“Whoa,” Apros muttered. “Does he ever come up with a battle plan that’s not borderline insane?”
“Not that I’ve noticed,” Lakinda growled.
Still, facing an enemy warship that could theoretically take out both Chiss cruisers, and with the Springhawk still unable to escape to hyperspace, any plan that did sound sane would probably fail. Much as she hated to admit it, even to herself, Thrawn’s craziness might be just what they needed here. “Wikivv?” she called toward the helm. “Can you do it?”
“I agree about the overall sanity level,” Wikivv said, her voice strained as she peered at the tactical diagram Thrawn had sent. “That aside … yes, I can do it.”
“Apros?” Lakinda asked, looking at him.
He gave a little shrug. “It’s risky,” he said. “But most of the risk is Thrawn’s.” He gave her a tight smile. “Your ship, ma’am. Your decision.”
Lakinda nodded. He was right, on all counts. “All right, Thrawn. We’re ready.”
“Thank you,” Thrawn said. “Keep feeding us telemetry—the timing is going to be critical.”
A warning alarm sounded: The electrostatic barriers were down to 50 percent. “Our timing’s getting pretty damn critical, too,” she warned.
“Understood,” Thrawn said. “Afpriuh, Azmordi: On my mark. Three, two, one.”
And with a shudder of multiple launch tubes, all twenty of the Springhawk’s remaining plasma spheres blasted into space.
Samakro watched the tactical, his throat tight. Twenty spheres, two targeting each of the fleeing gunboats. If Thrawn’s gamble didn’t work, one of their best weapons against the still-hidden Battle Dreadnought would be gone, and with nothing to show for it.
Which could still happen. The gunboats were far enough away that if they noticed the spheres, there was still time for them to veer out of their path.
But the fighters were maintaining their original vectors. With the pilots’ full attention on the Grayshrike, and with the plasma plumes from their own thrusters obscuring their aft sensors, they were apparently oblivious to the subtle threat rapidly overtaking them. Samakro held his breath …
And watched as all twenty spheres slammed squarely into their targets, the ion bursts knocking out the gunboats’ controls, sensors, life-support systems, and drives. And most important of all, their comms.
“Emergency acceleration,” Thrawn ordered, and Samakro could hear a little of his own relief half hidden beneath the confidence and determination in his captain’s voice. This whole thing was still a gamble, but the first part had just paid off.
An instant later he had to grab at the back of Thrawn’s command chair for balance as Azmordi threw full emergency power to the drive, the sudden acceleration leaving the compensators lagging just slightly behind. “Afpriuh, my compliments to the sphere gunners,” Thrawn continued. “Time to see if your breacher specialists are up to the same challenge.”
“They are, sir,” Afpriuh said confidently. “Gunners and launchers standing by.”
“Captain Lakinda?” Thrawn called.
“We’re ready here,” Lakinda said over the speaker.
“Excellent,” Thrawn said. “Stand by.”
For a dozen heartbeats, the bridge was silent. Samakro gazed at the tactical, wincing once as the Springhawk drove through the drifting gunboats they’d just disabled, scattering the smaller craft and probably breaking at least a couple of them open to space and death. The images marking the capital ships continued to move across the tacticaclass="underline" the Grayshrike holding position, fending off the missiles and lasers of the Battle Dreadnought; the Battle Dreadnought itself moving inexorably toward the embattled Chiss warship; the Springhawk sprinting at full speed toward both. If the Grayshrike’s telemetry was correct, the Battle Dreadnought was nearly to the edge of the planetary disk …
“Grayshrike, execute on my mark,” Thrawn said calmly. “Three, two, one.”
On the tactical, a dozen new images flashed onto the display: plasma spheres, launched from the Grayshrike, targeting the Battle Dreadnought.
All of them impacting the hull along its port side. “That should confuse them,” Samakro said under his breath.
“Indeed,” Thrawn agreed. “Hopefully, that confusion won’t lead to caution.”
But so far a sudden surge of caution didn’t look likely. Even with its port side largely incapacitated by the plasma spheres, the Battle Dreadnought was still driving toward the Grayshrike, throwing missiles and laserfire at its target from its unaffected bow and starboard weapons clusters. Through the viewport Samakro saw the big warship come into sight from behind the planetary disk.
He hissed out a breath. The Grayshrike’s telemetry had mostly shown the Battle Dreadnought from the front, with only brief and foreshortened views of its sides as the flank and shoulder launchers fired their missiles and lasers. Only now that he was finally getting a full side view did he realize just how big the damn thing was.
He looked down at Thrawn. If his commander was surprised or daunted, it didn’t show in his expression. “Afpriuh, ready breachers,” Thrawn ordered. “Captain Lakinda, at your convenience.”
“Good luck,” Lakinda’s voice came from the speakers. Samakro looked back out the viewport, to see the Grayshrike turn partially away from the Battle Dreadnought and disappear into hyperspace. The Battle Dreadnought continued toward the spot where the Chiss ship had been, probably preparing for its own jump as soon as it was out of the gravity well—
“Breachers: Fire,” Thrawn ordered.
The deck vibrated beneath Samakro’s feet as all their remaining breacher missiles blasted away toward the Battle Dreadnought, leaping forward as their own acceleration was enhanced by the speed the Springhawk itself had built up.
Even with that extra speed advantage, Samakro knew, the range here was longer than optimal for breachers. But with the Battle Dreadnought’s portside sensors and point defenses paralyzed by the Grayshrike’s plasma spheres, its commander had no inkling of the destructive force arrowing toward them. The only warning could have come from the gunboats, and Thrawn’s own plasma sphere strike had rendered them silent.
And with the Battle Dreadnought still oblivious, the entire spread of breachers slammed into its hull.
At that range, and with such a large target looming in front of them, most commanders and weapons officers would have been content to deliver whatever random destruction the missiles could cause. But not Thrawn. At his order, Afpriuh had sifted through the Grayshrike’s telemetry data to locate the Battle Dreadnought’s sensor and weapons clusters and target his breachers accordingly. The breachers exploded, flooding their acid across the hull to eat away metal and ceramic and burrow into hardened electronics and optical crystals. Thirty seconds later, the systems that the Grayshrike’s plasma sphere attack had only temporarily paralyzed were permanently destroyed.
Leaving the enemy’s entire portside flank open to attack.
“Spectrum lasers: Fire,” Thrawn ordered. “Follow-up spread.” He looked up at Samakro. “Let’s see just how well they know us.”
Samakro nodded. A follow-up spread was the basic one–two punch of Chiss battle tactics: breachers to eat gouges into the hull, followed by lasers whose energy would now be more readily absorbed by the pitted and blackened metal, digging even deeper into the armor. If the Battle Dreadnought’s commander knew about that strategy, they should be ready to counter it.