[LotS] Leads a squad of V-Wings against 300 mines and droids

"What are we facing out there, sir?"

"Mines and vulture droids at a minimum, Commander."

"Vulture droids? Been a while since I've seen those, sir."

"Launch when ready," Vader said to the squadron as the antigravs lifted his ship off the deck. Dozens of V-wings followed suit.

The commander synced the fighters' identifications with the bridge comp, so they could be easily distinguished from the incoming vulture droids and mines.

"Clear to launch," said the bridge officer.

"Lord Vader," Luitt's voice said over the private channel. "The shields are at sixteen percent."

"Understood, Captain," Vader said, engaging his ion engines. His interceptor accelerated out into open space.



CHAPTER SIX



"Can you magnify on the launch bay?" Cham asked, and Kallon, still muttering, made it happen.

One of the screens on the wall gave a close-up of the Star Destroyer's belly launch bay, and, through the glowing net of the dying shields, they watched dozens of V-wings pour out of it. Cham had anticipated a fighter contingent. A third of the vulture droids would engage with the V-wings. The rest would continue on their mission.

"Status of the shields?" he asked Kallon.

Kallon shook his head. "Too far out for accurate readings, but..."

As they watched, the net of lines surrounding the Perilous flared and expired. The shields were down.

"Well," Kallon said, sitting back in his chair and grinning. "I think we have an accurate reading after all. They're down."

"Yes," Gobi exclaimed, and slammed his fist on the table, spilling his caf.

Even Cham couldn't contain a smile.



* * *



Vader saw the shields flare and fail even before Luitt's frantic call came over the comm.

"Shields are down, Lord Vader."

Scores of mines, drawn by their attractor arrays, floated toward the ship, gradually picking up speed, and hundreds of droid fighters chewed up the space behind them, swarming toward the vulnerable ship.

Vader wheeled his interceptor toward the mines and the oncoming vulture droids. He sensed a greater threat in the droids than he did the mines.

"Free all batteries to fire on the mines, Captain."

The V-wing squadron commander's voice carried over the comm. "Ten seconds before vultures are in range. Target the mines in the interim."

Vader fell into the deep well of anger that sat in his core, used it to center him in the Force, and flew entirely by feel. He targeted a mine, fired, watched it vaporize, and flew through the flames. Wheeling right, he targeted another, and another, destroying a mine with every shot. The explosions sometimes set off nearby mines, and space was soon filled with a network of concurrent detonations. Vader spun and whirled through the chaos.

"There are too many to get even half," said one of the pilots.

"Droids closing," the squadron commander said.

"Break off and engage the droids," Vader commanded.

Around him the Star Destroyer's formidable batteries of weapons scribed lines of ionized plasma on the velvet of space. Mines exploded to Vader's left and right. He circled wide and up, buzzing the Perilous's bridge as he fired on another mine, another. And yet there were too many.

The first of the mines reached the hull of the Star Destroyer, latched on to the bulkhead, and blossomed into fire-two, eight, a dozen, a score. The explosions shot long tongues of flame into space. Debris and bodies flew out of the blast holes and into the vacuum. Vader could imagine the fires, the death, the blaring alarms.

Vader flew above the huge pyramid of the ship, hugging Perilous's superstructure and destroying three mines before they could connect to the hull and focus their blast into the ship's bulkhead. Their explosions did superficial damage but didn't breach the ship.

"Droids in range," the squadron commander said. "Regroup and take attack formations."



* * *



Cham stared at the screens, his jaw clenched, his shoulders hunched, as the forces closed. The fighters looked tiny against the backdrop of the Star Destroyer, bloodflies to a lylek.

The dark of space around the Perilous was alight with weapons fire and explosions. Gobi hissed with glee each time a mine struck the Star Destroyer and birthed fire.

Cham knew that Kallon's reengineered vulture droids were not as maneuverable as they would be otherwise, not with their cargo and turgid brains. They would be no match for the V-wings, but Cham only needed a fraction of them to get through for the damage to the Perilous to be crippling.

"Fly, fly, little birds," he whispered.

The secure comm he wore in his ear pinged: Isval.

"Speak," he said softly.

"Preliminary word of the attack is arriving planetside. It's chaos down here."

"Intercepts?" he asked her.

"Not that I can tell, but I'm sitting in a repair ship. I'm sure it won't be long, though."

Cham looked up at the screen. "They'll be too late to stop this."

"How is it going?" she asked.

Cham stared at the screen. "Vultures are closing. You ready?"

"We're ready," she said.

"I'll be in touch," he said, and broke the connection.

On the screen, the fighters-vultures on the one hand, V-wings on the other-lit up space with weapons fire.

"And here we go!" Gobi said.



