Star Wars_ X-Wing 08_ Isard's Revenge - Michael A. Stackpole [78]
She also spotted the shattered hulks of at least two X-wings, and two bodies in the orange flight suits the Rogues wore. As she scanned space for other pieces, she saw debris flare in the distance as it slipped into the gas giant’s atmosphere.
Then one piece of debris slowly tumbled toward the Errant Venture. When she caught sight of it her knees buckled and she slid to the decking. “No, Emperor’s Black Bones, no!”
The S-foil had been painted green, and bore the distinctive markings that left little doubt it belonged to her husband’s X-wing.
She felt Iella’s hands on her shoulders and heard her father’s gruff voice fill the bridge.
“Get recovery teams out there, now!” Booster snapped at his crew. “I want every piece of debris, every body, everything. If there’s a survivor he’s worth a hundred thousand credits. Get it all, now. Reports come to me alone.”
Above Mirax’s outline, Booster’s reflection filled the viewport. “I want to know what happened, who was responsible, then we make them pay.”
21
As his newly repaired X-wing reverted to realspace and the white tunnel of light came apart all around him, Corran Horn finally recalled the first mention he’d ever seen of the Corvis Minor system. It had taken him a while, but he’d had good reason to remember that little detail. Back when escaping from the Lusankya, he’d found a small holdout blaster in a box that was supposed to hold the datacards for a history of the system. I remember thinking then that if a blaster represented the system’s history, it wasn’t a vacation spot.
The uneasiness that memory brought him did not drain away. He checked his sensors and found Three Flight formed up around him. Wedge’s One Flight had the lead and Janson’s Two Flight had swung slow toward Distna. Nrin Vakil’s snoopscoot flew to the rear of Two Flight.
The recon X-wing slowly started to play out a pair of sensor pods connected to the ship by thick cables. They gathered up data to be sorted and stored in computer equipment that occupied all the space that normally would have housed an X-wing’s proton torpedo launchers. The recon ship also did without lasers because the charging coils leaked enough energy to overpower the sensitive probes the ship trailed.
If Nrin gets into trouble he can jettison the pods and run, but that’s about it. Corran keyed his comm unit. “Nine here. Three Flight in and running. Rear scopes clear.”
“Alpha operational. Pods locked in position. Commencing initial run now. Range to target, one thousand kilometers.”
Nrin cruised the snoopscoot past Two Flight and flew it with a very gentle hand on the stick. Corran marveled at how the Quarren pilot put the ship through gentle turns and slow rolls that kept the pods spaced evenly apart. Though the pods were not that large—not much larger than spare fuel pods, in fact—trailing them out behind the fighter like that created all sorts of problems by altering the flight characteristics of the X-wing. While fighter jocks considered themselves the elite—and Nrin had ample kills in his history qualifying him as such—his adept handling of the recon ship showed how skilled a pilot he truly was.
“Alpha here, Lead.”
“Go ahead, Alpha.”
“I am negative for activity from Distna on first pass.” Nrin hesitated for a moment. “I would like permission to come in at five hundred klicks. Storm activity in the gas giant may be masking energy readings from the moon’s interior.”
Tycho’s voice came on the comm channel. “Lead, that close a run will move Alpha and escorts out of quick escape range.”
“I copy, Two. Nine, please take Three Flight up to guarantee our exit vector.”
“As ordered, Lead.” Corran rolled starboard and pointed his fighter toward the gas giant. “Three