The Emperor's Plague

22

In orbit around the insignificant-looking asteroid, the Diversity Alliance armada and the New Republic fleet battled for the right to continued existence. Violent explosions from blasted warships punctuated the blackness all around, made all the more eerie because of the silence of vacuum. Raaba might have been watching a hologram of an event that had occurred long ago. No smells of flaming gases or singed flesh reached her nostrils. No expanding ball of heat threw her backward or scorched her chocolate-brown fur. No thunderous detonations burst painfully upon her eardrums. Yet to Raaba, who had never witnessed such death and destruction of those she knew, space itself seemed to shudder at the savagery—and that shudder she felt all the way to her bones.

The Ugnaught gunner on her bridge crew clipped a New Republic X-wing with a lucky shot. Raaba’s crew cheered as the little ship blossomed into an expanding cloud of hot gas and debris on the front viewscreen.

The cheers died to grim murmurs when a few seconds later one of their own midsize transports disintegrated in slow motion before their eyes. Raaba paced the deck behind her tactical officer. She continued to issue orders, forcing a calm and steady tone into her voice that she did not completely feel. She couldn’t allow herself to panic. If she lost control, even more lives could be lost. Raaba ordered her comm officer to contact Nolaa Tarkona on the asteroid and inform her that the entire armada was now under attack. Raaba had hoped not to bother her leader again, especially not with bad news, but the senseless losses being suffered by the Diversity Alliance left her little choice.

Most of the pilots in the Alliance armada already wanted to retreat. Raaba could smell the terror that a dose of true combat had injected into the veins of her crew.

“I’m sorry, Captain, there’s no response from the Esteemed Tarkona,” the comm officer told Raaba. “We picked up a couple of explosions on the surface just before that Hapan ship took off. We have not been able to reach her since then.”

Another New Republic fighter exploded and vanished into insignificance in the vastness of space while Raaba looked on. A growl of rage and protest built in her throat. What did this fighting gain them? One moment a human enemy died, the next it was one of her compatriots. Talz, Bith, Ithorian, Sullustan, Ugnaught, Rodian, Kushiban, human—what did it matter? People were dying! Raaba could not let this go on much longer. Facing the tactical officer in charge of the armada, she gave him simple, strict orders: he was to draw the New Republic fleet away from the asteroid but engage them as little as possible, keep losses to a minimum. Raaba herself would go down to the weapons depot to fetch Nolaa Tarkona. If their leader was alive, Raaba would bring her back within the hour, triumphant.

If Raaba had not returned by then, the tactical officer must retreat to Ryloth and await further orders. The tactical officer, a short, fearless Sullustan named Ma’thu, started to object, but Raaba growled that her orders could be countermanded by no one but Nolaa Tarkona herself. With that, the chocolate-furred Wookiee sprinted off the bridge toward the docking bay, where her skimmer Rising Star awaited. If luck was with her, she could make it to the asteroid in less than five standard minutes. After today’s events, however, she could no longer be certain that luck was with her.