Endures torpedoes

The pilot of the Sun Crusher answered by launching one of the supernova torpedoes into the Death Star.

Kyp felt a rush of satisfaction as he pressed the firing button, ignoring the Twi’lek administrator’s pompous posturing. He watched the high-energy projectile shoot from the bottom of the Sun Crusher and burrow deep within the complicated framework of metal girders inside the prototype.

The resonance torpedo vaporized girders as it tunneled deeper and deeper, until it finally struck heavier primary struts that foamed as they disintegrated.

The torpedo dumped its energy in a shower that triggered a small chain reaction within the solid superstructure, splitting atomic nuclei and causing an arc of spreading dissolution. Girders vaporized in a widening hole that ate its way farther and farther through the heavy framework.

But Kyp’s elation faded as the chain reaction slowed, and then stopped. The skeletal Death Star had insufficient mass to continue its own disintegration.

He had ruined a good portion of the support framework in one sector of the prototype, but not enough.

Kyp powered up the weapons panel again and prepared to fire. He could annihilate the Death Star piece by piece if necessary. But looking down at his panel, he noted with dismay that only one of his supernova torpedoes remained.

Grim-faced, Kyp zoomed in closer to the prototype. He would have to make this last shot count.

(...)

The Sun Crusher fled toward the gravitational walls of the Maw cluster, and Tol Sivron ordered the Death Star to track the small but deadly ship.

“Get a lock on it,” he said. “We’ll blast it out of space the same way we did with that Rebel ship.”

“Sir,” the stormtrooper captain said, “to lock on to a target so tiny and moving so quickly—”

“Then get close enough so you can’t miss,” Sivron snapped. “One of his torpedoes ate up eleven percent of our superstructure! We can’t afford more losses like that. How are we going to explain it when we get back to the Empire?”

“Perhaps that would be a good reason to stay away from the Sun Crusher, sir,” the stormtrooper pointed out.

(...)

He reversed course and arrowed back toward the prototype, increasing speed and calling up his weapons controls. The maze of metal girders and cross braces spun below him—and he launched his last resonance torpedo. The blazing cloud of plasma chewed through the outer layers of the prototype as it plowed ever-widening circles of destruction.

The last shot would make them panic. It wouldn’t cripple the Death Star entirely, but merely crippling the prototype would never be enough. He had to go for the full victory.

As the chain reaction initiated by his last torpedo petered out, Kyp sped over the metallic horizon of the Death Star and raced for the Maw’s nearest black hole.

Kyp used his onboard tactical systems to estimate the exact position of the event horizon, the point from which no ship, however powerful, could ever escape. He came closer and closer—and the Death Star howled after him.

***

Champions of the Force Chapter 39