Enemy Lines II_ Rebel Stand - Aaron Allston [109]
She now carried a crew of one.
A minute later, the squadrons that had just abandoned the pipefighters appeared in her wake, yanked out of hyperspace by the same dovin basal mine. They turned, moving up and around Lusankya, a protective screen.
And coralskipper squadrons began moving against them.
The Millennium Falcon was not among the vehicles protecting Lusankya. Instead, the transport dropped out of hyperspace at the edge of one of the thickest of the dovin basal minefields, the one on the primary arrival vector from Coruscant space.
“I don’t read any coralskippers,” Leia said.
“Good! Anyone for sabacc?”
Leia gave him a look.
“You know I’m kidding. Ready the grav decoys.”
Leia flipped the series of switches on the weapons board before her. It had been a single concussion missile power-up sequence switch, but it had, in the last few days, been temporarily replaced. “Five live,” she said.
“Fire one.”
She returned the first switch to its down position. The Falcon rattled slightly as a missile launched from the concussion missile tube.
Leia watched it on the sensor board. It roared into the middle of the minefield, then slowly turned toward the distant engagement zone. It moved far more slowly than a missile should.
On the board, the wire-frame images indicating points in space where gravity was distorted remained constant … except in one area. The wire frame wrinkled there, and the distortion moved, at first slowly and then with increasing speed, in the missile’s wake.
She smiled. “It’s taking the bait.”
The bait was an instrument package that used the Jaina Solo-developed technique of gravitic signature simulation. The missile she’d fired carried with it the exact gravitic signature of the Millennium Falcon, as did the other four missiles the Falcon held ready.
“Fire two.”
“You really like sounding military, don’t you?”
Han grinned. “Only when I’m giving orders.”
“Second missile is away.”
SEVENTEEN
Wedge watched on the monitors as Lusankya’s starfighters screamed back down into the atmosphere, then began escorting the last personnel transports up. With the transports was a small, private yacht, a converted blastboat that carried Wolam Tser, Tam Elgrin, and a boy named Tarc. Wedge wished them success in staying away from the Yuuzhan Vong—now, and forever.
Iella stood by the door, waiting. Other than Wedge, she was the last person in the biotics building’s operations center. “You can’t do much more here, Wedge. Time to go.”
“Not quite yet. As long as there’s a chance their Peace Brigade friends are trying to crack our comm traffic, them knowing that I’m still here could still cause them to wonder why.” He gave her a conciliatory look. “I’ll be along. I have a shuttle standing by.”
“Come on.”
“You go. Now. Don’t force me to make an order of it.”
Married long enough to know where duty absolutely defined Wedge’s actions, Iella gave an exasperated shake of her head. She came over for one last kiss. “Don’t get hurt.”
“You, either.”
“I want you to be able to retire again.”
“You, too.”
“I love you.”
He kissed her a second time. “I love you, too. And I plan to prove it over and over again.” He smiled against the sick feeling that suddenly roiled within him, the fear that there would be no over and over again, that this was the last time she would see him. “Now go.”
She went.
He returned to the sensor board and forced the conversation, the sensation out of his mind. Whether it was a valid premonition or just ordinary fear, he had a job to do.
He watched as the biotics complex’s starfighter defenses continued to crumble, as Yuuzhan Vong air and ground forces continued their approach.
Charat Kraal led his squadron around toward Domain Hul. His villip had just told him that Lusankya was coming … and that Jaina Solo’s squadron was among those escorting her.
He was confused. He didn’t like being confused. No Yuuzhan Vong warrior ever