Star Wars_ X-Wing 08_ Isard's Revenge - Michael A. Stackpole [98]
Something inside of Corran kind of gave way as he glanced at his scopes. The Yag’Dhul station bristled with turbolaser batteries and was filling the space around it with lots of cohesive light. A dozen enemy trips twisted and spun through the system, while the Rogues scattered via evasive maneuvers. Part of him realized it was only an exercise, and the fact that the Imps would ambush them just to show the cocky Rebels how good they were didn’t surprise him. He even allowed as how, in their boots, he’d have seriously contemplated the same thing. It probably was good for both groups of pilots.
Another part of him disagreed though. For these Imps, this simulator battle was redemption and justification. If they could beat the Rogues, then the Empire for which they worked, the Empire that had been their mentor and provider, that Empire suddenly had been lost only because they had not been employed in its defense. The frustration they felt at not having been present at Endor could be erased. In their minds the Emperor could have lived, his Empire could have continued, and Coruscant would never have fallen, if only they had been there to defeat the Rebels, to defeat Rogue Squadron.
But they weren’t there. Corran snorted angrily. Time to show them why it was just as well they weren’t.
Hitting switches on his control panel, he flipped his weapons over to concussion missiles and doubled them up. Then he dialed his throttle back to two-thirds of maximum. By hitting another switch, he shunted the energy stored in the energy weapon capacitors into the engines, bringing his speed back up to the maximum the fighter could do while fully recharging weapons and shields. Rolling to port and starting to climb, he oriented himself toward a pair of trips that were cruising in on Ooryl’s fighter. The Gand had his Defender dancing, making it tough for the Imps to do more than hit him with grazing shots.
“Seven, this is Nine. Move to two-four-oh mark ten, now. Break port on my mark.”
A double-click came back on the frequency to let him know Ooryl heard the order and would comply. The Defender leveled out and started off on the vector Corran had indicated. The Imps made course corrections to keep coming on Ooryl’s tail. Corran pointed his Defender at an intercept point, then kicked the throttle in at full.
His speed climbed, as did his closure rate with the two trips following Ooryl. “Seven, mark.”
Ooryl’s Defender rolled hard to port and the Imp trips trailed after him like hatchlings after a mother mynock. They cruised right across Corran’s crosshairs and his target acquisition system gave him a hard lock fast, since he’d closed to point-blank range faster than the Imps expected. He hit his trigger, drilling two concussion missiles into the first trip, then ruddered around and launched two more at the second one.
The first pair of missiles hit the Defender’s aft shield simultaneously and collapsed it, only expending half the energy released by their detonations. The rest of the burning plasma ball they created melted away the top fin and took with it the top of the cockpit. It also fused thrust louvers, whirling the Defender into a spin that sent it back toward the Yag’Dhul station.
The next pair of missiles hit their target in sequence. The first missile blast took down the aft shield, while the second missile flew straight into one of the two ion engines. Ion thrust flared into a silver-white cone, then the missile’s explosion blew the cockpit’s forward viewport out. The Defender ripped itself into huge pieces and Corran flew through the middle of the dying explosion.
He nodded grimly. Given the Defenders’ warning systems for target locks, any long-distance shots would give his prey the same chance to destroy the missile