A Reputation to Maintain

[Jaden Luka]

Pilot's Briefing Room, Valiant

It seemed ironic that, mere weeks after he'd been assigned away from the Rogues, they'd set up shop in his old command. It was weird how instinctively his memory had snapped back into navigating the corridors of the Valiant; and amusing how completely incapable his eyes were of coping with the overwhelming whiteness of the Mon Calamari walls. Fortunately, his trusty tinted eye glasses were on hand to offer protection, as always.

You would have thought that after a few months as the training officer aboard Horizon, teaching X-Wing jocks to be A-Wing jocks, he'd have grown accustomed to the whole standing in front of a briefing room and talking thing. But as he looked around the faces of the assembled pilots - some that he recognised; some that he didn't - he couldn't help the pang of nerves. Valkyrie Squadron and Rogue Squadron had been the units where he'd gone from nugget to ace, and the pilots that flew with them were friends, and equals. On the Horizon, he'd stepped in to a position of assumed authority and respect, given his rank, role, and previous assignment. Here, he was just another alumni, home to roost.

"So." His fingers reached for the glasses, pulling them from his face and settling them on the podium. He fought the urge to wince as the bright whiteness assaulted him, and succeeded, mostly. Exposed eyes flitted from face to face, making sure he could match a name to each of them. There were a couple he couldn't readily identify, but given the lack of flight suits, he made an educated guess that they were one Mr Sanis Prent, and friends.

"The situation is very simple," he said, keeping his voice measured and even. "None of us can underestimate the importance of protecting this convoy, and we all understand how important it is to have the best pilots in the Alliance serving right here."

He was very careful to avoid mentioning either squadron by name; not just because he wanted to avoid offending the Valkyries, but also because he still had a little spark of pride in his older unit, and wasn't quite ready to admit that the Rogues were 'better' just yet. He fought back a chuckle - It'd probably depend on which squadron I was flying with at the time.

"Unfortunately, the lack of activity out there in the galaxy by the Alliance's elite won't go unnoticed for long. The last thing we want to do is arouse suspicion with Imperial Intelligence that we might have something better to do." He shrugged, ever so slightly. "If Imptel starts looking for us, then we become a giant target painted on the side of the Wheel. And the last thing we want to be doing is drawing attention to our charges."

Reaching out with a remote device, he clicked the control that would activate the holoprojector at the centre of the room. "This is Bandomeer (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Bandomeer): an Outer Rim world that sits at the convergence between the Hydian Way and the Braxant Run." The spinning orb of Bandomeer was overlayed with a wireframe, coloured indicators appearing to represent the various orbital defenses. "The surface is under complete Imperial control, with a sizeable garrison on-hand to keep the local miners in line."

"The space deployment meanwhile is geared towards turning the Bandomeer system into a safe harbour for convoys traversing the Hydian Way from the Corporate Sector to the core from raids by pirates and, well, by us." A smile quirked at the corner of Jaden's mouth. "As a result, very little effort is made towards protecting the orbital hardware around Bandomeer itself."

The holo-display zoomed in on one of the orbital stations in particular, littered with comm arrays and sensor antennae. "This relay is part of a network of orbital and planetary facilities that are coordinating Imperial operations in the region. One of those facilities, on Ruuria, was recently infiltrated by a SpecForce team; and from the information gathered there, we've determined that Bandomeer is our optimum target for disrupting Imperial operations in the area, and for drawing as much attention to us as possible."

"It may not be the most glamourous or heroic of missions, but it's going to piss off the Imps like crazy; and frankly, that's probably the next best thing." He let his earlier quirk of a smile grow into something slightly more like a wry grin, before glancing around the room at his fellow pilots. "Any questions so far?"

[Jamo Jakatta]

Jamo held a hand up in the air.

“Yup. Where's the Commander?”

The absence of Rogue Leader wasn't something that could be easily overlooked. When the Rogues had been summoned to the briefing room, Jamo had wondered if Kelly had shook himself out of the funk that had pushed him into a semi-seclusion from the rest of the squadron, but the man standing behind the briefing podium was not Kelly Perris. Not that Luka hadn't earned his wings, but everyone had been tight-lipped on the Commander's whereabouts and now seemed like as good a time as any to get the scuttlebutt.

[Lucy Gray]

Kylie sat back in her chair. She was at the end of the 6th row looking at the holo of Bandomeer. She was back in her flight gear, which also made her stand out. Owing to the nature of the Rebellion, most pilots who came to their squadrons, usually had their own gear. While most pilots wore the bright orange jumpsuits, there was also a spattering of other colors among them. Kylie's jumpsuit and flight gear were black, like a Tie Fighter Pilots. All her accessories, down to her helmet were black. Again, she had her hair in some intricate braid that gathered at the nape of her neck. Her legs were crossed, but her left leg was in constant motion, rocking back and foth. She also had a habit of biting on her lip when she was concentrating and now was one of those times. The mission itself seemed straight forward and simple. Go in... blow something up... say "here we are" and then get out without losing everyone. The difficult part was getting out alive. If she understood it correctly, Bandomeer wasn't just some tiny outpost in the far reaches of the Galaxy. It was a busy port-of-call to almost all Imperial ships traveling on the Hydian Way.

She looked around the breifing room at the other pilots. She had just come to the Rogues recently, so many of the pilots from the other squadron were unfamiliar to her. Then she turned her attention back to the speaker.

When he had stopped and asked for questions, she raised her hand to speak.

"Captain Luka, what is the disposition of Imperial Forces that we are likely to encounter?"

[Jaden Luka]

Jaden had hoped that the question about Kelly's whereabouts wouldn't emerge quite so swiftly, but he supposed with the tight-knit camaraderie between the pilots of Rogue Squadron, it was inevitable. Luka didn't know much about the "funk" that Jamo spoke of, but during the meeting with Kelly and Leela that he'd had an hour ago, he'd certainly picked up that something was a little off. He'd have to investigate further, when they made it back.

He considered his potential answers carefully, before finally settling on one that he hoped would satiate the Lieutenant. "While it is of course imperative that we maintain Rogue Squadron's reputation, leaving the convoy unprotected while doing so would be neglegent on our part. The Commander, along with Blink, Donut, Juyo, Flash and Cupid have been nominated to remain behind, and continue to fly the CAP around the Wheel. For this rodeo, I'll temporarily be flying as Rogue One."

He hesitated for a moment. "In addition," he added, "Two thirds of Valkyrie Squadron will be remaining behind: only Lieutenant Valx'ir -" He gestured towards Oolan, his Verpine former wingman. "- and his flight will be accompanying us."

The second question meanwhile was far more practical, and he took some solice in that. He'd been warned in advance about the presence of a hot new blonde in the squadron and, by process of elimination, that made this new pilot Miss Kylie Archer. He flashed her a slight, almost greatful smile, before clicking his remote towards the holoprojector again.

"According to Alliance Intelligence -" Jaden loved that opening, and the way it neatly palmed off blame for any mistakes and mishaps onto someone else. He made a mental note to thank Leela for providing him with that little stock phrase. "- Bandomeer is packing two Lancer Frigates and a Carrack Cruiser, stationed at the jump coordinates where Imperial convoys are supposed to enter the system. Convoys can then either proceed to a holding position in Bandomeer orbit for resupply from the surface, or will be escorted through the system to the designated exit coordinates."

Another brief pause came, as he allowed the pilots to process that information, and also allowed the holoprojector to adjust appropriately to his next salvo of information. "Given our planned point of entry, we should be able to bypass the escorts completely: we'll be done by the time they manage to make it back to orbit. That leaves us with only one ship to contend with."

His eyes flicked to the pilots waiting for any reactions to his final reveal. "A Victory-class Star Destroyer, complete with two squadrons of TIE Interceptors. Additionally, we may have to contend with a wing of eyeballs from the surface, if we stick around too long."

