Star Wars_ The Dark Lord Trilogy - James Luceno [31]
But not immediately.
First, Gunray would have to be punished for his blunder; given a foretaste of what awaited him the next time he disobeyed a directive.
Grievous turned from the cruiser’s forward viewports to the weapons stations, where a pair of rangy droids were monitoring the pursuit.
“Gunners, the Republic starfighters are not to leave this sector. Target and destroy their hyperdrive rings. Then you are to target and destroy one squadron of the shuttle’s escort Vulture fighters.”
“Acquiring targets,” one of the droids said.
“Firing,” the other said.
Grievous swung back to the viewport in time to see the half-dozen hyperdrive rings come apart in short-lived explosions. An instant later, clouds of billowing fire began to erupt to both sides of Gunray’s shuttle, and twelve droid fighters vanished from sight. The unexpected explosions wreaked havoc on the rest of the escort, leaving the shuttle vulnerable to strafing runs by the starfighters. With the formation in tatters, the Vultures followed protocol by attempting to regroup, but in so doing left themselves open to precisely placed bolts from the starfighters.
A consequence of the Neimoidians’ reluctance to augment the droid brains of the fighters with interface capabilities, Grievous noted. Although they functioned better now than they had five years earlier.
Three more Vulture fighters blew to pieces, this time due to Republic fire.
Now the Neimoidian pilots of the shuttle weren’t sure what to do. Attempts to go evasive were sabotaged by the droid ships’ attempts to keep the shuttle centered in their shield array.
Enemy laser bolts kept finding their marks.
The destruction of the hyperdrive rings had alerted the Republic pilots to the fact that they were well inside the range of the cruiser’s weapons, and that they had to make their kill quickly if they hoped to escape. Jinking and weaving among the remaining escort droids, they pressed the attack on the shuttle.
Grievous wondered for a moment if any of the pilots might be Jedi, in which case he would opt to capture rather than kill. The more closely he studied the maneuvers, however, the more certain he grew that the pilots were clones. Skilled fliers nevertheless—as indeed their Mandalorian template had been—but they evinced none of the supernatural perception afforded to the Jedi by the Force.
Still, Gunray’s shuttle was taking a beating. One of its landing appendages had been amputated, and vapor streamed from its pug tail. The vessel’s primitive particle and ray shields were still holding, but they weakened steadily with each direct hit. The convergence of a few more plasma bolts would overwhelm them. Then the ship the shields protected could be sliced and diced or taken out by a well-placed proton torpedo.
Grievous pictured Gunray, Haako, and the others strapped into luxurious acceleration couches, shivering with dread, perhaps sorry for the brief detour to Cato Neimoidia, wondering how a handful of Republic pilots had so easily decimated their squadrons, certainly comlinking the core ship to dispatch reinforcements.
The general was almost of a mind to award the Republic pilots their kill, for he and Gunray had been at odds frequently over the past three years. One of the first spacefaring species to build a droid army, the Neimoidians had grown accustomed to thinking of their soldiers and workers as thoroughly expendable. Their extraordinary wealth had allowed them to replace whatever they lost, so they had never developed a sense of respect for the machines fashioned for them by Baktoid Armor Workshops, the Xi Char, Colicoids, or others.
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