[Dark Nest] - 3(97)

Then clawcraft from the two trailing squadrons began to drop down to meet them. They seemed to be moving in slow motion, since the atmosphere even this high was thick enough to slow down a starfighter and tear it apart if it maneuvered too sharply. But the distances were also smaller-dozens of kilometers instead of hundreds-and within a few heartbeats, the dark specks of the first Chiss fighters came into view and began to rain cannon bolts down on the StealthXs.

Sneaky reported that they had a target-lock. Jaina confirmed that it was the correct vessel, then sensed Zekk doing the same. They launched their torpedoes together and watched the white dots of the propulsion tails vanish into the green sky.

A second later the first laser bolt slammed into Jaina’s forward shields, spilling orange flame in front of her canopy and reverberating inside the cockpit as shield hits never did in space. Zekk slipped in close and slightly ahead of her, buying time for her shields to recover by placing himself between her and their attackers. They continued to climb like that, barely five meters apart, juking and jinking as one, pouring fire back up at the clawcraft.

Then Sneaky chirped in surprise, and Jaina checked her tactical display to find both sets of proton torpedoes detonating twenty kilometers from the defoliators-well short of where any countermeasures should have taken effect.

“What the Hutt happened?”

The tactical display replayed the last several seconds, and Jaina saw four clawcraft come streaking in to intercept the proton torpedoes head-on. One of the pilots was lucky enough to blast his target out of the air with cannon fire, but the other three missed and stopped the torpedoes by crashing into them.

That’s spaced-even for Chiss! Zekk said through their shared mind.

Maybe the defoliators don’t have countermeasures, Jaina suggested.

Or maybe the Chiss just want to be really sure those ships deliver their payloads, Zekk said.

Zekk took a hit in his shields, then Jaina slipped into the forward position. The enemy squadrons were coming head-on, a mad tactic as dangerous for them as it was for their targets. They were coming in waves of four, the leaders already so close that they were the size of fists. Jaina and Zekk picked the second one from the left and fired together, pounding through its shields by landing five cannon strikes simultaneously.

Before the fireball died away, Jaina and Zekk switched targets. The first wave was so close now that they could see the laser bolts streaming from the tips of the forward-pointing “claws” that gave the starfighters their nicknames. The Jedi fired again, aiming where the Force told them the craft was going rather than where it was. The pilot accommodated them by jinking into their line of fire, and the starfighter vanished in a flash of yellow flame.

Jaina and Zekk were just turning their attention to their next victim when the crash of a triple cannon strike shook Jaina’s cockpit. Her instrument panel lit up with depletion lights and damage warnings, but she could not hear the alarms-or Sneaky’s tweedling-over the roar of the explosion.

Zekk slipped into the lead position, and they began to pour cannon bolts at the next clawcraft. The two survivors from the first wave had swollen in apparent diameter to the size of a Bith’s head, but they were barrel-rolling and bobbing and weaving so hard now that, at such short range, the StealthXs could not aim their laser cannons quickly enough to hit the targets.

Sneaky scrolled a message across Jaina’s display. IT IS IMPERATIVE THAT WE TURN BACK IMMEDIATELY. WE HAVE LOST OUR FORWARD SHIELD CAPACITOR!

“So?” Jaina asked. “We still have shields for now, right?”

UNTIL WE SUFFER THE NEXT HIT, Sneaky replied. AND IF WE ARE FORCED TO EJECT, I DON’T HAVE A PARACHUTE!

“Relax,” Jaina said. “I have the Force.”

The Chiss finally rolled the wrong way. A trio of hits punched through his shields and took off an attack claw, sending him into an uncontrolled spin. He vanished into the roiling gray-green clouds below, and then the last clawcraft was on them, not evading, just coming straight at the StealthXs with all four cannons blazing.

Zekk’s shields overloaded and flashed out in a second. Before Jaina could move into lead position, his StealthX took a hit in the nose and another in an upper wing, and still the clawcraft kept coming.

Then Jaina realized the pilot had no intention of veering away. With her and Zekk flying in overlap formation, the explosion from a midair collision would be enough to take them both out.

The thought had barely entered Jaina’s mind before Zekk was breaking left. Jaina broke in the opposite direction, trying to force a hesitation by making the enemy choose between targets.

The Chiss was too good to hesitate. He smoothly switched targets and took aim at the side of Jaina’s StealthX, pounding through her shields and blowing head-sized holes into her fuselage. Unable to shoot back, she used the Force to tip his clawcraft downward, redirecting his fire and forcing him into a dive that carried him beneath her starfighter instead of crashing into it.