Star Wars - X-Wing - The Bacta War

by Michael A. Stackpole

trying to slash over the top of us. Roll us so we can track her."

  "Captain, if you do that, we'll expose our ventral surface to the snubfighters."

  "I know that, Helm." Drysso looked over at the beefy man heading up his gunnery

  command. "Guns, use our ion cannons on Freedom. I want that ship."

  "Captain, Guns copies your order, but requests you reconsider."

  Drysso's eyes narrowed. "We have more ion cannons than that ship has guns,

  Lieutenant Gorev. I want it, and you'll give it to me. I don't want to destroy

  it unless necessary. Antilles got one of our Impstars, now we'll have one of

  his."

  "What about the snubfighters and the War Cruiser?"

  "Use our concussion missiles. Use all our turbolasers and heavy turbolaser

  batteries."

  "The snubs are too small for turbolasers to track them. The War Cruiser is in

  our aft, so my missiles are having difficulty finding firing solutions."

  "By all that's Imperial, you'll find solutions, Lieutenant Gorev, or someone

  else will be in your position, do you understand?" Drysso's hand rose with his

  voice. "Understand me, people. This is a Super Star Destroyer. A handful of

  snubfighters and a ship a tenth of our size cannot hurt us. Do what you are told

  and victory will be ours!"

  Fliry Vorru had seen the TIE Interceptors flash past the viewports of his office

  and knew the time to make his escape from Thyferra had come. My shuttle is

  hyperspace capable. I run suborbital to the far side of the planet, wend my way

  clear of obstructions, and vanish. He collected a fistful of datacards and

  tucked them inside his tunic.

  He reached the door to his office and found it wouldn't open. He quickly punched

  a security override code into the locking mechanism, and it opened. In his outer

  office he found two stormtroopers and his secretary trying to open the door to

  the hallway.

  "Stand back. Elicia, please do yourself a favor and duck behind your desk. When

  they come for you, tell them horrible stories about me, and they will protect

  you." As the blonde did as she was told, the stormtroopers came to attention.

  "You two will conduct me to my shuttle hangar in the east tower."

  Vorru punched a security override code into the lock, and it opened as well.

  Stepping into the hallway, he pointed out the security holocams at either end of

  the hallway. "Destroy them."

  With a volley of shots his guards complied with his order and Vorru realized

  they were just Home Defense Corps personnel. Of course, the amount of

  clattering their armor makes could have told me that. He waved them on after him

  and quickly worked his way toward the east end of the building, shooting

  holocams as they went. "Since the locks only respond to security override codes,

  we have to assume the Ashern are in the building. They will control the

  turbolifts, so we'll be using stairs."

  Vorru ignored the grumbles from his escort and got them to the east tower

  without meeting any resistance. So far, very good. He forced one of them to

  precede him up the stairs and had the other one follow, but the precaution

  proved unnecessary as they saw no one and nothing while they climbed up two

  floors. They emerged from the stairwell on the hangar level. "Down around the

  corner, to the right. Hurry, I hear the engines powering up."

  This did not please Vorru, since he had intended to pilot the shuttle

  himselfprimarily because he was the only pilot he wanted to know his final

  destination. The fact that the shuttle had already begun to power up meant

  someone else had decided to use his means of escape, which created a huge set of

  complications to be dealt with. Vorru's displeasure with the situation bled into

  his words, causing his guards to sprint on ahead of him and around the corner to

  the hangar.

  A volley of scarlet blaster bolts sent the armored guards tumbling back down the

  hallway. They slammed into the wall and rebounded, but were hit by a half dozen

  more shots before they landed on the floor. One laser carbine came spinning

  across the floor to trip Vorru up. He crashed down hard, but bit back a curse

  and thereby saved his own life.

  From the ground he had a narrow view of the hangar and the cloaked forms of two

  of Isard's Royal Guards walking from the doorway over toward his shuttle, hard!

