Fondor Shipyards
Rowan strode through the grey Imperial-made corridors of the Star Destroyer Inscrutable, helmet in hand with a permanent look of indifference on his face. As he walked to the hangar, he was joined by two other pilots from his squad. Zeres was pale and short with light brown hair, fresh out of the Academy. While he was young and small of stature, and was often teased for it, he had proven his skill as a dogfighter on many occasions. Elise was as talkative as ever, commenting on the two of us as she did every day. She was medium height and athletic, with sun-kissed skin and black hair. As soon as they saw him they caught up with him and Elise, unrelenting as she was, commented on him snarkily.
"You forget your cup of caf today, captain? You're not looking too good."
She slapped the back of his head playfully with a hint of a smile on her face. Rowan scowled for a second before it gave way to a smile. They continued on towards the hanger where they found the remaining two members of Crimson Squad. Phillip, whose dark hair shone in the white light of the shield that kept the hangar airtight and safe. His skin was the colour of caf and his green eyes pierced into anyone he looked at. His eyes were friendly now as he put on his black TIE pilot helmet, the chromed black headgear reflecting the cold white light. Anna was small, but she had strong arms and an affinity for tricky maneuvers that usually got her pursuers killed. She was sitting cross-legged atop her TIE Fighter's cockpit, her helmet resting beside her, her pale blonde shoulder length hair unmoving as she eyed the three of us with her turquoise eyes, head resting on her fist. Rowan looked at them all and asked simply,
"Ready?"
They all nodded and put on their helmets before hopping into their TIE's. They took off and flew out into the vacuum of space where the recognizable screams of their TIE's ion engines were silenced.
"Remember, this is just a routine patro-"
Rowan was cut off by a Mon Calamari cruiser coming out of hyperspace directly above them, X-Wings, A-Wings and Y-Wings already speeding out for battle. Rowan tightened his grip on the TIE's controls.
"Weapons free."
Rowan quickly targeted a Y-Wing, locking onto the bomber and slicing through it with bright green laser fire. His enemy-lock alarm went off, meaning that he had a pursuer. He spun his TIE around, but instead of seeing an enemy ship he saw a charred wreck. Anna's TIE Interceptor flew past and Rowan could tell there was a smug grin on her face. Rowan sped through the shipyards, shooting down enemy fighters and preventing the Rebels from accomplishing anything other than destroying a few easily replaced TIEs when his comms started buzzing.
"Inferno Squad, reporting for duty."
A hint of a smile flickered on his face.
"Inferno Squad!" Rowan thought, "Heh, we're going to decimate them now!"
"Crimson Squad, you will engage enemy starfighters while our bombers prepare. On my mark, you shall protect the bombers on their mission to destroy that cruiser's engines and hijack it."
Rowan sneered underneath his helmet as he responded.
"Understood, General Coneri. The Rebels don't stand a chance!"
Rowan flew around the Inscrutable, searching for targets, his eyes, hawk-like and predatory, flitting from starfighter to starfighter before finally spotting a pair of A-Wings flying into the cargo bay of the shipyard itself. He chased after them, swerving to and fro to avoid crashing into a fuel container or something of the like. He locked onto one of the A-Wings and fired a proton torpedo after it. The torpedo spun and spiralled as the small fighter tried to avoid getting blown up, but when the pilot attempted a U-turn the torpedo punched through the glass of the cockpit and smashed into the pilot before exploding in a fiery inferno. The remaining fighter swerved out of the cargo bay and into empty space. He pursued, but quickly lost sight of his prey. His alarm went off again, meaning that the A-Wing had spun around him and swapped places with him. He dodged a concussion missile and laser fire, trying to think of a plan. Then, an idea popped into his head. He started overcharging his TIE's blasters, hoping against hope that the A-Wing wouldn't score a lucky hit while he charged his weapons. The blasters finished overcharging and he cut his engines, tilted downwards and started firing. The lasers fired so fast that they cut off A-Wing into three pieces that floated for a few seconds before exploding. He punched the air with a silent "Yes!" and flew back to the Inscrutable, where the bombers were now launching from. Rowan and the rest of his squad formed a circle around three bombers. Other TIE Squads were forming up on other bombers while they transported their payload to the soon-to-be immobile cruiser.
A/N: Hey, it's me, Hanz. Again. Here's the first chapter of my new Tales story featuring my character, the TIE pilot Rowan Lunaiak. I really don't have anything else to say, so I guess I'll say Tschüss!