* * *



The approaching cloud of vulture droids opened fire as one, their repeating blasters spitting dashes of red energy through the void. Vader swung his interceptor away from the Perilous, burning from dozens of mine explosions, and flew directly toward the oncoming vultures. Lines of energy filled space around him, the solid green pulses from the Perilous and the intermittent red blasts of the droids.

Vader let the Force guide him, his hands smooth and rapid on the controls, and the ship danced unscathed in the matrix of blasts. The vulture droids dispersed in all directions as the interceptor and the trailing V-wings approached. Vader fixed on one of them, fired, destroyed it, swung hard right, fired again, and destroyed another.

Perhaps a third of the droids engaged with the V-wings, while the bulk of them continued on toward the Perilous. Vader's comm was filled with the chatter of the squadron's pilots, calling out to one another, picking targets, holding one another's flanks.

Vader picked one of the droids and locked on as it lurched left and right, attempting to shake his pursuit. The vultures were slow, awkward fliers, and something about them struck him as odd-and then he had it: They'd been modified. All of them had bulges on their bellies, an added compartment or weapon of some kind. It made them awkward in flight, far less maneuverable than usual.

Curious, he closed on one, targeted it with care, fired, and sheared off one of its wing pods. It spun out of control, and the centrifugal force started to tear it apart. Vader stayed on it as the belly compartment tore loose to reveal its contents.

Hundreds of metal spheres spilled out and into space. Vader slammed on his stick, driving the interceptor down, but he could not avoid the shrapnel altogether. The spheres slammed into his ship and clung there, and he saw that they weren't shrapnel but buzz droids. The magnetic balls sprouted legs and eyestalks and clambered along the wings and fuselage of his fighter, positioning themselves to do the most damage.

He dodged fire from a pursuing vulture droid by veering hard left, fired on another, destroying it, then drew on the Force and caused a wave of kinetic energy to repel the droids from his vessel. Unable to resist the sudden blast, they flew off in all directions and, to his surprise, exploded with enough force for the series of blast waves to rock his ship and temporarily send him spinning. A vulture got behind him while he was vulnerable, fired, and nicked his wing before he could right his ship and shake the pursuit.

"The vultures are carrying a payload of explosive buzz droids," Vader said over the comm. He glanced back toward the Perilous and saw scores of the vultures, fat with the explosive buzz droids, flying straight at the Star Destroyer.

"Try to keep them off the Perilous," the squadron commander said to the rest of the pilots, understanding the implications right away.

Vader slammed on his stick, whirled his ship around, and headed back in the direction of the Perilous, but he could see he was already too late. Dozens of the droids had been vaporized in the withering fire from the Star Destroyer, and the more maneuverable V-wings locked on and destroyed many, too, but many would get through.

Meanwhile, clouds of buzz droids that had survived the destruction of the vulture droids carrying them floated free in space, legs and eyestalks waving. Vader saw several latch on to a V-wing as it flew through them. They scurried onto the wings and canopy and exploded, shearing a wing, shattering the canopy, and destroying the fighter.

Vader accelerated and flew directly toward a cloud of them, using his free hand to focus his use of the Force as he approached. A gesture, an exercise of will, and he slammed several of the free-floating buzz droids into one another, where they exploded, clearing his way. He locked on to another vulture droid before it could reach the Perilous, followed it as it veered left, then right, fired, and turned it to a cloud of flames.

As he'd expected, the vulture droids fired as they approached the Star Destroyer, but they did not reduce speed to increase maneuverability. Instead they stayed at maximum acceleration, obviously intending to crash into the ship and release their cargo. Vader destroyed another, then another. But he couldn't get them all, and the surviving vultures slammed into the ship at full speed.

Enormous towers of flame rose from the Perilous's superstructure. Vader veered hard left and wheeled around, cutting down another vulture droid as he turned. He could imagine that the damage to the interior of the Star Destroyer was worse than he could see, as the vulture droids would have ejected their buzz droids into the corridors. The tiny bombs would run deeper into the ship and explode.

Two vultures headed directly for the shield generator. He destroyed one and then another, but the buzz droids they carried floated out of the fire of the vultures' destruction, glommed on to the shield generator, and there exploded into flame. Another vulture crashed into the flight deck; another hit adjacent to the bridge. Many crashed into or near the ship's gun turrets and destroyed them. Secondary explosions rocked the ship. The Star Destroyer was bleeding fire and debris and bodies from scores of wounds.

Vader flew under the ship, looking for more targets, and saw another wave of vultures streaking toward the Perilous.

Curses and exclamations of shock carried over the comm from the V-wing squadrons.

"Stay focused," the squadron commander barked. "And destroy as many as possible before they reach the ship."

Vader wheeled back around, accompanied by the bulk of the V-wing squadron, and opened fire on the vulture droids. He destroyed one, another. A V-wing to starboard caught droid fire and exploded.



