Star Wars - Outbound Flight

by Timothy Zahn

  And through the swirling combat drifted the debris and bodies and dead hulks of perhaps twenty more ships.

  This wasn’t a pirate attack. This was a war.

  “Interesting,” Thrawn murmured. “I seem to have miscalculated.”

  “No kidding,” Car’das said, the words coming out like an amphibian’s croak. He wanted to tear his eyes away from the carnage but found himself unable to do so. “Let’s get out of here before someone sees us.”

  “No, you misunderstand,” Thrawn said. “I knew the battle would be of this scale. What I hadn’t realized was the Vagaari’s true nature.” He pointed through the canopy at the distant cluster of ships. “You see those other vessels?”

  “The ones waiting their turn to fight?”

  “They’re not here to fight,” Thrawn corrected him. “Those are the civilians.”

  “Civilians?” Car’das peered out at the distant points of light. “How can you tell?”

  “By the way they’re grouped in defensive posture, with true war vessels set in screening positions around them,” Thrawn said. “The error I spoke of was that the Vagaari aren’t simply a strong, well-organized pirate force. They’re a completely nomadic species.”

  “Is that a problem?” Maris asked. She was gazing calmly at the panorama, Car’das noted with a touch of resentment, almost as calmly as she’d faced the piles of bodies aboard the Vagaari treasure ship.

  “Very much so,” Thrawn told her, his voice grim. “Because it implies in turn that all their construction, support, and maintenance facilities are completely mobile.”

  “So?” Car’das asked.

  “So it will do us no good to capture one of the attackers and use its navigational system to locate their homeworld,” Thrawn said patiently. “There is no homeworld.” He gestured out at the battle. “Unless we can destroy all of their war vessels at once, they will simply melt away into the vastness of interstellar space and regroup.”

  Car’das looked at Maris, feeling a fresh wave of tension ripple through him. A bare handful of ships at his disposal, and he was talking about destroying an entire alien war machine? “Uh, Commander…”

  “Calm yourself, Car’das,” Thrawn said soothingly. “I don’t propose to destroy them here and now. Interesting.” He pointed out into the melee. “Those two damaged defenders, the ones trying to escape. You see them?”

  “No,” Car’das said, looking around. As far as he could tell, no part of the battle area looked any different from any other part.

  “Over there,” Maris said. Pulling him close to her, she stretched out her arm for him to sight along. “Those two ships heading to starboard with a triangle of fighters behind them.”

  “Okay, right,” Car’das said as he finally spotted them. “What about them?”

  “Why haven’t they jumped to hyperspace?” Thrawn asked. “Their engines and hyperdrives appear intact.”

  “Maybe they feel it would be dishonorable to abandon their world,” Maris suggested.

  “Then why run at all?” Car’das said, frowning at the scenario. The fighters were rapidly closing, and the escapers were already far enough outside the planet’s gravitational field to make the jump to lightspeed. There was no reason he could see how further delay would gain them anything.

  “Car’das is correct,” Thrawn said. “I wonder… there!”

  Abruptly, with a flicker of pseudomotion, the lead ship had made the jump to safety. A moment later, the second also flickered and vanished.

  “I don’t get it,” Car’das said, frowning as the pursuing fighters broke off and curved back toward the main part of the battle. “What were they waiting for? Clearance?”

  “In a sense, yes,” Thrawn said. “Clearance from the laws of physics.”

  “But they were already clear of the planet’s gravity field.”

  “From the planet’s field, yes,” Thrawn said. “But not from the Vagaari’s.”

  He looked up at them again, a glitter in his glowing eyes. “It appears the Vagaari have learned how to create a pseudogravfield.”

  Car’das felt his jaw drop. “I didn’t even know that was possible.”

  “The theory’s been around for years,” Maris said, her voice suddenly thoughtful. “We used to talk about it at school. But it’s always required too much energy and too big a generator configuration to be practical.”

  “It would seem the Vagaari have solved both problems,” Thrawn said.

  Car’das gave him a sideways look. There was something in the commander’s voice and expression that he didn’t care for at all. “And this means what to us?” he asked cautiously.

