Star Wars_ X-Wing 05_ Wraith Squadron - Aaron Allston [146]
“Five, Seven.”
“I hear you, Seven.”
“We’ve lost the bridge.”
“What?”
“She took a direct hit from the frigate’s stern battery, Five. The bridge is gone.”
Kell swore and began to swing around for his next pass. Runt was now on his tail. “Was anyone still in the hold?”
“Face’s fighter. He wasn’t in it. I think Night Caller is drifting.” Indeed, the corvette seemed to be locked in the starboard turn that was supposed to bring its bow away from its enemies. In a minute, the maneuver would bring the bow toward the other two ships again.
Kell activated his comm unit and personal comlink simultaneously. “Night Caller, this is Wraith Five. Does anybody read me?”
Wedge and Falynn roared past the Constrictor’s bow, reversed, and fired almost before they looked.
The enemy corvette’s bow hold was opening and her bow shields were down to allow her TIE fighters to emerge. The Wraiths’ linked laser fire went straight down the throat of the enemy ship. As they dove, losing relative altitude rather than follow their shots in, they saw energy spill right back out of the hold at them, evidence that something had lit off in the hold—probably the ion engines of one of the TIE fighters preparing to launch.
The corvette’s belly turret swung after them, firing as they passed, but then the guns froze in position, their last blast being half the intensity of a standard barrage.
Wedge checked his sensors. This close, the corvette’s shields would have lit up the sensor board, but the only thing doing that was the increasing brightness from the corvette’s engines. He swung around to bring the corvette into his firing brackets and switched his comm unit to broad-spectrum Imperial frequencies. “Constrictor, this is the New Republic. You are helpless under our guns. I’ll give you ten seconds to surrender. If you don’t, I’m going to blow a hole through your bridge and fly through it for fun.”
It was only a moment before a strangled voice replied: “Constrictor to Rebel forces. We surrender. Please bring up rescue craft. Our engines are on fire. And please don’t fire on our escape pods.” Two of the escape craft ejected from the corvette’s center section and began a slow drift toward Talasea.
“Acknowledged, Constrictor.”
Janson’s voice cut in. “Wedge, Night Caller’s in trouble.”
At a dead run, Face worked his way down to deck four and to the combined security hold and auxiliary bridge situated just forward of the engines. The door opened to his voice but the chamber beyond was dark, unoccupied.
He slid into the command chair and hit his comlink. “Grinder! You still among the living?”
“I’m here.”
“I’m in the backup bridge. What do I do to bring it up?”
“Why does everyone think that I—”
“Grinder.”
“Type in command wormturns, W-O-R-M-T-U-R-N-S, then ID yourself by voice and issue the vocal password ‘Agamar Rules the Galaxy.’ ”
Face did as he was told and a moment later the auxiliary bridge sprang to life. He redirected all officers’ stations to his command console and immediately stopped the ship’s portward spin.
On the main sensor monitor, Constrictor was reading green—safe, pacified. Provocateur was still red. The board showed a variety of blue dots already in the fight and more onrushing from Talasea and her moons.
First things first. He activated the bow hold door and closed it, then brought bow shields up to full power. “Cubber.”
“Here.”
“Get a crew up to the deck two bridge door. The bridge is gone and the door is losing integrity. Weld it down or something before it blows out completely and takes half the crew with it.”
“We’re on it.”
As fast as he could process the information, Face flipped between the screens for each of the bridge positions he now commanded. I used to think bridge officer was such an easy post.
Provocateur was outbound at full speed, again gathering up the last of her TIE fighters, taking advantage of Night Caller’s momentary lack of responsiveness