“Hold on!”
Trent grabbed the flight yoke and shoved it forward as the hatch slammed shut.
The YT-1000 lurched like a startled animal, rocketing toward open space.
Blaster bolts rose from the ground below, but the small-bore guns couldn’t threaten a ship at this altitude.
On several peaks, hatches disguised as ice-rock yawned open.
Large turbolaser batteries rose from beneath the surface, beginning to track their angle.
Trent twisted the ship through a series of sharp rolls and yaws.
The fire-control radar never managed a lock.
A few turbolaser bolts flashed past the hull, close enough to make Daemon’s heart skip.
The freighter broke atmosphere and punched into vacuum.
And now the Munificent-class frigates that had ignored them on the way in were on the move, angling to intercept.
Dozens of Vulture droids detached from the frigates’ hulls, their mechanical claws unfolding into sharp wings.
They dove forward like the predators they were named for.
“Quinto!
Get back here and help me!” Trent shouted.
Quinto climbed out of the turret, dropping into the copilot’s seat.
“But what about the guns?”
Spade was needed in the cargo bay to keep the ship’s systems running.
The T-850 had just pulled Semid from the wrecked hovercar and was watching him.
Daemon didn’t hesitate.
“I’ll take the turret.”
He climbed into the gunner’s cradle.
“Listen,” Spade’s voice came through the headset.
“Your left screen is the fire-control radar.
Right screen is target data.
The pedals control rotation.
Pull the trigger to fire.
You know how to use a turret now.
So shoot those Vulture droids down.”
“I’ll try.”
Daemon gripped the turret controls and squeezed the trigger against the first wave of Vulture droids screaming toward them.
*Shwwwwww.*
A green laser bolt lanced out and missed everything by a wide margin.
The Vulture droids rolled smoothly, evading his shot, then opened fire.
Trent wrenched the ship through evasive maneuvers, but a few crimson bolts still slammed into the hull.
The deflector shields caught them.
The swarm screamed past the YT-1000, then wheeled around and gave chase from behind.
“We have to break through this line before we can clear the gravity well and jump to hyperspace!” Trent called out, wrestling the controls.
Seven thousand kilometers ahead, the three Munificent-class frigates were turning.
Their turbolaser batteries were already firing.
The big guns on those warships were nothing like the blaster cannons on Vulture droids.
A single grazing hit would tear them apart.
But the Munificent-class design concentrated most of its firepower forward.
Until the frigates completed their turn, Trent still had room to dodge.
Sweat ran down Trent’s temple.
He was nearly shouting. You are reading on g.com, the official source.
“I can keep us clear of the capital ships!
But I can’t deal with the fighters at the same time.
If we don’t solve them, we’re dead!”
“I said I’ll *try*!” Daemon snarled and fired again.
Another clean miss.
“What the hell did this Semid do?” Quinto yelled.
“The entire Mygeeto garrison is on our tail!”
“If Hego Damask himself is sending people to pick him up, did you think it was a small job?” Daemon fired again and again, but his shots were useless against the agile Vulture droids.
*Pew.
Pew.*
More blaster bolts punched into the shields.
Spade’s voice roared through the comm: “The shields can’t take much more!”
“Route all shield power to the rear!” Trent shouted.
“Administrator!
You’ve awakened your power.
You can do this.
All our lives are in your hands!”
*Right.
Calm down.
Calm down.*
Daemon forced his breathing steady.
He’d awakened the Force.
He closed his eyes and spread his senses outward.
It was a strange feeling.
The ship around him seemed to dissolve.
He was floating in the dark of space itself.
Like the dream he’d had right after crossing over.
The one where he looked down at the galaxy from above.
He was a spectator.
Watching the battlefield from a vantage so high, everything seemed within his grasp.
His eyes snapped open.
His pupils had gone bottomless, like twin vortexes turning in the dark.
A light touch on the pedal.
The turret rotated seven degrees.
A micro-adjustment of the yoke.
It all happened in under half a second, smooth as water.
He pulled the trigger.
A green bolt lanced across the darkness.
A Vulture droid flew directly into its path as if it had rammed the beam itself.
The explosion was silent in the void.
The Vulture droid flash-heated and detonated, scattering as a fireball in the black.
In this galaxy, bigger meant more power, tougher structure, heavier guns.
The YT-1000 was twenty-eight meters of light freighter.
Its energy output was leagues above the three-and-a-half-meter Vulture droids.
One shot, one kill.
“*Woo-hoo!* Nice shot!” Spade’s voice cheered in his ear.
Daemon’s expression didn’t change.
No joy.
No anger.
He simply watched, cold and distant.
The Vulture droids’ flight paths were no longer chaos.
They were clear trajectories, laid out in front of him.
Where each fighter would go.
How it would dodge.
When it would fire.
He could only see one or two seconds ahead.
But that was enough.
A fighter on the left closing in.
A second fighter below, accelerating to fire at the same moment.
A fourth fighter on the right, about to launch missiles.
Trent would bank seventeen degrees right and cut the throttle for a hard deceleration.
The predictions converged in his mind.
He found the optimal solution.
Squeeze the trigger.
Fire.
A Vulture droid exploded.
He let the shields absorb the shots from the fighter below.
Adjusted the turret right.
Intercepted a missile the instant it launched.
The debris crippled that Vulture droid’s sensors, blinding it.
One after another, Daemon tore them apart.
In under a minute, he had destroyed thirteen Vulture droids.
The pressure on the YT-1000 collapsed.
Trent could focus entirely on evading the Munificent-class frigates.
In the cargo bay, Spade stared at the tactical display, mouth open.
He’d forgotten to cheer.
Then he remembered his job and barked into the mic: “The shields are about to overload!”
“We’ve got enough!” Trent shouted.
“Quinto!
Fire up the hyperdrive!”
“Hyperdrive, engaging!”
Quinto slapped the button.
The starfield outside the viewport stretched and blazed into the white tunnel of hyperspace.
Nothing to see in that higher dimension.
The Freelancer had slipped into hyperspace right under the noses of three Munificent-class frigates, and was gone.