  Thrawn gestured at the canopy. “The Vagaari are obviously using it to keep their prey from escaping until they can be obliterated. I think perhaps I could find more interesting uses for such a device.”

  Car’das felt his stomach tighten. “No. Oh, no. You wouldn’t.”

  “Why not?” Thrawn countered, his eves sweeping methodically across the battle scene. “Their main attention is clearly elsewhere, and whatever defenses they have around their gravity projectors will be arrayed against a possible sortie from their victims.”

  “You assume.”

  “I saw how they defended their treasure ship,” Thrawn reminded him. “I believe I have a good sense for their tactics.”

  Which, translated, meant that Car’das had zero chance of talking him out of this lunatic scheme. “Maris?”

  “Don’t look at me,” she said. “Besides, he’s right. If we want to grab a projector, this is the time to do it.”

  Something cold settled into the pit of Car’das’s stomach. We? Was Maris starting to actually identify herself with these aliens?

  “There,” Thrawn said abruptly, pointing. “That large spherical gridwork.”

  “I see it,” Car’das said with a sigh of resignation. The sphere was near the Chiss edge of the battle, where they could get to it without haying to charge halfway through the fighting. There were three large warships hovering protectively between it and the main combat area, but only a handful of Vagaari fighters actually within combat range of it.

  A tempting, practically undefended target. Of course Thrawn was going to go for it. “I’d just like to remind everyone that all we have is the Springhawk and six heavy fighters,” he pointed out.

  “And Commander Mitth’raw’nuruodo,” Maris murmured.

  Thrawn inclined his head to her, then swiveled around toward the port side of the bridge. “Tactical analysis?”

  “We’ve located five more of the projectors, Commander,” the Chiss at the sensor station reported. “All are at the edges of the battle area, all more or less equally well defended.”

  “Analysis of the projector layout and the jump pattern of the escaped vessels indicates the gravity shadow is roughly cone-shaped,” another added.

  “Are the three defending war vessels within the cone?” Thrawn asked.

  “Yes, sir.” The Chiss touched a key and an overlay appeared on the canopy, showing a wide, pale blue cone stretching outward from the gridwork sphere into the battle zone.

  “As you see, the three main defenders are inside the cone, which limits their options,” Thrawn pointed out to Car’das and Maris. “And all three vessels are positioned with their main drives pointing toward the projector. Years of success with this technique has apparently made them overconfident.”

  “Though those close-in fighters are dipping in and out of the cone,” Car’das pointed out.

  “They won’t be a problem,” Thrawn said. “Does the projector itself appear collapsible?”

  “Unable to obtain design details at this distance without using active sensors,” the Chiss at the sensor station reported.

  “Then we’ll need a closer look,” Thrawn concluded. “Signal the fighters to prepare for combat; hyperspace course setting of zero-zero-four by zero-five-seven.”

  “Hyperspace setting?” Car’das echoed, frowning. Back at their first tangle wit
h the Vagaari, Thrawn had successfully pulled off a fractional-minute microjump. But their target sphere was way too close for that trick to work now.

  And then, beside him, he heard Maris’s sudden chuckle. “Brilliant,” she murmured.

  “What’s brilliant?” Car’das demanded.

  “The course setting,” she said, pointing. “He’s sending them to the edge of the gravity cone, the edge right by the projector.”

  “Ah,” Car’das said, grimacing. Of course there was no need for an impossibly short microjump here. The fighters could head into hyperspace as if they intended to make it their permanent home, relying on the field itself to snap them out again at precisely the spot where Thrawn wanted them.

  “Once in place, they’re to clear out the enemy fighters and create a defensive perimeter between the projector and the war vessels,” Thrawn continued. “The Springhawk will follow and attempt to retrieve the sphere.”

  Car’das squeezed his hands into fists. Very straightforward… unless they missed the edge of the cone they were aiming for and got pulled out somewhere in the middle of the battle instead. Or unless such a short jump fried all their hyperdrives, which would lead to the same result.

