Star Wars_ X-Wing 07_ Solo Command - Aaron Allston [18]
Zsinj felt his shoulders sag as he witnessed Mon Karren’s maneuver. “We’ve lost Mon Remonda,” he said.
Melvar offered one of his rare frowns. “They’ve just barely moved into our range.”
“Correct. But they’re collaborating to absorb our battery assaults, dividing the damage between them. And since I was foolish enough to bring back our starfighters to protect our engines—”
“They can concentrate their shields against us. We have nothing to batter their topsides with to keep them honest.”
“Correct.” Zsinj shook his head. “This isn’t going to go down in the history annals as a loss for me, Melvar, but it is a loss. One little mistake and Solo slips through my fingers.”
“Still, you haven’t lost anything but the ammunition and power you’ve expended.”
“True.” He leaned down to face his weapons officer. “Continue with the barrage until they make the jump to hyperspace. Not your fault, Major. Mine.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Still pensive, Zsinj turned away and headed out of the bridge. The rest of this battle was going to be mop-up; his subordinates could handle that. He needed to rest and prepare for the next engagement.
Solo’s fleet dropped out of hyperspace mere light-years from the Levian system and stayed in realspace just long enough to pick up the hyperspace-equipped starfighters and coordinate their next jump. Then they fled back into the comparative safety of faster-than-light speeds.
3
Tired but all present and accounted for—a rarity in full-scale space-navy engagements—the pilots of Wedge’s command gradually collected in the pilot’s lounge of Mon Remonda.
It was a large chamber with rounded corners, all the walls in antiseptic glossy white, all the furniture in white or blue or green. A fully stocked bar dominated one wall of the chamber, but its cabinets were, while the ship remained on alert status, all locked down, with only nonalcoholic drinks available to the pilots. The air was drier here than in the rest of the ship; none of the pilots of Mon Remonda’s four fighter squadrons was a Mon Calamari or Quarren, so they tended to adjust the environment to be more comfortable to land dwellers.
Donos took a comfortable chair in one of the curves that served the lounge as corners and watched the other pilots with interest. The Wraith Squadron pilots were jubilant, especially with the scare involving Wes Janson, but those of the other squadrons exhibited less cheer.
One of the Rogues—a woman with long brown hair, a trim build, and an intense manner—sat in one of what the pilots called egg-chairs. These seats were shaped like white eggs a meter and a half tall, with one side scooped away so someone could sit within, mounted on a post next to a terminal niche in the wall so the pilot could turn his back to the room and do terminal work. Donos took a moment to recall her name: Inyri Forge.
The woman cupped her chin in her hand. Her brown eyes were glum. “He’s changed the rules on us,” she said. “We should have expected it.”
Tyria said, “I’m not sure what you mean.”
Forge gave her a look of evaluation, as though deciding whether to offer sarcasm or simple information, and settled on the latter course. “While you Wraiths were running around in disguise or doing your ground missions, we’ve been following Zsinj all over space. Into regions he controls, into New Republic regions he’s assaulting, wherever we can find signs of his passage. We find little hints we can’t afford to investigate, because many of them are false clues he’s leaving to lead us into a trap or waste our time and resources. We also find the remains of full-scale assaults, where we always arrive too late—he’s in and out before we can mount a response.
“But today, we get number two, and not only had he figured out our pattern of response times, but he was waiting around to hit us when we arrived.”
“And,” Hobbie said, “his fleet was huge. Something like twenty capital