Star Wars_ X-Wing 05_ Wraith Squadron - Aaron Allston [145]
Kell shook his head, trying to send that invidious mental voice away.
You’re about to stare down the cannons of an Imperial frigate. You’re going to be vaped. That’s the end of Kell Tainer.
“Shut up.”
“What’s that, Five?”
“Nothing, Nine.”
The frigate was almost centered in the exit from the hold. Kell grabbed his control yoke, gripped it hard to quell the shaking of his hand. “Get ready … get ready … Target and fire!” Kell activated his targeting computer, swung the brackets over the frigate’s stern, and saw them immediately go red; the computer whined with the tone of a good lock. He fired both torpedoes and saw them streak off toward the Provocateur.
A dozen torpedoes joined them in the near-instantaneous crossing to the frigate. The stern end of the capital ship lit up in a ball-shaped, glowing explosion.
Kell said, “Five away,” and shot out of Night Caller’s bow. Even as he emerged he saw Night Caller’s forward lasers lance in on the frigate’s engines, adding their formidable damage to that done by the torpedoes.
“Four away!”
The sensors showed Night Caller turning away from the frigate. As on the Blood Nest moon, for the X-wings to launch, the corvette had to keep its bow shields down … and to maneuver so neither enemy ship could get a clear shot at its bow.
“Six away!”
The center column of X-wings was clear. Kell switched over to lasers, linked them for quad firing, and brought up his visual sensors. Provocateur, until a moment ago in the process of gathering up its TIE fighters, was deploying them again, a fire drill of confusion. He fired as he raced in toward the frigate’s screen of starfighters, shooting as fast as his shaking hands would let him.
Wedge hovered near his TIE fighter’s landing port as if preparing to dock.
The instant the bow vista lit up with the emissions of proton torpedoes and laser cannons, he announced, “Grays, form up!” He goosed the engines and moved out in an arc that would carry them well around the Provocateur on a course toward the corvette Constrictor. As soon as his range meter read two klicks he began firing lasers.
Night Caller’s turret guns had already struck home, he saw. The corvette’s engines were awash in energy, their insulating sheaths glowing from absorbed energy; a brilliant ribbon of fire from the portmost topside engine was clear sign of a sheared fuel conduit. Night Caller continued fire against the other corvette’s stern. Wedge also directed his fire toward the engines, trusting Falynn to do the same, and said, “Gray Three, Gray Four, take the communications systems. You know where.”
Indeed they did. Different Corellian corvettes had set up their communications chambers at different points, but all had the majority of their comm and sensor hardware at the same position: starboard, in the central portion of the ship, deck two. Atril and Janson swept far to starboard, then angled back in and began firing continuously against the corvette’s far side.
Constrictor finally began returning fire. The stern gun and top turret opened up on Night Caller; the side guns sprayed fire against Wedge and the other TIE pilots.
Face was in the stairwell up to deck two when Night Caller was jarred by a powerful blow; it knocked him from his feet and he rolled across the bone-bruising steps down to the deck three landing. He made it painfully to his feet and hobbled up to deck two a moment later.
Lights in the corridor leading to the bridge flickered and smoke drifted through the corridor. Face limped forward. The blast door to the bridge was bowed in toward him. Paint had peeled and burned from its surface, yielding the smoke Face saw, and the metal of the door was glowing red from heat. The door made a hissing noise like a reptile preparing to strike.
He gulped and hit his comlink. “Captain Hrakness? Any bridge crew? Come in.”
There was no answer.
Kell tore past the Provocateur. His jittery laser fire had missed