As Star Destroyers go, a Victory was one of the least concerning, particularly given its - relatively - diminutive size. Even so, there was a reason that the Imperials so favoured the fear-mongering design that was common to many of their capital ships.

That said, if there hadn't been a Star Destroyer, it would hardly have been a Rogue Squadron worthy mission now, would it?

[Tera Uolmi]

Tera had one elbow propped against the table attached to the arm of her chair, whilst her free hand scribbled notes on the mission. The Victory-class Star Destroyer was an all-rounder, capable of long term solo operation. Reports on exactly how many warships the Empire still had at their disposal were sketchy and whilst a high number had been decommissioned, there were a great many still on active duty, especially in planetary defence roles. Stuck in orbit of the same planet indefinitely, the commanding officer would only have call to rotate in new crew when existing members bit space-dust. There was every possibility that they might run into some old enemies.

“Any intel on the esdee vic? Who's in charge, which TIE squadrons they have?”

[Iyar Thiled]

Joker's question had come straight out of his own head and probably the request of the squadron, except apparently new girl. Luka's skirting around the issue didn't sit well with him. Like hell Hot Mama would sit out a chance to give the Imperials hell in favor of the never ending boring as frak task of keeping watch over the convoy.

But whatever... Commander's issues (a quick glance was cast at Phoenix to see if she was showing any sort of reaction to the lack of info about Perris), well they were his issues. His loss. Maybe when they came back with the thrill of the fight still fresh on them he'd snap out of whatever the hell was wrong with him.

Back to the mission... and the Victory-class Star Destroyer ahead of them all that Flipper could say was... "Groovy." Which was only muttered slightly so as not to make Razor throw something heavy at his head since he let it slip after she'd asked what was probably something actually important to know.

[Sanis Prent]

The drama over Perris didn't confront me much. We were all adults here. If he got his shit wired tight again, good. If not, well, maybe it was time to show exactly who was the best pilot in the squadron and move on.

Remaining motionless, other than to chafe at the starched collar of my officer's top, I stared at the VSD holo with obvious curiosity on my face. I had a rap sheet with star destroyers, but that usually involved more or less running away from them.

Now, were gonna ram the attack right down the Empire's throat. Felt dangerous, but felt good. I liked it when I only felt like I had half the cards. Meant I could probably bullshit my way to a full hand.

"Is the VSD part of our objective, or just the orbital installations?"

[Jaden Luka]

Jaden winced a little at the request for specifics; particularly because that's where the vagueness began to creep into the mission brief, and he'd hoped to avoid undermining the confidence of his pilots with that quite so soon.

"Intelligence on that is a touch sketchy," was the best he could offer. "There are three key systems along the Hydian Way that are under the protection of this Imperial initiative: Bandomeer, Serenno, and Ruuria. They know that we don't have much in the way of viable gravity well ships available to us: their theory is that, by setting up safe harbours in those systems and protecting them with a Star Destroyer, it'll be too much of a deterrant for our hit-and-run missions against their convoys to risk it."

"The entire operation is overseen by a man named Ceto Rübezahl: he's the former Moff that the Alliance sent packing out of Bothawui. He's either extremely shrewd, or extremely paranoid. He has three Star Destroyers at his disposal - two Vicstars, Vigilant and Repulse; and an Impstar, Warspite. The latter he uses as his personal flagship, and he likes to move around from system to system, shuffling the deployment of his Vicstars to make sure that no system is undefended when there is a convoy due."

The holodisplay shifted, showing relative size images of those three Star Destroyers, labelled in aurebesh. "We know that Rübezahl is on Serenno, so by elimination it's either Vigilant or Repulse that we'll be contending with. Repulse is a Type II, wereas Vigilant is a Type I: if it's Vigilant, we'll have to keep an eye out for those Concussion Missiles, if we stray in too close."

"Officially," he stated, attention directing the response towards Sanis, "We're to give the Star Destroyer as wide a berth as we can, to ensure that our primary objective is completed." His eyes sparkled with mischief, briefly. "That said, if we happen to bloody their nose a little on our way out of the system, that's just a happy bonus."

He let that sentiment hang for a moment, before his eyes focussed on Officer Uolmi directly. "Beyond the fact that there will be twenty-four squints launching out of that Vicstar though, I'm afraid I can't be any more specific than that. Certainly no one more elite than the average Interceptor pilot. And on the plus side, the fighters from the surface are attatched to the Imperial Army garrison there; knowing from personal experience what Imperial ground-pounders are like, the Empire would never subject any of it's talented pilots to that kind of suffering."

Hoping that 'the best he had to offer' was enough to satify the thirst for information in his pilots, he swept his eyes around the room once more, looking for further questions.

[Carré Inirial]

I don't like this.

Not one little frakking bit.

Carré pulled her hands out of the pockets of her sleek new flightsuit, a shade of green so dark it was almost black in the right light. Fingers rubbed at her temples before she crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back in her chair.

Slightly away from the others, she was feeling intensely anti-social given the upheavals as of late. First it was Kelly, who'd dropped into a dark funk that seemed endless. Then it was Yoree's sudden promotion to Rogue Six, leaving her without a wingman and someone who was rapidly becoming her best friend. And now? A mission into Imperial space with a new wingman she hadn't even met yet.

Things couldn't get much worse, she mused, focusing on the details of the mission that were available. Bandomeer was not somewhere she'd been during her time as an Imperial pilot, but she had come across the name Ceto Rübezahl before.

Her emerald gaze was flat and dark as she met Flipper's gaze for the brief moment it was on her. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction of reacting, so she simply looked back to their mission leader and made mental notes of the mission details.

[Jaden Luka]

Jaden's visual scanning yielded no protests, which was a blessed relief; it wasn't like his own briefing for this mission had provided him with any more answers than he'd already been provided, anyhow. The lack of data left him feeling distinctly uncomfortable, and as an obsessive over details, that was something he craved. The only other briefings he'd run to date had been training operations, which he had meticulously planned himself; he idly wondered if Rogue Squadron missions were always this vague, and if Kelly felt as gut-twistingly uncomfortable with it all as he did right now.

He glanced down at the datapad in front of him, mentally checking off the items he needed to run through. "Tactics will be fairly routine," he revealed; "Nothing fancy. Oolan and the Valkyries will head in first to disrupt the Imperial lines, breaking up their formations for the Rogues to pick them off." He glanced up, eyes picking out the face he'd identified as their newbie earlier; the distinctive TIE uniform she wore didn't exactly make the task difficult. "Kylie, you'll be flying as Tera's wing for this sortie."

His announcement seemed to amp up the air of tension amongst the pilots a little, making him wonder if there was perhaps more Rogue gossip he'd need to catch up on. He ignored it for now however, instead diverting his attention to Sanis Prent. "Since the Layla has the best sensors out of all of us meanwhile, they'll acquire targetting data, and relay it to the rest of us, so we can launch a volley of torpedos."

There was little more he could say, which unfortunately brought him to the part of the briefing that required him to deliver some sort of motivational speach: something to inspire his men and women for the coming mission. He tried to summon up from memory some recollection of what someone like Kelly, Leela, or even Captain Tyree might have offered at this point. His mind came up blank.

"Skids up at ten-hundred, guys," was all he managed to say. "Lets get out there."

* * *

Hyperspace exploded, debris scattering across Jaden's vision to form the pinprick stars that nestled in the blackness of space. The sudden shift in velocity assaulted his X-Wing, but the inertial compensators did their job and converted it into a lazy jostling of his snubfighter. His eyes narrowed, focussing on the distant orb of Bandomeer that awaited them, a few thousand clicks out.

