Star Wars_ Tales of the Bounty Hunters - Kevin J. Anderson [93]
Toryn picked up her sister and ran with her to board the transport. “It must hurt to move you like this,” she said. “But there’s no other way!”
Shots echoed around them.
They were among the last to board. The docking bay now lay empty of wounded Rebels, but scattered with tons of vital equipment abandoned to make room for the unanticipated casualties.
The hatches closed despite explosions of snow-trooper fire. The six X-wing fighters waiting to escort the transport took off, and the transport itself blasted out of the hangar and past the atmosphere to the black cold of space.
We waited too long to take off, Toryn thought to herself. Our compassion for the wounded will have killed us all.
She found one empty seat near the hatch and strapped Samoc into it. She knelt to hang on to Samoc, and braced herself against the shock of hits their ship was certain to take before they could make the jump to hyperspace.
Imperial Star Destroyers filled space above Hoth, she knew, waiting to attack Rebel ships.
4-LOM and Zuckuss exited hyperspace into the Hoth system and found themselves in the middle of battle. A Rebel transport the bounty hunters’ computer identified as the Bright Hope streaked past them, and one of the transport’s six escort X-wing fighters fired at them. The concussion of the shot shook the bounty hunter’s ship.
“Raising shields,” 4-LOM said.
No one had warned them of the posibility of battle at the rendezvous point. But then, no one had told them accepting an Imperial contract would be easy, either.
Their screens showed a confusion of ships, Rebel and Imperial, scattered throughout the solar system. But the Rebel ships were blinking off-screen, disappearing into hyperspace—full retreat. “Zuckuss tracks sixteen destroyed Rebel transports,” the Gand said.
He did not have to add: within close range. They could see them out their viewports—shattered hulks showering sparks into space, lights shining from a few still-intact viewports. The bounty hunters quickly plotted the careening trajectories of the derelict ships so they could fly past them.
“Let’s give our Imperial friends a seventeenth ship,” Zuckuss said.
Such a gift would salve the wound of Governor Nardix.
“Plotting attack trajectory,” 4-LOM said.
They sped in pursuit of the Bright Hope. Their screens showed no other transports leaving the surface of Hoth, only the occasional X-wing fighter: acquisitions too small to impress the Imperials, acquisitions certainly not worth pursuing. The Bright Hope was apparently the last big ship attempting retreat. It was late in the battle to attempt such an escape.
The bounty hunters quickly closed on the transport It was smaller than the other downed transports, but still bulky and slow—slower, at least, than the bounty hunters’ lean ship. The transport probably carried the last support staff from the Rebel base, Zuckuss thought: a fine gift for the Imperials.
“Approaching firing range,” 4-LOM announced. He pressed buttons that activated the weapons systems. Both 4-LOM and Zuckuss prepared to fire. An Imperial Super Star Destroyer—the largest ship Zuckuss had ever seen—was also closing on the transport. The crew of the Rebel transport itself must have been working frantically to plot retreat coordinates and disappear into hyperspace. It was a race to see which crew—Imperial, Rebel, or bounty hunter—would reach its goals first.
Just before the bounty hunters’ instruments confirmed firing range, intuition told Zuckuss to fire, and he did. His shot exploded into the transport, taking out the entire forward command deck. The transport would never reach hyperspace now, however close it had been to that jump. The Star Destroyer blasted into it from the other side and laid open three entire decks.
The six X-wing fighters escorting the transport disappeared into hyperspace, blinking off-screen one by one. The pilots in them saw they could do nothing more