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identical rectangles. Each contained an intercept chart, with a blank
circle representing the target planet and a red line marking the
expected path of the scout. As the contacts proceeded, the charts
would change to show the position of the ships and the progress of the
scans.
Beside each chart was space for a flat-screen feed from the scout's
imagers. At the moment the name of the target World and the type of
scout assigned to it were displayed in that space.
Ackbar, Leia, and Han stood together at the back of the room, leaning
on the railing at the edge of the raised observer's platform and
watching twenty-four timers counting down in synchrony.
"It kind of reminds me of a tout board I saw at a million-credit
betting parlor on Bragkis," Han said, "and everyone standing around
waiting for the race to begin. 'Who's got a favorite?" 'What odds
will you give me on Wakiza?"" Leia usually found Han's irreverence
refreshing. But she had no patience for it just then and walked away
after shooting him a hot sidewise glare. Han's first instinct was to
follow, but Ackbar stayed him with a touch.
"Let her be," he said. "This is a hard time. She does not have much
water under her."
The room quieted dramatically in the last seconds, as everyone working
attended to the console before them, and everyone watching turned away
from their conversations and looked up toward the display. As zero
turned to plus-1, the entire wall came alive with moving images as the
charts began to change and the first images arrived.
It almost seemed to Han as though the wall were a squirming mass of
tiny creatures made of light. Unless he focused his attention on just
one area, the effect made his stomach turn and his nerves jangle.
Ackbar raised a hand and pointed to the lower right corner of the
wall.
"One casualty already," he said.
Number 23, a pilotless ferret, had missed its rendezvous at Doornik
207, which at last report had been host to a nest of Corasgh. But all
the other charts were beginning to fill in--the flight tracks changing
from red to green, the faces of the planets beginning to be shaded
in.
The early images from N'zoth caused a buzz in the room. They showed
the unmistakable shapes of Star Destroyers, singled out by the
R2-controlled imaging systems on Rone Taggar's Jennie Lee. After
leaving Han, Leia had gone to stand by Ayddar Nylykerka, who was busily
capturing individual frames from the data into a collage of ship
portraits. She listened in while the intense little analyst from the
Asset Tracking Office talked aloud to himself.
"That could be the Redoubtable," he muttered, consulting his lists.
"It's definitely early Imperial-class, despite the modifications to the
forward superstructure-" The buzz turned into a dark murmur a few
seconds later, when the view from Number 1 changed and another, sleeker
dagger shape snapped into focus. There was hardly a person in the room
who could not identify that profile, and the exceptions quickly learned
the significance in a hasty whisper from a companion there was a Super
Star Destroyer in orbit around N'zoth.
From the beginning, the New Republic had opted to build a larger number
of smaller vessels--Fleet carriers, Republic-class Star Destroyers,
battle cruisers--rather than adopt the Imperial design philosophy. Mon
Mothma had given orders to scrap rather than repair or make a museum
piece of the sole SSD captured from the Empire. Consequently, the
eight-kilometer-long behemoth circling N'zoth had anything in the New
Republic Fleet badly outgunned.
"Now, that, that can only be Intimidator," Nylykerka pronounced. "All
of the late-production Super-class had that additional shield tower
located on the centerline--" Shocking as that discovery was, the
attention of the audience in the War Hall was quickly drawn
elsewhere.
As the counters approached the two-minute mark and the scouts raced
toward the midpoint and closest approach of their passes, the display
wall was filling with images of warships, until it resembled a larger
version of the collage at Nylykerka's station.
There were Star Destroyers at Wakiza, at Zhina, at New Brigia and
Doornik 881, where the Imperial factory farm had been. The Yevethan
fleet at Morning Bell now numbered at least sixteen vessels, including
four Star
Destroyers, six Aramadia-class thrustships, and a queer-looking
Dreadnaught-scale ship, which Nylykerka excitedly identified as a
long-missing Imperial testbed, the EX-F. Other thrustships seemed to
be everywhere--orbiting all the other Duskhan League worlds, at Polneye
and the former Morath mining operation on Kojash.
Conspicuously missing from the entry scans were the three Imperial
shipyards named in Lieutenant Sconn's deposition Black Fifteen, which
had been located in orbit at N'zoth; Black Eleven, which had been at
Zhina; and Black Eight, at Wakiza. Ackbar noted their absence to Han
and added, "I do not think we will find them--i do not put it past the
Yevetha to have moved the shipyards to concealed locations. I suspect
that that is what Astrolabe stumbled on at Doornik Eleven FortytWO."
At 0205, the signal from Number 16 at Polneye abruptly terminated, the
tracking chart freezing with only forty-two percent of the planet
scanned. Moments later Number 19, at Morning Bell, and Number 5, at
the Duskhan world Tizon, also went dead.
The losses did not stop there. All over the wall, the individual
displays were going blank almost as quickly as they had come to life.
Only half the scouts reached the midpoint of their runs. Three more
winked out almost as one as Leia drifted away from Nylykerka and toward
the middle of the War Hall.
"What's going on out there?" she breathed to no one in particular as
she stared up at the displays.
The signals from Z'fell, Wakiza, Faz, N'zoth---all assigned to the 21st
Recon Group's X-wings--were among the last to vanish, but vanish they
did. No scout managed to scan more than three-fourths of a Duskhan
League target before being destroyed.
There was not a sound in the War Hall other than a muffled cough or a
furniture creak as the five-minute timer expired. Only four scouts
survived to jump out of their target systems--all drones. None had
found any thing during their passes, save for newly dead worlds.
Eyes began to turn from the frozen images on the wall to the woman
standing alone in the center of the room.
"Now we know," Leia said simply. "Controller, put the pilots' visual
IDs up while you queue the data from Number One for replay. I'd like
us to remember who we owe for this."
The blast that disabled Rone Taggar's recon-X came from behind and
below, without warning. Even before the cockpit went dark, he could [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]