Republic Pilot
By Kudzu
"Not the cry, but the flight of the wild duck, leads the flock to fly and follow"
Ancient Chinese proverb
One can see the resemblance in a squadron of ARC-170 fighter craft to a flight of hunting arshrikes if one gives it enough thought. The comparison is especially easy for a Muun to make, being as that arshrikes are native to their world of Muunilist.
These were the somewhat dire thoughts of Admiral Gim Rael - a Muun, naturally - as he watched in something akin to mute horror as the two Venator-class Star Destroyers who had abruptly dropped out of hyperspace right in front of his small fleet now made their presence further known by sending full wings of Republic starfighters screaming towards the Confederacy star cruisers. The Diamond Sickle starfleet had at last come to retake Crucio.
Admiral Rael gazed through the bridge viewports, stomach looping and twirling in ways that non-Muuns would only shudder to imagine as blue and red laser bolts ripped into the Commerce Guild armed transport Artisan, sending orange and yellow flame boiling out in their wake.
The waves of vulture droid fighters shrieking towards the enemy fighters seemed to have little to no effect, almost failing entirely in thinning their numbers. Where the fighters met, little furballs and dogfights would break out, and the Republic pilots would invariably win them.
Diamond Sickle, Admiral Rael thought despairingly, why did it have to be the Diamond Sickle? Led by the Ithorian Jedi Master Roron Corobb and the Draethos Jedi Master Rana-Morr, the Diamond Sickle armada was second only to the Open Circle armada led by the legendary Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi and Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker, the Hero Without Fear. Rael snorted.
The Artisan finally exploded, sending fragments of the ship scattering to the solar wind. The Confederacy starships, including Rael's own Maelibi, continued to fire back at the two Star Destroyers, but the fact remained that they were sadly outgunned and outmatched. Rael was merely the leader of a proxy force dispatched to patrol the far reaches of the Crux system, and it was time to head back. A dozen armed transports and a single Rendili Dreadnaught were simply not enough to handle two Star Destroyers, and Rael had the inkling that more were on the way.
He turned to face the rest of the bridge. The mixed-species crew had been operating in nearly complete silence, stony-faced, quietly watching the patrol group being eliminated one ship at a time. He said aloud, "Captain, prepare to make the jump to hyperspace."
The Maelibi's captain, a badly scarred Nosaurian by the name of Senel Regellies, turned to face him. "Where to, Admiral?" he asked, his voice admirably betraying none of the discomfiture that he must have been feeling.
Rael nodded towards the main viewport. "Back to the main fleet at Crucian Orbital," he replied as a Geonosian interstellar transport burst into incandescence in a halo of fire nearby. "We can't take these warships out."
"Understood, Admiral," Regellies saluted.
It was a pity that the Republic ships seemed to be jamming their communications, although considering the age of the communications arrays on all of the ships present it was hardly surprising that they couldn't get past the jamming signals.
They might as well just get out of there before they all died, anyway.
"As you predicted, my friend," Master Rana-Morr observed as the Confederacy ships turned around and flickered into hyperspace. "You were wise to order the guns to leave the Dreadnaught unharmed."
Roron Corobb's eyes turned to look at the Draethos. "If the Separatist commander had held off on the retreat for a minute longer, I would have poured all firepower into it," he rumbled in his stereo voice.
Rana-Morr nodded. "Fortunate that he chose to preserve himself," the Jedi Master replied. "There is no purpose in destroying outgunned transport ships."
"No purpose but in eliminating Confederacy material, Rana-Morr," Roron argued. "Droids are created to kill."
The skin around Rana-Morr's eyes creased in what the Ithorian recognized as his species' equivalent of a sad smile. "So, my friend," the Draethos said softly, "are clone troopers."
The Diamond Sickle armada emerged in full force at the Crucian Orbital station. CT-17/999, or "Tripler" as he was more commonly known, dipped his wing lazily down towards the fleet as he flew above and past it. 86 Venator-class Star Destroyers, 24 Victory-class Star Destroyers, 36 Dreadnaughts, 24 Carrack-class Cruisers, and 98 CR40 light turbolaser cruisers lay beneath him.
