Thrawn Ascendancy Book 3: Lesser Evil
- Автор: Зан Тимоти
- Год: 2021
- Язык: английский
- Год: Random House
- ISBN: 9781473596580
- Жанр: Боевая фантастика
Электронная книга - «Thrawn Ascendancy Book 3: Lesser Evil». Краткое содержание книги:
“The patrol ships are taking them apart,” the sensor officer said grimly. “Looks like they’ve already disabled the freighters’ hyperdrives. Clean punches in just the right places. One or two shots each—they knew what they were doing.”
“Understood,” Ziinda said, scowling. Family warships usually showed slight variations in weaponry and exterior decoration. Freighters were just freighters, though, and everyone used mostly the same standard models with standard internal layouts.
And that uniformity had now played into the attackers’ hands. Ziinda had hoped that if they could distract the patrol ships long enough, the freighters might be able to cover the short distance to the edge of the gravity well and escape. With their hyperdrives gone, that was no longer an option.
But if the Grayshrike couldn’t help them escape, it could at least give them some breathing space. “Spheres: Six-shot volley on the attackers. Three, two, one.”
The Grayshrike gave the usual twitch as the half dozen plasma spheres shot out from their tubes. “Spheres on target,” Ghaloksu reported. “Impact in—”
“Spheres are disintegrating, ma’am,” Vimsk cut in.
Ziinda looked over at the tactical display. Vimsk was right: All six plasma spheres had somehow lost their self-focusing sheaths and were boiling away their ionic energy into empty space. “Ghaloksu?”
“Confirmed, Senior Captain,” Ghaloksu said tightly. “I don’t know how. They shouldn’t all have gone at the same time that way.”
“You can sort it out later,” Ziinda said. “Get me a second salvo.”
“Second salvo ready, ma’am.”
“Fire.”
Another twitch of the Grayshrike, and another six plasma spheres blazed toward the battling ships. Ziinda shifted her attention to the vid display, watching closely as the cam tracked the spheres toward their targets.
Once again, the tightly packed balls of plasma abruptly shimmered and de-formed, their containment balance failing as they broke apart into multiple flashes of released energy.
But this time Ziinda spotted something. A group of somethings, actually, arrowing away from the attackers and intercepting the spheres. Were those …?
They were. “Damn,” she bit out under her breath. “They’re using dibbers.”
“What?” Apros asked, half turning toward her.
“Dibbers,” Ziinda repeated, her mind racing. “The little anti-fighter missiles the Battle Dreadnought used against the Vigilant’s spheres and breachers the last time we tangled with it at Sunrise.”
“That can’t be,” Apros objected, craning his neck to look at the sensor display. “How could Chiss patrol ships get hold of those?”
“I don’t know,” Ziinda said. “Vimsk?”
“The image is blurry, ma’am,” Vimsk said, inclining her head slightly as she listened to the voices coming over her private speaker. “The analysts say these are smaller than the Sunrise dibbers, and are probably shorter-range.”
“Different weapons, but the same tactic,” Apros said.
“So it would appear, Mid Captain,” Vimsk said.
“Interesting,” Ziinda murmured, an icy resolve settling into her. And with that, she decided, it was time to stop playing nice.
This was no longer a simple family dispute. Whoever was flying those patrol ships, they were connected to or working with the Ascendancy’s enemies, and it was time to take them out. With survivors if possible; with shards of scrap metal if not. “Ghaloksu, give me lasers,” she ordered. “Full volley on—”
“Captain, they’re changing vector,” Vimsk warned. “Two bogeys breaking off freighters, moving to engage us.”
“Good,” Ziinda said, checking the vector marks on the tactical. The freighters were still under attack by the other two patrol ships, but the group movement was taking that battle away from the two that were now targeting the Grayshrike. If Ziinda held off her own counterattack a few more seconds, the freighters should be safely out of her line of fire. “Ghaloksu, target bogey lasers. Hold fire until my command.”
The words were barely out of her mouth when the two patrol ships opened fire.
“Targeting Sensors Two and Three hit,” Apros reported. “Near miss on Lasers One and Three, two hits on portside hull and one on starboard. Barrier nodes intact; no significant damage to the ship.”
“Barrier down five percent,” Ghaloksu added. “Crews are taking over fire control from the damaged sensors.”
“Acknowledged,” Ziinda said, feeling a frown crease her forehead. A remarkably ineffective attack, all things considered, especially given that the patrol ships had already demonstrated impressive marksmanship by wrecking the freighters’ hyperdrives. “All right, Ghaloksu, show them how it’s done. Three, two, one.”
The Grayshrike’s lasers flashed out, burning across Jamiron’s ionosphere and slashing into the patrol ships. A second laser salvo lanced out from the attackers toward the Grayshrike, digging into the electrostatic barrier but again causing no real damage. For a few seconds the lasers dueled, the intensity of fire from the patrol ships dropping steadily as Ghaloksu’s counterattack systematically destroyed their weaponry. The final patrol ship lasers went silent—
“Bogey lasers destroyed,” Ghaloksu reported.
“Bogeys changing course,” Wikivv put in. “Pitching positive … looks like they’re going to head back to the freighters.”
“Like hell they are,” Ziinda said. “Ghaloksu: Cripple them.”
Once again the Grayshrike’s lasers blazed out, this time targeting first the maneuvering thrusters along the patrol ships’ ventral sides, then shifting to the main thrusters as the bogeys’ pitch turn presented them to view. The turn faltered as the patrol ships’ drives died, their final vectors angling them away from the ongoing freighter battle and toward the edge of Jamiron’s planetary rim.
“Bogeys disabled and drifting, Senior Captain,” Apros reported, reaching past Ghaloksu to key a pair of controls. “Tractor beams ready, if you want to bring them in.”
Ziinda checked the sensor readouts. The two patrol ships were no longer under power, but their reactors were still at normal function. If they could somehow repair their thrusters, they could conceivably get to the edge of the gravity well and escape into hyperspace. Chasing after them and reeling them in would eliminate any chance of that happening.
But the Clarr freighters were still under attack, and the light cruiser that had been escorting them had fallen silent and was drifting behind the battle. Rescuing the civilians had to be the Grayshrike’s first priority. “They’ll keep, Mid Captain,” she told Apros. “Wikivv, get us over to the freighters. Ghaloksu, set up a full spread of spheres. If we’re lucky, we can flicker everyone and sort them out at our leisure.”
“And if these bogeys also have dibbers?” Apros asked as the Grayshrike turned toward the battle and increased its speed.
“Then Ghaloksu will just need to be very precise with his lasers,” Ziinda said. “Think you can handle that, Senior Commander?”
“Yes, ma’am, I can,” Ghaloksu assured her. “Spheres ready.”
Ziinda nodded. “Stand by.” The Grayshrike was nearly to firing range. A few more seconds …
“Senior Captain—the cruiser,” Vimsk said suddenly. “I think it’s—”
And without warning, the light cruiser lagging behind the freighters opened fire, its lasers blasting into the attacking patrol ships’ main thrusters. The targets twitched violently, then veered out and up as they attempted to get clear of the cruiser’s attack.