He had already given the commanders of the other capital ships the order to concentrate their fire exclusively on the Spear the instant it dropped from hyperspace, hoping to inflict some significant damage before Karrid could activate her shields. At the same time, the rest of his fleet would focus on the Extempus and the remaining Imperials.
The monitor began to flash with Imperial vessels blinking into existence on the scanner as they dropped out of hyperspace. The Hammerheads and corvettes opened fire on the enemy, but per Jace’s orders the capital ships held off, waiting for the Spear.
The Extempus suffered several direct hits before its shields came up, giving it a momentary reprieve. A destroyer exploded as a lucky shot from one of the corvettes ruptured the hypermatter core. The other destroyers, the Dreadnoughts, and the carrier managed to escape significant damage in the initial assault.
Jace continued to stare at the screen, trying to will the Ascendant Spear to materialize. The Thunderclaps dived into the fray, two squadrons swarming the Extempus while the other two each went for one of the Dreadnoughts. The corvettes descended on the carrier, trying to disable it before it was able to deploy the Interceptors in its hold.
“Supreme Commander Jace,” Admiral Gorwin radioed from one of the other capital ships. “No sign of the Ascendant Spear. Permission to engage other targets.”
“Permission granted,” Jace growled, his hands gripping the arms of his command chair so hard his knuckles turned white.
He turned to where Satele and Teff’ith were standing in a corner of the bridge.
“Darth Karrid is coming,” the Jedi assured him.
“We can’t wait any longer,” Jace replied. “Not if we want to minimize Republic casualties.”
He turned to the comm terminal that connected him to the other sections of the ship. “Concentrate fire on the Extempus. Make Nezzor pay for what he did to Ruan.”
The bridge of the Extempus was dark, lit only by the dim illumination of emergency lighting and the glow of the panels from the consoles that lined the perimeter.
“We just lost the Dravilla,” his first officer informed him.
Outside the viewing window, Moff Nezzor could see the doomed destroyer as it was engulfed in a series of explosions.
“Shield status,” he demanded.
“Under twenty percent.”
Nezzor had come expecting a slaughter. He’d found one, but there was no denying he was on the wrong side. Even without the advantage of surprise, the Republic force he was facing would have crushed his fleet.
But if he was going to die, it wouldn’t be while attempting a retreat.
“Set a course for the nearest orbital city,” he ordered. “Full speed ahead.”
The helmsman hesitated before a lifetime of Imperial training compelled him to obey the suicide order. “Aye-aye, sir.”
If this was Nezzor’s final battle, he was going to take as many Republic lives with him as possible.
Jace saw the Extempus change course and accelerate, though it took him a few seconds to realize what Nezzor was planning.
“All ships, concentrate full fire on the Extempus!” he shouted, transmitting his orders across the entire Republic fleet. “They’re trying to crash into the cities!”
Following his command, the entire Republic fleet—minus six fighters that were lost during the battle—disengaged from their targets and turned toward the Imperial flagship. Seeing the opportunity, the rest of the Imperial fleet began a full retreat in the opposite direction, desperately trying to put enough distance between them and the Republic ships to safely activate their hyperdrives and escape with their lives.
Karrid braced herself for a moment of disorientation as the Ascendant Spear dropped out of hyperspace in the Duro system. Though it only took a fraction of a second for the sensors to adjust to the physical laws and dimensions of realspace and come back online, in her state of heightened acuity the delay felt like an eternity. The instant her hyperspace-induced blindness passed, however, she was able to pinpoint the location of every ship across the entire battlefield.
The Spear had appeared well beyond the edges of the Duro system, rather than where she expected the Republic ambush would engage Nezzor’s fleet. The lifeless remains of several Imperial vessels floated silently in the distance. Beyond them, a single vessel—Nezzor’s Extempus—was racing toward Duro itself, with Republic ships giving chase. The surviving remnants of the Imperial fleet—a Dreadnought, a destroyer, and a handful of Interceptors—were headed in the opposite direction, toward Karrid and the edges of the system. Facing overwhelming odds, they’d chosen to abandon their commander and flee the battle.
