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 Force disappeared.
Michael Angellus had never possessed the awareness of a Jedi Master.
There were no visions waiting behind his eyes. No voices moving through the currents of the universe. He could not reach across the stars, lift mountains or perceive every life surrounding him as a point of light. For Michael, the Force had always been quieter. A pressure against the back of his thoughts. A fraction of warning before danger arrived.
The inexplicable certainty that empty space was not truly empty.
He had lived with it for so long that he no longer noticed it. Until it was gone. One moment, Michael could feel the distant presence. Darkness pressing against something familiar. Ala fighting somewhere beneath it. The next—
Nothing.
The absence struck so completely that Michael’s hand jerked against the flight controls. His T-1650 rolled. Stars spun across the canopy.
“Whoa—][/COLOR]
Michael corrected instinctively, leveling the X-wing before the unexpected movement could carry him across Striker Two’s flight path. BRED shrieked behind him.
Wooo-beep
[I’m fine.]
It came too quickly. BRED answered with a low, unconvinced whistle. Michael reached for Ala again. Nothing. Not distance. Not interference. Nothing. The Void had no sensation of its own. It did not press against him or smother what little awareness he possessed. It simply replaced something that had always existed with an emptiness so complete that his mind kept trying to compensate for it.
The stars beyond the cockpit suddenly seemed farther away.
The battle felt flatter. Colder. For the first time in his life, space was only space.
Michael swallowed.
[Ala?]
Only static answered. BRED’s dome rotated.
Wooo-beep
[No.]
Wooo-beep
Michael barely heard him. Was Ala dead? No. He could not know that. He could not know anything. That was the point. The Force had not told him she was gone. Whatever had happened had removed his ability to feel whether she remained at all. The distinction was thin. It was enough. Michael forced his hand to relax around the control stick.
The cockpit remained. The instruments remained. Eleven Strikers remained in formation around him. Ahead, Thyferra’s orbit burned.
The
Grace of Theed pulled through the High Republic formation while capital ships traded fire around it. The immense hull of the
Idirsholas filled part of the distant battlespace, its aft sections pounded by repeated salvos. The relief fleet advanced between the
Grace and the hostile warship, pulling the Republic vessel deeper into overlapping defensive coverage.
Rook Squadron remained engaged near the
Grace, their formation bloodied but unbroken. Somewhere among the weapons fire, a hostile fighter appeared and vanished between sensor sweeps, leaving disabled point-defense batteries and scattered fighters behind it.
And beyond them— Bacta haulers.
Civilian transports.
Evacuation shuttles.
Hundreds of lives trying to escape through a battle fought by vessels large enough to destroy them accidentally. Michael drew a slow breath. The Force was gone. Fine.
He still had eyes.
[BRED, full passive sweep. Overlay all evacuation traffic with the vectors from Nemesis’s transmission.]
Wooo-beep
[I know.]
Michael studied the tactical display.
[That dude didn’t send it to help us. He wanted his people to know where the haulers were going.]
The broadcast had identified escaping bacta vessels, refugees and evacuated civilians. Some of which may have been compromised. Michael’s expression tightened. Nemesis had phrased it like a warning. It was not. It was an instruction.
Hostile starfighters were already adjusting toward the transmitted coordinates. Republic defensive formations pushed back against them, opening narrow routes through which civilian craft could escape.
Then BRED marked a new group emerging from behind a damaged transport. Eleven bacta shuttles. Their transponders identified them as friendly. Their flight paths did not.
They did not fly like military craft. Their formation wavered. One shuttle drifted several degrees above the others before slowly correcting. Another reduced power unnecessarily as wreckage crossed several kilometers ahead. Two more crowded together, separated and then returned to position.
Frightened pilots. Exhausted crews. Damaged vessels doing whatever they could to survive. That was what Michael saw. For three seconds. Then his eyes narrowed.
[BRED, isolate those eleven.]
Wooo-beep
Colored lines extended behind each shuttle, tracing their previous movements. They were messy. Uneven. Convincing.