  She's using my shuttle to escape. How dare she!

  Vorru snatched up the blaster that had tripped him, then sprinted into the

  hangar. At point-blank range he shot both of the men in scarlet armor in the

  back, then dove for cover as the shuttle's laser cannons sprayed the hangar with

  bolts. He felt the hot backblast of the shuttle's maneuvering jets as it kited

  off, then emptied the blaster's power cell by pumping shot after shot into the

  vanishing shuttle's shields.

  Vorru tossed the useless blaster aside and rose from the floor. "She probably

  thinks I'm stuck here, but I'd have been as stupid as she is if I only had one

  bolt hole." He toed one of the Royal Guards, then flipped the body over and

  pulled the blaster carbine it had been lying on from the floor. "I will survive

  this, Ysanne Isard, if for no other reason than to make you pay for the trouble

  you've given me."

  As Corran's X-wing raced in on the Lusankya, the Super Star Destroyer began to

  roll. "Lead, what do we do?"

  "Stay on target. We may not be edge-on anymore, but we can hit the guns from

  below. Commence weave, thirty seconds to firing position."

  Corran rolled his fighter to starboard, opening up some room between himself and

  Ooryl. He pulled back on his stick and nudged it to port, throwing the X-wing

  into a spiral the pilots referred to as a weave. The fighter's movements were

  not wholly regular, making it all but impossible for the Lusankya's gunners to

  get a good shot at them. Of course, one good shot with those heavy turbolasers

  and all the bacta in the galaxy couldn't help me.

  The Lusankya's heavy weapons filled the void with countless bolts of green laser

  energy. The shots spiraled out as crews tried in vain to target the incoming

  snubfighters. Corran studied the bases of the cones, mentally recording the

  location of each battery. Those are what make this mountain of metal dangerous.

  Destroy them and it's just a big box in space.

  Despite the spiral, getting a target lock on the Lusankya was not hard at all.

  Corran shifted his weapon's-control over to proton torpedoes and linked them for

  dual-fire. The box at the center of his head-up display went red immediately and

  Whistler sounded a constant tone indicating target lock. "Good, Whistler, good."

  He punched a button on his communication console that started green, then

  quickly shifted to red.

  "Nine has double-lock. I'm firing."

  "Launch, Nine, then get clear."

  "As ordered, Lead." Corran pulled the trigger on his stick and watched two

  proton torpedoes streak away at their target. "Pull the Lusankya's fangs and

  hope we don't get gummed to death on the way out."

  38

  Drysso stared down at his aide. "How many incoming torpedo tracks, Lieutenant

  Waroen?"

  "Twenty, sir."

  Two per X-wing. Survivable. "You see, only twenty."
>
  "Wait, sir. I have twenty-four."

  "No matter."

  "Now I have forty, no, eighty. Eight zero."

  Drysso's jaw dropped as he saw a nova flare blossom up over the horizon of his

  starboard bow. The shields held for a second or two, then collapsed. Warning

  sirens started shrieking on the bridge as multiple torpedo and missile hits

  exploded six kilometers away on the ship's bow. The brilliant fire gnawed at

  the clean lines of his ship, shattering armor plates and triggering dozens of

  secondary and tertiary explosions.

  Even before the tremors reached the bridge, Drysso started shouting orders.

  "Waroen, kill those sirens. Give me damage control reports. Guns, what have you

  lost and why haven't you gotten me the Freedom yet?"

  Waroen's voice rose above the din. "Captain, we have full bow shield collapse."

  "How did they get that many missiles off, Lieutenant?"

  "Sir, I don't know, sir."

  "Sithspawn! Find out how!" Drysso watched as the Freedom fired down at the

  Super Star Destroyer. Salvos of red turbolaser bolts pulsed out from the smaller

  ship, savaging the Lusankya's unprotected bow. Vaporized armor immediately

  condensed into metal clouds that hid the full extent of the damage done, but

  Drysso had no hopes that his bow would look like anything but a blackened,

  battered lump. Still, that damage is nothing compared to what we can do.

