Seven
(The Battle of Yavin)

"General Dodonna, I'd like you to meet Luke Skywalker," Princess Leia said, gesturing to the young Jedi.

Luke, dressed in his tan and brown robes with his lightsaber hanging from his belt in plain sight, bowed his head as the Alliance general looked him over. General Dodonna was a tall man, perhaps Obi-Wan's age or older, with a thick gray beard and hair the same color, a few steaks of his original darker color still visible here and there.

The three of them were in the 'war room' of the Rebel base at Yavin IV, a small, claustrophobic chamber lined with monitors and maps of the system. Alliance technicians murmured to each other, but it was mostly quiet around Luke, Leia, and the general.

"Leia tells me Obi-Wan Kenobi was your teacher," Dodonna said, looking over at Luke with kind dark eyes. "I served with him in the Clone Wars." He lowered his voice. "And… your father as well," he said, a hint of sympathy in his tone.

"You don't have to worry about me, General," Luke said, shrugging under his long brown robe. "The way I see it, Darth Vader killed Anakin Skywalker during the Purges like he did all the other Jedi."

Dodonna nodded slowly. "I understand, son." He straightened and turned to one of the glowing displays on the wall behind them. "We could use a Jedi right now," he said. "The Empire is getting more aggressive in its pursuit, and we are hard-pressed to keep the location of our fleet a secret." He looked over at Luke. "As Leia has told you, we are gathering forces to begin confronting the Empire directly. Many on the Outer Rim are sympathetic to our cause, and we would begin our offensive by driving the Empire off of those worlds."

He placed a hand on Luke's shoulder, a serious expression on his face beneath his beard. "I am sorry to place so much responsibility on one so young, but you are the only Jedi we have at the moment, Luke. There are a hundred places we could use you."

Luke nodded. "I think I was close to the end of my training with Obi-Wan, but there's still a lot I don't know about the Force." He met Dodonna's eyes, adopting a determined expression. "I'll help out wherever I can, though. I want to defeat the Empire as much as you do."

General Dodonna smiled tightly. "I don't doubt it, son. I don't doubt it." He gestured to the exit from the war room. "I understand you're a good pilot, as well?" Luke nodded, and Dodonna patted him on the back. "All right, let's get you familiar with our fighters. Have you ever flown an X-wing before?"


"All sections indicate battle readiness, my lord," an aide reported to Darth Vader.

"Very good," the Sith Master replied. "How much further to the Yavin system?"

The aide consulted a datapad and looked back up at the Dark Lord. "Twenty minutes, my lord," he said.

Vader nodded once. "Dismissed."

The Dark Lord of the Sith clasped his hands together beneath his long black cloak and resumed his pacing along the command walkway on the bridge of the Super Star Destroyer Executor, watching hyperspace boil and shift outside the large transparisteel viewports. The officers in the sunken crew pits on either side of the walkway glanced up at him nervously sometimes, intimidated at being in the presence of the Emperor himself, but they kept to their duties, knowing Lord Vader despised incompetence above all else.

Vader himself was preoccupied with thoughts of the young Jedi he'd encountered on Alderaan, pondering his origin. Although he had sensed that the boy had received some training from Obi-Wan, he still radiated raw power on a level exceeded only by Galen Marek, better known to the galaxy as Darth Nova, Vader's official Sith Apprentice. The Starkiller, as he'd been dubbed by some of the troops after his most spectacular act of destruction, was the only being the Sith Master had ever encountered who was more powerful than himself, not that he'd ever let Nova know that.

Ordinary Force-sensitives -if any who wielded the greatest power in the universe could be called 'ordinary'- were as insects before the incredible power of Darth Nova, Obi-Wan's mysterious student, and Vader himself. The three of them working together would be completely unstoppable, Vader thought. He impatiently awaited the report from his double agent within the Rebellion so that he could learn more about the young man.

"Inform the troopers to set their weapons to stun," Vader said in the direction of one of his officers. "I want prisoners, not corpses."

"Yes, my lord," the officer said, rushing off to obey.

"I will be in my quarters," Vader said, marching off the bridge. "Alert me when we exit hyperspace."


Malysa Kolos paced like a caged animal in her quarters on the Executor. Her thoughts were in turmoil, and she was more conflicted now than she'd ever been in her life.

