Thrawn cocked an eyebrow. “One other thing, Captain Ferrier. On the off chance that you might feel yourself tempted to abandon the assignment and make a run for it, the freighter you’ll be given will be equipped with an impressive and totally unbreakable doomsday mechanism. With exactly three standard months set on its clock. I trust you understand.” —Dark Force Rising
---------------------------------------------------
For a long moment nobody on the Dreadnaught’s bridge spoke, just staring dumbly out the viewport at the arrowhead shape that had appeared in the distance. “The Chimaera,” Ferrier sighed, his face looking pale and deflated. “I guess that’s it, then.”
“That’s what?” Lando demanded, turning on Ferrier.
Ferrier returned his gaze evenly. “That’s it,” Ferrier repeated. “I’m not going up against Grand Admiral Thrawn, Calrissian. I’m grabbing the rest of my crew, and we’re getting out of here.”
“You can’t just leave,” Lando protested, but it sounded weak even to his own ears. Right now Ferrier could do pretty much whatever he wanted.
And he knew it, too. “I’m not going up against Thrawn,” Ferrier said again. “Abric, Laxus, come on. We’re getting out of here.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” Irenez said, stepping in front of them. “We had a deal.”
“To blazes with your deal, lady!” Abric spat. “You can’t win against a Grand Admiral. You just can’t.”
“Thrawn’s only here because of the shipyard’s distress call,” Lando pointed out, sliding a little closer to Irenez and uncomfortably aware of how outnumbered they were. “He has no way of knowing what our real target is.”
“And you don’t think he’ll figure it out?” Ferrier challenged. “You were at Sluis Van, Calrissian. You know what this guy can do.”
“He’s not infallible,” Lando tried again, doing a quick calculation. Ferrier and Abric were still standing by the cloak controls, but Laxus was all the way on the other side of the bridge. If Irenez could take out those two, Lando might be able to get his blaster out in time to before Laxus got off a shot. As for Ferrier’s wraith—
The wraith. Lando cast a surreptitious look around the bridge, but it was nowhere to be seen. “What is it?” Irenez asked softly.
“Ferrier’s wraith,” Lando told her, doing another look. Now that he thought about it, he couldn‘t remember the last time he‘d seen it. “He’s missing.” His eye fell on a nearby corner, where the wraith’s stormtrooper armor had been neatly stacked and set aside. “You don’t think—”
He was interrupted by the sound of the anteroom door opening behind them. “There they are,” someone said, and Lando turned to see the supervisor from the docking bay step through the doorway, flanked by a pair of wide-helmeted naval troopers. “I told you they looked suspicious.”
“Who are you people?” the trooper to the right demanded, studying them distastefully. His eyes eventually settled on Irenez in her half-compete stormtrooper armor. “What are you doing here?”
“TK-722,” Ferrier tried weakly. “We’re investigating reports of a Rebel sabotage group…”
“There isn’t any TK-722 operating in this facility,” the supervisor said. “We checked. Want to try again?”
Ferrier swallowed, looking at Lando for help. “All right,” the first trooper said, raising his blaster rifle. “I’ve heard enough. Hands up, all of you. I don’t know what you’re doing here, but you’re coming with us.”
“Oh, come on,” Ferrier said, even as he started to raise his hands. “This is some kind of mistake.”
“Then you’ll be happy to sort it out back at Command,” the second trooper said, reaching for the binders on his belt.
“Be careful,” the supervisor warned, looking around. “There should be a couple more of them around here somewhere…”
He was looking right at it when the strange shadow suddenly removed itself from the wall and sprang forward. “What in space—” he gasped, right before Ferrier’s wraith grabbed him and wrestled him to the ground.
The troopers reacted instantly, dropping to their knees and bringing their blasters to bear. But it took a couple seconds for their brains to make sense of just what exactly they were seeing. Those were seconds they didn’t have. Ferrier and Lando each reached for their blasters, just as a pair of shots fired off from their right. The troopers took one each to the chest before collapsing to the deck, dead.