  Over a hundred starboard ion cannons fired back at the Freedom in a display so

  massive it appeared as if sheets of blue energy had erupted from the Lusankya's

  side. The Imperial Star Destroyer's shields imploded, leaving azure lightning

  to skip and arc all over the ship's surface. Drysso saw secondary explosions

  ripple through the smaller ship's port gun decks, letting him know the Freedom

  had been badly hurt.

  "Captain, I've lost fifteen percent of my starboard firepower."

  "Thank you, Guns. Lieutenant Waroen, where did those missiles come from?"

  "The freighters, sir, they're launching missiles that appear to be using the

  starfighter telemetry to target us." Waroen glanced at his monitors. "Sir, I can

  reestablish the bow shield, but it will lower our protection elsewhere."

  "Do it, Waroen. Guns, forget the Freedom. Kill the freighters." Drysso clasped

  his hands at the small of his back. "The freighters are our main threat now.

  Kill them, and this battle is over."

  Tycho Celchu rolled his X-wing to port, then pulled back on his stick. He

  cruised in on the tail of a TIE fighter and pulled the trigger. Two bursts of

  dual-fire lasers shot out, stabbing deep into the engine assembly. He rolled

  quickly to starboard and dove, clearing the exploding TIE's blast radius.

  "You still with me, Eight?"

  Nawara Yen's voice came back a little less calm than Tycho would have wanted.

  "With you, Seven, just barely."

  "New flight, Eight, then our second run on the Lusankya. You take lead."

  "As ordered, Seven."

  Tycho throttled back a bit to let Nawara Ven pass him, then he sideslipped to

  the left and took up a position in Nawara's port aft arc. Coming back off the

  first run on the Super Star Destroyer, the X-wings had boiled into the fourth

  TIE flight. Between them and the Twi'lek Chir'daki, the TIEs never had a chance.

  As they closed on the fifth flight, it lost unit cohesion as four of the pilots

  pulled away and headed back toward the incoming Interceptors.

  "Only eight out there, Nawara. Choose your target carefully."

  "Got one in mind, Seven." Nawara's X-wing remained straight and level as it

  raced in toward the TIEs.

  Tycho began to wince. Head-to-head is usually a winner for us, but it burns some

  shields. In this environment, I'm not so sure that's wise.

  Nawara's X-wing snap-rolled up onto the starboard stabilizer foils, then fired

  four dual bursts of lasers at its target. The first two missed wide, as did the

  TIE's return fire, but the last two hit the TIE dead on. Two of the bolts

  sheered the starboard solar panel in half while the other two peeled back the

  flesh of the cockpit. The TIE started a crazy tumble through space, and suddenly

  Tycho found himself through the line of TIEs and clear to run on the Lusankya.

  "Lead, Seven and Eight are going in."

  "I copy, Seven."

  Tycho rolled left to give Nawara more room, then put his ship into a weave.

  Coming in at the Lusankya from the front, he dropped his aiming reticle on the

  blackened portion of the ship's bow. Guttering flames indicated places where the

  ship was leaking atmosphere. Tycho picked a particularly bright torch as his aim

  point. He shifted over to missiles and immediately got a keening target lock

  tone from his astromech. Seconds later he got a red light from his telemetry

  transponder.

  "Double-lock for Seven. Two away." He pulled the trigger, sending two proton

  torpedoes streaking on jets of blue

  flame at the Lusankya. From all around the larger ship other blue lights

  suddenly ignited and began to cruise in toward the point Tycho had targeted.