Karrid’s fingers tapped lightly at the control pad on the arm of her chair, sending signals shooting up the wires linked into her cybernetic implants and off to the ship itself. The Ascendant Spear responded to her commands by targeting the approaching Imperial vessels as they lowered their shields in preparation for the jump to hyperspace, never suspecting one of their own would fire at them. The Spear’s ion cannons tore into the defenseless ships, blasting them into cosmic dust as a reward for their cowardice.
The Spear changed course as Karrid sent it accelerating toward the Republic vessels. Still too far away for even her incomparable weapons, she targeted the enemy flagship and prepared to fire as soon as she got into range.
Theron had felt the Spear drop from hyperspace, the screaming drive core mercifully winding down as it did. When the ship’s sensors came online, he was already plugged in, lurking in the corners of the network just beyond Karrid’s consciousness.
Even though he was receiving data in real time, he was still caught off guard when she fired on the advancing Imperial vessels. Not that he would have done anything to stop her even if he’d been expecting it. But the speed and precision with which she dispatched her targets reinforced his earlier fears that the Spear was going to win the battle, despite his best efforts.
He pushed the negative thoughts from his mind as Karrid advanced on the Republic fleet in the distance. His link to the ship gave Theron a rough idea of the Republic numbers, but the data was coming too quickly for him to fully process it. Not that it mattered—his attention needed to be focused on the internal workings of the Spear if he had any hope of slowing Karrid down.
As the targeting systems came online, Theron used his slicer spike to upload one of his virus subroutines, praying it would work.
Nezzor’s desperate suicide run never had a chance, but that didn’t keep Jace from cursing under his breath as the Republic fleet bombarded the Imperial flagship. When the Extempus’s shields went down, exhausted by the constant barrage of enemy fire, he pumped his fist. A second later he stood up and let out a primal victory roar as a series of explosions tore the vessel apart, eliminating the threat.
“Darth Karrid is here!” Satele suddenly declared, abruptly ending his celebration.
Jace slammed himself back into his chair, his eyes flicking back and forth over the screen depicting the battlefield.
“Where? I don’t see it!”
A second later a ship appeared on the very edge of scanner range, and he didn’t need the helmsman’s confirmation to know it was the Ascendant Spear.
“Never in doubt,” he heard Teff’ith say, though it sounded more like she was speaking to herself.
“All ships, prepare for battle,” he barked out. “We do whatever it takes to bring the Spear down!”
The ships in the fleet turned away from the smoking wreckage of the Extempus, carving a wide arc as they circled around to head in the opposite direction. The Spear was closing on them fast, though it was still too far away to engage.
“Look at the size of that beast!” the helmsman gasped as the sensors threw up the enemy vessel’s dimensions on his readout.
“Shields up. Prepare to fire the second we come in range,” Jace ordered, knowing full well the Spear’s guns would be able to tear them apart long before they ever got close enough to retaliat
e.
Come on, Theron. Don’t let us down!
“Sir!” the helmsman warned. “Enemy fire incoming!”
“Brace for impact!” Jace shouted as his screen showed the incoming ion blasts.
He prayed the shields would hold, but to his surprise the blast flew high and wide.
“She missed,” the helmsman said, shocked. “Flat-out missed us!”
“Target in range,” the gunner told him.
Jace bared his teeth in a fierce grin.
“Hit her back with everything we’ve got!”
Darth Karrid saw her shot miss its mark, but it took her a second to wrap her mind around what had happened. The target hadn’t taken any evasive maneuvers, or deflected the attack with shields … she had just missed.
She ran a quick diagnostic check of her targeting array, only to find it was entirely miscalibrated. It only took her a few seconds to correct the mistake, but in that time the Republic vessels had come close enough to bring their own weapons to bear.
