"We're almost out of the atmosphere, Chewie.", Han Solo informed his co-pilot sitting next to him in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon.

Chewbacca grumbled in agreement as he feverishly adjusted buttons all over his own control panel.

"Get ready to accelerate towards his ship.", Han continued.

The situation they were in currently was one of the most dire that he could ever recall, but it still didn't stop him from getting a rush of adrenaline and a smile on his face when he brought the Falcon's systems online. Just like riding a hoverbike, he thought when he grabbed the yoke for the first time in almost ten years. When he finally told Chewbacca to fire the engines right after takeoff it felt briefly like he was a young man again bouncing around the galaxy with no plans and no cares.

This was no carefree adventure, however, he had to remind himself. His daughter's life along with what could be millions more down on the surface of Nuldarra was riding on whether they could successfully complete this dangerous mission to disable the enemy ships in orbit.

"How much time we got?", the Admiral asked

BB-8 chirped out a response from his cylindrical pedestal that Finn quickly translated.

"We're looking at forty-one minutes.", he said. "That's not a lot of time to get on that ship and find her"

Han said nothing as he adjusted his headset communications device.

"How are we going to get on that ship anyway?", the young man asked

The droid let out a whistle soon thereafter and everyone in the cockpit knew by the pitch that he wanted to know exactly the same thing.

"We're going to cut through the hull and walk on.", Han said matter-of-factly.

The cockpit went awkwardly silent for a few seconds before Finn spoke again

"Ok, now you think you could tell us the real plan?", he asked

Again, his question went unanswered by the Admiral, but this time Chewbacca stopped his activity to turn his head about and bark out a few short syllables. Finn didn't speak any Wookie, but he immediately got the point. Shut your mouth, keep your eyes open and you'll know the plan soon enough. He decided that he was going to do just that. No more questions.

Just then some garbled, frantic sounding communications came across the ships comm system. It was hard to make out exactly what was being said through the static and interference, but Han was sure he heard the word drones.

"Drones?", he said to Chewbacca. "What the hell does that mean?"

The Wookie shrugged his shoulders indicating that he was as unclear as his co-pilot.

"Poe, are you getting this chatter?", Han asked his escort squad leader.

"Yes, Sir.", Poe Dameron replied. "We're all hearing it. It's a frequency that the Viper squadron uses. They took off ahead of us so they've been up there longer. I'll see if I can get a better reading."

"No", Han replied. "I'll send a quick message to Leia and see what she knows. We all need to focus on getting to the flagship."

"Form up the squadron tighter around us and get ready to accelerate.", he continued. "I don't want them to see us coming at all. They have to think it's just a group of fighters making an attack run."

"Copy, Admiral.", the squad commander confirmed. "We'll get you there."


As they cleared the Nuldarra atmosphere, Poe Dameron was able to clearly see out of the windows of his X-wing fighter. He looked towards the area where they were heading to survey the already raging battle. Although they were too far away to make out details, the enemy armada was visible off in the distance along with the cruisers that had left the mountainside fortress just moments ago. The New Republic cruiser Ackbar continued to drift without power off to the side of the battle. He could also make out colored laser blasts and explosions not only from the fighters on both sides that had already engaged, but also from all of the capital ships' turrets. It was certainly an intense scene that they were heading full throttle into.

"Gray squadron, lock S-foils in attack position.", Poe Dameron belayed to his ten pilots that were flanking the Millennium Falcon.

The callback from Gray One through Gray Ten all came in succession as the fighter's wings separated to form to iconic X shape that they were named after.

"Here we go.", Poe exclaimed as the entire squadron accelerated in unison towards the flagship of the armada, doing their best to obscure their true mission, the successful approach of the Corellian freighter.

Within a few seconds, the squadron commander's sensors lit up. Blips appeared on the top of his the screen coming out of the front edge of the flagship. As expected they had launched fighters to meet his incoming squadron. He pressed a button on his panel to get better view of what his group would have to face. It looked like seven fighters were approaching rapidly but their design was strange, something that Poe had never seen before. They looked like pyramids with a hexagonal base, with none of them having any detail. They almost looked like inanimate projectiles that were shot out of a magnetic rail-cannon. Regardless, the ships were heading right at them at tremendous speed.

"We have incoming, Sir.", said Gray Nine over the comm.

"I see them.", Poe responded. "Eight of them. Let's look to take them out as cleanly as possible so we aren't slowed down much. I don't want us to have to deviate from our path"

The enemy fighters continued pressing forward as if they weren't outnumbered which made Poe a little bit uneasy. Do they know what we are trying to hide?, he thought. Is this a suicide run?

Before he could ponder any further, all eight of the incoming craft seemed to blow apart as if they were blasted by some unseen force. Instead of debris, though, each of them ejected six smaller craft that fanned out to form what looked like mini squadrons of ships around each of the actual fighters themselves and all of them opened fire on Gray squadron simultaneously in an unexpected hailstorm of destruction.


Chewbacca roared as the space outside the Falcon's cockpit exploded into chaos.

"I know, Chewie. I saw it.", Han replied. "Now we know what drones meant."

His co-pilot barked back, clearly not amused.

"We have an incoming transmission from Nuldarra.", Finn exclaimed as the Falcon rocked slightly from an exterior explosion. "Putting it on speaker."

"Han", came the voice of his wife. "Their fighters are ripping our squadrons apart. They have more firepower than we thought."

"Yeah, we're right in the middle of it.", he replied.

"You have to get to the flagship now.", she commanded. "We can't spare Poe's squadron much longer. They need to get into the fight to help protect the bombers for their runs. Our cruisers aren't as effective as we'd hoped."

"Ok….we're pressing as hard as we can.", Han said. "We'll be there in a few short minutes."

"Hurry." Leia pleaded as the transmission ended.

"Poe, what's your status?", Han barked into his headset.

"We're taking heavy fire from these fighters.", the pilot informed him. "I've lost one of my guys, but we're still on course. I doubt they've been able to see you yet."

"Give them everything you have and don't slow down." The Admiral ordered. "We'll be at the target in ninety seconds. When we get there, I need your squadron to peel off and haul ass back to escort the bombers. And take out as many of those fighters as you can as you join the rest of the fleet. I'd wager that if you get the larger ones, the drones will be dead in the water."

"Copy that Admiral", Poe replied. "We'll hold formation till the last second then get those bombers to their targets."

"Good luck.", Han said as the conversation ended. He remembered, however, that someone had once informed him that in his experience there was no such thing as luck.

"You ready to do this again?", he said to Chewbacca.

Chewbacca nodded and growled in agreement. The moment of truth was just about upon them.