  From the very beginning of their operations, Wedge and Tycho had agreed that the

  only way they could defeat the Lusankya was to overwhelm it with proton

  torpedoes and concussion missiles. The problem they had was that to do the job

  correctly they would require twelve or more X-wing squadronssquadrons they

  didn't have. Taking a lesson from the conquest of Coruscant, they decided that

  freighters equipped with launchers and missiles would give them the launching

  platforms they needed. By slaving the freighters' missiles to the X-wing

  telemetry, they eliminated the need for target acquisition sensors on the

  freightersthe use of which would have immediately designated the freighters as

  targets for the Lusankya.

  To prevent anyone from figuring out their strategy, Wedge had Booster buy

  launchers, munitions, and sensor units from Talon Karrde. Reluctant to buy

  something and not use it, Booster hooked the sensors up to the station, noting

  that just lighting them up would be enough to make even the Lusankya think twice

  about engaging the station. As their plans evolved, Booster agreed to stay

  behind and make the Lusankya think it had been trapped while the Rogues left the

  system, rendezvoused with Sair Yonka's Freedom, and rode the rest of the way in

  relative comfort to Thyferra. The freighters moved on in to set up the ambush

  while the Freedom waited at the fringes of the system for the arrival of the

  Lusankya.

  Tycho's missiles exploded against the ship's shields, but they buckled quickly

  enough as the rest of the missiles locked into his telemetry hit the ship.

  Nawara's shots likewise raced in, sowing explosions over the ship's surface.

  Other Rogues continued the assault on the ship's starboard gun decks,

  destroying turbolasers, ion cannons, and concussion missile launchers. If we

  can kill Lusankya's ability to strike from one side, our ships can operate with

  impunity.

  Toward the other end of the Super Star Destroyer, Tycho saw the Alderaanian War

  Cruiser Valiant pour fire into the

  ship. The Lusankya's tail guns exchanged shots with the Valiant, but Aril

  Nunb's droid crew managed to maneuver the s
maller ship so shots impacted against

  shields that were still strong. The Super Star Destroyer's aft shields appeared

  to be holding, but the Valiant's constant battery had to be draining energy that

  could have been used elsewhere to great effect.

  Rolling to port and diving, Tycho sailed his fighter beneath some return fire

  and noticed the Lusankya had begun to strike out at the freighters. They

  presented a diverse choice of targets and began to scatter as the big ship

  turned its guns on them. Evasive maneuvers, as per orders, but that's going to

  make missile launching tougher. He glanced at his monitor. Only two missiles

  left anyway, enough for one more run.

  He checked the location of the Interceptor squadron, but saw it had not closed

  as quickly as anticipated. "Lead, Seven is set for one more run."

  "Negative, Seven. The squints have picked up a lamb and are running it clear of

  here. You and Nine, with your wings, are to pursue."

  Tycho's astromech flashed a quick scan of the shuttle onto his monitor. "Shuttle

  is positive for one lifeform. You think that's Isard?"

  "Like as not. She's not getting away. Go, Tycho, go."

  "I copy, Jesfa." Iella crouched and quickly ducked her head around the corner.

  She jerked her head back and rolled away as three blaster bolts gouged a divot

  out of the ferrocrete wall. That was closer than I have any interest in getting

  in the future.

  Iella keyed her comlink. "Your report was dead on, Jesfa. .Keep telling me what

  holocams he's killing and we'll get to him."

  Elscol came running up and dropped to one knee at lella's side. "What have you

  got?"

  Iella jerked a thumb at the corridor. "Trapped rat, it appears. Your people

  secured the stairwells?"

  "Yeah. He's trapped here on the fifth level." Elscol gave

  Iella a half-smile. "You want us to evacuate innocents, or do we just track this

  guy down?"

  "Let's get him."

  Elscol waved a team of two men and two Vratix forward. "We have a live one. Be

  careful."

  Two of Elscol's people took up positions at the mouth of the corridor. Their

  efforts to look down it produced no fire, so they gave the all-clear signal. The

  two Vratix then rushed forward to flank the only door in that hallway and then

  checked it. They indicated it was locked. Elscol and Iella went running down the

  hall to its end and crouched there, preparing to glance down either branch