Chapter Six
"This is exciting," Corran Horn said to himself as his X-wing hummed underneath him, roaring towards the out-of-sight, stationary form of the Star Destroyer Invidious. In front of him he could see the quad engines of Myn Donos' X-wing, and behind him the nose and laser cannons of Ooryl's. The ten fighters of Rogue squadron stormed ahead in a straight line, using the craggy, rocky, unnamed planet's largest craggy, rocky, unnamed moon as cover to keep the Star Destroyer from seeing them. The X-wings swerved, following Wedge's lead as he darted behind the moon and some of the other, larger asteroids to make a hopefully unnoticed approach.
The comms were silent, with none of the usual chatter. Transmissions might be picked up by the Star Destroyer, so once the plans were made, they were carried out without further discussion. His astromech, Whistler, moaned nervously. "I know buddy," Corran soothed him. "I'm not used to flying like this either."
Myn's X-wing swooped to the left, following Nrin's, and for a moment Corran could see the line of snubfighters, stretched out single-file. For once, Corran thought, the formation flying that they occasionally practiced actually was coming in handy.
The Ession Strike was a swift vessel, but nowhere near as swift as an X-wing, and its larger profile meant it had to be more careful than the X-wings to avoid being spotted as it made its own approach, so the X-wings had left the corvette well behind them. Corran just hoped Hobbie was right about the planet's metallic-heavy orbital profile covering their approach, because this was going to get very messy very fast if he wasn't.
The moon was looming large in front of them now and Wedge daringly swept down towards the surface, leading the rest of the squadron to follow him. Whistler warbled nervously as they skimmed over the rock's nearly atmosphereless surface, the faintest whistle of air passing above the cockpit. "Almost there, Whistler," Corran reassured him. There was a large cliff looming before them now, and the line of X-wings swept up to skim above it—
And there it was, the Star Destroyer Invidious, its vulnerable starboard flank presented to them at a range of less than seven kilometers. There was a click on the comm and Corran shifted power back to his X-wings shields and weapons, letting them start to recharge as he coasted forward towards the Star Destroyer. The neat line formation dissolved as the Rogues each sought a clear view of their target.
The comm clicked again, twice, and Corran switched his firing control over to proton torpedoes. He didn't bother aiming – his targeting systems were already slaved to Wedge's X-wing, and he watched as his HUD flickered yellow then a steady red and he pulled the trigger. Two proton torpedoes lanced out from his X-wing, and he saw them joined by eighteen others. He waited ten seconds, his HUD still humming the solid tone of a strong lock, then pulled the trigger again. If he'd had more torpedoes he would have happily used them, but the Rogues hadn't been able to fully re-arm after the engagement with Chimaera and Agonizer.
Still, forty torpedoes ought to be enough to hurt it, especially with that wobble in its starboard shields. Time to ruin your whole day, Corran thought eagerly at the Star Destroyer.
"Commander Navarian," a man donning Lieutenant's insignia called from the scanning station. "We're being hit with a torpedo lock."
"A torpedo lock?" Navarian's voice replied, and Vorru looked up as the ship's de-facto Captain strode over to look for himself. "Has the surface been holding some of their weapons back?" He stepped to his left, peering down over the portside crew pit. "Find the prison's torpedo launchers and destroy them at once!" he ordered.
Vorru, working with a pair of former Imperial crewers who hadn't had the patience for Imperial discipline, turned his attention fully away from the ship's finicky starboard shield generators and upon the discussion above. They hadn't fixed the shields – only time in a yard could do that, they needed at least three system component replacements – but they were more stable than they'd been at least.
"No sir," the scanning offer said. "It's not coming from the surface. I think it's coming from the largest moon."
"Did the New Republic put weapons on the moon?" Navarian asked, looking confused. "I suppose there's no reason they couldn't, but it would make maintenance much more difficult…"
The scanning officer went pale. "Incoming!" he cried. "Twenty… no forty proton torpedoes! There are X-wings out there!"
