• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“Ooryl understands, Nine.” Corran caught an edge to Ooryl’s voice he couldn’t recall hearing before. “Ooryl has them.”

Ooryl has them? That sounds like something Jace or I would say.

Ahead of him, Ooryl triggered a quick burst of quad fire that hit a TIE in the cockpit canopy and blew the engines out the back of it. A little etheric rudder shifted his aim point to port, then a second shot disintegrated another TIE’s port solar panel. Ooryl rolled out to port, then dove below the remaining TIEs.

Sithspawn, that’s great flying! Corran inverted his X-wing and pulled back on the stick to follow Ooryl’s dive, but by then the Gand had started his fighter around in a grand loop. Corran rolled again to follow, but a sharp bleat from Whistler made him glance at his aft monitor. “Ten, your playmates are on my tail.”

“Ooryl copies, Nine. Continue on your arc.”

“Continue? They’re coming up fast.”

“No longer.”

Up ahead Corran saw Ooryl’s X-wing tighten its arc impossibly quick, swapping nose for tail in the space of two hundred meters. The ship remained inverted, so Corran couldn’t see the cockpit, but he could imagine the Gand’s mouthparts moving apart in his imitation of a smile. “Ready to break on your mark, Ten.”

“Go to port, Nine. Mark.”

Corran rolled to port, then, as Ooryl had done, he reversed his thrust. Instead of looping the ship, Corran applied rudder until his nose swung back along the path he had just traveled. He came about just in time to see Ooryl melt the wing off another TIE.

Its wingman dove abruptly away from the Gand’s trap.

“Great shooting, Ten. You’ve got a hot hand.”

“Thank you, Nine.”

“Three flight, want to tighten it up here?”

“As ordered, Lead.” Corran started his thrust pushing his fighter forward. “Come on, Ooryl. We’ve got a big target now.”

Captain Drysso watched the holopad’s display of the battle. “Helm, Freedom is trying to slash over the top of us. Roll us so we can track her.”

“Captain, if you do that, we’ll expose our ventral surface to the snubfighters.”

“I know that, Helm.” Drysso looked over at the beefy man heading up his gunnery command. “Guns, use our ion cannons on Freedom. I want that ship.”

“Captain, Guns copies your order, but requests you reconsider.”

Drysso’s eyes narrowed. “We have more ion cannons than that ship has guns, Lieutenant Gorev. I want it, and you’ll give it to me. I don’t want to destroy it unless necessary. Antilles got one of our Impstars, now we’ll have one of his.”

“What about the snubfighters and the War Cruiser?”

“Use our concussion missiles. Use all our turbolasers and heavy turbolaser batteries.”

“The snubs are too small for turbolasers to track them. The War Cruiser is in our aft, so my missiles are having difficulty finding firing solutions.”

“By all that’s Imperial, you’ll find solutions, Lieutenant Gorev, or someone else will be in your position, do you understand?” Drysso’s hand rose with his voice. “Understand me, people. This is a Super Star Destroyer. A handful of snubfighters and a ship a tenth of our size cannot hurt us. Do what you are told and victory will be ours!”

Fliry Vorru had seen the TIE Interceptors flash past the viewports of his office and knew the time to make his escape from Thyferra had come. My shuttle is hyperspace capable. I run suborbital to the far side of the planet, wend my way clear of obstructions, and vanish. He collected a fistful of datacards and tucked them inside his tunic.

He reached the door to his office and found it wouldn’t open. He quickly punched a security override code into the locking mechanism, and it opened. In his outer office he found two stormtroopers and his secretary trying to open the door to the hallway.

“Stand back. Elicia, please do yourself a favor and duck behind your desk. When they come for you, tell them horrible stories about me, and they will protect you.” As the blonde did as she was told, the stormtroopers came to attention. “You two will conduct me to my shuttle hangar in the east tower.”

Vorru punched a security override code into the