She had plenty more missiles in reserve, too, though she didn’t want to deploy another salvo unless absolutely necessary. The Lourna Dee had changed position immediately after firing, but the Republic crews knew she was out there now. There was a good chance they would lock onto the Lourna Dee’s signature immediately if she fired again.

The goal was to destroy the flight recorder and leap away. That was all.

Though if it came to it, she would happily destroy every last one of these ships and the flight recorder, too.

Happily.

Mikkel fired, and the missile he had targeted exploded, just seconds before it would have reached the fragment.

He exhaled, breath escaping from each of his mouths.

Just two projectiles left, and neither was in range for him. It was up to the others now.

He watched as Joss and Pikka Adren’s Longbeam fired out those magclamps they were always so proud of—a whole grand array, most likely every one their ship had, reeling out on their endlessly long, thin cables—and the missile changed course, pulled in by the attracting force of the clamps.

Ingenious.

The missile exploded, and while the magclamps had certainly been destroyed, there was still one more surviving Longbeam, and it could retrieve the flight recorder—the mission could still succeed.

One more enemy missile remained, and Te’Ami was headed toward it on an intercept course. Neither of the Longbeams was in position to reach it, or Mikkel himself—but Te’Ami could knock it down, no problem. She was a fantastic shot.

And indeed, a spread of laserfire shot out from the front of her Vector—off target but zeroing in…and then another missile appeared on Mikkel’s scopes, headed directly for Te’Ami. His targeting computer tried to resolve the location of their attacker. A vague, flickering outline appeared on his screens—and disappeared. Whatever was shooting at them clearly had some sort of cloaking system—but that was not the primary issue.

“Te’Ami! There’s another missile! I can’t—”

“I see it, Mikkel. Quiet now. I have work to do.”

Mikkel Sutmani watched, his helplessness at the destruction of the Longbeam a few moments ago amplified a thousandfold. Te’Ami increased her Vector’s speed, trying to simultaneously outrun the missile racing toward her and catch the original projectile before it hit the flight recorder.

Her Vector bucked and wove, laser blasts shooting out, all misses, as she attempted to hit her target while evading what had targeted her.

Mikkel slammed his own Vector forward, knowing, once again, that he didn’t have time. He reached out with the Force, knowing that through it anything was possible, knowing he could reach the missile chasing Te’Ami’s ship and could cause it to veer off or detonate. He could sense its speed, its outline, the metal of its casing, the superheated exhaust gases shoving it forward toward his fellow Jedi.