EPISODE – Entry # 01010
Location: – Above Thyferra
Assigned Craft: My X-wing or My Other One
Astromech Partner: BRED (BB-30)
Current Mood: Determined
Background Noise: I can’t hear anything over the spherical Diva.
The stars over Thyferra were disappearing.
Not behind darkness.
Behind ships.
Bacta freighters lumbered through a battlespace choked with debris, weapons fire and bodies of every description. Capital ships exchanged brilliant sheets of turbolaser fire beyond them. Ion bursts strobed across the night. Wreckage drifted between struggling transports while starfighters carved momentary lines through the chaos.
Then the second wave appeared.
Boarding pods spilled from the four Axiom battlecruisers by the dozens. Larger shapes followed them, heavily armored Skarnath landers descending upon the freighter convoy in organized groups.
Michael Angellus stared at the tactical display.
That’s a lot.
Wooo-beep
I wasn’t finished!
Wooo-beep
Michael opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
BRED gave a quieter whistle.
“Shut up.”
The twelve T-1650 X-wings of Striker Squadron raced toward the expanding battlefield in three staggered flights. Their sensor-dampened hulls were difficult to distinguish against the electronic noise surrounding the convoy, but hiding would only remain possible until they opened fire.
Michael had expected Commander Varth to be sitting several hundred meters ahead of him. Instead, Varth’s fighter was limping back toward the
Banner of Liberty with half its port-side controls burned out, leaving Michael at the head of the formation. An icon flashed across his display.
COMMAND AUTHORITY TRANSFER CONFIRMED
Michael stared at it. It was oficial.
No.
Wooo-beep
There are eleven better choices.
Wooo-beep
Michael glanced toward Striker Nine, whose T-1650 was trailing coolant but stubbornly maintaining formation.
That’s not reassuring.
Wooo-beep The squadron channel remained conspicuously silent.
Eleven pilots were waiting for him. Michael suddenly understood why his father had spent so much time staring silently through viewports. Perhaps Liram Angellus had not been contemplating fleet tactics. Maybe he had simply been hoping someone else would say something intelligent first. Another transmission cut across the comms.
“Rooks Two through Six, you are weapons free.”
Ahead, Rook Squadron began its attack.
Ion fire spread across the darkness in controlled patterns while lasers converged on a small, fast-moving hostile contact. Michael’s sensors struggled to hold it. The vessel’s signature flickered, disappeared beneath interference and returned somewhere it had no reasonable right to be.
Telemetry from the
Grace of Theed identified it as the source of the massive weapons discharge that had crossed the battlespace moments earlier. One fighter. One absurdly powerful cannon. And Petra Knoll’s Rooks were deliberately putting themselves between it and the capital ships. BRED painted a second layer over Michael’s display.
Eighty smaller contacts. Thirty-two larger ones. Every one of them converging on the freighters. Michael’s attention shifted between the two threats. The hostile fighter was spectacular. The boarding wave was catastrophic.
If Striker Squadron went after the cannon platform, the Rooks gained reinforcements they had not requested. If the Strikers went after the landing craft, they would be committing twelve fighters against more than a hundred incoming vessels. His eyes moved across their approach vectors.
The Reavers were scattering toward individual breach points.
The Skarnaths were not.
They were using corridors through the drifting wreckage, approaching the convoy in organized lanes. Heavy armor protected them from defensive fire. Their formations overlapped, allowing their weapons to support one another as they advanced.
Michael leaned closer to the display.
They had to overlap. There was too much debris to approach any other way.
His hand closed around the control stick.
Rook Leader, Striker Lead. We have the second wave,
Wooo-beep
He switched channels before he could hear how young he sounded.
All Strikers, hold present fire and divide into flights. One through Four, with me. Five through Eight, configure for fast bombing. Nine through Twelve, keep your foils open and watch our backs.
Wooo-beep
Shut up!.
Acknowledgements clicked across the comms. The formations began to separate. Michael watched their projected courses spread across the convoy.
Too far.
Each flight was moving toward a different cluster of freighters. They might protect three ships temporarily, but the Sith would simply redirect toward the rest. He had divided his strength before making the enemy divide theirs.
Belay that. Collapse formation!
The Strikers immediately began turning back. Nobody questioned him. Somehow, that made correcting himself worse.
We can’t cover every freighter separately. We hit them before they spread out. Three flights, four fighters each. Second Flight, take the boarding pods. Short bursts from the rotary cannons. Don’t chase anything that gets past you.
Wooo-beep
He marked the Skarnaths leading each approach corridor.
First and Third, theses are our targets!
A pilot spoke over the channel.
“Lead, those aren’t the closest landers.”
I know, we’re going to use their wreckage to protect the approach!
Wooo-beep Michael transmitted the firing solutions.
