Have no fear, Grubkiller is here.
Hey guys, this is part two of this story.
Please enjoy.
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Hydian Borderlands Region, Neutral space.
On the edge of the galaxy's spiral arms, just rim-ward of the Tion Cluster, a flight of New Republic X-wings were on a routine patrol of neutral space, on the lookout for any Imperial trespassers.
For the most part, the ceasefire between the Empire and the New Republic held. But once in a while a renegade warlord will illegally cross the border and attack a New Republic outpost.
But recently, with the loss of an entire task force, New Republic security was cranked up to eleven. If the Empire was planning something big, then the Republic military had to be ready for it.
To the veteran pilots of Rogue Squadron, war was hell. But what they were doing now was just boring as hell.
"I don't want to complain," Derek 'Hobbie' Klivian started, "But-"
"-You will anyway," Wes Janson finished over the intercom.
Hobbie rolled his eyes in response to his smart aleck wingman. "Ha ha, very funny. But seriously, what are we looking for out here in neutral space?"
"We've been getting reports of deep-space raids for the last two months, mostly on civilian shipping. We thought it was pirate raids, but survivors report that they were TIE fighters that attacked. And they didn't have a mother-ship to report to." Wedge Antilles responded.
"But, how can that be if they're short range fighters?" Hobbie asked.
"We don't know for sure, that's why it's called recon." Wes said.
"Oh yes, I'm well aware of the ramifications: The Brass and the politicians get scared over nothing, and they cut our shore leave to go on boring recon missions." Hobbie said.
"The gospel according to Hobbie," Wes joked.
"Alright, cut the chatter." Wedge ordered. "Look guys, I don't like having shore leave cut either. But we've got a job to do. We don't know what's been going on, but we lost a whole task force recently and we don't even know why, or how. So let's stay focused and get on with doing our jobs."
The three pilots continued flying around for about twenty minutes, scanning every grid of this sector to see if they can spot anything out of the ordinary.
Suddenly, their scanners started beeping rapidly.
"I've got something on long-range scanners." Wes said. "It looks like we've got twenty fighter-sized contacts, heading our way."
"Alright, Wes, Hobbie, form up on me, and lock S-foils to attack position." Wedge ordered before he switched his comlink to the other sub-groups of the squadron. "Rogue Squadron, rally on us. We've got multiple contacts heading our way, and we're going to give them a warm welcoming."
Group Captain Klick led his squadron of TIE intercepters into the edge of the neutral space on a mission to the Mon Cala system. The clone pilot and veteran of the Clone Wars actually fought there under the command of Generals Kit Fisto and Anakin Skywalker, back when the Jedi were the leaders of the Republic armies, before the Empire.
But since those old days, things had changed, and now he was coming back in order to bring it back under the Empire's control, once and for all.
The Mon Calamari, and their Quarren neighbors have been helping the rebels by supplying them with capital ships to feed their ever-growing navy, so destroying them would have to happen if the Empire was to ever truly destroy the rebels. The planet was actually scheduled to be destroyed by the 2nd Death Star once it was completed.
But with the Death Star gone, the Empire would have to use more conventional means.
They were just on their way to the system on their scouting mission, when they were intercepted - quite unexpectedly - by the crack pilots of Rogue Squadron.
It was approximately the moment that R4-G7 squalled a proximity alarm though his X-wing's sensor panel and his HUD lit up with image codes for twenty TIE Interceptors on his tail that Lieutenant Derek 'Hobbie' Klivian, late of the Rebel Alliance, currently of the New Republic, began to suspect that Commander Antilles's brilliant plan to intercept them had never been brilliant at all.
Not even a little, and he said so. In no uncertain terms. Stripped of its blistering profanity, his comment was, "Wedge? This was a stupid idea. You hear me? Stupid, stupid, stu- YOW-!
His exclamation was a product of multiple cannon hits that disintegrated his right dorsal cannon and most of the extended wing it had been attached to. This kicked his fighter into a tumble that he fought with both hands to yoke and both feet kicking attitude jets and almost had under control the pair of the TIE interceptors closest on his tail blossomed into expanding spheres of flame and debris fragments. The twin shock fronts overtook him at exactly the wrong instant and sent him flipping end-over-end straight at another Interceptor formation streaking toward him head-on. Then tail-on, then head-on again, and so forth.
