Chapter 70
Pantora
The two small Delta-7 starfighters watched as the enemy destroyer exploded above them, a cloud of orange fire and black smoke expanding throughout the overcast sky. The explosion carried with it the tiny signals of three escape pods heading for the marshes below, and Captains Gibbs quickly assigned starfighters to find them and any survivors inside. Mace concentrated on the remaining droid fighters, three squadrons of Vulture droids and a small contingent of Hyena bombers, forming up for an attack run on the Indication. With Kit Fisto's fighter hugging his wing, the Jedi fired on the bombers. They had neutralised one after another with uncanny accuracy and within a minute, only the Vultures were left.
"Mace?", his headpiece squawked at him. Fay's voice, etched with concern. Not worry or fear – he doubts she could even form those emotions. But concern? That meant trouble.
R7 patched him in to her comm immediately, as the droid had been programmed to do so. "I am here, Fay."
"The Black Cliff Prison has had a riot while you and our pilots have been busy with that ship. One of the convicts escaped with what I believe is the surviving remnants of the terrorists. They are in a stolen Pantoran gunboat and are heading for atmosphere. I hit them with a tracking device. Your droid should have the signal codes. Since the gunboat cannot breach space, I believe they are about to dock with another ship. Can you and your forces stop them?"
"I will do what I can, Master Fay.", Mace twisted his controls and switched the comm to Kit's fighter, "Did you hear that, Master Fisto?"
"All of it, my friend.", Kit answered cheerfully, though Mace could pick up the hints of exhaustion in his voice. Kit had been using the Force to mentally connect himself to their squadrons of starfighters. The technique allowed for fluid manoeuvres and easier piloting, but it was wearing the Nautolaun out. "We have to move, don't we?"
"Flight Leader March.", Mace called, "You and your people will need to deal with the rest of these droids. We have somewhere else we need to be."
The two Delta-7's twisted skyward, flaring their engines as they raced towards the atmosphere, passing the smouldering wreck of the enemy craft. Mace checked his radar, looking for the indicated transponder. There! He glanced up, spotting a tiny dot on the horizon. That one dot was transmitting Fay transponder signal.
He allowed himself a tiny smile. "R7, plot me a course and warm up the cannons."
The gunboat was struggling in the heavy winds. Unlike the small shuttle Kolraresh was used to flying, this thing handled like a brick in the upper atmosphere. The air was getting thinner too, which meant that the strange, primitive air-powered engines were faltering. He had been forced to close the thick blast visors, sealing off the troop area. With these doors closed, stored oxygen began to cycle through to the men.
The comm buzzed, and a small quarter-sized image of the Cosian General appeared above the small cockpit projector. "We are beginning to lower into the atmosphere, assassin. I hope this works, because I was promised an easy gig. We need to get out of the system before something else unexpected happens."
"Understood, Admiral Breedas. I appreciate the risk you are taking.", Kolraresh growled out, trying to hide his irritation at the man's entitled tone. He sounded like he was going out of his way to still stay out of the main battle. "We are about to reach our operational limits…", The radar began to blare, and two blips appeared on the circular screen, "I will have to get back to you, Admiral Breedas. We appear to have someone following us up."
He fumbled with the controls for the comm, and the hologram flickered out before Breedas could reply. Kolraresh flicked switches, powering up the forward cannons. The controls were easily pushed downwards, the ship wanting to reach a lower atmosphere. Finally, he reached a level that was easy to manoeuvre the flying brick through. He came to a stop, and hovered there. A minute later, two triangular fighter's appeared through the clouds, zipping straight past the ship.
"Woah!", Kit yelled into the comm as the gunboat appeared motionless before them.
Mace had to agree. He jerked the yoke to the right and spun the fighter to the side. At the speed they had been flying, they were lucky enough to dodge it in time. The tiny Jedi starfighters were far behind the gunboat now, and both Jedi turned around to look at their prey. The little angular ship managed to spin in a quick, tight circle and Mace squeezed the trigger. Unfortunately, they couldn't just blast the ship to pieces. With the enemylight destroyer gone, they needed more information about why two heavily armed ships had come to attack a single moon. They need this boat intact.
The barrage of laser bolts slipped past the boat's nose, and came extremely close to hitting the engines, but it suddenly scuttled sideways and turned, a volley of purple laser bolts breaking from the vessel's port cannons and streaking towards Mace's ship. He dove, barely avoiding the attack. Twisting around again to fire the canons upwards, Mace found his cockpit caught in a massive shadow.
"Is that…?", Kit asked, his voice slightly distorted.
It was. Mace swallowed deeply as he took in the sight of the D'brathi gunnery platform lowering through the clouds. There was only one way out of this for them, and he almost screamed it into their comm. "Dive, Kit. We need to get below the cloud layer before they pick us up on their scanners."
"They still easily could, right?", the Nautolaun asked.