We’re gonna give them more of it!
There was a short silence.
“Copy that, Striker Lead.”
No hesitation. No argument. Just trust. That was considerably more frightening than the Sith fleet. BRED sent another alert across Michael’s display.
Weep-beep
Depjoy Phase Echoes!
The Droid’s head rotated sharply.
Wooo-beep
All of them!
Wooo-beep
That is a deeply irresponsible number of X-wings!
Wooop
He opened the squadron channel.
All Strikers, slave Zeta systems to BRED’s transmission. Echoes form along vector seven. Broadcast active targeting emissions and accelerate toward the center lane.
Wooo-beep
“The echoes can’t fire, Lead.”
They don’t have to. Michael looked at the wall of incoming vessels.
They just look expensive.
Twelve systems activated at once.
Sensor contacts multiplied across the battlespace. Eighteen.Thirty-six. Fifty-four.
Seventy-two false X-wings erupted from the electronic interference and swept toward the center of the Sith formation. Their targeting sensors painted landers, pods and escorts indiscriminately, flooding threat-warning systems with the promise of an attack that did not exist.
The actual Strikers disappeared beneath them.
Michael pulled the throttle back and switched to passive sensors. Eleven fighters followed, slipping beneath the decoy formation with their low-emission systems and sensor masks active.
The Skarnaths began adjusting.
Not dramatically. Not enough to break formation. Enough. The lead vessels angled their armored noses toward the phantom attackers. Supporting landers turned with them. Approach corridors narrowed as the formations reacted to targets that could never hurt them.
Michael smiled.
1 Flight, Mark!
Wooo-beep
Four sets of S-foils snapped open.
3 flight, mark!
Four more followed. Targeting brackets settled over the leading Skarnaths.
Feenix Torpedoes. Staggered release. Don’t hit the same target twice!
Wooo-beep
Weapons bays opened. Green acquisition indicators appeared across Michael’s display.
Strikers-Fire!
Wooo-beep
Torpedoes launched into darkness.
The first volley streaked toward the head of each approach lane. A second followed half a heartbeat later, angled not toward the landers themselves but toward the space through which they would have to maneuver. Whether they evaded or absorbed the attack, the Sith formations would lose cohesion.
That was all Michael needed.
2 Flight, Go!
Four T-1650s closed their S-foils and accelerated.
Rotary cannons thundered from their noses, filling the path of the Reaver boarding pods with sustained streams of fire. The pilots did not chase individual craft. They crossed the front of the advancing wave, firing through approach lines and forcing pods to divert around them.
The battlefield changed.
Not enough. But it changed. The boarding formation widened. Skarnaths maneuvered around one another. Reavers lost the protection of the larger landers. Defensive fire from the freighters found openings where none had existed seconds earlier. Michael pulled his X-wing through the wake of the first volley. Then the Force struck him. Not physically. Something immense moved at the edge of his awareness.
Cold.
Ancient.
Furious without being uncontrolled. For one terrible instant, Michael was no longer looking at the battle outside his cockpit. He saw smoke. Fire rolling across metal. A shadow advancing through it.
And beneath that shadow—
Ala.
His hand moved before thought returned. The T-1650 broke toward the
Grace of Theed. Warning tones sounded. The eleven icons of Striker Squadron began turning with him. Michael saw them. All of them. They weren’t following the plan. They were following him.
His breath caught.
Strikers, disregard that turn. Resume intercept!
The squadron corrected immediately. Michael forced his own fighter back onto course.
My mistake.
The words tasted like blood. He switched off the squadron channel.
She needs me!
Wooo-beep
Michael closed his eyes.
Just once.
I know.
A proximity alarm screamed.
One of the Sith fighters had broken through.
The armored lander powered through the collapsing approach lane, accepting fire across its forward shields as it accelerated toward an external airlock on the
Grace. Reavers clustered around it, using the larger craft as a moving wall.
Michael’s targeting system bracketed the lander. No torpedoes remained in the forward launch cycle. First Flight was turning. Third Flight was engaged. Second Flight was too far below the approach plane. The Skarnath was seconds from reaching the freighter.
Michael opened the channel.
2, take the Squadron.
“Lead?”
Keep breaking the pods!
“What are you doing?”
Michael closed his S-foils.
The targeting display changed instantly. Wingtip cannons went offline. Twin rotary cannons spun to readiness. The central ventral bay unlocked beneath him. BRED emitted a noise Michael had previously heard only when discovering that Cooper had attempted to eat one of his manipulator attachments.
Wooo-beep
Noted!
Weep-boop
Shut up!
Wooo-beep
Michael rammed the throttle forward. The advanced SLAM system ignited. Acceleration crushed him against the seat. Stars stretched. Warning lights appeared across the cockpit as the X-wing hurled itself directly toward the oncoming Skarnath.
