• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Luke and Akanah had turned away the lieutenant who came to remove them from that spot. The commencement of hostilities had not meant the end of Wialu’s efforts—to Luke’s surprise, she continued the illusion of the phantom warships even as ion and laser cannon began to light up space all around them.

“She told that she would maintain the projection as long as she could, even if the Yevetha did not surrender,” Akanah whispered.

Luke nodded. “If the phantoms draw their share of the Yevethan fire—”

“She said that no one would die aboard a ship that wasn’t there.”

But it was obvious to both of them that the effort was taking a toll on Wialu. As the battle wore on and broken and burning warships began to dot the starry backdrop, Wialu began to sag visibly. Finally, moments after a New Republic light escort blew up spectacularly just a few kilometers away, Wialu slumped forward on the deck where she had been sitting, and the phantoms vanished from the New Republic formations.

Even then, she surprised Luke again by declining to be helped from the observation deck.

“I will watch to the end. No matter what path you follow, it is important to be reminded what war means,” she said, letting Akanah guide her to one of the empty semireclined chairs.

Luke had been holding a question for hours, and the urgency of it had grown in the waiting. He crouched beside Wialu, his back to the fighting.

“Wialu, I have to know—are there Fallanassi aboard any of those vessels?”

“Yes,” she said.

He drew a deep breath and released it slowly. “Is Nashira among them?”

“I cannot hear your question,” Wialu said.

His frustration sharpened to the point of pain, Luke turned angrily away.

“I can tell you only that they are not hostages,” she went on. “They chose this service for themselves, on the last morning that the Current scalded as it does now—the day the Yevetha came to make their claim. Many, many died that day. But some were saved by those who placed themselves between. I did not ask it of them, but I honor them and their sacrifice.”

Staring out at a burning Yevethan thrustship, Luke found he had no choice but to respect that sacrifice with silence.

* * *

In reality, the outcome of the Battle of N’zoth had been foreordained from the moment Sil Sorannan departed with the Black Sword vessels.

But it was no less brutal or difficult for that. The Yevethan thrustship shields were superior to New Republic shields, and the spherical symmetry of the thrustship design made them even more effective. And though they were not heavily armed by Imperial standards—the combined output of the eight batteries was less than that of a gunship, to say nothing of an escort or a heavy cruiser—the ability to focus all of that energy on one small area gave them the knockout punch of a much larger ship.

Under attack by three and four New Republic vessels each, one after another of the Yevethan warships succumbed. But it was a war of attrition, with nearly as many losses as there were victories—Thunderhead. Aboukir. Fulminant. Werra. Garland. Banshee.

Nor were all of the losses among the smaller vessels. Commodore Farley Carson’s Yakez was caught between two thrustships and broken in two by the detonation of the forward magazine after its bow shields collapsed. The fleet carrier Ballarat took a brace of Yevethan missiles just forward of the number four flight deck, and the chain of explosions that followed hurled three squadrons of shattered E- and X-wings out into space.

Ballarat’s misfortune gave Plat Mallar his first chance to do something more than watch from the yawning maw of a flight deck. All of the fleet’s launches, gigs, and shuttles had been outfitted for rescue and recovery work and distributed among the task forces. Mallar and his shuttle had been assigned to the cruiser Mandjur, which was part of Ballarat’s squadron and the closest vessel to it when the missiles struck. While Mandjur dueled with the Yevethan warship, Mallar brought back one live pilot and two dead ones in three trips through an intense field of fire.