* * *



Kallon had stopped muttering and even he was grinning as they watched the Perilous burn. Gobi could no longer sit, but paced the floor in excitement, eyes on the screens, a smile fixed on his face.

But Cham had a better understanding of the ship's ability to withstand damage than did his comrades. They'd wounded it, killed hundreds, maybe thousands of Imperials, but they were nowhere close to destroying it.

"Her guns are out of commission!" Gobi exclaimed. "She's defenseless! Let's finish her!"

"The second wave, Kallon," Cham ordered, and Kallon sent the command to the second wave of vulture droids Cham had held in reserve. He resumed muttering to himself the moment he sent the signal.

Another hundred or so vulture droids, all of them heavy with explosive buzz droids, powered up and accelerated out of the asteroid belt toward the ship. Cham watched them go, daring to let hope find a home in his chest. He bit down twice to activate the tiny comm implanted in his ear and spoke to Isval.

"We may not need you after all," he said. "Things are going well."

"I hope you're right," she returned, and he caught the disappointment in her tone. "But we're ready."



* * *



Isval sat in the copilot's chair of the boxy repair ship on the vast underground landing pad on Ryloth. Beside her in the pilot's seat, Eshgo fiddled with the comp.

The movement had been able to put teams aboard three of the repair shuttles, and now they were just waiting. She wanted to stand and pace, but there was no room. The antigrav tool pallet and the rest of her team-Eshgo, Drim, Crost, and Faylin, the lone human in their group-filled the cramped quarters of the shuttle.

Cham had said everything was going well. If all went according to plan-and things usually did when Cham made the plans-she expected a call to launch to go out shortly. If the Perilous was burning, and she hoped fervently that it was, it would need non-Imperial assistance.

Several dozen other repair ships sat on the pad. Maintenance droids and engineers holding datapads moved here and there, checking the status of the ships. The onboard comm was listening in on emergency Ryloth frequencies.

"Nothing," Eshgo said.

"They're not desperate enough yet to call for Twi'lek help," Isval said, staring out of the ship. "But they will be."

Meanwhile, there was nothing to do but wait, and Isval detested waiting.



* * *



Vader eyed the oncoming wave of vulture droids.

"Stay back, Commander," he said. "The entire squad. Destroy any ships that get past me."

"Sir, but..."

"Those are my orders, Commander."

"Yes, Lord Vader."

Captain Luitt's voice came over the comm, his tone stressed. Alarms blared in the background. "Lord Vader, I'm not sure we can survive another barrage from the vulture droids."

"You won't need to," Vader said, and cut the connection.

Vader fell entirely into the Force, let his anger flow through him, harnessed it for the weapon it was, and flew directly toward the vulture droids.



* * *



The mirth went out of the command center, replaced by the quiet of an unspoken question. Gobi gave it voice.

"Is that a single ship breaking off? Is that a V-wing or something else? What is it doing?"

Cham could not distinguish one fighter craft from another, but he had no doubt who sat at the controls of that single ship.

He's not a man, Isval had said, and Cham half believed it. He activated his comm and spoke to Isval. "I think we may need you after all."

"What's happening?" she asked, excitement in her tone.

He shook his head, uncertain. "Vader. I thought we might get lucky, but...just be ready."



* * *



When Vader got within weapons range of the vultures, the entire swarm broke in all directions and opened fire on him. Enmeshed in the Force, he intuitively calculated angles, velocities, and vectors, his interceptor rising, falling, spinning, wheeling, navigating the firestorm of blasterfire where the margin for error was millimeters. He didn't return fire. His weapon was not blasters. Instead, he fixed on the leading vulture droids and reached out with the Force.

With an effort of will and a slight gesture, he tore open the belly compartment of three vultures. The tiny, explosive buzz droids they held poured out into space. Many of the trailing vulture droids, unable to dodge, collided with the scattered buzz droids, and explosions turned dozens of vulture droids and buzz droids to debris.

Vader took hold of another vulture droid's belly and tore it open, then another. Clouds of buzz droids filled space with countless small explosions, wreaking havoc on the vulture droid swarm. Vader flew through and past them, still dodging blasterfire. He wheeled hard about and pursued them as the surviving vulture droids-perhaps only a score-made their way toward the Perilous.

"Allow none of the stragglers though, Commander," Vader called to the squadron commander as he accelerated in pursuit.

Vader had the vulture droids trapped between him and the rest of the squadron. He went high to avoid any crossfire and watched the V-wings trade fire with the droids. The droids hit and destroyed two V-wings, but the rest of the squad made short work of the remaining droids. Debris, fire, and clouds of buzz droids spun through space.

"Well done, Commander," Vader said. "Maintain a perimeter. I'm returning to the Perilous."