Star Wars_ Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor - Matthew Woodring Stover [24]
“WE’VE LOST THE FEED, SIR.” SECOND LIEUTENANT Horst Devalo, ComOps officer for the Lancer, frowned at his console. “Justice has gone dark.”
Captain Tirossk leaned over Devalo’s shoulder to peer curiously at the lieutenant’s console. “Their problem or ours?” This was a legitimate question, as the Lancer was a retrofitted freightliner over a century old, and was known affectionately by all who served on her as “Old Cuss’n’Whack,” this being descriptive of the first two repair actions traditionally undertaken to address any of her endless minor malfunctions. “Raise the Paleo and the Unsung; see if they’re having the same problem.”
The Taspan system was so deep in the Inner Rim that space itself was crowded; there was no safe direct route. The last few legs had to follow a jagged path of short jumps, only a few light-years each, before a ship would have to drop out of hyperspace and change vector. The final chokepoint was here, in interstellar space, less than two light-years out. The reserve force could jump into any of several sets of preprogrammed coordinates at various distances from Taspan and Mindor itself as fast as they could make the run up to lightspeed, the better to apply an extra punch where it would do the most good, whether to press an assault or cover a retreat. They had been monitoring the battle, the victory, and the subsequent abortive negotiation by subspace feed.
“It’s our problem,” Lieutenant Devalo said. “I can’t get comm even with the others.”
“This useless scow of an excuse for a frigate—” the captain began, but Devalo cut him off.
“It’s not the ship, sir.” The lieutenant’s voice had gone tight. “Subspace interference—they’re jamming us, sir!”
“Out here? Can you pinpoint the source?”
“Sensor accuracy degrading … fifty percent. Forty. Has to be local, sir: they’re blanketing our whole sensor and comm spectrum.”
“Battle stations. All engines full,” Captain Tirossk ordered, his voice grinding like rusty gears. “Get on realspace to Paleo and Unsung and tell them to prepare for jump.”
“Sir?”
“You heard me. We don’t know what’s happening and there’s only one way to find out.”
“Gravity wave!” the NavOps officer sang out. “Multiple point sources—in motion!”
Tirossk had been an officer too long to use an obscenity, but he thought several. “Vectors?”
NavOps read out a string of numbers; the gravitic energy was spread in a hemisphere eclipsing the outbound hyperspace lanes—a hemisphere that continued to expand toward englobement. “Gravity mines,” Tirossk rasped. “They’re trying to pin us here.”
“Imperial starfighters inbound!” the TacOps officer said crisply. “Fourth Squadron reports visual confirmation—TIE defenders—engaging multiple bogies—”
“Reporting how?” Tirossk snapped.
“Realspace EM, sir.”
Now Tirossk did swear. Very quietly—not even another Bothan could have heard him. Realspace communications crept along at lightspeed; that meant inbound bogies could be here as soon as, roughly—
Now.
The forward viewports whited out, and the Lancer bucked like an angry dewback. The convulsion was violent enough to jar the bridge despite the frigate’s anti-acceleration field. Tirossk clutched the back of his command chair and almost dislocated a shoulder keeping himself upright. The forward viewports cleared.
Local space was lousy with TIEs—and bloody well full of intersecting lines of cannon fire and the hurtling stars of proton torpedoes.
“Damage reports!” he snarled. “And get us moving. Burn out the engines if you have to. We need hyperspace now!”
“But—jump where, sir?”
“Those defenders came from somewhere,” Tirossk said. “They’ll have left open a route back.”
“Sir?”
“Mindor,” Tirossk said grimly. “We’re going in.”
HALF BLIND, EYES STREAMING FROM THE