Star Wars_ The Jedi Academy_ Champions of the Force - Kevin J. Anderson [91]
“Not entirely,” Lando said. “The second Death Star used its superlaser against a few of our capital ships.”
Mara pursed her lips as she thought. “Then we’ll just have to keep them busy. I don’t think that superlaser can be very effective at targeting small moving objects.”
“I don’t like the odds on that,” Lando said.
“Never quote me the odds,” Han said, hunching over the panel and guiding the ship into position.
“Who, me?” Lando said, raising his eyebrows. “I’m a sucker for lost causes.”
The Millennium Falcon soared into the vanguard of the smugglers’ attack formation. Han was impressed to see the assortment of large and small ships fall into a perfect pattern, as if they were trained and regimented. The motley bunch must have a great deal of respect for Mara Jade, he realized; as a rule, smugglers were notoriously independent and took orders from no one.
One of the other ships, an insectile Z-95 Headhunter—the type of ship Mara herself often flew—streaked in beside the Falcon. Its pilot spoke over the open channel. “This is Kithra. I’ll take the right-hand prong, Shana will take the left. You fly center, Falcon, and we’ll hit the Death Star in all three places at once.”
Han recognized the no-nonsense voice of another Mistryl guard. How many had she brought along with her?
“Agreed, Kithra,” Mara said. She turned to look at Han. “Well, Solo, ready to lead the attack?”
“I never intended to take the Falcon against a Death Star,” he groaned, even as he prepared for battle. “I was just giving Lando a lift to Kessel.”
“Think of it as an added bonus,” Mara said.
“Come on, Han,” Lando urged, “before that Death Star fires again.”
“Good thing Leia’s not here,” he muttered. “She’d probably succeed in talking me out of this.”
As the ships converged on the skeletal behemoth, the superlaser struck once more, scorching the fabric of space with emerald fire—but the beam passed through the scattered ships descending upon it, causing no damage.
“Shields up,” Han said, “for whatever good it’ll do against that.”
On either side of the Falcon two segments of the smuggler fleet peeled off like the skin from a rustle snake: one prong led by Kithra in her Headhunter, the other headed by Shana in an angular blockade runner, a clunkier forerunner of the Falcon’s light-freighter design.
The smuggler ships drove in, energy cannons blazing, drawing a deadly tracery of fire across the superstructures and girders of the enormous sphere.
Han launched three proton torpedoes into the labyrinth of cross beams and supports as they charged toward the enormous construction. A few reinforced girders glowed molten as projectiles and energy beams hit.
“It’s going to take us a year to chop away at this thing,” Han said, firing from the Falcon’s forward weaponry.
“I never claimed this was going to be easy,” Mara said.
Tol Sivron’s head-tails twitched. He squinted his black beady eyes at the oncoming small ships. They appeared so trivial, their weapons systems so minor. “I can’t believe they’re attacking us,” he said. “What do they think they’re going to accomplish?”
At the tactical station the stormtrooper captain spoke through his white helmet. “If I might point out, Director, this battle station is for proof-of-concept only. It was never designed to defend itself against multiple small threats. In fact, the Death Star was meant to house over seven thousand TIE fighters, not to mention thousands of surface turbolasers and ion cannons and an escort of several Imperial-class Star Destroyers. We have none of these.
“Individually, those Rebel ships may be only a minor threat, but together they can harry us for an extended period and, if we are unlucky, cause significant structural damage.”
“You mean we don’t have any fighters of our own?” Tol Sivron said with stern disapproval. “That was poor planning. Who wrote that section of the procedure? I want to know right now.”
“Director,” the