Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order_ Dark Tide 01_ Onslaught - Michael A. Stackpole [118]
Gavin’s voice crackled as it came through the comm unit. “Rogues, we have a new assignment. The freighters are lifting off. We have them outbound.” His voice faltered for a moment. “Each one of you picks up a freighter. Assignments coming now.”
Jaina saw that she’d been attached to the Impervious, which she didn’t mind, but it was the sixth ship in the convoy. “Sparky, give me a rundown on which Rogues are still operational!”
The droid came back with a grim report. Colonel Darklighter and Captain Nevil were all that were left of One flight. Two flight had been reduced to Major Forge. Three flight had fared better, with Major Varth, Jaina, and her wing mate, Anni Capstan, still alive, but the squadron as a whole had been cut in half. Savage Squadron was down to one flight, and the Toughs . . . They’re all gone . . . We swept the skies of the skips, but at a great cost.
Jaina keyed her comm. “Do we have outbound coordinates, Colonel?”
“Solution in progress, Sticks.”
She shook her head. The reason they had come to Dantooine was because they had too many people to travel a long distance in hyperspace. They had no supplies. Either we found supplies or . . . She glanced at the backlit bodies strewn around the camp beneath the freighters lifting off.
A lump rose in her throat. I hope none . . . She almost reached out with the Force to try to find her mother or brothers or uncle, but she focused herself instead on dropping her ship in on the shuttle’s port wing and pulling for stars. I have a mission to perform here before I worry about my family.
“Sparky, have you received those coordinates?”
The little droid tootled as it downloaded the navigational information. Jaina’s X-wing and shuttle cleared the Dantooine atmosphere before any of the other ships and moved into a high orbit around the world. The other ships followed them, lining up perfectly in an orbit that would take them from pole to pole around Dantooine.
Sparky whistled and fed the solution to Jaina’s secondary monitor.
“Agamar! Just where we wanted to head anyway. And the outbound vector is coming up just on the other side of the pole . . .”
The droid shrilled, and Jaina looked out her viewport. Coming up over the edge of Dantooine’s disk, sitting in the outbound vector for Agamar, was a Yuuzhan Vong cruiser. Jaina couldn’t be certain that it was the one they’d already damaged, but some of the spines were broken. Worse yet, as the secondary monitor showed, the cruiser was again employing its dovin basals to create a gravitic anomaly strong enough to prevent any ship from making the jump to hyperspace.
“This is Rogue Eleven. We have a Yuuzhan Vong cruiser acting as an Interdictor again. We’re going nowhere.”
In the shuttle’s cockpit, Leia stood between the seats her brother and Elegos occupied. “Jaina’s right, that will stop us from traveling away from here.”
In the distance red-gold plasma bolts started flying lazily toward the convoy. All the shots passed high. The intent of the gunners seemed clearly to be to herd the ships back down to Dantooine. Where the ground troops can finish us.
Luke winced and pulled himself up in the seat. “I don’t know how much I can do, Leia.”
She patted Luke on the shoulder. “You may not have to do it alone, Luke.” Leia keyed the comm unit. “Colonel Darklighter, what do the Rogues have left in the way of proton torpedoes?”
“We have one left, Highness. We’ll drop it in on the cruiser if you want. We can take our fighters in and strafe. Perhaps that will be enough to pull the interdiction field off.”
Leia shook her head as Elegos pointed to new sensor traces coming up. “Negative, Rogue Leader. We have new coralskipper traces on sensor. The cruiser is launching fighters. Looks like they really do want us back down there.”
“We’ll convince them otherwise.”
She shivered. “It feels to me as if Dubrillion and this fight here have all been an exercise. The Yuuzhan Vong have been learning. This