His hand reached for the communications console, subconsciously flicking over to the predesignated frequency for this mission. Software packets fired up, ready to distort his voice into something that Imperial ears wouldn't be able to readily identify as his own - one of the countermeasures the Alliance had employed since the early days, to protect some of its more high-profile members. "Valkyries: you are good to go," He ordered, briefly scanning the sensor console in his cockpit to pick out the four contacts that were about to move. "Rogues: S-Foils in attack position." Reaching out, he toggled the control to comply with his own instruction.

He hesitated for a moment. "Eyes open for that Star Destroyer as well, Thirteen. Holler when you see it."

[Sanis Prent]

We cut all the bullshit once we pulled realspace, and now, it was all business. Cirr punched the comm to Preset six, the agreed-upon rotating coded comm band we'd keep chatter on to avoid a singular frequency jam.

"Rogue 13, on the ball, calling the battlespace."

Active sensor pings began running up and down spectrum, and I set the feed into all Rogue and Valkyrie tactical sets.

Layla set to cruising intercept, allowing the more nimble fighters to surge ahead about two clicks up in an attack posture. Cirr set the quads to his station, the dorsal and ventral cannons extending from their weapons pods.

The sensor intercepts began pouring in, with fourteen objective targets displaying as visible on this side of the planetary mass. Passive sensors would pick up any objectives in the mass shadow, but that took longer.

"Objectives of opportunity are on the grid. No Victor contact - wait."

Passives began pulling in another three objective targets, and a larger orbital mass, which matched gravitational displacement equivalent of a VSD's mass.

"Victor contact at zero-zero-six mark three-five-zero. No visual."

I cracked a confident smile.

"It's in the mass shadow."

What that meant was that the Rebels had initiative. Even if the Victor was on the move, they'd be on top of the first of their objectives before it was even in the fight.

Wearing a half-headset, I pressed at my ear, as static-laden chatter came through.

"They've spotted us on approach. Heads up."

[Oisin Ocasta]

"Rogue Twelve, standing by."

Oisin felt decidedly awkward saying that; though not nearly as awkward as he felt at the thought that Thirteen, rather than him, was the one packing the most advanced sensor package around. It wasn't a pride thing, or a "whose is larger?" thing - it was just reflex; what he was used to.

Until now, Ocasta had almost exclusively flow reconnaissance craft for the Alliance; most recently, a Recon configured X-Wing, which saccrificed the proton torpedo tubes for sensor gear. He still carried lasers of course, so he was trained - though perhaps not as experienced as the rest of the Rogues - in ship-to-ship combat; apparently, Oisin had managed to impress some of the higher-ups during a recent operation, when he'd flown alongside the rest of the fighters protecting the Wheel to fend off a raid by Imperials, despite the tactical disadvantages of his craft.

In theory, they'd brought him in to Rogue Squadron to plug the gap left by Jaden Luka's absense, when he'd been assigned elsewhere for a few weeks to help train a squadron of pilots, or something like that. In practice, the Rebel Alliance's admin efficiency meant that they'd only actually got around to making the temporary transfer a few days before said pilot had return. He'd almost thought he'd made it through the entire experience scott free, without having to have flown a single combat mission; but alas, here he was, staring down the fuselage of an X-Wing that looked decidedly naked without the sensor probes sticking out of the nose.

Worse, he was paired with a pilot - Carré Inirial - who he'd only briefly met in the pilots' ready room before the mission, and who had spent most of that encounter glaring at him for reasons he couldn't understand. Not that a lack of understanding of women was a new experience for him of course; though admittedly, having a wingman at all was something relatively unusual for him. He remembered what he'd been taught about such things in training: how it was his responsibility to keep his wingman safe, and all that; he only hoped that he could stop Phoenix from living up to her callsign, and bursting into flames.

Speaking of Phoenix; he twitched his stick, drifting his fighter slightly to ensure he remained in the standard position off Carré's aft starboard quarter. He mused, with a brief chuckle, at the notion that he was effectively under orders to stare at her aft; the presence of a starfighter in the way made it nigh impossible to see anything good, of course, but at least he'd got pleanty of practice while they'd been prepping for the mission. Particularly while she was climbing the boarding ladder into her cockpit.

"Victor contact at zero-zero-six mark three-five-zero. No visual."

The recon announcement snapped Oisin's mind into go mode, and stirred up the swarm of little creatures that had been fluttering around frantically in his stomach throughout the hyperspace leg of this trip. He calmed himself by letting his eyes skim across the data that Thirteen was feeding to the rest of them, pretending it was coming from his own ship. Behind him, his astromech - bored of having no proper recon data to process - ran a swift comparative analysis of the IFF data. "Looks like it's the Repulse," he announced to his comm array; a stroke of luck that they'd find themselves going up against the lesser of two evils in this case.

He hesitated as a moment, watching his display as the indicators for the Valkyrie A-Wings spread towards those of the two-dozen TIE Fighters now swarming out of the belly of the Repulse.

Two-dozen. Two-dozen. Two-

He frowned, counting the sensor contacts on his screen. Only twelve fighters seemed to have emerged into the fray; half the compliment that the Vicstar should have posessed, and half what they were expecting. That should have been a good thing; but in truth, it left Oisin feeling decidedly nervous.

"Rogue One, this is Twelve; I only count one squadron deployed."

There was a brief hesitation before Jaden's static and security distorted voice answered back.

"I see it too, Twelve. Stay sharp, Rogues: something isn't quite right here."

[Jamo Jakatta]

Data from the Layla scrolled down over the X-wing's tracking computer, blips of light representing the approaching enemy starfighters. By now, after all the times they'd flown together, Jamo barely had to make the call to Iyar, but he thumbed open the comm channel.

“Ten, let's go. Drag time.”

As an opening gambit, the drag was a staple of Jamo and Iyar's tactics. Both pilots would fly head on at the bandit and as they neared, would veer out in opposite directions. Whichever fighter the enemy moved to engage would break away and when the bandit inevitably gave chase, the remaining X-wing would catch them on their blind-side. It worked nine times out of ten and when the first TIE surged towards him, its engines flaring, Jamo knew that it had worked again.

He swung the joystick left, bolts of laser-fire screaming through the space that his fighter had occupied moments ago. A broad grin cracked his lips.

“Hook, line and sinker – he's all yours, Flipper.”

[Tera Uolmi]

Tera watched as Rogues Nine and Ten jetted away from the squadron, making a bid for first contact. The shape of Rogue Seven drifted in alongside her, an unavoidable reminder that she had the blessing of being backed up by the resident nugget. “Seven, I'm marking up targets now.” On her computer display, rectangles appeared over a pair of TIEs. “Stay close to me, Archer. Set your cannons to quad fire. The sooner we thin this herd the better.”

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

"Heads up, Cirr."

The felinoid was already tracking the two TIE's that didn't break on formation to attack the rest of the squadron, and he put up a screen of defensive fire to keep them off an attack run. A third TIE broke from its line of approach and set an intercept, giving Cirr plenty of targets to work over.

"MARRCUS, set dorrsal gun to yourr contrrol."

Slaving the lower cannon to the computer's automatic targeting, Cirr went to work trying to pick one of the attacking fighters off. Sanis helped with some evasives, but the objective was to stay on course as much as possible.

Fixated on the screen, Cirr's tongue barely pressed between his lips as he worked the gun controls, gimballing in loops and arcs to either spray defensive fire, or to line up for a more accurate shot. Catching one of the TIE pilots running the same bank and fade three times in a row, Cirr lined himself up to anticipate, and squeezed off shots just where the ship should be, killing one of the fighters in a disintegrating fireball.

"One down!"

Then, Layla shook. One of the other TIE's managed to park a shot across their rear shielding.

Determined, Cirr traversed around again to thin the herd.

[Lucy Gray]

"Skids up at ten-hundred, guys," was all he managed to say. "Lets get out there."

Those words... said just yesterday felt like a dream so long ago. Kylie couldn't remember much else. She had spent the day working on simulations of the attack and variation that ranged from the Imperials having their pants down to being jumped by a wing of interceptors. The last simulation had really ground them down. They had managed to only damage their objective, and Kylie's fighter had been blown up fairly early in the engagement.

