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By Root 474 0

came immediately. His sharp turn took him across Corran’s line of flight, forcing Corran to yank back on his stick and roll to starboard. He leveled out and started a turn to port, but Whistler’s shrill whine filled the cockpit. The stick slammed back into Corran’s chest, pinning him in his ejection chair as the droid brought the X-wing’s nose up. Red crept into the corners of Corran’s vision and the stick’s pressure against his breastbone made breathing hard.

The vast expanse of the Black Asp’s bulk filled his viewscreen. By all the souls of Alderaan! A blue bolt of ion-cannon energy sizzled in and battered down the X-wing’s shields. Whistler yowled and the stick went slack for a moment, allowing Corran to act.

He slapped the stick hard to port, bringing the X-wing up in a snap-roll that put the Interdictor beneath his feet. He started to pull back on the stick, to show the cruiser his stern and rocket full away from it, but he felt a tingle run through him as another ion blast partially caught the starboard stabilizer foils. The astromech’s screams died abruptly and Corran was slammed against the left side of the cockpit.

Even without seeing the stars swirling around him like dust motes in a Tatooine sand tornado, he knew what had happened. The ion blast had knocked out his starboard sublight engines, leaving the pair on the port side of the ship operating at full power and without competition. This put him into a flat spin, with his stern chasing his nose, completely out of control.

But at least I’m hard to hit.

The ion blast, in addition to shutting Whistler off, had killed all his cockpit electronics and acceleration compensator. The only thing he could do, he knew, was to shut his engines down and go for a restart. Until he had some sort of power, or until that cruiser slaps a tractor beam on me, the X-wing would spin like a gyroscope. Gotta power down.

That was easier said than done. The emergency shutdown panel had been placed on the right side of the cockpit. Mashed against the opposite side by centrifugal force, it remained just beyond the reach of his outstretched fingers. Gritting his teeth, Corran levered himself off the cockpit wall with his left elbow and tried to hit the panel.

The stick slammed him back into place pinning him. Corran caught it with his right hand and tried to pry it forward. Pain radiated out from where the stick had jammed his medallion into breastbone. So much for that being terribly lucky. The stick made it painful to breathe, adding one more unnecessary complication to his predicament.

A sense of urgency boiled up in him, overriding panic instead of boosting it. “Let. Me. Go!” He redoubled his effort to move the stick. It resisted at first, but Corran refused to be daunted. Concentrating with every fiber of his being, he pushed and the stick yielded. Centimeter by centimeter he forced it away from himself. Yes, I’m free.

Corran shoved the stick as far as it would go to the left, then used it to pull himself away from the port side of the cockpit. With his left hand on the top of the stick, he brought his elbow up, inch by inch, scraping it past various switches and knobs that had died with the rest of the ship. When his arm came up above the top of the stick, he lunged to the right, letting the stick slip beneath his armpit, and hit the shutdown panel with his right elbow.

The thrumming of the port engines died, leaving him alone with the sound of his own breathing in the cockpit. The ship still spun and showed no signs of slowing, but without friction or other resistance in the vacuum of space, it would continue to spin forever. Corran relaxed slightly in relief at cutting the engines off, and was rewarded by being bashed back against the port side of the cockpit. His helmet hit a hard stanchion, leaving him a touch dazed. Along with the spin-induced nausea, it made him hope someone would shoot him and end his misery.

That flash of despair lasted for a moment until another spark of pain spread out from his breastbone. Kill us they might, but I’m not going to make it easy