Delpin nodded, her jaw set. “If the Alliance seizes control of the station, Corellia is the system under the gun. We need more forces up there, now. More than we have. I need to talk to General Phennir.”
“No, let me. Believe it or not, I speak his language.”
She looked at him, dubious, but seemed convinced by his sudden confidence. She nodded.
At the next cross-corridor, she turned left, toward the situation room. Teppler continued on alone toward the Prime Minister’s communications chamber.
The Reveille raced toward the Anakin Solo, arcing to pass well clear of an engagement between a Corellian frigate and an Alliance starfighter squadron. Syal fumed. The Reveille was broadcasting its true registration, its correct password, both belonging to Tycho, the information having been sliced out of its computers by Syal’s own mother, who was now aboard the shuttle.
“Rakehell Leader. Begin firing.”
All around Syal, the other Rakehell pilots opened up on the shuttle—or rather, began firing in its general vicinity. Shots from their lasers passed all around the shuttle, and one—as beautifully placed as any kill, fired by her father—glanced off the top shields, not endangering the shuttle in the least.
A turbolaser blast, bright columns of light in parallel streams, flashed toward them from the capital ship. At this range, the Anakin Solo’s gunners were only likely to hit by accident, but accidents did happen. Suddenly all the Rakehells were on the defense, their approaches as erratic as the flight of piranha-beetles in mating season.
“Rakehell Leader to squadron. Break by wing pairs whenever you feel like it—or when I say break. We’ll form up off the Anakin Solo’s bow, outside the range of its main guns.”
Syal heard acknowledgments from the other pilots and added her own.
Then her comlink—her personal comlink, clipped to her tunic under her flight suit—came to life. “Captain Antilles.” It was Tycho’s voice.
“Yes, General.”
“Break when the others do. Do not, I say again, do not stay with me. I’m going to make my run from here.”
“But, sir—”
“That was an order. Acknowledge it.”
“Acknowledged, sir.” A chill settled in Syal’s stomach as a notion of what Tycho planned to do occurred to her.
ABOARD THE ANAKIN SOLO
A beep, indicating a high-priority query, sounded from Lieutenant Tebut’s terminal. She switched from the screen of scrolling security data to the query. The face of one of the Anakin Solo’s communications officers, a Rodian, came up on-screen. “Lieutenant—”
“Yes, Ensign.”
“We have an emergency transmission from the shuttle Reveille, inbound, carrying General Celchu. They’re being pursued by enemy fighters and request immediate access to our hangar bay.”
“Do they check out?”
“All codes and passwords are correct.”
“Grant it.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant.” The screen cleared, and Tebut switched back to her data.
Incoming fire from the Anakin Solo increased as the Rakehells neared the capital ship. The Anakin Solo’s gunners were good—laser and ion shots missed the Reveille by mere hundreds of meters but came increasingly close to the pursuing X-wings.
Pair by pair, the Rakehells peeled away, zooming to comparatively safe distances. Now only two wing pairs were left: Wedge and Sanola, Tycho and Syal.
Another near hit rattled Tycho’s cockpit. He ignored it, focusing on the shuttle before him and on the Anakin Solo, rapidly getting bigger.
The plan Luke, Wedge, and their committee of advisers had put together was deceptively simple, and based around the phrase Let the enemy do the work.
Was it going to be tough to smuggle a team of infiltrators aboard the Anakin Solo, especially because security had doubtless been tightened after the Love Commander’s recent mission? Of course. So the Jedi would just steal Tycho’s shuttle, with its valid authorizations, and chase it to safety aboard the Anakin Solo. Equally tough to get saboteurs aboard Centerpoint Station? They’d dress up as Galactic Alliance Guard and board in the wake of the Alliance’s genuine boarding action.
And destroying the station itself—Tycho shook his head. As half ambassador to, half captive of the Jedi, he hadn’t been told what method they planned to use to eliminate Centerpoint, but he assumed it followed the same philosophy. Let the enemy do the work. Use the enemy’s strength against them. Very Jedi-like.
