Timothy Zahn - Outbound Flight

And with a sudden chill, Car’das understood. The first two waves of starfighters hadn’t been trying to breach the Dreadnaughts’ thick armor plating. Their goal had merely been to create dents in the hulls at very specific points.

The points where the interior blast doors were positioned.

And now, with those doors disabled or warped enough to prevent a proper air seal, the rest of the starfighters were opening the Dreadnaughts to space.

More clouds of debris were blowing away from Outbound Flight’s flanks as the starfighters blasted their way through the hulls, sweeping new waves of sudden death through the outer areas of the Dreadnaughts.

But for all the effect the attack had on him, C’baoth might not even have noticed it. His face remained as hard as anvilstone, his eyes burning unblinkingly across the Springhawk

‘s bridge.

And Mitth’raw’nuruodo was still dying.

Doriana curled his hands into helpless fists. So it was finally over. If this second assault had failed to kill C’baoth, it was because he’d hidden himself well away from the vacuum that had now snuffed out all life in the Dreadnaughts’ outer sections.

Even given the thinner bulkheads and blast doors of the ships’

interior sections, there was no way even droid starfighters could clear out the maze of decks and compartments in time.

An odd formation caught his eve as it shot into view outside the canopy: a pair of starfighters flying in close formation with a fat cylinder tucked between them. Not just one pair, Doriana saw now, but ten of them, heading at full speed toward Outbound Flight.

He remembered Kav mentioning this particularproject of Mitth’raw’nuruodo’s, and the vicelord’s contemptuous dismissal of the cylinders as some sort of useless fuel tanks.

Frowning, he watched as, in ones and twos, the starfighter pairs drove through the newly blasted holes in the Dreadnaughts’ hulls and disappeared inside.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then, abruptly, a haze of pale blue burst outward from the openings, nearly invisible amid the floating clouds of wreckage.

And with a sudden gasp of air, Mitth’raw’nuruodo collapsed forward against his board.

“Commander?” Doriana called, trying to get past the circle of crewers.

“I’m… all right,” the other panted, rubbing his throat with one hand as he waved off assistance with the other.

“I think you got him,” Doriana said, looking over at the comm display. C’baoth was no longer in sight. “I think C’baoth’s dead.”

“Yes,” Mitth’raw’nuruodo confirmed, his voice quiet.

“All of them… are dead.”

A strange sensation crept up Doriana’s back. “That’s impossible,” he said. “You only had one or two of those bombs in each Dreadnaught.”

“One was all that was necessary,” Mitth’raw’nuruodo said with a sadness that Doriana had never heard in him before.

“They’re a very special sort of weapon. A very terrible sort. Once inside the protective barrier of a war vessel’s outer armor, they explode into a killing wave of radiation. The wave passes through floors and walls and ceilings, destroying all life.”

Doriana swallowed. “And you had them all ready to go,” he heard himself say.

Mitth’raw’nuruodo’s eyes bored into his. “They were not meant for Outbound Flight,” he said, and there was anexpression on his face that made Doriana take an involuntary step backward. “They were intended for use against the largest of the Vagaari war vessels.”

Doriana grimaced. “I see.”

“No, you do not see,” Mitth’raw’nuruodo retorted.

“Because now, instead, we’ll need to destroy the Vagaari remnant aboard the disabled vessels in shipboard face-to-face combat.”

He pointed out the canopy. “Worse, some of the war vessels and civilian craft have now escaped to deep space, where they’ll have time to rebuild and perhaps one day will again pose a threat to this region of space.”

“I understand,” Doriana said. “I’m sorry.”

To his surprise, he realized he meant it.

For a long moment Mitth’raw’nuruodo gazed at him in silence. Then, slowly, some of the tension lines faded from his face. “No warrior ever has the full depth of control that he would like,” he said, his voice calmer but still troubled. “But I wish here that it might have been otherwise.”

Doriana looked at Kav. For a wonder, the Neimoidian had the sense to keep his mouth shut. “What happens now?”

“As I said, we board the Vagaari war vessels,”

Mitth’raw’nuruodo said. “Once they’ve been secured, we’ll free the Geroons from their prisons.”

Doriana nodded. And so that was it. Outbound Flight was destroyed, its Jedi—especially C’baoth—all dead. It was over.

All, that is, except one small loose end. No matter what the outcome, Kav’s warning echoed through his mind, in the end this Mitthrawdo will have to die.

And in the swirling chaos of a shipboard assault, accidents inevitably happened. “I wonder if I might have permission to accompany the attack force,” he said. “I’d like to observe Chiss soldiers in action.”

Mitth’raw’nuruodo inclined his head slightly. “As you wish, Commander Stratis. I think you’ll find it most instructive.”

“Yes,” Doriana agreed softly. “I’m sure I will.”

The vibrations from the Dreadnaughts above, transmitted faintly through the metal of the connecting pylons, finally came to an end. “Is it over?” Jorad Pressor asked timidly.

Carefully, Lorana let her hand drop from the bulkhead where she’d been steadying herself. The sudden, awful flood of death from above had finally ended as well, leaving nothing behind.

Nothing.

“Yes,” she said, trying hard to give the boy an encouraging smile. “It’s all over.”

“So we can go back up?”

Lorana lifted her eves to Jorad’s father, and the tight set of his mouth. The children might not understand, but the adults did. “Not quite yet,” she told Jorad. “There’s probably a lot of cleaning up they’re having to do. We’d just be in the way.”

“And would have to hold our breath,” someone muttered from the back of the group.

Someone else made a shushing noise. “Anyway, there’s no point in hanging around here,” one of the older men spoke up, trying to sound casual. “Might as well go back to the Jedi school where we can at least be a little more comfortable.”

“And where we’ll be properly locked in?” Uliar added sourly.

“No, of course not,” Lorana said, trying to get her brain back on track. “There’s plenty of spare building material crated up in the storage areas. I’ll cut a section of girder and prop open the door. Come on—everyone back.”

The crowd turned and shuffled back the way they’d come, some of the children still murmuring anxiously to their parents, the parents in turn trying to comfort them. Lorana started to follow, paused as Uliar touched her arm. “So what’s the real damage?” he asked softly.

She sighed. “I don’t sense any life up there. None at all.”

“Could you be wrong?”

“It’s possible,” she admitted. “But I don’t think so.”

He was silent for a moment. “We’ll need to make sure,”

he said. “There may be survivors who are just too weak for you to sense.”

“I know,” she said. “But we can’t get up there yet. The fact that the turbolift cars won’t come implies the pylons are open to vacuum somewhere. We’ll have to wait until the droids get them patched up.”

Uliar hissed between his teeth. “That could take hours.”

“It can’t be helped,” Lorana said. “We’ll just have to wait.”