ADMIRAL NIATHAL’S FLAGSHIP OCEAN; OFF FONDOR
Jacen Solo’s open comlink spewed uncharacteristically loud chaos onto Niathal’s calm bridge.
“Enemy vessels, I repeat enemy vessels, estimate five destroyers, type unknown, twenty light cruisers, no… fifteen….. range five hundred…”
She stared at her chart repeaters. Nothing. Just the ships she hoped and expected to find, the Third and Fourth fleet components. She looked up, searching for a simple explanation, and the electronic warfare control section-all ten officers-was staring back at her as one bemused being, equally dumbfounded, screens visibly devoid of frantic, blinking UNIDENTIFED icons even from her position. One officer suddenly swung back to her screen and started punching in code. Nobody else said a word. Everyone with a sensor or screen was searching, cross-checking, looking to see what they’d missed and what bedlam was unfolding out there. Had the hyperjump disrupted all their calibra-tion? Were they about to be vaporized?
“What is that man doing?” Niathal was genuinely thrown, wondering if she might have interrupted him on some morale-boosting dry-run pre-attack; that was the kind of irrational mystic stuff he’d do at a time like this. “Colonel Solo, this is Ocean, we do not see the targets, tepeat, we do not see the targets…”
The officer of the watch and his juniors were at the forward viewscreen, physically searching through the transparisteel for whatever Jacen could detect but they couldn’t. There was only so much a lookout could spot with the unaided eye against a starfield and from this position in the ship, but given what Jacen was calling in, they should have been able to see activity and the glitter of faceted surfaces bouncing raw sunlight back at them. And Jacen’s voice-impressively calm, Niathal had to give him that-continued to fill the bridge, transmitting approximated ranges and positions relative to his own.
“I’ve got him, ma’am, “said the EWO who’d been tapping at her console. “I’ve mapped his comlink signal onto the holochart. Watch the purple trace.”
It was just a blob of violet light set a little way apart from an orderly pattern of blue transponder markers. The blue markers were in two distinct formations, pennant codes valid, showing two GA task forces. The violet light-Jacen Solo’s StealthX-was racing across the hoJochart, jinking and looping, as if it were navigating through a con-gested spacelane and avoiding bigger vessels.
Niathal’s initial shock, which had set her blood pumping hard enough to hear in her ears, was ebbing into disbelief and a different kind of worry. She glanced down at the comlink panel. Jacen was patched through to her and to the Anakin Solo’s bridge.
Okay. Let’s share your unique Sith insight, shall we, Colonel?
She flicked a key and the voice channel went to every bridge comlink in the two fleets.
“Ma’am, confirmed zero contacts.” The EWO seemed to hesitate, as if saying what was now on Niathal’s mind and probably everyone else’s was a little rude. “There’s nothing out there, unless someone has cloaking technology we don’t know about and Colonel Solo is able to see past it… being a Jedi, and all that.”
It was an outside chance, Niathal knew. Just to be on the safe side, she turned to the weapons officer.
“Bargos, lob the smallest torp you’ve got at one of those coordinates the colonel gave, will you?” she said. “See if we hit anything solid.”
“Very good, ma’am…” Bargos had a chartful of phantom targets to choose from. He keyed in a course with nothing to lock on to, and issued the standard warning across the task force. “Stand by, stand by, all vessels, live weapon, test-firing, bearing and course…. that… in five standard seconds…. and torpedo away.” They waited.
The torpedo’s sensor trace tracked steadily across the screen. It passed the projected impact point and carried on going…. and going. It looked like it would make it to Bestine in a few years, unimpeded by any mystery target.
“Maybe it’s moved…, “Bargos said, struggling to keep a straight face. It wasn’t humor; it was nerve-fraying anxiety, not about an invisible enemy, but about a commander who was behaving irrationally.
“Whoa, he’s lost it, “said a whispered voice behind Niathal, barely audible. “Told you he’d flipped, when he did that to Tebut…”
Jacen was still transmitting, calm but definitely confused.
“Anakin Solo, I have… lost visual.” There was a pause.
“Very good sir.”
“Anakin Solo, respond, did you confirm my visual? Anything?”