The Chiss clawcraft circled back and began to make runs along the length of the defoliator’s hull, driving the Saras dartships off and giving the larger vessel time to refresh its shields. The StealthXs had to make their move now, or they would never reach the defoliators in time. Jaina pushed her throttles forward and broke for the amber moon, Ruu. Tesar, the second best pilot on the team, started for Zvbo, while Zekk, Alema, and Lowbacca all began a high arcing maneuver that would drop them down on the last two defoliators.
“ReyaTaat, the Jedi are starting their run.” Jacen’s voice was sharp. “And we’re not going to be much of a diversion alone.”
There was a moment of silence, then a vague tide of alarm rose in the Force. “Slow down!” Reya commed. “The dartships can’t catch you!”
Jaina checked her tactical display and found a blue cloud of Taat dartships sweeping up from the bottom of the display, following Reya’s little scout-lancet after Tahiri. At the top of the screen, both Chiss defoliators were fully engulfed in swarms of Saras and Alaala, with the curved horizons of Ruu and Zvbo hanging high in the corners. The main body of the Chiss task force remained in the center of the display, the clawcraft escorts hanging back just far enough to make the last two defoliators an inviting target.
What were they up to?
Jaina’s astromech changed scale, and suddenly her tactical display was a mass of “friendly” blips-the Saras dartships - whirling around the defoliator she had targeted. The friendly blips were winking out by the dozens.
Jaina checked her estimated time to attack. Five seconds, but she sensed that Tesar needed seven. She armed two proton torpedoes, then added a sweeping curve to her approach and came in behind the battle.
Outside her cockpit, space was a tightly wound ball of orange rocket trails swirling around the blue glow of the defoliator’s big ion drives. A pair of dartships blossomed in scarlet as they exploded against the shields of an oncoming clawcraft, but a third collided with its wing.
The clawcraft pilot lost control and went corkscrewing into Ruu’s thin atmosphere. Assuming he survived the crash, Jaina knew, he would be taken into the Saras nest and treated as a welcome guest. Unless they were clearly being attacked, none of the Qoribu nests seemed to have any real concept of enemy.
Jaina tried to pick a route through the mad tangle of dartships, but it was like trying to avoid drops in a rainstorm. Two seconds from her launching point, a Saras bounced off her shields, and her canopy went black to prevent her from being blinded by the white flash of an exploding rocket.
By the time the tinting paled an instant later, three Chiss clawcraft were coming at Jaina head-on, pouring a steady torrent of cannon bolts in her general direction. She did a half-roll slip, taking two hits on her forward shield as she passed through the third fighter’s stream of fire, then loosed her first torpedo.
Nothing if not well trained, the Chiss adjusted their aim instantly, targeting on the weapon’s origination point. Jaina’s forward shields flared into a white wavering wall of heat, and shrieking overload alarms filled the cockpit. She released the second torpedo and jinked hard to port. More Chiss brought their craft to bear, barely grazing her with a blue inferno that was nevertheless enough to bring her shields down with a final, warning screech. The air grew acrid with the smell of fused circuits, and warning messages that Jaina could not read through the smoke began to scroll down her status display.
“Just keep the masking systems up, Sneaky,” Jaina ordered her droid, taking the StealthX through an unpredictable coil of reversing rolls. “If those guys get a sensor read on us, we’ll really be in trouble.”
The droid replied with a cynical whistle.
Jaina continued to maneuver until, a second later, the torrent of cannon fire ceased for an instant and she knew the Chiss had been momentarily blinded by her passing torpedoes. She pushed the stick up and to the left, circling out of the dartship tangle as quickly as she could and climbing for the stars, where her dark craft would not be silhouetted against Qoribu’s scintillating rings.
A pair of bright dots flared through the smoke in Jaina’s cockpit, and she leaned closer to her tactical display. Two shrinking circles of light indicated that her proton torpedoes had detonated where she intended, just behind the defoliator’s thrust nozzles. The big ship was already beginning to swing off course, rising into a tight banking turn that would carry it into Qoribu’s gravity well if the crew did not regain control soon.
Jaina allowed herself a moment of self-congratulation-just so her wingmates would know she had completed her assignmentthen the Saras swarm began to drift back toward Ruu, leaving the crippled defoliator to recover control and flee. Even now, after two months of living and fighting with the Taat, Jaina was awed by the insects’ complete lack of spite. Once a threat had been turned away, they never attempted to cause it more harm.