“Nice shooting,” Ferrier commented to Irenez with begrudging admiration.
“Thanks,” Irenez, said, even as she moved her blaster to cover Ferrier and his gang. “Now where were we?”
For a long moment Ferrier stared at her blankly, his face emotionless behind his bushy beard. Then, almost reluctantly, he smiled. “You do have spunk,” he admitted, almost to himself. Or perhaps he was just now realizing he was already in too deep to walk away. “All right, you got yourself a deal. For thirty-thousand.”
“Thirty-thousand,” Irenez agreed, slowly lowering the blaster rifle. “Then let’s get moving. We’ve already wasted more time than we should have. You,” she pointed at Abric, “get back on that helm station and get the engines fired up. Where are Corsar and Devine?”
“Good question,” Ferrier said, pulling out his comlink. “Corsar? Devine? Come on, answer up.”
“Right here, boss,” Corsar’s voice came back. “How are things looking up there?”
“Oh, great,” Ferrier said, glancing at the trio of bodies on the floor. “Good job on sweeping for stragglers, by the way. You find anything down there?”
“Just a couple of busy-bodies who didn’t know when to stop asking questions,” Corsar said. “I take it from all the noise coming from the sublights that we’re on the move. You want us up there with you?”
Ferrier shook his head. “Stay where you are. We’ve got enough bodies up here as it is. Sit tight and make sure that new sublight drive stays working.”
He switched off the comm and replaced it at his belt. “How we coming?” he asked Abric, stepping over to his station.
“It’ll be another ten minutes before the engines are running at full capacity,” Abric said.
Ferrier cast another look at the supervisor lying on the bridge deck. “What about those other shuttles? Did they leave yet?”
“According to the automated computer logs they left ten minutes ago,” the other confirmed.
“Good,” Ferrier said, reaching a hand into his belt. When he pulled it out it was with a long cigarra that smelled gently of armudu and carababba tabac. “We’ve got ten minutes before we can get this bucket moving,” he said, sticking the cigarra between his teeth and lighting it. “I want the hyperspace jump ready and entered by then. Wraith, you remember the coordinates to the rendezvous point?”
The wraith nodded wordlessly. “Then get on that navicomputer and start entering them. The rest of you, sit tight. It’s gonna be a close one.”
* * *
Pellaeon stood at the Chimaera bridge viewport, staring out at the scene before him. The chaotic scene. He could make out at least five Rebel Dreadnaughts pummeling away at the shipyards, plus more starfighters than he could count. Not nearly enough firepower to cause serious harm to the facility, of course; but enough to wreck a platform or two before the Rebels fled back into hyperspace. “It looks like a real scrap out there, Admiral.”
“It does indeed,” Thrawn agreed from where he stood beside Pellaeon. “Fortunately, they’re not here to cause any actual damage. Have any other ships responded to the distress call?”
“Uh…not yet. The Bellicose says they should be here in fifteen minutes.” The Chimaera itself had been on a tour of the Outer Rim garrisons, and it was mere luck they’d been so close when the call came in. But Pellaeon was more interested in returning to the previous topic. “What do you mean, they’re not here to cause any actual damage?”
“With five Dreadnaughts and a couple starfigher squadrons?” Thrawn scoffed. “That hardly seems Bel Iblis’s style. No, I’ve seen the kind of art the man collects, and he’s not nearly so rash a commander as that.” His voice got a little distant. “This is merely a diversionary tactic. The question is, diversion from what?”
“Yes, sir,“ Pellaeon said, knowing better than to ask how Thrawn even knew it was Bel Iblis out there. He looked out at the docks lining the shipyard. “That new Star Destroyer we’re working on,” he suggested. “Do you think it could have something to do with that?”
