The stars twinkled in their midnight radiance, raining down their silent majesty in a symphony of light. His eyes widened beneath them, seeking to drink in as much of the vision he possibly could. For, all of the hopes and dreams of men and knights alike, lie in the gaze of stars' serenity. Slowly, his eyes started to close; and in these priceless seconds, he found peace. His teeth ground and his muscles clenched as he reopened his eyes to see the sky fall back into a spinning blur - stars and nebulae whipped across his sights, and the subspace channel howled with the deathly scream of the pursuing TIE fighters.
He winced at the green cannon fire that whipped by his canopy, and without a word yanked back on the flight control stick with his entire might. As a TIE fighter roared past him on either side, he pulled his Star Fighter into a hard left roll that ended in a missile-lock on both enemy craft. His adrenaline laden fingers firmly pressed on the upper fire button. Two missiles screeched from the Star Fighter's lower fuselage, their engines burnt bright white light into a ribbon of exhaust trail as they neared their targets. The two TIE's were each struck by a missile, each detonating into a spectacle of white and amber embers that lit up the silver wings of the accelerating Star Fighter.
High over the skies of some forgotten world, on the outer rim of the galaxy, a squadron of elite spacecraft battled a swarm of imperial fighters. One of them caught the local sun's rays on its silver fuselage as it spun around to evade one pursuer and simultaneously release a volley of blue cannon fire that would cut down another. The squadron danced through the sky, skillfully, artfully, battling the imperial fighters with rare mathematical precision. These were no mercenary pushovers, they were something else entirely. Forming briefly into a five-ship flying "v", they broke formation just as swiftly as they merged with the second enemy wave, bringing the full might of their skill and weapons to bear on the imperial fighters.
The formation of five darted boldly through the enemy mass and ripped several TIE fighters apart with cannon fire. The lead pilot was the most experienced: however, it was not his kill record that brought him recognition, but that in all his time as pilot, he had never lost a single squadron member. He curled his star fighter through the flurry of cannon fire, streaking missiles, and exploding enemies; in the end lining up his sights with the next villain. The spacecraft they piloted were unlike any design encountered by either Imperial or Alliance forces; the pilots that flew them simply called them 'Raptors.'
"Roger, roger, sweeplock; I've got tone, fox-three." One of the Raptors released three missiles from its ventral weapons bay, each to streak across the sky and impact on three enemy fighters. A second Raptor followed the first, covered by a third, "right behind you, look sharp…. enemies closing, right side!" The lead pilot quickly jerked to the left and exposed the incoming hostiles to his wingmen's cannon fire. "They're down."
"This is Aquila-2, bogey on my six." The voice of one raptor spoke as it pulled away from its pursuer in a sharp turn. From the opposite direction, another silver raptor closed with the pursuing enemy and released a missile at point blank range. The explosion rocked both star fighters as they shot past each other. "Wrecked" the voice of second said plainly. "I'm glad you two are having fun. Anybody got a fix on where these guys are coming from?" The voice of a third pilot sounded: "Their attack vectors are all over the place." As if on cue, the lead pilot's cockpit A.I. chimed simply: "Warning, Incoming Star Destroyer."
With the most delicate of spoons, he stirred a dose of sugar into his teacup until it was satisfactorily distilled. He only slightly raised his left eyebrow as he tapped the spoon on the cup's ridge, verifying no stray drops of tea would escape the cup's boundary before setting the spoon placidly down onto the saucer. After dismissing the servers with a halfhearted motion of his wrist, he returned his attention to the young man standing beyond the opposite edge of the table. "Tell me again who and what you all are." His words were among the more condescending of those he spoke this week.
The man standing beyond the table managed to somehow be frustrated, confident, uncomfortable, articulate, impatient, and fully exhausted all at once… with an extra emphasis on frustrated. "I… we… are here to ask you for your help. What we specifically require is that-"
The reclining man interrupted quickly: "That's 'General Sir.'" Then taking his second sip of tea, he gestured to his plethora of multicolored decorations that ran up and down his uniform. "I'm quite sure I've earned all of the respects and privileges associated hitherto these awards; particularly given that you're here with your hands extended in bequest." His gaze back at the standing man was one of quaint fulfillment. The man standing before the General was too tired to become any more frustrated. So, with his prior thoughts frozen in suspension, he simply parroted out the phrase: "General, Sir." After but a second, the reclined man resumed: "Ah, yes, much better. In the civilized world, it's proper to demonstrate respect to those superior." The general smiled, fully satisfied in his self-praise. "Now tell me, what does any of this have to do with the noble Rebel Alliance's cause of freedom from persecution?"
