Dark Tide 1: Onslaught (27 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

A whistle from Catch prompted Gavin to check his secondary monitor. The shuttle
Impervious
was moving forward, into the battle over the ground army. While the shuttle had powerful shields and weapons, it was much safer and more effective hanging back with the other ships, pouring fire into the ground troopers.

Gavin keyed his comm unit. “
Impervious,
this is Rogue Lead. What are you doing?”

Senator A'Kla's voice came back through the comm channel all serene. “Master Skywalker has a task for us, Colonel. Here he is.”

“Gavin, I need two of you to make a run on the large lead vehicle down there. I need four torps, all coming in at the same flank. We'll give you the telemetry.” The Jedi's voice betrayed a hint of excitement. “Can you do it?”

“As ordered, Jedi One.” Gavin punched a button, bringing his squadron's tactical frequency into the channel. “Sticks, on me. A Jedi wants us to shoot a spread at the big lead vehicle out there.”

“I copy, Lead, coming in on your vector now.”

“Capture the telemetry data from
Impervious
and use it to shoot.”

“As ordered, Lead.” Jaina's voice rose a bit. “Going to drill a range.”

Gavin smiled to himself.
You and me both, Sticks.
“Two and Twelve, keep the last skips off us.”

Double clicks from comm units confirmed that their wingmen had heard the order and would comply with it. Gavin kicked his X-wing up onto the port S-foils, then dove and leveled out a hundred meters over the battlefield. Lines of plasma bolts stretched out toward him, but they came slowly enough that he was able to dance his fighter between them.

He dropped the aiming reticle over the slow-moving vehicle, then flipped a switch that turned control of the torpedoes' flight data to the
Impervious
. He kept his fighter pointed on target, then hit the trigger. Two proton torpedoes jetted away on azure fire, and another two came from his port. All four headed in on target.

Catch reported a gravitic anomaly, somewhat larger than most, had positioned itself to intercept the missiles. Gavin narrowed his eyes, waiting for the blast.
I hope you know what you're doing, Luke.

Leia stalked through the refugees, occasionally glancing up to see Danni and Lando as they wove their way through groups. Once Leia discerned the people who were actually exuding terror, she told them to move toward the perimeter of the holding area. The knot of refugees slowly shrank, and Leia could feel tension beginning to intensify in the area.
Those who are left behind know we're searching for something, and they hope it isn't them.

Lando had gotten a step ahead of Danni when the young woman gasped. She pointed at an older woman and a man of an age to be her adult son. Lando spun, bringing his blaster up, but the old woman's fingers sprouted claws. She raked her right hand up across Lando's chest, shredding his blue tunic and spinning him into a group of screaming refugees.

As the old woman came up to her full height, the ooglith masquer stretched into a parody of what she had been. Leia brought her blaster carbine around and clipped off two shots. One missed high, but the second burned through the Yuuzhan Vong's throat. His hands clutched at the wound as he went down, with black fluid and white pus flowing out between his fingers.

The Yuuzhan Vong who had masqueraded as her son dove to the right and came up from a somersault with Lando's blaster in one hand and a small child clutched to his chest with the other arm. The Yuuzhan Vong croaked at her as he pressed the blaster pistol to the blond little girl's head.

“Harm me. This dies.”

The malevolence in the words could not be missed, but the lack of it coming through the Force seemed incongruous to Leia. She raised her own blaster carbine and sighted in on the Yuuzhan Vong's head. “You won't kill
just one,
so I'll take that risk.”

The Yuuzhan Vong took a moment to parse Leia's words, then brought the pistol around to point it at her. Before he could pull the trigger, however, the power pack slid from the weapon and slowly tumbled to the ground. The alien's taut human mask stretched oddly as the face beneath it contorted into a surprised grimace. Leia triggered a shot that passed over the child's head and incinerated a hole through the Yuuzhan Vong's forehead.

The warrior pitched over backward, cushioning his hostage with his own body. It did take a moment for the child's terrified mother to pry her from the Yuuzhan Vong's arms, by which time the child realized she was supposed to be afraid. The little girl started crying, but the cries were muffled as her mother hugged the child tightly to her.