[Stack their engine-output history.]
The telemetry compressed into eleven overlapping graphs.
BRED chirped.
Wooo-beep
Michael watched the lines. Every shuttle accelerated differently. Every shuttle decelerated differently. Every shuttle made mistakes. At precisely the same time.
[Expand the last thirty seconds.]
The display changed.
A turbolaser bolt had crossed the formation twenty-two seconds earlier. Eleven vessels reacted within the same fraction of a second. Their individual maneuvers were different, but the moment of initiation was identical. A piece of wreckage entered their path. Eleven shuttles corrected before civilian-grade sensors should have resolved the threat. The formation appeared ragged, yet the distance between every vessel remained almost mathematically constant.
Their errors were cosmetic.
Their cohesion was perfect. Michael leaned toward the display.
[They’re flying scared wrong.]
BRED whistled.
Wooo-beep
[People panic individually.]
Michael shifted the projection, aligning the eleven flight histories. “One pilot would turn too hard. Somebody else would freeze. That shuttle’s flying like its captain is afraid of scratching the paint, but it reacted to incoming fire at the exact same instant as the one pretending its controls barely work.][/COLOR]
Wooo-beep
[No.]
Michael pointed toward the formation. “Even linked navigation systems compensate for the ship they’re flying. Damage, mass, engine response—there should be delays.][/COLOR]
BRED fell silent.
The graphs continued moving. Different maneuvers. Identical timing.
Wooo-beep
[Probable.]
Wooo-beep
[One hundred.]
Wooo-beep
[I’m looking at them.]
The words came without arrogance.
Michael simply knew. BRED possessed more information. Michael could read every number on the display and still never process it as quickly as the droid. But BRED saw engine output. Michael saw pilots. Or the absence of them. He keyed the squadron channel.
[Strikers, hold fire. Possible compromised friendlies bearing three-four-seven. Eleven bacta shuttles approaching the evacuation route.]
A pilot answered immediately.
[“Their transponders read clean.”]
[So did the boarding wave’s stolen fighters.] Michael switched to the evacuation frequency.
[Bacta group three-four-seven, this is Striker Lead. Your navigational network may be compromised. Disengage all automated controls and acknowledge.]
No response.
The shuttles continued.
Michael tried again.
[Group three-four-seven, respond immediately. Do not attempt hyperspace transition.]
Static. That alone proved nothing. Communications could be damaged. Civilian crews might be terrified, confused or overwhelmed.
Michael needed more.
[BRED, tightbeam individual maneuver instructions. Different order for every shuttle. Keep them simple.]
Wooo-beep
The first shuttle received instructions to roll five degrees to port. The second was ordered to flash its landing lights. The third was to reduce engine output by ten percent. The fourth was to cycle its deflector shields. Eleven vessels. Eleven different instructions. Eleven opportunities for someone aboard to prove that a living pilot controlled the ship.
Nothing happened.
Then all eleven shuttles banked together as a damaged fighter tumbled across their projected route. The maneuvers were different. The timing was not.
Michael watched the formation stabilize.
[There you are.]
Wooo-beep
[That’s what I said.]
Wooo-beep
[That’s what confidence looks like.]
BRED produced an electronic raspberry.
Michael enlarged their projected course. The shuttle group was approaching the same hyperspace route as the legitimate evacuation craft. Once they entered the stream, distinguishing them from the others would become considerably more difficult. The Sith’s transmission returned to him.
Some of which may have been compromised.
Not infected. Not damaged. Compromised. Michael’s attention shifted to the evacuation coordinates. A relief vessel waited at the far end.
The
Indomitable.
Medical teams. Docking facilities. Bacta haulers clustering together after transition. Eleven compromised ships entering hyperspace among them. His stomach dropped.
[They’re not trying to escape.]
Wooo-beep
[They’re weapons.]
Michael began marking probable collision vectors at the rendezvous point. One shuttle for every transport. One sudden engine surge after hyperspace. One formation of survivors destroyed before anyone understood what was happening.
BRED’s dome rotated sharply.
