Aftermath: Empire's End (Star Wars: Aftermath #3)(105)

One of the features that saw the largest boost in ability?

The tractor beam.

The role of the tractor beam is simple: to grab an object in space, usually a spacecraft, in order to usher it safely into a docking bay or to seize the vessel and pull it closer. The tractor beams on a Star Destroyer were notoriously vicious, with the strength to draw a Corellian corvette into its bay—or to stop a Nebulon frigate from making the escape to lightspeed.

The tractor beam on the Starhawk is ten times that. Magnite crystals amplify both the range and the strength of the beam. A Starhawk could capture and move a ship many times its own size.

Agate dials up the tractor beam, points it at the Ravager—

She fires.

If I’m going down to the ground, she thinks, you’re coming with me.

—

Grand Moff Randd sits in a chair on the bridge of the Ravager. Up until now, he has felt supremely in control of this battle. The Ravager is a vessel whose might is presently unparalleled in the Imperial fleet, and to have been given command of it by Rax himself is an honor he will not squander. His forces have stopped the rebel-born False Republic fleet at every turn—though he is no true tactician, he has many great minds working for him, and their plan of forming a perimeter of vessels around the dreadnought was a sound one.

Until now.

The three ships pressing at the barrier—Starhawks, he believes they are called, manufactured for the False Republic—were held fast at the margins, even though the Star Destroyers were taking heavy fire as a result. And then something happened with the Punishment. The officer in charge of that ship, Captain Groff, appeared in a panic: He said that the Destroyer was suffering a coolant leak from the shield generators that was cascading through the upper levels. Some areas were experiencing fires. He seemed positively deranged—that was a factor Randd had long been worried about. Coming to this desolate world, this far-flung system, brought with it the chance to wear on a man’s soul. It could erode a weaker mind. When he explained that fear to Counselor Rax, the man said, Do not worry about that. The Imperials that have come to Jakku are the greatest of our kind. We will not break. The unkindness of this world will only bolster us. We will harden like calluses, Randd.

And that was the end of that.

In Rax, they trusted.

Randd still trusts him. They have survived this long. And there’s no doubt that Rax is admirable, capable, a true hero of the Empire. Randd is a fan of belt-tightening, and using Jakku to harden their hearts against the fight to come was, to his mind, genius.

But now…what he feared most has come true.

Groff lost it. He said that he would not abandon his ship. The New Republic would torture him and execute him. His own people would turn on him. He was frothing with distemper, screaming suddenly about how the New Republic were traitors and they all deserved death like dogs and how they must give no quarter, no quarter at all. The last thing he said was, “I must be a stronger blade! A…a blade with which to slit the throats of the traitors that crawl on their bellies toward our door!”

Randd recognized it as a line from Counselor Rax’s speech.

Groff’s comms went dark after that.

And then he crashed the Punishment into the nearest Starhawk.

That led to a chain of events even now Randd does not completely understand—debris from the two ships hit a second Starhawk, and that one he felt sure would be out of the picture. But no. That ship accelerated in the gap right toward the Ravager. Firing all its weapons, and so Randd demanded they return fire, all the way—reserving every weapons system they had launching ordnance in the direction of the onrushing Starhawk, a ship that now identifies itself as the Concord.

The Concord turned broadside and took the hits just as the Ravager took its own. That ship was scuttled. He did not need his systems to confirm it. His eyes told him all he needed to know. Meanwhile, the Ravager was fine—damaged, yes, and now more vulnerable, but he rerouted power to the deflectors to magnify protection over that chasm and—

Then the strangest thing.

The Concord snared the dreadnought with a tractor beam.

Randd is not a man given to humor—his wife, Danassic, says that she believes he laughs once, perhaps twice a year. But here he almost laughed. Why in all of space and time would the captain of that Starhawk see fit to lash him with a paltry tractor beam? Perhaps to save herself the fall into atmosphere? The Ravager serving as an anchor? He hates to tell her, but gravity is a cruel mistress. It takes what it wants and will not be denied.

The Ravager moves, suddenly.

It moves, but he does not command it to move.

“Status report,” he barks, his calm voice suffering a sudden break to it, like that of a boy just getting hair on his chest. “Status report!”

Nearby, Vice Admiral Pierson appears, sweat beading on his brow. “The Starhawk has affixed us with its tractor beam—”

“Yes. I know that. How are we—” The ship drifts again. “How is it moving us?”

“I—I have no idea, it must be powerful—”

“Strengthen our engines. Reverse course! Fire repulsors—”

Alarms go off. The ship shakes again—this time, the sensation is different. Like something is hitting it.

Pierson’s eyes go wide. “They’re concentrating fire on our aft.”

The screens show a sudden flurry of starfighters—every variety brought to bear against their engines. If they lose those…