“Possibly,” Thrawn said doubtfully, casting a look of his own across the shipyard. His gaze drifted past it towards the Katana Dreadnaughts on the far side… “The Ukio Dreadnaughts,” he said suddenly. “Have the sensors picked up any Rebel ships near them? No, of course they wouldn‘t,” Thrawn corrected himself almost as soon as he’d spoken. “It wouldn’t be a diversion then, would it? What about reports of suspicious activity?”
Pellaeon stepped over to his screen. “Actually, there was something,” he said. “A maintenance supervisor reported several stormtroopers who the supervisor says were acting strangely. They claimed to be investigating rumors of a Rebel sabotage team. A couple of naval troopers were sent to check it out.”
“‘Rebel sabotage team?’” Thrawn repeated, shaking his head. “That must have been an improvisation. No, I suspect sabotage is the last thing on their minds right now.”
“You do?” Pellaeon asked, trying to hide the confusion from his voice. “But then why…” his voice trailed off as it suddenly clicked. “The cloaking shield. Those are the Dreadnaughts with the cloaking shields installed.”
That classic smile appeared on Thrawn‘s lips. “Precisely. They’re not here to destroy the Dreadnaughts, Captain; they’re here to steal one. Getting their hands on a cloaking shield would be a nice boon to the Rebel war effort, don’t you think?”
“Yes, sir,” Pellaeon agreed, standing a little stiffer at his station. “Orders?”
“Inform the shipyard commander that the Ukio Dreadnaughts are the main target,” Thrawn said, “and move all nearby ships to intercept. Has that Interdictor launched yet?”
“They’re moving out of the docks now.”
“Put them on a course between the Dreadnaught’s two most likely escape vectors,” Thrawn said, stepping over to his own displays. “Its gravity generators should be able to project a well large enough to prevent a jump along either vector.”
“Right away, Admiral,” Pellaeon said, starting to relay the order. “They should be in position within five minutes.”
“Good,” Thrawn said, tapping a few keys on his own screen. “In the meantime, let’s give Bel Iblis something else to worry about. Bring us up to flank speed and commence the attack.”
* * *
“Uh, Ferrier?” Laxus called from where he was seated at the sensor display. “We may have a problem here.”
“What is it?” Ferrier asked, coming up behind Laxus with Lando in tow.
“An Interdictor just launched from the shipyard,” Laxis said, showing them his display. “Take a look.”
Lando did just that, and he wasn’t happy with what he saw. The display showed maybe half-a-dozen ships detaching from the platforms and shifting in their direction. But the worst by far was an Interdictor Cruiser, moving along a vector that would block the Dreadnaught’s main escape route. “That’s a problem,” he agreed. With four projectors that could simulate the gravity wells produced by a medium-sized planetoid, the Interdictor would make it impossible to jump to lightspeed once it was within range. “How soon before it gets here?”
“The computer says five minutes,” Laxus said. “How much longer on the engines?”
“We’re down to three,” Abric said. “But we still need to move far enough away from the platforms to make the jump to hyperspace.”
Ferrier looked at Lando. “If you’ve got any bright ideas, Calrissian, now would be a good time to share them.”
Lando thought back to that skirmish with those drop ships aboard the Katana. “What about the turbolasers?” he suggested, pointing at the weapons panel. “Can we fight it off?”
“What, the eight of us?” Ferrier snorted. “Even with computer-assisted targeting, these things are supposed to have two-thousand people crewing them. We don‘t have the manpower to fight them off.”
“Well there has to be something we can do,” Lando said, casting a desparate look around the bridge. But everything he saw was something they’d already tried: helm station, weapons station, navigation station…
“I told you before this thing was too big to grab,” Ferrier grumbled. “I told you.”
But Lando wasn’t listening. His eyes came to rest on the last station at the end of the row. “What about the cloaking shield?” he asked. “Could that buy us enough time to make the jump?”
Ferrier just stared at him like he was crazy. “Abric?” Lando tried instead.
