The North Antea spaceport trembled with the thunder of approaching doom. Whether they were laserblasts, mortar shells, concussion missiles, even proton bombs dropped from above, Juno couldn't tell. She shambled through the halls deep inside the spaceport's military wing, bracing herself against walls as she moved, clutching her side with the other hand as though that would stop the pain.
Almost there. Almost there. Her whole body cried at her to stop but she couldn't. Not yet. She didn't want to die, and there was still fighting to be done.
The halls of the spaceport were achingly hollow. She'd stayed as late as she could and disarmed the shield dome only after the majority of the Rebels had boarded escape ships. Explosions rocked and thundered in the distance, corridors shook, overhead lights flickered. Had Imperials already entered? She didn't know.
But she was almost there. She'd already talked to Skywalker; hopefully he was sailing out of that civilian hangar on his Z-95. As she neared her destination Juno took out her comlink again and, bracing elbow to wall when she had to, held it to her mouth.
"Nevetts? Can you hear me? This is General Eclipse."
She waited. No response. Maybe they were out of range; maybe their big Damorian hauler had been shot out of the sky, killing thousands of good soldiers.
Then a voice. Nevetts said, "We read you, General. Are you airborne?"
"Almost," she said. "Sitrep?"
"Skywalker's plan worked. The star destroyers both pulled to high orbit chasing that Aethersprite. That strike cruiser is still a problem, and the TIEs. We've lost four transports and we're still in low orbit, but we've got an escape vector."
"Take it before the destroyers cut it off. Go."
"But General, your ship-"
"I'll catch up. Keep an eye open for Skywalker's ship. His real ship."
"We will."
"Do you have the senator?"
Nevetts faltered. "He's not on this ship, General. I hope he got on one of the others."
The hallway trembled once more. In the distance, she heard fire alarms. "I hope so too," she said. "Eclipse, out."
She pocketed the comlink and used both hands to push herself forward, rebounding off the walls until she finally pushed through the final passageway.
She'd discovered this small hangar during an early survey of the spaceport. The facility was primarily civilian, but a few sections were reserved for use by the Imperial military. Thus, suspended from a rack in the center of the room, was a TIE bomber, recently repaired.
With the last battle looming she'd ordered it stocked with warheads too. Just in case. The hangar entrance was thankfully on an elevated walkway and she had no ladder to climb to reach the TIE, though she did have to descend one to reach the cockpit. She tried and found it painful, so instead she let herself drop.
Damn it all, this was familiar. Too familiar. As the former leader of Darth Vader's elite Black Eight Squadron she knew how to take apart a TIE bomber piece-by-piece. She knew how it felt to soar through the air, to dive toward targets, to line them up with your targeting computer, tap your trigger, and unleash Imperial hell on those below.
When had she stopped having nightmares about her crimes on Callos? Probably when she'd started having them about Starkiller instead.
Callos was behind her. Starkiller was behind her. But sitting in this TIE bomber both of them felt close, like shadows falling across her from either side.
"Enough," she grunted. "Don't do this to yourself."
Juno ran her hands over the controls, initiating pre-flight procedure. She hadn't flown one of these since she'd been given the job of ferrying Darth Vader's apprentice, but it all came back. Callos. Starkiller. She could never get far from either.
A great explosion rocked the hangar; beyond its open mouth she saw flame flash through the exterior fog. When pre-flight was complete Juno strapped herself into her seat. Just sitting and no longer putting strain on her side felt good. So did the acceleration that gently pressed her against the back of her chair.
The TIE bomber soared past the threshold, into a sky without color or feature. The fog over the Benton was thick; all of Antea was blanketed in a thick pale haze. Juno knew that was her luck; without it, someone might have spotted her escape and marked her as hostile.
Instead, Juno turned on the bomber's transponder. According to the computer this ship was assigned to Reprobation as part of the strike cruiser's sole bomber unit, unimaginatively codenamed Black Squadron. The ship's number, of course, was eight.
This was really getting to be too much.
There was still fighting going on in the streets. Heat flared below and explosions flashed at the bottom of a sea of fog. Whoever was left down there was beyond Juno's help. Most of her people- the vast majority, she prayed- were spaceborne and on their way to freedom. She had to join them.
Most specifically, she had to catch up with the big Damorian hauler and dock with it, because her TIE lacked a hyperdrive.
