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.RELLIDIR, TRALUS“Incoming starfighters.” The voice of the leader of one of the two squadrons now escorting the Shriek bombers crackled in Han's ears.“You two stay put, we'll handle them.”One of the fighter squadrons broke away from the formation.The other stayed in array around the Shriek bombers.Han didn't reply.His comm board was fixed to broadcast on a frequency and encryption code that would allow only Wedge and the mission controllers to hear him—it wouldn't do for someone to recognize his all-too-distinctive voice.But Wedge said what Han was thinking, his tone ironic: “Thanks, sonny.I was mighty scared until you spoke up.”On the sensor board, Han could see the dozen attack fighters head out southeastward against the incoming flight of half a dozen starfighters, unknown type.Unknown type.Han frowned over that.He liked surprises, but only when he was springing them on someone else.The outbound attack fighter formation neared the enemy formation and their lines blurred for a moment, then suddenly there were nine fighters instead of twelve, frantically turning in the wake of the unknown enemy.The enemy still numbered six.“Not good,” Han said.“Lasers to power,” Wedge answered.Han checked his weapons board.The lasers in his top-side turret were charged and ready to go.Half the remaining attack fighter escort broke away from the Shrieks and turned toward the incoming fighters, forming a defensive screen.Red laser flashes, missed shots by the incoming enemy, flashed by laterally ahead of Han's viewport.Suddenly the six attack fighters that had just turned away became four on the sensors, and Han's targeting alarm shrieked with the news that one of the enemy had a weapons lock on him.Han kicked his thruster, then fired repulsors, tactics to vary his speed and throw off the aim of his enemies.He spun so that his Shriek was presented edge-on to the enemy, dropped his own targeting brackets over the foremost enemy, and fired.The too-informative sensor board responded with an almost comical ding indicating he'd hit his target.Six enemy starfighters, oversized silver balls trailing narrowing twin thruster pods, flashed by from right to left, pursued by a flight of Corellian attack fighters.In the distance to the left, the enemy craft began a slow turn back toward the fight.Han blinked.“What the fierfek are those?”“Sienar Aleph-class starfighters,” Wedge said.“Originally nicknamed Pondskippers because they were to be countermeasures to coralskippers.The current nickname is Twees.They're out of prototype and in limited production.”“Great.I hit mine with a good quad-linked punch and it didn't even shudder.”“Yeah, they're supposed to be like shooting solid metal ball bearings.” Wedge switched over to the squadron frequency.“Nebula Flight, Panthers are making our break.Good luck.”“Panther One, this is Nebula Leader.Blow something up for us.”Han anticipated Wedge and broke first from formation, a dive that took him down, still eastward, toward the start of their approach to Rellidir's downtown district.Wedge slipped neatly into his wake.BATTLE CARRIER DODONNA, ABOVE TRALUSThe starfighter control chamber was an exercise in controlled chaos—a sight familiar to Leia, who'd helped coordinate many starfighter skirmishes, starting with the Battle of Yavin.Aboard Dodonna, they had bells and whistles she'd never enjoyed in the control room at Yavin.The entire battle was being reproduced via holograms over their heads, the skirmishes not exactly to scale but with each individual starfighter or vessel shown in a wire-frame form color-coded to whichever side the fighting vehicle represented.The GA forces were blue; Corellian forces, red; unknowns—including several vehicles, probably civilian, above Rellidir and heading away from that endangered city—in yellow.As they moved around, firing, sustaining damage, disappearing, the disconcerting combination of colorful icons and event noises made the whole display seem like an oversized console game experiencing delirium tremens.Equipped with a specialized datapad handed to her by the chamber's coordinator, a black-furred Bothan colonel by the name of Moyan, Leia could gather all sorts of data about the various forces.By pointing the datapad at any vessel or vehicle and tagging it with a beam of light from the device, she could display information about the target on the datapad screen.For example, the fighter that had just winked out in the fight above Rellidir was designated Nebula Eleven, its pilot Gorvan Peel.The Corellian vessels were equipped with ejectors, and a moment after the fighter vanished, Leia's screen was updated: EJECT SUCCESS, LIFE SIGNS OPTIMAL, QUEUE RESCUE #37.As several of the coordinators in the chamber were doing, she pointed at one of the “mystery bombers” descending on Rellidir and sampled its information:F/F: ENEMYCLASS: CEC YT-VARIANT (UNKNOWN), EST.BOMBERPILOT: UNKNOWNInformation on the other Shriek was identical.Leia spoke quietly into her datapad, allowing its speech-to-text translator to add a notation to the data on the bomber: “Believed damaged, as it is turning away from GA targets.Recommend concentration on fighter escort.” She tapped the screen to send that datum to Dodonna's database.A flash of guilt washed across her.She was pretending to be helping the GA forces, and instead she was protecting her husband as he bombed them.She shook her head, trying to force the emotion away from her.No matter what she did during this fight, she'd be coping with guilt, and not keeping an eye on Han's back would be worst of all.especially if he was hurt.She turned her attention to the Alephs skirmishing with Han's fighter escort.CORUSCANTHis head filled with a baffling mix of emotions and images, Luke sat up in bed.He spared Mara a glance, saw that she was still asleep, and rose.So pounded was he by sensations reaching him through the Force that it was actually difficult to think.Cautious, he opened himself to them, trying to sort them out.betraying trust, to act is to betray, not to act is to betrayA mynock, its eyes glittering with unusual intelligence, stared at him from the distance of centuries.the Sith are not what you thinkLeia, her features smoothed by grief so great it could not be expressed, fell forward, folding over as she did [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]