Choice: Twisted Branches

Penslin System

Kalat Arm Provisional Zone

Wild Space

7 BBY

"Okay, smash and grab time people, keep it quick and simple," Lieutenant Yalil's voice remained steady over the com. "We hit 'em, scatter 'em, and then we take whatever we can and hit the road before help arrives. Final check, all units report."

The words filled Tivae with a shudder of anticipation. The moment was at hand, and she could feel the rush of approaching violence.

"Black Manta standing by," the voice of Jer Felspar, the pilot of their critical Barloz freighter, answered first.

"Serpents standing by," the quiet whisper of Zimick, leader of their commando unit, chirped over the comlink.

Then it was Tivae's turn. She gave a quick glance, all indicators were green. "Nimbus flight standing by."

"Operation is go, repeat, operation is go," Yalil ordered. "Nimbus Flight, begin strafing run."

Tivae didn't particularly like taking orders from the by-the-book Duros commander, Clone Wars experience or not. Still, all her irritation disappeared as she received that command. "Come on boys, let's go!" she shouted over the channel to the other pilots in her flight even as she slammed down on the accelerator.

Rattling more than a little, a sign that the battered starfighter needed an engine repair, Tivae's fighter blasted free of the valleys where she'd been waiting in a stealthy holding pattern and roared over the forested expanse of Penslin's single continent. Three other fighters, of the same class but sufficiently battered by their long service they were no longer identical, formed up behind her. Engines screaming they pushed to full speed for a brief few seconds before pulling back hard, dropping velocity at just the right moment to give them a strafing window.

The target was tiny, a circle burned into the woodland canopy no more than one hundred meters wide. They would only get a few shots. "I wish I had more weapons," Tivae cursed as she dialed up her targeting computer. "Well, this ought to be enough for you Imps!" Her gloved finger slammed down on the trigger and she opened up with her fighter's single powerful laser cannon.

Bolts of ruby energy pummeled at the encampment, targeting the tripod-mounted guns and other anti-infantry defenses the Imperial Army had erected against intruders and predators. Explosions ripped through the forest and a dozen small fires were set instantly from the massive discharge of energy.

It was not completely one-sided. The Imperials had reacted swiftly to the warning from their sensors when the starfighters emerged from hiding, and army troopers manned the E-webs and portable missile systems, scrambling to return fire.

Tivae laughed, and rolled into the teeth of the enemy attack. Not nearly enough, she thought. Her Scyk might be terribly under-gunned as a fighter, but it was a tough, scrappy little bastard. Nothing the army troopers had down there had any chance of penetrating her shields and armor plating. The return fire only made it easier to zero in on targets and blast them to scrap.

Then, all too quickly, they were past, putting forest between their exhaust and the Imperial camp behind. Instinctively Tivae began to roll. "Fall in Nimbus," she ordered. "We'll come around for a second pass."

"Negative Nimbus flight," Yalil's calm Duros voice interjected. "Black Manta's tracking a half-squadron of fighters coming in hot. They must have been conducting an exercise when we launched. They'll be here before we have time to load." A hint of resignation entered the Duros' words. "I'm afraid we'll have to scrap the mission."

"No way, Lieutenant!" Tivae protested without even thinking first. "We need those supplies!"

"We can't load them under fire," Yalil replied, never losing his cool. "I won't send the Serpents to die needlessly."

Reaching a spontaneous decision, Tivae turned her Scyk onto a new heading. Instinctively, schooled by the long hours spent together, the other three pilots of Nimbus flight turned to follow. "Then we'll intercept the fighters. It's a perfect way to buy time and rob the Imps of some toys."

"Negative, negative!" Yalil protested. "You're outnumbered! We can't lose your fighters!"

"Stuff it Lieutenant, we're doing it!" Tivae shouted back before closing the connection and punching the accelerator. Switching to her flights private channel, she called the other members of her little group. "We're engaging six oncoming fighters to buy everyone else time. Anyone got any bright ideas?"

"We're with you sir," the youthful support of Weller Mak was comforting, but not especially helpful.

"Rrrr," Sraig, Nimbus Four, replied in typical Aegrit fashion, without bothering to use syllables. Tivae recognized the grim-faced near-human's affirmation, however.

"My sensors show they're probably A-7's commander," Leedo, the Rodian who served as Nimbus Three and the most experienced of them all, noted. "Fast, but fragile, wanna play tree tag?"

"Sounds good," Tivae smiled beneath her flight helmet. "I'll go low, you go high." Her hands tightened around the control stick. It was time to show the Imps just who they were messing with.

Leedo and Sraig peeled off, gaining altitude as they approached their enemies. The A-7 Hunters were unimpressive things, little inverted v-shapes, cylindrical engines on the outer spars and a cockpit with two under slung swivel-mounted laser cannons in the center. Fragile little speedy things, Tivae smirked. I'll take my Scyk over one any day.

The Scyk, with its flat profile, didn't look like much either, but the pilot knew her ship well. Inching lower she scrapped the treetops, waiting to close the distance. How will the Imps break?

At maximum range the Imperials moved, four A-7s blasting straight ahead while two ran interference against the upper group of opponents. Laser bolts flashed as all ten ships opened fire at this point, hoping to change the odds with a lucky hit.

Tivae had a slightly different scheme in mind. Normally, skimming the treetops stole maneuverability, making you an easier target. Dodging, however, wasn't her plan. With the slightest of nudges on the control stick the pilot pointed the nose of her fighter down, brushing into the very upper edge of the verdant expanse.

The bushy canopy of the trees was light and fluffy, but at this speed the immense force of impact buffeted the Scyk like a stampede of Reeks, sending alarms screaming through the cockpit. Tivae ignored them, shunting auxiliary power to shields and praying for her hull to hold together. Then, after long, brutal seconds, she pulled up, bursting free of the treetops and putting everything into the climb.