Now it was the real thing. Kylie didn't like it any better than Razor being matched up with her. Still they had a job to do and personal disagreements weren't a part of it.

The stars pulled back to pinpricks, indicating her fighter was dropping from hyperspace. Already the Valkyries had moved out toward their initial objective.

R6-E2 chirped behind her. Across her display, the information, first sent by the Layla and then updated by Rogue 12, the unit's communication specialist played out before her. Only one squad of Eyeballs was enroute to their location. Already Rogues 9 and 10 where heading into the thick of the starfighters.

“Seven, I'm marking up targets now. Stay close to me, Archer. Set your cannons to quad fire. The sooner we thin this herd the better.”

"Copy that Five." Six-EE, what Kylie called her astromech, had already targeted the pair that were headed their way. She shunt her shields to double front for the first pass and linked her torpedoes for dual fire and her lasers to quads. While it would make it cycle slower, each shot would destroy a TIE outright. Sensors showed the one that Razor had targeted so she targeted the other one. They were just out of range, but give it 4 more seconds and the world around them would light up.

"You get the first move, Boss Lady", she said to Razor.

[Iyar Thiled]

As the TIE Joker had set up turned into nothing more than burning debris, Flipper couldn't help but let a laugh leave him. There were two things the Zeltron enjoyed most in the universe, two things that could gave a greater thrill than anything else and most days he was divided on whether turning a perfectly good Imperial fighter into space dust won over the more extracurricular activity.

"You'd really think they would have learned how to avoid that one by now, huh Joker? So what do you make of them only sending out one squadron? Think they're getting tired of losing so many fighters so fast?"

[Carré Inirial]

It felt decidedly strange to be so quiet during the banter that normally darted between the Rogues. But it was disconcerting enough to be flying without Flash that she didn't dwell on it for very long.

You're not being very nice, you know.

Funny how I don't care.

You know its the way squadrons work...get over it.

The dry, flat inflection sounded so much like her brother Pharos that it made her sigh. He always had a way of cutting right through to the heart of the matter and making her see what she should have from the beginning.

"Stay in tight, Echo...I don't like this." Carré said over the comm, pleased that her voice had lightened from the waspish tone she'd used earlier. Joker and Flipper took a TIE out in short order just off her port-side, while Sanis and Cirr had the Layla doing what she did best nearby.

She looked twice as the TIEs approached and narrowed her gaze. Something...no, something was definitely wrong. Flicking her comm on, she addressed Jaden but left it open for the others to hear. "Rogue Eleven to Rogue One - I was on the Repulse less than a year ago, and that's not one of her squadrons. And they weren't due to be cycled out for another six months."

[Oisin Ocasta]

Something unexpected happening? Well, well. There was a surprise.

Silently, Oisin rolled his eyes. There were reasons why he generally didn't fly combat missions: the fact that the brief never matched the actual situation just happened to be the most relevant at this particular point. Sure, when flying Recon, you never knew what to expect. In that instance, it was a thrill. But on a combat mission, the officer in charge would go out of their way to convince you that they knew what was going to be there; and they'd have you so sold on it, that you'd believe them.

Of course, there were only a few ways of dealing with the unexpected. One of those was to explode; and Oisin wasn't really too keen on that particular option. The alternative, which sounded far more Rogue Squadron, and thus appropriate for the circumstances, was just to grit your teeth and get on with it.

Gently, he eased himself a little closer to his wingman's tail. "On the plus side, Phoenix," he quipped, "At least you won't have to vape anyone you know." He reached across the cockpit, toggling the control to set his shields to double-front, ready to face the incoming TIEs head on. "On your five-high, Twelve," he informed. "You lead; I'll follow."

[Jaden Luka]

Finger pulling three quick sequential bursts on the trigger, a trio of dual-blasts from offset wingtips leapt forth from his X-Wing, piercing the TIE Fighter's cockpit and blasting it into a shower of debris that sparkled against his shields as he ploughed through.

A squeeze more throttle amped up his speed to as close as he could get to full performance this long after the engines had been manufactured. As confused as everyone else at the scant contribution to the dogfight by the Imperials, he'd pushed on through their line, picked off that last straggler, and was now maxing out his engines in the wake of the Valkyrie A-Wings. Though his X-Wing put in a concerted effort, there was no way he'd be able to even match speed, let alone catch up; but that didn't matter.

What did matter was that now, he was positioned somewhere between his squadron and the enemy, discounting the - he glanced at his sensor display - seven squints that were left behind for them to contend with. Those weren't as much of a concern to him as the twelve more eyeballs that were missing; the dozens more promised from the surface at some point; and the Star Destroyer that was looming invisibly in the planet's gravity well.

He narrowed his eyes, trying to pick it out against the clouds of Bandomeer's sky. The ominous white spear was there alright, but something seemed a little off; not that he could make it out at this range. Maybe, he mused, I should've let Echo fly his snoopscoot afterall. The recon pilot had felt convinced that his extra sensor gear would be a boon to their operation, but Jaden had insisted that the Layla would be more than enough. He found himself intensely hoping that he hadn't made an error in judgement.

"Monkey to Twitch," he called, thumbing the comm and addressing his former wingman. "You got visual on that Vicstar yet?"

The Verpine's reply came as a burst of clicks, followed a fraction or so later by the bland, synthesized voice of his translator-vocabulator. "Negative, Rogue One. We do however have sensor contacts rising from the surface, and approaching at speeds consistent with Twin Ion Engine craft."

The promised TIEs from the garrison. Not exactly perfect timing. "No further contacts being launched from the Destroyer?"

"No further contacts from the Destroyer," Oolan confirmed.

A low, growling sigh of frustration escaped Jaden. He waited a moment, weighing his options, before he spoke again. "Divert to intercept those TIEs, Twitch," he instructed. "I'll send back-up."

"Affirmative," the Verpine responded, the sensor indicator for his ship veering off in compliance, his flight in tow.

Another glance at the sensors, and a few prods of the controls attatched aurebesh labels to each of the contacts behind him, discerning friend from foe, and Rogue from Rogue. There were still seven of the later, which was a positive sign; and far fewer TIEs for them to contend with. He allowed himself a brief instant of relief. "Keep it up, Rogues," he commended. "Get those squints mopped up so we can get on with what we came here to do. Five and Seven: I want you to escort Thirteen on her run when she's clear. Three Flight: break off and catch up with the Valkyries when you can; we've got more eyeballs inbound from the ground."

He hesitated for a moment. "I'm going to go poke the Vicstar, and see if anything falls out."

[Tannis V'larr]

The raid Klaxons thundered through the Imperial fabrication plant on Bandomeer. It was locally the middle of the night, and the commandant in his complacency had allowed the graveyard shift to dwindle to a third the standard complement. Tannis V'larr took a mental note to deliver a brutal and incisive report of his failings to the appropriate authorities as soon as he left the dismal mining world.

The Sikarran halfbreed seized a passing mid-command officer in an iron grip as they passed in the corridor. "Walk with me, captain," he snapped. "I must know the situation."

The fresh-faced officer gulped and staggered to keep up with V'larr's long, angry strides. "A raid by an insurgent squadron, sir. We think they're X-Wings."

"You think. Has our orbital picket neglected to share their telemetry with you?"

"Yes, sir-- I mean, no, sir. Data is coming in as we speak, and the continental base is already scrambling its wing of TIEs."

Tannis made the sharp turn toward the hangar, dragging the unhappy captain along with him. This installation's defenses were paltry compared to the primary base in the other hemisphere, but the enemies were crossing the skies here on their way to bigger targets to the West. Even under the best of circumstances, the wing of TIE/lns could not prevent a pack of X-Wings from dealing considerable damage before scattering before superior numbers. To say nothing of the dismal kill ratio the standard TIE/ln possessed against the Rebel X-Wing.

