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By Root 1444 0

’t worried about depleting the power core or running out of ammunition—they would be overwhelmed by the enemy long before that happened. In the meantime, however, his desperate maneuver was causing the lead capital ships to either slow or veer onto lengthier vectors—not so much from fear of the Mothma’s firepower as to avoid collision. That wasn’t true of the entire advancing line, of course—the ships on the wings had simply gone around him. Those weren’t the ones he was worried about; his central preoccupation was with tying up the cluster of the four ships flying point, because if they were slowed significantly, the second Interdictor would have to set a parabolic and hence longer, slower course to reach the rest of the Alliance ships. That would give the battle station that much more time to incapacitate the outsystem gravity-well generator and his fleet that much more of an opportunity to jump out of this thoroughly botched affair.

And, to his surprise, it was working.

The Yuuzhan Vong had been strange throughout this whole battle—tentative. The sudden appearance of the Golan II seemed to have made them more so. Even approaching his lone Star Destroyer, the Vong seemed almost cautious. It was almost laughable—Ebaq Nine must have really shaken them up if they thought the string of mishaps that constituted the Bilbringi offensive might actually be the setup for some ingenious trap.

Come to think of it, that might be why they were trying to stay relatively clear of Mon Mothma. Maybe they expected …

He blinked. It might work.

“Commander Raech,” he said.

“General,” Mon Mothma’s commander said.

“Evacuate the sectors adjacent to the power core and reduce the core shielding efficiency by two percent every thirty seconds.”

“Reduce the efficiency, General?”

“That’s correct,” Wedge replied.

“Very well,” Raech said.

“Give me reports on that as it develops, Lieutenant Cel.”

“Yes, sir,” the lieutenant said, clearly as puzzled as the commander.

Wedge turned his attention back to the battle. The largest of the ships had rolled up above his horizon and was pounding their upper shields from medium range, while a smaller frigate analog was coming in from below.

Wedge ordered a change in heading. Groaning, the ship turned its nose toward the Dreadnaught and the three cruisers behind it. Mon Mothma was now under fire from an entire hemisphere.

“Forward deflectors failing, sir.”

“Steady,” Wedge said. “Hold this course.”

The pockmarked surface of the Dreadnaught grew nearer, resembling a badly scarred moon. The lights on the bridge went out, suddenly, and stayed out.

“Power core shielding down fifteen percent, sir,” Cel said. “Sir, the surrounding decks are reporting contamination.”

“Continue as ordered,” Wedge said.

And hope the Yuuzhan Vong don’t revert suddenly to form.

The interdictor cracked at its central seam and bled plasma in a white-hot fountain of lead. Spinning from the reaction, it rolled like some bizarre child’s firework and then split, light flashing inside it like lightning in a dark thunderhead.

Jaina, still bound in stun cuffs, felt like cheering.

So did some of Prann’s people, apparently, because they actually did.

Prann wasn’t one of them. “Status?” he snapped.

The Barabel at system ops looked over. “We’ve sustained major damage to the southwestern deflector grid. Other than that, we’re in pretty good shape.”

“Good.”

He looked over his shoulder at Jaina, his eyes smoldering, then finished the turn and took a few steps toward her.

“Well, Jedi,” he said. “You got your wish. Now I get mine.” He pulled the blaster out and pointed it at her head.

“Hey, wait, Prann,” one of the humans said. “None of us signed on for murder, especially the murder of a Jedi. The station is still in good shape, we’re no longer interdicted—let’s just blast jets out of here, stick to the original plan.”

“Unh-unh,” Prann snarled. “Nobody gets inside my mind like that. It ain’t right. And if we try to jump, she’ll just do it again, drop us by the other interdictor. Once she’s dead, then we jump.”

“Just let me stun her,