Alrighty guys, I am back much sooner than I had planned, but I needed to get this story started while my muse is still hot with ideas as my wonderful son in an all too common fit of helpfulness accidentally threw away all my notes for this story. I said soooo many bad words when I discovered that, anyway, I'll leave you to the first chapter.
Oh! also, usual disclaimers.
Hirani knelt among the dense orange, grey and green scrub, watching the approaching convoy.
They had appeared from the gates of the small facility on the tiny backwater planet. The tiny woman watched them pass and slipped as quietly as she could back to her camp where her two grizzled companions waited.
"What did you see?" The man asked quietly, all of them were very conscious of the need for silence.
"A heavily armed convoy left the facility to head somewhere else on planet." She responded, her voice equally as soft. "I think if we follow them we might find something we can use against the Order." She added. "They were headed north."
"No child." The other woman among the trio murmured.
"Yes Lana." Hirani bowed her head in acquiescence.
"We understand that you want to do anything you can to help the resistance." Lana walked over and tucked a strand of dark green hair behind Hirani's ear. "Believe me; we want to help as well." Hirani nodded."But getting yourself killed isn't going to do anyone any good. We stick to the mission, get in, get as much info as we can, and get out."
Hirani nodded and went to the tiny ration box on the side of the camp, pulling out a nutrition stick.
With a shudder she nibbled on the tasteless stick experimentally.
She swallowed it and held her breath, waiting to see if her body would accept it.
"Are you still struggling to keep food down?" The man asked just before she ran into the bushes to violently hurl.
She heard the faint rustle of the underbrush as she continued heaving uncontrollably.
"I'll take that as a yes." he said, kneeling beside her and handing her a canteen of water. "Drink lass. My son would kill me if I didn't look after you."
Hirani sat back and accepted the small metal canister, sipping gratefully. "Get some rest girl. You're no good to anyone while you're sick."
Hirani shook her head as she tried again to eat the nutrition stick, this time more successfully.
"I'll be fine Kes." She waved him off before she left the camp to return to her post near the forbidding complex of military buildings.
She knew the other two were worried about her, but she didn't have time to worry about herself.
She had to find her sons.
~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~
Poe sat in his fighter, watching the bar on the readout in front of him as BB8 powered up the rear thrusters of the engine.
The dreadnought in front of him was an imposing one.
BB8 beeped nervously as he changed his position to one of defence.
"Happy beeps here buddy, come on." Poe chastised the droid lightly. "We've pulled crazier stunts than this."
"For the record Commander, I'm with the droid on this one." Leia Organa's voice came over the comm. link.
"Happy beeps." He breathed and then flipped a switch, opening a line of communication to the lead ship.
"Attention this is Commander Poe Dameron of the Republic Fleet." He announced. "I have an urgent communiqué for General Hug." He smirked a moment later when he saw the First Order accept the line.
"This is General Hux of the First Order." The arrogant reply came back. "The Republic is no more; your fleet are rebel scum and war criminals." Hux continued into the line and Poe couldn't resist rolling his eyes.
"Tell your precious princess that there will be no terms, there will be no surrender."
"Hi, I'm holding for General Hugs." Poe said dryly, turning down the volume on the open line he had with the rest of the resistance fleet so that the First Order had no chance of hearing the laughter coming from them.
"This is Hux." The response was clipped, clearly getting quite annoyed. "You and your friends are doomed; we will wipe your filth from the galaxy!"
"Okay, I'll hold." Poe answered.
"Hello?" Hux asked.
"Hello? Yup, still here." Poe replied.
"Can he hear me?" He heard Hux ask one of the technicians on the bridge. "He can?"
"Hugs?" Poe asked again. "Skinny guy, kind of pasty."
"I can hear you!" Hux ground out. "Can you hear me?"
Poe looked at the information on the readout and smiled.
"Look, I can't hold forever." Poe said as he adjusted his gloves. "If you reach him can you please tell him that Leia has an urgent message for him?"
