Star Wars_ X-Wing 02_ Wedge's Gamble - Michael A. Stackpole [133]
Corran extended his loop and let it take him over and around the computer center. He dove and leveled out, coming in on the tower while running parallel to the construction droid’s course. He shot past the droid and came up slightly. Heavy blaster fire lanced out at the construction droid from the tower. Corran let loose with a quick burst of fire, raking it across the side of the building.
His flight took him past his target, so he started to turn around again when fire came at him from the building. The blaster bolts splashed harmlessly against his rear shield, but Corran immediately rolled the Headhunter and turned back away from the side of the building he’d attacked. He leveled out, then dove and came around on a new attack vector. He switched his weapons’ control over to concussion missiles, linked two, then climbed up over the construction droid’s blocky outline.
His crosshairs settled on the genesis of the red stream directed against Wedge’s droid. He got no target lock—an E-web and stormtrooper crew didn’t conform to any target profile in the Headhunter’s combat computer. Regardless, when he hit the trigger, two blue missiles streaked out and hit dead on target.
An argent explosion blew through that floor of the cylinder. The silvery disk spread out through the entire level and beyond, incinerating most of what was in there and scattering the rest of it out over the city. Yet, even for all that violence, the concussion missiles failed to damage the structural supports, leaving the tower intact above and below the level where little fires burned brightly in the night.
Corran keyed his comm unit. “Will that do it for you, Commander?”
“Thanks, Corran. We’re leaving to see some friends.”
“I copy. Want an escort?”
“If you’ve got nothing better to do.”
Corran smiled. “At your leisure, sir, I live to serve.”
Gavin had positioned himself so he could watch the door and still see what Winter was doing from the corner of his eye. Once they’d gotten into the room she’d plugged her datapad into the computer console and very quickly had a representation of Coruscant floating above her workstation. Her fingers flew over the keys and suddenly small cubes appeared to float around the world arranged in three rings. One circled the equator while the other two split the distance between the equator and the poles.
Seeming as insectoid as a Verpine because of the mask she wore, Winter nodded to Tycho. “These are the Orbital Solar Energy Transfer Satellites.” She pointed to a glowing red dot riding just above the equator. “This is our target. It’s night here now, but several orbital mirrors are high enough to give us what we need.”
More typing and a small label appeared attached to each of the floating cubes. Gavin couldn’t read them at that distance but he assumed they were unit designators that would allow Winter to send orders from the computer to the station.
“We’ll use OSETS 2711. First step is to have the mirror opaque itself. Then we focus it here and start it reflecting again.”
Tycho nodded. “Can you also bring up on this display the Golan stations and ships in orbit?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know, probably, but if I do it might attract some attention. First things first.”
“Go to it.” Tycho stood behind her and rested his hands on her shoulders. “This world needs a bath, so start boiling the water.”
• • •
Life could have been worse, Lieutenant Virar Needa thought to himself. The Captain Needa who had once commanded the Imperial Star Destroyer Avenger had only been his cousin, and one generation removed at that. Darth Vader had executed Lorth Needa for incompetence after Hoth, while Virar was still at the Imperial Military Academy. His cousins had all vanished, along with his aunt and his grandparents on the Needa side of the family, but at least he’d remained alive and been allowed to continue