The daggers of the Republic were now aimed at the heart of the Separatist armada in orbit around Crucio, the conquered lush world in whose planetary space they all now lay.
Tripler picked out the enemy Dreadnaught, Maelibi, that had fled the Stalwart and the Bulwark in the outer edges of the system just minutes ago. He made a mental note to prioritize it if he received orders to fire at will. Tripler hated cowards.
It used to be that if you were a coward, you were taken aside by the Kaminoan technicians and never seen or heard from again. But the Kaminoans could hardly cull and prune the cowards on the other side of this Clone War, and so Tripler and his kin had the poor fortune enough to have to fight them on what was considerably more often than just "occasion".
Their sole virtue was that they were very infrequently hard to kill, and Tripler enjoyed killing cowards almost more than he enjoyed anything else.
"This is Commander Raster," a voice almost the same as his own commed over the open fleet channel. "All ARC-170s lock S-Foils in attack position. All fighters accelerate to attack speed and shunt shield power to frontal. Prepare for incoming droid starfighters."
The distinctive Coruscanti-accented voice of Tripler's co-pilot, CT-25/870 "Dee", came in. "Trip, I'm getting readings congruous with Mankvim-814 starfighters heading towards us," Dee said. "They aren't all droids, at any rate."
Tripler's response was to go across the fleet frequency. "Commander, Generals; this is Silver Three speaking. My co-pilot informs me that we have Mankvim-814 contacts closing in. Possibly more manned fighters as well."
Raster replied almost at once. "Copy that, Lieutenant," he returned. "Picking up Z-95 contacts here, and my co-pilot reports that he sees your Mankvims. Be superior, brothers, and fly like the pilots that these flyboys could never be."
"Train for triumph," Dee said over the crew channel.
Tripler grinned as he banked the starfighter to starboard and called up the tactical displays that Dee was monitoring. They were Mankvims, all right, and he could pick out a few Z-95s.
An unguided missile suddenly came hurtling past the ARC-170 fighter's fuselage.
"Silver Three reporting missiles," he gritted over the fleet channel as another two shot by.
"Class?" Raster asked brusquely.
Tripler grunted under the sudden G-forces as he juked the fighter wildly to dodge another salvo of the ballistic warheads. "Unguided," he ground out.
"Silver Three Co," Dee reported, also sounding taxed by the tight maneuvers. "Concussion warheads, I think, sir."
The clone pilot leveled the fighter out just in time to see one of the missiles collide with Silver Four, his wingmate to starboard. The other fighter exploded in a ball of flame.
"Silver Lead, reporting loss of Silver Four," Tripler's leader commed over the fleet channel. "Missiles…"
"All starfighters prepare to form into a large wedge," the voice of General Rana-Morr ordered. Tripler caught a glimpse of the Jedi Master's indigo-trimmed Jedi Interceptor speeding past them to the forefront of the group. "Target those Providence-class missile cruisers as soon as you get out of that fighter screen."
"Yes, sir," Raster replied for all of them; Tripler shifted his fighter into formation. Almost in laser range…
"Open fire!" Rana-Morr commanded. His Jedi fighter spun down from their plane of space to roar across the surface of one of the Providence-class modified destroyers, spitting laser fire as it went. Fiery explosions blossomed up from the starship in his wake, and the Jedi Master easily evaded the spikes of turbolaser fire that it put up as he veered off.
The flight computer reported that the approaching starfighters were now in range. Tripler targeted the nearest vulture droid and immediately laid into it with his ARC-170's laser cannons. Silver Two slipped over the top of his ship and took out the droid fighter next to it.
"Silver Group, break formation and take out those fighters," Silver Lead ordered. "Watch the manned craft; looks like the Seps are diverting them, meaning that they might try firing through the droid fighter screen."