“Possibly,” Abric admitted, thinking. “With the cloaking shield we could probably slip past the Interdictor’s gravity well without being seen.”
“Yeah, or run right into it,” Ferrier protested. “Cloaking shields are double-blind, remember—the cloaking field’ll be blocking our sensors, too.”
“We don’t need sensors to jump into hyperspace,” Lando argued. “We just need to get far enough away from the Interdictor to stay out of its gravity cone.”
“Oh, is that all?” Ferrier looked around the room. “Am I the only one who realizes how crazy this is?”
“If you have a better idea, now would be the time to share it,” Irenez pointed out, smiling.
Ferrier glared at her. “Do we know if this cloaking gadget even works yet?” he asked Abric.
“It should,” the other responded. “It looks like the Imperials have already tested it, from what I could see.”
Ferrier stood silent in thought, gritting his teeth down on his cigarra. “All right,” he decided at last, waving Abric out of his seat. “I’ll take the helm. Abric, you get to work on that cloaking shield. And be quick about it.” He looked out the viewport at the rapidly growing shape of the Interdictor Cruiser. “You’ve got about two minutes to get it running.”
“It may be a little less than that,” Irenez warned. “Take a closer look.”
It took Lando a second to see what she was getting at. And then he saw it too, emerging out of the belly of the Interdictor’s hangar bay: the faint glow of ion drives. “They’re launching fighters,” he realized.
Over by the sensor station, Laxus swore. “You’re right,” he said. “Looks like a squadron of assault bombers, moving into attack positions. I’d say we’ve got closer to a minute until they’re within missile range.”
“Things just keep getting better, don’t they?” Ferrier gritted, gripping the helm controls. “How’s that lightspeed calculation coming?”
“It is still running,” the wraith said.
“I guess they didn’t take the time to upgrade their navicomputers, too,” Lando observed dryly. He took another look at Laxus’s sensor screen. “What kind of fighters are those?” he asked. “I don’t think I’ve seen that profile before.”
“Scimitar assault craft,” the other said. “Some new kind of Imperial bomber, I think. The Empire’s been using them on-and-off for the past six months.”
“You ever tangle with one?”
Laxus shrugged. “Not really. But we did palm a couple from a Ubiqtorate base once.” There was a beep from his console. “Bombers in missile range,” he called out. “They’re getting a lock now.”
“Shields up,” Ferrier said. “They’ll go for our engines first,” he told Lando, “try and cripple us so we can’t make it out of the shipyards.”
Lando nodded, watching the blips on Laxus’s screen. There was a flash as they fired in sequential bursts; and then the missiles streaked away on a course towards the Dreadnaught’s stern. They were coming up on them fast— “Hang on!” Laxus called.
There was the sound of distant explosions from somewhere behind them, and the deck beneath rocked violently; and then the bombers went roaring past. “What’s the damage?” Ferrier asked, his focus still on the helm controls.
“Nothing too bad,” Laxus said, studying the diagnostic reports that flashed on his screen. Only a couple were in red. “We won’t last another hit, though.”
“Hey, what’s going on up there?” a voice demanded from the intercom. “That sounded a lot like missile fire.”
“Just shut up and sit tight, Corsar,” Ferrier gritted. “Laxus, where did those bombers go?”
“They’re coming about,” Irenez told him, pointing. In the distance they could indeed see the bombers beginning to make their turn, starting on a new attack vector. “I’m open to any suggestions!” Ferrier said pleadingly.
“Hold on a sec,” Laxus said, leaning over his console. “I’m picking up a new signal coming in. It looks like—”
He was interrupted as a new ship blasted past the viewport, and it took Lando only a moment to recognize the drive tails and classic shape of the modified Corellian Gunship Ferrier and his crew used. The Gunship cut across the bombers’ path, its laser cannons firing away. But that wasn’t all it fired. Lando caught a flash of metal eject from its aft section, and then with a bang the sky exploded with a rapidly expanding mesh of metallic netting. The bombers swerved frantically to avoid it; but apparently these new fighters were built more for firepower than for speed. There was a crackle of electric discharge as the netting wrapped itself around them, encasing the bombers in its metal grasp.
