Onslaught: Dark Tide I Page 7

  Mara ran her fingers back through his hair. “And I will miss you, too, husband. But, our being apart from time to time is something I also accepted when I became your wife. We part now so we can be together forever. Not the best bargain in life, but not the worst, either. And, for now, husband mine, it is a bargain I am more than happy to accept.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  As his X-wing cleared the dorsal launch bay on the Bothan Assault Cruiser Ralroost, Gavin Darklighter tugged back on the stick and rolled to starboard to watch the rest of the squadron emerge. The Bothan Assault Cruiser was one of the latest additions to the New Republic fleet. While slightly smaller than a Victory-class Star Destroyer, and possessed of leaner and less angular lines, the Ralroost boasted 20 percent more firepower than a Vic and almost half again as much in terms of shielding and armor. The ship had been designed to take a severe pounding and still hammer an enemy.

  Gavin recalled the discussion he’d had with his wife and his sister when the Bothans announced plans to build the Assault Cruisers. Peace had been declared with the Imperial Remnant, so the ships were seen as either a foolish allocation of resources, hints at future Bothan aggression, or, as far as Sera and Rasca were concerned, a gross waste of money. Given that peace reigned in the galaxy, both of them thought the money needed to build one of the ships could be better spent on healing the scars of decades-long war.

  Their arguments had been persuasive, but Gavin had reserved judgment, and as he looked down at the ship, he was glad the Bothans had built it. The fighter hangars were amidships and had launch apertures that would let the fighters head up or down, as needed, to get into battle. The dual launch paths also meant recovering fighters after a battle was faster, and Gavin very much appreciated that detail.

  He keyed his comm unit. “One flight on me. Five, you have two, and, Nine, you have three.”

  His two subordinate commanders, Major Inyri Forge and Major Alinn Varth, acknowledged his command, and not for the first time did the incongruity of having female voices linked to those flight designators strike him. For almost the whole of Gavin’s time in the squadron, Nine had been Corran Horn, and Five had been Hobbie or Janson or Tycho Celchu. Then again, Lead was almost always Wedge, but now I’m the leader.

  The flights spread out and turned toward the center of the star system. It wasn’t much to look at, with an asteroid belt separating two small, very hot planets from three larger gas giants. None of the planets themselves supported life, though the largest gas giant did have some moons that were almost hospitable—if one could tolerate a low-oxygen, high-nitrogen mix for breathing. If not for some mining done in the asteroids, and the fact that traffic from Bastion uses this as a nav point to the Corporate Sector, this would be another dull spot on star charts.

  The system didn’t even have a name, which struck Gavin as appropriate, for it had been largely without any notoriety for as long as folks had visited it. That had changed within a week, when a freighter stopped to scout the asteroids for any salvage. Fighters of unknown origin had jumped the ship, but the freighter got away and reported the incident. Admiral Kre’fey had taken his Ralroost out to investigate. Rogue Squadron shifted from playing pirates to becoming pirate hunters and shipped along.

  Gavin punched up an analysis program and loaded it into his targeting computer. “Catch, push sensors. We know there were snubfighters out here, but I need to find their base.”

  The droid warbled his understanding quickly.

  Inyri’s voice crackled through the comm speakers in his helmet. “Lead, we have transient contacts in the asteroid belt, 247 mark 30. They’re shadowing us.”

  “I copy. Got enough to identify them?”

  “Matches aren’t coming up easily, so I’m guessing uglies.”

  “Keep an eye on them.” Gavin thought for a second, then nodded to himself. “On my mark, all Rogues will break onto course 270 mark 27. We’re aiming for the big asteroid there, the one that’s slowly rolling.”

  Confirmations of the orders came back to him over the comm unit.

  Gavin reached up and flicked a switch that locked the fighter’s S-foils in attack position. He studied his sensor scopes but got nothing. Well, if they won’t show themselves easily, we’ll just have to root them out ourselves. “Rogues, on my mark, three, two, one, mark.” He kicked his X-wing up on its port stabilizers and eased the stick back, then leveled out and saw the rest of his flight cruise in behind him.

