[Black Fleet Crisis] - 02(105)

We just need to regroup and pursue—” “At what losses, under these conditions? Lieutenant, we didn’t come here to win at any cost, in a battle zone they chose and at a time that suited them,” A’baht said, “We came here for the information we need to win the next time. And that next time is coming sooner than they think.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Transmitting,” Colonel Corgan said. “Dispatch away.”

A’baht nodded. “Task force leader—Secondaries break orbit. We got what we came for—now the Yevetha will get what they deserve.” He switched his hypercomm to the scrambled command channel and keyed the transmit code. “All groups, your authorization is kaph-samekh-nine-cipher-nine-go-daleth.

Hit ‘em hard.”

The eighteen ships of Task Force Aster were waiting at their staging area two light-hours above the plane of the Doornik 319 system. The word was passed to them by the task force commander, Commodore Brand, aboard the star cruiser Indomitable.

“All ships, alert,” he said. “The Yevetha have resisted the blockade.

We’re going in. You should be receiving updated target and jump vector data from Group Tactical now. Countdown to the jump-in will begin on my call. All batteries, make sure you have positive target acquisition. It’s going to be crowded down there.”

Two light-hours below the planetary plane, similar directions were passed to the twenty ships of Task Force Blackvine by Commodore Tolsk.

The word filtered quickly down through the ranks and out from the bridge, reaching even the crews waiting in the cockpits of their fighters and assault craft, which were arrayed for launch on the hangar decks.

“Are you keeping an eye on that number three engine?”

Skids called forward to the pilot’s cockpit of the K-wing. “It looks a little hot from back here.”

“I’m on top of it,” Esege Tuketu answered. “But everything in here is going to run a little hot till they throw the doors open and start pushing us out. She can take it.”

“I just don’t want to hear ‘Oops’ at the end of a power dive on one of those Star Destroyers,” Skids said.

“I promise—you won’t,” Tuke said.

“Good.”

“—I’ll just think it to myself.”

“Is it too late for me to find another pilot?”

Ahead of them, the great armored clamshell doors of Hangar Bay 5 began to open. “It’s too late,” said Tuke. “You just make sure all our eggs are safe. I don’t want to crack one early.”

“Point this thing straight and you won’t have to worry about that.”

Moving as one under the control of the floor chief, the assault bombers of the 24th Bombardment Squadron accelerated down the draglines—first Black Flight, its six K-wings in two rows, three abreast, then Green, then Red. The most dangerous part about cluster launches was executing the break on time— the spacing was so tight that impatience in the back rows could wipe out half the squadron.

ble’s battle operations center as his tracking system lit.

“Acquiring target.”

“My, my, my—they sure turned all the lights on for us,” Skids said on the local comm, craning his head to look in all directions. “I’ve never seen such a sky full of stars.”

Red Flight broke down and away, toward the last of four Yevethan thrustships strung out in a line leading back to Doornik 319. In a few moments they picked up their cover fighters—the E-wings of the 16th Fighter Squadron’s Blue Flight.

“That trailer’s ours, Blue Leader,” Tuke said. “Red Flight, arm your eggs and confirm acquisition by your targeting computers.”

Each of the six bombers was carrying two fat T-33 plasma torpedoes, known among the crews as shield-busters or rotten eggs. Designed to detonate at the shield perimeter rather than to penetrate it, the plasma warheads of the T-33s created the most intense radiation burst of any New Republic weapon, several times the output of a capital ship’s ion cannon batteries.

The focused cone of radiation was designed to overload ray-shielding generators, either burning them up with the feedback or pushing them overlimit with the bounceback. Once even one generator was down, the towers for the particle shields would be vulnerable to the turbolaser turrets on the gun frigates. If everything went according to plan, the carriers, already falling back behind the cruiser screen, would never come close to engaging the enemy directly.

Their system entry had placed them a startlingly close 16,000 klicks from their targets, and the thrustship grew quickly in the scopes and screens as the bombers accelerated to attack velocity. At a range of three thousand kilometers, Tuketu ordered Red Flight to move into the open hex formation, which would give them all room for evasive maneuvers on the way in and an unobstructed power pullup on the way out.