She'd been taught about the Light Side of the Force since she was a little girl by her Jedi Master, but Lord Vader was making a lot of sense in his talk about balance in the Force. It had always been a struggle for her to restrain her emotions, to keep her calm during battle, so to hear Vader tell her that such restraint was unnecessary and unnatural was very tempting.

But, she'd been told of all the horrible things the Sith Lord had done, how he'd murdered children during the fall of the old Republic when he assaulted the Jedi Temple under orders from Palpatine, slaughtered dozens who had once called him comrade and friend. She'd seen the dozens of lightsabers in his quarters herself, heard it from his own mouth that he'd killed every one of the Jedi whose weapons he'd taken as trophies.

But, she'd seen the files on Palpatine, as well, and when Vader had told her that Darth Sidious would have been a much more vicious and brutal Emperor, she knew that to be the truth as well. The Death Star had been a reality, and would have been out there, a constant threat to the people of the galaxy, if Darth Vader had not taken his personal flagship at the time to the facility where it was being built and bombed it into oblivion. Vader was not a wasteful spender, using huge amounts of the Empire's credits in developing obscenely powerful weapons and on himself as Sidious would have; in fact, the only permanent residence he maintained was the Executor itself. The Chancellor's mansion back on Coruscant was occupied by Grand Vizier Sate Pestage, the bureaucrat who ran the administrative part of the Empire under Vader's supervision.

Malysa sighed in frustration. The arguments for and against accepting Vader's offer were equally strong. Aside from their brief duel, in which it had to be admitted that she had attacked him, and he had not been the one to finally defeat her, Lord Vader had been nothing but civil to her, giving her quarters instead of sending her to the brig, and offering her full run of the ship except restricted sections, which she had so far not done, remaining in her rooms by her own choice.

However, he had killed both her master and her fellow student before she had managed to extricate herself from her hiding place on the Tantive IV, and he hadn't offered them the same chance he had her, she thought. But, she hadn't seen what happened, and the only other witness had been a stormtrooper. She had no idea how to find out which one it had been, since they all looked and sounded the same inside their armor.

Now, the Executor was on its way through hyperspace somewhere on a mission, and she didn't know where. Malysa briefly considered asking Vader, but she sensed him meditating in his quarters, deep in concentration, and she thought he would not appreciate being disturbed.

She had no one else to talk to, no one to discuss things with except Lord Vader, and she knew already what he wanted her to do. No one would try to stop her if she joined Vader, and it was seeming more tempting all the time.

Alone and confused and feeling very small, Malysa Kolos curled up in the middle of the floor of her room and silently begged the Force to tell her what to do.


In the war room at the Yavin IV base, a Rebel technician looked down at one of his monitors as it beeped suddenly; one of the proximity satellites had been triggered, and when it did not recognize the transponder code of the incoming vessel, it began screaming in electronic panic, its programmed response to any vessel who did not transmit a friendly code within one Standard minute of passing by the satellite.

The satellite went dead suddenly, but not before transmitting a single image to the technician responsible for it. The technician waited impatiently for the image to arrive, and once it had loaded on his monitor, he began screaming in panic as well. The image was out of focus, and depicted only a large, pointed shape painted a dark color blue, but the technician knew that it could be only one thing.

The Executor was here.


"All pilots to the briefing room! Repeat, all pilots report to the briefing room immediately!"

Luke Skywalker heard the announcement over the base's PA system and broke into a sprint, dashing past dozens of other orange-suited Rebels as he suddenly felt a tremor in the Force to go along with the announcement.

He recognized the staggeringly powerful Force presence immediately, and he felt his stomach sink as he realized with a dreadful certainty that Darth Vader had somehow found the Rebel base.

What in the world were they going to do?


"My lord?" a timid voice asked from three meters to Darth Vader's right.

The Sith Master's eyes snapped open. Instantly, he sensed that something was wrong, and he reached out his senses to discover the Rebels were in a flurry of activity in their base.

Vader slowly got to his feet, glaring at the officer who had entered his quarters as he retracted his senses to his flagship itself. "What is it?" he asked, his voice low and dangerous.

The officer gulped nervously under the Sith Master's withering stare. "Ah, it seems the Rebels have been alerted to our presence, sir. They are readying fighters."

