Star Wars_ X-Wing 07_ Solo Command - Aaron Allston [144]
He circled the downed interceptor and angled in to land.
Corran Horn dove toward his target interceptor, trying to bring his targeting brackets to bear over it, hoping for a maximum-distance shot—these enemies were more maneuverable than even he was used to. His target continued sideslipping, dancing around, avoiding the target lock—
He blinked. There was something fundamentally wrong with his target. Something that turned his gut cold.
It wasn’t his pilot’s skills telling him this. It was the other, his slowly improving ability with the Force …
“Group, this is Rogue Nine. Be advised. My current target is not a living being. Repeat, not living. I think it’s a droid ship.” He finally got a green flicker on his brackets and fired.
His lasers hit the interceptor’s fuselage. The squint detonated with far more force than was appropriate for a vehicle with twin ion engines. The blast was powerful enough to engulf his target’s wingman fifty meters behind the explosion. That interceptor emerged from the fireball spinning, flaming, out of control, and smashed through the already-ruined dome of one of the colony buildings. It exploded, too, but in a fashion that was subdued by comparison.
“Group, Wraith Eight.” Piggy’s voice, jarring and mechanical. “I am an idiot. This is why the wingman of each pair at the Razor’s Kiss fight behaved in such a similar fashion. They have droid pilots. And they are packed with explosives. A moment while I calculate.”
Corran looped back toward the fight and Ooryl, his wingman, stayed tight with him.
Piggy’s voice came back a moment later. “Observation suggests that each wingpair is one human pilot, one droid. In free flight, the droid falls back to wingman position. The droid units’ maneuverability increases as your range to them decreases. Their performance suggests they are enjoying computerized coordination. They must be transmitting sensor data to the ship handling coordination. Who is the Rogues’ communications specialist?”
“That’s me. Rogue Seven.”
“With the permission of the Wraith and Rogue leaders, I offer a plan.”
Corran Horn’s voice came back instantly. “Go ahead, Wraith Eight.”
Face’s followed a moment later. “Let’s hear it.”
“Rogue Seven and Wraith Six use their comm gear to jam transmissions in the area for thirty seconds. In that time, we’ll either enjoy dramatic improvement in our ability to handle the enemy … or we’re no worse off than before.”
“Wraith One authorizes,” Face said.
“Rogue Nine says go,” Horn said.
Mon Remonda dropped into the channel Iron Fist had already blasted through the debris field and began gaining on the Super Star Destroyer. Still close enough for long-range fire, the Mon Cal cruiser continued blasting away at Iron Fist’s stern, despite the distraction of TIE fighters making constant assaults against Mon Remonda’s bow and bridge.
“Gaining,” Solo said. “Gaining.”
“Detonation ahead!” said the sensor officer.
“Iron Fist?”
“No,” she said. “To starboard of her course. Something on the far side of that planetoid she’s passing.”
Solo brought up his visual enhancers to focus on the area she described. She was correct: asteroids opposite a two-kilometer-long hunk of rock were illuminated by some sort of sustained explosion taking place just on the far surface of the larger asteroid.
Whatever its cause, the explosion was propulsion as well as detonation. The two-kilometer rock began moving slowly toward the channel left in Iron Fist’s wake.
“Navigator?” Solo asked.
The Mon Calamari navigation officer turned an eye toward him. “It will partially block the channel. We must destroy it or pass it by.”
“Weapons?”
His weapons officer shook his head. “Too big for our guns to dismantle before we get there.”
Solo offered up a rich curse he’d learned on the back streets of Corellia. “Navigator,