His ship's comlink crackled as Wedge Antilles's fighter flashed past him close enough that he could see the grin on his face. "That's 'stupid idea, sir', to you Lieutenant."
"I suppose you think that's funny."
"Well, if he doesn't," put in Wes Janson, Hobbie's wingman, "I sure do."
"When I want your opinion, Janson, I'll dust your ship and scan for it in the wreckage." The skewed whirl of stars around his cockpit gave his stomach a yank that threatened to make the slab of smoked terrafin loin he'd had for breakfast violently reemerge. Struggling grimly with the controls, he managed to angle his ship's whirl just a hair, which let him twitch his ship's nose toward the four pursuing marauders as he spun. Red fire lashed from his three surviving cannons, and the Interceptors's formation split open like an overripe snekfruit.
Hobbie only dusted one with the cannons, but the pair of proximity-fused flechette torpedoes he had thoughtfully triggered at the same time flared in diverging arcs to intercept the enemy fighters; these torpedo arcs terminated in spectacilar explosions that cracked the three remaining Interceptors like rotten snuffle eggs.
"Now, that was satisfying," he said, still fighting his controls to stabilize the crippled X-wing. "Eyeball shuffle!"
'Boy, I've got to stop thinking about food', he thought to himself.
"Better watch it, Hobbie - keep that up, and somebody might start to think you can fly that thing."
"Are you in this fight, Janson? Or are you just gonna hang back and smirk while I do all the heavy lifting?"
"Haven't decided yet." Wes Janson's X-wing came out of nowhere, streaking in a tight bank across Hobbie's subjective vertical. "Maybe I can lend a hand. Or, say, a couple torps."
Two brilliant blue stars leapt from Janson's torpedo tubes and streaked for the oncoming TIEs.
"Uh, Wes?" Hobbie said, flinching. "Those weren't the new flechette torps, were they?"
"Sure. What else?"
"Have you noticed that I'm currently having just a little trouble maneuvering?"
"What do you mean?" Janson asked as though honestly puzzled. Then, after a second spent watching Hobbie's ship tumbling helplessly directly toward his torpedoes' target, he said, "Oh. Uh . . . sorry?"
The flechette torpedoes carried by Rogue Squadron had been designed and built specifically for this operation. TIE interceptors were bad enough, being the Empire's premier space-superiority fighter. It was faster and more maneuverable than the standard TIE. But these latest Imperial raids indicated that they were given a shield generator, upgraded weapons, concussion missiles, and possibly a hyperdrive, making it equal or above the T-65s flown by the Rogues.
But they weren't armed with genetic shiedling. So each flechette torpedo had been loaded with thousands of tiny jagged bits of durasteel, packed around a core of conventional explosive. On detonation, these tiny bits of metal became an expanding sphere of shrapnel; though traveling with respectable velocity of their own, they were most effective when set off in the path of oncoming TIE Interceptors and Defenders, because impact energy, after all, is determined by relative velocity. At star-fighter combat speeds, flying into a cloud of metal pellets could transform one's ship into a very, very expensive cheese grater.
The four oncoming Imperial fighters hit the flechette cloud and just . . . shredded. The power core of one fighter erupted, the explosion overtaking the other three.
And now, the unfortunate Lieutenant Klivian was now tumbling directly toward a miniature plasma nebula that blazed with enough hard radiation to cook him like a bantha steak on an obsidian fry-rock at double noon on Tatooine.
"You're not gonna make it, Hobbie," Janson called. "Punch out."
"Oh, you'd like that, wouldn't you?" Hobbie snarled under his breath, still struggling grimly with the X-wing's controls. The fighter's tumble began to slow. "I've got this, Wes!"
"No, you don't! Punch out, Hobbie - PUNCH OUT!"