Vader used the Force to calculate their position relative to the gas giant Yavin, and his fuse was further shortened. "Admiral Ozzel came out of lightspeed too close to the system," he growled. "Our attack has been spoiled."

"Ah, he felt surprise was wiser," the officer said, taking a nervous step back as the loose objects in Vader's quarters began shaking from the force of the Sith Lord's anger.

"He is as clumsy as he is stupid," Vader snarled. "I should have had Thrawn in command of my ship from the beginning." He glared ominously at the officer, who emitted a brief, terrified squeak before hastily saluting and fleeing for his life.

Vader stomped over to his chair and stabbed the comm button on the arm so violently he broke it, but the connection was established anyway. A screen flared to life in the corner of the room, displaying the bridge and Admiral Ozzel's face as the Executor's commander turned to face his commander.

"Ah, Lord Vader," Ozzel began, a triumphant expression on his mustached face. "You will be pleased to know-"

"I will be pleased to know," Vader interrupted acidly, "why you decided to countermand my orders and alert the Rebel base that we were coming."

Ozzel blinked. "Uh, my lord?" he stammered, confused.

"I specifically ordered you to come out of hyperspace beyond the range of their sensors," Vader growled at the admiral. "I meant for our slicers to fool their sensors into thinking we were one of their ships so that we could approach unchallenged."

Ozzel actually backed a step away from his monitor on the bridge from the sheer rage in Darth Vader's glare, and he swallowed uneasily. "Ah, my lord," he began, starting to feel a slight pressure around his throat, "I meant to catch the Rebels by surprise, to terrify them into surrender with our presence, and-"

"And you have 'terrified' yourself out of a job," Vader interrupted, barely able to contain his fury. With the limited speed of the Executor's sublight engines, the Super Star Destroyer would take nearly thirty minutes to come within range of the Rebel base, during which time the Rebels, including the young Jedi, would pack up and flee.

"Ozzel," he snarled at the now quivering admiral, "You are terminated."

He tightened his Force Choke until Ozzel began turning purple, then released the admiral and hurled him all the way across the bridge, hard enough to break eight ribs in his back and one of his arms. More than one officer within range of the monitor's pickup winced as their former commander landed with a sharp crack against the far wall, then slumped to the deck, groaning.

"Piett," Vader grated between clenched teeth to the nearest competent officer, "I trust you will make for the Rebel base with all possible speed?"

The man he'd selected, the Executor's first officer, nodded nervously but smartly. "Yes, my lord," he said, meeting Vader's still-angry gaze unflinchingly.

"Do not disappoint me, Admiral Piett," Vader said, giving the man an instant promotion before violently terminating the connection by smashing the comm unit with his mechanical fist.

He knew he was too flush with the Dark Side, but damn it, he was angry, and he needed to kill something before he started taking out his rage on more of his officers.

The door to his quarters opened, and Vader whirled to see one of his aides, who took an instinctive step back at the Sith Master's expression.

"What?" Vader demanded.

"Your fighter is fueled and ready, my lord," the man said, fighting to keep the horror from his expression. "The men await your command."

Vader waved him away curtly, and the aide fled. As he passed the inactive screen in the corner, now a dark reflective black, the Sith Master paused as he saw that the eyes looking back at him were red-rimmed yellow. Surprised, he realized why the aide had been so terrified, as had the other officers. He hadn't been so flush with the Dark Side as to make his eyes change color in a very long time, and it surprised him that something as simple as his blundering fool of an Admiral emerging from lightspeed at the wrong time had been enough to set him off.

Vader made his way into his refresher, and stared at his still-yellow eyes in the mirror. Very deliberately, he forced himself to calm down until they resumed their normal blue color, though they shifted back and forth several times before he was finally able to purge his rage. He had thought he'd worked his way past the memories of his initial fall to the Dark Side, which his encounter with Obi-Wan had brought back to the fore, but apparently, he had not, and it was quicker to join him in anger now than ever before. Was he no better than the monster that had killed Qui-Gon? Where was his self-control?

It would take much careful meditation to regain his balance, but Vader decided it could wait until after the attack. Time was of the essence here, and if he did not want Obi-Wan's student to escape, he had to act quickly.


"I will be brief, for you all need to get to your ships," General Dodonna said to a roomful of anxious pilots. "This will not be an easy fight; our fighters are all we have for defense at the moment, since our fleet is massed in another system and cannot arrive here in time to do us any good."