Navarian froze, staring at him in disbelief, then turned to peer out the starboard bridge windows. Forty pale blue lights, glowing in the void, streamed towards his Star Destroyer. He opened his mouth to respond, but shock had frozen him to the floor plating. His command was purely perfunctory, a formality, the combat was over, the threat from the base had been eliminated, they had prevented any distress signals from getting out!
Vorru could see the shock, the horror, the disbelief wash over the man's face as Navarian scrambled to com Tavira, and then the first twenty torpedoes hit. The starboard shields, reinforced and stabilized, were up to the challenge… mostly. They flickered again, enormous holes opening up in the protective coverage, and some of the torpedos snuck through. The ship rocked lightly as bright explosions tore at the ship's outer layer of armor, blasting away turbolaser batteries and tractor beams.
Far worse, one of the shield generators took a direct hit.
When the second salvo struck, there was no shield to stop them.
"Wooohooo!" howled Janson over the comm as the starboard side of Invidious lit up. Small explosions became large ones, armor boiled away, and the ship jolted from the blow. Still, it was a Star Destroyer, and while the blow had been a heavy one, the ship remained in fighting shape.
"Rogues," came Wedge's voice, "Heads up, we have what's left of the Star Destroyer's fighter complement altering vector to meet us. Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, take the fighters coming up from the prison. Everyone else, we're going to chip some more paint off this Star Destroyer."
"Nine copies," Corran confirmed, pointing his X-wing down at the planet. There were still blasts of blue energy firing up from the surface at the Star Destroyer, but as he watched they died—and so too did the prison's shields. "Leader, Nine. The Imps have knocked out the facility's weapons and shields. Might be about ready to make their escape."
"Confirmed, Nine," Wedge's voice came back. "Take the fighters, then do what you can to prevent the prison break. I don't know who Cracken put in here, but I would bet good money that we don't want to have to find out."
"On it, Rogue Leader." Corran's X-wing entered the planet's atmosphere and he throttled back as friction made itself known. Whistler warbled at him, and his HUD switched to one of the incoming fighters. "What are those?" he asked the astromech, but Whistler just warbled back uncertainly.
"Has anyone seen fighters like these before?" Myn Donos' voice asked the question for him.
"Not sure, Seven," Corran replied. "Some new Imperial snubfighter design maybe." But they didn't have time to think about it. The four Rogues were met by seven examples of the odd TIE design, which possessed a characteristic TIE Fighter ball cockpit and engines, but married it to three sets of triangular panels. Like most TIE designs they weren't designed for atmosphere and were clearly having trouble, but Corran's first blasts were unexpectedly absorbed. "Nine to Squadron," he said into his comm. "Enemy snubfighters are equipped with shields." He throttled back and pulled the stick towards him, rising after the enemy who had escaped.
"Five here, and they also have ion cannons," said Wes, sounding harried. "They're maneuverable too, maybe slightly better than squints."
Corran's HUD flicked green and he pulled the trigger, sending four red blasts of laser fire converging on his target. One of the four missed entirely; the other three drilled through the cockpit and one of the panels. The ship tumbled, going into an uncontrolled spin. It spiraled away from the battle, heading out towards the planet's second moon. "Well, they still die when you shoot them," he said to Whistler, and the droid twittered triumphantly as Corran started looking for a new target.
Vorru climbed out of the starboard crew pit, stumbling as he did as another proton torpedo erupted against the ship's hull. There were X-wings out there and their pilots were good, exceptional even. Invidious' three squadrons of clutch starfighters were capable, but their pilots were tired and low on fuel from their engagement with the base's droid fighters, their numbers were diminished, and they'd thought the hard work was already done; the unexpected blow of the X-wings' arrival had to be demoralizing.
Worst of all, their commander was frozen in stupefied shock. Navarian might be an effective enough comms officer, but he evidently did not have the needed chops to command a ship in combat. He occasionally stammered orders, but they were never helpful.
Vorru stepped into the center of the bridge. They needed a leader, and he could be that. "Helm, bring us down towards the surface, and pitch the main hangar bay to permit Admiral Tavira the easiest and shortest landing path. Guns, I want you to prepare to cover the Admiral's return." He turned towards Navarian. "Tell the fighters their only assignment is to prevent the X-wings from engaging the Admiral's shuttle," he ordered the commander.
