Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order_ Dark Tide 02_ Ruin - Michael A. Stackpole [109]
More infidels to feed the gods.
With a flicker of thought, Deign Lian shifted the representation of the battle. Instead of seeing it as it might appear in visual light, the Torment’s analytic neuroengines layered colors over the images, letting him assess the damage done to the fleet. Coralskippers became gold and red sparks flitting through the void, growing darker until they winked out of existence. The larger ships started gold, but took on reddened spots or stripes. It pleased him that so few of his ships were reddened.
That pleasure faded quickly as he realized that Shedao Shai was the reason for their successes. His superior had analyzed the infidel’s small-fighter tactics and anticipated the capital ships using a version of them. His countertactic, of deploying a dovin basal screen of sufficient strength to pick off the weakened shots, succeeded in conserving energy for the intense fields needed to arrest the full-power shots.
It does not matter. He might win today, but his victory will just blind him to what needs to be done in the future. Deign Lian smiled. And if he loses, to him goes all blame, and to me will fall the glory of having made the best of his feeble plan.
Colonel Gavin Darklighter rolled to starboard, then spiraled down after the escaping crates. “Got my wing, Deuce?”
Kral Nevil double-clicked his comm, replying in the positive. Gavin checked his scopes and found six more Rogues coming on hot. Only eight of us left? A shudder shook him. At once he was happy that so many of the Rogues were still operational, but the losses still sent icy tendrils through his guts. Anni, gone, and others whom I never got a chance to know.
He snarled angrily, then felt his mind go very cold and clear, as his fury became arctic and infused his body and mind. He suddenly felt as if he was more than a pilot in a machine, that somehow he and his fighter had become one. As closely linked as a Vong pilot and his machine. He let his right hand ride lightly on the stick despite the bump of entering the atmosphere and cruised on in after one of the crates.
Gavin sailed in at its aft and scattered splinter shots at it. The crate projected a void that swallowed the red darts, then its aft guns started spitting plasma sparks at him. The New Republic pilot took his fighter down enough that the crate’s own voids shielded him from the fire, then he laced the carrier’s belly with splinter shots. The void shifted down to pick off those shots, and the plasma fire resumed.
Gavin smiled and tugged back on his stick. His nose came up just enough to pulse a quad burst at the crate’s aft. The lasers hit it hard, with one carving a black furrow up along the side. The other three burned holes in the back. Gavin followed them with more splinter shots, not figuring they’d do more damage to the carrier, but every one that got through the hole would wreak havoc on the cargo.
That crate broke left and dived hard for the jungle below. Gavin ignored it and brought his X-wing around on the same heading as the rest of the crates. In the distance gleamed a white building complex nestled amid the jungle, and twenty kilometers north of it, the lone remaining herd ship, the Tafanda Bay, rode in the sky like a peaceful metal cloud. Four of the crates broke off for the herd ship, while the rest bore in at the ground target.
Gavin flicked his weapons control over to proton torpedoes and targeted the space between two of the crates heading for the Tafanda Bay. He glanced at his monitor and read the range to target. “Catch, program the torps for detonation at two klicks or proximity void detection.”
The droid beeped once, solidly, then Gavin hit the trigger. The paired missiles burned blue through the sky, and his sensors reported voids appearing behind the crates.