Dodonna looked out at the pilots. "By our best estimates, Executor will be within turbolaser range of this moon in twenty-five minutes. The rest of our personnel are loading the cargo ships as we speak, and your duty is to buy us enough time to escape." The Alliance general became gravely serious. "I will not lie to you; many of you may not return from this, and there is no shame in staying here to help us defend the base itself as we finish our departure."

He gestured to the large screen mounted next to him on the wall of the stone chamber, which flared to life with a wide shot of the Executor. "Lord Vader's flagship is the most advanced ship in his fleet, but it is not without limitations." He pressed a button on his control unit, and the view of the Super Star Destroyer zoomed in on the stern of the massive starship. "If you can get through their shields, the engines are vulnerable, particularly to torpedo hits." The general looked out at the pilots again. "You may not be able to destroy Lord Vader's ship with only your fighters, but you are small and maneuverable enough to make your way past its outer defenses, which are mainly designed for protection against other capital ships.

"You must try to cripple the Executor or at least slow it down long enough for us to escape," Dodonna continued. "If Lord Vader manages to bring his ship within turbolaser range before the evacuation is complete, he will destroy anyone and anything still here. We need, at the minimum," he glanced down to check his wrist chronometer, "thirty-five more minutes to load the bare essentials aboard our ships. You must try to buy us as much time as you can." He swept his gaze around the briefing room quickly, making eye contact with as many of the pilots as he could. "May the Force be with you."

"Snub fighters against a Super Star Destroyer?" the pilot next to Luke muttered. "This is suicide."

"No, suicide would be letting Vader get here," Luke replied. "The general is right; he'll burn this whole moon to the ground. You have friends here, don't you?"

The pilot, who couldn't have been more than three or four years older than Luke, nodded slowly.

"Then defend them," Luke said simply. "If you die, then you'll have died defending someone you cared about, and there isn't any better way to go than that." Obi-Wan's last sad smile drifted through his mind as Luke said this, and he struggled to keep his expression from faltering.

The pilot nodded again, slapping Luke's shoulder as he got to his feet. "Thanks, kid. What's your name?"

"I'm Luke," the young Jedi replied, also rising.

"Wedge," the pilot said, extending his hand. "Watch my back up there, will you?"

Luke shook his hand, smiling slightly. "I will, if you'll watch mine."

Wedge grinned. "You've got yourself a wingman. Let's go, Luke."

The two men, along with the other pilots, made their way to the hangar, where their fighters waited. Luke saw Han talking to Mara near one of the X-wings, and as Wedge went off to his own fighter, Luke caught the end of his friends' conversation.

"I think you should come with us," Han was saying to Mara. "We could use you."

"I'm a good pilot," she said. "I belong in a fighter with the others."

"Red, you're the best shot I've ever seen," Han said. "And that's coming from somebody who's pretty good with a blaster himself." He glanced up at Luke as the young Jedi approached, then turned back to the red-haired Rebel. "I'd really like you in one of my turrets if I'm going to be flying around up there."

"So you're coming with us?" Luke asked, leaning against the fighter's nose next to Mara. She glanced back at him with a brief smile.

Han grinned. "Kid, I was wanted by the Empire before I met you. Alderaan just made it a little worse. I doubt the price on my head'll get any lower if I run, so I might as well help you guys out."

Luke grinned back. "Thanks, Han."

The Corellian shrugged, still grinning. He glanced over at Mara. "So, you coming with us, Red?"

She nodded once. "Just let me get my things."

Han gestured casually back in the direction of the upper levels. "Good idea. We're going straight into hyperspace when the general gives the signal that the transports are away."

Mara nodded again and moved off, brushing against Luke slightly as she walked past him. Luke watched her go for a few moments, then turned back to see Han grinning obnoxiously.

"You've got that stupid look on your face again," he said. "Make sure you're focused on the battle and not your 'ally' there, huh? Wouldn't want the Alliance's only Jedi getting blown away, now would we?"

Luke blushed. "It's really that obvious?"

Han nodded, still grinning. "Painfully." He reached out and punched Luke's shoulder gently. "Hey, I'll keep her in one piece, kid." He grinned again. "I'll be keeping me in one piece, too."

Luke couldn't help but smile. "I guess that's what you're best at, isn't it?"