Wooo-beep
Michael’s thumb hovered over the firing controls. Eleven targets. Eleven clean shots. The T-1650 carried enough firepower to tear the shuttles apart before they reached the jump corridor. Striker Squadron could eliminate the entire formation in seconds. Then he looked at the life-sign readings.
Interference obscured them.
Not zero.
Unknown.
[They want us to shoot.]
Wooo-beep
[I know.]
Michael opened the targeting restrictions. Hyperdrives. Engines. Communications. Navigation. No cockpit. No passenger compartments. No life-support systems.
[If they’re empty, disabling them costs us nothing.]
He transmitted the restrictions to Striker Squadron.
[If they aren’t, Nemesis expects us to choose between trusting them and killing the people aboard.]
His jaw tightened.
[We’re not doing his work for him.]
Acknowledgements crossed the squadron channel. Michael divided the Strikers into three flights.
[Striker Two, First Flight with you. Cross their hyperspace vector. Alternating passes, ten-second intervals. Chaff and phase echoes only.]
[“No weapons?”]
[Not yet. Every contact that crosses their bow forces the navigation system to recalculate.]
Michael highlighted the entire group.
[They don’t need an opening. They need the same opening. Don’t give them one.] First Flight broke formation. Four T-1650s accelerated toward the shuttle group, each approaching on a slightly different plane.
[Striker Five, take Second Flight between the evacuees and those friendly-flagged fighters. Their behavior does not match their identification. Treat them as compromised, but do not fire unless they engage or refuse diversion.] Second Flight turned toward the Republic starfighters accompanying another group of civilians.
[Third Flight, with me. Stay above the formation. If any shuttle separates, force it back toward the others.]
[“Why keep them together?”]
Michael rolled his fighter over the compromised group.
[Because one computer is flying all of them.] His eyes moved across the formation.
[And I only want to fight it once.]
First Flight crossed the jump vector.
Chaff burst across the shuttles’ projected path. A dozen phase echoes appeared immediately afterward, sensor-perfect replicas accelerating directly toward the formation. The shuttles reacted. Their hyperspace indicators disappeared. All eleven began recalculating. First Flight cleared the lane.
For one moment, the route opened.
A second Striker crossed from below. More echoes appeared. Another collision warning. Another recalculation. The shuttle formation banked away, seeking a new solution.
Third Flight moved to meet it.
Michael did not order a wall. Walls could be avoided. He created movement. One fighter appeared above them. Another crossed below. A Zeta echo accelerated from starboard while a real T-1650 approached from port. Chaff drifted into one vector. Weapons fire crossed another.
Nothing threatened the shuttles directly.
Everything threatened their calculations. BARCA adjusted. Striker Squadron adjusted faster. The compromised vessels began spreading.
[Third Flight, tighten them.]
Michael dove. He did not fire. The T-1650 passed across the nose of the lead shuttle close enough to trigger an immediate avoidance maneuver. The shuttle broke right.
Exactly where Michael wanted it.
A Striker rose beneath the next vessel, herding it left. Another swept behind the formation. Every attempted escape route returned the shuttles toward one another. Eleven craft continued moving toward hyperspace.
None could hold a stable vector long enough to enter it.
BRED whistled.
Weee-booop
[They can get frustrated.]
Wooo-beep
[You’re frustrated.]
AUUUGH!
Michael smiled faintly.
[Point proven.]
A warning crossed his display. The friendly-flagged fighters near the second evacuation group had shifted. They still had not engaged the approaching Sith autofighters. They held position. Not helplessly. Deliberately. Their formation left three clean corridors through which the enemy could attack the civilians.
Michael changed their designation from green to amber.
[BRED, plot their interception coverage.]
Cones extended from the starfighters. The Sith vessels should have been crossing directly through them. No targeting sensors activated. No defensive movement began.
Nothing.
“They aren’t protecting the transports.][/COLOR]
Weep.
[IFF tells us who owned the fighter.]
