Lords of the Sith Read Free Page A

caught a shot from a gun turret and exploded, debris peppering Vader’s cockpit canopy as he flew through the flames.
    When the V-wings got within range, they opened fire and the freighter’s shields fell almost immediately.
    “Shields down, Lord Vader,” the squadron leader reported.
    “I’ll take the engines,” Vader said. “Destroy the turrets and the starboard-side midline gun bubble.”
    The pilots of his squadron, selected for their piloting excellence and a demonstrated record of kills, did exactly as he’d ordered. Small explosions lit up the hull, and the gun emplacements disappeared in flowers of fire. The transport shook from the impact as the V-wings swooped past it, up, and started to circle back around.
    Meanwhile Vader veered to his left and down, locked onto the engines, and fired, once, twice. Explosions rocked the transport aft, and chunks of both engines spun off into space. Secondary explosions rocked the vessel, but it otherwise remained intact. Vader slowed still more, trailing the transport.
    “She’s running on inertia now, sir,” said the squadron commander. “When the
Perilous
arrives, she can tractor the transport into one of her bays.”
    “I have no intention of leaving the hijackers aboard the ship thatlong,” Vader said. He knew the hijackers would try to blow the ship, and there were enough weapons in the cargo bay to do just that. “I’m going to board her.”
    “Sir, the docking clamp on that ship is too damaged, and there’s no landing bay,” said the squadron commander.
    “I am aware of that, Commander,” Vader said.
    The sole remaining gun bubble—operated by one of the hijackers—swung around and opened fire on Vader’s ship. Still using the Force to guide him, Vader slung his ship side to side, up and down, staying just ahead of the blasterfire as he headed straight for the bubble. He could see the gunner inside the transparent canopy, feel his presence, insignificant and small, through the web of the Force.
    “Sir…,” the commander said as the V-wing squadron circled back around, but Vader did not acknowledge him.
    Vader hit a switch and depressurized the interceptor’s cockpit, his armor shielding him from the vacuum. Then, as he neared the transport’s midline, still swinging his ship left and right to dodge the incoming fire, he selected a spot on the transport adjacent to the gun bubble and, using the Force, took a firm mental hold on it.
    His interceptor streaked toward the gun bubble, aimed directly at it. Content with the trajectory, he unstrapped himself, overrode the interceptor’s safeties, threw open the cockpit hatch, and ejected into space.
    Immediately he was spinning in the zero-g, the ship and stars alternating positions with rapidity. Yet he kept his mental hold on the air-lock handle, and his armor, sealed and pressurized, sustained him in the vacuum. The respirator was loud in his ears.
    His ship slammed into the gun bubble and the transport, the inability of the vacuum to transmit sound causing the collision to occur in eerie silence. Fire flared for a moment, but only a moment before the vacuum extinguished it. Chunks of debris exploded outward into space and the transport lurched.
    —
    A great boom sounded through the connection. Alarms wailed, and Pok’s bridge exploded in a cacophony of competing conversations.
    “Pok, what just happened?” Cham asked. “Are you all right?”
    “We had a collision. We’re all right. Get me status on the damage,” Pok said to someone on his bridge. “Get someone over there now.”
    —
    “Sir! Sir!” the squadron commander called, his voice frantic in Vader’s helmet comm. “Lord Vader! What’s happening, sir?”
    Vader’s voice was calm. “I’m docking with the transport, Commander.”
    Using the Force, Vader stopped his rotation and reeled himself in toward the large, jagged, smoking hole his interceptor had torn in the transport’s hull. Loose hoses and electrical lines dangled