Droids are more expendable than live personnel, the voice of Tripler's old Kaminoan tactics instructor, Eaun Rhem, lectured him. If you ever face combat droids in an engagement, remember that the enemy would usually rather choose to sacrifice them than organic personnel. Droids can be used to slow and hinder or employed in suicidal frontal assaults.
Right, the other half of Tripler's brain shot back. If we ever face combat droids. I would say that maybe we occasionally do. His heavily sarcastic internal debate was abruptly settled when a flash of green fire from a Sienar patrol cruiser tore Silver Eleven apart. The pilot's scream crackled over the comm channel before being suddenly silenced. Even Kaminoan conditioning and the Jango Fett-inherited mental toughness had its limits with the clones as far as bravery was concerned.
"Manned fighters are being diverted for a run at the Democracy and the Kamparas," Raster reported. "Enemy capital ships are now firing through their DD." Disposable Droids; Tripler recognized the acronym immediately. "Watch those missiles; I can't determine how big of a dent they would make in a cap-ship, but they can certainly take out a starfighter with one good hit."
"Thank you, Commander," General Rana-Morr said. "V-wings hold back the droid starfighters. ARC-170s and V-19s, escort the NTB-630s and Y-wings in to assault those converted missile cruisers. All starships prepare to repel enemy fighters; it might be a little while before we can pull our own fighters to pick them off you."
"Copy that, General," said the Carrack-class Cruiser Bastion's captain.
Rana-Morr again exercised a flawless dive-bombing attack on the starship that he had struck at earlier, needling three of the turreted missile launchers with laser fire. One of them exploded just as it fired a missile, tearing a hole in the ship's hull. Droids began venting out of it, along with a few flailing Neimodian crewmembers.
Tripler gritted his teeth and drove his fighter through the sheet of attacking vulture droids. He heard the whump of the rear laser turrets firing and two enemy contacts on his radar winked out behind them.
"Nice shooting, Zap," he said.
CT-25/954 "Zap" replied only with a comm click. Another whump, another blip vanished. Zap wasn't much for conversation, but he was a brilliant gunner, reportedly far exceeding the performance of any of his classmates back on Kamino.
The veteran pilot suddenly swore as turbolaser bolts abruptly filled space around them. Silver Eight and Ten disappeared with quickly terminated cries over the squadron frequency. He evaded an attack from behind by a vulture droid, then blew it to bits when it crossed over in front of him, then found himself wrenching the ARC-170 down in a spiral dropping towards the midsection of one of the Providence-class destroyers, marked as the Dooku's Redoubt. With a fierce grin, Tripler triggered two proton torpedoes to drop-fire into the ship's deflector shielding, and then rolled the starfighter over and over as the warheads blasted into the particle field. Black crept at the edge of his vision, threatening to overtake him, but he shook it off and pulled the ARC-170 up and away from the warship. Zap fired back as turbolaser bolts sizzled past them.
"Sorry about that, Dee," Tripler apologized.
His co-pilot's words were somewhat pained, though Tripler knew that the other clone was exaggerating his tone for some intended comedic effect. "I hate it when you pull barrel rolls, Trip. I'm not sure if you want me to suffer in enveloping darkness and pasted to my seat as I violently lose my last meal."
Tripler permitted himself a faint chuckle as he blew a tri-fighter zeroing in on one of the Brass Group V-19s to ions. "I know you love it, Dee."
Dee's only response was to groan as Tripler suddenly threw the ARC-170 fighter into a steep dive as a missile shrieked past overhead. Tripler again targeted the Dooku's Redoubt and shot another pair of torpedoes into its flank. The ship belched missiles as the starfighter dove beneath it, rolling up along its underside to stitch laserfire into its fuselage shielding. Soft underbelly indeed, Tripler thought wryly.
"Mandalorian Leader hailing Silver Group," a new voice - but not really new, as it was the voice in which most of the people that Tripler knew spoke - announced over the inter-squadron frequency. "We need cover for a run at the Dark Strider."
Tripler decided to speak up. "Silver Three here, Mandalore Lead," he replied. "Can you switch your target to the destroyer Dooku's Redoubt? I've been playing with it for a little while now, and it seems to be getting irritable."
