X-wing_ The Krytos Trap Part 28

Mynock hooted at him. Wedge glanced down at his monitor and saw various schematics flash past. "Slower, My-hock, I'm flying here, too." Wedge marked the location of the airspeeder and compared it with the maps. As the air-speeder sank to his level and below it, something clicked in the back of his mind. That's it. I've got them.

"Give me the lowest route in you can find, Mynock." Wedge banked starboard, chopped his thrust back, and brought the repulsorlift coils online. He hovered and drifted forward, remaining just outside the corridor described by the map Mynock had brought up. As he watched he saw the airspeeder move onto the route and begin to follow it in.

Wedge smiled. It struck sparks in the warehouse and dropped like a rock outside. It's still going down because it's carrying too much weight. The speeder-ferry that was going down when I first flew in must have been meant to haul this bomb to a point where it could head down in at the bacta store. Now they have to go low because they don't have enough power to go high.

He switched his fire control over to lasers and linked all four to give him a quad burst. As he did so, the airspeeder cruised through the thoroughfare. Wedge picked his speed up and dropped straight in behind it. Someone in the speeder spotted him and started shooting at him with a blaster rifle, but the bolts harmlessly impacted on Wedge's forward shield. The pilot tried to make the airspeeder juke, but every sideslip and turn just brought the vehicle lower and lower.

And into Wedge's sights.

He hit the trigger and sent a quartet of scarlet laser-bolts to converge on the blocky vehicle. The lasers vaporized the roof and filled the pa.s.senger compartment with fire. The speeder began to fall faster, with the aft end sagging down-ward. Something exploded up front, starting the speeder into a backward somersault. Two more quad bursts from the X-wing reduced the large chunks of vehicle into mist and metal hail.

The vapor cloudamade up mostly of gaseous explo-sives-ignited in a flash, momentarily blinding Wedge and prompting a scream from Mynock. Wedge kept a light but steady hand on the stick and rode out the shockwave. The X-wing's shields held, saving the fighter from damage. As his vision cleared and he flew through the smoke, he saw no trace of the airspeeder.

He smiled. "See that, Mynock? That mission wasn't so tough."

The droid brayed in what Wedge took to be a vaguely triumphant manner.

"Rogue Leader here. The bomb is gone. Report."

"Three here, Lead. We are over the Manarai Mountain district and have big anomalies out to the southwest. I have TIEs coming in, at least one wing."

"I copy, Three. On my way." Wedge hauled back on the stick and jammed his throttle full forward. The X-wing rock-eted straight up. "Confirm thirty-six TIEs, Three."

"Confirm thirty-six, Lead, eyeb.a.l.l.s and squints. They're coming this way and there's something else out there." Rhysati sounded shaken. "My sensors aren't picking it up at all well."

"Standby, Three." Wedge punched his comm unit over to another opchannel.

"Antilles here. What's down there to the southwest?"

"Palace district control here, Rogue Leader. We're not sure. Civilian side is reporting groundquakes and ma.s.sive destruction. We're just turning a satellite in that direction. Data coming up--I'll give you the raw feed."

"I copy, control." Wedge looked at the scan splaying itself across his sensor monitor and felt his spirits sinking as low as Mynock's mournful whistle. "That can't be. It just can't be."

"You're getting what we're getting, Rogue Leader."

Wedge flicked the comm unit back to the squadron's tactical frequency.

"Three and Four, get back here. Now."

"What's out there, Lead?"

Wedge shivered. "It's something that shouldn't be there, Three. IFF beacons report it's a Super Star Destroyer that goes by the name Lusankya."

42.

Admiral Ackbar took his seat at the high bench, with Gener-als Madine and Salm below and to the left and right respec-tively. He waited for the defendant and prosecutor to be seated, then he looked out over the spa.r.s.ely populated court-room. "Today's session will be abbreviated. Even the most simple voyage can be ended by an unantic.i.p.ated wave, and the wave affecting us here was t.i.tanic in proportions."

He glanced down at Tycho Celchu and the two droids at the defense table.