Sensing the incoming fire, she redirected energy from the aft shields to reinforce the deflectors facing the advancing fleet. The incoming blasts were deflected harmlessly, and Karrid took aim for a second time, only to see her shot go wide yet again. As the Republic ships launched a second volley, Karrid reran the diagnostics on the targeting array, isolated another error, and adjusted for it.
An instant before the second round of incoming Republic fire hit, the aft shields suddenly surged to full capacity, draining all power from the forward deflectors. Instead of being easily repelled, the laser bolts and ion blasts smashed into the Spear’s hull, making Karrid cry out in pain. The damage was significant, and she tapped frantically at the control pad to reroute the affected systems through new relays and restore optimal efficiency, starting with the deflector shields.
The Republic ships were fanning out as they drew closer, looking to surround her vessel so they could attack from all sides. Karrid engaged the sublight thrusters and veered sharply to starboard, tilting the nose of the Spear down at a forty-five-degree angle and accelerating far too quickly for the Republic vessels to keep up. She dived down and away, buying time to fix her malfunctioning systems.
She saw the Republic vessels trying vainly to pursue her, and then suddenly they were gone as the entire external sensor network went down. Completely blind to what lay outside her vessel, Karrid momentarily panicked, her arms flailing wildly and her head thrashing violently from side to side. The sensation of the wires connecting her to her ship slapping against her face and shoulders snapped her back to her senses, and in that instant she felt him.
An intruder. An interloper. A saboteur on her ship, slicing into her private network.
The violation enraged her. Bellowing out a roar, Karrid threw herself into the task of finding and destroying the enemy within. Her fury energized her, fueling the fires of the dark side that burned within her and her ship. Outside the crystal sphere of her command pod she felt Lord Quux and Lord Ordez nearly break from the increased strain, though her apprentice never wavered. But as close as they came to failing her, they somehow managed to stay in their meditative trance, allowing Karrid to draw on their power to push herself and the Spear far beyond their previous limits.
Within seconds she had rerouted all primary battle systems to new pathways, sealing off the old ones to isolate any potential viruses and keep them from spreading. The sensors came back online, as did the shields and her targeting array. Now that she knew the slicer was there, she was able to sense his next attack, disable it before it could take effect, and trace it back to its source.
“Security to the engine room,” she hissed into the pod’s comlink. She realized the slicer could probably hear her, but there was nothing she could do about it.
The slicer tried to disrupt another system, but now that she knew where the attacks were coming from it was easy to keep them from doing any real harm. With the internal threat neutralized, she turned her attention back to the battle just in time to throw up her shields to ward off another attack. Her evasive maneuver had separated her from the Republic fleet, but they were closing in once again. She took aim at the closest vessel—one of the Hammerheads—and fired.
When the Ascendant Spear suddenly veered away from the fleet and took off in an unexpected direction, Jace knew they had Karrid on the run.
“She’s vulnerable,” he said. “Finish her off. Now!”
Every ship in the Republic fleet scrambled to intercept the enemy vessel on its new course. Emboldened by the misfiring guns and the failing shields, they came in hard and fast, looking to put a quick end to the battle. The Aegis fired again, as did many of the other vessels, targeting the same location where they had pierced the shields and punctured the Spear’s hull in their previous attack.
Rather than inflicting even more damage, the entirety of their attacks was deflected away. The guns of the Spear opened fire again, but this time instead of sailing wide they scored a direct hit on one of the Hammerheads. The combined power of the precisely aimed ion cannons and turbolasers ripped through the shields and shredded the Hammerhead, crippling the ship with a single devastating attack.
“Pull back!” Jace ordered, realizing their advantage had been lost. “Pull back and regroup!”
One of the corvettes was lost as the Republic fleet aborted its headlong charge, snuffed out by the Spear’s defense turrets when it got too close. Another blast from the ion cannons rocked the Aegis as it tried to retreat to a safe distance, sending Teff’ith and Satele sprawling to the ground and nearly knocking Jace out of his command seat.