“Conner net,” Ferrier muttered approvingly. “Someone remind me to give Zrrk an extra ration of bruallki next time we’re on Phraetiss.”
They watched as the Gunship dove past the netted bombers and drove for deep space. “There’s out exit,” Ferrier said, steering the ship to follow. “Abric, your two minutes are up.”
“Almost ready,” Abric said, his voice tight with concentration.
But there was still that Interdictor, and it hadn’t spent the past couple minutes fooling around. Laxus’s screen was flashing again: and Lando could see a phantom cone begin to expand as the Interdictor started powering up its gravity generators. Just a couple more seconds and they would be caught in its edge. “The Interdictor’s almost on us,” Lando said. “It’s now or never, Ferrier.”
“Ready,” Abric breathed, looking over his shoulder at Ferrier.
Ferrier nodded grimly. “Do it.”
* * *
Wedge happened to be staring right at the Dreadnaught when it suddenly and unexpectedly vanished. “Whoa,” someone on the comm channel gasped. “Did you see that?”
“I saw it,” Wedge confirmed, taking a closer look out his canopy. There could be no doubt. Where before there had been the running lights and gray-hulled shape of a Katana Dreadnaught, there was now only the emptiness of space. It was exactly like that Corellian freighter back at Sluis Van, only in reverse. “They must have activated the cloaking shield,” Rogue Six guessed.
“I think that’s right,” Wedge agreed. Even his X-wing’s sensors no longer picked up the Dreadnaught: not the drive tails or anything else. It was as if it had never been there.
That Interdictor was apparently having the same problem. Outside he could see it begin firing its turbolaser batteries along the Dreadnaught’s last vector. Tracing fire, Wedge identified it. Not content to permit its prey to escape that easily, the Interdictor was aiming for a stray hit that would allow it to track the Dreadnaught’s route and keep it within the gravity cone. But so far it didn’t seem to be working. After a couple moments the Interdictor changed its firing into a wide-spread scatter pattern, hoping again to hit anything that might be within range. “So what does that mean for us?” Rogue Eight asked, bringing Wedge back to the matter at hand.
“I think that means we’re out of the fight,” Wedge said. “There’s not much we can do for General Calrissian’s team now. They’re on their own.”
As if on cue the comm suddenly crackled. “All ships, this is General Bel Iblis,” the general’s voice cut in. “The mission is complete. Prepare to withdraw.”
“Copy, General,” Wedge said, glancing back at the trio of Republic Dreadnaughts lined up behind him. It looked like the withdrawal order hadn’t come a moment too soon. The Chimaera had been hammering away at the Peregrine’s flanks for the past five minutes, and at least two other capital ships had launched from the shipyard docks to join the Imperial side. Swinging the X-wing around, Wedge turned his attention back to his comm. “Rogue Squadron: Porkins’ Formation. Let’s cut a way out of here.”
* * *
Pellaeon watched helplessly as Bel Iblis’s Dreadnaught began to withdraw from its engagement with the Chimaera. “They’re beginning to pull out,” he noted unnecessarily.
“They are indeed,” Thrawn agreed anyway. It was easy to see why. With their Katana Dreadnaught gone—or at least somewhere out there hiding—there was no longer any reason to keep up the ruse. Already Pellaeon could see one of the Rebel ships making the jump to lightspeed.
Almost reluctantly, Pellaeon looked to his right, where the Interdictor was still attempting its wide-scatter firing. “Isn’t there something we can do to track it?” he asked Thrawn, wishing for perhaps the first time in his life that C‘baoth were here. He would be perfect for this kind of thing. But he‘d been transferred to the Death‘s Head two days ago for the Xyquine operation. “Drive emissions, heat signatures, something?”