Wedge’s voice sounded in his ear: “Break.” Wedge and Sanola banked abruptly to port, vanishing from Tycho’s vision but not from his sensor board.
Syal stayed behind Tycho.
He thumbed his personal comlink, the one not slaved or monitored by the Rakehells. “Now, Antilles.”
“Yes, sir.” There was pain in Syal’s voice. Then her X-wing, too, banked, following her father’s outbound course…leaving Tycho alone, staring into the scores of turbolaser batteries and ion cannons of the Anakin Solo.
He closed in on the Reveille’s tail, discouraging the Anakin Solo’s gunners from firing on him. It only discouraged the ones who were sensible, or who actually cared if the Reveille made it. The hotshots continued firing, their blasts coming ever closer, until Tycho could barely see through his canopy because of the bright flashes just beyond. His cockpit rattled constantly from energy scraping at the periphery of his shields.
But ahead was the Anakin Solo’s underside, the belly doors that led to its hangar bay open just wide enough for a shuttle to enter.
Suddenly the incoming fire ceased. He was too close for the gunners to target.
Ahead, the Reveille rose toward the hangar entrance and reduced speed. Tycho decelerated as well, but not as much, and overshot the shuttle, his X-wing’s underside missing the shuttle’s top hull by three meters or less.
Tycho hit the Anakin Solo’s atmosphere containment shield fast enough that the sudden return of friction set off heat warning alarms. He could feel the impact decelerate him further, and the atmosphere catching his S-foils nearly spun him out of control. He wrestled with his control yoke and arced over hundreds of meters of bare hangar floor.
At the end of a ballistic arc, he fired his repulsors and came down to a jarring landing that would, under other circumstances, have been mortifying. He popped his canopy and rose, turning to see the Reveille rise into the hangar, then descend toward its own landing.
Tycho keyed his personal comlink. “This is General Celchu. Put me through to the bridge.”
A high-pitched, musical Rodian’s voice answered, “Welcome aboard, General—”
“Be advised, I am not aboard the Reveille.” A half-squadron of Alliance security agents rushed toward his X-wing. He raised his hands and kept talking. “The Reveille is crewed by an intrusion team of Jedi and saboteurs. I’m in the snubfighter, transponder designation Rake Three.”
“Um…I’ll put you through to Lieutenant Tebut.”
Tycho gritted his teeth at both the delay and the unpleasantness of the duty he was performing. But that was it—duty. Duty meant he had to alert his chain of command that insurgents, including his best friend’s wife, were aboard. Duty meant he had to do his best to prevent the destruction of Centerpoint—destruction that he privately welcomed, as it would remove one of the galaxy’s most destructive and ill-used forces from the playing field.
Abruptly smoke began pouring out of the Reveille’s thrusters. It was far too thick, too voluminous, to be the result of an engine fire. It flowed rapidly in all directions, engulfing the security team and mechanics moving toward the shuttle.
It reached the rear edge of the security team guarding Tycho before any of them noticed. Then one waved and shouted. All turned to look.
All but one. Overly tense, startled by the shout, the guard fired. The shot hit Tycho in the center of the chest, frying his comlink.
Tycho went down, dropping once more into his pilot’s seat.
chapter thirty-three
“Blast it.” Over Syal’s helmet speakers, Wedge sounded aggrieved. “He’s going to get himself…” But Syal saw, as Wedge must, Tycho’s X-wing threading its way through the barrage of turbolaser fire with the ease of an airspeeder dodging repulsorlift lane markers. A moment later the X-wing and the shuttle were out of sight, swallowed by the Star Destroyer.
“All right. Rakehell Leader to squadron. Form up on me. It’s time to annoy another shuttle. Four, you’re at your own discretion.”
“I’ll stick with you, Leader. My Alliance duties are done for the moment.”
“Good.” Wedge banked toward the distant Centerpoint Station, and the Rakehells followed.
CORELLIA, CORONET, COMMAND BUNKER, PRIME MINISTER’S OFFICE
The hologram of General Phennir swam into resolution before Minister Teppler, who adjusted a knob on the desk beside him; Phennir was suddenly of normal height. “General, we don’t have time to fence. Centerpoint Station is under attack. The enemy appear to be trying to board and assume control. Where are the nearest Confederation forces you could send to aid us?”
