There's another very good sensing feat from Deceived. Malgus passively senses Aryn's force signature coming out of hyperspace in the Coruscant system, from his capital ship.
The blue disappeared in favor of the midnight of space, and she returned to normal perception.
Sweat soaked her robes, pasted them to her body. She felt as if she had not slept in days.
“Now it gets fun,” Zeerid said.
The trailing freighter in the convoy, five times the size of Fatman, flew right before them. They had jumped out within the ring of frigates and gone cold so fast the frigates would not have perceived their arrival. They were directly under one of the freighters, a kilometer beneath its underside, maybe less.
In the distance, the metal-and-duracrete sphere of Coruscant floated in space. The rest of the convoy spread out before them. The trailing freighter’s ion engines fired, and it started to head out.
“Not so fast,” Zeerid said.
He punched the thrusters and Fatman lurched toward the freighter until its underside filled their field of vision. It started to pull away.
Zeerid hit the thrusters again.
“There it is,” he said, closing on the freighter’s cargo bay. His hands flew over the instrument panel, using one thruster then another to angle the ship, finally flipping Fatman over so that her flat ventral side faced a flat spot on the Imperial freighter. As they closed, Zeerid flipped a switch, using Fatman’s deflector array to form an electromagnetic field. He killed the thrusters and they coasted in.
“Brace,” he said.
Fatman closed a few hundred meters more and then the electromagnetic field did the rest, pulling them tight against the Imperial ship. Aryn felt barely a lurch.
“As soft as a kiss,” Zeerid said, and eased back in his seat. He looked over at Aryn, all grins, seemingly unsurprised by his success. “Let’s take a ride.”
MALGUS FELT A FLASH of discomfort, the irritating needle stab of a light-side user, the feeling oddly similar to that which he had felt when he’d fought Master Zallow in the Temple. The feeling lasted barely an instant and disappeared, leaving only a sensory ghost in its wake.
“Are you all right, my lord?” Jard said.
Malgus waved a hand dismissively. He sat in the command chair and the viewscreen of Valor showed the distant silver-and-white triangles of an Imperial convoy just out of hyperspace.
“Magnify the convoy,” he said, and the image grew large enough to see the ships—blocky freighters escorted by the much smaller, sleeker navy frigates. He saw nothing out of the ordinary.
Jard monitored incoming transmissions and ships’ registries from the command lectern at which he stood.
“All appears in order, Darth Malgus.”
Malgus examined the convoy’s details on his own command readout. They bore medical supplies, spare parts, and a contingent of Imperial soldiers. All perfectly ordinary.
“They are requesting landing instructions, my lord.”
“Provide it to them. But have the shuttles put eyes on them.”
“We could delay them, my lord. If you think something is amiss.”
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