“The only method I’m aware of that can reliably track a cloaked ship is with a crystal gravfield trap,” Thrawn said, his own gaze drifting towards the Interdictor as well. “Unfortunately, the closest one is at the Tangrene Ubiqtorate base, far too distant to do us any good here. Communications,” he called down the portside crew pit, “please instruct the Interdictor to stop firing. That Dreadnaught is long gone by now.”
The comm officer acknowledged, and a moment later the Interdictor’s turbolasers fell silent. “This is an unfortunate setback, I’ll admit,” Thrawn continued as another one of Bel Iblis’s ships leapt into hyperspace. “Luckily the Ukio operation is still far enough away that it shouldn’t take too long to equip another Dreadnaught with a cloaking shield.”
“I think this extends a little further beyond Ukio,” Pellaeon argued. “With their hands on a working cloaking shield it’s only a matter of time before the Rebels find a weakness and exploit it. Or worse, start using them against us.”
“Oh, I don’t think it will come to that.” There it was; that classic smile again. “Another twenty minutes, and the Rebels won’t even have possession of it.”
“Sir, I don’t—” Pellaeon suddenly recalled seeing Thrawn entering something on his console, right before they began their attack on Bel Iblis‘s ship. “Admiral? What did you do?”
But Thrawn merely smiled.
* * *
They’d managed to make it out of the Interdictor’s gravity well and into hyperspace without trouble; and they must have gone half a light-year at least when they all heard it—the distant echo of an explosion, coming from somewhere beneath them. “What in space was that?” Abric asked.
“Sounded like we might have blown the hyperdrive motivator,” Lando guessed. “We better check it out. Ferrier, bring us out of lightspeed.”
Ferrier did something on his console, and the deep rumble of the hyperdrive quieted as the ship exited hyperspace. Outside the viewport they could see nothing but stars for light-years around. “Corsar,” Ferrier called into the intercom, “we heard an explosion a few seconds ago. What the hell’s going on down there?”
“One of the motivators crapped out,” Corsar said, his voice sounding tight. “We’re not going anywhere for a while.“
Lando sighed. “Can you fix it?” he asked.
“I dunno. Maybe, if we can find a spare somewhere,” Corsar said dismissively. “Look, we’ve got bigger problems on our hands. You better get down, and I mean fast.”
Ferrier glanced up, shared a look with Lando. “We’re on our way.”
They half-jogged, half-ran the 500 meters that connected the bridge to the engineering areas. The hyperdrive was actually kept on a separate level one deck below, in a secluded section off the starboard corridor. Corsar was waiting for them when they got there, the hyperdrive motivator looking burned and already half-dismantled beside him. “What the hell did you do?” Ferrier demanded.
“Hey, I told you it didn’t look good,” Corsar said, getting up from where he’d been examining one of the parts. “But to space with the hyperdrive, anyway. We’ve got a bigger problem. Come here.”
He led them further down the catwalk towards the row of alluvial dampers. “Take a look,” he said, indicating a non-descript box wired in the corner. “Recognize it?”
Lando leaned in closer. “Not really,” he admitted. “Ferrier, do you…”
But his voice broke off at the pale expression on Ferrier’s face. He recognized it, all right. “How much time?” Ferrier managed.
“About fifteen minutes,” Corsar said grimly. “It was looped through the hyperdrive; that’s what made the motivator blow. Must have been activated right before we made the jump. I’ve got Devine getting one of the escape pods ready now.”
“Escape pods!” Lando interjected, standing between them. “Hang on a second. What is this thing?”
“One last upgrade from the Grand Admiral,” Ferrier explained. “It’s a bomb, Calrissian; a doomsday device. Thrawn put one on that flying bucket he had us riding around in a couple weeks ago.”
Lando swallowed. “Okay,” he said, taking a breath. “So how did you dismantle it?”