“We have a few ships near Corellian space, mostly doing reconnaissance. Nearest beyond that will be at Commenor.” Phennir frowned. “But as I told…Prime Minister Koyan, Corellia can fend for herself while he remains obstinate.”
Teppler nodded. “I suspect that Koyan will not remain…obstinate much longer. Have your forces standing by to jump into our system.”
Phennir nodded. “Understood. We will stand by for confirmation that obstinacy is at an end.”
Teppler hit a button, and Phennir disappeared. He hit another to transmit to the assistant in the next office. “Get me Koyan, immediately.”
ABOARD THE ANAKIN SOLO
“Sir?” This time Nevil’s voice carried some urgency. “We have unsubstantiated reports that there are Jedi and saboteurs aboard. We do know that there is a disturbance in the main hangar bay.”
Caedus, eyes still closed, raised a hand to forestall further words. He needed to concentrate. His forces were taking the Corellian defenders to pieces, and he could afford no distractions.
On the other hand, he could not afford to ignore the possible presence of Jedi, either. He carefully withdrew from the active influence of his ship commanders, then opened himself up to a different flow of the Force.
Yes, there were Jedi aboard. Luke. Ben. Saba Sebatyne.
His mother.
His eyes snapped open and his connection to his commanders faltered, vanished. “Security!”
Tebut, answering from her station below the bridge walkway, port side, sounded composed as usual. “Sir.”
“Confirm Jedi. They’ll be coming here for me.”
“Yes, sir. Initiate Plan Bastion?”
“That’s correct.” Caedus took a deep breath. His ships and boarding parties would have to succeed without benefit of his battle meditation. He needed all his focus now. His focus, and the forces he had assembled against this specific eventuality.
Even now, security teams would be assembling at strategic choke points between the hangar bay and the bridge. Space-tight blast doors would be closing and sealing at other critical points. Backup officers would be entering the auxiliary bridge, ready to assume control of the Anakin Solo if things became too dangerous or frantic for officers here to do their work.
And Caedus’s additional defenders should be arriving—
The bridge doors opened and they marched in, a double column, eight YVH combat droids in all. Two turned to face the stern as the blast doors there shut. Two dropped to the officers’ pits, one on either side, their mass causing deck plates to crumple as they hit. The other four marched forward, then, four meters short of Caedus’s position, turned toward the stern. More would be stationing themselves elsewhere in the ship.
Caedus didn’t think these measures would stop the Jedi. But they might whittle down the numbers of Jedi.
They had to. Jacen could defeat his mother or Ben without trouble; Saba, with difficulty. Saba plus Luke would be impossible odds. One of the Masters had to fall if Caedus was to survive this day.
Moving so fast that they blurred, the four Jedi, breather masks over their faces, emerged from the edges of the smoke cloud.
The security team at the entrance to the turbolift corridor opened fire—too late; the Jedi were already among them, striking with fists, feet, and, in Saba’s case, tail. Six security personnel fell in an instant, their blaster rifles clattering to the deck plates, barely audible over the alarms howling through the hangar bay.
Iella and Han, R2-D2 between them, emerged from the smoke, removing their own masks.
Luke gave them a nod, clapping his hand on Ben’s back. “All right, time to move out. Artoo?”
The astromech wheetled his confirmation, then turned and rolled along the hangar wall toward the nearest datajack.
Ben swung toward the doorway into the corridor and launched a kick. A ship’s security officer, not visible before Ben began his maneuver, rounded the corner and ran right into it, catching Ben’s heel across his jaw, and staggered back into his men. One was alert and nimble enough to jump clear, and aimed his rifle; Han shot him in the gut, the stun beam folding the man over and putting him down.
The other Jedi leapt forward, making quick work of the rest of the squad.
Han holstered his blaster and smiled at his wife. “Nice not to have to do all the work myself for once.”
