Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order_ Rebel Dreams_ Enemy Lines I - Aaron Allston [113]
There were a lot of them. Dozens of skips. Hundreds or thousands of reptoids. And the rakamat. One squad of E-wings wasn’t going to be enough to put a dent in them.
He switched over to command frequency. “Control, this is Blackmoon Leader. We’re facing a superior force and could use some reinforcements.”
The voice that responded was Iella Wessiri’s. “Blackmoon Leader, Control. All our ground forces are engaged. Fight defensively and make a fighting retreat back our way.”
“Control, copy.” Reth gritted his teeth. This wasn’t going to end well. It would be another Hoth, another Dantooine, with not even an opportunity to count up their dead.
Jag looked dispassionately at the reptoid who’d just walked into his viewport. The reptoid stared at him, mouth open to suggest anger or surprise, and looked around to gauge the size of Jag’s clawcraft. “I estimate about ten seconds before the Yuuzhan Vong figure out I’m here.”
“Get out of there, then. Come back to us.”
“No, it’s more than ten seconds before the rakamat are in position. We need to time this exactly.”
“No, come on back now. Do you trust me?”
“No fair using my own arguments against me.”
The reptoid was in a frenzy, shouting something back toward the advancing line of coralskippers. Jag activated his shields, heard and felt the increased engine demand thrum through his clawcraft. He rolled his craft over backward like a ball, rotating it along its directional axis so he ended up facing the other way but right-side up, and goosed his thrusters.
Behind him, his hiding place exploded as plasma cannon ejecta rained down on it. Then the trees surrounding it shattered, splintering, as coralskippers gave chase.
Jaina let herself drift, staying in tentative contact with the distant life-forms.
She could feel them, the collective them, and every few moments a new group of them, a few meters away from the last, offered up a second or two of fear as their world shook around them.
They were insects, lizards, other life-forms native to Borleias, and she was sure she was feeling their fear as the impact tremor of the rakamat’s giant feet shook the ground around them.
She could also feel, with a different set of Force-sensibilities, the shadow bomb she controlled.
The two sets of feeling were coming closer together.
She felt a twitch from Kyp. His range was right over his shadow bomb. Wait, she told him.
Closer, closer, and then they were almost together. Now, she told him, and triggered her shadow bomb. She opened her eyes.
In the distance, fire erupted into the sky—fire, propelling into the sky tons of charred flesh that had been rakamats. A shock wave rippled out from the site of the explosions, shredding trees near it, shaking them farther away, causing nothing more than a ground tremor where Jaina and Kyp sat.
“All right, Twins,” she said. “Let’s go back in and deal with that last range, and Jag’s pursuit.”
“Twin Suns, this is Control.” In fact, it was Wedge’s voice. “Negative on that. Fall back. Fall back.”
“Fall back, understood.” Jaina struggled with herself, then assumed her most regal tone. “We want to know why we’re being summoned back when we’re winning.”
“Because you’re holding up the Yuuzhan Vong advance.”
She lost her godly demeanor. “What? I thought that’s what we were supposed to do!”
Wedge laughed at her. “Goddess, as usual, you’re doing your job too well.”
SEVENTEEN
Coruscant System
The Record Time dropped out of hyperspace close to Coruscant, close enough for the planet to fill most of her forward viewports.
Lando immediately began broadcasting. “Survivor Cell Thirty-Eight, this is Rescue Two. We’re inbound and ready for pickup. Make yourselves ready at Target Zone A-Nineteen.