"Copy, Three," Mandalorian Leader responded. "Mandalorians, switch to target Dooku's Redoubt and line up for an attack run. Silver Group, keep these fighters off us."
"Acknowledged," Silver Lead said.
The ARC-170s of Silver Group veered up to rise towards the NTB-630 naval bombers of Mandalorian Group. Although Tripler much liked being able to engage enemy targets at will and go off on a rampage alone with Dee and Zap, he recognized that there was a time for that but also a time to babysit the big, fat starbombers with their all-important payloads of heavy proton torpedoes and their maneuverability that would only be valuable should they need to fly between a planet and its orbiting moon.
"Silvers, take out all fighter craft who attempt to engage the Mandalorians," Silver Lead ordered. "Prioritize their safety over yours. They are more valuable than us for this attack."
"Copy that, Lead," Tripler confirmed, his voice joined by the identical voices of his still-surviving squadmates.
"Now -" Silver Lead began, interrupted by a droid starfighter that he easily took apart with his ARC-170's oversized laser cannons. "We're going to need to be cautious. Try to shroud the Mandalorians in chaff bursts. The last thing that they'll want is buzz droids crawling all over them."
Unfortunately, another type of missile chose to take that moment to remind all of the fighter pilots of their continued existence; one and then another scored a direct hit on two of the sweep-winged Mandalorian Group NTB-630s. The two bombers exploded violently, their payloads of warheads triggered by the ships' destruction. Tripler and Dee both groaned as the Silver fighters wheeled around to confront the vengeful Dooku's Redoubt. Silver Six narrowly dodged another missile, which struck an unlucky tri-droid attempting to fire upon a pair of already-harassed Y-wings nearby.
"Mandalorian Lead," the bomber pilot said after a moment's silence. "Lost Four, lost Eight. Let's blow this thing before it takes out more of us."
"Roger that, Mandalorian Lead," Silver Lead replied, voice brittle with suppressed anger. "Make the Neimies burn in hell, I say."
Mandalorian Leader seemed to agree. "Mandalorians: fire torps, paired. Aim for the shield generators and missile emplacements."
"Copy that," the Mandalorian pilots chorused, sounding almost identical to Silver Group's earlier acknowledgement of their leader's priority orders.
Blue flames flickered through black space, at first flaring with little visible effect against the Dooku's Redoubt's shielding, then drawing spurts of yellow fire that grew taller and taller until the starfield went white.
When the glare faded and Tripler's visor became transparent enough to see through again, only the charred fragments of the Dooku's Redoubt remained, being propelled away from the former location of the late missile cruiser.
"Good kill, Mandalorians," Mandalorian Leader complimented his pilots. "Thanks for the assistance, Silver Group."
"Can you make the run back to reload OK without some escort, Mandalorian Lead?" Tripler's squadron leader asked.
The bomber pilot hesitated before replying, "I think we'll be all right. Come on, group: form up!" He cut the channel.
Tripler glanced at his sensor panel and flipped his fighter over to bank back towards the retreating NTB-630s. Two vulture droids were now firing red laser blasts at them. Tripler lined one of the Confederacy starfighters up in his sights and shot. The droid flared into incandescence and was gone. His "buddy" met a similar fate.
Silver Three veered around to select his next target: a droid tri-fighter that was making a nuisance of itself with a trio of Y-wings. A V-19 Torrent starfighter was diving on it in a valiant effort to shoot it off, but two bolts from another Confederacy warship abruptly reduced it to shrapnel and flame.
Centering the tri-fighter in his targeting reticule, Silver Three trailed it with a barrage of laserfire before pounding it with three direct hits. Bits of metal flew everywhere, pinging off of the deflector shields and burning up.
The Dark Strider - the modified Providence-class destroyer that had nearly become Mandalorian Group's target for torpedo assault - went to pieces in a blazing fireball. The capital ships were trading salvos now, and the V-wings were beginning to turn off to pursue the manned Confederacy starfighters strafing the Republic starships. Tripler gritted his teeth and pulled the ARC-170 back around to launch another pair of torpedoes at a weakened enemy frigate.
