Star Wars_ Episode VI_ Return of the Jedi - James Kahn [76]
Jerjerrod hated it now.
Yet there seemed to be little he could do at this point. Except, of course, destroy Endor—he could do that. It was a small act, a token really—to incinerate something green and living, gratuitously, meanly, toward no end but that of wanton destruction. A small act, but deliciously satisfying.
An aide ran up to him. “The Rebel fleet is closing, sir.”
“Concentrate all fire in that sector,” he answered distractedly. A console on the far wall burst into flame.
“The fighters in the superstructure are eluding our defense system, Commander. Shouldn’t we—”
“Flood sectors 304 and 138. That should slow them up.” He arched his eyebrows at the aide.
This made little sense to the aide, who had cause to wonder at the commander’s grasp of the situation. “But sir …”
“What is the rotation factor to firing range on the Endor Moon?”
The aide checked the compuscreen. “Point oh two to moon target, sir. Commander, the fleet—”
“Accelerate rotation until moon is in range, and then fire on my mark.”
“Yes, sir.” The aide pulled a bank of switches. “Rotation accelerating, sir. Point oh one to moon target, sir. Sixty seconds to firing range. Sir, good-bye, sir.” The aide saluted, put the firing switch in Jerjerrod’s hand as another explosion shook the control room, and ran out the door.
Jerjerrod smiled calmly at the view-screen. Endor was starting to come out of the Death Star’s eclipse. He fondled the detonation switch in his hand. Point oh oh five to moon target. Screams erupted in the next room.
Thirty seconds to firing.
Lando was homing in on the reactor core shaft. Else only Wedge was left, flying just ahead of him, and Gold Wing, just behind. Several TIE fighters still trailed.
These central twistings were barely two planes wide, and turned sharply every five or ten seconds at the speeds Lando was reaching. Another Imperial jet exploded against a wall; another shot down Gold Wing.
And then there were two.
Lando’s tail-gunners kept the remaining TIE fighters jumping in the narrow space, until at last the main reactor shaft came into view. They’d never seen a reactor that awesome.
“It’s too big, Gold Leader,” yelled Wedge. “My proton torpedoes won’t even dent that.”
“Go for the power regulator on the north tower,” Lando directed. “I’ll take the main reactor. We’re carrying concussion missiles—they should penetrate. Once I let them go, we won’t have much time to get out of here, though.”
“I’m already on my way out,” Wedge exclaimed.
He fired his torpedoes with a Corellian war-cry, hitting both sides of the north tower, and peeled off, accelerating.
The Falcon waited three dangerous seconds longer, then loosed its concussion missiles with a powerful roar. For another second the flash was too bright to see what had happened. And then the whole reactor began to go.
“Direct hit!” shouted Lando. “Now comes the hard part.”
The shaft was already caving in on top of him, creating a tunnel effect. The Falcon maneuvered through the twisting outlet, through walls of flame, and through moving shafts, always just ahead of the continuing chain of explosions.
Wedge tore out of the superstructure at barely sub-light speed, whipped around the near side of Endor, and coasted into deep space, slowing slowly in a gentle arc, to return to the safety of the moon.
A moment later, in a destabilized Imperial shuttle, Luke escaped the main docking bay, just as that section began to blow apart completely. His wobbling craft, too, headed for the green sanctuary in the near distance.
And finally, as if being spit out of the very flames of the conflagration, the Millennium Falcon shot toward Endor, only moments before the Death Star flared into brilliant oblivion, like a fulminant supernova.