Navarian stared at him, his eyes wide, then he offered a choppy nod and reached for his communications headset.
The ship rocked as another torpedo struck Invidious, and Vorru grimaced. But no—the X-wings had to be almost out of torpedoes, if they weren't already; if they'd had many more, Invidious would have been hit with them in the alpha strike. His Star Destroyer was still combat capable. All they had to do was get the shuttle, the Admiral, and their objective back aboard and they could head for the hyper limit, and there would be little the X-wings could do to stop them.
He just needed to make sure the crew didn't panic. Vorru folded his arms behind his back, straightening his spine, and stood in the center of the bridge platform. His orders were given; it was appearances that mattered now.
Corran and Ooryl's X-wings screamed over the landing platform occupied by the Invidious' landing craft, strafing it with their laser cannons. Vaporized permacrete (and pirates) scattered everywhere. A repeater E-Web returned fire, but his X-wing's shields were designed to stand up to turbolaser blasts and shrugged it off without issue. "Nine, the remaining TIEs are headed in your direction," Tycho's voice said into his ear. "The squadron is all out of torps and Invidious knows it, so it's basically ignoring us. Lead and Four are strafing Invidious to get them to reconsider that perspective; Strike is inbound with bigger guns. Five, Six, and Twelve are coming to join you. What's the status of the prison?"
Corran checked his HUD, didn't see any TIEs in his immediate vicinity, and tilted his X-wing over to take a look down. The craggy rock of the mountainside flowed beneath his fighter as he slowly circled the prison that was settled into that mountainside. "There's a Sentinel landing craft down there with shields strong enough to stand up to anything short of sustained cannon fire," Corran reported. "We've taken out a chunk of the landing forces; I'm not sure how many more there are down there, but it's at least a dozen less than it was."
Tycho was silent for a few long moments; Corran assumed that the veteran pilot was dodging turbolaser fire, or maybe removing the threat of it. Tycho's voice crackled back to life. "Confirmed, Nine. Options?"
"I'm not sure we have any good ones. Anything more we do up here might kill whatever prisoners the Imps are here to rescue, not to mention whatever others they're not here to rescue. Are our orders to kill in order to prevent escape?"
"Our orders didn't specify." Tycho's voice was annoyed. "You have Nrin, Ooryl, and Myn with you, that's a formidable ground contingent. Might be time to go commando."
Corran grimaced. The possibility had occurred to him, but he didn't like it. He was a lot safer in his cockpit than he would be on the ground. On the other hand, his CorSec sensibilities didn't like killing prisoners, either. "We'll need air support to keep the remaining TIEs off of us," he cautioned.
"You'll have it," Tycho promised. "Gotta go!" Tycho's voice clicked off. Corran glanced upwards, watching as three X-wings—Wedge, Tycho, and Hobbie—flitted nimbly over the Invidious' hull, blasting turbolaser batteries and tractor beams, dodging the steady stream of green fire that lanced out at them.
Corran pointed the nose of his fighter back at the prison. "One more pass, Whistler, then we'll land on the second pad," he ordered, wishing he'd let Luke Skywalker talk him into more Force training while the Rogues had been on Coruscant.
The Tevas-kaar carved his way through the antiquated battle droids with ruthless efficiency. In the confined corridors of the prison and with only the smoking wreckage of ruined droids behind him the blaster bolts could only come from the front, which made deflecting them all too easy. His white-blue blade hissed as beads of sweat trickled down his masked face.
His lightsaber came down with a quick hissing slash, leaving the last of the battle droids in a split heap on the floor. His bronzed armor was darkened from a few near misses, but his long ago learned lightsaber skills had not failed him. "Again," his master instructed him as the training remote buzzed behind the man's white-haired head. The drone spat bolts in bursts of two or three, forcing him to respond quickly and precisely. His body had grown lanky and uncoordinated and he grunted again and again with frustration as he was struck with stinging blasts. "Conserve your movements," his master instructed firmly. "The lightsaber is about grace, not power, and grace is found in your wrists, not your arms." The battle droids were a testament to that lesson, at least.
