Brian Kelly.
He was on his home planet of Carida, which was impossible. Carida had been destroyed years ago, but non-the less that's where he was. He looked to the left and saw the imperial academy. That to was odd, because the flags flying atop academy were not imperial; they were the flags of the Old Republic. Fighters began to poor from the sky, and were met by the defense force from the academy. A klaxon began to blare and the academy took a direct hit, the stone and transprasteel melting away. Then the klaxon got loader and more insistent.
Commander Keith Farman was awoken by the klaxon from his dream, and looked around in confusion. He closed his eyes for ten seconds then reopened them and evaluated the situation. He was in his quarters aboard The Reckless, an old Rendili Stardrive's Dreadnought-class heavy cruiser, and the alarm blaring was the call to battle stations. Farman leapt from his bed, a move that was getting harder to do at sixty, and crossed to his closet. Pulling out his uniform and comlink, he started getting dressed and commed the bridge.
"Bridge this is Commander Farman, what in the name off sanity is going on?"
Captain Delcove, his second in command, answered, "We're under attack sir, Yuuzhan Vong capital ships have entered the system. They are underway towards us."
Farman nearly dropped his shirt, "Say again bridge I thought you said we were under attack by Vong."
Captain Delcove's voice was as hopeless and resigned as his own. "That is what I said."
Farman pulled his shirt over his head. "I need numbers, what have they got."
"We count twelve total capitol ships sir."
"ETA?"
"About three hours sir."
Farman tried to size up the situation. The Reckless had been part of Garm Bel Iblis's Second Fleet. After the Fall of Coruscant the Reckless had jumped to the Peltoom asteroids, a group of asteroids that had severed as a Rebel Alliance repair depot before increased imperial activity had forced them out. Farman had used the Reckless and the six other ships that had jumped with it as a rally point for all ships fleeing Coruscant. They had still been filling that role when we went to sleep six hours ago.
"Captain," He asked, "What is our fleet situation?"
Delcove took a few seconds to reply. "We have had new ships straggling for the last four hours or so. The grand total is sixty ships, mostly corvette class or smaller, a few frigates and gunships, and a MC80 Mon Cal Cruiser, most ships have been damaged to one degree or another. I would put our current defensive ability at about half of the Vong's firepower."
"So pretty much you're saying that we're fraged?" Farman asked.
"I'm saying that we have no hope of fighting this out and winning. Our fighter contingent is about down to half and moral is even lower."
"Alright, give the order to jump to light speed in two standard hours we will rendezvous about six parsecs from here. Make sure everyone gets the jump order. And make sure we all end up in the same place right now the only defense we've got is to appear as though we can put up a fight, which means staying together. All ships are ordered to spend the next hour and a half salvaging anything and every thing from the repair facilities. Also, I want as many star fighter training probes as possible."
Delcove's voice was uncertain. "Isn't that cutting it close, sir?"
"Yes but my orders stand, though I may revise them when I reach the bridge."
"Very good sir, see you soon."
Farman deactivated his comlink, and finished getting dressed. Yes, this was going to be close. He considered his orders again. His own crew had been salvaging all the parts they could from the old base ever since they got there. But there was so much left behind when the alliance left that he was sure that they hadn't recovered all of it yet. Hopefully they had gotten enough. After that they needed somewhere to hide out from the Vong. As he left his room, he slipped his jacket on. To his surprise something weighed down the pocket.
Reaching into his pocket he found the data pad he had been reading when he had gone to sleep. It was the ships log of his old ship, the Venator-class Star Destroyer, Misdirection. He had been part of her crew during the clone wars, and the log had been a gift from an old friend who had also severed aboard her. He took a piece of flimsiplast from his pocket as well. It was a note that had been attached to the log, and contained only the words. "I found her," and a set of coordinates. On a whim he pulled up the Galaxy map on his data pad and entered the numbers. His heart soared, they were close by.