"I believe he's tooling with you sir." He heard the muttered words from someone else on the bridge.
"It's about his mother." Poe added for effect and then he closed off the line. "Alright BB8 punch it!" He ordered the droid and was thrown back in his seat as the engine fired, sending the x-wing forward faster than he was prepared for.
The dreadnought began to fire at him. He slipped under their shield and began to systematically take out their surface cannons.
"Alright, taking out their cannons now, Tallie start your approach." Poe ordered.
"Copy Black Leader." Came the reply and Poe continued firing on the cannons.
"One cannon left." He told the others, looking at movement out of the corner of his eye. "And here comes the parade."
BB8 trilled at him anxiously. "Yeah, yeah I see him." Poe snapped, weaving between mag pulses.
He was jolted forward when a lucky blast struck them and a small high pitched alarm started in the cockpit.
"No, no! Dammit!" He swore when he tried to fire. "BB8 my weapons systems are down! We gotta take out that last cannon or our bombers are toast. Work your magic buddy!"
He didn't listen for a response, just focused on flying carefully to avoid the TIE's that were dancing their lethal ballet around him as they tried to take out the bombers that were inexorably advancing on the dreadnought, the resistance fighters dancing among them to protect them from the First Order thugs.
Meanwhile in the engine bay of his fighter BB8 was frantically bypassing the damaged circuits to create a rough patch for the weapons systems.
Four large plasma bursts flew towards the base and then he heard Leia over the comm.
"You did it, Poe." The old woman said warmly. "Now get your squad back here so we can get out of this place."
"No, General, we can do this! We have the chance to take out a dreadnought!" Poe protested, determined to see his mission through. "These things are fleet killers!" He continued as he shot through a small gap with a TIE hot on his heels."We can't let it get away."
"Disengage now Commander. That is an or…" Poe didn't let Leia finish what she was saying; he shut off his comm. and continued.
"Let's go BB8 it's now or never!" He yelled and a split second later his weapons came back online with an electrified squeal from his astromech.
He took out the last cannon with a whoop of victory, bracing himself on the side of the cockpit as he spun around coming up behind the two TIE's trailing him and fired two bursts, killing both enemy fighters.
He opened the comm. again. "All clear! Bring the bombs!" He declared, looking for the bombers, and his heart went cold when he saw no bombers coming, only black squadron providing cover for him.
"No." He muttered when he realised that Leia had recalled the bombing fleet.
He grit his teeth then and flew in close to the target.
"Poe we need to disengage now." Snap said into the comm. but the commander ignored him.
Poe redirected the power from his shields into his plasma cannon, syphoning power from his engines to add more power to weapon and he circled the weak point, searching for the best place to fire.
He was aware of black squadron mirroring his movements and he saw what he was looking for, with a grunt he fired and darted out, preparing for another run, and then he saw black squadron do the same, each firing on the same spot he had and darting out again.
On the second bombing run he saw it, a single bomber gliding almost sluggishly towards them.
"Fighters cover that bomber!" Poe ordered, hurrying to protect the bomber from the fighters that were advancing on the deadly ship.
They disengaged from the barely scratched dreadnought and immediately set about taking out the TIE's.
Poe watched with his heart in his throat as the bay doors opened laboriously and then there was a violent explosion as the bomber was hit. Nobody spoke as they watched fearfully hopeful that they had succeeded anyway, and then, ever so slowly the bombs dropped from the artificial gravity of the ship, the momentum forcing them closer to the gigantic ship and homing in on the target.
The fighters veered away, but the bomber was not so fortunate, going up with the blast as the others retreated to the resistance fleet.
I don't normally deviate from canon as much as I have with this first chapter but I'm going to be breaking so many bloody habits with this story because Rian Johnson is most definitely not a tactician, nor is he a particularly good story teller, sorry to his fans, it's just my opinion and I will not be backing down from this one.
I would appreciate your thoughts on this, so review if you like si'l vous plait.