Before the Storm - Michael P. Kube-McDowell [117]
As he blew past the falling debris, Mallar heard voices over the interceptor’s combat comm, exulting. But he himself felt neither joy nor relief. He was shaking and covered in clammy sweat, the reckless momentum dissipated, the awful reality sinking in.
The interceptor entered the clouds, and in the next moment Mallar was suddenly blinded by light pouring in through the viewports. The interceptor was shoved roughly sideways as though by a great hand, and shuddered violently in the aftermath. For a long moment he was certain his ship had been hit and he was about to die.
But the moment stretched out, and he did not die. The afterimage of the flash began to fade from his eyes, and his ship, still climbing, emerged intact into the space between the clouds and the stars.
Immediately the targeting system again beeped urgently at him, and Mallar squinted, first to read the display, then to peer out the viewport. What he finally saw nearly overwhelmed him with fear. Riding above him in orbit was the largest ship he had ever seen, a great triangular shape bristling with gun ports and launching fighters from bays on either side.
“Identity.”
PRIMARY TARGET: VICTORY-CLASS STAR DESTROYER, the computer informed him.
And he was still climbing toward it.
SECONDARY TARGETS:
“I don’t want to know,” Mallar said nervously. Hauling the interceptor over on its back, he dove away from the starship at a flat angle and all possible speed, seeking the cover of the clouds.
The weapons master of the Devotion lay cowering on the bridge catwalk. The ship’s primate, whose backhand blow had sent the master sprawling, loomed over him.
“Your incompetence sacrificed the life of a Yevethan pilot!” the primate bellowed. “How will you repay his family for this dishonor?”
“Sir! I wasn’t told that this infestation was capable of resistance—”
“The scout fighter was under your direction. You did not free him to pursue or evade when the vermin fighter appeared. That is your offense.”
“We were preparing to fire—”
“You are relieved. And there will be a price in blood, I promise. Get out of here. Report to the stockade.” The primate turned to the tactics master. “Launch your fighters. I want the skies of Polneye cleared of vermin.”
The fight for Polneye did not last long.
One of the three TIE interceptors that followed Mallar into the air was piloted by a first-form student who had never been aloft. That he got the ship off the ground under control was a credit to the simplicity of Imperial cockpit design. But the first-former’s target melted into the clouds while he was still calling for help unlocking the laser cannon. Not long after, a squadron of Yevethan fighters, tracking his comm signal, fell on him from the clouds. His flight ended in a fiery flat spin and an explosion on the plains east of Twelve North.
The interceptor launched from Eleven South was piloted by the engineering instructor. Like Mallar he climbed through the cloud layer to the edge of space and found the cruiser Liberty orbiting above. Unlike Mallar, he did not escape after his discovery. An antifighter turbolaser battery on the cruiser tracked the interceptor and blew it into a thousand pieces, which returned to the surface as a rain of metal.
A veteran combat pilot was at the controls of the interceptor from Nine North, but he barely escaped the destruction of the city, and one of the fighter’s engines was damaged by shrapnel. It faltered as he was swept into a dogfight with three Yevethan fighters, and he and his ship vanished in a brilliant ball of flame.
The fourth interceptor was destroyed on the ground by strafing TIE fighters as a frantic volunteer crew tried to ready it for launch.
The fifth was lost in the first moments of the attack, as Eleven North came under Liberty’s savage cannonade.
Plat Mallar’s success against the TIE/rc was the only victory of the day, and no one was more aware than