The map showed only a handful of prisoners in this place and he'd yet to meet a single human opponent. Was it manned entirely by droids? His long strides carried him at a quick pace through the darkened halls and he reached his destination in a matter of minutes; the facility was not really all that large. His large, armored hand hit the release on the door, but it buzzed red in response. "Access denied," the computer said.
Well. All right.
The Tevas-kaar reached out with the Force, making sure that the person he was there to rescue was not on the other side of the door. Then, once he was sure that an errant stroke with the lightsaber would not kill his quarry, he stabbed the blue-white lightsaber blade forward, driving it into the hinges of the door. The heavy metal resisted but had never been made to stand up to a lightsaber, and he grunted as he dragged the lightsaber slowly along the doorframe. The metal went red and liquid as he forced the blade down. You were wrong, master, he thought to himself as he grimaced from the effort, there are times the lightsaber is about power.
The door sagged, and he quickly plunged the blade through the door's locking mechanism. Then with a Force-enhanced push he sent the heavy door slamming to the ground with a bone-rattling crash.
"Come in," a gravelly, aged male voice called from inside the darkened room. The Tevas-kaar stepped onto the fallen door, careful not to put his foot on any molten metal; heat radiated off of it in waves. The room was larger than he expected and built like a comfortable studio apartment; false windows brought in a modicum of light meant to appear natural, but the majority of the light in the room came from the myriad of screens. Computers lined every wall, flickering with light and activity; the floor was kept clear and marked with treadmarks from a wheeled desk chair. In a side space was a bed, neatly kempt, and doors that presumably led to a refresher.
He disengaged his lightsaber, the blade vanishing with the distinctive hiss, and walked further into the room. As he did the computer screens died as one and the room's ceiling lights illuminated.
"Which of my former associates sent you to free me from Cracken's clutches?" the same male voice considered, clicking his tongue. "Surely most are dead by now, and most of the rest don't have the gall or the ability to stage something like this."
The Tevas-kaar's eyes scanned the room, guided by the Force. The figure seated in the rolling chair was short, well below average height for a male human, with thick brown fur and whiskers. His eyes were black and beady, with a pair of ears coming up from the top of his head, and his face narrowed to a snout. His hands and feet were both uncovered, ending with dark claws. A Drall, the Tevas-kaar thought with surprise. Not what he'd expected, but the Drall were native to the Corellia system and Vorru had been Moff of Corellia.
"Moff Fliry Vorru of Corellia," The Tevas-kaar responded, his voice echoing in the mask.
Those beady black eyes did not seem particularly intimidated by either his mask or his lightsaber, and even the huge bulk of the metal door laying flat on the floor of his spacious cell had not perturbed the alien calm. "Vorru," the Drall murmured, considering. "Very well," he said after a moment and stood to his full one meter height. The movement seemed to pain the alien, and the Tevas-kaar realized that the Drall was very old for one of his species. "For Vorru, I will escape," he agreed with a nod.
Corran hopped out of his X-wing and ducked behind the permacrete barrier that separated the landing pad from the very deep chasm. Overhead X-wings and the odd Imperial fighters continued to spar; Ooryl's fighter fired a quick quad blast that was almost deafeningly loud to Corran's ears, and shrapnel cascaded over the landing platforms from the remains of his target. Two other X-wings had landed with him; Myn had already assembled his sniper rifle and was firing at the group of enemies on the opposite ground platform, some twenty meters away.
There was a network of landing platforms, arranged more or less in a circular pattern around the mountain prison. They each flared out with a large circular landing pad, supported by buttresses and backup repulsorlifts, and connected to the others by the flat area closest to the prison. Green and red blaster fire flashed between the grounded X-wing pilots and the Imperials across the gap between them.
Nrin dropped down beside Corran, carrying a large case. The Quarren opened it, revealing the component parts of a long-barreled heavy blaster rifle. Corran gaped at it. "You had that in your X-wing?"
"I decided to keep it after Ciutric," Nrin said with a toothy grin, assembling the blaster. "You never know the next time Tycho is going to tell us to storm a fortress, after all." He fitted the pieces together, smacked in one of the power packs, then swung the long barrel of the powerful blaster over the barrier. The weapon roared, sending a hefty bolt of green energy slamming across the chasm, then another. Nrin's tentacles curled up as he pulled the trigger again and again.