Leia's comlink buzzed. “Go ahead.”

“Mara here. I found tracks for a half-dozen Yuuzhan Vong.”

“We got two here, so there must be one more . . .”

“I got him.”

“Are you hurt?”

“Some scratches. He just went to pieces, though.” Levity lightened Mara's voice. “I'll stay out here and see what else I can scare up.”

Leia ran over to where Danni was helping Lando sit up. The Yuuzhan Vong's claws had scratched him deeply, but Lando seemed more concerned about the state of his shirt than he was the wounds. He held his bloodied hands out in front of him as if looking for something on which to wipe them off. He considered using his cloak for a moment, then rejected that plan.

Leia waved over two volunteers. “Get Lando to an aid station.”

“I'll be fine, Leia.”

“You'll be fine after we stop your leaking.”

Lando nodded toward the dead Yuuzhan Vong. “Neat trick slipping the clip like that. I knew you had that in mind when you invited him to shoot toward you instead of the kid.”

“Not me, Lando. Danni did the trick.” Leia smiled at the young scientist. “That was very brave.”

“Was it? I guess, maybe.” Danni shivered. “Being that close to a Yuuzhan Vong again, I just didn't know what to do. What Jaina taught me, I tried to calm myself down, but it didn't work. I thought . . . I guess it worked, the trick.”

“You saved my life, Danni. A small victory for us, and a small defeat for them.” Leia sighed and looked out toward the south.
Let's hope the others can scale our victories up so we can get out of here alive.

In
Impervious
's cockpit, Luke pointed toward the large vehicle. “Get us closer.”

“Yes, Master Skywalker.”

“How's the missile telemetry coming through, Artoo?”

The little droid tootled confidently, spinning his head around to look at Luke.

A beep sounded from the droid, and Elegos glanced at a secondary monitor. “I have four torpedo launches. All are hot.”

“Good.”

Luke sank back into the chair and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath and reached out through the Force. He let his sense of things ride above the frayed ones' jagged profile and vectored in toward the vehicle. He got no solid sense of it directly, though a few frayed ones did appear to be housed inside. Instead he used that emptiness as a way point to search out a void, and as it formed, the black hole blossomed fully in the Force.

The void that the vehicle's dovin basals created to intercept the missiles was a gravitic anomaly that had substance in the real world. Tiny threads of the Force leaked into it as insects and birds, bats and bugs were pulled into it. Luke used their vanishing life traces and the very currents in the air that the void created to define the void. He traced its edges, knew exactly where it was, and knew how powerful it was.

He opened himself to the Force more fully than he had in years. He sought more power than he had when freeing his nephew. The Force flooded into him, at once molten-metal hot, yet as soothing as a cool rain. It swirled through him, filling every cell of his body, freeing him from fatigue, sharpening his mind.

Luke reached out with that power and latched onto the void that the Yuuzhan Vong vehicle had created. He pushed a bit, then tugged, in nanoseconds getting a feel for the power the dovin basals were able to exert to control the void. He almost smiled, since that amount of power was nothing compared to the Force, but he stopped himself short of pride in that fact.

“Artoo, juke the missiles.”

R2-D2 keened sharply and fed the proton torpedoes a new set of data. The torpedoes twisted in flight and arced toward the sky, flying up and over the void. Then they turned again and fell toward the ground, aimed at the vehicle's spine.

Immediately the dovin basals started to shift the void to cover this new attack vector. Luke fed the Force into his hold on the void, thwarting them. Their pressure increased, and still Luke held it unmoving. The torpedoes got closer and closer. The dovin basals pulled harder, and when their effort reached a new peak, Luke let the void slip over toward intercepting the proton torpedoes.

The dovin basals devoted their efforts to sliding the void into place, which required both some lateral movement and shortening the arc over which the void would travel. As they brought it close to the vehicle, Luke pushed with the Force. Since the dovin basals were already tugging the void back toward the vehicle, they were not prepared to have the travel accelerated.

