• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Jaina acknowledged instantly. “Understood. Command of Gray Squadron is now with Gray Ten.”

Luke checked his sensor board. Herkan Base barely registered, a distant blip above him. Yet he felt no menace from it.

He felt no menace even when it fired on him. The bright flash of light illuminated the sky immediately above his cockpit. The air superheated, expanded, hammering at his StealthX, sending a shudder through the starfighter and a jolt through Luke’s control yoke. The R2 unit in back squealed.

Luke grimaced. “This is Gray Ten. Herkan Base is probably firing on automated programming. No emotions or intentions to detect. Gray One, Gray Two, go evasive and stay that way.” He hated issuing that order. They’d been steadily catching up to Ship. Evasive flying would slow them.

And Ship—the Sith meditation sphere—plowed on straight ahead, not weaving, safe from the NovaGun.

The distant laser fired again. The sheet of deadly brightness passed between Luke and Jaina. His stomach flip-flopped in that instant, as Jaina’s StealthX disappeared in the light, but Luke did not feel a sudden pain or loss, just a moment of alarm from her. Then the brightness faded and she was still there.

“Gold Three to Gray Ten, incoming.” It was Raynar Thul’s voice, and Gold Three was on the sensors, just past the NovaGun. “Using shadow bomb, be alert.”

“Set it to detonate with proximity detector.” Luke twitched his StealthX to one side and another laser barrage flashed by, occupying the space where he would have been. “Cripple her and then we can vape her, don’t go for the instant kill.”

“Understood … Launching.”

Luke didn’t feel anything through the Force, but that was proper. Raynar had launched his shadow bomb, a proton torpedo warhead without thruster, with a telekinetic touch through the Force. At this range, and with sufficient delicacy on Raynar’s part, Luke shouldn’t have felt anything. And Abeloth shouldn’t feel it, either. If she kept to her present course—and she would, so long as the NovaGun kept offering her protection along that exit vector—she’d run right into the explosive device.

“Gold One to Gold Three.” It was Kyle Katarn again. “Be advised, the NovaGun is rotating axially. Its guns can bear on you—”

The NovaGun flashed again, but its attack came nowhere near Luke, Jaina, or Zekk. Luke saw a needle of laser light travel laterally from the orbital base. There was a second flash, not a visible one—alarm through the Force.

The transponder signal from Gold Three winked out on Luke’s sensor board. Then it was there again, flickering.

“Gold One to wing, Gold Three is extravehicular.”

“Gold One, White Four.” It was Taryn Zel’s voice. “I’m on a different outbound vector, away from Herkan Base. Should I move in to get Gold Three?”

“Negative, negative, Herkan Base’s own personnel will do that. Stay clear of the engagement, your shuttle isn’t meant for combat retrievals.”

Luke ran distances and speeds through his head. Ship should be reaching the vicinity of Raynar’s shadow bomb just about—

Abeloth must have felt it, perhaps just a touch of expectation from Raynar or one of the others. Ship vectored.

It must have come close enough to the bomb to trigger its proximity fuse. A globe of brightness blossomed ahead. Ship, a tiny, irregular dot, entered it, angling through its outer reaches, and emerged from the far side, trailing flame and sparks. Luke could feel pain in the Force, distant pain, but couldn’t tell whether it was Ship or Abeloth or both.

Counting on Abeloth’s distraction to slow her reactions, Luke took a maximum-range shot. He saw his quad-linked lasers converge on that tiny dot. He felt more pain, knew he’d scored a hit.

Then the universe lit up.

His R2 unit squealed in droid distress. His StealthX shook and spun, the nighttime sky suddenly replaced by Nam Chorios, then sky again, Nam Chorios. In his left peripheral vision he could see that his port-side S-foils were gone, their struts ending in stumps still trailing molten composites.

The inertial compensator wasn’t enough to handle the sudden stresses of his