"You will order the flight tower to give my fighter emergency clearance to launch."

The officer blanched. "A-alone, sir?"

"As your commandant has seen fit to leave this installation so woefully unguarded, I have no other choice."

"But your fighter is still armed with the experimental--"

"Then this will be an excellent opportunity for a field test."

Tannis released the captain and hurried into the base's hangar, where his TIE Defender sat racked and ready for launch. Flight engineers, mindful of the Sikarran half-breed's disposition, scrambled like so many ants to finish fueling and charging her power cells as he climbed into the eyeball cockpit.

A minute later, he was rocketing through the upper atmosphere toward the insurgent Rogues.

[Lucy Gray]

Standing her X-Wing on her portside struts, Kylie pushed forward on her joystick. Her X-Wing dove down and onto her target. This TIE Fighter wasn’t the best pilot she had encountered. In fact, she would classify him as Vape-Fodder. As Five and Seven engaged their targets, the TIE’s broke away from there. Smart, considering their lack of shields, but then they didn’t try to get on the tail of the slower X-Wings. They broke for planetside and away from each other. Kylie evened out her shields. No sense having the shields up front if the TIE’s backside was to them and being jumped from behind. She wanted to just let loose with a torp and be done with it, but she needed to keep those so that they could fire a barrage upon their target.

Her X-Wing leveled out on the tail of her TIE, which went into a basic corkscrew maneuver. Kylie pulled her joystick to the left and up, going into a longer, slower corkscrew. She throttled back just a bit to keep the TIE in front of her. She knew that she could just cycle lasers, but part of her wanted to prove that she belonged with the Rogues. She didn’t want to waste lasers if she didn’t have to. Steadily, she moved into position. As the TIE came into her sights, she pulled back on the trigger. A quad of laser fire came out, followed a few seconds later by another quad blast. The first one missed the front of the TIE by mere meters but it made the novice pilot stop his corkscrew. The TIE pilot then tried to dive down, but the time it took for him to make that decision was all it took for the second blast to converge on the cockpit. All four blasts penetrated the armored shell, drilling through the Ion Engines. The TIE exploded brilliantly and, a couple seconds later, melted into the nothingness of space. That was one more silhouette to paint on her hull… if she survived this mission. Kylie opened her comm. to Razor.

"Get those squints mopped up so we can get on with what we came here to do. Five and Seven: I want you to escort Thirteen on her run when she's clear. Three Flight: break off and catch up with the Valkyries when you can; we've got more eyeballs inbound from the ground. I'm going to go poke the Vicstar, and see if anything falls out."

Kylie groaned. Two words came to her mind… Baby – Sitting. While the rest of the Rogues were off messing it up with some more TIEs, Razor and Spoon would be flying cover for Layla. Still, there was a job to do and this wasn’t the place for her to be selfish.

“Razor, this is Spoon. One Squint destroyed. Not much of a fight. Moving into escort formation for Thirteen.”

[Jamo Jakatta]

“Seems like the whole Imperial Navy lost the will to live,” Jamo shot back at Iyar, gritting his teeth into a grin as he inverted his 'fighter a full one-eighty, just in time to see Flipper rocket through the space-dust and debris of their second kill of the day. At that moment, Jaden Luka's voice crackled across the comm-link.

“You heard the Captain, Three Flight.”

A visual check on Rogues Eleven and Twelve told Jamo that the pair were still chasing their targets. He comm'd them, along with Iyar.

“Once you've vaped those stragglers, fall into finger-four formation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finger-four).”

[Tera Uolmi]

“Copy, One.”

In a typical display of Imperial tactical prowess, the TIE fighters were doing a fine job of exploding into hundreds of tiny pieces. Either they under-estimated the Rogues as a unit, or over-estimated the capabilities of their fighters. Then again, there had always been rumours that Imperial pilots were brainwashed into fearing nothing, not even death, and the more of them she encountered the more Tera was inclined to believe it.

Her threat indicator flashing, Tera wove left just in time to avoid a charge from her target. The TIE flew a wide arc, as it turned to make another pass, but she caught it on the port-side with a quick burst of fire that bit through its wing braces and detonated its twin ion engines. For a moment, she saw what must have been the pilot, and then he or she was swallowed by the explosion.

“I hear you, Seven.”

Unlike her wingmate, Tera wasn't put out by the idea of protecting the Layla. It was an integral part of their squadron and essential to the missions success.

[Carré Inirial]

"Copy that, Joker." Carré called across the channel, arching a brow as the TIEs she and Sin were chasing went into a steep climb.

Seconds later as they peeled apart, she shook her head and snorted in recognition. If her guess was on target, they'd be arcing back to try and get behind them. "Echo, they're going to split apart and try to circle around us - its a standard maneuver. Take starboard." she said quickly, before ordering Fiver to slide her shields forward.

A wicked grin curled her lips as the TIEs promptly complied, and her barrage of laser fire sliced through the eyeball. It erupted into a shower of flames and debris just as her sensors lit up in alarm. Fiver automatically pulled her shielding tight as she yanked back on the controls, sending her X-wing into a steep climb. She just barely avoided the charge and cursed aloud at the scoring that was likely going to bring Tink's and Chrys' wrath down on her head.

Spinning back, the alarm silenced itself as she caught a visual on her wingman. "Nicely done, Echo...for that, first drink's on me when we get back." Carré grinned, her tone finally warming to its usual level as she punched forward to get into formation.

[Oisin Ocasta]

When you primarily flew recon missions, one of the things you didn't get to do very often was make things explode. Partly, that was because you spend most of the time sat around doing sweet kriff-all, while the sensor modules mounted to the nose of your ship did most of the work. Partly, it was because your primary objective was to gather the recon, and then get the hell out of there without getting yourself blown up, so that the data would make it back to headquarters.

Mostly though, it was because recon missions sucked harder than dehydrated Rodian. He hadn't realised at the time, of course: he was too busy wallowing in the solitude, and finding new and inventive ways to hide the evidence from the ground crew of what he got up to on those fourty-eight hour missions with nothing but a case of emergency rations and "TIE Me Up: Imperial Ensigns Gone Wild!", volumes one through nineteen.

Finally, he remembered that this was what being a fighter pilot was about. And while only this morning he'd been cursing his bad luck for not managing to escape an active combat mission, now he found himself uttering silent prayers that something would go slightly - not catastrophically or anything, but maybe just a little bit - wrong for someone, just so that he'd get the chance to play Rogue Twelve a little bit longer.

"Planning to get me drunk on the first date, Eleven?" he quipped, feeling a grin spreading across his face.

[Jaden Luka]

Eyes focussed intensely on his sensor displays, Jaden had almost momentarily zoned out when the insistant warbling from his astromech drew his attention away. As options for such droids went, the cone-headed R4 that nestled in a socket behind him was hardly the obvious choice; Industrial Automation marketed them as agromech droids, designed on the cheap for rural farm worlds, after all. But apparently, no one had bothered to inform the droid of that particular intended role; nor the person responsible for the extensive remodelling of Katie's internal space, to cram all manner of gadgets and gizmos in there.

Skimming the screen that displayed in text whatever it was the droid was chirping away about, Jaden's brow tugged into a frown. "What do you mean, 'it isn't long enough'?"

More text scrolled across the screen, informing Jaden that a comparative analysis based on their range to target and several known, quantifiable reference points suggested a bow-to-stern length of closer to 600, rather than the 900 that would be expected of a Victory-class Star Destroyer. Worse, the shape was all wrong: the bow too sharply pointed; not wide enough at the stern relative to the overall length.

