"Bounty, Daring, stand by."
Twelve fighters shot out of the Bounty's hangar bay, spiraling away from the warship and streaking off in pursuit of the Bothan frigate. Then the three flights separated. Observation cams in each cockpit gave Bounty's combined bridge and combat information center a composite view of the engagement. Daring sat off Bounty's starboard bow, ready to divert any Bothan retaliation from her larger charge.
"Did you ever train as a pilot, ma'am?" Piris asked.
"No. You?"
"Indeed I did. At times like this, I miss it."
"If we get any busier, Captain, there'll be a droid running this ship and you'll be flying sorties. Where that leaves me I have no idea."
"You'll be Chief of State, ma'am," said Piris.
The worst thing about Quarren was that their amusement wasn't as easy to spot as a human's. With a human, all those teeth on display made life easier. Quarren face-tentacles could hide a multitude of emotions.
"That'll be the day," she said, hoping to avoid more gossip about her ambitions. Right then being Chief of State didn't matter at all. She had a battle, and all her training and instinct kicked in to say this was where she wanted to be, not behind a desk.
The first flight to come within range of the Bothan frigate shadowed it, cutting back and forth across its path at a thousand meters.
The second flight trailed aft of it, scanning the hull and sending back data.
It took a few seconds for the Bothans to react; perhaps some of their systems were still offline. The ship picked up speed and began to move out of the Bothawui limits, its accompanying tenders trailing like escort fish.
So the Bothans thought they had a nice new asset to surprise the Alliance, but the Alliance had spotted it. Niathal waited for the reaction while the third flight of Mothma Squadron monitored the situation, weapons trained but not locked. There was no point blowing it to pieces before they'd taken the measure of the new class.
"Very heavy hull plating for a frigate," said Niathal, looking at the recce scans coming back from the starfighters. Piris pored over the images and penetrating scans, too. "At least a dozen turbolasers and twenty cannons."
"Not exceptional."
"Depends how many hulls they have."
They didn't have long to wait to find out how many vessels were out there. The weapons officer shouted at the same time as the sensor warning Klaxon sounded.
"Sir, enemy contact at—correction, multiple contacts in range.
We've got trade."
"Bounty, Daring, close up at battle stations, synchronize command information. Helm, all ahead. Qaresi Squadron, launch—Bronzium and remainder of air group, launch when ready."
Nobody said ambush. The cockpit chatter from the pilots broke in.
"Copy that. . . five, six . . . correction, ten—detecting cannons charging, will engage—"
"Targeting source."
"I make that nineteen—"
"He's got a lock on me."
"Got your six. Deploying chaff."
Piris's face-tentacles were completely still. It gave him a commendable look of calm. "Cannons, engage all Bothan vessels in range, in your own time, go on . . ."
One moment they'd been watching a single fresh-out-of-the-box frigate, and the next more were dropping out of hyperspace at regular five-second intervals. Mothma Squadron picked up images on their cockpit cams: all in the same Bothan livery, all brand spanking new and unmarked by debris pocks and scrapes.
A flare of red laser blazed on the screens as one XJ cam view winked out and the fighter broke up into spinning, red-hot debris.
Pilots' voices were still audible in the background, but the focus on the bridge was on "fighting the ship"—attacking the enemy. Daring moved between Bounty and the Bothan flotilla. Her cannons and lasers showed up on the synchronized command information screen as blinking icons, fully charged and acquiring firing solutions.
"Eight contacts not firing, sir, and no sign of charging cannons."
Bounty shuddered from deflected pulsed laserfire. Niathal moved to supervise damage control, which was already under a competent commander, but there was nothing worse than an idle visiting admiral on a ship at battle stations. She needed to be occupied.
"Take them out anyway." Piris turned to Niathal. "If they cripple us, at least we transmitted the data we have. If they don't—that's a whole Bothan flotilla that never leaves home."
"I don't expect a tactical withdrawal, Captain." Three more XJs were hit: Niathal noted it as lost assets, not knowing the pilots personally, and disliked her detachment for a moment. She always did.
"We're here. Let's do as much damage as we can."
The Bothans, of course, had the same goal.
Two Bothan frigates were on a ramming course with Bounty. Of the remaining flotilla, five were firing on the XJs. Daring opened fire. The bridge crew watched as a frigate's aft section rippled with a sequence of explosions before debris blew away from it and smashed into an XJ. Five minutes into the engagement, Bounty's air group was taking a pounding, not all of it from direct hits. The second frigate veered away from the stream of fire from the XJ, a red-hot rip in its hull.
"Their targeting's not affected by chaff measures, sir." The pilot's voice was breathless with effort. "They're using narrow-range heat seekers. In future we'll need to—"
And he was gone, his cockpit cam blank and flickering.
"Air group, pull out," Piris barked. "Cannons, solutions on all targets, now."
Species perceived time differently in battle. For humans, it slowed because their brains took in far more detailed information about the threat, but that also meant they didn't notice low-priority things. But Mon Cals—and Quarren—saw it all, and factored in every cough and spit.
That was what made them good commanders. Niathal's instinct was to fight back, and for a moment she couldn't imagine why she'd ever had designs on high office. She saw the tactical displays and heard the comm chatter, and the real-time three-dimensional image in her mind showed her the whole battlefield—and she wanted to hit hard.
Nine Bothan frigates were now disabled, either drifting with no sign of power, reduced to cold debris, or venting brief bursts of flame into the vacuum as they broke up. Some of the remaining ten returned fire for a further thirty seconds, then powered down their cannons.
"Surrendering?" asked the officer of the watch.
"They're preparing to jump," said Piris. "Take take take—"
Seven frigates jumped in a tight sequence: three weren't so quick off the
mark, and took a furious barrage of laser and cannons.
Piris gave Niathal a nod of relief and leaned over the command console. "Air group, anyone too damaged to make an RV point?"
"Mothma Five-zero, sir. Slow hull breach."
"Qarisa Eight, sir."
The bridge crew waited for a few seconds, utterly silent, cannons still trained while XJs streaked back to the hangar and recovery units passed them outbound to haul in damaged craft.
"Secure hatches when ready and prepare to jump," Piris said. "Any sign of the Bothan cavalry arriving on long-range scans? No? Good." He looked at the chrono hanging from a fob on his jacket. "Not quite twenty minutes, Admiral. Now, was that a planned ambush we walked into, or are the Bothans making the best of an unfortunately timed arrival? The score's twelve-nil to us, not counting star-fighters lost. But did we win or lose?"
"I'll let you know when our public information colleagues tell me,"
Niathal said. "But this confirms my position yet again. If we're stuck with the resources we've got, then we have to focus everything on Corellia, Commenor, and now Bothawui. If the Chief of State wants to extend to every bushfire that's starting, he has to give us at least another fleet, and even if the Alliance had the credits—where would we get the personnel?"