  “Assault Teams One and Two are to prepare for out-hull operation,” Thrawn said. “There will most likely be an operational crew aboard the projector; they’re to locate and neutralize with minimal damage to the projector itself. They’ll be joined by Chief Engineer Yal’avi’kema and three of his crew, who will either find a way to collapse the projector to a size we can take aboard or else attach it as is to our hull for transport. All groups are to signal when ready.”

  The minutes crept by. Car’das watched the battle, wincing at each defender that flared and died under the merciless assault and wondering how long Thrawn’s own luck would hold out. Certainly the Chiss ships had proved their exceptional stealth capabilities back when they’d sneaked up on both the Bargain Hunter and Progga’s ship. But even so, sooner or later someone on the Vagaari side was bound to notice them sitting quietly out here.

  Fortunately, Thrawn’s crew also recognized the need for haste. Three minutes later, the fighters and assault teams had all signaled their readiness.

  “Stand by, fighters,” Thrawn said, his eyes on the battle. “Fighters attack… now.” In the distance there was a flicker of pseudomotion, and the six Chiss fighters appeared in a loose line just off the projector’s starboard side. “Helm: prepare to follow.”

  Thrawn had called the enemy’s defense setup overconfident, but there was nothing sloppy about their response to this unexpected threat. Even as the Chiss fighters swung into their attack the Vagaari ships began to spread out, trying to deprive the intruders of clustered targets as they returned fire with lasers and missiles.

  Unfortunately for them, their attackers’ commander had already seen Vagaari fighter tactics in action. The enemy ships got off perhaps two shots each before the Chiss settled into their own counterattack and the Vagaari fighters began exploding. Less than a minute after their sudden arrival, the Chiss held the field alone.

  Alone, but not unnoticed. In the near distance, the three larger warships were beginning to respond, their aft batteries opening fire as they began ponderously turning around.

  “Fighters: take defensive positions,” Thrawn ordered. “Helm: go.”

  Car’das set his teeth. The stars began their usual stretch into starlines; then with a horrible-sounding thud from somewhere aft, the stars were back.

  “Assault One to projector’s starboard side,” Thrawn called. “Assault Two to port. Chief Yal’avi’kema, you have five minutes.”

  “Question is, do we have five minutes?” Car’das muttered, eyeing the shots starting to sizzle past the Springhawk‘s canopy.

  “I think so,” Thrawn said. “They’ll need to be much closer before they can attack in earnest. Otherwise, they risk overshooting us and destroying their own projector.”

  “So?” Car’das countered. “Isn’t that what they probably think we’re trying to do to it?”

  “Actually, I suspect they’re rather confused about our intentions at the moment,” Thrawn said. “An attacker whose sole purpose was destruction would hardly have had to move in this close.” He gestured toward the battle. “But whatever they perceive our plan to be, they still must allow the projector to remain functional as long as possible. Once the gravity shadow vanishes, the defenders inside its cone will be free to escape and possibly regroup. They thus cannot risk overshooting us and must come in closer.”

  Car’das grimaced. Certainly the logic made sense. But that was no guarantee the Vagaari wouldn’t do something stupid or panicky instead.

  The enemy warships had made it halfway around now, allowing them to bring their flank laser batteries into play. Still, so far they did seem to be concentrating most of their fire on the Chiss fighters arrayed against them.

  And then, as the light of the distant sun played across the warships’ sides, Car’das spotted something he hadn’t noticed before. “Hey, look,” he said, pointing. “They have the same bubbles all over their hulls that we saw on the treasure ship.”

  “Get me a close-up,” Thrawn ordered, his eyes narrowing. On the main monitor display the running series of tactical data vanished and was replaced by a hazy telescopic view of the bubble pattern.

  Car’das felt his throat suddenly tighten as, beside him, he heard Maris’s sharp intake of breath. “Oh, no,” she whispered.

  The bubbles weren’t observation ports, as Qennto had once speculated. Nor were they navigational sensors.

  They were prisons. Each one contained a living alien being, all of them of the same species as the mangled bodies Car’das could see floating among the battle debris. Some of the hostages were cowering against the walls of their cells, while others had curled up with their backs to the plastic, while still others gazed out at the battle with the dull resignation of those who have already given up hope.

