Enemy Lines II_ Rebel Stand - Aaron Allston [115]
“Ooh, your words thrill me, Great One.”
“Don’t be so thrilled that you screw up.”
“Ooh, your supportiveness thrills me—”
“Get back to business, Sharr.”
“Right.” Sharr was silent for a long moment, during which the units of coralskippers got closer, moving in from all directions. Then: “Nearest dovin basal minefield is ahead and to port. The Goddess should aim for that. Piggy, when do the incoming units get close enough to recognize us by sight?”
“Forty seconds, but if the Goddess goes off straight toward that minefield, she’ll pass close enough for them to see her.”
“Ooh, right. Adjusting course … Twin Suns Leader, prepare yourself for the chase. Three, two, one … chase.”
A missile roared away from Twin Suns Ten, streaking off to port at nearly a ninety-degree angle to their current course, aiming toward the largest gap between any of the inbound squadrons. Jaina activated her gravitic signature and transponder switches. Abruptly her designation on the sensor board went to Twin Suns Nine, while the outbound missile, just as instantaneously, became Twin Suns One.
There was a momentary wobble in the movements of skip squadrons to port. Then four of the squads in that direction changed course, converging on the missile.
“Well done, Sharr,” Jaina said. When she’d switched to the Twin Suns Nine identity, her comm system should have activated a program to alter her vocal characteristics, making her sound like an older woman, one with a deeper voice.
“Thanks, Nine. And nice to have Leader gone. She’s so bossy.”
Kyp cut into the conversation: “Heads up. We still have incoming contacts to starboard. Prepare to repel boarders. Break by shield trios on my command … three, two, one, break.”
While Beelyath held position within the Twin Suns Ten-Eleven-Twelve shield trio, Sharr kept his attention on his special sensor and comm boards. The distant missile code-named Goddess, and now, courtesy of Cilghal’s biotechnical magic, characterized by the precise gravitic signature of Jaina’s X-wing, had onboard computers and logic programs that allowed it to execute its mission on its own, but Sharr could still feed it priority updates.
He switched to a wire-frame view of local space as the Goddess missile and the coralskippers pursuing it entered the dovin basal minefield. The green wire frame superimposed on the scene showed the spatial distortions caused by the mines and their gravitic influence on their surroundings.
Sharr kept the missile’s speed down to that of an X-wing’s standard cruise rate, allowing the pursuing skips to gain on it. So far, they were still far enough in its wake that the pilots could not see it with their naked eyes, could not realize that it wasn’t the true Jaina Solo.
The Yuuzhan Vong pursuers were good. They were gaining faster than he expected on the missile. With his sensors, superior to the missile’s, Sharr drew a course revision on his screen, sending the missile on a path that would take it past mine after mine, while giving more and more pursuers the chance to approach it. He executed and sent the course revision, then lost sight of his sensor board as Beelyath sent the B-wing into a veering turn that crushed Sharr into his restraints and caused his vision to blur, all despite the starfighter’s inertial compensators.
“Comfortable?” Beelyath croaked.
“Huh?” Sharr grunted. “Sorry, I was sleeping.”
EIGHTEEN
Though he could not see the distant X-wing, Charat Kraal’s cognition hood created a glow in the distance, a glow he knew actually existed only in his mind, showing the enemy vehicle’s position.
And his opponent was good, as he knew Jaina Solo to be, but this day she was flying with more skillful reckless abandon than he had ever before seen, leading the coralskippers deep into the dovin basal minefield, doubtless hoping to elude them by passing through such a difficult and dangerous area at high speed.
For a moment, doubt flickered in Charat Kraal