“Lead, abort!”
Michael’s teeth clenched against the pressure.
Little busy!
The mammoth Sith vessel grew across his canopy.
Its weapons opened fire. Michael rolled. Heavy cannon fire passed beneath his closing wings. He corrected toward the lander, continuing straight down its approach vector.
BRED shrieked.
AUUUUUU
That’s why it’ll move!
Weeeeeeep
Michael’s thumb settled over the trigger.
Then we find out who wants the airlock more.
Wooo-beep
He fired.
The rotary cannons erupted.
Streams of energy hammered toward the huge Sith vessel’s forward field, not to destroy the lander but to blind its sensors beneath continuous impacts. Michael kept coming, holding the trigger as the range collapsed. Three thousand meters. Two thousand.
One.
The mammoth Sith Vessel filled everything. Michael could see the segmented armor across its bow. The open recesses of its weapon emplacements. Running lights reflected against the scorched surface of his own wings.
It wasn’t moving.
BRED!
Wooo-beep
Thank YOU!
Wooo-boop
Wasn’t asking!
Michael pulled the secondary release.
The central bay opened.
A guided munition dropped between the two vessels at nearly point-blank range, its thrusters igniting as it drove toward the space immediately beneath the Sith vessel’s forward quarter.
Michael rolled ninety degrees. Then he did the one thing no sensible pilot would have attempted. He flew between the lander and the
Grace of Theed.
The X-wing knifed through the narrowing gap, closed S-foils passing within meters of the Skarnath’s ventral armor. The freighter’s hull raced beneath Michael’s opposite wing so closely that individual plating seams became visible.
BRED screamed continuously.
Michael fired the SLAM again. The T-1650 shot through the gap an instant before it vanished. Behind him, the guided munition detonated. Light swallowed the Skarnath’s approach vector.
The explosion bloomed between the lander and the airlock, scattering fragments and forcing the enormous transport to either break away or drive blindly into the blast. Its formation compressed behind it. Reavers scattered from the shock front. Other landers lost their clean path toward the hull.
Michael’s X-wing erupted from the far side of the fireball. Every alarm in the cockpit began speaking at once. He hauled back on the controls.
Nothing happened.
Weep-beep
//BB-
Oh.
AUUUGH
I’ll work on those three! Calm down!
Devin Virell[/USER] prays every time he goes up with you!! O TOLD YOU THIS WAS A BAD IDEA!]Wooo-beep
He kicked the rudder, diverted power through the flight controller and rolled the X-wing away from the
Grace before inertia could carry him into its hull.
Stars replaced armor plating beyond the canopy. Michael breathed again.
The squadron channel was silent.
Completely silent. Eleven pilots had just watched their acting commander charge a heavily armored assault lander, release ordnance nearly into its face and fly through a gap that had ceased to exist behind him.
Michael opened the channel.
Striker Lead, back in formation.
Nobody answered.
Status?
Wooo-beep
Another second passed.
Then Striker Two’s voice arrived with painstaking control.
“Lead… what was that?”
Michael looked at the damage warnings multiplying across his display. He considered several explanations. None of them sounded particularly responsible.
Fast Bombing.
Silence returned.
Wooo-beep
Fast was involved, there was a bomb! Shut up!
Wooo-beep
Michael reopened his S-foils. The mechanisms resisted, shuddered and finally locked into attack position. Four selective-fire cannons returned to his display.
Ahead, the Sith boarding wave continued toward the convoy—but its clean formations were gone. Landers crowded one another within narrowing corridors. Reaver pods scattered around the false contacts still racing through their sensors. Republic defensive fire poured into the openings Striker Squadron had created.
Beyond them, Rook Squadron continued circling its deadly quarry.
And somewhere aboard the
Grace of Theed, that cold and terrible presence remained. Michael could still feel Ala beneath it. Still moving. Still fighting. He tightened his grip on the controls. He couldn’t go to her. But he could make certain nothing else reached her.
Strikers, form up! First Flight, selective fire. Second, stay on those pods. Third, Cover Rook’s Flank!
The pilots responded this time. One acknowledgement. Then another. Then all eleven. Michael glanced toward the
Grace.
BRED, prioritize anything heading to that ship!
Wooo-beep
Michael watched another group of Reavers emerge through the debris.
Yes He pushed the throttle forward. Twelve X-wings moved with him.
Wooo-beep
Strikers? The boy disappeared from his voice.
Let’s hit them again.
TAG:
Petra
Knoll
Tiberius Rath
CT-312
CUTTO SCENE -
This is where he is speaking in a different setting, as if recapping what he had just seen on a holovid
Wooo-beep
Lancel Atria
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Eira Dyn
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