"Of course they could", Mace replied evenly, "but they won't if they don't want to waste firepower."
"Well, let's hope these people are conscious of how much power they use.", Kit's sarcastic comment was not well received.
They dove, and Mace was forced to watch his radar as the small dot that indicated the gunboat docked with the vessel above. He reconnected the comm with Fay's channel.
She answered immediately, her voice full of an emotion he couldn't identify. "Mace, I take it you are calling to tell me that the Gunnery Platform has lowered into the atmosphere?"
"I am.", he replied, just as alarms began to sound around the cockpit. Were those the alarms for incoming fire or for something coming into realspace? Arseven gave him the answer a second later, and he frowned in confusion. "Master Fay, can you confirm that another ship has just come out of hyperspace within the Pantoran proximity?"
"I can indeed.", Fay sounded… was that relief? Commlink distortion made it impossible to tell what her emotion was, but that sounded out of place with the dire situation. "And you won't believe who it is."
The sky rippled as the new arrival appeared above them. From where Mace and Kit flew, the shape above them appeared about a third of the size compared to the D'brathi, but in truth, it was far larger. It still sat in orbit, a huge dagger blade of a ship. And Windu realised why Fay had been full of relief. It was the Resurrection! Yularen had returned. A dozen shots burst from the cruiser's hull and streaked through the sky. They ripped into the shields of the Gunnery Platform with enough force to make them crack into the visible spectrum for a microsecond at a time.
Mace smiled, and turned his ship back towards the orbit, beginning to feel like a top on a constant spin. Kit was not far behind, and the two Jedi gunned their engines in an attempt to reach the Resurrection quickly. Admiral Yularen would deal with the terrorists quickly, they knew. They needed to interrogate them as soon as he forced them to surrender.
Kolraresh exited the gunboat a second behind the Givin prisoner. Then the first volley struck. It rocked the hull so hard that if he hadn't just activated the magnetic locks on the landing gear, the gunboat would have surely slid out the still open hanger entrance. The next volley slammed into the shields with equal force, and the gunnery platform twisted the other way. The clan members stumbled back and forth as they attempted to regain their balance. The alarms blared loudly at them, and the Kaleesh grimaced at the workforce that surrounded them.
It was completely droids, mostly the B1-units, but also a few dozen other classes scattered in between. A few GNKs, a couple of maintenance drones, even a dozen astromech droids were plugged into sparking maintenance terminals, trying their hardest to keep the engines running and the shields raised. But it was easy to tell that nothing they did would help the ship though this attack.
As soon as he realised this, he placed a hand on the ridge of his temple, near the edges of his mask, and rubbed away the beads of sweat that formed there. Then, he licked those sweat beads from his fingers. Kaleesh sweat was like a bacta-stim, allowing them to continue on throught stressful and dangerous situations. Then he turned and scanned the remaining ships in the hanger. There was a small Sheathipede-class shuttle, a few Vulture Droids and about a dozen needle-shaped D'branthi dropships.
Pulling Yak'shere back into the cockpit, he pointed the Givin towards the far shuttle. "Get them on board and fire up the engines! We need to leave!"
Mace and Kit both leapt from their starfighters and ran toward the figure exiting the elevator. Admiral Wulff Yularen, flanked by two Republic commandos, stared at them, fury clear on his face. Behind him stood a tall, grey-skinned Togruta, dressed in a green pilot's uniform. She, at least, seemed happy to see them.
"I leave for three days and look at the mess I find when I return. Most of the ships I had at my disposal are destroyed and a battleship is parked in orbit chasing you two.", Yularen's anger fled from his expression and a small smile lifted the man's moustache slightly, "I believe that you have Sergeant Grassi to thank for your rescue."
The Togrutan woman stepped forward and saluted. "Good to see you, Master Windu."
"I am glad to see you, Honey Grassi? Did the rest of you team make it here too?", Mace asked.
"They did.", she smiled, "But we don't have time to talk about this. We need to get to the window. Come and look at this. I always enjoy seeing the final attack. It proves informative."
The Jedi followed her not to a window, but to the huge hole in the floor that was used to dock larger frigates and corvettes, and looked down at the battle below. They watched as several more volleys erupted from the Resurrection's underbelly. Each slammed into the D'brathi below, wearing away at it's shields. After five minutes of constant attack, it exploded like the destroyer before it.
Mace watched the explosion with a surprising sense of relief. But he remained stoic in front of everyone. "I needed someone to interrogate."
"He has a thing about bringing people in alive.", Kit chuckled.
"I'm afraid that is now impossible.", Yularen replied nonchalantly.
"So I see.", Mace growled, then turned back to his fighter in the distance. "Now let's find Ord and see if he found anything on board the destroyer that can help us put some of the jumbled pieces together. I want to figure out exactly why these terrorists were even here to begin with!"