He noticed that the Venator-class Star Destroyer Harbinger was trailing fire all of a sudden, its engines decimated. He cycled to a status report on the big starship just in time to see the readout display dissolve into static as a gout of fire broke the ship into three pieces, then five, then eight, then ten and twelve before a larger explosion shattered it into an uncountable number of little metal fragments.
"Stang," Dee muttered.
Tripler had fired six proton torpedoes. In an ordinary ARC-170 starfighter, he'd be all out. Of course, in an ordinary ARC-170 starfighter, he'd also have no weaponry controls and Dee would be firing the wingtip laser cannons. A bit of Diamond Sickle standard modification had changed his warhead load to ten and had assigned Dee the role of navigator and sensor specialist, while giving him control of the wing guns.
He intended to use those torpedoes.
Targeting the damaged frigate, Tripler hit his boosters and accelerated to a solid attack speed. "Dee, what's the weakest section of shielding on that Munificent-class there?"
"Aurek-13," Dee replied. "Loading to your targeting computer."
Aurek-13 was right on the starboard side of the big ship's hollow hull. Tripler rolled the ARC-170 to avoid a droid fighter that had swept in from behind, but Zap took it out before it could drop in front of them. Laser cannons flashed and distant bright spots marked where the bolts impacted Aurek-13.
"Two torps armed," Tripler muttered, keying for just that. "And away." He fired them straight ahead, and the warheads blasted a hole almost straight through the frigate. As he pulled up and away from the damage, it split fully into two, and the rear section blew apart in a chain of explosions.
"Nice kill, Trip," Dee complimented him.
Tripler didn't respond, feeling that it would be arrogant to do so. Instead, he focused on a veering vulture droid, snapping it into two dozen or so pieces with a burst-fire from his lasers. Zap fired and a blip vanished from the sensor board.
The battle raged on. Tripler spent his ship's last torpedoes in a dive-bombing run at the Dreadnaught Maelibi before turbolaser blasts finally took the cowardly cruiser apart. The Republic's own Democracy was destroyed when a Sienar patrol cruiser and a Commerce Guild destroyer cut it off and ripped off its double bridge towers with a few well-placed concentrated volleys.
The Republic was inexorably winning the battle. Even when the mighty Victory-class Star Destroyer Omicron was lost as suicidal droid fighters plunged into its superstructure, two Confederacy warships were pulverized in recompense. Silver Lead took out a whole squadron of vulture droids in a blaze of glory before his craft was finally too shot up to hold any longer and was destroyed, leaving Tripler as Silver Group's de facto leader (Silver Two had spiraled out of control and crashed into one of the Separatist star cruisers nearly an hour earlier).
"All right, Silvers, form up," he ordered as a squadron of Mankvim-814 fighters strafed across the bow of the Armistice. "This isn't over yet."
"Copy that," replied Silver Five. Silver Three, Silver Five, Silver Seven, and Silver Twelve were all that remained of the ARC-170 squadron.
Tripler double-checked his targeting computer and lined up the nearest Mankvim, flying off the port flank of the Armistice for another run. "Engage those Mankvims at will," he said. "Break formation."
The three-man fighters all zoomed off in every which direction to converge on the Techno Union starfighters. Tripler shot down the wayward ship, then killed another with a devastating blast from the wingtip laser cannons. Zap gunned down a few enemy contacts behind them as Silver Three zeroed in for the kill.
Then the proximity alarm suddenly wailed.
Swearing violently, Tripler pulled up and asked, "What's dropping in on us, Dee?"
"Identifies as the Invisible Hand," Dee gulped. "But I ran The Package on it, and it's reading Lucid Voice." The Package was the nickname for a now-standard program developed by a Larist Craffa of Denon for the Republic to tell the Invisible Hand apart from its doubles, most notably this one.
Even sans Grievous, the Lucid Voice was quite formidable, especially when it brought a battle fleet along with it.