The void crashed into the vehicle, striking it in midspine. The long vehicle bent backward as both ends became sucked into the black hole. It flowed like thick liquid, all the sharp horns and bony plates becoming fluid as they curved up over the void's event horizon. In less than an eye blink the vehicle had been consumed by the void, leaving a huge gap in the Yuuzhan Vong formation.

Then the proton torpedoes detonated. One after another the four missiles slammed into the ground and exploded. Their blasts scattered Yuuzhan Vong warriors and lit the night. They gouged a huge canyon across the Yuuzhan Vong line of advance, and the shock waves were such that the ground rippled even into the refugee compound. Soldiers fell on both sides of the battlefield, and ramparts collapsed.

“What now, Master Skywalker?”

Luke stared at the Caamasi for a moment, trying to reply, but a wave of exhaustion crested over him and eroded his ability to think. He shook his head, then slumped back in the chair. The Force energy he had used to help the Yuuzhan Vong destroy themselves had drained out of him completely, leaving him limp and barely able to keep his eyes open.

“Master Skywalker?”

“Do . . . what you . . . think best, Senator,” Luke managed to say before the world closed in on him tight and black.

Anakin picked himself up off the ground and blinked away the flash of torpedo detonations that had ruined his night vision. He found his lightsaber and brought it to hand, then called out for his brother. “Jacen! Jacen!”

He turned to his left as he heard a reply, then lashed at the crowd of reptoids swarming over his brother. He cut one or two away, then a ripple of Force energy pulsed upward, scattering the others. Some rolled to their feet and struck wildly at him, but Anakin parried their assaults easily and replied with cuts that dropped them.

Bleeding from the nose and mouth, with his left eye slowly swelling shut, Jacen regained his feet. He extended his right hand, drawing his lightsaber to it, and in a second, thumbed the green blade to life. “That thing, that vehicle, must have been a warmaster, a command and control center. The slaves have gone mad.”

All around them the reptoids swarmed over the ramparts. Many had dropped their weapons and howled, tearing at the nearest target with their claws and teeth. They did not limit their assaults to Bril'nilim's troopers, but attacked each other. It seemed less a military force than a swarm of insects pouring into the camp.

The two young Jedi moved into the flow of the reptoids. Anakin slashed right and left, cutting down Yuuzhan Vong soldiers as he went. With Jacen, he angled over to the right, clearing a path to several of Bril'nilim's troopers who had become trapped. With them in tow, they fought their way deeper into the refugee camp. Ahead of them from where the refugees had gathered, blaster fire sounded. Anakin could see errant bolts flying off in all directions, which suggested to him some confusion among the volunteers defending the refugees.

Above them the
Impervious
swooped and poured gouts of fire into the massed soldiery. Smaller blaster bolts thinned the ranks between the Jedi and the refugees. Jacen and Anakin darted forward, using their lightsabers to redirect blaster bolts away from the troopers coming with them and at reptoids. They broke into the refugee compound and fended off more reptoids, but those that had gotten through had already wrought havoc.

Blaster-burnt reptoid bodies lay everywhere, splashed with the blood of their victims. Children lay broken, and men and women stared sightlessly up at the bellies of the freighters beneath which they'd huddled. Moans and screams filled the area, sparked by the whine of blaster bolts or the sight of another reptoid face.

Leia ran to her sons, and Anakin saw she'd been wounded. “Mom, you're hurt.”

“Not that badly. Elegos says the second half of the Yuuzhan Vong host is still coming. Luke can't deal with the other vehicle. The torpedoes bought us some time, though.” She pointed at the freighters. “We have to get everyone aboard and out of here as fast as we can. We have to leave Dantooine.”

Jacen frowned. “But there wasn't enough food for a run to another system before, and we've been here for days . . .”

Anakin looked around. “Not as many mouths to feed anymore.”

His older brother hesitated for a moment. “Oh.”

