“It’s not the ships-” Rozhdenst laid a broad fingertip on the closest display screen. “The fleet isn’t what’s going up.” The elongated ships of the cruisers and Destroyers could be seen through the smoke, harshly lit by flames and the hard-shadowed light of another series of explosions. “It’s the docks and all of the major shipbuilding equipment.” As both he and Klemp watched, a durasteel-jawed magna-hoist lurched forward like a dying saurian, its blind head bursting through a wall of fire and plowing into a rack of structural girders. “The whole facility’s been stuffed with high-thermal explosives, from the looks of it.”
“Yeah, but…” Klemp shook his head. “That whole fleet is going to be scrap as well by the time it’s all over.” Another impact shook the mobile base. “You think Kuat of Kuat did this? What’s he after-sabotage or suicide?”
“Who cares-“Rozhdenst reached for the comm unit mike. “We’ve got to get those ships out of there.”
“Sir, that’s impossible. There’s nobody aboard any of those ships. Who’s going to bring them out of the docks?”
Rozhdenst glanced over his shoulder. “Who do you think? Our guys can do it.”
“That’s crazy. I mean… it just is, sir.” Klemp pointed to the image of the flames billowing up on the display screen. “You want our squadron to fly into that} The condition that most of our Y-wings are in, they can just barely avoid getting hit-and you want them to go into that kind of a mess? They’ll get torn to pieces!”
“If they’re in such rotten shape, then it won’t be much of a loss, will it?” Rozhdenst locked his gaze with that of the younger man. “Look, if you or any of the other members of the squadron don’t want this job, then fine-you can stay out here at the base and watch. But I’m going in.”
Klemp was silent for only a fraction of a second. “And I’ll be right behind you, sir. Along with everybody else.”
“Good.” Rozhdenst gave a single, quick nod, then handed the microphone to Klemp. “There’s no time for plotting a formation attack; this show is going to be over in minutes. Give the squadron full operational initiative-everyone’s on their own for vector, approach, and target. Total scramble, eye and comm unit contact to avoid taking each other out.” The Scavenger Squadron commander stood up from the controls. “Let’s get going.”
“They must have seen us coming,” said Dengar. “So they decided to blow the whole place up.”
The explosions had filled the forward viewports as soon as the Hound’s Tooth dropped out of hyperspace. Both Dengar and Boba Fett, in the ship’s cockpit, could see the fiery cataclysm taking place in the Kuat Drive Yards’ construction docks.
“Don’t be stupid,” snapped Fett. He pointed to the display screen. The tiny dark shapes of Y-wing craft could be seen silhouetted by the roiling masses of flame. “Those Alliance fighters are obviously going in to try and pull out what they can of the ships moored there. The docks are being blown up from within; there’s only one person who could have arranged it, and that’s Kuat of Kuat.”
“He’s blowing up his own facility?” Dengar frowned in puzzlement. “Why would he do that?”
“Because he’d rather destroy it,” said Fett, “than let it fall into anyone else’s hands. I’ve dealt with him before; Kuat Drive Yards is all that matters for him. Something must have happened-probably with the Rebel Alliance and that fabricated evidence his head of security took from us-that would end his control over the corporation. So he’s taking the whole thing with him.”
“You mean … he’s in there? You don’t think he escaped?”
Boba Fett shook his head. “There’s no place for Kuat of Kuat to escape to. Or at least no place that has Kuat Drive Yards in it. Survival doesn’t mean the same thing for him that it does for you and me; for Kuat, it’s just death without peace.”
“This is the end of the road, then.” Dengar stood back from the pilot’s chair and folded his arms across his chest. “You’re not going to get any answers out of him now.”
“Don’t bet on it.” Boba Fett reached for the navigational controls.
A sharp current of alarm raced up Dengar’s spine. “What’re you doing?”
“I’m going in. To find Kuat.”
“You’re crazy-” The main thruster engines had already kicked in. As Dengar watched in mounting horror, the explosions bursting up from the Kuat Drive Yards’ construction docks swelled in the forward viewport. The black shapes of collapsing cranes and heat-warped girders became visible. “You’ll get us killed!”