"Captain Celchu, your lawyer is not here because approximately an hour ago he was shot and seri-ously wounded in the parking facility on the upper floors of this building. The a.s.sa.s.sin has been killed, but we have sealed the building for security reasons nonetheless. Nawara Ven was shot while in the process of bringing to court a witness who had recently surfaced to provide proof of your innocence. The witness offered his testimony on your behalf in return for a new ident.i.ty and repatriation to another world. He provided a datacard filled with encrypted infor-mation that backed his claims concerning you as well as claims concerning the Imperial espionage net here on Corus-cant.

"Unfortunately the a.s.sa.s.sin who wounded Counselor Ven succeeded in killing this witness." Ackbar looked over toward where Airen Cracken sat on the prosecution side of the court. "General Cracken has a.s.sured me he has people working on the datacard to see if they can slice the informa-tion out, but there is no telling if or when they will succeed."

Tycho frowned. "Where does this leave me?"

Halla Ettyk stood. "Admiral, the prosecution would be amenable to a continuance until Counselor Ven has recov-ered."

"Granted." Admiral Ackbar raised a gavel. "If there is nothing more we will stand in recess until Counselor Ven is able to continue."

Tycho held a hand up. "Wait, please, isn't there some-thing I can do?

Isn't it possible for me to represent myself in his absence?"

"That has always been your right, Captain Celchu."

Halla looked over at Tycho. "The admiral is correct, but really there is nothing you can do."

"I can call and question a witness."

The prosecutor shook her head and pointed at her datapad. "Not really. I have before me the list of witnesses Counselor Ven said you were going to call. None of the members of Rogue Squadron are here and available. The Duros Lai Nootka is not here and, unfortunately, is probably dead. You have no witnesses." Whistler tooted.

Emtrey's clamsh.e.l.l head came up. "Whistler says we do have a witness."

Halla frowned. "Who?"

Tycho stood. "I can testify on my own behalf."

"It would be a mistake to do so, Captain. I would rip you apart on cross."

The R2 unit blatted rudely.

Tycho patted Whistler on the dome. "I agree."

Emtrey canted his head to the side. "Ah, sir, Whistler was agreeing with Commander Ettyk. You're not his witness. Your testimony won't put this whole business to rest."

Halla shook her head. "The only witness who could do that is dead."

Whistler trumpeted loudly, whirling his head full around in a circle. The droid bounced excitedly and his tone became a piercing shriek.

Ackbar's gavel cracked once, sharply, jerking Emtrey to attention. "Tell Whistler to calm down or I'll have a re-straining bolt put on him."

The little droid stopped and hummed mournfully.

"Now what was he talking about, Emtrey?"

Whistler answered.

Emtrey glanced sharply down at him and gave him a good clout on the dome.

"Make sense, Whistler. They're waiting."

Whistler repeated his previous answer.

The 3PO unit raised its arms and looked up at Ackbar. "I am sorry, sir, but he makes no sense. The stress--circuits must have become polarized.

He doesn't know what he's saying."

Ackbar sighed. "Answer my question. Who is he saying this witness is?"

Before Emtrey could answer, a man spoke from the court's open doorway.

"Begging your pardon, Admiral, 1 think Whistler intends for me to be called as a witness."

Ackbar's barbels twitched. From the black depths all manner of beasts can swim. "This is impossible."

"It wasn't easy," Corran Horn smiled, "but as for im-possible, Admiral, you know impossible is what Rogue Squadron does best of all."

43.

Wedge snaprolled up on the port S-foil, then pulled the stick back to the box over his breastbone. He rolled the X-wing into a dive, then came up and around to starboard in a hori-zontal loop that brought him back head-to-head with the pair of eyeb.a.l.l.s that had been bucking his exhaust. He spit-ted one on his crosshairs and hit the trigger, filling it with coherent light. The c.o.c.kpit instantly combusted, and, trailing thick black smoke, the TIE fighter corkscrewed down to slam into a ferrocrete tower.

The TIE's wingman tried to avenge his partner, but Wedge never gave him a chance. He hit the left rudder pedal, pulling the aft end of the X-wing off to the right. The maneu-ver skidded the fighter out of the TIE's line of flight and fire. The TIE pilot tried to match the stunt, but as he did so he brought his fighter's hexagonal solar panel perpendicular to the ship's flight-line. In the vacuum of s.p.a.ce that move would have given him a good shot at Wedge, but in atmo-sphere, it made the TIE jump and begin to roll.

