“No, no, maintain formation!” She couldn’t keep the desperation out of her voice. The original orders to scatter only made sense if every craft was a short distance from the safe haven of Corellia-didn’t the idiots see that? “We’ve got to run this gauntlet at high speed…”
“Belay that,” came a voice over the comm. It was female and a bit rough, a close match to Lavint’s own. “This is the real Captain Lavint. Follow your orders. Scatter.” This voice was calm, self-assured.
Blatta nodded as if impressed. “Sounds just like you.”
“Shut up.” Lavint put her cargo ship on a new course, vectoring downward relative to her current orientation.
Blatta offered up a sigh. It sounded like a bantha passing gas. “At least they can’t know which vessel is carrying which cargo. Since we’re not the biggest ship in the fleet, they might not pay us special attention…”
Breathe My jets shuddered so hard that Lavint’s teeth clacked together and Blatta shook like a plate full of Corellian spice-jelly. The cockpit lights dimmed for a second.
Frantically, Lavint wrenched the controls around in a new direction, but Breathe My jets was not a small, nimble craft. In the agonizing seconds it took the cargo vessel to take a new bearing, she heard Blatta calmly describing their situation: “The ISD at the port tip of the chevron formation is firing on us. The first hit was against our engines. If it hits again…”
Breathe My jets shuddered a second time, hard enough that Lavint would have been thrown from her seat if the restraining straps hadn’t been buckled in place. The cockpit lights dimmed again, and the displays all showed static for a second.
The lights did not come up this time, and the cargo ship stopped responding to Lavint’s handling. The displays cleared of static. Running on emergency power, they began scrolling a list of damage sustained by the ship.
Blatta watched the data roll by. “Engines out.”
“Thank you for that holonews update.”
Blatta shrugged. “It’s been good working with you, Captain. I only wish…”
“Wish what?”
“That you weren’t half a year behind in what you owe me.”
He switched his main display over to follow the progress of the battle now raging all around them.
OUTSIDE THE CORELLIAN SYSTEM
ANAKIN SOLO
In the Command Salon of the Star Destroyer Anakin Solo, Jacen Solo stood staring through the forward viewports. He could see the last few twinkles and flashes of laserfire as this abortive space combat drew to a close.
He chose not to follow the events more closely on the readily available computer displays. Instead he reached out through the Force, sampling the ships and vehicles he could see, looking for oddness, discrepancy, tragedy.
He found none. The smugglers, outmaneuvered and outgunned, gave up almost to a ship. A few nimble craft got away, making the jump to lightspeed before the warships of Jacen’s task force could cripple them, but most did not; the majority of the smugglers floated, helpless, their engines destroyed by laserfire or their electronics systems rendered inert by ion cannons. Shuttles were now moving from ship to ship, picking up smuggling crews, dropping off the personnel who would bring the captured craft back to GA facilities, directing tractor beams. In another hour or two this section of space would be empty of everything but a few debris clouds that had once been engine housings.
“Our agent would like to speak with you,” said Ebbak. A dark-haired human woman with skin the color of desert sand, she was short and unremarkable of appearance but had been of considerable help to him since he had been assigned the Anakin Solo. A civilian employee aboard ship, assigned to data analysis, she had demonstrated a knack for knowing what sort of information Jacen would need and when, and for supplying it at useful times. He was considering whether she would be interested in trading her civilian’s post for a commission with Galactic Alliance Guard; he could benefit from someone with her skills if she proved as loyal as she was dutiful.
She had not quite materialized beside him-he had felt her walk up-but her approach had been silent. Perhaps she would also prove adept at stealth work.
The question annoyed Jacen; his mind was occupied by details of the capture of the smuggler fleet, and he needed to begin thinking about his upcoming meeting with the Corellian representative. “Why would I want to speak with her? And please don’t call her our agent. She betrayed her comrades for money. She is our temporary hireling. She is their traitor. She is nobody’s agent but her own.”
Ebbak paused, then evidently decided not to address, those last few comments. “She didn’t say what she wanted. But since she’s already proven that she had one piece of information useful to us…”