22

Kirtan Loor’s shuttle came out of hyperspace a second before the spread of proton torpedoes hit the Ravager. Hanging nearly ten kilometers above the distant Lancer, all Kirtan saw was a cone of green laser light stabbing off into space, then a brilliant light dawning at the base of the cone, illuminating the frigate in which it burned. Subsidiary blasts surrounded the ship with fire, then it slowly started to drift away as escape pods shot in all directions away from it.

“What in Sith happened there?”

The shuttle’s pilot shook his head. “I don’t know, but I’m reading a Corellian blockade runner out there and a number of Alliance fighters. I’m taking us in to the Expeditious now!”

The fear in the man’s voice almost overwhelmed Kirtan’s sense of mission. “While you’re running, Lieutenant, get me as much comm chatter captured as you can. I want all of it. Do you have any survey probes? Launch one.”

“Sensors are telling us all we need to know about the dead frigate, sir.”

“Not it, you moron, launch it at the runner and the fighters.” Only because he couldn’t fly the shuttle did Kirtan refrain from throttling the pilot. “If you had lasers for brains you couldn’t melt ice with them.”

“Probe away.” The pilot glanced back at him. “Anything else, or can I land us on the Expeditious and get us out of here?”

“Are the fighters a serious threat to us?”

“Probably not, they’re all too far away, but I don’t want to chance it.”

“Very well, do your docking maneuver, but keep data flow constant from that probe.”

“As you command, my lord.”

Kirtan ignored the mocking tones in the man’s voice and sat back to think. The tiny rocket probe would provide little solid data. It was designed to be used to sink into a planet’s atmosphere and provide a shuttle with wind and atmospheric data that would affect flight and landing. It also had basic communications scanning capabilities and some visual sensors that might provide him data about the blockade runner and the fighters.

All of that would only confirm what he knew inside already. The fighters, or part of them at least, were from Rogue Squadron. Their need to strike back after the raid on their base was obvious, as was the Rebellion’s need to punish Admiral Devlia for daring to strike at them.

Kirtan pressed his hands together, fingertip to fingertip. “Lieutenant, is there any signal from Grand Isle?”

“Automatic warning beacons and faint homing locators from TIE wreckage.”

Good, then Devlia got what he deserved.

Kirtan had assumed Rogue Squadron and the Rebellion would exact retribution for the raid even before he had deduced its location. This was why he had wanted a mechanical probe to be followed by a full-scale assault. Destroying Rogue Squadron would have hampered Rebel operations in the Rachuk sector and clearly would have prevented the loss of the Ravager, as well as Grand Isle. If it had been done my way Admiral Devlia would be a hero instead of just dead.

Kirtan closed his eyes and summoned up all the information he had about troop strengths and locations in the sphere of space that surrounded Coruscant. Corellia and Kuat both were located in the most thickly populated portion of the galaxy and were heavily defended because of their shipyards. Their sectors had limited Rebel activity, largely because of the Imperial presence. The Rebels, while arrogant enough to think they could destroy the Empire, were not stupid. Hitting the Empire where it was strong was not a good way to win the war.

Sectors like Rachuk were weak links in the perimeter, but were not the keys to winning the galactic civil war. Industrialized warfare called for the destruction of a force’s ability to wage war. Conquering primitive worlds that produced very little of what contributed to the war effort was not a way to do that. The ease of delivering forces to strike at Rachuk from other Imperial garrisons meant it would be difficult to hold, therefore he assumed the Rebels would not try to hold it.

By leaving it in our hands we have to devote forces to holding it, further diluting our strength.

The ideal choice for a Rebel strike would be in a sector of space where travel was limited because of black holes, clouds of ionized gases, and other gravitic anomalies that made hyperspace travel unpredictable and dangerous. It would also be outside the most solidly inhabited areas of the galaxy to minimize the amount of support the Empire could devote to it, but it wouldn’t be so far outside that same area that the Alliance, which also drew a lot of support from the Empire’s populous worlds, could not supply and support it.

From his encyclopedic memory Kirtan dredged up the names of a dozen candidate sectors, and he knew there had to be four times that number that he did not know about. He purposely refrained from allowing himself to select a target. Assuming the veracity of a working hypothesis is the sort of mistake that caused Gil Bastra’s death. I cannot afford another such mistake.

The pilot flipped a switch on the shuttle’s command console and the wings retracted. The Lambda-class shuttle settled down on the dorsal hull of the cruiser. Retraction clamps clicked into place. A tremor shook the shuttle as the docking tunnel bumped the ship from below and formed an airtight seal around the shuttle’s exit ramp.

Kirtan freed himself from his restraining straps. “Lieutenant, download all the feeds and probe data onto separate datacards, then wipe this ship’s memory.”

“Yes, sir.”

Kirtan left the cockpit and descended the ramp into the Expeditious. Captain Rojahn greeted him with a curious light in his eyes. “Welcome back aboard, Agent Loor. Your timing was rather precise. We were not waiting long.”

“I don’t imagine the Ravager’s crew has the same perspective on our timing you do.”

The shorter man shook his head, then adjusted his grey cap. “Perhaps not. We might ask them about that if we are allowed to recover escape pods.”

“ ‘Allowed’ to recover them?”

“Most are going toward Vladet, but some are heading out into space. They probably assume the Rebels will take the world.” Rojahn shrugged his shoulders. “I would recover them, but I have strict orders to head out to the Pyria system the moment I have you aboard.”

The Pyria system was one of the candidate systems Kirtan had pinpointed. Borleias was the name of the inhabited world in that system. The Empire maintained a small base there overseen by General Evir Derricote. It was unremarkable, except that it was on his list of target systems for the Rebels.

Kirtan raised an eyebrow. “The orders came from Imperial Center, from Director Isard?”

Rojahn nodded. “There are sealed orders awaiting you in your cabin.”

Kirtan thought for a second, then nodded. “Take us out of this system. If we pick up some escape pods before we jump, I have no problem with that. You will have to plot an evasive course to our destination. If the pods can concentrate themselves in our exit vector, they are all yours.”

The Navy captain smiled. “Thank you, sir.”

“No thanks are needed, Captain. We are all in this together.” Kirtan refrained from smiling despite the feeling of power growing in his chest. I trade time for loyalty—something I did not know to do on Corellia. With every lesson I learn I become more deadly to the Rebellion.

Finally he did smile. And the more deadly I am to the Rebellion, the more useful I become within the Empire. That usefulness translates into power, and in the Empire, power is the very stuff of life.