[Dark Nest] - 3(113)

The Battle of Tenupe itself continued to rage, a flashing red stain that now spread across a quarter of the planet. Most of the Chiss fleet was down in the clouds and hidden from sight, but some of the Colony’s larger ships were silhouetted against the flickering brilliance below. The four nest ships that had escaped the Jedi at the Murgo Choke were clustered near the heart of the battle, pouring a terrible rain of fire down upon the planet from one side of their hulls while the other hurled turbolaser potshots at the Alliance.

What impressed Luke most was the Killiks’ inventiveness in completing their fleet. Arrayed around the edges of the battle were dozens of ancient megafreighters, their distinctive ring shapes surrounded by dark, swirling clouds that suggested the freighters were serving as staging areas for dartship swarms. Meanwhile hundreds of smaller vessels, visible to the naked eyed as triangular specks, were flitting around the center of the fight in erratic flight patterns, each pouring fire down from a single turbolaser. Chiss megamasers were blasting the gnat-like targets out of orbit whenever their gunnery crews could get a target-lock, but it would clearly take a while to exterminate them completely.

The Ackbar’s shields began to flicker with overload discharge, then collapsed in a string of bright, colorful flashes.

Control’s voice came over the speaker in Luke’s helmet. “Target is shields down. All main batteries switch to formation defense, all squadrons released for strafing runs.”

The order had little to do with Task Force Stomper, but Luke was glad Control had included his channel in the transmission array. The sound of a nonelectronic voice reminded him that he was not attacking the Ackbar alone, that he and his bugcrunchers were merely the tip of a spear being driven by an entire attack fleet.

The Alliance batteries quickly obeyed Control’s order and switched fire to the approaching Shard flotilla. The fighter squadrons left the safe stations where they had been waiting out the turboblaster exchange and streaked in to attack, painting whole swaths of space blue with their engine efflux. The Ackbar’s close-range cannons weaved a web of laser bolts in their paths, and the Colony’s dartships drew back, creating an even tighter shell around the beleaguered Star Destroyer.

Bad mistake.

Bwua’tu had predicted the tactic. The Alliance fighter squadrons blew through the shell behind a flurry of proton torpedoes, then fell on the Ackbar like a thousand hawk-bats, strafing her weapons turrets and clearing the way for Task Force Stomper.

A squadron and a half of starfighters-the eighteen craft that had been in the maintenance bays when the Killiks captured the Ackbar-dropped out of the hangar bay and turned to meet Luke’s assault shuttles. Bwua’tu had predicted that, too. Rogue Squadron slashed in from its escort station and eliminated the interceptors in three fiery passes.

By then, Task Force Stomper had closed to within three kilometers of the Ackbar, with only the dartships to prevent them from reaching their target. The swarm peeled away from its combat with the starfighter squadrons and came after the assault shuttles.

Exactly as Bwua’tu had expected.

One of the Alliance’s pirate-nabber Star Destroyers slid its tractor beam over and simply pulled the dartships away in a tumbling mass. Nothing remained between Task Force Stomper and its target but a thousand meters of laser-laced space. Every second or so, a blossom of color would flare somewhere in the task force as an Ackbar cannon bolt dissipated against a shuttle’s shields or a stray dartship was destroyed by a YVH gunner. But for the most part, the starfighter squadrons and the pirate-nabber tractor beam did a remarkable job of deflecting the Killik attacks.

Luke activated his task force command channel. “We’re on our own now. Fan out and get in fast.”

Instead of acknowledgments, he was greeted by a static-filled pause precisely 1.2 seconds long-the standard delay a YVH droid allowed for a biological unit to finish an incomplete thought.

Then an ultradeep Lando Calrissian voice said, “Sir, ‘fan out and get in fast’ is not a clear order.”

“Sorry.” Luke sighed, wishing there had been room to add basic soft-logic interpretation to the YVH processing unit. “Disperse to assigned zones and penetrate target hull.”

“Stomper Two acknowledging,” the platoon’s droid leader responded.

“Stomper Three acknowledging.”

A long series of deep-voiced acknowledgments began to sound inside Luke’s helmet-forty-nine other platoons in all. He passed the time by reminding himself that the bugcruncher brigade would prove well worth the irritation once Task Force Stomper entered the Ackbar. They were better armored and far more deadly than living commandos, and they would be immune to the Force-based influence attacks of Raynar Thul and Lomi Plo.