“It doesn't matter, boys.” Leia clapped them on the shoulders. “Get started rounding people up. Get them to move. We've precious little time before we all die.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Jaina Solo rolled her X-wing to port and leveled out for a ground-attack strafing run. Sparky switched her targeting controls over to ground-attack mode, which superimposed a targeting grid over her view of the ground. On the secondary monitor the sensors calculated the number of life signs found in each square of the grid and then colored those squares. The brightest colors meant they had the highest concentrations of life. The heads-up display likewise added these colors to the grid it displayed, but in muted tones so the pilot could still see the ground.

Jaina ruddered her X-wing around and hit the flicker trigger for the lasers. Hundreds of laser splinters shot through the night, lancing down toward the Yuuzhan Vong soldiers climbing up out of the pit the proton torpedoes had created. Some of the splinters hit nothing, others ricocheted into the air after touching armor, but most stabbed through reptoids, killing them instantly.

She pulled up, trying to climb her X-wing above the sensation of life-forms dying, but their pain and despair clung to her like mud to a boot. She detested having to slaughter so many individuals, but she also knew she had no choice. These reptoids were coming on in good order, and from the chaos that marked the refugee camp, either she killed the reptoids on the ground or they'd kill the refugees.
And my mother and brothers and Danni . . .

Gavin's voice crackled as it came through the comm unit. “Rogues, we have a new assignment. The freighters are lifting off. We have them outbound.” His voice faltered for a moment. “Each one of you picks up a freighter. Assignments coming now.”

Jaina saw that she'd been attached to the
Impervious
, which she didn't mind, but it was the sixth ship in the convoy. “Sparky, give me a rundown on which Rogues are still operational!”

The droid came back with a grim report. Colonel Darklighter and Captain Nevil were all that were left of One flight. Two flight had been reduced to Major Forge. Three flight had fared better, with Major Varth, Jaina, and her wing mate, Anni Capstan, still alive, but the squadron as a whole had been cut in half. Savage Squadron was down to one flight, and the Toughs . . .
They're all gone . . . We swept the skies of the skips, but at a great cost.

Jaina keyed her comm. “Do we have outbound coordinates, Colonel?”

“Solution in progress, Sticks.”

She shook her head. The reason they had come to Dantooine was because they had too many people to travel a long distance in hyperspace. They had no supplies.
Either we found supplies or . . .
She glanced at the backlit bodies strewn around the camp beneath the freighters lifting off.

A lump rose in her throat.
I hope none . . .
She almost reached out with the Force to try to find her mother or brothers or uncle, but she focused herself instead on dropping her ship in on the shuttle's port wing and pulling for stars.
I have a mission to perform here before I worry about my family.

“Sparky, have you received those coordinates?”

The little droid tootled as it downloaded the navigational information. Jaina's X-wing and shuttle cleared the Dantooine atmosphere before any of the other ships and moved into a high orbit around the world. The other ships followed them, lining up perfectly in an orbit that would take them from pole to pole around Dantooine.

Sparky whistled and fed the solution to Jaina's secondary monitor.

“Agamar! Just where we wanted to head anyway. And the outbound vector is coming up just on the other side of the pole . . .”

The droid shrilled, and Jaina looked out her viewport. Coming up over the edge of Dantooine's disk, sitting in the outbound vector for Agamar, was a Yuuzhan Vong cruiser. Jaina couldn't be certain that it was the one they'd already damaged, but some of the spines were broken. Worse yet, as the secondary monitor showed, the cruiser was again employing its dovin basals to create a gravitic anomaly strong enough to prevent any ship from making the jump to hyperspace.

“This is Rogue Eleven. We have a Yuuzhan Vong cruiser acting as an Interdictor again. We're going nowhere.”

In the shuttle's cockpit, Leia stood between the seats her brother and Elegos occupied. “Jaina's right, that will stop us from traveling away from here.”

In the distance red-gold plasma bolts started flying lazily toward the convoy. All the shots passed high. The intent of the gunners seemed clearly to be to herd the ships back down to Dantooine.
Where the ground troops can finish us.

Luke winced and pulled himself up in the seat. “I don't know how much I can do, Leia.”

