shots holed the ships through and through or vaporized things that should have been there, like superstructures or a bow.

The Golan Space Defense Station loomed larger. Lights blinked placidly at the various corners, almost inviting inspection. Over two kilometers long, about half as wide and tall, it bristled with turbolaser batteries, proton torpedo launchers, and tractor beam stations. It massed more than an Imperial Star Destroyer and, while it wasn’t as heavily armed, the proton torpedo launchers gave it the ability to inflict serious damage in a hurry. It could easily put down any of the New Republic ships that made it through the Imperial formation.

Corran flicked his weapons-control over to proton torpedoes and linked fire so two would go with a single pull of his trigger. Whistler brought up the heads-up targeting display and the HUD fixed a green box around the space platform. The droid began to beep insistently as it tried to get a target lock; then the HUD went red and Whistler’s tone became constant.

“Nine has a firing solution, transmitting now. On my mark, Three Flight. Three, two, one, mark!”

All four of the X-wings fired their proton torpedoes at one time, using Whistler’s targeting solution to guide them. A battle station like the Golan sported very powerful shields and individually fired proton torpedoes would have been unable to pierce it. Eight torpedoes coming in at the same time, aiming for the same point, would overstress the shields, draining them of energy. This would create a critical time window in which the shields would be weakened, or would totally fail, and have to be regenerated.

Whistler sounded another long, strong tone. “Three Flight, second salvo. On my mark. Three, two, one, mark.”

Eight more proton torpedoes streaked out from the incoming fighters before the first set had hit. The first eight torpedoes detonated against the station’s top-port shield. The shield itself went opaque, taking on a milky-white hue as it attempted to dissipate the torpedoes’ energy. But sparks shot from the shield projectors rimming the station’s middle and a roiling ball of plasma bounced across the hull, scorching gray paint as it went.

The next eight missiles hit in a ragged sequence and exploded brilliantly along the station’s middle. Flames vomited into space as a blast opened a hole three decks deep and vented atmosphere. Armor plates whirled into space, half melted and twisted. Turbolaser batteries split apart, leaving blackened holes and warped metal where they had once been grafted to the station.

Corran juked his fighter up and away from the station, then inverted and watched turbolaser fire shoot beneath his canopy. For a half second he thought the Golan’s gunners were terribly shaken by the squadron’s attack, hence their misses, then he glanced at his rear sensor display. He smiled and keyed his comm unit. “We softened them up for you …”

“Appreciated, Rogues, now let us do our jobs.”

Two New Republic Assault Frigates, the
Tyrant’s Bane
and
Liberty Star
, cruised in toward the Golan station. Though each ship was less than a third as long as the station, they bristled with fifty laser cannons and poured terajoules of coherent light into the Golan. Scarlet bolts lanced through the station’s collapsed shields and bubbled up chunks of the metal hull. Stanchions wavered and wilted beneath the blistering assault. As they collapsed, turbolaser batteries sagged and dipped, then melted into slag.

The troops aboard the Golan fought back valiantly, but found themselves at a gross disadvantage. Proton torpedoes exploded, shaking the station. The troops fired in vain at the fighters, then concentrated their fire on the Frigates. While the larger ships made for better targets, their intact shields provided them with protection the station lacked. With each salvo fewer and fewer of the Golan’s weapons fired back. A brilliant flare flashed on the station’s port side, then it went black.

Power couplings must be down. That half of the station is dead
. Corran keyed his comlink. “Three Flight, with me, we’re past the station and in on the shipyard. Now the Imps have to move to catch us.”

Corran tried to force confidence into his voice. Racing a starfighter through a shipyard, shooting up targets of opportunity, would be fairly easy, but he didn’t want to kid himself about the chances that such an assault would force the Empire to break off its attack on the Rebel fleet.
Thrawn might not like what the Rogues are doing, but he can deal with us later, when he’s killed all the other ships
.

Tycho’s voice poured through the comm unit. “Lead, Two here. I show the Imperial formation breaking up.”

“What?” Corran stabbed a button and shifted the display on his primary monitor over to a system-wide scan. The Imperial bowl, which had been contracting around the Rebel cone, was beginning to come apart. The
Storm-hawk
and the
Nemesis
were moving to secure an outbound vector for the fleet, while Thrawn’s flagship, the
Chimaera
, swung about to discourage pursuit of the fleet’s smaller ships.

Disbelief threaded through Wedge’s voice. “Be careful, Rogues. Thrawn’s got something up his sleeve.”

Janson laughed lightly. “Looks like a full-fledged retreat, Lead. They’re recovering their fighters.”