"I guess this proves you right," Corran replied, firing his own blaster pistol. "Remind me to stash a blaster rifle in my X-wing when we get back to Orthavan."
Something on the other platform exploded spectacularly, and Corran's comlink clicked. "I took out that E-web they had set up," Myn murmured cooly in Corran's ear, clear despite the scream of ion engines and blaster fire above. "There's another group of them hiding in the structure itself, they're going to have to make a run for the shuttle sooner or later."
There was a roar of engines and the landing craft the Imperials had used to set down lifted slightly off the ground. "They're getting ready," Corran announced.
"No, you think?" retorted Nrin.
The shuttle's engines roared again, the blast as they flared enough to drown out even the sounds of the ongoing melee above. Corran glanced up as an X-wing swooped overhead, its laser cannons sending bursts of energy into the shuttle, but the Sentinel's shields proved too strong and sustained the energy without complaint. Corran grimaced, wishing they'd saved a torpedo or two instead of unloading them all into Invidious.
The X-wing's run came with its own costs. One of the remaining TIEs splashed the fighter with green and blue fire, puncturing its aft shields and disabling two of the snubfighter's four engines. A second X-wing bracketed the TIE with laser fire and forced it to go evasive; the first X-wing limped uneasily towards space.
Corran breathed a sigh of relief, his sudden panic passing. That was Twelve, he was pretty sure, but while Inyri was out of the fight, at least her X-wing was still mostly flyable.
"Here they come!" called Nrin, and his heavy blaster snarled, sending three quick shots towards the prison exit. Corran followed them with his eyes, and then—
The Force screamed at him and Corran's instincts took over. His father had always taught him to trust his instincts, and that trust had saved his life on more than one occasion. He grabbed Nrin and yanked the large Quarren down and away, the longblaster clattering to the ground next to them. Nrin flailed, resisting in his surprise, and Corran found them all wrapped up in a pile of limbs as Nrin's three blaster bolts came back at them. The first two soared over their heads—quite possibly at the right height to take their heads off if Corran hadn't reacted—while the third struck the permacrete barrier and sent agonizing fragments scouring over their skin.
Corran rolled off of Nrin and pulled his lightsaber off his belt, the metal of the hilt chilled by the cool mountain air, and ignited the silver-white blade with its distinctive snap-hiss. He stood awkwardly as across the wide chasm the now small group of Imperials was running towards the waiting shuttle. One of the group fired at them, and Corran focused to his utmost to to bat away a pistol shot. There were three of them he could see; a woman wearing what looked like an Imperial Moff's uniform (which was odd, to say the least) and holding the blaster which had just shot at him, a Drall running uncertainly alongside her seemingly of his own volition (which was equally odd), and a tall man wearing full-body bronzed armor, including a white-masked helmet that covered his face. In the man's hand was a glowing blue lightsaber.
Of the three of them, the man with the lightsaber was certainly both the most odd and the most concerning.
Nrin fumbled with his long blaster as Myn's sniper rifle fired at the group, but the armored man stopped, turned towards them, and batted the fire away as he walked backwards towards the shuttle. The woman and the Drall both jumped onto the shuttle's lifted landing ramp, the Drall struggling with it for a moment. Nrin raised his blaster and fired another shot, but the man deflected it back, forcing Corran to bat it down. He put his hand on Nrin's back and the Quarren hissed in disgust. "They're going to get away!"
"Not if we can stop them in the sky," Corran replied. The shuttle lifted up off the ground, its landing ramp rising to close after it had picked up the man with the lightsaber, and Corran turned to run towards his X-wing then abruptly stopped and threw himself to the permacrete surface of the landing platform just before the landing shuttle's large underslung laser turret opened fire.
The heavy bursts from its laser cannon burned into Nrin's defenseless X-wing and the starfighter exploded. Laser cannons and engines shattered, fragments of melted metal erupting in all directions.