  He switched his comm unit over to the command frequency he shared with the Ralroost. “Rogue Leader here. We have contacts and are investigating.”

  “Understood, Rogue Leader. Good hunting.”

  Gavin forced himself to take a deep breath, then to exhale slowly. While he trusted Inyri’s judgment about the ships they’d be flushing from the asteroids, he couldn’t shake the sense of dread that came with the memory of his first sim encounter with the coralskippers. Even though we’ve run sims against skips, coming up against them for real will be very dangerous.

  From behind the big asteroid burned opposition. Catch painted contact after contact on Gavin’s secondary monitor. All of the ships were, in fact, uglies, cobbled together from parts of older fighters. They included TIE-wings, which were TIE fighter cockpits married to Y-wing engine nacelles; X-ceptors, which were X-wing bodies with TIE interceptor wings; and triple-finned tri-fighters, nicknamed clutches because the ball cockpit was held in the grip of the three fins’ forward edges. All the ships were as common in pirate fleets as hydrogen was in the galaxy, and all of them could be very deadly.

  Gavin dropped his targeting reticle on the lead clutch and flicked his weapons over to lasers. He linked them for dual fire, then glanced at his targeting monitor. The range to target scrolled down quickly, but that concerned him less than another detail the sensor scan provided him.

  The clutch had no shields. There was no reason any pilot going into combat wouldn’t bring his shields up to full power. The tri-fighter was known to possess shields—which was one of the reasons it had become a successful pirate-ship design. Without shields the pirates would never stand a chance against the Rogues.

  “Catch, get me their tactical frequency.” Gavin nudged his stick to the right and triggered a burst that burned red past the clutch’s nose. “Five, you show any shields on these guys?”

  “Negative, Lead. Hulls are weak, too.”

  What’s happening here? Gavin lined up another shot at the clutch and waited for it to fire first. The clutch kept coming, closing well within optimal range, then finally shot a green laser bolt at Gavin’s X-wing. The energy sent a static hiss through the comm unit’s speakers as it dissipated against the shields. It had done less damage to them than it should have, and only one of the two lasers on the clutch had fired.

  And the only reason a pilot has to get that close is if he’s shooting with visual data—his sensors must be out.

  The clutch flashed past, and Gavin rolled to starboard, then hauled back on the stick and started chasing the clutch. He inverted, then dived and goosed his throttle to follow the tri-fighter through its evasive maneuvers. He switched his lasers over to quad fire, then settled his middle finger on the stick’s secondary trigger button. This modification was meant to use against the skips, but could be of use here, I think.

  He lined up his shot, then pulled the secondary trigger. The lasers cycled quickly, producing a hail of down-powered laser darts that stippled little burn marks all over the clutch’s fins. The fire gnawed away at the pirate ship, burning off black-and-white droid-fist insignia emblazoned there.

  The clutch rolled to port, then climbed sharply. Gavin chopped his throttle back, inverted, and started to climb after the clutch. He let the pirate fighter climb into his sights, then sprayed more laserfire over the ship. These bolts struck on the forward canopy and clearly surprised the pilot. The clutch jerked to starboard, then one of the ion engines belched a long jet of flaming exhaust. The other engine flared for a moment, then both shut dow
n.

  Gavin started to cruise in for a closer look at the fighter when a heavy turbolaser bolt slashed through the void between him and it. Catch shrilled a warning, so Gavin rolled to port and dove toward the large asteroid that had been his goal.

  The climb after the clutch had taken him above the asteroid’s horizon, exposing him to the ship that lay hidden behind it. He vaguely recognized it as a Nebulon-B escort frigate, but that was only from the general profile. The ship had been hammered badly, with gaping holes opened in the hull. His sensors showed some flickerings of shields, but they remained weak enough that Gavin knew a strafing run by his X-wing would punch through and do serious damage.

  “Catch, put their tactical frequency on comm channel four.” The requisite button on his comm unit began to glow, so Gavin punched it, intensifying the light. “This is Colonel Gavin Darklighter of the New Republic. Identify yourselves and stand down, or you will be destroyed.”

