Star Wars_ X-Wing 04_ The Bacta War - Michael A. Stackpole [145]
Whistler keened at him so Corran punched a previously unlit button on his comm unit. “Hope that wasn’t you, Erisi. I’d hate to think your flying skill had atrophied so much.”
“It’s my killing skill that should be concerning you, Corran.”
“Eight here. I have a pair on my tail.”
“Seven on the way, Eight, hold tight.”
Corran rolled and came out in a loop with Ooryl in his aft port quarter. Two TIEs were lining up for a run on Nawara’s X-wing. Tycho pulled a tight turn that brought him around quickly, but he only managed to pick off the trailing TIE. Nawara broke hard to port, then twisted back again to starboard, but the squint stayed with him throughout his maneuvers.
That’s got to be Erisi.
The Interceptor fired four times, the first two pairs of green laser bolts burning through Nawara’s aft shield. The other two blew out the port engines and hit the fuselage right behind the cockpit. Nawara’s astromech exploded, then the cockpit canopy flew apart. When fire filled the cockpit Corran feared for the worst, then he saw the X-wing’s command couch jet out from the stricken fighter.
“Eight is extravehicular!” Corran’s green eyes narrowed. “Ten, keep them off him. I’m going after Erisi. Whistler, give me her comm frequency again.”
The droid complied with the order silently.
“Always did pick off the easy targets, didn’t you, Erisi? Couldn’t stand to work hard, could you?”
“Is that you on my tail, Corran? All alone?” Her laughter filled his cockpit. “I thought you’d learned from your father that dying alone wasn’t something to do.”
“That should be your concern, Erisi, because I’m not dying here. Horn out.” He punched the comm unit button that cut frequency off. “Come on, Whistler, it’s time we collect the debt she owes us.”
Corran’s X-wing streaked in on Erisi’s trail, but the squint juked and danced, making it impossible for him to get a good shot at her. As she broke to port, Corran rolled out into a long starboard loop and began a head-to-head run with her. The squint broke to starboard before they could close, forcing him to turn to port to pursue. Okay, she knew head to head would be suicide.
As her ship began to pull away from his, Corran realized killing her wasn’t going to be as easy as he expected. While she hadn’t been a bad pilot in an X-wing, she wasn’t as good as he was. Her Interceptor, on the other hand, has more speed and maneuverability than my X-wing. That might give her the edge she lacked before. And she knows very well all the performance capabilities of my ship.
Corran smiled. You don’t fly against a fighter, you fly against the pilot, and her arrogance is one huge flaw I can exploit. Corran pulled his throttle back to 85 percent of full power, letting her stretch her lead on him. He rolled up on his port stabilizer and started a long loop that would take him back toward the main dogfight. He started in on an attack vector for one of the Interceptors.
While flying along it, he watched his main monitor. The rate of change for the range between his ship and Erisi’s Interceptor slowed as the distance stabilized, then the distance started to decrease. The rate of change accelerated, and when the range hit three kilometers, Corran hauled back on his stick. He tightened his loop considerably, then punched his throttle forward and headed straight for her.
Her hastily snapped shots splashed harmlessly over his forward shields. Corran fired back, catching her squint on the port wing. He inverted and dove, then inverted again and cruised out into a long loop that took him past Thyferra’s cloudy face. “How badly is she hit, Whistler?”
The droid graphed performance statistics on the main monitor. The Interceptor had suffered a 5 percent reduction in speed, which still left it faster than the X-wing, but not by that much. There also appeared to be a reduction in maneuverability, but not enough to cripple her performance. This is