Timothy Zahn - Outbound Flight

But the Whirlwind wasn’t charging in from the side for a sucker-punch attack. It was still sitting quietly in space, apparently being held in reserve.

He looked back at the incoming starfighters. “I hope you’ve got one Great Father of a shock net up your sleeve,” he warned.

“We’ll certainly have to consider creating such a device if we begin facing opponents like this on a regular basis,”

Thrawn said drily. “Tell me, what happens to these droids if their communication signals are cut off?”

“If the—? Are you talking about jamming?”

“You disapprove?”

“No, of course not,” Car’das said. “But Trade Federation command signals are supposed to be unjammable.

They can change frequencies and command patterns instantly—the minute you block off one part of the spectrum they just shift to another.”

“And if you block the entire spectrum at once?”

Car’das stared at him. The man was serious. “You can’t blanket the whole area, Commander,” he ground out between clenched teeth. “It’s too big. The minute you start, they’ll know what you’re doing and send a set of contingency orders to everything outside your jamming. Those droid starfighters may not be smart, but they’re certainly capable of downloadingenough general commands to keep them functioning until they’ve pounded us to dust.”

“Only if there are any starfighters still outside the jamming,” Thrawn pointed out. “But it seems our opponent has taken care of that problem for us.” He pointed. “Even as we close the distance, he is converging all his starfighters into this one small area.”

Car’das stared at the displays. Thrawn was right—the Trade Federation commander had abandoned the rest of his picket area to bring all his starfighters to the attack. Didn’t he realize the possible implications of what he was doing? “What about your own communications?” he asked. “If you jam the whole spectrum, you’ll be out of touch with your people, too.”

“Fortunately, my warriors are capable of more than simply downloading general commands,” Thrawn said. “Let’s see which side’s battle philosophy proves the more versatile.”

Leaning forward, he took a deep breath. “Full-spectrum jamming: now.”

For a long, horrifying second the Darkvenge‘s bridge was filled with a screech like something from the restless undead of ancient Coruscant legend. Then the Neimoidian at the comm slapped at the switch, cutting off the wail and leaving only a distant ringing in Doriana’s ears. “What in the name of—?”

“Vicelord—we are being jammed!” the Neimoidian called, staring at his board in obvious disbelief. “All starfighters have gone dormant!”

Doriana stared out the viewports, his stomach tightening into a hard knot. The starfighters had indeed locked down, each of them now flying mindlessly in whatever direction it had last been pointed.

And swerving with ease through the drifting obstacle course, blasting away at the helpless starfighters as they went, Mitth’raw’nuruodo’s alien ships were headed straight for them, the fighters in screening formation ahead of the two cruisers.

“Get our starfighters back online,” Kav ordered tautly, jabbing ahand toward the Neimoidians at the command board. “Get them back.”

“We are trying,” one of them called. “We have opened laser communications to as many as we can.”

But those comm lasers were line of sight, Doriana knew, and with a sinking feeling he realized that this limitation was growing ever tighter as expanding clouds of dust and debris from the shattered starfighters began to block even this last-gasp communication method. A few of the starfighters were coming back to life, but they were targeted and destroyed by the aliens before they could organize into an effective fighting force. “What about the other ships?” he demanded. “Why aren’t they attacking?”

“There!” someone called, and Doriana saw an arm point upward from one of the pits. “The Hardcells have launched their missiles.”

“About time,” Doriana muttered, feeling a cautious hope rising within him as five clusters of three missiles each shot toward the attackers.

The attackers reacted instantly, five of the fighters abandoning their thrust toward the battleships and curving toward the outside of the Trade Federation formation. The missiles, locking in on the movement, followed. “Good,” Kav said with satisfaction. “The next salvo will draw the rest of the fighters away and leave the cruisers undefended. Then our own quad laser batteries can destroy them with ease.”

“Maybe,” Doriana said cautiously, following the fleeing alien craft with his eyes. They were cutting in and out through the masses of drifting starfighters, clearly trying to throw off the pursuing missiles’ homing locks.

But to no avail. Techno Union hardware was among the best in the Republic, and the missiles maneuvered their own way through the clutter with case as they continued to close the gap. The aliens reached the edge of the starfighter cloud and curved tightly back into it again, driving inward toward themain ships. Again, the missiles matched the maneuver. The fighters straightened out; and then, in near unison, each dropped a small object aft toward its pursuers.

And Doriana stiffened as a well-remembered hazy cloud erupted from each of them, unfolding directly in the path of the incoming missile clusters. “More Connor nets!” he snapped.

But there was nothing the onlookers could do. The nets enveloped the missile clusters and flashed their killing jolts of high-voltage current, destroying homing electronics and drive systems alike and leaving the missiles as dead as the drifting starfighters around them.

Only once again, Mitth’raw’nuruodo hadn’t been content to merely protect his own ships from attack. Even as Doriana’s hands curled into helpless fists, their inertia sent the missiles slamming into the Techno Union ships. There were multiple blasts as sections of hull metal shattered outward into space.

And then, like a minor sun going off at close range, one of the ships exploded completely.

“What—?” Kav gasped. “No! Not from a single missile cluster. This is impossible!”

“Everything Mitth’raw’nuruodo does is impossible,”

Doriana retorted bitterly. “The missiles must have hit a weak spot.”

“What kind? Where could it be?”

Doriana snorted. “Just watch his ships. They’ll be targeting the same spot on all the rest of them.”

He was right. Within minutes the alien fighters and cruisers had successfully dodged the desperate flurry of missiles the Techno Union ships were now throwing at them and had efficiently destroyed every one of them. The spot, Doriana noted with morbid fascination, was the line junction to the massiveexternal fuel cells.

“We must escape,” Kav said, his voice shaking.

“Helm—prepare to jump to lightspeed.”

“Wait a minute,” Doriana protested, grabbing at his arm. The specter of defeat loomed before him, along with the fate of all those who failed Darth Sidious. “You can’t just abandon the fleet.”

“What fleet?” Kav snarled. “Look around you, Stratis.

What fleet?”

Doriana felt his throat tighten. He was right, of course.

All six of the Techno Union Hardcells were gone, half of them destroyed by their own missiles. The seven escort cruisers, never intended to operate against such enemies without capital ship support, were being systematically hunted down and eliminated.

Only the two Trade Federation battleships were still in any condition to fight or run.

But with their communications still blocked, there was no way to order a general retreat. If the Darkvenge left, it would be leaving alone.