Star Wars_ The Jedi Academy Trilogy 03_ Champions of the Force - Kevin J. Anderson [108]
“The Sun Crusher,” he said. “But that’s ours!”
The torus-shaped resonance field generator glowed with plasma fire at the bottom of its long spike.
“Open a channel,” Tol Sivron said. “I want to talk to whoever is there. Hello, hello? You have appropriated property that belongs to Maw Installation. I demand that you return it to the proper Imperial authorities immediately.” He crossed his arms over his chest and waited for a reply.
The pilot of the Sun Crusher answered by launching one of the supernova torpedoes into the Death Star.
Kyp felt a rush of satisfaction as he pressed the firing button, ignoring the Twi’lek administrator’s pompous posturing. He watched the high-energy projectile shoot from the bottom of the Sun Crusher and burrow deep within the complicated framework of metal girders inside the prototype.
The resonance torpedo vaporized girders as it tunneled deeper and deeper, until it finally struck heavier primary struts that foamed as they disintegrated.
The torpedo dumped its energy in a shower that triggered a small chain reaction within the solid superstructure, splitting atomic nuclei and causing an arc of spreading dissolution. Girders vaporized in a widening hole that ate its way farther and farther through the heavy framework.
But Kyp’s elation faded as the chain reaction slowed, and then stopped. The skeletal Death Star had insufficient mass to continue its own disintegration.
He had ruined a good portion of the support framework in one sector of the prototype, but not enough.
Kyp powered up the weapons panel again and prepared to fire. He could annihilate the Death Star piece by piece if necessary. But looking down at his panel, he noted with dismay that only one of his supernova torpedoes remained.
Grim-faced, Kyp zoomed in closer to the prototype. He would have to make this last shot count.
Wheeling the Millennium Falcon in a backward arc, Han Solo tried to check how much damage the detonators had done to the Death Star’s power core.
He was disappointed. He had expected to see the skeletal prototype bloom into a fantastic flower of fire, but instead the detonators seemed to have fizzled, leaving only a dimming blaze at the center.
The ship drifted in space for a few moments as Mara and Lando shucked their environment suits. Lando rubbed sweat from his forehead and wiped his hands as if disgusted with the griminess of the suit.
“Now what are we going to do?” Han asked when they had finally joined him back in the cockpit.
Lando looked at the Death Star shrinking in the black distance behind them. “Maybe we’d better go see if Wedge—”
Suddenly the Maw Installation and the Gorgon were swallowed in a brilliant flare as everything detonated at once.
“Too late,” Mara said.
“Now why couldn’t the Death Star have exploded like that?” Lando said miserably.
“Maybe we at least caused some permanent harm,” Han said hopefully. But moments later they all groaned as a green beam lanced out from the Death Star to destroy one of the corvettes in the retreating New Republic fleet.
“So much for permanent harm,” Mara Jade said.
“That Death Star’s causing some harm, big time!” Lando said.
“Wait,” Han said as he glanced back at the Death Star, squinting. “Move in closer.”
“Closer?” Lando said. “You out of your mind?”
“That’s Kyp,” Han said as the Sun Crusher streaked across the face of the Death Star and launched one of its static-filled torpedoes into the superstructure.
“If he’s taking on the Death Star, we’ve got to go help.” Han said.
The Sun Crusher fled toward the gravitational walls of the Maw cluster, and Tol Sivron ordered the Death Star to track the small but deadly ship.
“Get a lock on it,” he said. “We’ll blast it out of space the same way we did with that Rebel ship.”
“Sir,” the stormtrooper captain said, “to lock on to a target so tiny and moving so quickly—”
“Then get close enough so you can’t miss,” Sivron snapped.