Before the Storm - Michael P. Kube-McDowell [3]
Their destination in sight, the transports slowed and began to align themselves on approach vectors.
“Activate all autotargeting batteries,” said Nil Spaar.
There was a collective gasp from the prisoners on the bridge, who were watching the same display screens as the Yevetha commandos who now occupied their stations.
“You’re all cowards,” Commander Paret called out to the invaders, his voice bitter with contempt and anger. “A real soldier would never do this. There’s no honor in killing the defenseless.”
Nil Spaar ignored him. “Lock on targets.”
“You vicious, pathetic fool. You’ve already won. How can you justify this?”
“Fire,” said Nil Spaar.
The deck plates barely vibrated as the gun batteries erupted and the approaching transports disappeared in balls of fire and fragments. It did not take long. None escaped. Moments later the communications station began to scream with shocked and panicked inquiries from all over the ship. There had been many witnesses to the carnage.
Nil Spaar turned away from the tracking display and crossed the bridge to where Commander Paret lay on the decking. Grabbing the Imperial officer by the hair, he dragged Paret out of line and rolled him over roughly with his booted foot. Seizing the front of Paret’s tunic with one hand, Nil Spaar lifted him half off the deck. For a long moment he loomed over the officer, looking like a tall, vengeful demon with his cold, black, widely set eyes, the white slash down his nasal ridge, and the deep scarlet-splashed ridges that furrowed his cheeks and chin.
Then, hissing, the Yevetha made a fist with his free hand and cocked it back. A sharp, curving dew-claw emerged from the swelling at his wrist.
“You are vermin,” Nil Spaar said coldly, and slashed the claw across the Imperial captain’s throat.
Nil Spaar held on through the commander’s death throes, then dropped the body carelessly to the floor. Turning, he looked down into the pit at the commando who had taken over the communications station.
“Tell the crew that they are the prisoners of the Yevetha Protectorate and His Glory the viceroy,” said Nil Spaar, wiping his claw on the trouser leg of his victim. “Tell them that beginning today, their lives depend on their being useful to us. And then I wish to speak to the viceroy, and tell him of our triumph.”
Chapter 1
Twelve years later
In the pristine silence of space, the Fifth Battle Group of the New Republic Defense Fleet blossomed over the planet Bessimir like a beautiful, deadly flower.
The formation of capital ships sprang into view with startling suddenness, trailing fire-white wakes of twisted space and bristling with weapons. Angular Star Destroyers guarded fat-hulled fleet carriers, while the assault cruisers, their mirror finishes gleaming, took the point.
A halo of smaller ships appeared at the same time. The fighters among them quickly deployed in a spherical defensive screen. As the Star Destroyers firmed up their formation, their flight decks quickly spawned scores of additional fighters.
At the same time, the carriers and cruisers began to disgorge the bombers, transports, and gunboats they had ferried to the battle. There was no reason to risk the loss of one fully loaded—a lesson the Republic had learned in pain. At Orinda, the commander of the fleet carrier Endurance had kept his pilots waiting in the launch bays, to protect the smaller craft from Imperial fire as long as possible. They were still there when Endurance took the brunt of a Super Star Destroyer attack and vanished in a ball of metal fire.
Before long more than two hundred warships, large and small, were bearing down on Bessimir and its twin moons. But the terrible, restless power of the armada could be heard and felt only by the ships’ crews. The silence of the approach was broken only on the fleet comm channels, which had crackled to life in the first moments with encoded bursts of noise and cryptic ship-to-ship chatter.
At the center of the formation of great vessels was the flagship of the Fifth Battle Group, the fleet carrier Intrepid. She was