Chapter 10
Jesbra couldn't see the proton torpedo headed towards the Cosmic Dragon,but she could feel it. It was gaining on them.
"Shower it with fire while I try to evade," Nerca said. "Land a couple of ion blasts in its control panel and it'll blow. Hold on!"
Jesbra braced herself as Nerca threw the Dragon into a wide loop trying to throw off the torpedo. Jesbra caught sight of the torpedo and began to hit it with twin ion blasts. Her blue fire was joined by heavy fire from Oliso's turret, light fire from Keldu and even Nerca's forward cannon fired.
Jesbra hit it a couple of times but shields protected it. She was glad that she had already taken out three ships. They were having a hard enough time with one torpedo.
The Dragon came out of its flip with the torpedo still on its tail. Nerca jerked into a hard left roll and Jesbra had to grit her teeth to keep her day's rations down. Nerca had been having a bit of trouble with her gravity compensators lately. She snapped off more shots at the proton torpedo, using the Force to keep them straight.
The roll stopped, with the torpedo well off to their right. But the torpedo corrected itself and continued on its course to destroy the Jedi.
Only one torpedo.
That was it!
"Nerca, …" Jesbra started.
"Way ahead of you," she mumbled. "My torpedo launchers need to be heavily upgraded…" She paused.
"Lexoc, ready the torpedoes. Fire on my mark." The Cosmic Dragon took another roll except to the right and Jesbra held on again. "Fire!"
Two proton torpedoes went screaming past Jesbra's mount in a blue streak. One continued straight while the other hung a wide left. The two torpedoes sandwiched the other torpedo in a magnificent flash of brilliant blue.
"Good shot!" Jesbra exclaimed. Jesbra's readouts began to beep wildly. She scanned them, spotting many more police fighters. "But our troubles are far from over."
Three small one-man police pods that had jettisoned from one of the fighters rushed past Jesbra, firing wildly. She spun to follow them, shooting back. The police fighter that the pods had come from began to hit Jesbra's back side with fire while she chased the pods.
Oh, so you think that while I'm distracted you'll blast me out of the sky, huh? Jesbra thought. You think that I can't handle all of you? Well, you're sadly mistaken.
Jesbra fired off twin shots at the pods and then redirected the second shot with the Force towards the fighter, striking it directly in the shield generator. The first shot kept going to the pods, striking the leader and sending him spiraling into his comrades. One of them then spun off, hitting another fighter in the starboard engine, sending it hurling off. Five in one shot.
"Good shot, Jesbra!" Keldu praised.
"Yeah, but there's three more fighters out there with three pods each and that prison carrier!" Nerca said, spilling out the remaining difficulties. "It isn't over yet."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know!" Jesbra threw back. She was still quite angry at Nerca for keeping something from her. She grunted away her anger and began to track another pod that had ejected.
She followed it firing off ion bolts and trying to catch the pod. Jesbra followed it forward, backward, left and right but missed every time. She pulled right then darted left firing … but still missed. She began to grow angry and her shots grew thicker and wilder.
"Jesbra, pull yourself together," Oliso said calmingly. "Use the Force." The words floated over Jesbra's com sweet and smooth, comforting and demanding. What a voice Oliso could have when she wanted to!
Jesbra momentarily closed her eyes and reached out to the Force. She calmed herself, threw away all anger and perfected her battle mind. She sharpened her senses and reopened her eyes, feeling renewed.
Her first ion bolt struck the problem pod in the starboard stabilizer, sending it off spinning wildly.
"Gunner mounts, one half-disabled fighter, two pods and the prison carrier left, nice job," Nerca said approvingly. "Ready yourselves to break atmosphere. And be ready, that carrier might follow."
Jesbra took one last look around in space, trying to find the prison carrier. She looked all around but couldn't find it. Then she saw it just sitting there quite a ways behind the Cosmic Dragon doing nothing. Jesbra's eyebrows knitted together as she thought while her mount retracted back into the Dragon.
Why would the carrier just be sitting around?
Why wasn't it following?
It could catch the Jedi; it still had enough firepower in it to blast them to pieces. The carrier hadn't even attacked.
Jesbra stepped out of the bubble-like gunner mount and made her way to the front of the Dragon, still deep in thought. Oliso crawled down out of her mount and Keldu climbed out of hers behind Jesbra.
As Jesbra neared the cockpit a lone, yet striking, thought occurred to her.
They let us go!
She scrambled toward the cockpit shouting. "Nerca! They're tracking us!"