Wedge brought the X-wing up on its port stabilizers and dove after the TIE. Just as the pilot began to regain control, slowing his spin, Rogue Squadron's leader tightened up on his trigger. A quad burst of laserfire blasted the port solar panel off the fighter. The TIE began to tumble uncontrollably toward the ground, but before it could descend into the black bowels of Coruscant, it bounced off an aerial walkway and exploded.

Pulling back on his stick, Wedge nosed his fighter toward the sky. He wanted to feel some remorse for the pilots he'd just killed. He waited for concern to bubble up in him for the people who could have been hurt when those TIEs fell into the city below. He wanted something other than cold concentration filling him, but he didn't expect it to come. Those thoughts and emotions are normal, but normal doesn't exist at this place and time.

All around him TIEs and the X-wings of Rogue Squad-ron swooped and climbed, rolled, dove, and looped. Laser-bolts, green and red, filled the air as if each fighter was a renegade cloud spitting abbreviated lightning bolts at its ene-mies. TIEs exploded with regularity, showering the cityscape with half-molten bits of metal and staining the sky with oily black streaks that were the mortal remains of their pilots.

As exciting and dramatic as the dogfight raging above the mountain district was, Wedge remained cold and in shock. Out there a white needle stabbed skyward. The Lusankya--a Super Star Destroyer eight kilometers in length--laid waste to the area beneath which it had lain bur-ied for years. Green turbolaser bolts pounded the cityscape, freeing the ship from the ferrocrete and transparisteel prison in which it had laired.

Wedge knew Super Star Destroyers had only come into service after the Battle of Yavin, which meant the Lusankya had to have been created and hidden on Coruscant before the battle of Endor. Unless the constructor droids just built it there, then built over it. The idea that a hundred-square-kilometer area of the planet could have been razed and re-built to hide a Super Star Destroyer seemed beyond belief, especially with no one noticing the ship's insertion into the hole. Could the Emperor's power through the dark side of the Force have been sufficient to compel thousands or mil-lions of people to forget having seen the Lusankya being buried?

As hideous as that idea seemed, Wedge hoped it was the truth. The likely alternative--that the Emperor had ordered the deaths of all the witnesses--seemed that much more hor-rible. "Lead, you have a squint coming up from below."

"Thanks, Five." Wedge rolled to port, then dove into a looping roll that took him out and around the Interceptor's attack vector. He let his dive carry him down into the upper reaches of the city. Using control telemetry from a skyhook to keep track of the squint, he cut around one of the star-raking spires and came up at it on a nearly vertical run.

It started to roll to elude him, but a little left rudder kept his lasers tracking. Half the quad burst missed, shooting past the c.o.c.kpit windscreen, but the other two bolts hid dead on. They cored through the Interceptor's starboard solar panel and pierced the c.o.c.kpit. The squint continued its lazy roll, then tightened it into a spin that sped the ship in an ugly, squared-off tower.

Out to the south the Lusankya's aft came free of the planet. The superstructure of the Super Star Destroyer and its general outline fit with what he remembered of Vader's Exec-utor at Hoth and Endor, but the Lusankya hull appeared to be resting on a ma.s.sive platform made up of hexagonal cells. It fit the bottom of the starship perfectly, with openings in the hexagonal field so weapons could fire down at targets below and TIE fighters could launch from the ship's belly.

Wedge frowned. What is that? It reminds me of a Hutt's repulsor-lift couch, but the Lusankya is a warship, not a lounging crime boss. Suddenly he realized his a.n.a.logy wasn't that far off. The Lusankya is built for s.p.a.ce travel, not fight-ing its way free of a planet. That must be a lift-cradle de-signed to get it up and out of the hole in which it was entombed.

With the prow stabbing up into the sky, the Lusankya's thrusters ignited.