A huge cloud of leaves, dust, branches, and debris had been kicked up by the maneuver, obscuring sensors and playing havoc with the battlefield. From above, as preplanned, Leedo and Sraig dove their fighters in a corkscrew approach straight into this obscuring cloud, pulling their opponents down after them, even as Tivae and Weller shot up to meet them.

Desperate fire from the main group of Imperials burned through the air as the enemy pilots realized too late they'd been had and tried to even the odds. The two A-7s above attempted to pull away, but in atmosphere they couldn't maneuver as in space, and this reaction only held them into the dive longer, right into the sights of the two rising Scyks.

Tivae's finger slammed down on the firing stud, launching a blistering stream of fire. Lacking shields or heavy armor, it took only one solid connection to reduce her target A-7 to a ball of flaming debris. Weller took a moment longer to line up his shot, but the end result was the same. "Flip around and hit 'em again!" Tivae shouted triumphantly as Leedo and Sraig disappeared into the cloud of verdant mess, obscured from the enemy so the critical pass was wasted. Her own fighter spun in a wingover, flipping back to zero in on the Imperials.

Stuck out on a desolation posting like Penslin, and in aging A-7s when almost everyone in the Empire now used TIEs, these pilots were not the cream of the Imperial crop. Nevertheless, they'd survived the academy, so they weren't complete idiots. The four remaining fighters broke by wing pairs and looped away; reset the battlefield. Tivae pulled around to follow the eastern group, Weller tucking in to follow, but their fighters couldn't match the maneuverability of the Hunters, and there was no chance to sit in on their tails.

"We're caught between them," Leedo noted as he emerged from the rapidly-dissipating cloud.

"Pull west," Tivae ordered. "And evade." The Imperials were going to close on her comrades, but they'd have to slow down to do so, giving her a chance. She put every bit of available power to engines. "Come on, come on," she urged her ship. The engine ground noisily in protest, but the Mandalorian-made Scyk found the extra juice somewhere, and surged forward.

Laser blasts hammered at the shields of her fellow Nimbuses as Tivae finally entered range, but the inexperienced A-7s had trusted in their speed and weren't at all evasive. The minute she hit range the targeting computer pinged with a lock.

Trigger down, lasers flashed, and another explosion ripped through the air.

Tivae turned toward the other, but it had already broken off, taking a maximum evasion course to loop out. For long seconds she was an idle observer, watching Leedo and Sraig charge into a head to head with their opponents.

"Grrrargh!" the Aegrit howled into the com, deep voice full of fury, and pushed acceleration forward into a head-on charge at his enemy.

The Imperial flinched, and Sraig vaped him with a single shot.

Leedo passed closer. The Rodian jinked his fighter about, dodging and weaving. The veteran pilot was an excellent flyer, far better than his enemy, and Tivae knew he would pass through, and she lined up to hit the Hunter as it broke away from the end of the pass. Got you now! She almost shrieked in triumph.

Then something happened.

Leedo's Scyk lurched to the side, spinning wildly, descending toward the canopy. "Stabilizer…" the Rodian's voice jolted through the com and he struggled for control.

"No!" Tivae felt the universe slow down as she watched the Imperial pilot adjust, making use of his swivel-mount to swing the laser cannons around and bullseye Leedo's fighter. The first pair of bolts burned through the shields. The second ripped the fighter apart.

"Bastard!" Tivae shouted in rage, even as the Imperial miscalculated, staying on course after the kill just an instant too long. When he broke, two paths of laser fire converged inexorably from both sides. Moments later his fighter was ash.

The final A-7 tried to turn about and escape, but ran straight into a barrage from Sraig. The Aegrit pilot was silent in his vengeance.

"Damn! Damn! Damn!" Tivae slammed her hands against the viewport repeatedly, venting her rage. She regained a tenuous control several breaths later. "Form up," she told the flight, trying not to think of her fallen friend, a companion through many battles. Dreading what she would hear now, she flipped on the general com.

"Nimbus flight, do you copy, I repeat, do you copy," Yalil's steady voice demanded.

"I copy Lieutenant," Tivae felt ashes with every word. It sank in that not only had she lost a friend and an irreplaceable fighter, she'd disobeyed orders. A trifecta of failure the Discblade Alliance would not take kindly.

"Good," Yalil noted. "Turn your flight to point 8.5 and move to escort position for the Black Manta. Mission successful, we're pulling out."

"Successful…" she could hardly believe her ears. Yalil had followed her plan and gone ahead with the ground portion of the raid anyway. All the hardware in the Imperial supply camp, it was now theirs. Was this a victory? She shook her head. Not with Leedo gone it's not. There are no victories, not until we drive the Empire away for good. "I copy command," Tivae heard herself say. "Forming up for escort duty." She knew she'd accept whatever punishment the Duros officer set without complaint, and next time she'd listen better to his experience. He'd known what she was still learning. Sometimes, even if you can win, you'll still lose. There would be no quick victories against the Empire, Tivae recognized for perhaps the first time. She'd have to be ready to lose a lot more.

Story Notes

This is a simple and short piece, but I feel it captures a lot of the essence of the character of the conflict, and serves as a fun little action-oriented intro to this project.

Informational Notes:

The fighters used here are canon vessels, the A-7 Hunter Interceptor was a Kuat Drive Yards ship passed over in favor of the TIE model but a great number were purchased and served in remote areas. The M-3A Scyk was a simple starfighter produced during the Dark Times and heavily used by criminal groups.

The Aegrit pilot, Sraig, represents a species of my own creation, whose taboos mean they speak mostly in grunts and growls. I hope to return to them later.