Rogue Squadron (27 page)

Twelve and one-quarter seconds from impact, Whistler brought the randomizing program into play and Corran felt the stick begin to twitch. A tiny spark of fear ran through him as he imagined he had lost control of the ship. In its wake he found a calm that felt all too familiar from the last night on Talasea.
Well, I didn’t die then. Maybe, just maybe …

Easing the stick back and to the left he tossed the X-wing into the weave. Wave after seemingly solid wave of green laser energy lashed out from the
Lancer
, yet his snubfighter sliced through the troughs and curled around the crests, flirting with their deadly caresses. Light flashed against his shields, partially blinding him, but those glancing hits neither slowed nor deflected him.

There was no missing his target. The
Lancer-
class frigate—Whistler identified it as the
Ravager—
swelled into a hard-edged, spiky rectangle with an up-bent prow and a bulbous engine assembly. Green backlight from the quads splashed color over the ship’s Imperial-white exterior. Corran nudged the X-wing in line, more or less, with the ship’s middle deck, then the X-wing whirled out of his control.

In compliance with the instructions he had given Whistler before, the droid rolled the fighter hard to starboard. The stick bashed Corran’s right hand against the side of the cockpit, but before the pain could begin to register, the stick tore itself free of his grasp and smacked him solidly in the chest. With the stick pinning him back in his command chair, Corran could only look up and watch the
Ravager’
s hull blur as it flashed past.

The torpedoes had been within half a second of catching the X-wing when it snapped up and around the
Ravager
. While fully capable of making the same maneuver the fighter had, because of their greater
speed, the torpedoes needed more space in which to make it. Even as they started to correct their courses to follow Corran, they slammed into the
Lancer
and detonated.

The first half-dozen explosions produced more energy than the shields could absorb. The shields went down, leaving the frigate open to the rest of the torpedo swarm. Blast shields buckled and transparisteel viewports evaporated as the torpedoes detonated. Titanium hull plates went molten, flowing into globules of metal that would harden as perfect spheres in the frozen darkness of space. Decks ruptured and the growing fireball at the center of the ship consumed atmosphere, equipment, and personnel with a rapacious appetite.

All but two of the torpedoes fed into the roiling plasma storm raging in the heart of the
Ravager
. In bisecting the ship, the torpedoes cut all power and control links between the bridge, in the prow, and the engines at the stern. Automatic safeguards immediately kicked in and the engines shut down. All laser fire from the
Ravager
died and the stricken ship keeled over. It began to lose a tug-of-war with the planet below and slowly tumbled down into Rachuk’s gravity well.

Corran, in an X-wing sprinting away from the Imperial frigate, could see none of the damage the torpedoes did to the
Ravager
. He stared down his sensor monitor and smiled as the sensors reported, line by line, the deaths of twenty-two torpedoes that were following him.

Twenty-two? But there should have been twenty-four
. He pried the stick off his chest. “Whistler, where are those last two missiles?”

The sensor array shifted. The torpedoes had shot under the
Lancer
, reacquiring his beacon when
he cleared the frigate’s far side.
Almost here. I have to break hard!

The stick twitched and jerked of its own accord. Horror trickled electricity through Corran’s guts. “Whistler, cut it out!”

The stick still bucked and fought against his grip. Corran realized, in one painfully crystal-clear moment, that in having used the indefinite pronoun
it
in his last command he had made a mistake equal in magnitude to still having all shield energy in his forward arc. He started to rectify both of those errors, but the proximity indicator reporting the location of Warden Three’s torpedoes told him his time had run out.

22

Kirtan Loor’s shuttle came out of hyperspace a second before the spread of proton torpedoes hit the
Ravager
. Hanging nearly ten kilometers above the distant
Lancer
, all Kirtan saw was a cone of green laser light stabbing off into space, then a brilliant light dawning at the base of the cone, illuminating the frigate in which it burned. Subsidiary blasts surrounded the ship with fire, then it slowly started to drift away as escape pods shot in all directions away from it.

“What in Sith happened there?”

