Star Wars_ Millennium Falcon - James Luceno [11]
“Well, they mean business.”
“Told you you were too rough on them back in the bay.”
“Angle the front deflectors and keep an eye out.”
Up ahead flew the vanguard vessels of a kilometers-wide swath of ships eager to reach their destinations at long last. Escorted by police vehicles and V-wing fighters, the ships were evenly placed and descending in measured speed. Jadak took the Envoy directly into their midst. Moving against the traffic flow and weaving his way through the pack, Jadak came close enough to some of the ships to see the startled expressions on the faces of the humans, humanoids, and aliens behind the canopies. And clearly the pilots didn't have as much trust in Jadak's ability as Jadak had in himself. Like a school of fish discombobulated by the sudden appearance of a predator, ships were suddenly diverting from their courses, doing what they could to avoid accidents but in many cases slamming against nearby vessels and initiating chain reactions of collisions. Trying in vain to match speeds with the Envoy, the ARC-170s kept to the perimeter, holding fire for fear of hitting innocent ships. But the pack was thinning before the Envoy had even reached the upper limits of the atmosphere, and the ARCs were climbing at high boost.
“Reallocate power to the rear shields,” Jadak said as the Envoy parted company with Coruscant's gravitational field.
Local space was littered with debris—the smoking husks of Republic and Separatist warships, blackened pieces of annihilated fighter craft, shards of fragmented orbital mirrors. There was no sign of the Trade Federation and Commerce Guild ships that had survived the battle, but the cruisers of the Home and Open Circle fleets were still defensively deployed in the event the Separatists decided to have another go at Coruscant.
Reeze muttered to himself while he listened to the battle net. “Ships of the line have been alerted. We're designated an enemy target.”
Jadak shoved the throttle home. But instead of trying to distance them from the giant, arrow-headed KDY ships, he brought the YT as close to the tightly arrayed Republic cruisers as he dared, running the hulls, darting from one clear space to the next, using the ships for cover in an effort to get far enough from Coruscant to make the jump to lightspeed. But the ARC-170 pilots hadn't given up the chase and were no longer worried about innocent parties. The deflector shields of the big ships were more than capable of warding off stray laser cannon bolts.
The Envoy was rocked by the first volley.
Jadak twisted the ship up on her starboard side, as if showing her belly to the pursuit ships. “We've gotta protect that port thruster—”
A deafening sound erased the rest of it, and a tangle of blue energy gamboled over the instrument panel. The cockpit lights and telltales blinked, then flickered back to life. Jadak slammed his hand against the ceiling to motivate the few systems that refused to come back online.
“Light turbo from the Integrity. They're coming about to tractor us in.”
“You've got the yoke.”
Jadak swiveled his chair to face the Rubicon navicomputer and entered a request for jump data.
“We can lose the V-wings,” Reeze said, “but those ARCs have Class One-point-five hyperdrives. They'll follow us to Hell and back.”
“Then Toprawa's out. We've got to throw them off the scent.”
“Where, then?”
Jadak looked over his shoulder at Reeze. “Nar Shaddaa's our best option.”
A follow-up bolt from the Integrity dazzled the Envoy.
“Any port in a storm.”
Jadak waited for the Rubicon's go-to and reached for the hyper-drive lever. The stars had not yet become streaks when another powerful boom rattled the YT to her bones. The freighter didn't so much jump into hyperspace as get kicked into it.
They spent most of the hyperspace journey crawling through the ship's innards assessing the damage and effecting what repairs they could.