The smuggler spread his hands. "I wouldn't still be around if it wasn't." He grinned again. "See you up there."

Luke smiled, and Han moved off, shouting something across the hangar to Chewbacca, who stood near the entrance. The Wookiee bellowed back, and the two continued their conversation as they moved off to the Millennium Falcon.

The young Jedi felt a hand on his shoulder suddenly, and he turned to see a dark-haired man with a mustache standing behind him, a smile on his face.

"Luke Skywalker?" the man said, a note of happiness in his voice.

Luke suddenly recognized the man, and he grinned. "Biggs! I didn't know you were here!"

Luke's childhood friend grinned back. "I didn't expect to see you here, either. When did you finally get off Tatooine?"

"Just a couple days ago. Boy, have I got stories to tell you!" Luke said.

Biggs grinned and slapped Luke on the back. "Hey, I've got a few of my own. We'll catch up when we finish chasing off the Imps, huh?" He gestured at the fighter next to them. "We'd better get going, though. I'll see you at the rendezvous, okay?"

Luke nodded grinning again. An alarm klaxon sounded, and the two pilots rushed off to their ships.


In space, Luke checked his fighter's systems one last time as his squadron rounded the orange gas giant Yavin. R2-D2 beeped and twittered behind him, running his own systems checks.

"All wings report in," Red Leader's voice said over the comm.

"Red Two standing by," said Wedge.

"Red Three standing by," said Biggs.

"Red Five standing by," said Luke, reaching up to adjust his flight helmet. He only half listened as the rest of Red Squadron checked in, too busy trying to center himself in the Force. Concentration was difficult over the swirling mix of emotions he could sense from his fellow pilots; anger, fear, anxiety, bravado, anticipation, and others.

But, hanging over them, almost distractingly noticeable even at this distance, was the overpowering Force presence of Darth Vader aboard their target. He was watching, Luke sensed, and also searching for something. As the dark presence suddenly locked on to him, Luke realized that the Sith Master had sensed him.

Momentarily panicked, Luke tried to make himself small in the Force, and breathed a sigh of relief when the dark presence lost its focus on him and moved on. He would have to watch himself, he realized. Darth Vader would be looking for him throughout the battle, and the last thing he needed was a mental assault to try and fight off while being shot at.

"We're coming up on the target," Red Leader said. "Lock S-foils in attack position."

Luke reached over and punched a series of buttons on his console, and the wings of his fighter, along with all the others of its class, separated to form the X from which the fighter took its name. X-wings were sleek and fast, armed with four lasers, one on each wing, and a proton torpedo launcher. They were also equipped with shields, a significant advantage over TIE fighters, and hyperdrives. Securing the X-wings from Incom Corporation had been a big score for the Rebellion, since the Empire currently had no fighters which could equal them.

"Look at the size of that thing!" Wedge said, clearly astonished.

Luke had to agree with him. The Executor made the already massive Star Destroyers look puny, its menacing angular lines making it look like an enormous arrowhead. It was practically a mobile city, and though Luke had been expecting backup, he realized that the Emperor's flagship didn't need any; it was almost a fleet's worth of firepower by itself.

"Cut the chatter, Red Two," Red Leader said. "All wings, switch on your deflectors, double front. Remember, our job is to protect the bombers and make sure they get a clear run to the engines."

The rest of Red Squadron acknowledged, and so did Gold Squadron, which was made up of less maneuverable Y-wings. Though the X-wings had torpedoes, Y-wings could hold several more, and thus had a greater chance of being able to land crippling shots on the Super Star Destroyer's engines.

"We're coming up on the outer shields," Red Leader said. "Get ready, boys."


Admiral Firmus Piett, still trying to get used to his new position, stood in front of the bridge viewports, watching the tiny specks of light that were the Rebel fighters draw closer. "How much longer to turbolaser range of the moon?" he asked.

"Eighteen minutes," an officer reported. "Lord Vader reports all fighter wings are ready, and he is launching now."

Piett frowned to himself; it was far too risky for the Emperor himself to be flying around in a TIE fighter, but there was no use telling him that. Emperor Skywalker had always been an excellent pilot, and he often fought on the front lines in space as well as on land, just as he had in the Clone Wars. You had to respect a leader who was willing to put himself in as much danger as the men he commanded, Piett thought. That was probably why the 501st received so many transfer requests; everyone wanted to fight alongside Darth Vader. A posting on his flagship was considered a reward for excellent service.