"Attention all craft," Rana-Morr said. "The Lucid Voice has come out of hyperspace with a reinforcing fleet."
Jedi General Roron Corobb's booming stereo voice added, "We should be able to defeat it, although with heavy losses. Capital ships, target those Geonosian Dreadnoughts first."
"Silver Group," Rana-Morr suddenly said over their squadron channel. "I need you to cover my run at the Voice."
"Yes, sir," Tripler replied immediately. "Silvers, break off. Form up around General Rana-Morr's interceptor."
"Copy that, Three." The ARC-170s formed a "V" with Tripler's craft at its head, vectoring towards Rana-Morr's Actis interceptor.
Rana-Morr hit his thrusters, heading straight for a frontal assault on the big ship. Suicidal? Tripler wondered. "I'm going to try to hit the bridge directly," the Jedi Master said. "I need those shields sufficiently weakened."
"Affirmative, General." Tripler opened a channel to Mandalorian Group. "Mandalores, General Rana-Morr wants the shields on the Lucid Voice's bridge to come down. Do you copy?"
"We read you, Silver Three," Mandalorian Leader replied. "Mandalorians, line up and fire warheads."
"Yes, sir," the clone pilots responded.
"Silver Group -" Mandalorian Leader paused. "Cover the General; we'll pull Cobalt Group to cover our tails."
Tripler was relieved. "Thanks, Mandalore Lead."
"It's all for the Republic, ner vod."
Grinning faintly, Tripler turned to starboard in enough time to blow one droid fighter out of the sky, and then another.
"Enemy fleet is launching Nantex fighters," Raster warned. The clone commander had been silent for some time until now. Great, Tripler thought. Start talking again to warn us about incoming needles. "Needle" was common pilot slang for one of the Geonosian-built starfighters now speeding towards the Republic fighters. They were devilishly fast and had only a single laser cannon, but it had a long range and was incredibly accurate. Tripler didn't relish having to dodge through clouds of them to cover General Rana-Morr.
The Draethos General made a few course corrections of his own, and he veered left to head straight towards the windowed bridge of the Lucid Voice. "Silver Three," he said crisply, commanding Tripler's immediate attention.
"Silver Three here, General," he reported dutifully, blasting another droid ship, this one a tri-fighter, into pieces.
"I trust that those shields will be down?"
Tripler grinned tightly as the blue flashes of heavy proton torpedoes threw themselves against the invisible energy field protecting the enemy flagship's bridge. "Yes, General," he said, amused. "I'm quite certain that they will be."
"Good." The Jedi Interceptor suddenly went into a barrel roll, using its boosters to accelerate towards the bridge and letting loose with its rapid-fire laser cannons. A paired blast from its ion cannons added an extra punch to the attack, and Tripler's readout displays suddenly indicated that the shields on sector Aurek-1 - directly over the bridge viewports - were out. They had torn a hole in the Lucid Voice's invisible defenses.
One viewport blew in, and then all of them did. Flashes of orange illuminated the inside of the abruptly depressurized bridge before it swallowed pair of concussion missiles from Rana-Morr's fighter. One long second later, the frontal section of the Lucid Voice exploded.
Tripler expelled a long breath. "That takes care of that particular problem," he said aloud, to no one in particular.
The burning hulk of the disabled Providence-class modified carrier/destroyer slowly began to turn to port, drifting and rolling until it had turned 90 degrees along the same plane of space (more or less). It was now blocking off the center part of the armada.
Laser flashes from the turbolaser cannons of the Victory-class Star Destroyers Annex and Shoikler annihilated the Geonosian Dreadnought that now suddenly was exposed along the starboard edge of the formation, unhindered but unprotected by the disabled flagship. A group of NTB-630s and Y-wings finished off the starboard one, and it erupted in a cataclysmic explosion that tore it apart from the inside out.
"Nice work, General," Tripler grinned cheekily, diving his fighter after Rana-Morr's craft down below the Lucid Voice -
- and straight into a massive cloud of Nantex-class territorial defense starfighters.