Corran studied his readout. The Rebel cone began to blossom from the widest end, coming forward to the tip. The New Republic’s ships kept a respectful distance from the Imperial ships and moved to begin recovery operations. The Imp pull-back left a couple of their own stricken ships still hanging in space.
And it leaves the Bilbringi shipyards to us, which Thrawn never would have wanted
.

A shiver ran up Corran’s spine. “What happened here, Lead?”

“I don’t know, Nine.” Wedge’s voice came through solemn and with a hint of hesitation. “Just got a recall order from Admiral Ackbar. We’re to rendezvous with
Home One.”

“And then he’ll tell us what happened?”

“Could be, Corran, but I doubt it.” Wedge’s X-wing looped out in front of the other Rogues and began the trip back toward the fleet. “For now, let’s just be glad that, for whatever reason, Thrawn discovered he had better things to do, and let’s be ready for when he decides to come back at us again.”

THE OLD REPUBLIC
 (5,000–33 YEARS BEFORE
STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE
)

Long—
long
—ago in a galaxy far, far away … some twenty-five thousand years before Luke Skywalker destroyed the first Death Star at the Battle of Yavin in
Star Wars: A New Hope
 … a large number of star systems and species in the center of the galaxy came together to form the Galactic Republic, governed by a Chancellor and a Senate from the capital city-world of Coruscant. As the Republic expanded via the hyperspace lanes, it absorbed new member worlds from newly discovered star systems; it also expanded its military to deal with the hostile civilizations, slavers, pirates, and gangster-species such as the slug-like Hutts that were encountered in the outward exploration. But the most vital defenders of the Republic were the Jedi Knights. Originally a reclusive order dedicated to studying the mysteries of the life energy known as the Force, the Jedi became the Republic’s guardians, charged by the Senate with keeping the peace—with wise words if possible; with lightsabers if not.

But the Jedi weren’t the only Force-users in the galaxy. An ancient civil war had pitted those Jedi who used the Force selflessly against those who allowed themselves to be ruled by their ambitions—which the Jedi warned led to the dark side of the Force. Defeated in that long-ago war, the dark siders fled beyond the galactic frontier, where they built a civilization of their own: the Sith Empire.

The first great conflict between the Republic and the Sith Empire occurred when two hyperspace explorers stumbled on the Sith worlds, giving the Sith Lord Naga Sadow and his dark side warriors a direct invasion route into the Republic’s central worlds. This war resulted in the first destruction of the Sith Empire—but it was hardly the last. For the next four thousand years, skirmishes between the Republic and Sith grew into wars, with the scales always tilting toward one or the other, and peace never lasting. The galaxy was a place of almost constant strife: Sith armies against Republic armies; Force-using Sith Lords against Jedi Masters and Jedi Knights; and the dreaded nomadic mercenaries called Mandalorians bringing muscle and firepower wherever they stood to gain.

Then, a thousand years before
A New Hope
and the Battle of Yavin, the Jedi defeated the Sith at the Battle of Ruusan, decimating the so-called Brotherhood of Darkness that was the heart of the Sith Empire—and most of its power.

One Sith Lord survived—Darth Bane—and his vision for the Sith differed from that of his predecessors. He instituted a new doctrine: No longer would the followers of the dark side build empires or amass great armies of Force-users. There would be only two Sith at a time: a Master and an apprentice. From that time on, the Sith remained in hiding, biding their time and plotting their revenge, while the rest of the galaxy enjoyed an unprecedented era of peace, so long and strong that the Republic eventually dismantled its standing armies.

But while the Republic seemed strong, its institutions had begun to rot. Greedy corporations sought profits above all else and a corrupt Senate did nothing to stop them, until the corporations reduced many planets to raw materials for factories and entire species became subjects for exploitation. Individual Jedi continued to defend the Republic’s citizens and obey the will of the Force, but the Jedi Order to which they answered grew increasingly out of touch. And a new Sith mastermind, Darth Sidious, at last saw a way to restore Sith domination over the galaxy and its inhabitants, and quietly worked to set in motion the revenge of the Sith …

If you’re a reader new to the Old Republic era, here are three great starting points:

•
The Old Republic: Deceived
, by Paul S. Kemp: Kemp tells the tale of the Republic’s betrayal by the Sith Empire, and features Darth Malgus, an intriguing, complicated villain.

•
Knight Errant
, by John Jackson Miller: Alone in Sith territory, the headstrong Jedi Kerra Holt seeks to thwart the designs of an eccentric clan of fearsome, powerful, and bizarre Sith Lords.

•
Darth Bane: Path of Destruction
, by Drew Karpyshyn: A portrait of one of the most famous Sith Lords, from his horrifying childhood to an adulthood spent in the implacable pursuit of vengeance.

Read on for an excerpt from a
Star Wars
novel set in the Old Republic era.