Piett frowned again. How had Ozzel managed to get himself appointed as the Executor's commander, anyway? He was hardly the kind of officer Vader preferred to have around. But, he thought, even the Emperor had to make concessions to the bureaucrats sometimes. Ozzel was a very well-connected man, so Vader had likely given him the position to appease one of the data-pushers who ran his Empire while he commanded the military. That was one thing still left over from the old Republic, at least; even as powerful a man as Lord Vader couldn't run everything himself, and thus the bureaucrats had gotten themselves a significant amount of power over the years.

But, Piett thought as he asked for another status update, he'd been performing many of the duties Ozzel should have doing himself for the last year, anyway, so it was about time he'd been promoted. There had actually been a betting pool among some of the junior officers about how long it would take for Ozzel to irritate Lord Vader enough to get himself either terminated or killed. Piett had gotten wind of it and had formally disapproved, but had informally won two hundred credits.

As the Rebel fighters drew closer, Admiral Piett purged the last of the unrelated thoughts from his mind and concentrated on strategy. Contrary to Ozzel's boasting, ships that small actually were a threat to the massive Executor, since they were small enough to evade the heavy weapons. But that was why Lord Vader was out there with the fighter wings; the Sith Master had realized his flagship's limitations and had planned accordingly.

Proud to be serving under such a man, Piett resolved to prove himself worthy of his recent promotion and earn Lord Vader's respect by reaching the Rebel base as quickly as possible and preventing any of them from escaping. He would leave the fighters to the Imperial pilots. Two squadrons of terrorists were no match for the Empire's finest.


"Red Five, take Reds Two and Three and escort Golds Eight and Nine to the starboard rear shield projectors. Watch out for turbolasers."

"Acknowledged, Red Leader," Luke said. He tilted his stick off to the side, and he, Wedge, and Biggs peeled off from the main group, falling into formation above two Y-wings. The endless blue hull of the Executor flashed past underneath them, a deadly green rain of turbolaser fire adding to the obstacles they had to dodge.

"Try to keep low to the hull," Luke said. "It'll make us harder to hit."

"You got it, boss," Wedge said, swooping his X-wing among the protrusions on the hull of the Empire's largest ship.

Biggs and the Y-wings followed suit, and Luke hung back to provide cover for the rest of his squad. He kept his senses alert, watching for enemy fighters. General Dodonna had alerted them to multiple launches a few minutes ago, and Luke had been expecting TIE fighters to come screaming at them ever since.

"Beginning attack run on port target," Gold Seven transmitted on the Alliance frequency.

"We've got your back," Gold Leader, -Han Solo in the Falcon- responded. "Red Squadron, watch out for TIEs. We've got three squadrons on our scopes, and they're splitting up to engage."

"I see them," Red Leader responded. "Coming in at two-ten. Reds Four and Six with me, Seven and Nine with Golds Three and Five."

The various pilots acknowledged orders, and Luke glanced up at them as they split off to engage the specks of the approaching Imperial fighters. The larger shape of the Millennium Falcon moved just as swiftly as any X-wing, dodging turbolaser fire as its turrets shot back at the gun emplacements.

"Three hundred meters to target," Gold Eight said to Luke.

"Get ready," Luke said to Biggs and Wedge. "We've got TIEs at ten. Wedge, watch the bombers. Me and Biggs will take the fighters."

"Gotcha, Luke," Biggs responded. "Here we go!"

Biggs split off and fired at the approaching TIE fighters, deadly orange bursts of laser fire streaming from the wingtips of his fighter. Luke lined up his own shot and fired, lasers raining from his own fighter at the blocky shape of the closest TIE.

The center TIE in the enemy formation fired green bolts back at Luke, and the young Jedi rolled his fighter to the left to avoid them, shooting back as soon as he finished his roll. The TIE also dodged, but not quickly enough, and a few of Luke's shots peppered his port solar panel. His maneuvering capability damaged, the TIE tried to correct his turn, but overcompensated and spun into the fighter closest to him in the formation. Both Imperials vanished in a sudden bright fireball, but their comrades flew through it, shooting back at Luke and Biggs.

Biggs absorbed the first few shots with his shields as he lined up, and with a quick firing pattern, he picked off a TIE fighter as Luke destroyed another.