Bombers were slow by starfighter standards but she could still catch up with the freighters. She pulled herself into a steep upward climb and raced past the fog, through crowning clouds, into daylight and then through it. When she finally breached atmosphere and the exit-friction flames fell away, she found herself staring at a vast span of black. Tiny stars sat stationary light-years away, while nearby space was marked by the thrust-trails of starships fleeing and pursuing.
Juno set her course to chase. Those star destroyers were far away now, but the strike cruiser Reprobation was edging close to the Rebel convoy, firing broadsides, battering the more sluggish freighters into oblivion. The convoy was still burning hard against the pull of the planet, well inside the gravity well. It would be five minutes at least before any of them could jump to hyperspace.
As Juno gave chase, two TIE fighters whipped past her cockpit. Her heart jumped but they didn't attack. Instead they slowed and held position a few hundred meters ahead. Her comlink crackled and a voice filled the cockpit.
"This is Grey Five. Where are the rest of you bombers? We need you up here, chasing Rebs."
As steadily as she could she replied, "Black Eight here. We were pacifying the city. Black Lead told us to help topside. The rest are catching up."
"Well, I guess late's better than never."
Juno hesitated, then asked, "Why are the destroyers hanging back? They'll let the Rebs get away."
"Nobody knows what they're doing," Grey Five said. "Something happened, some kind of friendly fire thing. Couple of grand admirals think they can throw us around like-"
"Easy, Five," warned the other TIE pilot.
"Right. Listen, Black Eight, aim for that big Damorian hauler if you can. It's got tough shields."
"Understood. I'll make a run at it when my wing joins me."
"Got it. Good flying."
Juno couldn't bring herself to return the salute, so she watched the two TIEs soar ahead without a word.
As she neared the convoy and Reprobation she checked her weapons cache. She had eight concussion missiles loaded into the armaments pod but she doubted she'd get to use all of them. The Imperials would believe she was one of their own until she unleashed her payload. She'd have to wait, think, and pick her target very carefully, because when she pulled the trigger, her once and present Imperial wingmates would turn on her like feral hawk-bats.
She didn't want to die today, but if that's what it took to get the others to safety, so be it. She wasn't chasing death this time. She was doing what she had to and placing the lives of good people before her own.
Like Kota. Like PROXY.
And, she dared hope, like Starkiller.
-{}-
The Avatar was growing in Magic Dragon's forward viewport. Tigellinus's star destroyer had looked like it might pivot and run; indeed, Takel had expected the other grand admiral to do just that as soon as he'd nabbed Skywalker. Yet for some reason it remained stationary in mid-orbit, as though trapped in ambivalence
Tigellinus was many things, but not indecisive. Something unexpected had happened, and it gave Takel hope.
"Comm," he said, "get me another private line with Avatar."
Takel normally tried to show his crew he had nothing to hide, but today he very much did, and besides, these talks with Tigellinus were too touchy and potentially embarrassing to have in full view. Thus he stood in the back of the bridge, raised his comlink to his lips, and said, "Tell me you're there, Rufaan. I'm looking for a reason not to open fire."
"You wouldn't dare," Tigellinus said. Pompous as always, but that fake-Core accent was undercut by stress.
"You won the race. Congratulations. Are you enjoying your prize? If not, I'd be happy to take it from you."
"You'd fire on my star destroyer?"
"You destroyed two of my TIEs."
"There's a world of difference and you know it."
Tigellinus sounded desperate. The dangerous rasp to his voice put Takel on edge; he'd never seen the other man pressed to his limit and didn't know what he was truly capable of. Tigellinus had already surprised him twice today.
"Run, fight, or give me a reason not to open fire," he insisted.
"It wasn't Skywalker, damn you! It was a woman! Your woman!" Tigellinus practically screeced.
"A woman? What are you talking about?"
"She was stunned and trussed-up in the pilot's seat. We woke her up and she keeps insisting she's your spy. Listen, you incompetent buffoon-"
Takel switched off the comm. Relief flooded through him; if Tigellinus didn't have Skywalker then the day wasn't lost. He had no idea where Skywalker actually was, but he had to be somewhere on or above Peralta, and that was all that mattered.
To the helm he called, "Adjust course. Keep climbing. Get us out of the gravity well as fast as you can."
Yet again, his crew looked at him befuddled. The helm officer asked, "Are we running, sir? Should we warm hyperdrives?"
Takel really, really wanted a shot of glitterstim right now. As it was he'd have to rely on anger and adrenaline to reveal the best course of action. The one that occurred to him now would teach Tigellinus what real audacity looked like
He said, "No the first. Yes to the second." To his crew's baffled stares he grinned. "Have faith, gentlemen. When have I ever let you down?"