Michael watched another hostile contact pass through a deliberate gap. “It doesn’t tell us who’s flying it.][/COLOR]
Wooo-beep
[Because there aren’t any pilots.]
The compromised starfighters adjusted again.
Not toward the attackers. Toward the infected evacuation group. Michael saw the shape of the plan. “They’re not escorting the civilians.][/COLOR]
He painted the openings in their coverage.
[They’re escorting the Sith.]
Michael opened the squadron channel.
[Second Flight, place yourselves between those fighters and the evacuees. Challenge individually. Different authentication request for every ship.]
[“And if they ignore us?”]
[Target engines. Hold fire until they commit.]
The four Strikers accelerated.
Michael returned his attention to the bacta shuttles. They were changing tactics. Their formation divided. Not gradually. All eleven broke simultaneously, accelerating toward separate sections of the evacuation route.
[Third Flight, stay with them.]
Michael watched the vectors blossom across his display.
Too many. Four fighters could not physically obstruct eleven vessels approaching eleven different jump solutions. BARCA had recognized what Michael was doing. Now it was forcing him to choose.
He did not.
[BRED, slave all available phase echoes to my flight controller.]
Wooo-beep
[None.]
Wooop
[Stop making them behave like starfighters.] Michael’s hands moved across the controls.
[Place one directly ahead of every shuttle. Match velocity.]
Wooo-beep[/COLOR]
[I want them identified.]
BRED chirped in realization.
Eleven false X-wings appeared. One ahead of each shuttle. The compromised craft continued accelerating.
[Now change every echo’s velocity at random.]
The false contacts began drifting.
One decelerated across its shuttle’s bow. Another moved laterally. A third dropped directly into the vessel’s hyperspace vector. The shuttles reacted automatically. Their collision-avoidance systems did not care whether the contacts could fire. They cared that the contacts occupied space.
BARCA could disregard the echoes manually.
But doing so meant disabling safety responses across eleven vessels traveling through a debris-filled battle. If it ignored the contacts, Michael could replace an echo with a real fighter. If it honored them, none of the shuttles could jump.
The formation faltered.
Michael saw it. Not through the Force.There was no warning in the back of his mind. No reassuring current carrying him toward the right answer. There were only trajectories, velocities, engine signatures and intent. It was enough.
[Strikers, phase two. Ion settings where available. Precision fire on hyperdrive assemblies and primary engine controls. No cockpits.]
Green indicators appeared. “Wait for separation from the civilian stream.][/COLOR]
The shuttles fought against the constantly changing contacts.
One climbed. Another turned. A third cut thrust. For the first time, the supposedly frightened flight profiles disappeared. The vessels moved with machine precision. There was no longer any reason to pretend.
[Targets confirmed.] Michael’s voice steadied. “Strikers—disable.][/COLOR]
Fire crossed the darkness.
Not a barrage. Not panic. Measured shots traveled toward engines and exposed drive sections as the compromised vessels maneuvered against the false contacts. Each Striker chose a different target. Each firing lane avoided civilian traffic.
Michael selected the lead shuttle.
The targeting computer offered a solution against its center mass. He rejected it. A smaller bracket settled over the hyperdrive housing. The shuttle rolled. Michael adjusted before the computer did. He fired once.
The shot crossed the distance.
Whether it struck or forced the vessel away no longer mattered. The shuttle’s jump solution vanished again as Michael passed over it and climbed. BRED immediately placed another contact on his display. A point-defense emplacement near the
Grace of Theed had gone silent.
Then another.
A Republic fighter disappeared from the tactical network. No hostile contact connected them.
Michael looked toward the empty space surrounding the
Grace as it moved towards the Rapid Reaction force. Nothing.
His sensors caught fragments of confused identification data. Friendly signals appeared where no friendly fighters should have been. Target locks formed and dissolved before defensive systems could respond.
A hidden attacker.
Good enough to operate inside overlapping point defense. Patient enough to fire only when necessary. Moving closer to the hull because distance made stealth less useful, not more. Michael stopped searching for the ship.
[BRED, plot every unexplained point-defense failure in the last sixty seconds.]
