Star Wars_ Young Jedi Knights 01_ Heirs of the Force - Kevin J. Anderson [51]
Now, flying low over the trees to avoid notice from any possible defenses at the Rebel base, Qorl felt his memories, his ingrained skill, come flooding back to him.
The Empire is my family. The Rebels wish to destroy the New Order. The Rebels must be eliminated-ELIMINATED!
His greatest advantage was surprise. This attack would come out of nowhere. The Rebels would be expecting nothing. He would streak in with all weapons blazing. He would level the Rebel base structures, blast them into rubble. He would kill all those who had conspired to blow up the Death Star, who had killed Darth Vader and Grand Moff Tar-kin. He, a single soldier, would secure vengeance for the entire Empire.
There! Qorl squinted through the scratched goggles of his blast helmet.
Protruding from a clearing in the dense jungle, a towering stone temple rose up-a ziggurat, the squarish pyramid that served as the main structure of the base.
Qorl roared low over the facilities of the old Rebel stronghold. A wide, sluggish river sliced through the jungle near the site of the temples. On the opposite side of the brownish-green current lay other crumbling ruins, but they seemed uninhabited. Then he noticed a large power-generating station next to the towering ziggurat and knew for certain that he had not been, wrong: this base was still used as a military installation.
As he brought the TIE fighter in on his first attack run, Qorl saw that the jungle had been cleared to make a large landing area in front of the Great Temple. On the flat field he saw only one ship-disk-shaped, with twin prongs in front.
Qorl didn't immediately recognize the make or model of the lone ship below. It was some kind of light freighter, not a Rebel X- wing or any of the familiar battleships he had learned about during his rigorous combat training.
On the ground, several people ran toward the ship, sprinting away from the stone pyramid. Scrambling to battle stations perhaps? His lip curled in a snarl. He would take care of them.
He flicked the buttons on his control panel, powering up the TIE
fighter's weapons systems. Before he could align the victims in his targeting cross, though, all the small figures below managed to climb aboard the light freighter. Its boarding ramp drew up, preparing for launch.
He dismissed the light freighter as a possible target-for now, at least.
It was probable, Qori realized, that the Rebels kept a large force of more powerful fighters in an underground hangar bay. If so, his first task was to prevent those craft from launching-even if only by damaging the doors enough to keep the ships trapped inside.
He decided his best strategy would be to continue his straight-line course and fire with full-power laser cannons on the main structure of the Great Temple. He would blow the entire building to rubble-perhaps causing it to collapse internally, thus elimi nating the Rebels and destroying all their equipment inside.
Then he could swoop around and take care of the single light freighter, even if it managed to get up off the ground. His third target would be the power-generating station.
With the Rebels completely paralyzed by his lightning attack, he would swing back for the last time. He would charge up his laser cannons again and go for the kill, mopping up anything he had missed the first time.
From start to finish, it would take only a few minutes to bring the Rebels to their knees.
Qorl centered the Great Temple in his targeting cross, aiming at the apex of the squared-off pyramid, with its thin banks of skylights and ancient vine-covered sculptures. The TIE fighter zoomed in.
He grasped the firing stick with his good hand. At exactly the right moment he depressed the firing buttons, letting an expres sion of anticipation light his normally emotionless face.
Nothing.
He squeezed the button again and again-and nothing happened!