Star Wars_ X-Wing 07_ Solo Command - Aaron Allston [113]
Face brought the seven X-wings of Wraith Squadron, including Kell in Donos’s snubfighter, around the Reprisal’s stern along its starboard side, putting them on the same side of the conflict as the Falsehood and her pursuit. The X-wings were already in attack position, their S-foils spread and locked. “Fire One,” he said.
Fourteen proton torpedoes launched toward the mass of enemy TIEs. As close as the Wraiths were to their targets, the torpedoes crossed the intervening distance almost immediately. As tightly packed as the TIEs were, when those on the leading edge were able to veer out of the way and break a torpedo’s targeting lock, the TIEs behind them were not. Ten kills registered on Face’s sensor screen, then the TIE force was spreading, scattering, breaking by twos and preparing to engage the Wraiths.
“That won’t work twice,” Face said. “Change Target Two to the Dreadnaught’s bow. Fire Two.” Fourteen more proton torpedoes leaped away. Face saw detonations all around the Reprisal’s bow, couldn’t determine if they were penetrating the damaged Dreadnaught’s shields. “Break and engage by pairs.”
On the bridge of Mon Remonda, Han Solo sat in his command chair, his stomach threatening to knot ever tighter, while he watched the holocomm broadcast from the Falsehood. The sensor-display portion of the broadcast showed the Falsehood on her outbound flight and all the vehicles around her.
At the moment, only two TIE starfighters assailed the Falsehood. The Dreadnaught was not firing, its command crew obviously thrown into disarray by the detonation of the bomb.
“They’re going to escape, Zsinj,” he said, his words intended for no one’s ears but his own. “You can’t have that. Jump in. Bring Iron Fist in. Come on, Zsinj.”
“Sir,” Squeaky said, “do we tell the Wraiths about Lara?”
Wedge hesitated. If they broadcast an encrypted message telling the Wraiths that one of the TIEs was Lara and she was conceivably an ally, the message would eventually be broken. A voice signal like that simply offered too much data. “Tag her as a friendly on the sensor board and transmit only that information, and only as data,” he said. That might do it—a tiny data update was much less likely to be intercepted by the enemy or decoded.
“Yes, sir.”
“Me up, you down,” Kell said.
“We’re your wing,” Runt responded.
They aimed straight for the Millennium Falsehood, Kell approaching above the level of the freighter’s top hull, Runt beneath her keel, both firing at the TIEs pursuing the freighter.
Kell kept his fire a little high so no slight deviation in his progress would bring his lasers down onto the Falsehood. But his target’s erratic motion brought it up toward his field of fire …
And then, on his targeting computer, his target changed color from red to blue. Kell swore, took his finger from the trigger, and the Falsehood and its pursuit blasted past underneath him. He began as tight a turn as was possible to come up behind the Falsehood again. Below him, Runt was doing the same.
The Falsehood rocked more violently than before and suddenly air was howling through the freighter. Wedge’s ears popped as the air pressure changed.
Squeaky’s voice, for once, contained alarm. “We are breached! Shields are down on the keel!”
“Chewbacca, roll her!” Wedge shouted.
Outside his viewport, the universe rotated 180 degrees. Fel was abruptly in his gunsights instead of Lara. He opened fire on Fel. “Donos, lock down that hull breach. Chewie, keep our good shields between us and Fel. Maybe Lara won’t vape us.”
What a thing to have to count on. Squeaky’s assurance that they shouldn’t destroy Lara—and now, with the Falsehood’s unprotected keel exposed to her guns, she could vape them with no effort.
Lara saw the Falsehood rotate, exposing its belly, and her sensors showed its shields there were gone.
She could fire, or she could reveal herself to Zsinj to be a traitor to his cause.
Or she could—
She deliberately twitched the pilot’s