"Not a damn thing."
The standing man's response nearly saw the general tumble out of his seat. For his answer managed to sound frustrated, confident, uncomfortable, articulate, and fully exhausted all at once… The general, now overcome with the weight of the words the messenger in front of him bore, stood up at attention, and replied with a simple question. "…. is it dangerous?"
In one motion, a line of turrets turned to face the oncoming star fighters. Cannon barrels heated, they drew an extra moment to take aim, and unleashed a merciless title wave of green disruptor fire. The craft broke formation to cut through, shots ripping past their cockpits. The lead pilot speed forward to lead the charge. A great flash of energy cracked before his eyes, blinding him in shock; "Ahh!" he hollered over the coms as his craft jolted in recoil. "Mobius-1, you're hit, do you read?" The voice of the second Raptor sounded as it pulled above a stream of enemy fire. "WARNING! Shielding at seventy-two percent" the A.I. droned. He leveled the craft to stop the stars from spinning wildly about him as an approaching TIE fighter was blasted by a wingmen's white missile. Breathing heavily, he pressed the accelerator and pushed his nose down back onto the attack axis. "….come on!"
The destroyer's cannons arched upward, adjusting their fire as the star fighters drew closer. For each cannon that paused to recharge, there were three more in full eruption. One of the pilots called out; "ten seconds!" The five ship formation split up, two to the left, two to the right, and one forward at full power. They all flew against a rushing current of green laser lights that rained upwards in menacing hatred. His hands clenched the flight controls, his ears droned out the cockpit's crying alarms, and his eyes winced at each passing dart of laser fire. "ready… ready…. NOW!" The lead raptor pulled ahead of the others and, drawing the destroyer's fire, released a giant burst of glowing flares that shattered into a carnival of white lights.
The destroyer's cannons froze in momentary paralysis, blinded by the countermeasures. Out of the white burst of light flew the lead raptor, barely clearing the top of the destroyer's tower. One… two… three seconds; and the cloud of interference cleared to reveal two dozen white missiles. The four raptors each caught a glare of the local star's rays as they jetted past the bridge. The missiles relentlessly slammed into the round shield emitters with full prejudice: each ensuing explosion ripping out hull plating and circuitry until both emitters snapped in a display of arching electricity to detonate in shockwaves of blue and gold light.
"Enemy shield generators are down!" the lead pilot spoke with bubbling adrenaline. "Roger that, star fighters; sensors confirm dorsal hull is exposed." Background chatter and alert tones filled the sound behind the sixth voice that spoke. "Starship Excalibur moving into assault position, we're engaging attack pattern alpha."
The destroyer's forward cannons nervously tracked the sky, searching to re-acquire the five raptors. But now, as the shielding over those once mighty cannons disappeared, their motion was far less confident. Only one target could be spotted: an unusually shaped Starship directly ahead. Again the destroyer's cannons opened fire, this time all trained on the single target before them. The streams of green laser fire, though, all ended on one blue energy barrier that protected the hull of the oncoming vessel. "Fire, full bursts" a cool voice sounded. A set of banks activated on the Starship's saucer section, and, rotating to face the oncoming destroyer, they took only a few moments to set aim.
Two solid beams of blue energy burst out from the smaller vessel and bore into the star destroyer's exposed hull. Circuitry and hull plates boiled off into space as the beams dragged up the line of disruptor cannons. One by one they exploded violently: green plasma fire and blue arcs of excess electricity poured out from where the cannons stood. The voice from the Starship's bridge echoed out over the coms. "Fire! Fire at will!"
