Star Wars_ The Jedi Academy_ Champions of the Force - Kevin J. Anderson [125]
The X-wing’s first slashing attack came from Tycho and Hobbie. They rolled through and each drove a proton torpedo into the aft shields. Coming from the other direction, Gavin and Wes Janson strafed the ship with laser fire. Gavin’s second burst melted the belly turret clean away while Janson’s shots nibbled away at the ship’s aft vector jets. The Booty Full was done, though I had no doubts it would take a couple more passes before the crew realized that and surrendered.
I followed Ooryl up and around the back toward the fight. It had fairly well degenerated into a chase-and-kill run. The loss of seven ships before they even saw their enemies had clearly shocked the pirates and, more importantly, brought their numbers down close to ours. While clutches were more agile than X-wings—not by much, but by enough to make fighting them difficult—they couldn’t outrun us or outgun us. Lacking the discipline of a trained military unit like Rogue Squadron, when panic set in, they fell apart and made our job that much easier.
Ooryl settled in on one and hit it with a full quad burst from his lasers. The clutch exploded, but boiling in through the explosion came another clutch making a head-to-head pass at Ooryl. The clutch got off a shot with the ion cannon that sent a lightning storm skittering over Ooryl’s shields, but they died before the ion blast did. The motivator blew on his R5 unit and Whistler reported his engines were out.
“Ooryl, go for a restart.” I didn’t know if he still had comm or not, but I offered that bit of advice and fired a dual burst at the clutch. Hastily aimed, the shot missed low, but did cause the clutch to veer off. Rolling out to the right, I headed in after him. “This is Nine on one. Someone watch my back.”
Vurrulf, the Klatooinan in three flight, barked a harsh, “I copy, on it,” so I felt a bit safer in pursuing the clutch. One of the worst things a pilot can do is to get so locked in on a target that he misses what else is happening. When situational awareness focuses down on one target, the hunter becomes hunted and never knows what hits him. It’s a rookie mistake and while I’m no rookie, I’m not immune to it.
The clutch’s pilot was good and clearly had no desire to die, but Whistler wasn’t reporting that he’d powered down his weapons, so he was just as clearly willing to fight. I tried to settle in on him, but he modulated his throttle and used his ship’s agility to keep breaking before I could get a lock. I snapped a couple of shots off at him, but they missed wide or high. Try as I might, I was having trouble keeping up with his shifts and cuts.
I pulled back on the throttle and let him gain some distance. His juking antics continued, but with range the movements that had ripped him out of my sights in close barely broke the edges of my targeting box. I hit the firing button and sent two paired bursts at him. One pair lanced through the aft shield and mangled one of the landing tines. The other two energy darts clipped the thrust vector vents on the port side, limiting his maneuverability.
Whistler displayed a comm frequency being used by the clutch and I punched it up on my comm unit. “This is Captain Corran Horn of the New Republic Armed Forces. I will accept your surrender.”
A woman answered me. “Don’t you know, Invids never surrender?”
“Not true of the Booty Full.”
“Riizolo is a fool, but he doesn’t have a capital warrant out on his head. I do.” She laughed. “I have nothing to live for, except my honor. One pass, Horn, you and me.”
“You’ll die.” A single pass would negate the clutch’s agility advantage. She had to know that.
“But perhaps not alone.” Her ship stopped jinking and headed out on a long loop. “Allow me this