Star Wars: Heir to the Sith (Part 1) (#Wattys2018 shortlist)

Chapter 16: The Interceptor's wings were red hot now. Sparks started to fly.

A swathe of green energy burst out from the Reaver. Pina turned back to the viewpoint, his breath held tight in his lungs. A second wave of green cannon fire spewed outward into the blackness beyond at a target he couldn't perceive.

He counted the seconds down.

Another silent burst, hot enough to melt tungsten.

"Report?" Bauhaus snapped.

"No hits, sir. We have two more salvos remaining."

Pina closed his eyes and waited, exhaling as he did so. He heard the voices of the men beneath his feet confirming the subsequent blasts.

"Well?" Bauhaus's voice cracked in anticipation.

"Sensors can't be certain, sir. We might have scored a hit–"

"The ship's trajectory is still planet bound, sir," another officer's sober voice cut in from the crew pits.

"Damn it," Pina whispered. "Damn it."

He clenched his right hand and felt the pain grind its way up his arm. But his pain would not be comparable to what the people of Farsalt were about to experience.

"Sir!" It was the sensor officer, Lieutenant Triem-mar. "The ship is breaking up! There's been an explosion from inside. Blaster fire I think–"

"We're getting a signal, Captain," Bauhaus's subordinate from the communications area shouted. "It's a TIE Interceptor. Broadcasting a distress call."

Pina froze. He didn't know what to do. He didn't know if he could even do anything.

Bauhaus saw his hesitation.

"Is the ship still on a collision course with the planet?" the younger man snapped.

A few seconds silence.

"No sir. The explosion has nudged it out of that trajectory. It will skim the atmosphere but not hit the planet."

Pina exhaled.

"Get us into tractor beam range of that Tie," he ordered. "And do it fast, before it hits the planet's atmosphere. At that speed the stresses on the Interceptor will rip it apart in no time."

Pina felt the Reaver surge ahead. He took a few steps to his command console and brought up the sensor view of the corvette.

It was breaking into pieces. The smooth lines of the Assayer's ship were cracking apart and ripping themselves off the hull to form an ever growing cloud of metallic debris as the ship listed and rolled. The bay doors from where the Tie Interceptor had shot its way out were molten red from the blaster fire, and now cooled in the near absolute zero of space. Black marks blistered the surface and pock-marked the fine silver finish, and Pina instinctively noticed how many of the telltale blaster marks were concentrated on the corvette's engines. Her attacker, whoever it was, had tried to prevent them from escaping. That made him think.

"Triem - is there anything else coming through hyperspace? Another capital ship in pursuit?"

"Not that we can tell, Captain," came the sensor officer's reply.

That made some sense. An Imperial corvette of this design was sleek and fast, very fast. It was built for speed to ferry high-ranking emissaries of the Empire throughout the galaxy.

It could easily outpace his Star Destroyer.

So if there was someone in pursuit, then they were probably still a few hours behind.

Pina shifted his view to the Tie.

It was spinning at a dizzying rate. Whoever was inside would probably be unconscious, or dead, from the centrifugal force being exerted on them.

"Hail the Tie Interceptor," he commanded. "Ask them to identify themselves. Ask them who attacked them."

The fighter was in high orbit over Farsalt now. The increased friction of even the faintest atmosphere was already slowing its spin. The wing tips glowed a dull red which brightened every second.

"How long until we can tractor them in?" he asked.

"Twenty seconds, sir."

"How long until they hit the atmosphere?"

"No more than fifteen, sir."

The outer rim of the Interceptor's sharp wings were red hot now. Sparks started to fly off their edge. Pina gritted his teeth.

"Where the hell is that damn life buoy?"

"It's on an intercept course, sir. But it's a deep space life buoy Captain. It might not work well in the planet's gravity well, let alone the upper atmosphere."

Pina knew the Tie and its pilot had only seconds left.

"Has the pilot made any attempt to answer us?"

"None sir."

"Very well. Fire control - target the fighter. Fire one shot. Try to cripple it rather than vaporise it."

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It's a dreadful gamble that Pina has been forced to make: but did he have an alternative?  He is an unusually quick thinking captain for a Star Destroyer, yet this is entirely intentional as I wanted to give the reader a character who is smart - and who takes the initiative. But sometimes, operating in a dictatorship were failure often means death, then those who take risks also draw the ire of their jealous peers and threatened superiors. Is it wise for Pina to stand out so much, even though he believes he is doing right by his duty?