A desert of white sand lay stretched from horizon to horizon. On it stood two fully unrelated objects; one deep-silver spacecraft, and one bright yellow umbrella. It was the umbrella that provided shade for the general's tea table, and it was the Star Fighter that brought the foreign pilot.
"What exactly do you want from us?" The general spoke through his grey, and rather dated, mustache. The pilot leaned over the table and, gesturing loosely to all of the decorations that adorned the seated man; "… but tall of this, General Sir, and whatnot" he said half consciously. With a look devoid of understanding the general asked; "You want our medals?" "No, no!-" the pilot retorted as he leant back nearly as far as he had forward. "'YOU' want you to want your medals... because you and you're having your medals leaves us wanting you to want us to want what said medals bring…." His eyebrows curled up and down, respectively, through his rather diluted sentence. He was, indeed, very far from his last point of sleep.
The general failed even to conjure words in reply. The pilot restarted: "Tell me, what do medals bring?" The general, nearly spilling his tea, responded quickly. "Why, they are marks of valor and prestige, of course. They bring respect and trust." "Ah! And whose respect to they bring?" The pilot asked with his free hand now pointing and the general's shoulder patch. "Well, but the respect of those who awarded them, respect of the alliance!" "Ah ha! Correct!" The pilot exclaimed, with the general smiling along with him; as though his correct answers placed him on track to win a grand prize.
The pilot stood erect; "Now tell me, General Sir, us both having the respect of the alliance makes us what?" The general's hat raised somewhat with his eyebrows as he plainly answered: "That would make us allies." The pilot nodded while smiling. "All the respect emanating from those medals of yours will be the respect you use to vouch for our noble intentions during our stay in your galaxy." A small, pink droid drove out to park next to the general, whose only apparent function was to then uphold a portable oscillating fan to provide some artificial breeze.
The general placed his teacup down, and leaned forward in his chair; "In other words, you want to fight the empire for your own reasons, without being asked any questions by the alliance. And you figure that as long as you're winning, they won't care." The pilot, satisfied, leaned over the table in search of an empty teacup. As the general started to pour him one, he asked "and what are these fantastically noble intentions of yours?" Breathing in the hot steam from the sweetened tea, the pilot remarked with a grin. "Kill the badguy; get the gold; save the universe."
"My god, man! That's just about every cliché in the book." The general said as his hat nearly popped off his head. The pilot placed his arm over the back of his chair as he took a health sip of his tea. "Or you can stay here and be fanned by a pink droid until the next century." The small droid holding the fan let out a toned squeak at the pilot's comment, to which he responded; "no offense, dear."
Smoke and flame gushed from the star destroyer's bridge and gun decks. A salvo of blue torpedoes blasted into its side, ripping its starboard engine out in a super-explosion that blew out debris of all sizes and shapes in all directions. The five silver raptors circled around the battle zone in a wide arc, now dodging wreckage instead of cannon fire. "Enemy destroyer is neutralized." The Starship reported, "Engaging tractor beam…" The five raptors escorted their Starship as it towed away its conquest and all the wealth that lay within.
The desert sun reflected sharply off of the resting Star Fighter's fuselage, nearly blotting out the Mobius-Strip insignia that decorated its tail. The general, once again sitting, sipped his sugary tea, and looked up at the pilot in contemplation. "Slaying an unsuspecting imperial cruiser is one thing, but waging a crusade to deny the Empire an ancient treasure it seeks? That is something else altogether. What can a single Starship and a handful of Star Fighters hope to achieve against such opposition?"
"There are more of us coming." The pilot spoke coldly. "If the empire gains mastery over this lost technology, even our sanctuaries will be threatened." The pilot ran his hand through his black hair, and looked back at the general; "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."
The general nodded confidently. He may have grown grey hair and come to preside over a remote office, but his honors held no less influence within the Alliance hierarchy. Turning back up to the pilot; "You say you really come from another galaxy?" "Far, far away", the pilot retorted smoothly. "I presume you'll want something else in return?" The general asked, knowing the inevitability of all things. The pilot nodded as he pulled out a rectangular, tile-shaped object from within his inner jacket pocket: one of many items taken from the destroyer. "Yes…" He held it up to the seated man, who squinted to recognize it as an image of one particular individual.
"…Her."