"I've got it I'm gonna make it! I'm gonna-" He was interrupted by the final flip of his X-wing, which brought his nose into line with the sight of the leading edge of the spherical debris field expanding toward him at a respectable fraction of light speed, and Hobbie Klivian, acknowledged master of both profanity and obscenity, human and otherwise, not to mention casual vulgarities from a dozen species and hundreds of star systems, found he had nothing to say except, "Aw, nuts."
He stood the X-wing on its tail, sub-lights blasting for a tangent, but he had learned long ago that of all the Rogues, he was the one who should no better than to trust his luck. He reached for the eject trigger.
But when he couldn't feel for it, he looked to his left and found a long jagged piece of shrapnel piercing through the cockpit, causing atmosphere to vent. The metal shard had taken out the controls, including the eject trigger. It also took out his left hand.
He glared at his vacant wrist with more annoyance than shock or panic; instead of blood or cauterized flesh, his wrist jetted only sparks and smoke from overheated servomotors. He hadn't had a real left arm since the Battle of Hoth, when he crashed his speeder into an AT-AT walker's neck, severing it.
Oh, this sucks, he thought as he put on his oxygen mask and sealed his suit to protect himself from the vacuum, and the subzero temperatures. After everything he had survived in the Galactic Civil War, he was about to be killed by a minor equipment malfunction. He amended his previous thouhgt: This really sucks.
Hobbie didn't bother to say it out loud, because there wasn't enough air in his cockpit to carry the sound.
There being no other no other useful thing he could do with his severed left wrist, so he jammed it through the hole above him and sealed the cockpit.
He was about to talk to his astromech droid to review the damage, only to look over his shoulder to find that his droid's head had been ripped off.
He sighed. "Okay, ejection failure. And astromech damaged. Crippled here," he said into the comm. "Awaiting manual pickup."
"Little busy right now, Hobbie. We'll get to you after we dust these TIEs."
"Take your time. I'm not going anywhere. Except, y'know, that-away. Slowly. Real slowly."
Rogue Squadron began to chase off the remaining TIEs. They started this battle off outnumbered 20 to 12. Now they outnumbered the enemy 9 to 4. These TIEs were tough, but were no match for the veteran pilots of Rogue Squadron.
The four remaining TIEs began to retreat, and some of the Rogues chased after them.
"We've got those 'squints' on the run," one of the pilots called out.
"Nice work Rogues. As soon as you splash those TIEs, we'll pick up Hobbie, and head for the rendez-" Wedge said before he was interrupted by his scanners. He looked at them and saw that a lot of large ships were coming out of hyperspace. "Heads up guys, we've got multiple contacts coming right towards us."
No sooner had Wedge finished his sentence than a fleet of Star Destroyers, escorts, and support ships came out of hyperspace.
"Oh, stang!"
"Contacts confirmed."
"They've got an Interdictor cruisers. We won't be able to jump to light speed. What are your orders, Lead?"
"Send a distress signal to the Defiance. We'll have to hold them off until the fleet arrives. Form up on me."
The men and women of Rogue Squadron formed up on Wedge and flew straight into the Imperial fleet.
The Star Destroyers unleashed a maelstrom of firepower on the Republic fighters. Two more of Wedge's pilots were shot down, their screams turning into static in the blink of an eye.
But when the Rogues were close enough, they unleashed a volley of torpedoes at the oncoming Imperial ships, TIE fighters broke off, and Imperial targeting computers were thrown off by the additional contacts. Some TIE fighters were destroyed by the subsequent chain of explosions, one of which vaporized a Gozanti-class freighter and damaged a light cruiser. One of the Interdictors also took a direct hit to one of their gravity generators.
The Imperial fleet ceased fire when the Rogues were mixed in with their fleet, not wanting to cause friendly fire incidents. The TIEs chased the Rogues around the large capital ships like a swarm of angry bees.
Such was the daring and bravery of the best pilots in the New Republic.
Later on, the 2nd fleet of the New Republic Navy jumped put of hyperspace and began to exchange fire with the Imperial fleet. But after exchanging fire for just a few minutes, the Imperial fleet jumped into hyperspace, presumably to its main target. And if their trajectory was right, then their target represented a major threat to the New Republic.
