Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order_ Rebel Dreams_ Enemy Lines I - Aaron Allston [39]
Zindra’s voice crackled over the comlink: “Great shooting! Um, are we going to do anything about that frigate ahead?”
Luke suppressed the urge to grind his teeth. “Yes, we are. I’ll take lead.” He goosed his thrusters; he and Corran maneuvered ahead of Zindra. “Follow me in.”
Luke peeled off on a strafing run against the frigate analog. Corran and Zindra followed.
Saba fired and a pulse from the Wild Knights’ ion cannons washed across a tight formation of coralskippers, causing them to spin out of control; the skips veered out of the main engagement area above the moon of Pyria VI.
The blastboat shuddered. Saba checked her diagnostics screen, saw nothing, and glanced at Danni, who was on the main sensors.
Danni shook her head. “No damage. But … well … it’s a good excuse.”
Saba hissed in vexation, but said, “Do it.”
Danni activated a control on her console board. Saba, unhappy, added a little wobble to the blastboat’s motion as it looped around toward another patch of coralskippers.
“Wild Knights One, this is Green Leader. You’re venting atmosphere, repeat, venting atmosphere. Can you hear me? Over.”
Saba stared unhappily at her controls. Of course they were venting atmosphere. They’d rigged the rear of the blastboat with a couple of new valves to do just that—to eject a compressed oxygen and nitrogen mix to suggest they’d been hulled.
Danni activated her comlink. “Green Leader, this is Wild One. We’ve taken major grutchin hits. Venting … they’re chewing through toward the engines …” Her voice sounded pained, and she added a racking cough to her performance. “Smoke in the cabin …”
“Wild One, get out of here. Get to ground, now. We’ll hold here.”
“Thanks, Green Leader. Wild Knights are—” Danni clicked the comlink off and then added, unnecessarily, “away.” She looked up at Saba, guilt in her expression.
Saba hissed again and banked around back toward Borleias.
Behind them, over the next few minutes, the other members of the Wild Knights would follow suit. As each took a minor bit of damage, he or she’d behave as though the craft had sustained a major hit and turn toward home. Eventually the other units defending the moon over Pyria VI would find their situation untenable and have to abandon their post.
That was the plan. But it felt like losing. It felt like abandoning comrades to the enemy.
And that was something Saba Sebatyne did not do. Had she been a human, the pressure she exerted on the controls would have turned her knuckles white.
* * *
Captain Reth grinned after the departing Wild Knights leader. Certainly, the blastboat’s departure weakened their position. But the almighty Jedi leader of that famous squadron was fleeing the battle zone, her tail between her legs, and he, commander of the lowly cobbled-together Green Squadron, was still in the fight.
He returned his attention to the enemy before him. It wouldn’t do to receive his medals posthumously.
“Analysis,” Wyrpuuk Cha said.
Kadlah Cha joined him again. “We have caught their outpost off guard,” she said, and gestured at the engagement zone most distant from Borleias. “They supported it with insufficient numbers. No matter what they choose to throw at us, we can bring units to it faster and in better condition from the reserve fleet.”
“Good. Go on.”
She gestured at the main battle zone, above Borleias. “Here, matters are not so promising. Their defense of the hardpoint site on the ground is ferocious, and we are losing forces, coralskippers especially, at a far greater rate than they are losing analogous forces.”
“Have they demonstrated any new tactics, new weapons?”
She shook her head.
“Good. They’re fighting with spirit, but don’t seem to