• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

As Kyp swooped in toward the blazing ball of yellow fire, flickering prominences reached out of the star’s chromosphere. Boiling convection cells lifted hot knots of gas to the surface, where they cooled and sank back into the churning depths. Dark sunspots stood out like blemishes. He sighted on one of the black spots as if it were a bull’s-eye.

Kyp primed the resonance torpedo and spared a moment to glance back. His TIE pursuers had split off, unwilling to come so close to the glaring sun.

Fail-safe warning systems flashed in front of Kyp, but he disregarded them. When the control system winked green, he depressed the firing buttons and shot a sizzling green-blue ellipsoid deep into Carida’s sun. Its targeting mechanisms would find the core and set up an irrevocable instability.

Kyp leaned back in the comfortable pilot’s seat with a sigh of relief and determination. He had passed the point of no return.

He should have felt elated, knowing it was only a matter of time before the military academy was finally extinguished. But that knowledge could not wash away the grief he felt for the loss of his brother.

Alarms screamed through the citadel of the military training center. Stormtroopers ran along flagstoned halls, taking emergency positions at strategic points as they had been drilled; but they didn’t quite know what to do.

Ambassador Furgan’s face held a comical expression of shock. His bulging eyes looked as if they might pop out of their sockets. His lips scraped together as he fought for words. “But how could all of our TIE fighters miss?”

“They didn’t miss, sir,” Comm Officer Dauren said. “The Sun Crusher seems to have impenetrable armor, better than any shielding we’ve ever encountered.

“Kyp Durron has reached our sun. Although our readings are scrambled from coronal discharges, it appears that he has launched some sort of high-energy projectile.” The comm officer swallowed. “I think we know what that means, sir.”

“If the danger is real,” Furgan said.

“Sir—” Dauren wrestled with rising agitation, “we have to assume it’s real. The New Republic was pointedly uneasy about being in possession of such a weapon. The stars in the Cauldron Nebula did explode.”

Kyp Durron’s voice broke over the intercoms. “Carida, I warned you—but you chose to trick me instead. Now accept what you’ve brought upon yourselves. According to my calculations, it’ll take two hours before the core of your sun reaches a critical configuration.” He paused for a beat. “You have that amount of time to evacuate your planet.”

Furgan slammed his fist down on the table.

“Sir,” Dauren said, “what are we going to do? Should I organize an evacuation?”

Furgan leaned over to flick a switch, toggling to the hangar bay in the lower staging area of the citadel. “Colonel Ardax, muster your forces immediately. Get them aboard the Dreadnaught Vendetta. We will launch our Anoth assault team within the hour, and I will accompany them.”

“Yes, sir,” the reply came.

Furgan turned to his comm officer. “Are you certain that boy’s brother is dead? Nothing we can use for leverage?”

Dauren blinked. “I don’t know, sir. You told me to delay him, so I made up a story and sent a fake file. Do you want me to check?”

“Of course I want you to check!” Furgan bellowed. “If we can use the brother as a hostage, perhaps we can force that boy to neutralize the effects of this Sun Crusher weapon.”

“I’ll get on it immediately, sir,” Dauren said, and hammered his fingertips on the datapads.

Six of Furgan’s training commanders, summoned by the wailing alarms, marched into the control center and saluted briskly. Standing shorter than his commanders, Furgan clasped his hands behind his back, pushing his chest out as he addressed them.

“Take an inventory of all functional ships on Carida. Everything. We need to download the data cores from our computers and take as many personnel as possible. I doubt we’ll be able to evacuate them all; therefore, choices will be made on the basis of rank.”

“Are we just going to abandon Carida without a fight?” one of the generals