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Captain Iillor looked at Jhemiti. “Thirty seconds and counting. Bring the gravity well projectors to full power on my mark.”

Corran’s concussion missile sailed in at the target. Throughout the short flight the targeting computer built into the missile took sensor readings, compared the coordinates they supplied with those of the target, determined if it should explode or not yet, and reported the whole process back to Corran’s Headhunter. A million times a second it went through that same process, constantly updating its position relative to the target and relaying the data to the Headhunter.

Corran’s Headhunter, in turn, sent that information on to Winter’s datapad. There it remained for a nanosecond, then flowed into the Imperial computer network. It routed itself through several key systems and finally poured into Coruscant Traffic Control. The data then fed into the Taxi, Hangar, and Maintenance programming that, because of the override and emergency data flags Winter had provided, sent it back out to the Imperial Interceptor closing on the Headhunter.

The chief benefit of computers is that they can automate boring and routine jobs that need not concern a human. If an X-wing fighter needed to be moved from a landing pad to a hangar position, or on into maintenance, the R2 unit assigned to that X-wing could perform that simple task without the need to trouble the pilot. Since TIE fighters do not use R2 units, other programs had been created to supply travel routes, coordinates, and speeds to a TIE fighter so it could be moved about without a pilot.

In this case, the course supplied to the Interceptor on Corran’s tail was the course the missile was traveling. The destination was the missile’s target coordinates and the speed was as close as the fighter could manage to approximating the missile’s speed. The implementation of such programming required an override code, which had been supplied. Because of the potential problems caused if such codes were to fall into enemy hands, the pilots could override the automatic programming, provided they hit the correct console buttons in the appropriate order.

Doing that required approximately 2.5 seconds of the pilot’s undivided attention.

The Interceptor pilot’s attention was anything but undivided.

The concussion missile caromed off the edge of the breach its predecessor had opened and exploded. It blasted a hole in the shielding of the energy conduit. Shards from the conduit and its shielding sprayed the interior of the conduit, severing some cables, merely nicking others. Sparks flew and several circuits shorted out. Power died in several buildings for a second, but other lines accepted more power and the shields remained intact.

Then the Interceptor hit. While it was not traveling as fast as the concussion missile, it did mass significantly more than the projectile. It was able to build up a considerable amount of kinetic energy that it transferred to the target upon impact. In addition, the crash compacted the Interceptor’s fuel cells, compressing the fuel that subsequently detonated. The Interceptor’s crushed hull sheered through the power conduit, severing the thick bundle of cables running through it, and the explosion that followed tangled and fused lines that had never been meant to touch.

Outside Corran’s cockpit, Coruscant went black.

“Ten, nine, eight,” Captain Iillor counted down.

“Look!”

Her eye came up off the chronometer. The last shield sphere flickered.

“Seven, six, five …”

The shield sphere died.

“Kill the projectors, Lieutenant Jhemiti.” Captain Iillor looked out toward the planet sparkling like a star in the distance. “Now the battle for Coruscant begins.”

44

Still basking in the glory of his redemption, Lieutenant Virar Needa stared out the viewport at Imperial Center. He saw lights on the world flicker and die, but even that unusual a thing happening did not penetrate the aura of well-being in which he cocooned himself. Clearly, it seemed to him, those responsible for the power problems on Imperial Center