The shuttle’s pilot shook his head. “I don’t know, but I’m reading a Corellian blockade runner out there and a number of Alliance fighters. I’m taking us in to the
Expeditious
now!”

The fear in the man’s voice almost overwhelmed Kirtan’s sense of mission. “While you’re running, Lieutenant, get me as much comm chatter captured as you can. I want all of it. Do you have any survey probes? Launch one.”

“Sensors are telling us all we need to know about the dead frigate, sir.”

“Not it, you moron, launch it at the runner and the fighters.” Only because he couldn’t fly the shuttle did Kirtan refrain from throttling the pilot. “If you had lasers for brains you couldn’t melt ice with them.”

“Probe away.” The pilot glanced back at him. “Anything else, or can I land us on the
Expeditious
and get us out of here?”

“Are the fighters a serious threat to us?”

“Probably not, they’re all too far away, but I don’t want to chance it.”

“Very well, do your docking maneuver, but keep data flow constant from that probe.”

“As you command, my lord.”

Kirtan ignored the mocking tones in the man’s voice and sat back to think. The tiny rocket probe would provide little solid data. It was designed to be used to sink into a planet’s atmosphere and provide a shuttle with wind and atmospheric data that would affect flight and landing. It also had basic communications scanning capabilities and some visual sensors that might provide him data about the blockade runner and the fighters.

All of that would only confirm what he knew inside already. The fighters, or part of them at least, were from Rogue Squadron. Their need to strike back after the raid on their base was obvious, as was the Rebellion’s need to punish Admiral Devlia for daring to strike at them.

Kirtan pressed his hands together, fingertip to fingertip. “Lieutenant, is there any signal from Grand Isle?”

“Automatic warning beacons and faint homing locators from TIE wreckage.”

Good, then Devlia got what he deserved
.

Kirtan had assumed Rogue Squadron and the Rebellion would exact retribution for the raid even
before he had deduced its location. This was why he had wanted a mechanical probe to be followed by a full-scale assault. Destroying Rogue Squadron would have hampered Rebel operations in the Rachuk sector and clearly would have prevented the loss of the
Ravager
, as well as Grand Isle.
If it had been done my way Admiral Devlia would be a hero instead of just dead
.

Kirtan closed his eyes and summoned up all the information he had about troop strengths and locations in the sphere of space that surrounded Coruscant. Corellia and Kuat both were located in the most thickly populated portion of the galaxy and were heavily defended because of their shipyards. Their sectors had limited Rebel activity, largely because of the Imperial presence. The Rebels, while arrogant enough to think they could destroy the Empire, were not stupid. Hitting the Empire where it was strong was not a good way to win the war.

Sectors like Rachuk were weak links in the perimeter, but were not the keys to winning the galactic civil war. Industrialized warfare called for the destruction of a force’s ability to wage war. Conquering primitive worlds that produced very little of what contributed to the war effort was not a way to do that. The ease of delivering forces to strike at Rachuk from other Imperial garrisons meant it would be difficult to hold, therefore he assumed the Rebels would not try to hold it.

By leaving it in our hands we have to devote forces to holding it, further diluting our strength
.

The ideal choice for a Rebel strike would be in a sector of space where travel was limited because of black holes, clouds of ionized gases, and other gravitic anomalies that made hyperspace travel unpredictable and dangerous. It would also be outside the most solidly inhabited areas of the galaxy to
minimize the amount of support the Empire could devote to it, but it wouldn’t be so far outside that same area that the Alliance, which also drew a lot of support from the Empire’s populous worlds, could not supply and support it.

From his encyclopedic memory Kirtan dredged up the names of a dozen candidate sectors, and he knew there had to be four times that number that he did not know about. He purposely refrained from allowing himself to select a target.
Assuming the veracity of a working hypothesis is the sort of mistake that caused Gil Bastra’s death. I cannot afford another such mistake
.

The pilot flipped a switch on the shuttle’s command console and the wings retracted. The
Lambda
-class shuttle settled down on the dorsal hull of the cruiser. Retraction clamps clicked into place. A tremor shook the shuttle as the docking tunnel bumped the ship from below and formed an airtight seal around the shuttle’s exit ramp.

