Riptide: Star Wars Legends (Star Wars - Legends) by Paul S. Kemp

Author:Paul S. Kemp [Kemp, Paul S.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780345532817
Publisher: Random House Worlds
Published: 2011-10-25T00:00:00+00:00

An explosion caused Junker to lurch forward. R-6 whooped in alarm, and Khedryn grabbed at the stick as he nearly slammed his head into the instrument panel.

“What the hell was that?” he shouted.

The force of the explosion caused the ship to hurtle toward a nearby asteroid. The oblong ball of rock filled his field of vision, the details of its cratered surface looming larger and larger in his sight. Khedryn cursed and engaged the reverse thrusters.

Another explosion rocked the ship, and the red line of a laser cut the space beside them, slammed into an asteroid, and blew it to pieces. Shards of rock rained against Junker’s hull, pelting it with metal and stone. Khedryn had probably saved the ship through pure luck, reversing the thrusters at just the right moment.

“Someone is shooting at us!” he said, and R-6 whooped again. He directed deflector power to the rear and fired up the engines as an alarm began to blare in the cockpit. His instruments showed him a fire in the engine room.

“Get that fire out, droid,” he said to R-6.

He engaged the engines as another shot skinned Junker along the top. A boom sounded and for a fleeting, terrifying moment the entire instrument panel lost power, but backup brought it online fast. Khedryn shoved the stick forward and accelerated the ship deeper into the asteroid belt.

He checked the scanner as he flew, trying to get the signature of their attacker. He had it in a moment—the scout ship.

“The Umbaran,” he said.

The Umbaran had followed them somehow and his ship, like the creature himself, must have had some kind of cloaking or baffling technology. Khedryn had not even noticed him coming out of hyperspace. Junker had no weapons and Khedryn had no crew. He had to get out of there.

Hunching in his seat, he weaved his way through the asteroid field. His caf cup clattered to the deck and spilled its contents. He cursed and pulled the stick about wildly—spinning, speeding up, slowing down, diving, climbing. He remembered Jaden doing something similar, at full speed, and never touching an asteroid. But Khedryn did not have the Force to help him. He had only his instincts and his training. Sweat soaked him already.

R-6’s beeps and hoots of distress made for a distracting sound track to the breakneck maneuvering. More red lines cut space beside them, and another asteroid exploded into bits. The blast wave sent Junker sidelong into another asteroid, and the impact jarred Khedryn’s teeth. The metal of the hull shrieked. Khedryn cursed again and again.

“I have a damned droid aboard but no weapons installed. Got that exactly backward, didn’t I? If we live through this, I’m fixing that at our next port of call.”

R-6 beeped agreement. Khedryn saw that the droid had remotely extinguished the fire in the engine room.

Another impact shook the freighter, another. Khedryn could not tell if the lasers were hitting him or if he was bumping into asteroids.

To R-6, he said, “Raise Jaden and Marr. Tell them the Umbaran is in the system.

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