"Katie," he reassured, with as much conviction as he could muster. "Even if the IFF signal we're picking up was false, we've done passive tonnage scans that register a total mass displacement on a par with a Vicstar. There's no way a ship that small could possibly register as having a mass that -"

His voice trailed off, and his face paled, as slowly but surely his mind put the pieces together. There was away, and it explained a lot; while the falsified IFF made the craft seem less threatening than it truely was, there was no guarentee that the ruse would work. A shrewd commander might hold back half of his fighters, knowing full well that he need only delay the attackers until reinforcements from the surface could be deployed. And beyond that, this was exactly the kind of ship that the Imperials might want to prevent the Rebellion from discovering, given the potential it had for crippling their operations in the area; yet another reason to possibly explain the disguise and subterfuge.

Even as he realised just what he had stumbled into, the commander apparently reached the limit of his patience; twelve swarmed out from within the ship, vectoring on a direct course for him.

"Rogue One to Three Flight," he said into the comm, his tone turned somber. "Disregard my last orders; I need you to form up on me, best possible speed." He swallowed against a rapidly drying throat. "Looks like we have an Interdictor Cruiser to take care of before we can go home."

[Sanis Prent]

"Seven, Five, we're past the shit for now. Hang tight on my flanks and get ready for an attack run!"

I had to shrug off the bad news from Rogue One. Interdictor made our stay here a little dicey, but we did still have a mission to do.

"Cirr, let's lose the rest of our baggage."

"Alrready on jit!"

True to his word, the Cizerack squeezed off another burst of fire, clipping one of the trailing TIE's and sending it spiraling away in a fiery wake. The remaining TIE, not liking his odds against the Corellian ship and a pair of X-Wing escorts, peeled off, presumably to form up with other elements for a second strike.

"Relay platform ahead in two clicks. Stay sharp, we've got inbound from the planet, too."

The relay station's light defensive batteries opened up, but were easily dodged as we opened our formation enough for evasives.

"I'm arming protons, and targeting."

We closed in, accelerating to the kill. Layla's engines thundered to max sublights as I brought up the missile targeting HUD. Cirr was normally point man on the laser batteries, but with the missiles in fixed hard points, I handled that task.

"Locked, and three, two, one, fire!"

Two blue streaks jetted out from the forward hard points as we all banked in unison away from the station, to move clear of the impending blast.

[Tannis V'larr]

A TIE Defender blasted clear of the Bandomeeri atmosphere on an oblique line toward the lead A-Wings. The monster's hungry engines, faster even than the Rebel interceptors, ate up the distance between them with terrifying speed.

Busy with the remnants of the first TIE squadron, the Valkyrie flight was slow to answer the new threat rising like a demon from the seventh hell. Typical Rebel laxity - drunk with their victory over inferior pilots with inferior hardware, they were now sluggish and stupid.

One A-Wing turned to squeeze off several ineffectual potshots at the newcomer. Tannis responded with a blistering hail of plasma from his hex guns. The A-Wing's shields cracked like an egg, and her fuel lines exploded, sending her burning husk tumbling into the planet's atmosphere.

Tannis cut his active thrusters and turned on momentum, spraying the rest of the Valkyrie flight with baleful green cannon fire. He landed a few shots, only enough to drain their shields and force them to regroup before counter-attacking. Then he completed his pirouette and resumed his course toward the Layla and her escorts, intent on taking them down before they could finish off the satellite.

[Carré Inirial]

It was impossible to suppress the laughter that spilled past her lips at Sin's response, and she just barely flicked her mic to mute before he'd have heard much of it. Flicking it back on as she was ready to retort, the words died before she could say them.

"Disregard my last orders; I need you to form up on me, best possible speed...Looks like we have an Interdictor Cruiser to take care of before we can go home."

Emerald eyes widened as they flicked up to where the 'void' rested, before she shook her head and altered her course. "You heard him, Twelve...let's go." she said without betraying a hint of the unease rolling across her senses. Carré locked it away as always and focused herself on the task at hand.

Her X-wing blasted forward to join the others as they formed up with Rogue One at the center. A brief glimpse of an A-wing hurtling neatly towards the Layla stirred the back of her memories for a moment, before she shook it away. It couldn't possibly be him, not all the way out here, no matter how familiar the crisp maneuver seemed.

"When we get back, can we smack someone in Intel upside the head?" Carré muttered to no-one in particular, watching as a second squadron of TIEs finally deployed.

[Jamo Jakatta]

"Rogue One to Three Flight. Disregard my last orders; I need you to form up on me, best possible speed. Looks like we have an Interdictor Cruiser to take care of before we can go home."

“You got it, One. Eleven, Twelve – you two done playing happy families over there?” Throwing the controls of this 'fighter towards Jaden's fighter, the rest of Three Flight strafing effortlessly into place. One of the blips on his targeting computer vanished, as an A-Wing was vaped by the TIE reinforcements. He swore, succinctly, in Corellian.

“What's our plan of attack, One?”

[Iyar Thiled]

"Just a smack? You're getting soft there, Phoenix."

The sentiment that someone at so-called Intelligence really needed to be beaten upside the head no doubt was being shared by pretty much all of Rogue Squadron, probably the other pilots too... except for the poor sap in the A-Wing. Flipper always felt a bit of a pang of sorrow somewhere in his mind whenever a fellow rebel pilot went down.

The Interdictor's presence was only moderately alarming in Flipper's mind. At least it made things more interesting.

"Seems the Empire finally got themselves some folks with more than two braincells to rub together, what a nice surprise."

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

"Contact approaching fast at bearing two-seven-one mark two-nine-two."

MARCUS called the incoming bingo on the scope, and Cirr followed it on targeting sensors.

"Gjive me ventrral gun contrrol!"

The gun control toggled, and Cirr moved to intercept. Already, he could tell something was wrong.

"Hell, thjis thjing's fast. Spoon, Rrazorr, looks ljike a Defenderr on jinbound just cut thrrough Valkyrrjie's ljine and jit's on ourr vectorr. Heads up!"

Cirr punched a stream of quad cannon fire downward towards the rapidly approaching TIE Defender, unlikely to catch a hit but hopefully enough to make it take time to evade and give the X-Wings some response time to jump on it.

[Jaden Luka]

Plan of attack?

Absently, Jaden wondered if plan might be a little too generous for what he had in mind. It broke down to simple numerics: they had five fighters, capable of launching ten proton torpedos in each volley; and each carried six in their payload, making for thirty in total. They'd have to punch through their shields to even land a single hit on the cruiser's hull; and then take out as many of those gravity well generators possible, if they were going to have a hope in hell of escaping from this system alive.

"It's not much of one, Nine," he admitted, activating his targetting computer, and linking in to the comm array to transmit his feed direct to the fighters trailing him. Shifting the controls slightly, he dropped the targetting recticle over the nearest of the four grav generators - the fore-starboard one, as it happened. A tone sounded through the cockpit, and an indicator flashed as his astromech confirmed a target lock on the respective area of the ship.

"Telemetry is inbound," he announced, switching his weapons control over to proton torpedos, and selecting dual fire. "Fox-2's, in twos," he added, passing on instructions for his fellow Rogues to do the same. "Once we're through the shields, and the first generator is down, we'll break off for the rest. Aft-starboard is yours, Joker; fore-port for Phoenix."

He paused briefly, watching the range to target scroll steadily down. "Weapons free in ten -" he advised; his eyes narrowed as the cruiser loomed ahead, and a slow breath drew into his lungs. "- nine..."

[Tannis V'larr]

Pilot chatter from the Interdictor and her fighter squadron buzzed in Tannis's headset. The cruiser was more valuable than the relay satellite, but he'd already chosen his mark to defend, and abandoning the satellite would only ensure its destruction. He would have to settle for attacking the Layla in hopes that she was critical to the Rebels' mission.

The Sikarran halfbreed rolled his Defender to avoid the chain of blaster fire the Corellian freighter was sending his way, and he saw its attendant X-Wings angling in his direction to bring their quad lasers to bear - a total of twelve guns pointed in his direction, bad odds no matter what he was flying. It was time to change the rules of engagement in his favor.