"Hey, boss, we could use a little help over here," Wedge said, and Luke looked in his direction to see another flight of TIEs moving toward the bombers.

Spinning his agile fighter into position, Luke fired rapidly at the Imperial fighters, succeeding in blowing a solar panel right off the one on the far right edge. Behind him, another explosion flashed as Biggs destroyed the last TIE in that flight, and his X-wing quickly raced into position next to Luke.

"Watch out, Red Six!" Red Four's voice shouted over the comm. Red Six's only reply was a quick scream that suddenly cut off as his comm went dead.

Luke caught the bright flash of the explosion out of the corner of his eye, and his jaw set determinedly as he approached the new series of fighters. Fire lanced out from his wingtips, joined a second later by more lasers from Biggs, and ahead of them, Wedge fired, also. The orange bolts met and crossed just in front of the Imperial formation, and two of the ships were unable to avoid, detonating violently.

The remaining TIEs branched off to try and engage the Rebels separately, and Wedge spun his fighter in a tight corkscrew to avoid his opponent's first salvo. Biggs latched onto another fighter like a mynock on a power cable and chased him right into the Executor's hull, firing incessantly and providing no avenues of escape.

Luke pulled his fighter up in a quick twisting loop as another TIE fighter roared past beneath him, and he emerged from his loop right on the Imperial fighter's tail. The enemy pilot tried to swerve to avoid, but Luke matched his motions exactly, firing as quickly as his lasers allowed. The TIE vanished in a blinding fireball a moment later.

Off in the distance, Rebels and Imperials continued to destroy each other, flaring up like tiny novas as heavy blasters and torpedoes found their targets. The Millennium Falcon was just barely distinguishable from all the other specks of light, swooping through frantic maneuvers as it tried to provide cover for the other Rebel ships.

"One hundred meters to target," Gold Eight said. "We need some cover, Reds."

"I got it," Biggs said, swooping in with wings blazing to take out a turbolaser emplacement in the bombers' way.

Luke angled his fighter to join his friend, readying his own weapons.


Darth Vader lined up a Rebel fighter in his scopes and fired repeatedly, his green lasers slicing right through its top right wing. The Rebel spun out of control and crashed into a weapons tower, destroying both the turbolasers and himself.

"Close up formation," he said to his wingmen, accelerating. His TIE Advanced, a heavily modified version of the normal Imperial fighter, roared in response, pressing him back against his chair.

His breathing, filtered by his flight helmet, was deep and raspy in his ears, but unhurried, his focus locked with laser precision on his next target, a Y-wing bomber.

Vader did not use computer targeting systems, aiming manually, but an outside observer would not guess this as his shots relentlessly peppered the bomber with mechanical precision, driving it closer to the hull of the flagship. The Rebel pilot tried to avoid, but Vader hit him too many times in quick succession, and his ship succumbed to the Dark Lord's fire, exploding.

An X-wing suddenly swerved and accelerated to full burn, streaking right for Vader's TIE with all four laser cannons blazing. Vader simply adjusted his controls slightly so that the fire passed within centimeters of his hull and calmly fired back, his bolts intersecting a meter in front of the X-wing's cockpit before impacting and killing the pilot instantly.

Another Rebel fighter whose shields were in slightly better condition tried the same tactic on Vader's starboard wingman, and he managed to deflect the Imperial pilot's first few bolts, but as soon as Vader noticed one of the shots slipping past, he quickly angled his own TIE and sent a bolt right through the X-wing's top right engine. It failed and flared out, destroying the other engine and most of the wing, and the Rebel was unable to maneuver quickly enough to avoid the lethal fire from Vader's other wingman, who destroyed the ship with a flurry of bolts.

"Good shot," Vader said, already moving on to his next target.


"Ten minutes to turbolaser range," an Alliance technician said to Leia.

"The last transport is fifteen minutes from being able to take off," Dodonna said quietly. "The first still hasn't gone to hyperspace."

Leia sighed grimly. "We're not going to make it."


-/\-


Author's Note: Thanks to Silverwolf05 for looking this chapter and the next over. It's always a good idea to have somebody else read through your writing before you post it, at least in my experience. Chapter 8 will be up the day after tomorrow, since I have a little bit of extra work to do on that one. Thanks for reading!