• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“Sticks, break starboard.”

Without thinking, Jaina reacted to Anni Capstan’s warning. She jerked her stick to the right and feathered the adjustment jets to pitch the X-wing into a barrel roll to starboard. A plasma blast from a skip sizzled past her ship, then hot after it came molten chunks of coralskipper. Anni’s fighter blazed through, sparks still trailing from her shields, and Jaina dropped onto her aft, then slipped slightly to port.

They exchanged fire with a pair of skips, then blew through the Yuuzhan Vong screen to get in among the crates. In comparison to the fast-moving skips, the crates were bloated floaters, just inviting a quick run and a pair of proton torpedoes. Each of the troop carriers sprouted hornlike projections that spat plasma bolts at incoming fighters, but they were clearly meant more for antipersonnel use than antifighter tactics. Dodging the streams was easy, and a burst of splinter shots actually scored some hits on the hull.

“Sparky, watch our tail, we’re making a run.” Jaina slipped her X-wing back into the lead, then leveled out and started in on one crate. As it fired plasma toward her, she abruptly kicked her X-wing up on its port S-foil and dived down at another. She snapped off two bursts of splinters fore and aft, then drilled a quad burst into the boxy craft’s spine. Coral went from coal black to white-hot in an instant, then evaporated.

Got it! Jaina keyed her comlink. “Finish it, Twelve.”

“As ordered, Sticks.”

Suddenly Sparky started shrieking. Jaina’s secondary monitor showed a pair of skips lurking dead center in her aft scope, slipping in behind Anni. “Twelve, break off the run.”

“Sithspawn!” Anni’s voice rose with panic. “I’m hit!”

Jaina jerked her stick to starboard and pulled back to climb, but it was too late. Anni’s X-wing trailed flames from two engines. The fighter had tucked itself into a tight spiral and slammed full force into the crate Jaina had shot up. Jaina caught a pulse of pain from her wing mate and then nothing.

Anni!

Jaina!

Down on Ithor, hidden with the Jedi squad waiting for the Yuuzhan Vong, Jacen doubled over as pain exploded in his stomach. He struggled for breath, feeling as if a vibroblade had been shoved into his guts. The physical pain in his middle slowly began to ease, but not so the heartache flooding through him.

In an instant Corran was beside him, his hand on Jacen’s back. “What is it?”

Jacen coughed a couple of times, then caught his breath. “My sister, she’s . . . something happened . . . up there.”

“How bad?”

Jacen blinked and reached out with the Force, then raised his face to the night sky. He could still feel her out there amid the flashes of laserfire and the golden debris streaking across the sky. “She’s okay, but someone close to her got vaped. I get that much very clearly.”

Corran nodded, then he and Ganner slapped Jacen on the back. “You have to figure she’ll be safe.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because, Jacen,” Ganner offered, “there’s nothing you can do for her down here. We’ll just make sure that what comes down isn’t going back up again to bother her.”

The youngest Jedi nodded. “You think they’re going to take the bait?”

“Do glitbiters suck spice?” Corran gave Jacen a confident smile. “The Vong have managed to surprise all of us a number of times. It’s their turn to be surprised, and a nasty surprise it will be.”

With his head ensconced in a cognition hood, Deign Lian surveyed the battle. He had chosen to color the carrier bearing Shedao Shai red and watched as the enemy fighters broke through coralskipper cover to start shooting up the carriers. Their weapons spat hot light at Shedao Shai’s ship, but none hit. The outer shell of carriers was gradually carved away, but the majority of them hit atmosphere and began their descent onto the night side of the planet.

Lian then turned his attention to the fleet battle. In an eye blink he designated one of the small infidel ships as a target. The Legacy of Torment’s gunners focused on it, launching a salvo from