Kirtan freed himself from his restraining straps. “Lieutenant, download all the feeds and probe data onto separate datacards, then wipe this ship’s memory.”

“Yes, sir.”

Kirtan left the cockpit and descended the ramp into the
Expeditious
. Captain Rojahn greeted him with a curious light in his eyes. “Welcome back aboard, Agent Loor. Your timing was rather precise. We were not waiting long.”

“I don’t imagine the
Ravager
’s crew has the same perspective on our timing you do.”

The shorter man shook his head, then adjusted his grey cap. “Perhaps not. We might ask them about that if we are allowed to recover escape pods.”

“ ‘Allowed’ to recover them?”

“Most are going toward Vladet, but some are
heading out into space. They probably assume the Rebels will take the world.” Rojahn shrugged his shoulders. “I would recover them, but I have strict orders to head out to the Pyria system the moment I have you aboard.”

The Pyria system was one of the candidate systems Kirtan had pinpointed. Borleias was the name of the inhabited world in that system. The Empire maintained a small base there overseen by General Evir Derricote. It was unremarkable, except that it was on his list of target systems for the Rebels.

Kirtan raised an eyebrow. “The orders came from Imperial Center, from Director Isard?”

Rojahn nodded. “There are sealed orders awaiting you in your cabin.”

Kirtan thought for a second, then nodded. “Take us out of this system. If we pick up some escape pods before we jump, I have no problem with that. You will have to plot an evasive course to our destination. If the pods can concentrate themselves in our exit vector, they are all yours.”

The Navy captain smiled. “Thank you, sir.”

“No thanks are needed, Captain. We are all in this together.” Kirtan refrained from smiling despite the feeling of power growing in his chest.
I trade time for loyalty—something I did not know to do on Corellia. With every lesson I learn I become more deadly to the Rebellion
.

Finally he did smile.
And the more deadly I am to the Rebellion, the more useful I become within the Empire. That usefulness translates into power, and in the Empire, power is the very stuff of life
.

23

Corran pushed himself back on his bunk, leaning against the bulkhead and drawing his knees up. “What brings you guys here?”

Rhysati, sitting down at his feet, frowned. “We just heard you were confined to quarters and could be facing a court-martial. How are you doing?”

The Corellian shrugged. “I’m fine.”

Erisi Dlarit brushed black bangs away from her face as she sat on Ooryl’s bed. “Aren’t you angry? To be treated like this, after what you did.”

He hesitated before answering her. Upon their return to the
Reprieve
Wedge had pulled him aside and said General Salm intended to bring him up on charges of insubordination, disobeying direct orders, and pirating a squadron of bombers. Wedge had said he thought he could get the charges quashed in light of how things went at Vladet, but until then he wanted Corran to consider himself confined to quarters. In disciplining him in private, he gave Corran the chance to keep the matter private until it was adjudicated.

“I guess I’m not angry.” Corran was surprised to
hear himself saying that, but he didn’t feel the throat-constricting rage that had characterized how he felt after his father’s murderer was turned loose without so much as an arraignment. “General Salm has no choice but to prefer charges. What I did was pretty stupid and very risky—and I put one of his squadrons in jeopardy.”

The Twi’lek let one of his brain tails drape itself over Rhysati’s shoulder and lightly stroke her throat. “If the General didn’t report Corran’s actions, military discipline would break down. Any pilot with a crack-brained scheme—not to characterize what you did as crack-brained, mind you—could disobey orders and, most likely, get himself killed.”

Erisi leaned forward with her elbows on her knees. Corran noticed that her flight suit was unzipped far enough to give him a fair view of her cleavage. “But Corran didn’t get himself killed …”

Corran smiled. “But it was a near thing. One of the pig-drivers shot his torps late. They lost my signal, then picked it up again when I was heading away from the
Ravager
. When I noticed they were coming after me I realized that Whistler hadn’t killed the jiggle program he had running to randomize my flight as I headed into the
Lancer
’s light. I wanted to break hard, but he had me locked in on a twenty-degree cone, so all I could do was fly straight.”