Project Boussh: Mountains out of Pebbles
by Brad Corletti

The ship shook. In the distance, he could hear explosions for the briefest 
of instants, before the air rushed from the damaged hull sections and bled 
into space, taking the sounds with it. The bridge crewer could almost hear 
the screaming.

The bridge of the ship was flooded with soft crimson light, warning the 
crew of structural breaches and failing systems.

"Reverse full!" The captain screamed, her voice doing little to quell the 
panic felt by the crew.

"Shields lost!" he shouted. "Hull breaches... everywhere!"

On the main screen the intimidating shape of the ImpStar bearing down on 
them fired blast after blast from its primary cannons, ignoring the 
starfighters swarming around it like wasps.

The captain opened a channel to the rest of the Task Force. "All stations, 
this is _Red Dawn_. We have sustained critical damage and are attempting a 
withdrawal. Please assist." She put the comm away and settled down into her 
command chair.

The ship limped backwards on emergency power. A cheer went up when the 
_Fresh Hope_ thrust itself into harm's way, taking a barrage on its fresh 
shields.

"_Fresh Hope_ to _Red Dawn_. Do what you have to. Out."



Rear Admiral Tabanne listened to the exchange carefully. She examined a 
data display of the flow of the battle, waiting for the proper conditions 
to exist.

The time was right. It was time to commit her reserves.



"Sir? The Grand Admiral wishes to speak to you."

Brad smiled and looked up. "Thank you, officer." He left the crewpit and 
approached Thrawn once again.

Thrawn looked up from his displays of the battle for space - and the battle 
for his own ship - and looked at Defel.

"I see you've overridden the shutdown commands on my droids."

"Yessir," Brad said, smiling. "It was a simple thing."

"I see," the Grand Admiral said, his expression darkening somewhat. "This 
appears to be an undocumented capability."

Trust Thrawn to worry about that at the same time he's running a battle, 
Brad thought. Brad nodded, seeing no point in arguing. "Yessir. I thought 
it might prove prudent, as today's events have demonstrated."

Their fascinating discussion was interrupted by the intervention of a 
rather large warship.

The immense ship arrived on the edge of the battle area and began to 
bombard the weakened shields of Thrawn's ships. Brad swallowed.

The sight was incredible.



The _Lusankya_ was a notorious ship. But everyone reading this knows about 
its history, so I won't bother repeating it.

Rear Admiral Tabanne had brought her ship to the battlefield with so much 
accuracy through the creative use of the hyperspace pulsemass generator 
technology, a derivative of the Interdictor generator. Ordinarily 
considered to be an extremely limited weapon, Tabanne had found another use 
for it.

In ordinary circumstances, the hyperspace bubbles are used to destroy 
fleets in hyperspace, as the bubbles tear through shields and hull alike 
with equal ferocity.

However, for this occasion Tabanne was using the gravitational fields of 
these bubbles to perform a flawless Thrawn Princer, setting her ship's 
sensors to an extremely high level of sensitivity and dropping out of 
hyperspace at the fringe of the already-laid field.

And now her ship was turning the tide of battle.