Chapter 2
The transport rocked with another hit and the shields began to fail. Jyo was correct in his guess. Just outside the Maw was a small Yuuzhan Vong fleet waiting to ambush and crush the transport vessels as they left the black hole cluster.
It was a relatively small group of ships. There were two cruiser analogs, roughly the size of a Corellian Corvette, as well as ten squadrons of coralskippers, their starfighter analogs about the same size as an X-Wing. Unlike the ships used in the Republic, the Yuuzhan Vong grew their ships, weapons, and armor. Everything they use is organic; and not because they never knew of technology, but because, to them, machines are considered blasphemous to their beliefs. They hated anything mechanic or synthetic. Thus, they would use the minerals of a planet they captured to grow the materials and equipment they needed. However, it had been several years since the Vong had controlled any planet, causing their supplies to become scarce. The small force attacking the transports was most likely one of the largest groups of ships left in the Yuuzhan Vong arsenal.
"Quickly, children! Strap yourselves in for the jump to hyperspace," Tahiri warned.
"But how are we going to jump with the Vong attacking us?" Zeek questioned.
"Don't worry. The Vong will have something more important to deal with very soon."
Just as she finished speaking another alarm started going off inside the transport.
"Ships are dropping out of hyperspace!" a sensors operator exclaimed.
"Is it more Vong?" someone shouted.
"No," the sensors operator replied, "these are our boys!"
Jyo adjusted his glasses for magnified vision so he could see what was going on out there. What he saw gave him a chill -- not a chill of fear but a chill of excitement. Dropping into realspace were two Victory-class Star Destroyers, a dreadnaught, and the Super Star Destroyer Errant Venture. The Errant Venture could be recognized by anyone because it was the only Star Destroyer painted red. Out of the bellies of each capital ship soared four squadrons of starfighters made up of E-Wings, A-Wings, X-Wings, and B-Wings.
"Wow!" Jyo gasped in awe.
"What? What?" Denz demanded.
"Four capital ships just dropped out of hyperspace, and the Errant Venture is one of them! They've already begun deploying starfighters."
"The Errant Venture?" Cordell asked. "Can you tell if our mom is out there? I can feel her, but I want to know if she's fighting."
"One minute." Jyo reached up and toggled the enhancement dial on his glasses. "Okay. I can see individual fighters now. Let's see." He started to check all the X-Wings that came out of the Errant Venture. "Ha! There she is!"
"You found her, and she's in an X-Wing?" Cordell wanted to know.
"Yep, the paint scheme she has on her fighter is unmistakable."
"All right! Go Mom!"
"They're breaking off into groups of three." Jyo reported.
Zeek suddenly realized that the Vong cruisers were no longer hitting their transport. "What happened to the Vong's capital ships?"
Jyo turned his head slightly to the right. "The two Victory-class Star Destroyers and the dreadnaught have them trapped and are pounding them mercilessly, and the Errant Venture has positioned itself right in the Vong's only escape path." When he turned his attention back to the starfighter brawl he cheered.
"What happened?" Cordell asked.
"By the looks of it, already half of the coralskippers have been destroyed!" Jyo replied merrily.
The transport shuddered suddenly as they took off into hyperspace. The last thing Jyo saw was one of the Vong cruisers drifting, dead toward one of the Maw's black holes; and then there was the white of hyperspace.
As all the transports escaped into hyperspace the starfighter battle was wearing down. The Yuuzhan Vong had already lost three-quarters of their coralskippers, but they would not retreat. The Yuuzhan Vong found death in battle honorable.
"Kyp! Ben! You guys still with me?" Jaina Solo Durron called out over the comlink. The mother of Cordell and Jyo was an ace pilot with her Force skills enhancing her ability. She had long wavy, brown hair and eyes that were such a dark brown that they almost looked black.
"Right here, honey," Kyp Durron replied just a little sarcastically to his wife. With jet-black hair, dark green eyes, and a very muscular build, Kyp looked as though he could be the brother of Darth Vader.
"I'm regrouping on your right, Jaina," Ben Skywalker replied, while trying not to chuckle at Kyp's response. The only son of Luke and Mara Skywalker, Ben had light brown hair and blue eyes that made him look like a much younger Luke.
"What's the matter boys? Having trouble keeping up with a girl?" Jaina teased.
"Knock it off, Jaina," Kyp retorted. "There are still more skips to destroy."
"All right, Mr. Serious. Follow me!"
Women, Kyp thought exasperated.
I heard that, Jaina thought back at him.
"Doh! Gotta stop doing that!"
"Skips at two o'clock!" Ben interrupted.
"Back to business." Jaina sighed.
A group of five skips was heading right for the trio.
"Choose your targets, and ready proton torpedoes!" Jaina ordered over the comlink.
"Ready!" Kyp and Ben replied at the same time.
"On my mark. One. Two. Three. Mark!"
The three of them fired in unison, and each proton torpedo sought out its designated target. The coralskippers moved their defense mechanisms, called dovin basils, into place to intercept the torpedoes. A dovin basil has a dual use. It can control a ship's movements and can act like a miniature black hole, sucking up anything that comes within range. In the initial battles with skips, their dovin basils had baffled the New Republic fighters. Since then, however, ways had been found to get around them, such as tiring them with low power laser shots. Also most proton torpedoes had been refitted with a mechanism that would detect one of the dovin basil voids and self-destruct just before being sucked in. This is just what happened to those three torpedoes. The voids could usually soak up some of the energy, but the explosive power of a proton torpedo is so great that it could never get it all. Enough almost always got past to destroy the skip. It was no different with these three.
"Good shots! Three down, two to go," Ben cheered.
The remaining two skips opened up with their plasma canons, but the trio easily dodged the volley.
"I'll take the one on the right," Jaina decided. "You two take care of the one on the left."
"As you command, Master Jaina." Kyp sighed.
Ignoring his tone, Jaina let loose a volley of low-powered stutter laser shots to overload her skip's dovin basil. As soon as shots started to get through, she switched over to full power and fired a quad burst that split the skip in two. "I'm all done here," she called over the comlink.
Ben and Kyp had surrounded and overwhelmed the remaining skip, blasting it into little pieces. "Finished," was Kyp's only response.
Jaina suddenly realized that there were no more skips left to be destroyed, and was slightly crestfallen. "This was hardly even a challenge."
"Don't you dare go and wish for some stronger enemy to appear just so you can have a challenge!" Kyp warned her.
"I won't. I won't." She rotated her X-Wing just in time to see the second Vong capital ship explode in a brilliant, bright flash.
Her comlink suddenly beeped and she received her final orders of the day, "Suns and Stars squadron, you have received orders to return to dock in the Errant Venture's starboard bay."
"That's us," Ben stated unnecessarily.
"Yeah," Jaina sighed. I'm really just glad that we were able to get Jyo, Cordell and the rest of the young Jedi away safely.
I heard that, Kyp thought. Don't tell me tough little Jaina is getting soft.
Jaina smiled to herself and thought back at him, Don't tell anyone.