[Legacy Of The Force] - 05(53)

She asked herself that question more often these days, and the answer always came up negative. Jacen Solo would think she was a hopeless wet liberal.

She wondered how she was going to wipe him off her boots when the time came. It wouldn’t be easy.

“Bounty, Daring, stand by.”

Twelve fighters shot out of the Bounty’s hangar bay, spiraling away from the warship and streaking off in pursuit of the Bothan frigate. Then the three flights separated. Observation cams in each cockpit gave Bounty’s combined bridge and combat information center a composite view of the engagement. Daring sat off Bounty’s starboard bow, ready to divert any Bothan retaliation from her larger charge.

“Did you ever train as a pilot, ma’am?” Piris asked.

“No. You?”

“Indeed I did. At times like this, I miss it.”

“If we get any busier, Captain, there’ll be a droid running this ship and you’ll be flying sorties. Where that leaves me I have no idea.”

“You’ll be Chief of State, ma’am,” said Piris.

The worst thing about Quarren was that their amusement wasn’t as easy to spot as a human’s. With a human, all those teeth on display made life easier. Quarren face-tentacles could hide a multitude of emotions.

“That’ll be the day,” she said, hoping to avoid more gossip about her ambitions. Right then being Chief of State didn’t matter at all. She had a battle, and all her training and instinct kicked in to say this was where she wanted to be, not behind a desk.

The first flight to come within range of the Bothan frigate shadowed it, cutting back and forth across its path at a thousand meters. The second flight trailed aft of it, scanning the hull and sending back data.

It took a few seconds for the Bothans to react; perhaps some of their systems were still offline. The ship picked up speed and began to move out of the Bothawui limits, its accompanying tenders trailing like escort fish.

So the Bothans thought they had a nice new asset to surprise the Alliance, but the Alliance had spotted it. Niathal waited for the reaction while the third flight of Mothma Squadron monitored the situation, weapons trained but not locked. There was no point blowing it to pieces before they’d taken the measure of the new class.

“Very heavy hull plating for a frigate,” said Niathal, looking at the recce scans coming back from the starfighters. Piris pored over the images and penetrating scans, too. “At least a dozen turbolasers and twenty cannons.”

“Not exceptional.”

“Depends how many hulls they have.”

They didn’t have long to wait to find out how many vessels were out there. The weapons officer shouted at the same time as the sensor warning Klaxon sounded.

“Sir, enemy contact at—correction, multiple contacts in range. We’ve got trade.”

“Bounty, Daring, close up at battle stations, synchronize command information. Helm, all ahead. Qaresi Squadron, launch—Bronzium and remainder of air group, launch when ready.”

Nobody said ambush. The cockpit chatter from the pilots broke in. “Copy that… five, six … correction, ten—detecting cannons charging, will engage—”

“Targeting source.”

“I make that nineteen—”

“He’s got a lock on me.”

“Got your six. Deploying chaff.”

Piris’s face-tentacles were completely still. It gave him a commendable look of calm. “Cannons, engage all Bothan vessels in range, in your own time, go on …”

One moment they’d been watching a single fresh-out-of-the-box frigate, and the next more were dropping out of hyperspace at regular five-second intervals. Mothma Squadron picked up images on their cockpit cams: all in the same Bothan livery, all brand spanking new and unmarked by debris pocks and scrapes.

A flare of red laser blazed on the screens as one XJ cam view winked out and the fighter broke up into spinning, red-hot debris. Pilots’ voices were still audible in the background, but the focus on the bridge was on “fighting the ship”—attacking the enemy. Daring moved between Bounty and the Bothan flotilla. Her cannons and lasers showed up on the synchronized command information screen as blinking icons, fully charged and acquiring firing solutions.

“Eight contacts not firing, sir, and no sign of charging cannons.” Bounty shuddered from deflected pulsed laserfire. Niathal moved to supervise damage control, which was already under a competent commander, but there was nothing worse than an idle visiting admiral on a ship at battle stations. She needed to be occupied.

“Take them out anyway.” Piris turned to Niathal. “If they cripple us, at least we transmitted the data we have. If they don’t—that’s a whole Bothan flotilla that never leaves home.”