She patted Luke on the shoulder. “You may not have to do it alone, Luke.” Leia keyed the comm unit. “Colonel Darklighter, what do the Rogues have left in the way of proton torpedoes?”

“We have one left, Highness. We'll drop it in on the cruiser if you want. We can take our fighters in and strafe. Perhaps that will be enough to pull the interdiction field off.”

Leia shook her head as Elegos pointed to new sensor traces coming up. “Negative, Rogue Leader. We have new coralskipper traces on sensor. The cruiser is launching fighters. Looks like they really
do
want us back down there.”

“We'll convince them otherwise.”

She shivered. “It feels to me as if Dubrillion and this fight here have all been an exercise. The Yuuzhan Vong have been learning. This Interdictor tactic is something they didn't do in the first attack on Dubrillion. They want to herd us back down there to test us again. If we try to run, we die up here. If we don't, we die down there. Either way we're dead.”

Luke shook his head. “That's not certain.”

Leia frowned. “How can you say that?” She gasped, then covered her mouth with a hand. “You have a vision in the Force?”

“Glimmerings.”

The sensor console beeped. Elegos glanced at it, then cocked his head to the left. “Something coming out of hyperspace. Something big.”

The reversion to realspace for the
Ralroost
occurred several seconds sooner than Admiral Kre'fey had intended. In the instant the white tunnel through which his ship had been traveling began to fall apart he knew at least one Yuuzhan Vong cruiser had made itself into an Interdictor. The only reason for this could be to prevent the escape of the ships that had been grounded there.
Which means I've arrived right in time.

He glanced over at his weapons-control officer. “Tell the
Corusca Fire
to let go with everything they have. Fire for effect what we have, as well.”

The black Bothan weapons-control officer snarled orders into a comm unit. Golden streaks of turbolaser fire flashed out at the Yuuzhan Vong cruiser. Blue bolts of ion cannon beams lanced down. A tremor ran through the
Ralroost
as the twenty proton torpedo launchers on board spat out their deadly missiles.

The
Corusca Fire,
which was an old
Victory
-class Star Destroyer, likewise launched all the concussion missiles it had available. Eighty rockets spiraled in at the Yuuzhan Vong cruiser, with each target evenly spaced around the enemy ship so no one void could capture more than one missile.

The gravitic anomaly that had dragged the New Republic ships prematurely from hyperspace evaporated as the dovin basals broke off to stop the incoming missiles and laser fire. Whether because the assault just overwhelmed the available dovin basals, or the creatures had exhausted themselves creating the interdiction field, they failed to intercept all the lasers and missiles. Proton torpedoes pulverized yorik coral hull panels. Turbolasers melted plasma spines and scored long furrows in the ship's hull. More than one spine broke off and floated free in space.

The Yuuzhan Vong cruiser fired back with its plasma cannons. Red-gold gouts of energy slammed into the
Ralroost
's shields, nibbling away at them. The golden energy coating faded, and drained away 20 percent of the shields' power as it did so, but the shields still held.

But if we have to slug it out with them, they won't hold for long.
The idea of those plasma blasts getting through to melt his ship's hull sent a trickle of fear through Kre'fey's guts.
If there is no other way, however, to get the freighters out of here . . .

The sensor officer glanced at the admiral. “Sir, the Yuuzhan Vong cruiser is pulling back. Its skips are diving for atmosphere.”

A round of cheers greeted the news, but Kre'fey cut it off with a slash of his hand. “Communications, get me the
Impervious
.”

“On-line, Admiral.”

“This is Admiral Kre'fey. Senator, are you still in charge of my shuttle?”

“I am, Admiral. Would you like it back now?”

“I would, yes. Please bring it aboard and have your fighters recover through my dorsal recovery bay. The freighters can form up on us, and we will escort you away from here.” Kre'fey smiled. “Provided your fact-finding mission is over.”

“For now it is, Admiral.” The Caamasi sighed. “And the senate is not going to like this report at all.”

“That hardly surprises me, Senator.” The Bothan admiral's violet eyes narrowed. “And it's all the more reason we make for Coruscant as fast as we can.”