Star Wars - The Guns of Kelrodo Ai by Jason Fry

Author:Jason Fry [Fry, Jason]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2012-04-13T23:05:17+00:00

“Starks, you’re with me and Amp on the insertion,” Shea said as the mountain loomed ahead once more. “Dibs, Rocket-splash any bandits who try to follow us.”

Shea yanked on the joystick, stone and sky trading places as he spun the starfighter up the cliff face.

“Once we hit the pipe, kill throttles and fire brakes,” Shea said. “Repulsorlifts only, all the way down. We’ll have to crawl-best estimate is it’s about 250 meters.”

“Sir, what if there are defenses besides the colony?” Amp asked.

“That’s why we have guns,” Shea said.

“Insertion point’s coming up.”

Their astromechs cut the engines and fired retro-rockets a split-second after the V-wings passed through the pipe’s fringe of twisted, ruined grating. They crept forward on repulsoriifts at a half-meter per second. The eerie silence was unnerving, but the agonizing pace was worse-Shea felt like he was bracketed in a dozen enemy gunsights.

The edge of the colony crept closer. Ahead of them, gelatinous black eggs nestled among pink tentacles. Shea heard Starks murmuring a prayer, and realized he himself was holding his breath. The nose of his fighter passed the first strands. Shea waited for them to whip forward and kill him.

Nothing happened.

He forced himself to exhale. Sweat was running down his face, impossible to reach inside his helmet.

“Cutie, anything so much as twitches, kill the repulsorlifts.” he said. “I’ve got the reactor’s central matrix. Starks, hit the north power regulator. Amp, hit the south.

After impact, the overload spiral should reach criticality in two and a half minutes.”

“We’re gonna have to crawl back out,” Starks objected. “What if that takes more than two and a half minutes?”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t,” Shea said.

The three V-wings crept farther down the shaft.

“I can see the colony’s edge!” Amp said.

“Make sure you’re clear before you throttle up,” Shea warned. ”Cutie, how long did it take to transit the colony?”

All three pilots saw the response:

137 SECONDS.

They were silent for a moment. Then Starks sighed.

“One Empire,” he said.

“One Empire,” Shea agreed. “We’re clear-punch it!”

Acceleration shoved him back in his seat as the engines propelled his V-wing into a low chamber hewn out of the rock, its floor cris-crossed with conduits. To Shea’s relief, they converged on the familiar bulb of a hypermatter reactor, twin towers bristling with circuitry on each side.

“There she is-hit it and quit it!”

Shea yelled.

Alarms began to wail in the chamber, and Shea saw battle droids gesticulating in confusion. He activated his proton torpedoes, bracketed the center of the reactor, waited for target lock, and thumbed the trigger. Before the torpedoes even went home he was banking to port and racing back the way he had come.

“It’s away!” Starks yelled, as Amp’s fighter turned to follow him.

“Cutie, give me a 150-second countdown to criticality,” Shea said as shock waves buffeted his fighter.

Then they were back in the pipe, crawling towards that curtain of pink

120 SECONDS, Cutie reported.

Shea could see each tentacle, could count each egg.

His V-wing climbed with horrifying slowness. He tried to tamp down his panic, force his foot away from the throttle.

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