“Damage report!”
“Shields took the worst of it. No critical systems hit. We’ve lost power to Sector Four. Medical teams are on their way.”
“Shields?”
“Down to seventy percent.”
Shields drained 30 percent from a single attack? Jace marveled.
An instant later he was hit with the sobering realization that they didn’t stand a chance. War raged across the entire galaxy; the Republic had brought in only as many ships as were in the vicinity. “Call for reinforcements,” he said, knowing it would be hours before any ships stationed in other parts of the galaxy could reach them. “Take evasive action,” he ordered the rest of his fleet. “Keep your distance.”
Even if they couldn’t beat the Spear, they could at least try to drag the battle out as long as possible to give Theron and Gnost-Dural a chance to pull off a miracle.
CHAPTER 31
THERON RAN BACK AND FORTH along the engine room’s narrow walkways, racing from relay to relay as he uploaded his virus subroutines. The first few worked perfectly, sending the Spear’s shots wide, dropping the shields, and disabling the sensors. Then Karrid had figured it out.
He tried desperately to find new vulnerabilities to exploit, but each time he did it only took two or three seconds for her to counteract his efforts. Still plugged into the ship’s comm system and scanners, he heard her send security down to the engine room, and he let out a strangled cry of frustration when she destroyed the Hammerhead.
She’s too good. Too fast. Too smart. This isn’t going to work.
But she was also in the middle of fighting an entire Republic fleet. Her focus was on the weapons and shields; sensors and communications: all the things the Spear needed to survive the battle. She still hadn’t realized that he’d disabled the turbolifts leading down to G Deck to buy himself more time.
She’s on G Deck, too. The far side.
If he couldn’t stop Karrid remotely by slicing into the Spear’s systems, maybe he could stop her face-to-face. After all, he’d stopped Darth Mekhis.
That was different. You caught her off guard. Tricked her. Karrid’s going to be ready. And she might not be alone. You’re going to need help.
Even if Karrid didn’t realize he’d knocked out the turbolifts, he only had a couple more minutes before the ship’s automated repair systems got them working again. He’d have to
work fast.
Grabbing his slicer spike, he tapped into the relay controlling Gnost-Dural’s holding cell. Karrid was still focused on protecting the critical battle systems, and he was able to worm his way inside.
Gnost-Dural had spent the hours since Darth Karrid’s last visit in quiet, reflective meditation. As per the Sith Lord’s instructions, the interrogators had spared him more torture with Mekhis’s infernal machine. The respite had allowed the Jedi to calm and focus his mind, subtly drawing on the Force to refresh and restore his ravaged body and spirit.
The power of the dark side all around him was impossible to ignore; it seeped from the very walls of the Ascendant Spear, a twisted creation of a brilliant but diseased mind. Yet even here, surrounded by darkness, the power of the light shone through. The Force flowed through all living things, and there were several thousand crew on the ship. Most of them were ordinary men and women, soldiers for the Empire because of birth and upbringing, not because of some inherent evil.
Careful not to do anything that might draw the attention of the pure-blooded apprentice he sensed in the room with him, Gnost-Dural drew upon the Force to grant him a picture of his surroundings. The first thing he sensed was the battle raging outside the ship; the Republic fleet had come to Duro! But it didn’t take him long to realize they were overmatched, and he knew if he didn’t do something the battle would be lost.
He turned his heightened perception inward, allowing him to construct a highly detailed picture of his holding cell. The interrogators were seated in chairs on the far side of the medium-sized room, next to the panel that could unleash unbearable horrors on their prisoner with a simple touch of a button. They were both male, and both carried pistols at their sides. His protective goggles, Jedi robe, and other clothes had been discarded in the back corner of the room, tossed aside once he had been stripped down and strapped to the table.