Standing at the edge of the frantic activity, Doriana looked at the comm display and tried desperately to think. If the Chiss attack had weakened C'baoth enough. . but there was no sign of weakness in the eyes blazing from that ruined face. Could Doriana shut off the display, then, and at least rob the Jedi of his view of his victim? But Doriana had no idea where that control was, and he didn't speak any language the rest of the bridge crew understood. Besides, he wasn't sure that cutting off the display would do any good anyway.
And then, his gazed dropped from C'baoth's face to Thrawn's control board. The board, and the red-rimmed switch.
It might be nothing. But it was all he had. Pushing past the crewers who stood in his way, he flipped back the cover and pressed the switch.
And then, even as they continued to pound mercilessly against the Vagaari warships, the droid starfighters abruptly turned from their attack and fled.
Car'das frowned, pressing the macrobinoculars tighter against his face. A sizable percentage of the Vagaari fleet was still untouched, the surviving ships scrambling madly for the edge of Thrawn's gravity projector field. Yet all of the starfighters were leaving. Had they drained their solid-fuel engines already?
He caught his breath. No; the starfighters weren't runningaway from the Vagaari. They were runningtoward Outbound Flight.
He was still staring in disbelief when the first wave hit.
Not simplyattacking, blasting away with laser cannons and energy torpedoes. They literallyhit the Dreadnaughts, slamming at full speed into their hulls and vaporizing in brilliant flashes with the force of their impacts. The second wave did the same, this group striking different sections of the Dreadnaughts' hulls. Through the smoke and debris came the third and fourth waves, these groups pouring laser cannon fire and energy torpedoes into the damaged weapons blisters and shield generators.
And with a sudden chill, Car'das understood. The first two waves of starfighters hadn't been trying to breach the Dreadnaughts' thick armor plating. Their goal had merely been to create dents in the hulls at very specific points.
The points where the interior blast doors were positioned.
And now, with those doors disabled or warped enough to prevent a proper air seal, the rest of the starfighters were opening the Dreadnaughts to space.
More clouds of debris were blowing away from Outbound Flight's flanks as the starfighters blasted their way through the hulls, sweeping new waves of sudden death through the outer areas of the Dreadnaughts.
But for all the effect the attack had on him, C'baoth might not even have noticed it. His face remained as hard as anvilstone, his eyes burning unblinkingly across theSpringhawk 's bridge.
And Mitth'raw'nuruodo was still dying.
Doriana curled his hands into helpless fists. So it was finally over. If this second assault had failed to kill C'baoth, it was because he'd hidden himself well away from the vacuum that had now snuffed out all life in the Dreadnaughts' outer sections. Even given the thinner bulkheads and blast doors of the ships' interior sections, there was no way even droid starfighters could clear out the maze of decks and compartments in time.
An odd formation caught his eve as it shot into view outside the canopy: a pair of starfighters flying in close formation with a fat cylinder tucked between them. Not just one pair, Doriana saw now, but ten of them, heading at full speed toward Outbound Flight.
He remembered Kav mentioning this particular project of Mitth'raw'nuruodo's, and the vicelord's contemptuous dismissal of the cylinders as some sort of useless fuel tanks. Frowning, he watched as, in ones and twos, the starfighter pairs drove through the newly blasted holes in the Dreadnaughts' hulls and disappeared inside.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, abruptly, a haze of pale blue burst outward from the openings, nearly invisible amid the floating clouds of wreckage.
And with a sudden gasp of air, Mitth'raw'nuruodo collapsed forward against his board.
"Commander?" Doriana called, trying to get past the circle of crewers.
"I'm. . all right," the other panted, rubbing his throat with one hand as he waved off assistance with the other.
"I think you got him," Doriana said, looking over at the comm display. C'baoth was no longer in sight. "I think C'baoth's dead."
"Yes," Mitth'raw'nuruodo confirmed, his voice quiet. "All of them. . are dead."
A strange sensation crept up Doriana's back. "That's impossible," he said. "You only had one or two of those bombs in each Dreadnaught."
"One was all that was necessary," Mitth'raw'nuruodo said with a sadness that Doriana had never heard in him before. "They're a very special sort of weapon. A very terrible sort. Once inside the protective barrier of a war vessel's outer armor, they explode into a killing wave of radiation. The wave passes through floors and walls and ceilings, destroying all life."
Doriana swallowed. "And you had them all ready to go," he heard himself say.
Mitth'raw'nuruodo's eyes bored into his. "They were not meant for Outbound Flight," he said, and there was an expression on his face that made Doriana take an involuntary step backward. "They were intended for use against the largest of the Vagaari war vessels."
Doriana grimaced. "I see."
"No, you donot see," Mitth'raw'nuruodo retorted. "Because now, instead, we'll need to destroy the Vagaari remnant aboard the disabled vessels in shipboard face-to-face combat." He pointed out the canopy. "Worse, some of the war vessels and civilian craft have now escaped to deep space, where they'll have time to rebuild and perhaps one day will again pose a threat to this region of space."
"I understand," Doriana said. "I'm sorry."
To his surprise, he realized he meant it.
For a long moment Mitth'raw'nuruodo gazed at him in silence. Then, slowly, some of the tension lines faded from his face. "No warrior ever has the full depth of control that he would like," he said, his voice calmer but still troubled. "But I wish here that it might have been otherwise."
Doriana looked at Kav. For a wonder, the Neimoidian had the sense to keep his mouth shut. "What happens now?"
"As I said, we board the Vagaari war vessels," Mitth'raw'nuruodo said. "Once they've been secured, we'll free the Geroons from their prisons."
Doriana nodded. And so that was it. Outbound Flight was destroyed, its Jedi-especially C'baoth-all dead. It was over.
All, that is, except one small loose end. No matter what the outcome, Kav's warning echoed through his mind, in the end this Mitthrawdo will have to die.