Star Wars_ X-Wing 06_ Iron Fist - Aaron Allston [77]
Narra shuddered with the characteristic trembling of a small craft in the grip of a tractor beam. Kell shook his head.
Donos fired again.
A bright orange glow appeared in the viewports and hatch seams of Bastion. Then the tanker vanished, replaced by a globe of yellow and orange destructive force, an expanding cloud that swelled up into the main landing bay, out across the lower surface of Iron Fist, and toward Narra.
Face dropped into the trees, one pursuer back about two hundred meters, the other—the one who’d shot down Phanan—twice that distance away. Here, Face’s superior speed would not help him; it was pure pilot skill and maneuverability that would allow survival in this obstacle-rich environment. The forest’s large trees were well spaced; it was possible to maintain a high rate of speed here, jinking back and forth to arc around obstructions in his path.
His purser fired, a blast that incinerated a tree bole immediately to Face’s starboard. He cursed. He’d hoped that there wouldn’t be any immediate firing opportunities, but his pursuer was already gaining on him.
Suddenly the trees were gone and there was water below him—he’d emerged over a lake. No cover, but it gave him an opportunity. He curved around to starboard, rotating up on his starboard wing, the ferocity of his maneuver crushing him back into his seat. Through his topside viewport, he could see as his first pursuer screamed out of the forest and immediately followed his loop.
Face couldn’t see the second pursuer, but his timing sense said the pilot was mere fractions of a second from emerging from the trees—if he were following his wingman. Face opened up with his lasers.
And the second pursuer emerged right into his stream of laser fire. Face was rewarded with the brief vision of that TIE fighter’s starboard wing evaporating under the blast, its cockpit punctured and detonating.
Ahead was the tree line again. Face rolled level and shot into the trees at a ninety-degree angle to his original course. The other TIE fighter followed.
Face instinctively ducked as a half squad of TIE fighters roared by overhead, a kilometer up, obviously searching for him. They didn’t turn back to pursue him—they must have missed him.
He twitched his pilot’s yoke, resisting the urge to become frantic, as tree after tree appeared in his path. Then there was a brief break as he was over another lake, this one much smaller and covered in huge green leaf-shaded pads that floated atop the water, and beyond he was in trees again.
They were becoming denser. Harder to veer back and forth to find the gaps that would accommodate his starfighter. His pursuer hadn’t been able to fire on him in several seconds—that was good, but sooner or later the increasingly difficult terrain would stop protecting him and would kill him.
Unless—he remembered Shalla’s tactic in her Coruscant simulator runs. And the next time he had to vector to find a safe gap, he chose one so narrow that his stomach tightened up. It was too narrow, too narrow—but he rolled up on his port wing array and shot through, the slightly thinner profile of the TIE interceptor making the maneuver possible. He heard his wings shred through leaves and twigs.
His pursuer tried to stay on his tail, then realized too late that such a tactic was fatal. Face heard the explosion a mere second after he cleared the too-narrow gap.
He slowed and came around. Off in the distance to his right, a section of forest was burning, ignited by his pursuer’s detonation.
All right. Sensors showed that the rest of the Hawk-bats were spacebound, most of the TIE force pursuing them, while the half squad he’d seen mere moments ago were now a couple of kilometers to the west and breaking up to search for him.
He had a window. He could make a break for space.
No, he couldn’t. Not with Phanan still out there. He might not be dead. There had been no explosion when his TIE fighter fell into the forest.
By memory, by luck, Face found the small lake with the leaf pads in it and dropped as swiftly as he dared into the water