[Legacy Of The Force] - 01(38)

So she sat there, irritated with her hair, anxious to launch, her right leg bouncing up and down to help her vibrate away her irritation and impatience.

Her speakers popped, then she heard her squadron commander: “V-Sword Lead to pilots, report status.” The commander’s wing-woman immediately replied, “V-Sword Two, tip-top, ready to go.”

Lysa’s breathing grew faster. They were right on the verge of it, her first combat launch. If they were lucky, the commander had said, they wouldn’t even see combat now … and anyone who wanted to be lucky could put in a request for a transfer. Lysa didn’t want to be lucky.

She heard the pilot before her in sequence complete his acknowledgment. “V Seven,” Lysa said when it was her turn. “Two green, weapons lit.” Then the roster was on to her wingman.

Moments later, once the last of ten pilots had reported in, the squad leader said, “V-Sword Seven, we’re hearing a strange vibration over your comm.”

Guiltily, Lysa froze her right leg in place, willing it to keep from bouncing. “Sorry, sir,” she said. “Had to dog down a loose rocker arm.”

“You sure it wasn’t a rocker leg, Seven?” The squad leader’s voice sounded amused.

Lysa closed her eyes and bit back a curse. She wouldn’t reply; she wouldn’t give the man any more verbal ammunition. She ignored the faint laughter she heard over the squadron frequency.

Then a new voice: “Hyperspace jump complete. All squadrons, prepare to launch. Hardpoint Squadron, Shuttle Chandrila Skies, first in queue.” Straight ahead of Lysa’s position, but obscured by the ranks of Eta-5 interceptors ahead of her and X-wings ahead of them, a dark line appeared in the floor, then broadened into a yawning starfield.

Lysa saw the X-wings complete their power-up procedures, some of them activating repulsors and floating up a meter or two off the hangar floor. She felt a stab of irritation that the Jedi squadron would be the first fliers off Dodonna in this operation, but she forced it back.

Her own father had told her, All through your flying life, you may have to face the fact that pilots who use the Force will he able to react more quickly, aim more accurately, get the better starfighters, get the greater fame. But those of us who can’t use the Force-well, when we manage to make it to the top of our profession, we can look the Jedi in the eye and remind ourselves that we got there without any crutches.

The thought soothed her. She activated her repulsorlifts with a delicacy and precision that had to impress any Jedi looking her way-she floated exactly a meter off the hangar floor, not drifting-and turned her attention to one last check of her instrument readings.

The burners of the Jedi X-wings kicked in and they launched forward, diving down into a starry black gap leading to space. A squat armored shuttle lumbered along in their wake.

“VibroSword Squadron, launch.”

On the bridge of Dodonna, Admiral Klauskin stood near the bow viewports, taking in the view and trying to reconcile it with the words his aide spoke to him.

To starboard hung the world of Corellia, close by. They had winked in out of hyperspace on the night side, close enough that the planet blocked out the sun. The ships belonging to the operation had arrived pointed straight down at the planet and had executed a simultaneous maneuver to port, swinging into high orbit and hurtling toward the planet’s sunlit side.

To port cruised the dozens of capital craft belonging to his operation-cruisers, carriers, destroyers, frigates-and streaming from them were hundreds of starfighters and support vehicles. Every one of them cruised with running lights ablaze. Down on Corellia, all eyes would be attracted to the gleaming beauty of the GA military, to the flowing formation whose very presence said, Do not defy the most powerful authority in the galaxy.

Klauskin tuned back in to the words of his aide, Fiav Fenn, a female Sullustan. She was saying something about the accuracy of their arrival pattern, which had apparently been pleasingly within the parameters he had set down in the previous day’s staff meeting. He gently shook his head and waved to brush the topic aside. “Ground response?” he asked.

She paused as if to change gears. “None so far.”

“None?” Klauskin frowned. “How long since we dropped out of hyperspace?”

“Four minutes thirty-eight seconds,” she said. “Thirty-nine, forty, forty-one-“

“Yes, yes.” Klauskin blinked. The Corellian armed forces must be very sloppy not to have their first fighter squadrons off the ground after more than four and a half minutes.

Then the other fleet winked into existence.

He saw the flicker of green running lights in his left-side peripheral vision even as the bridge’s threat alarms began howling. The admiral spun to look and stood there, transfixed.