Tavira swung the shuttle's turret to target the second X-wing and pulled the trigger. Heavy quad bursts of laser fire lanced into the landed, stationary craft and it too exploded. The third grounded X-wing was now trapped behind a field of debris and fire so she ignored it; besides, the shuttle's nose swung up towards space and her Invidious, taking it out of her sight. Her attention went entirely to her beloved ship.
Those bastards! The Star Destroyer she had paid such a high price for was scarred from obvious torpedo impacts, but Navarian was obviously doing a competent enough job commanding the ship; the Star Destroyer was moving into position to expedite her return. After that, she thought viciously, we'll see about getting a little revenge. She reached into her uniform and pulled out a remote. For now, she swung the turret to look behind the shuttle and waited for exactly the right moment…. It's time to make sure we get out of here. And get a down payment. She pressed the button.
Corran stared at the burning wreckage of the two destroyed X-wings. For a single, horrified moment he thought Whistler had just died, but no. They'd gotten lucky, and the shuttle had chosen not to blow up his X-wing. Stupid! he chastised himself viciously. We should never have let them get back to the shuttle! But then, a corner of his mind reminded him, they hadn't known the Imperials would have a lightsaber wielder with them.
There was a humming sound from the base, and he and Nrin both turned with a frown to look at it. "What's that?" he asked, his voice hoarse, speaking loudly to be heard over his deafened ears.
"I don't know," Nrin replied, sounding stunned. The sound grew louder, sending a tremble through the ground beneath them. "It sounds like the base's power generator—"
The sky above them started to shimmer as the base shields were re-activated, and there was the sudden, deafening roar of the base's automated defenses. Corran gaped as blue-white fire shot into the sky. Gavin Darklighter's X-wing caught the edges of an unexpected capital-grade blast which melted both its starboard S-foils, sending the fighter into a death spiral. Corran watched with a fist around his heart until he saw the fighter's cockpit pop open. Gavin's ejection seat gilded him down into the ravine while his fighter slammed into one of the nearby mountains, sending snow and rocks upwards in a reasonable imitation of a volcanic eruption.
The remaining airbourne X-wings went evasive as the automated guns started tracking them.
"Oh, sithspit," Corran breathed. He and Nrin took one look at each other and then they sprinted towards the facility.
"Admiral Tavira's shuttle is now back on board," Navarian announced.
"Excellent," Vorru replied, maintaining his commanding demeanor. "Helm, get us to the hyper limit. Take us out the moment we reach it. All fighters return to the hangar or be left behind." His eyes tracked the plot; there were still five X-wings out there combat capable, three of which were still stitching Invidious with laser fire. It wasn't any serious threat to their spaceworthyness, but they'd already lost far too many of the ship's turbolasers and tractor beams. Then there was the Corellian corvette racing down on them. A corvette was normally no threat to a Star Destroyer, but Invidious' battle damage meant they had both fewer teeth and less protection than normal. The corvette probably couldn't kill them—probably—but it could certainly hurt them some more.
Best to avoid that. They had what they came for.
The three remaining X-wings swarmed over Invidious' hull, firing indiscriminately. There was a sudden cheer from the portside crew pit, and Vorru peered over just in time to see an X-wing spin past the portside bridge windows, out of control. The pilot had lost an S-foil and the attached engine from a turbolaser blast, and was trying to maneuver out of the combat. As Vorru watched, the pilot managed to recover, barely, before he spun into the planet's dense web of metallic satellites. The fighter's engines flared and it limped off in the direction of the incoming corvette. That seemed to be enough, and the last two X-wings broke off their pursuit, weaving to avoid turbolaser fire as they retreated, allowing the Star Destroyer to recover its remaining fighters and escape.
A costly victory, Vorru thought as he peered out the starboard bridge windows at the ship's blackened hull. But despite the damage, he knew this was a victory. He had what he had come for, and there was an upside to all the damage. Invidious would now need maintenance and repair even more than it had before. Tavira could not supply that… but Vorru was pretty sure that he could.
The Star Destroyer reached the hyper limit and transitioned into hyperspace without the Moff even noticing. Yes, he thought, smiling to himself. This will work nicely.