He thumbed the trigger for his secondary missile bank - the entire bank carried only one weapon, a large, unwieldy missile that arced almost lazily toward the trio of Rebels. Its propellant expired several kilometers short of its targets, but that was all the closer it needed to be before it activated and unleashed a hellstorm of electronic warfare.

Short-ranged, but incredibly powerful, it broadcast a destructive signal that knifed its way through comm channels, sensors, and active fire control, rendering all ships in its radius blind, deaf, and dumb. Now the Rogues could only fire by sight.

Tannis was already rebooting his own systems, confident he could regain scanners before his enemies. But he was a steady enough hand on the flightstick to find the appropriate lead length on the Layla and fill her sky with cannon fire.

[Lucy Gray]

“Lead, this is Seven. Looks like we have a Trip to tangle with.”

Kylie felt some dread build up inside her. A Tie Defender was faster and more heavily armed than her X-Wing. Still they had a few things going for them. First they outnumbered the TIE Defender and all they had to do was keep it busy until the Layla had taken care of the station. Then they could jump out.

“Razor, I recommend we stick together and perform a delaying action. If we take off after it, it can maneuver around us and on to the Layla and we won’t be able to catch it. If we trail the Layla just outside of torpedo range, then we can harass the Defender so that it can’t get a lock on the ship.”

Kylie started to bank her fighter around and come about to face the Defender. She cut her speed down so that they would encounter the fighter before the Defender would reach torpedo range, but not much sooner. She then put all discretionary power to her shields. The torpedoes, which were meant for the station, were dual linked and her lasers were dual linked as well.

“Hang on back there Six-EE. We might just get a new tattoo for your ride.”

As the TIE Defender closed, the Layla and the X-wings opened fire on it. Laser fire splashed all around it from the Layla and Kylie had just set up for her run when her target launched on slow missile. At first Kylie thought the missile had malfunctioned and was set to shoot it down when it exploded.

An ear piercing shriek of static burst in her headset and Kylie had to close her eyes against the pain. When it ended, she looked down. All sensor, communications and fire control systems had been overloaded. She couldn't communicate with Razor who was only meters off her starboard wing.

The Defender sat there as well, not doubt affected by his own explosion. He was probably betting that he could get up and running on his systems before they could. He was probably right.

Except for one thing....

Kylie wasn't going to try to bring her systems on line right now. She wanted that Defender dead. If need be, she could still jump back to base or pull close enough to Razor or the Layla to flash a coded message to them.

"SIX-EE, set torps to maximum proximity detonation."

While that would give them less bang in a concentrated area, it would damage a wider area... exactly what was going to need if they couldn't aim. As Kylie closed with the Defender, she fired two torps on the heading of the Defender to the ventral side and two more to the dorsal side. Four streaks shot out, two at a time. Kylie had aimed where she had best guessed the Defender would be at. Then she switched her fire over to single and began lacing the area with laser fire, hoping to hit something.

[Tera Uolmi]

Tera swore as her headset spat static and the computer screens on her 'fighters dash dimmed to darkness. The rapid fire of confirmations and warnings that Rogue Squadron were constantly trading had gone, the silence hammering how suddenly and absolutely she had been cut off from the rest of the Rogues.

With an eyeball check on her wing-mate, Tera saw Archer throttling a head-on charge towards the TIE Defender. Four torpedoes surged towards the TIE and Tera wasted no time rolling away from the trip. Engines pushing her to the Defender's starboard flank, she reigned in the X-Wing's thrusters with a jerk of its control joystick which flipped the fighter end-over-end and let loose a volley of fire at the TIE's unprotected solar array wings.

[Sanis Prent]

"Damn it! We're out! Completely blind!"

Whatever the Defender hit us with, it packed a whallop and completely gouged our sensor suite. Comms, targeting, tactical, active and passive were all flooded.

"MARCUS, I need a full grid reset, how fast can we get back on live?"

"Three minutes to a restore, Sanis. I'm already on it."

The ship rocked, lights dimming as an overhead console sparked slightly. Cirr grumbled a few curses and leapt from his seat, already headed belowdeck.

"Double down whatever we've got to deflectors, Cirr. I'll shake and bake best we can."

But against a nimble killer like that, at best I'm just too slow. I shook the thought from my head. You dealt with what you were given.

The ship shook again and I grit my teeth.

"We're getting cooked over here..." I said to nobody in particular, wishing my comms were active. I could see Spoon and Razor cutting up a lot of space with proximity missile fire. I pushed the ship to put the explosions between myself and the TIE.

[Tannis V'larr]

Tannis made a quick assessment of the two strikes' scattershot attack: the torpedoes fanned out to menace him on every side, and their quad lasers sprayed everywhere else, creating a curtain of fire impossible to avoid. But therein lay the folly of the attack, and he knew then that he'd made the Rogues panic. To leave your enemy no avenue of escape was to let him choose his own losses. A canny pilot would have left him an opening that would lead him away from his target and force him to present his flank.

Instead, he shunted his deflector power to the front and portside shields and stormed through the barrage. A few lasers chipped at his shields, and the more worrisome force of a nearby proton explosion rattled his chassis and nearly torqued him off-course, but the blind firing pattern was too sparse to deal any lasting damage to a Defender's shields. His deflectors held at fifty percent power and were slowly regenerating.

Tannis rebalanced his remaining shield power and swung to starboard on a pursuit vector after the fleeing Layla, putting himself squarely between the freighter and her escorts. He'd also turned the red glow of his twin ion engines directly toward the strikes, an irresistible invitation to pursuit.

[Tera Uolmi]

Although the rational mind told Tera that she was still flying as part of a unit, without the squadron radio-chatter, her reflexes and survival instincts were guiding her as if she were a lone pilot, faced with the options of: kill, or be killed. She gunned after the TIE, determined the batter away the shields with another torpedo blast.

[Tannis V'larr]

When flying without instruments, a pilot's only connection to the universe beyond his canopy glass is his eyes. They are drawn to any movement, any source of light, any shape that breaks the infinite darkness of space. In other words, they are vulnerable.

The retreating Defender dropped what looked for a moment like a navigational beacon, which pulsed softly as it tumbled backward toward the pursuing Rogues before erupting in a blinding nova of white-hot light - like staring into the nuclear fury at the heart of a star.

When the light faded, Tannis's Defender had spun around and was coasting backwards on momentum, placing Tera's X-wing in the center of his reticle. He squeezed the trigger and engulfed her in a storm of hex gun fire.

[Carré Inirial]

"...eight...seven...six...five..."

Bleak didn't even begin to cover how badly this looked. But it was what the Rogues lived for - taking impossible odds and making them beg for mercy as they twisted them to suit.

Fingers were steady as ever on the controls as she complied with Jaden's order, sliding the switch over to her torpedos. Fiver trilled and chirped in her ear, but Carré paid him no mind for the moment - she was certain she had the only droid in the Alliance fleet that talked to itself.

"...four...three...two...fire!"

Her gaze narrowed as she pressed the pretty red button to fire, hurling two of her six torpedos towards the target.

[Lucy Gray]

The cockpit went dark, polarizing to accommodate the brightness of the blast. As quickly as the blast subsided, the cockpit cleared up.

Suddenly a comm. signal flared up in Kylie’s helmet. It was weak, but the chatter was faint but distinguishable. 6-EE had bypassed the problem of resetting the fighter’s comm. systems and repaired his own. He was using his own sensor dish on his dome to control all the sensor information. It was faint, but now Kylie had communications, and more importantly, fire control. She brought her X-Wing up on the tail of the Defender and waited the excruciating seconds for it to find a lock. Then she fired her last two torpedoes. Then she began to stitch his rear with dual linked laser fire.

“6-EE inform Razor’s Astromech to use his sensor dish to give her communications and targeting telemetry.”

