Star Wars_ X-Wing 05_ Wraith Squadron - Aaron Allston [57]
“That’ll be slow going and a significant power drain, Lead.”
“I know, Eleven. But we don’t have another choice that will keep the unit in one piece. Once we’re in position, we’ll try to effect repairs, first on the fighters that are out of commission. That means—Five, how’s your suit integrity? Can you stand a few seconds of hard vacuum to make a cold transit to the shuttle’s emergency airlock?”
“My suit diagnostics are down, too, sir, but I think the suit’s otherwise intact.”
“Good. You and Cubber will put on vacuum maintenance suits Cubber stowed on the shuttle and effect repairs as best you can. I’m assuming that we’re going to have pursuers on our tails soon, so work fast and be as messy as you have to. Everyone but Four, Six, and Seven head on over to Xobome 6. Land and effect what repairs you can, all but Five—you remain in orbit. I’ll stay on station with the inert fighters while Narra tows them in one by one. Execute.”
Kell, who had four engines showing ready, brought his fighter up to speed and in line beside and aft of Wraith Twelve—even at proper trailing distances he could recognize Piggy by his profile in the cockpit.
“Demolitions.”
Kell jerked upright. In commando operations plotting, he knew he might be referred to as Demolitions instead of Wraith Five. A check of his comm board told him this was a private communication from Wraith Leader.
“Yes, Control.”
“What do you think hit us?”
“Nothing I’ve ever heard of. But I think I could build something to do this—though I could bank the money and live off it for the rest of my life instead.”
“Describe it.”
“You’d need four basic components. No, five. First, a pretty standard ion projector, probably rigged for a single detonation instead of multiple shots. Second, an electromagnetic pulse generator, with the same area of emission. Third, a sensor rig that can detect hyperspace anomalies—that is to say, ships jumping into the system. Fourth, a gravitational pulse generator like the ones off the Imperial Interdictors. And fifth, a communications device—probably a one-shot hypercomm unit, something to throw off a single alarm at the time of detonation.”
“So you’re talking about a bomb that detects hyperspace arrivals, puts out a gravitational pulse to bring them out of hyperspace prematurely, and then hits them with both ion pulse and electromagnetic pulse.”
“That’s about the size of it.”
“I don’t buy it. Energy dropoff is such that it couldn’t be made practical. What if you arrive in a system and this bomb is on the far side? It would detonate and do no harm to the arrivals.”
“I thought about that, sir. And if I think as a bomber, not a demolitions professional, it occurs to me that you plant bombs where people are most likely to be.”
“Explain that.”
Up ahead, a tiny white dot, Xobome 6, appeared among the stars and began to grow. “Sir, most nav courses are plotted from the point of departure to the center of the system where you plan to arrive—that is, the sun. It’s simple and it’s safe; you taught us that. You can set distance so you drop back into real space short of the system, with no chance of hitting any natural gravity well, or you can fire straight into the system, and if you hit a gravity well before you reach your destination, it pops you back into real space before you’re close enough to the center of gravity to endanger you. Correct?”
“Correct.”
“So everyone knows that most courses are aimed at the sun of the arrival system. And if you already know that there’s going to be a jump from Commenor to Xobome’s sun—”
“Oh.” The word emerged almost as a bark. “You set up your bomb on that straight-line path, just short