Han shook his head, "Luke can't come this far out - we know that. The Fury must have left the Core Regions for this specific job and been in contact with the Peerless; last positon we have for it was right at the edge of the Core systems- almost as close as it could come. I'm guessing that's where the Fury's heading now."
Madine shook his head, "If they make it to the Peerless then we've lost Mothma. We can't make an attack in Core Space- and not on a Super Star Destroyer; it'd be suicide."
"How many ships do we have close enough to form a task-force, if the Fury came out of hyperspace close to the Peerless' last position?"
Madine didn't need to check, "None." he said, disgusted. "We were trying to keep a low presence in the area in the warm-up to Chief Mothma's meeting."
"I'm guessing the Executor's heading to the same rendezvous." Han said darkly, placing another hurdle in their path. Interesting though; that Luke and Vader seemed to be working together on this; the kid had never done that before.
"But theoretically..." Leia paused, glancing at the door; a second later, a quiet knock was heard.
She stared, momentarily uncertain how she'd known to look...
The door slid open, Captain Wyatt entering, her huge, glassy Mon Cal eyes full of hope, "We have a position for the Fury and the Attin'Cho - less than three hours from here - and they're alone."
.
Leia walked down to the Sol's hold on her way back to the shuttle which would return her to the Arcturus, the Sol already calculating the lightspeed jump which would take it to Mon Mothma and the Fury, Leia's own ship, the Arcturus, intending to follow just minutes behind. Pausing, Leia headed across the Sol's hold to where the two newly-gained Dynamic Electromagnetic Pulse generators were.
They were quite small really- roughly her own height, which wasn't that tall, and about twice as large round as her reach; a large sealed cylinder connected to a smaller one, the second coiled about by a fine, copper-colored alloy. Laid in clear support cradles on their sides, a series of delicate copper ariels extended and interhooked about soft, silicon-based processing units, they looked nothing at all; not particularly like a bomb or even an EMP weapon.
The 'techs were already swarming all over them, Chewie among those who were working on the first generator, the second remaining untouched as yet, almost concealed in its enclosed faraday cage.
"Chewie-" Han stepped around Leia, shouting across the bay as he ran forward, still in his pilot's gear after the debacle at Bothawuii. "How long?"
The massive Wookie turned, keening a guess, shrugging as he did so. Han kept on running, reaching the exposed generator and craning his neck to look at the reassuringly simple trigger mechanism hotwired in by the 'techs. Theoretically they knew how to work it and what the result would be if they threw that switch and theoretically, Dynamic EMP's did no damage to flesh and bone - but he didn't particularly relish the thought of being stood next to it when it went off. By the time Leia reached them, the conversation had moved on to the delay between triggering the forst and second DEMP's, the latter having already been fitted with a jury-rigged timer.
"... we don't know - that's the problem." Han continued, turning from Chewie to glance at Leia, "There's no telling how many systems the first pulse will bring down and we need to give enough time for full emergency power to cut in onboard the Fury otherwise the second DEMP won't knock it out. D'you have an estimate on how many systems it'll bring down?"
"All systems, we hope." Leia said, glancing up at the new technology, "Obviously not propulsion, but we think the safety cut-out will shut down the engines when it ceases to receive information from the automated regulating systems. We're pretty sure we'll take those down, even though they're hard-shielded."
Theoretically, the DEMP was little more than a kind of electromagnetic flux compression system with bells and whistles. What made it special was the Empire's development of an advanced dynamic access system, which made it capable of overriding and overrunning all previously safe, battle-hardened systems.
Unfortunately, it did so for a large radius... on everything in the vicinity. Ships, deep space platforms- even surface planet-based technology if the DEMP was close enough.
Any technology requiring integrated circuits, power conductors, anything with resistors, capacitors or remote connectors was killed. That included communication networks, signal processors, automated systems, flight control and digital engine regulation - nothing was immune. If it was connected into the mainframe then it would be affected. If it was an active system when the DEMP blew, it was dead. Even the few systems onboard any starship that were purely mechanically-based and therefore theoretically immune generally relied on binary programs to monitor or regulate them, which would be burned out by the DEMP, so that though they remained functioning, there would be no way to control them remotely or even regulate them.
To any mainframe system, the damage would be wide-ranging and devastating - to something the size and complexity of a Capital Ship, the combined effects would be nothing short of catastrophic, system-wide failure.
This was the Empire's new toy, and it could leave any ship in any fleet older than the not-yet launched Invincible dead in space, the Peerless and the Executor first in line to have the necessary upgrades which would also render them immune. Designed specifically to be utilised by the newly-shielded systems onboard the technologically advanced new Super Star Destroyer, the data had been surreptitiously smuggled out by Bothan spies, two exact duplicate systems built, running apace with the Invincible's system being built at the Kuat Shipyards and taking advantage of any new data and any flaws which were corrected along the way.
It gave Leia a secret, self-satisfied buzz to know that its first use in field combat would not be by a Star Destroyer, but against one.
The only problem was they didn't have a sufficiently-shielded ship to use it from. That technology hadn't yet been aquired - and even if it had, they didn't have time to implement it today.
So they were going to use the Sol.
.
.
.
Luke strode briskly forward across the main access walkway on the bridge of the Fury, the Attin'Cho having just been taken into its main hold after its reversion to realspace, Karrde's two disguised freighters visible in the bridge viewports just forward and to port. The Fury's Captain, Kavanagh, bowed nervously as The Commander in Chief approached, uncertain of his fate.
"Explain." Luke said, head tilted to one side, dark hair falling before his mismatched eyes, one blue, one cast through with darkest brown near his heavy scar.
"Sir, a second Rebel ship came out of hyperspace behind us."
"A military Corvette?" Luke prompted, already knowing the answer, "A Frigate perhaps?"
The Captain paled even further, if that were possible, "No Sir, a... bulk freighter- heavily modified. We've now identified it as the Sol, a re-spec'd and upgraded Rebel freighter."
"What capacity?"
"Sir?"
"What capacity - how big was it?"
The man visibly swallowed against his dry mouth, "Fifty thousand, Sir."
"A Star Destroyer was stopped in its duty by fifty thousand cubics of freighter." Luke growled, voice low in disbelief, "I'm moved to wonder which side you're on, Captain."
"Sir, we had the Arcturus in tractor restraint, but the second Rebel ship emerged from hyperspace and came in from beneath our engines. It knocked out the tractor-beam array and..."
The Heir shook his head, eyes closed in dismissal, "Don't even try to explain, Captain." Luke stepped in slightly, eyes hard and unforgiving - but in the event, he only huffed, disappointed. Despite his words, Kavanagh was a good Captain and a loyal advocate, and that was always something worthy of recognition, regardless of Luke's frustration. And didn't they always say that any battle plan only survived as long as first contact? "If you're already in a hole, Kavanagh, you should know when to stop digging."