Ferrier snorted. “We didn’t. Zrrk and Laxus must have spent three days with the thing, but it had some kind of rig they couldn‘t figure out. Corsar’s right, we’ve got to get out of here before this whole place blows.”
No, Lando thought, a bitter taste forming in his mouth. It can’t end like this. Not when we’re so close. “There’s got to be some way to disarm it,” he protested aloud. “Think, Ferrier!”
“I‘m telling you, we tried for days and couldn‘t do it,” Ferrier said. “And the more time we spend arguing, the less time we have to get to an escape pod and get clear. So you’re welcome to stick around and play with it all you want, but me and my crew are getting out of here.”
From the comlink at his belt came a beep. Ferrier switched it on and held it to his ear. “It’s for you,” he said, tossing it at Lando.
“Calrissian?” Irenez’s voice came back. “What’s going on down there? How does the hyperdrive look?”
“Not good,” Lando told her. He caught Ferrier’s eye… “Irenez, I think you better send out a distress signal to the Peregrine,” he said. “And then get the rest of Ferrier’s crew to the bridge escape pod. We have about thirteen minutes before this whole ship blows.”
There was a pause at the other end. “Ah, you’re sure about that?”
“I’m staring at what Ferrier claims is some kind of doomsday mechanism,” Lando said. “Ferrier also says it’s completely tamper-proof.”
“I’m not just saying it,” Ferrier growled. “It is. Trust me.”
“I suppose we don’t have a choice, with only thirteen minutes on the clock,” Irenez conceded, and Lando could hear the bitter sound of defeat in her voice, too. “All right, I’m sending the signal now.”
“Be quick,” Lando urged before switching off the intercom and tossing it back to Ferrier. “Okay, Ferrier, you win.”
“Hey, I didn’t want this, Calrissian,” Ferrier said evenly. He turned to Corsar. “Which way to the escape pod?”
“It’s back this way,” Corsar said, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder. “Follow me.”
They scurried down the narrow corridor after him. Lando had no idea how much time it took them, but Devine was gesturing frantically the moment they came in sight. “Hurry up!” he called from the pod’s open doorway. “We’re down to four minutes!”
“What's the rush?” Ferrier grumbled sarcastically, waving Corsar and Lando in. “You first, Calrissian.”
Lando ducked down and in, settling into one of the acceleration chairs and securing the straps. Ferrier dropped into the one beside him and did the same. “That’s it,” he said to Devine, seated at the controls. “Hit it.”
* * *
There were still sixty seconds on the clock by the time they got the escape pod far enough from the Dreadnaught’s engines to be safe from the blast radius. Together they all clustered around the aft viewport, looking out. “One minute,” Devine reported the countdown.
For maybe thirty seconds nobody spoke, just staring out at the abandoned and lonely image of the doomed Dreadnaught. To their left they could barely see the tiny bell shape of the other escape pod, several hundred meters away. “Look, this doesn’t change our arrangement,” Ferrier warned softly in Lando’s ear. “The deal was for a Dreadnaught, and I got you a Dreadnaught. I still get my pardon.”
Lando didn’t look at him. “Don’t worry, Ferrier,” he said, not even trying to sound pleasant. “I’ll put in a good word with Bel Iblis. You’ll get your pardon.”
He could sense Ferrier’s glare on him. “Good,” the other said, his voice softening. There was a long pause. “Look, Calrissian, this isn’t the end. The Republic’ll get another shot at a cloaking shield. You‘ll see.”
Outside there came a distant flash near the Dreadnaught’s stern; the doomsday clock had reached zero. The flash was followed by a cacophony of multiple explosions as the detonation engulfed the entire midsection, splitting the ship in two. “Sure,” Lando said, watching the two halves of the former Dreadnaught slowly drift apart. “Right.”
It wasn’t until several hours later, when the distant fires of the Dreadnaught‘s remains had long burned out, that the similarly-shaped silhouette of the Peregrine finally arrived to pick them up.
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