  Even as they watched, a stray missile exploded a glancing blow at the edge of the telescope display’s view. When the flash and debris cleared away, Car’das saw that three of the bubbles had been shattered, their inhabitants blown into space or turned into unrecognizable shreds of torn flesh. The metal behind the broken bubbles, clearly the main hull, was dented in places but appeared to be intact.

  “Living shields,” Thrawn murmured, his voice as cold and as deadly as Car’das had ever heard it.

  “Can your fighters use their Connor nets?” Car’das asked urgently. “You know—those things you used on us?”

  “They’re still too far away,” Thrawn said. “At any rate, shock nets would be of little use against the electronic compartmentalization of war vessels that size.”

  “Can’t they shoot between the bubbles?” Maris asked, her voice starting to shake. “There’s room there. Can’t they blast the hull without hitting the prisoners?”

  “Again, not at their distance,” Thrawn said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Then you have to call them back,” Maris insisted. “If they keep firing, they’ll be killing innocent people.”

  “Those people are already dead,” Thrawn replied, his voice suddenly harsh.

  Maris flinched back from his unexpected anger. “But—”

  “Please,” Thrawn said, holding up a hand. His voice was calm again, but there was still an undercurrent of anger simmering beneath it. “Understand the reality of the situation. The Vagaari have killed them, all of them, if not in this battle then in battles to come. There’s nothing we can do to help them. All we can do is focus our resources toward the Vagaari’s ultimate destruction, so that others may live.”

  Car’das took a deep breath. “He’s right, Maris,” he told her, taking her arm.

  Angrily, she shook it off and turned away. Car’das looked at Thrawn, but the other’s attention was already back on the approaching warships and the six Chiss fighters standing in their path.

  “Assault One reports Vagaari cre
w has been eliminated,” one of the crewers called. “Chief Yal’avi’kema reports that they’ve located the projector’s collapse points and are folding it for transport. Assault Two is assisting.”

  “Order Assault One to assist, as well,” Thrawn said. “I thought there would be some sort of quick-set arrangement,” he added to Car’das. “The Vagaari wouldn’t want to hold position for hours as they assembled their gravity projectors in full view of their intended victims.” He looked back at the Vagaari warships, their turns now nearly completed, and his mouth briefly tightened. “Stand ready to fire on the war vessels.”

  Car’das looked at Maris, but her back was to him, her shoulders hunched rigidly beneath her vac suit.

  “Weapons ready.”

  “Fire full missile bursts on my command,” Thrawn said. His eyes flicked to Maris— “And instruct the fighters to fire shock nets at the war vessels’ bridge and command sections at the moment of minimum visibility.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  “Fire missiles,” Thrawn ordered. “Chief Yal’avi’kema, you now have two minutes.”

  “Chief Iral’avi’kema acknowledges, and estimates the projector will be collapsed on schedule.” Across by the distant warships, there were multiple flashes of light as the Chiss missiles struck.

  “Helmets!” someone barked.

  Car’das reacted instantly, snatching up his helmet and throwing it over his head, peripherally aware that everyone on the bridge was doing the same. He had locked the helmet onto its collar and was looking for the source of the threat when there was a sudden burst of light and fire and the portside section of the canopy disintegrated.

  Through the deck he felt the thud of airtight doors slamming shut, and for a fraction of a second he heard the wail of warning alarms before the sudden decompression robbed them of any conducting medium. Blinking against the dark purple afterimage of the flash, he peered through the still swirling debris at the impact point.

  It was as bad as he’d feared. The three Chiss who’d been closest to the blast were lying twisted and crumpled on the deck. Other Chiss had also been thrown from their chairs, though most of them appeared to still be alive. Here and there he could see crewers struggling with torn suits or cracked helmets as they or fellow crewers fastened emergency patches in place. The control boards in the area of the blast had been turned into mangled, sharp-edged twistings of metal and tangled wiring, while elsewhere the rest of the panels appeared dead.