Star Wars: Death Star by Michael Reaves; Steve Perry

Author:Michael Reaves; Steve Perry
Language: eng
Format: mobi, azw3
Tags: Science-Fiction.Star Wars
ISBN: 9780345477422
Publisher: LucasBooks/Del Rey/Ballantine Books
Published: 2007-10-16T07:00:00+00:00

49

TWO HUNDRED KILOMETERS OFF SECTOR N-FOUR, EQUATOR, DEATH STAR

Vil slewed into a drifting turn to port, engine and pressors working hard to compensate for the “slide,” and his pursuer, one of the newbies in Beta Two, wasn’t quick enough to stay on his tail.

He jinked again, this time to starboard, and again the newbie was a hair slow to react. Understandable; this wasn’t a move they taught in basic flight school, it was one you learned from somebody with a lot more cockpit time than the instructors had to waste on trainees.

The newbie said something excited that Vil didn’t quite catch, but prayer or curse, it didn’t help him: Vil had reversed their positions, finishing the loop lined up on the newbie’s rear.

Gotcha, kid …

Vil thumbed the firing control and painted the newbie’s backside with the scoring lasers. If his guns had been at full power, the kid would be dodging debris now, and both of them knew it.

“No big, kid,” he said over the comm. “We all got to slide down the learning curve—”

“Attention, all squadrons, attention! Break off your drill immediately, I say again, break off all maneuvers immediately! Arm your laser cannons to combat mode, defensive pattern Prime, and stand by!”

What the kark?

The order was completely out of the black, but Vil was too well trained to question it. He swerved away and toggled his op-chan to his squad’s frequency.

“Alpha One, on me, pyramid formation, green and blue, one, one, two!”

He punched the control button, and the signal diodes on his fighter began flashing in the sequence he’d given them, so that his squad would know his fighter and get to their positions. Green, one count. Green, one count. Blue, two counts, then repeated. Dit-dit-dah … dit-dit-dah …

“What’s up, Loot?” That was Anyell, of course.

“How should I know? Stow the chatter and listen!”

The other pilots quickly assembled and moved into the pattern. It was the most basic of fighter maneuvers, practiced hundreds of times, and it didn’t take more than a few seconds for all twelve to line up properly.

Vil switched to the main operations report-in channel: “Alpha One is ready.”

Other squads logged on. There were 10 of them out there, 120 fighters in all.

After a moment, Command Channel took over:

“All units, this is Grand Moff Tarkin. We have detected an enemy carrier shifting into realspace from lightspeed in Sector Seven, at two thousand, two hundred kilometers’ distance from the station, repeat, enemy carrier in Sector Seven. The vessel is identified as the Fortressa, a Lucre-hulk-class carrier. Star Destroyers are moving to engage, but we expect the enemy to launch fighters. They pose a risk to the station. Stop them.”

The local op-chan sig flashed, then overrode the main:

“All fighters, all squadrons, this is Flight Commander Drolan, Dee Ess One One. We are deploying in Zone Defense Delta, I say again, Zee-Dee-Delta. We are about to get our feet wet, boys, and I’m buying for the pilot who shoots the most of the fatherless scum out of the vac.

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