Hobbie spent the rest of the battle hoping for a bit of help from the Force when Wedge sent out the pickup detail. Please, he prayed silently, please lit it be Tycho. Or Nin, or Strando. Anyone but Janson.
He continued this plea as a sort of meditation, kind of the way Luke would talk about this stuff: he closed his eyes and visualized Wedge himself showing up to tow his X-wing back to the fleet. After a while, he found this image unconvincing - somehow he was never that lucky - and so he cycled through the other Rogues, and when those began to bore him, he decided it'd be Luke himself. Or Leia. Or, say, Wynssa Starflare, who always managed to look absolutely stellar as the strong, independent damsel-sometimes-in-distress in those pre-war Imperial holodramas, because, y'know, as long as he was imagining something that was never gonna happen, he might as well make it entertaining.
It turned out to be entertaining enough that he managed to pass the balance of the battle drifting off to sleep with a smile on his smile lasted right up to the point where a particularly brilliant flash stabbed through his eyelids and he awoke, glumly certain that whatever had exploded right next to his ship was finally about to snuff him. But then there came another flash, and another, and with painful twist of his body he was able to see Wes Janson's fighter cruising alongside, only meters away. He was able to see the handheld imager Janson had pressed against his cockpit's canopy, with which Janson continued to snap picture after picture.
Hobbie closed his eyes again. He would have preferred the explosion.
"Just had to get a few shots." Janson's grin was positively wicked. "You look like some kind of wierd cross between a star-fighter pilot and a Batavian gumplucker."
Hobbie shook his head exhaustedly; dealing with Janson's pathetic excuse for a sense of humor always made him tired. "Wes, I don't even know what that is."
"Sure you do, Hobbie. A starfighter pilot is a guy who flies an X-wing without getting blown up. Check the Basic Dictionary. Though I can understand how you'd get confused."
"No, I mean the-" Hobbie bit his lip hard enough that he tasted blood "Um, Wes?"
"Yeah, buddy?"
"Have I told you today how much I really, really hate you?"
"Oh sure - your lips say 'I hate you,' but your eyes say-"
"That someday I'll murder you in your sleep?"
Janson chuckled. "More or less."
"What'd I miss out there?"
There was a pause, and then a sigh. "The TIEs were just an advance force. A huge Imperial fleet just dropped out of hyperspace, and then Ackbar's fleet came in and drove 'em off. Avan and Feylis ejected clean, but Anj and Ooryl were vaporized." Wes said, with a serious tone . . . for once. "Look, why don't you get some rest, it'll take me a while to this tow cable attached."
"Suits me just fine," Hobbie said, closing his eyes again. "I have this dream I really want to get back to . . ."
RSV Defiance, flagship of the 2nd Fleet, near Mon Cala.
"Your pilots performed admirably, Commander Antilles. We weren't expecting an Imperial fleet to be operating in this sector, and you were able to hold your own" Fleet Admiral Gial Ackbar, of the New Republic Navy, nodded grave approval toward the flickering bluish holo-form of Wedge Antilles that hovered a few inches above his console. "Did you suffer any casualties?"
"Five of my pilots were shot down, but we managed to recover three of them. One of them - Lt. Klivian - needs a new hand . . ."
Ackbar nodded. "Very well."
"Sir, why were they so quick to leave?"
"The Empire has been fractured, and low on resources, and its supply lines are disorganized. They can't afford long drawn out fights like they used to. They must've been saving their energy for their next objective."
"What is their objective, Admiral?"
Ackbar looked at one of his officers, who gave him the report. He looked it over, and found the trajectory of the Imperial fleet, tracking to the planet . . .
His eyes widened, and he shook his head. "No!" He softly exclaimed.
"What is it sir?" One of his officers asked.
"Mon Cala. The Imperial fleet is heading for Mon Cala."
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Well folks, that was part 2.
It was originally going to be longer, but I decided to move the other part to next chapter.
I hope you're enjoying the story so far.
Until next time, this is Grubkiller, over and out.