-{}-
Juno did her best to look inconspicuous. She wove her TIE bomber between swarms of fighters from Reprobation and took potshots with her laser canons at Rebel freighters, always making sure to miss. The tricky part was dodging return fire; not all the ship the Rebels had commandeered were armed but many were, and a TIE bomber was unshielded and slow for its size. Yet she'd logged hundreds of hours in ships just like these and all the tiny nuances came back to her. She braked and slipped and nudged at all the right times.
After listening to the comm chatter from the other TIE pilots- most of it confused, much of it frustrated- she tried manually changing to one of the frequencies her soldiers used. She hung apart from the convoy long enough to input the code, then called, "This is General Eclipse. Please respond."
A few seconds later, she got a familiar voice. "This is Nevetts. what's your status, General?"
"Check the TIE bomber at your four o'clock."
"We see you. We'll let the other ships know not to fire at you."
"They can fire all they want so long as they miss."
"Do you want to try landing?"
"Not yet. I have eight missiles that need unloading. I'm just not sure where. Did you find the senator?"
"No, we're still trying."
"What about Skywalker?"
"On your six," Luke said.
Juno checked her sensors and there it was, a Z-95 Headhunter coming up behind her.
"I wish there were more friendly fighters to hold off these TIEs," Luke said.
"Right now it's just you. I'm not a friendly and don't treat me like one. Take some potshots."
"Got it," Luke said, and a smattering of red bolts cut close to her starboard wing. Juno rolled to port, toward the convoy.
Through her viewport she could see the chain of Rebel ships the pursuing TIEs, and the two star destroyers. Neither of them were close enough to fire on the convoy but one, curiously, had pushed all the way out the planet's gravity well. She checked her scanners: Magic Dragon. That ship seemed to be frantically reorienting itself, swinging its wedge-tip nose away from black space, back toward the planet, though Juno had no idea what it was aiming for.
Then the off-white warship became a streak of light. The entire ship seemed to stretch across a thousand miles in the blink of an eye, from one corner of Juno's viewport to the other. And, just as fast, it resolved itself into a coherent warship again.
Only now, it was sitting right in the path of the fleeing convoy.
The Rebels' comm line was already full of chatter. "How did they do that?" someone asked. "Some kinda micro-micro jump," another suggested. Trake said, "It doesn't matter how, they're right in our karking way!"
The channel filled with curses. Far ahead, the Magic Dragon began firing broadside cannons at the approaching convoy. The lead ships were far enough away they could dodge the mighty emerald lances, but they'd suddenly found themselves with no place to run.
Juno checked her long-range scanners. Even worse, Reprobation was falling in behind the Rebels to box off any retreat to the planet, while the second destroyer, Avatar, was finally kicking into motion and heading for the convoy.
And just like that, they were trapped.
"We have to scatter!" she shouted over the comm-chatter. "Repeat, scatter! Try to get a path to hyperspace anyway you can! Some of us can still make it!"
But not, she thought bleakly, that slow Damorian hauler with its thousands of lives.
Despair seized her. She'd not felt this way since Shenandor. She wanted to scream, pound the insides of her cockpit, and fly into fiery oblivion. So close, so close, but too far in the end. Once again, everyone she knew would be slaughter.
Then Skywalker said: "No. Hold position."
"What?" gasped Nevetts. "Commander, maybe you missed that star destroyer-"
"I didn't." How calm he sounded. How certain. "It's okay. Hold course."
"They'll get chewed up in seconds!"
"No, they won't. Trust me. I can feel it." How serene he was. Like Starkiller in his final moments.
Because the Force was with him. However mad his actions seemed, he had to have a reason.
"Do it," Juno said. "Do as Skywalker says."
"But General, that's insane," Nevetts insisted.
"No it's not," Luke said. "Do you see it?"
Juno peered past the convoy, past the distant, lethal wedge of Magic Dragon. Something new had appeared in the blackness of space: an oval shape of warm pale color, with fins stretching wide from either side. Then a near-identical shape appeared behind it, and then she saw the glow of swarming thrust engines and the first flecks of turbolasers taking the Magic Dragon from behind.
And then, finally, the clarion over her comm channel. A guttural Mon Calamari voice proclaimed, "All ships, this is the Alliance warship Liberty. Stay back and hold formation. We will clear a path for you."