Markers appeared around the
Grace.
[Add fighter losses without confirmed attackers.]
More points joined them.
There was no straight line. No obvious approach. Only seemingly disconnected moments scattered through the battle. BRED processed the display.
Wooo-beep
[I know.]
Michael rotated the projection.
The points formed a curve. Not a flight path calculated by a computer. A sequence of choices.
The unknown pilot had moved from firing opportunity to firing opportunity, remaining close enough to the capital ships that defensive fire and sensor interference concealed him. Every attack served the same purpose.
Clearing a route.
Michael extended the curve. It passed the
Grace. It passed Rook Squadron. It crossed the evacuation traffic. Then it reached the compromised shuttles.
[He’s coming here.]
Wooo-beep
“Don’t calculate the ship.][/COLOR]
Michael highlighted each attack.
[Calculate the pilot. He doesn’t stay to confirm destruction. He takes the shot, masks and moves to the next obstruction.]
Weeeeeeeeeep
[Only one gives him cover from the Republic batteries and a firing line on Second Flight.] Michael marked a narrow corridor through the evacuation traffic.
[There.]
BRED remained silent for half a second.
Wooo-beep
Michael looked toward Second Flight.
They were positioned between the compromised starfighters and the civilians. If he warned them to turn toward the hidden attacker, he would expose the evacuees. If they held position, the unknown ace could hit them from the flank. Unless the opening was intentional.
Michael opened a tightbeam to Striker Five.
[Continue your present course. Do not react to anything behind you.]
[“Lead?”]
[You have company.]
[“I don’t see anything.”]
[Neither does he.]
Michael switched channels.
[Third Flight, continue shuttle suppression. Striker Two retains tactical control.]
[“Where are you going?”]
Michael activated the sensor mask.
His T-1650 disappeared into the electronic noise.
[To close a door.]
He rolled away from the shuttle formation and cut across the projected curve. Thrusters fired in brief, controlled bursts, keeping his emissions below the surrounding interference. The Void remained. Michael could not feel the hidden pilot approaching. He could not sense the danger waiting somewhere ahead.
He could not ask the Force whether his conclusion was right.
His father had flown without it. Liram Angellus had commanded fighters through engagements against enemies he could not feel, carrying nothing into battle except training, instinct and the absolute conviction that he understood the sky better than the person trying to kill him.
Michael had spent years believing that was something he would have to grow into.
Perhaps it was. Perhaps this was what growing into it felt like. Not certainty.
Decision.
[BRED, kill active sensors.]
Wooo-boop
[I know where he’s going.]
Wooo-beep
[I know where he has to be.]
Michael positioned the T-1650 above the evacuation corridor and rotated until his cannons faced empty space.
Second Flight held formation below. The compromised shuttles struggled against the Strikers and their echoes behind him. The false Republic fighters continued opening paths for Sith attackers. Every visible part of the battle pulled attention away from Michael’s position. For several seconds, nothing happened.
BRED emitted a questioning trill.
Wooo-beep
[I know.]
Beep-boop
Michael watched the point where the attack curve intersected Second Flight’s blind side. The Force offered nothing. His instruments offered nothing. His targeting computer found nothing. Michael’s finger rested against the trigger. “Because that’s where I would be.][/COLOR]
A weapons emplacement along the
Grace flashed.
A brief burst crossed the battlefield. An outline appeared between the stars. Not long enough for a standard targeting system to acquire. Long enough for Michael.He moved before the display changed.
The T-1650 rolled.
Its nose followed the flickering silhouette. Michael did not chase the false identification signals or allow the brief sensor return to drag his targeting computer away from the projected path. He aimed where the pilot was going. The reticle settled over empty space. A heartbeat later, the hostile outline crossed it.
BRED shrieked.
Weeeeeeeep
Michael smiled.
[Hello.]
He fired.
Short, controlled bursts crossed the hostile fighter’s projected route—not declaring a kill, not assuming the unseen pilot failed to evade, but closing the clean approach toward Second Flight and forcing the intruder to account for something he had not possessed seconds earlier.
