For a long heartbeat Luke just stared at the Frigate … and then, like pieces clicking together in a puzzle, it all fell into place. The mole miners, the undermanned and underdefended capital ships that the New Republic had been forced to press into shipping service, the Imperial fleet out there that seemed to be making no real effort to push its way past the system’s defenses—
And a New Republic Star Cruiser, mole miner planted firmly on its side, that had just fired on Wedge’s X-wing.
He took a moment to scan the sky around him. Moving with deceptive slowness through the continuing starfighter battle, a number of warships were beginning to pull out. “We’ve got to stop them,” he told the others.
“Good thinking,” Han agreed. “How?”
“Is there any way we can get aboard them ourselves?” he asked. “Lando said the mole miners were two-man ships—the Imperials can’t possibly have packed more than four or five stormtroopers in each one of them.”
“The way those warships are manned at the moment, four stormtroopers would be plenty,” Wedge pointed out.
“Yes, but I could take them,” Luke said.
“On all fifty ships?” Han countered. “Besides, you blast a hatch open to vacuum and you’ll have pressure bulkheads closing all over the ship. Take you forever to even get to the bridge.”
Luke gritted his teeth; but Han was right. “Then we have to disable them,” he said. “Knock out their engines or control systems or something. If they get out to the perimeter and those Star Destroyers, we’ll never see them again.”
“Oh, we’ll see them again,” Han growled. “Pointed straight back at us. You’re right—disabling as many as we can is our best shot. We’re never going to stop all fifty, though.”
“We don’t have fifty to stop, at least not yet,” Wedge put in. “There are still twelve mole miners that haven’t attached themselves to ships.”
“Good—let’s take them out first,” Han said. “You got vectors on them?”
“Feeding your computer now.”
“Okay … okay, here we go.” The Falcon twisted around and headed off in a new direction. “Luke, get on the comm and tell Sluis Control what’s happening,” he added. “Tell them not to let any ships out of the orbit-dock area.”
“Right.” Luke switched channels on the comm; and as he did so, he was suddenly aware of a slight change in sense from the Falcon’s cockpit. “Han? You all right?”
“Huh? Sure. Why?”
“I don’t know. You seemed to change.”
“I had half a grip on some idea,” Han said. “But it’s gone now. Come on, make that call. I want you back on the quads when we get there.”
The call to Sluis Control was over well before they reached their target mole miner. “They thank us for the information,” Luke reported to the others, “but they say they don’t have anything to spare at the moment to help us.”
“Probably don’t,” Han agreed. “Okay, I see two TIE fighters running escort. Wedge, you and Rogue Five take them out while Luke and I hit the mole miner.”
“Got it,” Wedge confirmed. The two X-wings shot past Luke’s canopy, flaring apart into intercept mode as the TIE fighters broke formation and came around to meet the attack.
“Luke, try to blow it apart instead of disintegrating it,” Han suggested. “Let’s see how many people the Imperials have got stuffed inside.”
“Got it,” Luke said. The mole miner was in his sights now. Adjusting his power level down, he fired.
The truncated cone flared as the metal dead center of the shot boiled away into glowing gas. The rest of the craft seemed intact, though, and Luke was just lining up for a second shot when the hatch at the top abruptly popped open.
And through the opening, a monstrous, robotlike figure came charging out.
“What—?”
“It’s a spacetrooper,” Han snapped back. “A stormtrooper in zero-gee armor.4 Hang on.”
He spun the Falcon around away from the spacetrooper, but not before there was a flash from a protuberance atop the other’s backpack and the hull around Luke slammed with a violent concussion. Han rolled the ship around, blocking Luke’s view, as another concussion rocked them.
And then they were pulling away—pulling away, but with agonizing slowness. Luke swallowed hard, wondering what kind of damage they’d taken.
“Han, Luke—you all right?” Wedge’s voice called anxiously.
“Yeah, for now,” Han called back. “You get the TIE fighters?”
“Yes. I think the mole miner’s still under way, though.”
“Well, then, blast it,” Han said. “Nothing cute; just blow it apart. But watch out for that spacetrooper—he’s using miniature proton torpedoes or something. I’m trying to draw him away; I don’t know if he’ll fall for it.”
“He’s not,” Wedge said grimly. “He’s staying right on top of the mole miner. They’re heading for a passenger liner—looks like they’ll make it, too.”
Han swore under his breath. “Probably got a few regular stormtrooper buddies still in there. All right, I guess we do this the hard way. Hang on, Luke—we’re going to ram him.”
“We’re what?”
Luke’s last word was lost in the roar from the engines as Han sent the Falcon flying straight out and then around in a hard turn. The mole miner and spacetrooper came back into Luke’s line of sight—
Wedge had been wrong. The spacetrooper wasn’t standing by the damaged mole miner; he was, in fact, sidling quickly away from it. The twin protuberances on top of his backpack began flashing again, and a couple of seconds later the Falcon’s hull began ringing with proton torpedo blasts. “Get ready,” Han called.
Luke braced himself, trying not to think about what would happen if one of those torpedoes hit his canopy—and trying, too, not to wonder if Han could really ram the spacetrooper without also plowing into the passenger liner directly behind him. Ignoring the proton blasts, the Falcon continued accelerating—
And without warning, Han dropped the ship beneath the spacetrooper’s line of fire. “Wedge: go!”
From beneath Luke’s line of sight an X-wing flashed upward, laser cannon blazing.
And the mole miner shattered into flaming dust.
“Good shot,” Han told him, a note of satisfaction in his voice as he veered underneath the liner, nearly taking the Falcon’s main sensor dish off in the process. “There you go, hotshot—enjoy your view of the battle.”
Belatedly, the light dawned. “He was listening in on our channel,” Luke said. “You just wanted to decoy him into moving away from the mole miner.”
“You got it,” Han said. “I figured he’d tap in—Imperials always do when they can …”
He trailed off. “What is it?” Luke asked.
“I don’t know,” Han said slowly. “There’s something about this whole thing that keeps poking at me, but I can’t figure out what it is. Never mind. Our hotshot spacetrooper will keep for now—let’s go hit some more mole miners.”
It was just as well, Pellaeon thought, that they were only here to keep the enemy tied up. The Sluissi and their New Republic allies were putting up one terrific fight.
On his status board, a section of the Chimaera’s shield schematic went red. “Get that starboard shield back up,” he ordered, giving the sky in that direction a quick scan. There were half a dozen warships out there, all of them firing like mad, with a battle station in backstop position behind them. If their sensors showed that the Chimaera’s starboard shields were starting to go—
“Starboard turbolasers: focus all fire on the Assault Frigate at thirty-two mark forty,” Thrawn spoke up calmly. “Concentrate on the starboard side of the ship only.”