Farman shook his head, now was not the time to go on a hunt for his old ship. Or was it. Could she still work after all these years? She just might.
While he had been thinking about this, his feet had brought him to the bridge. The doors slid open, and he stepped into controlled chaos. An officer to his left shouted. "Commander on deck!" and every thing stopped as everyone saluted. A man with neatly trimmed dark hair and goatee stepped into his line of sight. He saluted and offered his hand. "Commander."
Farman took it and shook warmly. "Captain, fill me in."
Delcove led him over to a holographic tactical display and indicated a group of lights in the far left hand corner. "These are the Vong sir, they had been steadily inbound for the last fifteen minutes." The image showed twelve ships, more like flying rocks then any ship that had been tooled, but then again they had been grown, not built. The battle computer had them classified as three destroyer analogs, roughly as powerful as an Imperial-class Star destroyer. They were being escorted by six corvette analogs, and three carriers, bristling with coral skipper fighters.
He then turned his attention to his own fleet. "What do we have that is battle worthy?"
Delcove shook his head, then indicated a small group of ships clustered around the Reckless. "Tidal Whip, the MC80. Two refitted Nebulon-B escort frigates; they've been converted into assault frigates. The Dervish, a Slayer-class assault frigate. The Perilous, a Victory-class Star Destroyer. Three Corellian Gunships, and Star Breeze, a Ranger-class Gunship. Everything else are transports loaded with wounded. There are eight fighter squadrons cobbled together from the survivors of Coruscant." He winced as he said the name of capitol. "Also, there is another Victory-class destroyer with a Remnant transponder. They are inbound with full fighter support. ETA, thirty minutes."
"Damn lucky for us that they're showing up. Put me in touch with the captain."
A hologram flickered on and a woman in a well-kept captain's uniform nodded to him, Farman threw the woman an Imperial salute. "This is Commander Keith Farman of the New Republic ship Reckless to whom am I speaking?"
"This is Captain Leav Shevun of the Star Destroyer Vong's Demise. Nice to see a friendly face, we just jumped from Coruscant and got a hold of your beacon. I'm guessing we're not to late to join the party. My scanners are picking up a whole mess of Vong behind us."
Farman grinned. "As are mine captain. But if you don't mind me asking, I didn't think the Moff council was letting you play with the scarheads."
The smile that Shevun returned would have shamed a wolf. "They aren't, we went rouge. But this is a conversation for another time. What are our orders commander?"
"We will be jumping in just over an hour. RV coordinates will be sent in a moment."
She saluted and the holo disappeared. Farman handed the note he had still been holding to the officer at the communications station. "Add a Crackens twist to these and send them out. Also, I want an X-wing to meet up with the Imperials, tell the pilot to explain the twist." He turned back to Delcove, "Captain, what is the update on the salvage operation?"
The enthusiasm in Delcove's voice was hard to miss as he answered. "Great sir, our hold is completely full of replacement parts, armor plating, turbo laser barrels, targeting computers and the like, we left a lot of stuff behind when we ran. We have also recovered six of those starfighter training probes. All in all, we should be able to repair The Reckless and a few other ships besides."
"Good, and the other ships?"
"They report similar success."
Farman smiled grimly. "Good, once we have come out of hyperspace and got our barring I want every one from fighter wing commander on up, to report to the Tidal Whip's briefing room. We need to talk strategy."
Six hours later the Reckless came out of hyperspace in a secluded part of space. Farman looked out the view port eyes straining to see something. He turned to the sensor officer. "Give me a full scan of the area. I want to be informed of anything that you find." The Twi-lek officer at the station nodded as he keyed in the proper scan, and few seconds later the results came up. Farman looked at Delcove. "Captain assemble every tech team we've got. I want those checked out before Oh-twelve hundred." Delcove saluted and pulled out his comlink, Farman returned his eyes to the group of lights that marked an Imperial outdated ship storage facility, or as it was also know, a mothball.