Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order_ Rebel Dreams_ Enemy Lines I - Aaron Allston [87]
Kyp’s own X-wing was now individually decorated as well, with a design that had to be as unpleasant to him as the voxyn were to Jaina. On either side of the fuselage was painted a sun in the throes of going supernova, a reminder to the Yuuzhan Vong that it was Kyp Durron who had destroyed whole worlds, years ago, through use of a superweapon called the Sun Crusher. Kyp had been driven by rage during that time, and had not been old enough for maturity to have restrained him. Even today, many people thought he should pay for his crime against those Imperial worlds—pay the ultimate price, sacrificing his life—but Luke Skywalker had disagreed, and Kyp had, in the intervening years, found a sort of uncomfortable and incomplete redemption in his role as a Jedi.
For a moment, Jaina thought about adding, I like your design, too. That would confuse Kyp, help keep him at bay. But her resolve softened and she could not bear to inflict that little wound on him. She kept her mouth shut.
“Contact, bearing three-three-seven, incoming.” That was Gavin Darklighter’s voice at the muted volume of the squadron frequency.
“Wild Knights here. We have incoming targets from Rimward.” This was Danni’s voice.
A moment later, Captain Reth called in a sensor contact for Blackmoon Squadron.
Jaina’s sensor board was still empty of unfriendlies, but three simultaneous approaches against the other units protecting the Starlancer vehicles suggested that she’d have incoming coralskippers soon as well. She switched to squadron frequency. “Keep your eyes open,” she said.
“Awww.” That was the mechanical voice of Piggy, who was now flying as Twin Suns Five and doing squadron tactics evaluation. “I wanted to sleep a while longer.” Then his voice became suddenly alert, as though he realized his jest might not be appreciated. “I mean, to hear is to obey, Great One.”
Jaina grinned. If she were leading this unit like a military squadron, she’d snap at him for making irrelevant comments over his comlink, but the Twin Suns pilots were supposed to be looser, more idiosyncratic.
“Starlancer Leader to squadrons, we are ready for test-firing.”
Jaina switched back to fleet frequency. “Starlancer Leader, this is Twin Suns Leader. Fire at will.”
Several kilometers behind her, the ends of the two larger pipelike extrusions from the pipefighter flared into incandescence. A bright red bar of light, a meter-thick laser beam, leapt out from each one. Instead of flaring once with a short burst of energy, like a starfighter weapon system, they continued pouring out laser light.
Acknowledgments came in across her comm unit, indications from two other Starlancer triangle-corner vehicles that they, too, had fired. Then there were updates from them: “Estimated two minutes until impact … One minute forty-five seconds … one minute thirty seconds until impact …” All four Starlancer craft were fitted with voice-only holocomm units, allowing them to coordinate at transmission speeds greater than the speed of light, and their respective guardian squadrons were piggybacking their own communications through those holocomms.
Jaina tuned out the updates and concentrated on the fighter-pilot chatter. The Rogues, Wild Knights, and Blackmoons all reported detecting inbound squadrons, but now indicated that the squadrons were not coming in at attack speed. This seemed to be a slower, more deliberate sortie.
“Fifteen seconds until impact … Impact. We have positive connection on both leads with Vehicle Two, with Vehicle Three … with Vehicle One. All three are positive. Fire central units.”
Behind Jaina, the pipefighter fired off its third extrusion, the one that bisected the right angle; it, too, emitted a meter-thick stream of laser light. At the moment it fired, the project controller began transmitting, “Estimated one minute twenty-two