Opposition.
Michael opened the squadron channel. “Second Flight, break on my mark. Starboard and down. Third Flight, prepare to collapse on the shuttle group.][/COLOR]
His eyes remained fixed upon the intermittent contact.
The opposing pilot was good. Very good.
Michael could see it in the attack pattern. The discipline. The refusal to remain visible any longer than necessary. The way each movement created the next firing opportunity. Under other circumstances, Michael might have wanted to test himself against someone like that.
Not today.
Today there were civilians behind him.
[Mark.]
Second Flight broke.
The clean firing lane vanished. Striker fighters dropped away from the compromised escorts, leaving the hostile ace without the attack geometry Michael had predicted. Third Flight shifted across the opening. First Flight continued denying the shuttles a hyperspace vector.
Michael did not follow the hidden fighter.
Chasing would pull him away from the people he was protecting. He returned toward the evacuation group instead, remaining between the intermittent contact and the transports.
BRED chirped.
Wooo-beep
[No.]
warble-warble
“So do we.][/COLOR]
Michael reopened his S-foils.
The four selective-fire cannons came online. Behind him, Striker Squadron continued dismantling the trap without destroying the vessels caught inside it. Phase echoes crossed hyperspace solutions. Chaff polluted escape vectors. Precision fire sought drives and engines. Friendly-flagged fighters found real Republic pilots blocking the corridors they had left open.
Ahead, a genuine civilian transport limped through the battle.
Its pilot overcorrected around a piece of wreckage. The ship drifted too close to another evacuee. Its engine output surged late. Nothing about the maneuver was efficient.
Michael smiled.
[That one’s real.]
AaAAUUUUU
[Exactly.]
Michael transmitted a clear route to the civilian vessel, then positioned his X-wing between it and the approaching Sith contacts. The Force remained absent. Ala remained beyond his reach. The universe no longer whispered that he had chosen correctly.
It did not have to.
Eleven Strikers moved through the evacuation corridor at Michael’s direction. They did not scatter after spectacular targets. They did not abandon civilians to pursue glory. Each fighter appeared precisely where the enemy’s plan required empty space. Michael watched the battlefield reshape around them.
Not because he could feel it.
Because he understood it. Another pilot’s voice crossed the squadron channel.
[Lead, how did you identify those shuttles?]
Michael looked back at their synchronized movements.
[They were flying wrong.]
[Their profiles looked civilian.]
[That’s not what I mean.]
He searched for an explanation that did not sound insane.
[They were all scared the same way.]
Silence answered.
BRED chirped.
Wooo-beep
[Thank you, BRED.]
Wooo-weep
[You can stop now.]
Weep-Wooop
Michael considered that.
[That sounds more scientific.]
The Void still surrounded him.
It had taken the Force.
It had taken the distant warmth of Ala’s presence. It had taken the fractional warning Michael had carried without realizing it and left him flying through the largest battle of his life without the quiet current that had always moved beneath his instincts.
The artifact had been intended to make Jedi lesser.
Michael Angellus pushed the throttle forward. An X-wing responded like an extension of his body. Striker Squadron moved with him.
And somewhere behind the silence of the Force, behind the fear, behind the boy who still could not quite believe eleven pilots were waiting for his orders, something older remained. Not power. Not prophecy. Blood.
Liram Angellus had been born for command.
Michael had been born for this.
[Strikers, keep the evacuation lane open. Disable anything attempting to jump under centralized control. Protect the legitimate transports.] The humor disappeared from his voice.
[Nothing reaches the relief fleet unless we know who’s flying it.] Eleven acknowledgements answered him.
Michael angled his fighter toward the next incoming threat. BRED whistled.
Wooo-beep
Michael watched the compromised shuttles, the false escorts and the place where an enemy ace had vanished back into the battle.
Then he smiled.
[We teach them what scared looks like.]
TAG:
Petra
Knoll
Tiberius Rath
CT-312
Kurayami Bloodborn
Damos Rennar
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