Searing blue plasma vaporized huge chunks of cityscape beneath the ship's aft end. The destroyer began to move forward and upward out of the column of smoke that marked its birth. A ship that boasts a crew of over a quarter of a million individuals must have killed ten times that many lifting off.

The ma.s.sive ship turned its attention on a skyhook float-ing off its starboard bow. Altering course slightly, the ship gave more of its turbolasers and ion cannons a chance to bear. A Super Star Destroyer possessed enough weaponry to reduce a city to rubble from an orbital a.s.sault. At point-blank range, the weaponless skyhook offered the gunners a deliciously easy target.

The turbolaser batteries in the bow started firing at the skyhook as they came into range, then the broadside a.s.sault shifted to other weapons as the ship slid past. The verdant laser-bolts came so fast and so close that whole sheets of energy seenled to pulse from the Lusankya to the skyhook. In seconds what had once been an elegant disk with an lthorian jungle paradise at its heart became a melted demi-lune with a forest fire crashing into the mountain district's towers.

As the Lusankya picked up speed, the gunners shifted their aimpoints and began firing at the upper atmosphere. Their shots. .h.i.t and splashed color into the lower of the two shield spheres encasing the planet. Created to stop starship a.s.saults from without, they proved just as powerful against an attack from within. Even so, after twenty seconds of the Lusankya's withering barrage, a hole opened in the lower shield.

The TIEs fighting Rogue Squadron turned and launched themselves on an intercept course for the Super Star De-stroyer. Because they were not capable of entering hyper-s.p.a.ce themselves, if they did not rendezvous with the Lusankya, they would be stuck on Coruscant. Those who weren't shot down would be taken prisoner. And if my ship bad done that much damage heading out, I'd not be expect-ing very gentle treatment at the hands of my enemies, either. "Mynock, give me the range to the Lusankya."

The droid centered an image of the Lusankya on Wedge's monitor, and the rangefinder showed it to be 25 kilometers distant. And it still looks that big. A shiver ran down his spine.

"Rogues, form up on me. We have three minutes at speed before we're right on top of the SSD. Let's harvest those remaining TIEs before she gets a chance to recover them." Wedge waited a few seconds for the cries and shouts of a.s.sent to die down. "Remember, that thing is bristling with turbolasers, ion cannons, concussion missile launchers, and tractor beams. When I call, you break off your attacks. Got it?"

Wedge fed shield power into his engines, boosting his speed. He saw Asyr pull up on his starboard stabilizer foil. "No heroics, Flight Officer Sei'lar, I want to return that data-card to you."

"As ordered, Commander."

Wedge glanced at his monitor and then the TIE they were closing on fast.

"I have your back. He's yours."

"Thank you, Commander." Asyr's X-wing pulled ahead, then sideslipped down and to port. She stayed below and behind the TIE fighter until she'd closed the range to within 250 meters, then she nosed her ship up into the eye-bali's exhaust. The X-wing's lasers fired two dual offset bursts.

The first grazed the inside of the port solar panel, burning two long streaks along it. The second pair of bolts stabbed in through the exhaust ports. The whole eyeball shuddered, then silvery fire jetted out through the forward c.o.c.kpit canopy, killing the ship's momentum.

The dead TIE dropped from sight with the grace of a Hurt in freefall.

"Nice shooting, Deuce."

"Thanks, Lead."

Wedge glanced at the chronographic readout on his monitor. "Two-point-five minutes to range. Mynock, give me a warning at thirty seconds."

The Lusankya continued to pour fire into the planetary shields while what little ground fire that came up at it splashed harmlessly on its shields.

The midship and stern guns fought to keep the hole in the lower shield open while the bow guns blasted away at the upper shield. The ship's a.s.sault sent waves of RodJan green energy skittering along the underside of the shields. The shields held at first, then began to erode, and finally collapsed.

Cutting his stick to the right, Wedge followed Asyr through a banking turn that put her on a pair of TIEs. "I have the leader, Commander."

"I copy. I'll pick up the tail, Deuce." He widened the separation between them, then cut back hard to port as the TIEs broke and Asyr came around in a looping turn that slipped her in behind the lead TIE. She fired and melted off a third of the TIE's starboard solar panel. "Break left, Deuce!"