  “This is …” The voice coming through the speakers started bold and defiant, but faltered quickly, weakening sharply. “This is Urias Xhaxin of the Free Lance.”

  “Lead, break port.”

  Without thinking, Gavin juked his fighter left, then saw green laser bolts blaze through the space he’d just left. A TIE-wing dived through, followed closely by Rogue Two. Kral Nevil’s quad burst burned one of the Y-wing nacelles from the ugly, leaving the pirate fighter to spiral down and explode against the asteroid’s craggy surface.

  “Thanks, Two.”

  “Just my job, Lead, watching your back.”

  “Captain Xhaxin, order your forces to stand down. They can’t fight us. Your ships are all damaged. You don’t want a slaughter any more than we do.”

  Weariness weighed heavily in the man’s reply. “You’re right, of course. There comes a time when you have to stop fighting. I’ll give the order, Colonel.”

  Gavin punched up the squadron’s tactical frequency. “The pirates will be standing down. Fire only if fired upon.”

  Kral’s X-wing came up on Gavin’s port side. The Quarren pilot got a look at the frigate, then glanced in Gavin’s direction. “It looks reef-raked in high seas, Colonel. What could have done it?”

  “I don’t know, Two, but I don’t think we’ll like the answer when we get it.”

  Gavin saw to the recovery of the pirates to the Ralroost, then joined Admiral Kre’fey in his ready room. Aside from the two guards standing inside the door, the Bothan admiral was alone with the pirate leader. “Ah, Colonel Darklighter, thank you for joining us. You’ve spoken with Captain Xhaxin.”

  “I have.” Gavin turned to the seated human and offered him his hand. “Thank you for ending the fight so quickly.”

  The pirate glanced up, his dark eyes filled with exhaustion and something else. The man looked haggard. His long hair and neatly trimmed beard were white. It and his pale flesh contrasted sharply with his black uniform, and save for the red of bloodshot eyes, the man could have been a simple black-and-white holograph. “I should thank you for letting me permit my people to live.”

  Traest Kre’fey waved Gavin to a chair. “You may not know this, but Urias Xhaxin has quite a history with the Free Lance. He operated as a privateer raiding Imperial shipping, then continued to prey on Imps during the warlord period. Since the peace he’s been out here, on the Rim, taking off the occasional unreconstructed Imperial making a run for the Remnant. Pickings have been slim, and his choice of targets has made him a low-priority issue for the New Republic.”

  Gavin nodded slowly. “I remember seeing a holodrama about him once.”

  Xhaxin snorted. “Purest fiction. A holojournalist came out to report on my activities. She had some romantic idea of what we were doing. She was disappointed, so she created her fantasy and someone committed it to holo.”

  Traest’s head came up. “I take it what happened to you recently on the Rim wasn’t a fantasy.”

  “Not mine.” The man hugged his arms to his chest. “I set up an operation to lure in people wanting to travel in a convoy to the Remnant. They met on Garqi and departed on a schedule I’d devised, to a point of my choosing. I intended to capture them all. We arrived just before the last ship was supposed to get in, and found the ships already under attack. The things hitting them—I guess they were ships … I’d never seen their like before. Gravitic anomalies all over. They shot plasma that ate into ships. They oriented on us almost immediately.”

  The man’s eyes focused distantly and his voice shrank. “I did what we could, but there were too many of them. We plotted a blind jump out, then another, which landed us here. My hyperdrive motivators blew, and the structural damage—well, I don’t know if the Free Lance could ever hit lightspeed again. I know I don’t have the resources to salvage her.”

  Xhaxin looked up at Traest. “So, Admiral, you’ve caught me. I don’t think the old Imperial bounty is still good, but I’m certain someone will pay for my carcass. Other than that, I’m useless. If I weren’t, I’d not have lost my command.”

  “Oh, no, Captain Xhaxin, not at all.” Traest nodded at Gavin. “Colonel, if you would see Captain Xhaxin to guest quarters, I would be obliged.”

  Xhaxin raised an eyebrow. “I don’t understand.”

