Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order_ Rebel Dreams_ Enemy Lines I - Aaron Allston [43]
Leia frowned. “Who?”
“The gunners on Lusankya. They picked off our pursuit and didn’t put a scratch on us.”
“Han, they were trying to kill us, too. I saw those batteries traversing to follow us. We’re nothing more than another blur to them. You just outflew them. The skips didn’t.”
“Oh.” Han looped around to port, away from the incoming coralskippers; he circled Lusankya at an almost safe distance and watched the Star Destroyer’s cloud of starfighters engaging the Yuuzhan Vong. “Then I’m not going back.”
“Right.”
“Do you have an exit vector for us?”
She consulted the sensor board again. “We’re almost smack in the middle of their fleet. The thinnest screen between us and clear space is back that way—” She gestured out along the course by which they’d arrived insystem. Then she peered more closely at her screen. “I have friendly signals there. One Star Destroyer and more ships arriving.”
Han snapped the Falcon around toward that course so sharply that he and Leia, and presumably all those aboard, were mashed into their acceleration couches. Belatedly, he shouted over his shoulder, “Hang on!”
Luke led Twin Suns Squadron away from Borleias high orbit at top speed and felt his smile withering away. A moment ago, he’d been as close to happy as one can be when caught in the middle of a firefight. The enemy had suddenly become uncoordinated, sure sign that their yammosk had died and that they’d have to quit the battlefield, and Luke hadn’t lost a pilot in the engagement. He’d hoped their job was almost done. But the unusual nature of his new orders suggested it was barely started.
A beep from R2-D2 alerted him that Mon Mothma was broadcasting her beacon. Luke looped around to be oriented straight toward that broadcast location while his astromech plotted that direction as a hyperspace jump course. He clicked his comlink over to squadron frequency. “Announce readiness,” he said, and added, “Leader ready.”
“Two.” Corran tucked his X-wing in to Luke’s port.
“Three.” Zindra moved up to Luke’s starboard.
“Six.”
“Four.”
When all other eleven pilots had acknowledged, Luke set a five-second timer and broadcast it to coordinate it with his other pilots. “Clench ’em if you’ve got ’em,” he said.
The counter dropped to zero. The Twin Suns jumped into hyperspace and then dropped almost immediately back into realspace, a jump duration of far less than two seconds.
Ahead, Luke saw Mon Mothma, her pointed bow aimed back in his direction, Borleias’s direction. Little gouts of red from the Star Destroyer’s vicinity suggested that she was being harassed by coralskippers, but before Luke could direct his squadron against them, R2-D2 beeped to indicate incoming orders.
Luke glanced at the text scrawl and led his squadron in a tight loop around toward the Yuuzhan Vong fleet behind them. “All right, people. We’re to get to Lusankya and punch a hole for her. Anyone gets in the way, discourage him.”
Rogue Squadron dropped out of its microjump close to Mon Mothma. The Star Destroyer’s complement of starfighters already had space secure around her; some of them were accelerating into the engagement zone toward Lusankya.
Gavin led the Rogues in a tight loop in the same direction.
His comlink crackled. “Aww, Twin Suns is there ahead of us.” That was Volu Nyth, a human woman from Kuat, a new Rogue.
Gavin put some snap into his voice. “No unneccessary chatter!” Then he lowered his tone. “Besides, we had to travel farther to get here.”
Han bit back a curse as he sent the Falcon through a bewildering series of side-to-side and up-and-down maneuvers, designed to throw off the aim of his pursuers. All eight of them.
It wasn’t just the danger to his ship, his wife, his passengers that made him unhappy.
He was getting tired.
Twenty years ago, a fight like this would have just loosened him up and made him ornery. Now sweat was pouring from him and he could