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

The ship shook nearly hard enough to wrench Cirr free from the ladder. He held on, sliding along the rails the last half floor down so his boots thudded on the deck plating at the lower floor. He didn't waste a beat, bounding into the engine room, which was already a cauldron of heat from the sublights at full workout. They took another hit and a cluster of wiring above hissed sparks down his back. Gritting his teeth, he jumped over to a wall terminal that gave him a hands-on command of power routing. The shields looked like shit.

"jI'm dumpjing non-essentjials jinto the shjields, we can't take too many morre brroadsjides!"

Tongue out a bit as he concentrated, Cirr creatively began to tuck whatever juice he could into keeping the shields solvent. He couldn't bolster one particular angle, because the TIE was all over them.

That done, he spun around to give a once-over to the sublights. They were running hot. Cursing, he climbed halfway into a storage unit to pull a cannister out the size of his leg. Opening a hatch near the subs, he ducked as a cloud of steam gushed out. Waving it off, he wrapped rags over each hand and reached in, gritting his teeth as he unthreaded an identical piping-hot cannister and tossed it aside to change the cartridge.

"jI can gjive jyou a ljittle morre subljight, hang on!"

I'm gonna have to replace the whole damn injector when we get home was his darkly pessimistic thought as he pushed coolant under pressure into the manifold.

[Sanis Prent]

"MARCUS, status!"

The droid module's voice was the only one that wasn't a bit stressed.

"Limited capability restored. Battlespace commdata grid is still down. Local tactical and targeting...now online."

"Finally! Guns on me!"

My hands danced over the piloting controls, punching in a series of maneuvers.

"Run these evasives. We got commo yet?"

"Negative on communications. It is my next priority. Sanis, the evasive maneuvers suggested seem erratic and inefficient. Might I suggest a better pattern?"

I smirked a bit as we took another isolated strafe.

"Stick to the game plan. That asshole doesn't know I've got gunsights back. Make him think I'm still scrambling till we've got a better idea."

Layla thundered onward, banking and pitching to avoid the TIE's pursuing fire,

[Tera Uolmi]

“Rancor sh-”

The transparisteel canopy of Rogue Five burst open, as the power and shield generators imploded along with the fighters astromech droid. As the X-Wing turned end over end, Tera Uolmi tumbled head over heels into the fighters port laser-tip. The impact sent her drifting in another direction, eyes wide inside the bubble of her helmet. What had felt like helplessness before now seemed like a blue milk run.

[Tannis V'larr]

Tannis did not waste time celebrating the kill. He'd seen in the flash of vapors something that looked like an ejected pilot, which was just as well - either the Rebels would have to delay their escape long enough to pick her up, or the Empire would have a prisoner to interrogate. But for him there were more pressing matters at hand, like ensuring his system boot was complete.

He had tuned his fighter's start-up sequence to optimize combat readiness - the requisite systems for tracking and fire control lit up almost instantly, and he quickly acquired all targets in the battlefield -

Only to find his lock warning screaming a banshee song overhead. Two contacts closing at high speed dead ahead: torpedoes from the other X-Wing.

Tannis acted on instinct and wrenched his fighter around, firing his thrusters in hopes of absorbing some of the impact. He left a trail of chaff behind him - his relative speed was too slow, and the detonations would be close if the countermeasures worked at all.

The first torpedo found the chaff and ignited, giving Tannis's Defender a gut-wrenching lurch. The second torpedo, with more lead time, arced after the Defender itself. He had hundredths of a second to shift shield power to the point of impact.

The torpedo hammered away his remaining shields and engulfed his starboard radiator wing. The solar panels burned away like flash paper, leaving a charred skeleton bleeding sparks and coolant. Flashing red warnings flooded Tannis's console, reporting damage to everything from thruster control to life support. He had no choice but to disengage.

As Kylie's fighter closed on the wounded Defender, no doubt eager to avenge her wingmate's ship, Tannis punched in one of the emergency hyperlight routes he'd plotted before entering the engagement. A jump in this condition would do almost as much damage as the torpedo blast, but his fighter could be salvaged and repaired.

Before he jumped, he dropped one last gift for the Rogues. His fighter lurched and winked out of three-dimensional space to appear several light-minutes away. A moment later, the entire contents of his port missile rack exploded in a thundering shockwave.

[Jaden Luka]

Jaden's X-Wing rumbled violently, as the shockwave of displaced shrapnel, vapourised durasteel, and breach-released atmosphere raced upwards from the first destroyed gravity well generator. The Interdictor had scrambled fighters, but many of those unfortunate souls had been caught in the blast; those that remained however were swooping about amongst the fire-filled sky, making life difficult for all of them.

Three Flight was performing well; wingpairs were doing their jobs, and covering each other's respective asses while bringing about more space-shattering explosions. He caught a brief glimpse of one X-Wing - Oisin, he thought - danced about amongst the TIEs, while his wingman dutifully acquired the targetting lock they needed; a deft manoeuvre followed where, after squeezing off a blaster volley that clipped the port wing of the TIE he was pursuing and sent it tumbling away uncontrolled, he snapped his craft rapidly around, and squeezed off his remaining protons along the telemetry that Carré had no doubt transmitted.

Jaden on the other hand had no wingman to cover him, as Katie reminded him with a frantic shriek. Swerving to avoid a volley of viridian from behind him, he dropped low, succoming to the TIE's efforts to drive him closer to the ship, and pin him between blaster fire and the hull. Jaden cursed under his breath, weaving laterally, but the white-painted hull of the Interdictor grew ever closer.

A laser bolt clipped his shields. "Frak it!" he grunted, wrestling the stick into complience as the X-Wing jerked away. His eyes swept the cockpit, briefly. "Shields full aft," he snapped to Katie, ignoring her whistled protests. "Now!"

The droid obliged, and an instant later Jaden's fist slammed into the repulsorlift controls, the mag coils thrusting force out beneath the ship, and bouncing him rapidly starwards. Killing thrust, and haulling back hard on the stick, his fighter performed a graceful backflip, crimson fire bursting fourth from his laser cannons in a trail that chased the TIE that had pursued him, popping the eyeball into a cloud of debris and burning fuel.

His nose continued it's sweep up the Interdictor's hull; a nudge of the controls halted him, nose pointed direct at the final generator. He flipped to torpedos, waited for tone, and squeezed off the quartet of protons that he'd saved. Tumbling about each other as they sped towards their target, light trailing in their wake, Jaden had to imagine what must have been an extremely satisfying sound as they impacted and detonated, tearing through the last bulbous growth on the Interdictor's hull.

Shrapnel peppered his forward shields, a scathing tone fired at him by his astromech for not having instructed her to level his shield power out, augmented with various colourful, ancilliary remarks. Jaden flashed a wry grin. "Sorry, girl," he offered.

Turning his attention to the sight outside, he watched as the Interdictor began to list. The grav generators had been faking mass, attempting to fool the halpess Rogues into believing it was a Vicstar, and not the far smaller - but arguably more dangerous - craft. Without that extra bulk, the attraction of Bandomeer's gravity affected the ship differently; but the gravity shift had not been uniform, leaving the Interdictor to rise unsteadily away from the planet.

"Scratch one Interdictor," he announced with a hint of pride, glancing at his sensor display to get his bearings on the battle at large; eyes casually scanning for the contact labelled Rogue 5 for reference.

They found nothing, and Jaden frowned. Haulling back on his stick, he orientated his craft towards the satellite the other fighters had been attacking, extending his sensors for a more intensive sweep. Still no sign of a craft; but something new resolved, blinking mournfully on his display.

"Rogue Five?" Jaden asked into the comm, a sinking feeling forming in the pit of his stomach, as to the fate of his former wingman. His sensors searched for more telemetry from the pilot rescue beacon.

An ident formed on his screen.

Ice formed in Jaden's chest.

"Razor?"