  “You met and fought with an enemy we’re going to be seeing a lot more of—much more than we want. Your understanding of their tactics and nature is worth far more than any bounty.” The Bothan smiled carefully. “I need to know what you know. I need to understand what you understand. If we can’t learn how to deal with this threat, you’ll find that, all too quickly, your Free Lance could be left the most powerful ship in the whole of the New Republic.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Leia Organa Solo smiled cautiously at Danni Quee and Jaina. The two of them had arrived at the temporary office she’d been given by the Agamarian Council with enough time to spare so she could inspect their clothes. Leia circled a finger, prompting a sigh from Jaina, but both young women turned around to show off their attire.

  Jaina wore a dark brown pilot jumpsuit, but had pulled a lighter tan Jedi cloak over it. She wore no gun or gunbelt, but did have her lightsaber dangling from her side. Her dark hair had been pulled back into a single braid and fastened with a silver ribbon.

  Danni, on the other hand, wore a simple dress, functional and somberly colored. The dark green of the vest she wore over the top matched her eyes, while the darker brown of the dress itself contrasted well with her pale skin and blond hair, which Danni wore unbound. She carried no weapons, and while she did not look helpless, she clearly was not a warrior by birth or training.

  Leia glanced over at Elegos. “I think they will do.”

  The Caamasi glanced back over his shoulder at the two women. “Quite presentable, indeed.”

  Leia frowned. “You don’t think this will work, do you?”

  Elegos shrugged, gathering his hands at the small of his back. He stared out through the balcony doors at the ocean north of Calna Muun, the Agamarian capital. “I think your reading of these people, of their respect for tradition and family, is accurate. We know they contributed much to the effort against the Imperials, and they suffered for it. Keyan Farlander was but one of their sons and daughters that flew from here to wage war against the Empire.”

  “But?”

  Elegos turned away from the balcony. “Some are capable of shouldering burdens for light-years, and others just kilometers.”

  An Agamarian appeared in the doorway to the office. “If you are ready, the council will hear you now.”

  “Danni?”

  The young woman started for a moment, then looked at Leia. “Yes, I guess I am ready.”

  Elegos crossed to her and settled his hands on her shoulders. “Just remember, Danni, what the ExGal Society set out to do, it did. You are a witness to that fact. You are reporting to them what you know. That you can do, easily.”

  “Thank you. I know.”

  Leia let Elegos lead, with Danni in his wake. She slipped in
beside her daughter. Keeping her voice low, she glanced at Jaina. “Something the matter?”

  Jaina’s head came up a bit. “I’ve got better control than that.”

  “Of the Force, yes, but not the expression on your face.” Leia composed her own expression into one of serene confidence and nodded to various Agamarians lining the high-ceilinged hallways of the Council Center. The open, airy architecture that the Agamarians affected worked well for the warm, dry climate, keeping things cooler than might otherwise have been expected on such a bright, sunny day. Pillars and archways broke the corridor into segments, each featuring its own holographic tableaux of Agamarian history and culture.

  Jaina sighed, clearly irritated. “I’m not a diplomat. I’m a pilot and a Jedi Knight. I don’t mind teaching Danni some things while we fly, but my talents are being wasted here.”

  “I see.” Leia smiled at her daughter, and then looked sharply at Jaina. “Jaina, tell me what’s really going on.”

  Jaina’s voice sank into a whisper. “Mother, you are good at this sort of thing, but if you’d completed your Jedi training, you’d be more effective.”

  “I worked hard at developing my skills.”

  “Mother …” Jaina faltered for a second. “Mother, you don’t even wear your lightsaber.”

  The disappointment in Jaina’s voice drilled through Leia. For years she had wanted to work more at becoming a Jedi. She saw it as a way to get to know her brother, Luke, and to help him with his dream of reversing the evil their father had done by destroying the Jedi. She’d practiced as much as she could, but other demands on her, demands born of her training as a politician and diplomat, always pulled her away.

  I told myself I was doing my best by helping to create the government, then to run it. I let Luke train my children so they could reach their full potential, or so I thought. Did I also let them become Jedi to ease my guilt over having failed to realize my potential with the Force?