Star Wars_ Darksaber - Kevin J. Anderson [126]
And that frightened him as well.
Colonel Cronus watched the remaining fighters return to their ships. The burning world of Khomm lay beneath him like a festering sore.
He glanced impatiently at the time record and at the damage assessment for his fleet. Two fighters lost. Judging from Khomm’s lack of defenses, Cronus assumed that the two downed TIE ships had been destroyed through accident, malfunction, or inadvertent friendly fire.
He shook his head at the appalling weakness of the clone world.
On his command station computer he punched up the coordinates of Admiral Daala’s designated targets. He hoped all the raids would be as successful as this.
“Next system,” he said. “Let’s be on our way. We’ve got a schedule to keep.”
NAL HUTTA
CHAPTER 44
In the middle of the night shift on the Escort Frigate Yavaris, General Wedge Antilles sat quietly in the command chair, relaxed but alert. Despite the yellow alert, the Yavaris seemed deceptively calm; the soldiers moved about their routines with calm efficiency. The glowpanels were dimmed, the sounds of movement hushed and muffled. The tension was thick, though invisible.
The alert status had been uninterrupted for a day. They had heard nothing, no word of an Imperial strike, no report from Crix Madine—and it was beginning to wear on them.
Qwi Xux crept up behind him on the bridge and squeezed his shoulders with her long, pale blue fingers. He flinched, startled, then reached up to clasp her hand against his shoulder. He turned to look into her deep indigo eyes. “Couldn’t sleep either?” he asked.
She shook her head, and her feathery, pearlescent hair flickered. “The waiting is so hard,” she said.
Wedge nodded. “Much as I hate war, at times like this I almost wish something would just happen.”
And it did.
All at once.
Crix Madine’s silent distress signal came in at emergency priority, tunneling through space, its specific frequency targeting the New Republic fleet. Signals went off at the communications console, which triggered automatic red alerts throughout the Yavaris. Madine’s implanted transmitter could give no details; it simply sent a distress.
Wedge knew that General Madine, the Supreme Allied Commander for Intelligence, would have used it in only the most extreme circumstances.
He said, “We’ve got to go pull him out.”
Qwi stood suddenly tense, blinking her large eyes. Her fingers tightened on his shoulders. “That means he’s found the site of the Hutt superweapon. We have to destroy it before the thing becomes operational. We can’t let the Hutts or the Empire or anyone else have another weapon like the ones I used to design.”
“You’re right about that,” Wedge said.
A viewscreen message instantly came from Admiral Ackbar on the Mon Calamari Star Cruiser. “This may be the beginning of the overall attack,” Ackbar said, dressed in his fine white uniform and holding his flipper-hands out in a gesture of tension.
“Yes, Admiral. Shall we deploy the fleet? We can home in on Madine’s distress and get there at top speed. We don’t know what sort of situation he’s gotten himself into—”
Before Wedge could finish, though, another broad-spectrum message swept across the communications systems, a second emergency signal, preempting all other transmissions across the New Republic Holonet. “This is Kyp Durron with an urgent message to the New Republic military!”
Wedge flinched, setting his teeth on edge. Beside him Qwi held her composure, but he noticed her stiffen. Kyp had returned from the dark side in service of the Jedi way, and Qwi claimed to have forgiven him—but still the over-eager Jedi Knight unnerved both of them.
Nevertheless, Kyp broadcast his message to anyone who would listen, raising the alarm. “My fellow Jedi Knight Dorsk 81 and I have penetrated