Timothy Zahn - Survivor's Quest

Across the room, Mara had the emergency cabinet open, one hand poised on the oxygen lever, the other holding a patch kit. At Luke's nod she pulled down on the lever and sent the kit spinning through the air into his outstretched hand.

The gale, which had subsided to a faint whisper, began to pick up again as the oxygen tanks across the room flooded more air into the escaping flow. Luke counted out a few more seconds to make sure all of the poison gas had been flushed out, then pulled open the patch and slapped it across the hole.

There was a sizzling sound, more felt than really heard in the painfully thin atmosphere. The swirling wind subsided, and he felt the air pressure returning to normal. He exhaled the rest of the air he'd been holding in reserve and took a cautious breath. There was just a residual hint of the poison, drifting through the bridge like a bad memory, far too dilute to pose any danger.

He looked around the bridge. The Vagaari lay across their consoles or in contorted poses on the deck. All were dead.

He sighed. Jedi respect all life, in any form...

"Snap out of it, Luke," Mara called. "We've still got work to do."

Luke focused on her. She was leaning over the helm console, the one Estosh had made such an effort to reach before he died, working feverishly at the controls. "Right," he said, coming toward her. "What did he do there?"

"Exactly what I thought he would," Mara told him, and he sensed her grim satisfaction as she straightened up. "Okay, I caught it in time." She nodded at the viewport. "Now we just have to figure out what we're going to do about that."

Luke turned and looked. During the past few minutes, Estosh's final helm command had continued to drive them toward the Chiss command station.

And from their new vantage point he could see that the defenders were in desperate straits. The Vagaari fighters swarming around it were as maneuverable as X-wings, but with considerably more firepower, and they whipped around the base in a complex dancelike pattern that made them nearly impossible to hit. So far the base's shields were holding, but from the methodical way the fighters were hammering at it he knew it wouldn't be long before they'd battered the defenses down far enough to begin causing serious damage. Off to one side, drifting along outside of the attack pattern, was the Vagaari colony ship, looking like a strange spherical skeleton now that its brood of fighters had been launched.

"And that's after only a few minutes of combat," Mara murmured. "These guys are good."

"The beeping console in the anteroom?" Luke asked.

She nodded. "It was the comm monitor, indicating a signal being sent out from the bridge," she confirmed. "It had to have been Estosh's attack order." She shook her head. "No wonder Formbi wanted an excuse to launch a campaign against these people."

"I don't think they'll need more of an excuse than they've already got," Luke declared, crossing to one of the weapons stations. "Can this thing still fight?"

"What, against ships that small?" Mara countered. "Not a chance. Certainly not with just the two of us to run it. Besides, all we're likely to have are the anti-meteor laser cannon and maybe one or two of the smaller point-defense stuff. Thrawn demolished all the heavy weaponry fifty years ago."

Across the bridge, one of the consoles pinged, and a Vagaari voice began speaking faintly from its speakers. "They've spotted us," Mara said, stepping toward it. "You have anything you want to say to them?"

"Just a second," Luke said, an idea popping into the back of his mind. "No, don't answer. Find me a sensor station and tell me what's happening with the Vagaari carrier."

He sensed Mara's puzzlement, but she headed off across the bridge without comment. Luke went the other direction, toward where the weapons consoles were located. Maybe Thrawn's attack had missed something.

But no. All the turbolaser and ion cannon status boards showed red. "Got it," Mara called, and he looked over to see her leaning over another console. "The carrier's in pretty bad shape, actually. Power output minimal; life support systems minimal; serious damage to its north and south poles."

"Probably where its own heavy weapons were," Luke said with satisfaction. "I was hoping the Chiss had gotten in some good shots before they were surrounded."

"Fine, but that still leaves the fighters," Mara pointed out. "And us with no weapons."

"We won't need any," Luke assured her. "Get back to the helm—"

He broke off as a stutter of laserfire raked suddenly across the hull just below and forward of the bridge. "What the—?"

"Chiss fighters," Mara snapped, grabbing the console for balance as the deck shook with another set of impacts. "At least twenty of them, coming in from behind."

Luke bit down hard on his lip. He'd had a perfect plan; only now here came the Chiss threatening to ruin it.

And maybe to blow the Dreadnaught out from under them in the process. "I'll transmit Formbi's message," Mara shouted as another volley stuttered across the hull. "If they believe it—"

"No!" Luke cut her off, looking around him. It had to be on this side of the bridge somewhere. "No communications, to anyone. Get back to the helm and get us an evasive course toward the station."

"What? Luke—"

"Don't argue," Luke snapped, crossing back to the turbolaser control console and looking at the consoles near it. "If we say anything to the Chiss, the Vagaari will know we can transmit."

"And that's a problem?"

"Yes, that's a problem." Beneath him, the deck started to sway slightly as Mara keyed in the evasive maneuvers he'd called for. "We need to look like a ship that can't communicate, where Estosh is still in command—ah," he interrupted himself. There it was, nestled between the ion cannon and forward deflector shield consoles: the anti-meteor laser cannon. "Keep us evasive," he ordered, keying the activation switches. The board shifted to green with gratifying speed. "Okay. What was Drask's emergency prefix code again?"

"Two-space-one-space-two," Mara told him. "And you've lost me completely."

"Just cross your fingers." The Chiss fighters were swinging around for another pass. Mentally crossing his own, Luke aimed the laser cannon just astern of the group and fired: pulse-pulse; pulse; pulse-pulse.

For a long moment nothing happened. The fighters completed their turn and regrouped, heading back for another strafing run. Luke fired the pattern a second time, again aiming just wide of the group. They kept coming; he fired a third time—

And then they were on him, flashing over the Dreadnaught's surface, pouring volleys of laserfire into the hull.

Only this time there were no thuds as sections of hull metal vaporized explosively away. No impacts; no shaking of the ship; no nothing.

"I'll be a roasted nerf," Mara breathed. "They've cranked their lasers down to minimal power. They figured out the message."

"And at the same time were smart enough not to give the game away to the Vagaari," Luke said, abandoning the laser console and heading off across the bridge in a search pattern again. "I could learn to like working with these people."

"They're coming around for another pass," Mara reported. "You want to keep it evasive?"

"Right," Luke confirmed. The console he was looking for... there. "Where are the Chiss fighters?" he called as he keyed for activation.

"Off our portside stern."

"Good," Luke said. "Bring our flank around to portside, as if we're running interference for the Vagaari."

"Got it."

The view ahead turned as the huge ship began rotating sluggishly to the left, and Luke shifted his attention to the attacking Vagaari. If they reacted the way every other squadron he'd ever served with would react under these circumstances...