Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order_ Dark Tide 01_ Onslaught - Michael A. Stackpole [97]
Major Varth hit some keys on her datapad, and the static holograph shifted to an animation. The best-guess idea of a Yuuzhan Vong ground vehicle—shown as a giant beetlelike creature moving on thousands of little feet—moved along slowly as a trio of ships came in at it. The first two made strafing runs, coming in high and spraying flicker darts over the vehicle. The third fighter came in low and drilled one proton torpedo at the target. The Yuuzhan Vong vehicle used black holes to pick off the laser darts and let the proton torpedo through. The missile detonated, lifting the beetle and cracking it in half before dumping it back on the ground in pieces.
Gavin half smiled. “Again, we don’t know what Vong ground craft will look like. We used a beetle because we know they use beetles. Regardless of what they look like, the idea is to overwhelm them with laser fire, then drive a torpedo into the craft.”
The purple striping around Elegos’s eyes tightened. “Colonel, forgive me, but is not this strategy based on wishful thinking? We have no idea how many dovin basals such ground vehicles would have. It could be we would be wasting torpedoes.”
Gavin nodded wearily. “I agree, but the chance to kill a lot of Vong is worth that chance. Moreover, whatever heavy weaponry that thing is packing could hurt us, so we have to eliminate them.”
Something clicked in the back of Jaina’s brain. She raised a hand.
“Flight Officer Solo?”
“Forgive me, Colonel, but something you just said combined with what the senator said. The gravitic anomaly the dovin basal creates just sucks in the proton torpedo and crushes it down, preventing detonation or containing it.”
“That is what we think happens. We think containing the energy may exhaust the dovin basal, which is the rough equivalent of overwhelming a shield.”
“Right, that’s what I thought.” She smiled a bit. “What if we don’t make it easy for the dovin basals to contain that energy?”
Gavin frowned. “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
“Okay, what I’m thinking is this: If we reprogram the proton torpedoes and concussion missiles so that they’re getting targeting data from our ships on a constant basis, we could have them detonate prematurely when a gravitic anomaly is positioned to intercept them. The missiles go off, releasing all that energy. The black hole might suck a bunch of it in, but the rest could damage ground troops, or other vehicles that don’t have black holes up on that side. The shock wave from the explosion would certainly knock troopers down, and the heat might ignite things.”
Gavin ran a hand over his bearded jaw. “It does allow us to do some damage regardless. Pilots would have to hold their ships on target for a bit, though, which could make them targets themselves.”
Major Inyri Forge raised a hand. “In ground-attack mode a torp isn’t going to take that long to reach the target. A couple of seconds—no more.”
One of the Tough pilots nodded. “We could also slave our missiles to targeting data coming from some of the freighters. We pop up, deliver the missiles, then scoot away or line up another shot. If we vector shots in over densely packed troops, we could do serious damage.”
The leader of Rogue Squadron nodded. “As a plan modification, it’s simple and works. Good. I’ll get slicer droids coding up a sim for this strategy and see how it runs. You freight pilots are going to need to see if you can modify your sensor packages to provide the telemetry our missiles need, but that shouldn’t be hard. You’ll be shooting your guns by hand, though, since your sensors will be occupied—at least, at range. When the Vong get close enough that we won’t be torping them, you really won’t need sensor data, but you can have it.”
Gavin chewed his lower lip for a moment. “Look, all of you, this is not going to be an easy fight. Normally we pilots get to cloak ourselves in tradition and the romance of single combat amid the stars. The kind of snubfighters we