"Needles!" he snapped across squadron frequency. "Abort! Silver Group, abort!"
"Too late, Silver Three." Rana-Morr's voice was calm and serene. Tripler glanced at his sensor board and noticed with a jolt that it was indeed too late. The three other Silver Group ARC-170s had followed them straight into the Geonosian starfighter formation.
Silver Five screamed as his craft was taken apart in seconds by pinpoint-accurate laserfire from the Geonosian craft. Rana-Morr rolled hard to starboard, firing as he did. Laser bolts sheared the long, lethal starfighters apart, but the Jedi Master's fighter took hits.
Silver Seven was next to go, bravely calling, "I'm overtaken; take as many as you can for me!" before his starfighter exploded, not crying out as Silver Five had done.
Silver Twelve settled over to Tripler's lengthy starboard wing. "Last of the pack, now, eh Trip?"
"That is correct, Fifty." CT-28/50 "Fifty" had been the only one of them, save for Silver Lead, to outfly Tripler in the sims. Tripler was unsurprised that he and Fifty were now the last pilots standing.
"Trip?" This was Dee, up and behind in the co-pilot's cockpit.
"I copy, Dee," Tripler responded, juking hard to starboard in a desperate attempt to both stay with Rana-Morr's damaged starfighter and avoid getting killed by the huge number of Geonosian starfighters now swarming them.
"Just wanted to say," Dee said quietly. "It's been a pleasure flying with you, boss."
Tripler's heart fell. We are going to die, he realized. He had known that they had no chance from the instant that he saw the massive swarm of Geonosian starfighters that he had flown them all into. But the finality of Dee's statement hit him like a sack of duracrete suddenly dropped into his arms.
"As with you, Dee," he managed, throat suddenly parched and dry as the vacuum of space itself. May we taste its glory with gladness in our hearts, he thought. "And you, Zap."
Zap's only response was a comm click. Zap to the bitter end.
Silver Twelve's blip winked out as Fifty's fighter was caught in a storm of red spikes; the orange explosion lit the tail of the Silver Three ARC-170 for a brief moment before space's nothingness smothered the fireball.
"Well, General," Tripler said, acknowledging the end. "Good kill on the Lucid Voice, at least."
"We die in war, Silver Three." Rana-Morr's voice was throaty and anguished-sounding, barely recognizable. He said no more to elaborate on this statement of the fantastically obvious.
And yet, he had such a point. Tripler flew into battle and came back tired but victorious. Not everyone did. Friends - brothers, really - flew out with him and never came back to the hangar bay of the Bulwark. He saw their lives flash away in orange and red and yellow and white, just as Fifty and his crew had died. This conflict was killing real people. And it was about to kill them, too.
"War is hell, sir," Tripler said, and he believed it.
"Mm."
"All we can do, sir," Tripler continued, now grinning fiercely as he smashed through the thin hull of one fighter and dashed open the cockpit of another with a well-placed flurry of shots, "is make sure their hell is worse than ours."
"In war, there is no victory," Rana-Morr recited the famous verse of Sochrianus Vuus from Battle Perilouse. "There is only defeat. The objective of war is to make sure that your enemy suffers a greater defeat than your own."
Rana-Morr's fighter exploded into a fireball, and his sensor blip disappeared.
And that was when realization thudded into him, and involuntarily he cried out his vain denial: "No!" Ice flooded his veins and his heart dropped through his stomach. He channeled his horrified rage, punching straight through a Geonosian starfighter with a linked shot. I've failed, he thought frantically. My General is dead. I couldn't protect him…
We die in war, Silver Three. The voice was so clear and perfect that Tripler wasn't sure if it was his memory, or if Rana-Morr was somehow communicating with him from the beyond.
He lifted his chin and dove further into the heart of the fray, lasers flashing as he blazed through the drone-piloted needle ships. Rana-Morr had faced his death as a Jedi Master.
Tripler would face his, without fear or complaint, going as many friends - no, brothers - before him had gone: as a Republic pilot.