He activated his comm on the special coded frequency they’d rigged.
“Defender Central, this is Lwyll. Come in, Central.”
Mako’s voice in his helmet. “We read you, Lwyll. Have you spotted them?”
“Affirmative, Central.” Roa checked his sensors and rear tactical display.
“They are deployed, and advancing.”
“Good, that’s what we want, remember. Just keep leading them in. Cut your speed a little, if you can do it without giving yourself away, Roa. I’m sending Elegant Interlude and Star Traveler out to help you lead at least one of those pickets to where we want it.”
“I read you, Central.”
Roa slowed down a bit, making sure to do it gradually. He was startled at how quickly the Carrackclass vessels were approaching. Fast ships!
He was glad Mako had assigned the two ships he had to help out. Both were speedy vessels, and Danith Jalay and Renna Strego were experienced captains.
He took a deep breath. The fear was still there, deep down somewhere, but it no longer threatened his thinking processes.
Settling deep into his seat, Roa concentrated on the task at hand.
On the bridge of the Dragon Pearl, Mako Spince watched the sensors and tactical readouts, hardly daring to blink. The Pearl was too large to actually hide amid the floating hulks and debris, the way some of the smaller vessels could, but he’d ordered Blue to position her so that the Carrackclass ships wouldn’t spot her until they had the Imp vessels where they wanted them.
Mako saw that one Carrackclass ship, the Outpost, had altered course to approach the other side of Nar Shaddaa, while the Vigilance continued toward the ambush. That made sense, since Greelanx couldn’t know where the smugglers would engage him. Once the smuggler attack began, the Outpost would probably just wait there, rather than engaging, ready to report on and possibly engage any smuggler ships attempting to escape the Imperial attack.
The other Carrackclass, the one whose ship ID broadcast identified her as the Vigilance, continued to move toward his position.
Almost there, Mako thought, wiping his sweating palms on his trousers.
Almost…
Falan Iniro was a Corellian, and his friends frequently told him he was hotheaded and impulsive. Iniro would counter this criticism by pointing out that his quickness to act was usually a virtue, often giving him the jump on the sweetest deal, the finest cargo, the best sabacc hand.
Now, aboard his modified YT-1210-class light freighter, the Take That!, Iniro chafed at the waiting. Blast it, he thought, what’s going on?
It was frustrating, having to hide here in the shadow of a wrecked freighter, grappled to its side by a magnetic claw. Iniro checked his instruments again, and this time, something caught his attention.
Something really big was moving toward them. Close, really close.
It has to be one of them, Iniro thought. He wished for a moment that he’d installed new sensors, modern ones with better ID capability.
Aloud he said to his gunner, a Rodian named Gadaf, “Hey, Gadaf, I got something on the sensors. Get ready to shoot.”
“Okay, Captain,” the Rodian said. “Standing by.”
Some of the other smugglers had commented that they thought the Take That!
was too lightly armed to go against an Imperial ship, but Falan Iniro was convinced that his piloting skills—which were considerable—would more than make up for the fact that he had only a single laser, mounted in a turret on the top of the ship.
“I just wish …” the Rodian’s voice reached him, sounding wistful.
“You wish what?”
“That we’d had time to calibrate the sights on this laser, boss. I keep having to compensate for it. It’s firing consistently to the right.”
Iniro was not sympathetic. “That’s easy to compensate for, Gadaf. I score hits with that laser all the time.”
“Yes, I know, boss,” the Rodian said. “I don’t do too bad, either.”
“Huh …” Irritated, Iniro fidgeted. When are we going to get our blasted orders?
The something bigmwhatever it was—had moved almost past the Take That!
on Iniro’s sensors.
Come on, come on! What are you-Iniro’s body went rigid as he heard a voice in his headphones. Mako Spince’s voice, garbled by distance and intervening space debris, but still recognizable. “First Strike Element, this is Defender Central. Prepare to–-” Iniro let out a whoop, and realized that he hadn’t quite caught that last word.
“Engage,” wasn’t it? He was pretty sure.
For a moment he thought of keying his comm and asking, “Say again, Central,” but he didn’t. The other guys would laugh at him, and he’d get left behind as they attacked!