Rakehell Squadron approached the stern of a troop transport shuttle. It looked as though it had already sustained damage in this battle—the bow was blackened all along the starboard side, with a fracture pattern on the viewport suggesting that the transparisteel was on the verge of cracking, of venting its atmosphere into space—but Syal knew it was a sham. The battle damage was nothing but a paint job.
The shuttle accelerated away from the X-wings, toward the station and the battle raging all around it. “Just like before.” Wedge’s voice was matter-of-fact. “Shoot, but don’t hit.”
The X-wings closed in, firing.
The shuttle Broadside rocked as a Rakehell near hit grazed its shields. Seyah held on to the webbing across his chest with a white-knuckled grip of death.
“Hey, Doctor.” The shout came from the cockpit, where, up until a moment before, the pilot had been singing something about a drunken Devaronian spacer and the females he loved in each port. “Which end, Talus or Tralus?”
“Weren’t you awake at the briefing? Tralus end!” Seyah stared, aghast, at what little he could see of the pilot’s back and neck through the cockpit door.
“Talus?”
“Tralus!”
“That’s the end toward Talus, right?”
Seyah took as deep a breath as he could, intending to blow out eardrums with the volume of his reply, and then he caught sight of Kyp Durron. The Jedi Master was grinning, shaking his head. “He’s messing with you, Doctor. Pilots do that.”
Seyah let out his breath with a whoosh, and glared. “I’ll shoot him after we dock.”
ABOARD THE ANAKIN SOLO
Caedus kept track of the battle on one monitor and of the progress of the Jedi on another.
The battle was going well enough, even without his help. Casualties were higher, of course, but they were mounting among the enemy as well, and reports had several shuttles’ worth of Guardsmen and commandos now boarding Centerpoint through captured air locks…and meeting tough resistance from station defenders.
Luke, Ben, and Saba were occasionally visible on security holocams. They would appear at some hardpoint, spend a few moments to take out the defenders there, and cut their way through the next set of blast doors in turn.
Caedus hadn’t spotted his mother, though he had felt her presence, as he had felt Luke, searching in the Force. Luke had found him easily enough—Caedus wasn’t hiding. Leia’s presence, however, had brushed over him and gone on. Caedus wondered if she might be wounded, which would account both for the fact that she wasn’t keeping up with the
others and that her ability to detect him seemed to be reduced.
On a new holocam view, a space-tight blast door began glowing. A lightsaber blade emerged through it and began cutting a slow circle into the hardened durasteel.
On the near side of the blast door, four YVH droids—the first the Jedi would encounter here—withdrew several paces and set up in a firing line.
CENTERPOINT STATION FIRE-CONTROL STATION
Sadras Koyan used a handkerchief to mop away sweat running down his cheeks. He addressed the head technician on duty—the bearded man who called himself Vibro, the arrogant nek who had once lectured him on station programming and thumbs in the eye. “Any response from Admiral Niathal?”
Vibro looked back toward him and shook his head.
“How can I—” Koyan cut his words short before asking the technician a question the man could not answer. How can I compel Niathal to surrender if she won’t talk to me? He couldn’t just destroy an uninhabited world of the Coruscant system as a warning shot—Centerpoint’s main weapon might fail again, be inoperable for several days. When he fired, it would be on the world of Coruscant herself. But if he fired without first talking to Niathal, while he might win the war, the Alliance forces here wouldn’t know to give up, and they might take the station—and kill him—before they realized they were defeated. And then they wouldn’t be defeated.
As if reading his mind, Vibro grinned. “I think you should just do it, sir.”
“What?”
“Destroy Coruscant. Show them what this station is made of. We have reconnaissance ships in the Coruscant system, don’t we? They’ll get excellent recordings.” The man raised his arms, forming a circle, then mimed a big sphere suddenly collapsing to nothingness.
Koyan stared at him, aghast…aghast at the notion of killing billions for the sake of seeing what it looked like, rather than for real political gain. “Get back to work.”
“Yes, sir.” The technician faced forward again, then stared down at his board. “Incoming message for you.”
Star Wars: Legacy of the Force: Fury Page 26
