"Michael Stackpole "The Bacta War"" - читать интересную книгу автораbear down in on him while the other tried to force his TIE fighter down into a
dive to spot Corran again. Corran triggered two quad bursts of fire at the diving TIE. Two of the four laser bolts in the first shot missed, but the other two seared scars along the bottom of the starboard hexagonal wing. The second burst struck the bottom of the ball cockpit, slicing off the bottom third of it and severely warping the fighter's structural elements. The twin ion en-gines ripped free of their supports and blew through the cock-pit canopy, then exploded. Corran rolled away to port to escape the blast, then hit the right rudder pedal and brought the X-wing's nose around to starboard. The looping TIE came out of its maneuver and spitted itself on his aiming reticle. It went red, and Corran triggered a shot at it. All four laser bolts converged on its starboard solar panel and punched through to the cockpit. Corran saw a brief flash of light, then the TIE started a cork-screw down toward Thyferra. "Ten has the next flight, Nine." Corran tucked his X-wing back in behind and to port of Ooryl's fighter. The Gand rolled his X-wing up on the port stabilizers, presenting the incoming TIEs with a very narrow profile to shoot at. Corran aped his maneuver and watched as four TIEs separated themselves from the rest of the formation to come after Ooryl. He glanced at his sensors. "Whistler, why didn't you say we were getting ahead of the rest?" The droid hooted a quick response. "I would too have listened to you." Corran keyed his comm unit. "Ten, we're all alone here for a bit." "Ooryl understands, Nine." Corran caught an edge to Ooryl's voice he couldn't Ooryl has them? That sounds like something Jace or I would say. Ahead of him, Ooryl triggered a quick burst of quad fire that hit a TIE in the cockpit canopy and blew the engines out the back of it. A little etheric rudder shifted his aim point to port, then a second shot disintegrated another TIE's port so-lar panel. Ooryl rolled out to port, then dove below the re-maining TIEs. Sithspawn, that's great flying! Corran inverted his X-wing and pulled back on the stick to follow Ooryl's dive, but by then the Gand had started his fighter around in a grand loop. Corran rolled again to follow, but a sharp bleat from Whistler made him glance at his aft monitor. "Ten, your playmates are on my tail." "Ooryl copies, Nine. Continue on your arc." "Continue? They're coming up fast." "No longer." Up ahead Corran saw Ooryl's X-wing tighten its arc im-possibly quick, swapping nose for tail in the space of two hundred meters. The ship remained inverted, so Corran couldn't see the cockpit, but he could imagine the Gand's mouthparts moving apart in his imitation of a smile. "Ready to break on your mark, Ten." "Go to port, Nine. Mark." Corran rolled to port, then, as Ooryl had done, he re-versed his thrust. Instead of looping the ship, Corran applied rudder until his nose swung back along the path he had just traveled. He came about just in time to see Ooryl melt the wing off another TIE. Its wingman dove abruptly away from the Gand's trap. |
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