Sooooo this is a long chapter...and pretty much 100% fight scene. YYYYYup...Have fun with this!
I apologize if this seems disjointed, I have been slowly writing this over the course of an entire school semester. Normally I'd finish these chapters in the same stretch of time to avoid that disjointed affect, but this was a particularly crazy semester, and I didn't have time for any personal writing, only schoolwork. Urg.
But now I'm on winter break, so you should get some more chapters-Yaaaaayyy! It might still be slow because I think I want to tinker with my concept of Luke's story arc before I move forward, just so I have more solid footing for his part of the story before I continue.
ANYWAY!
PPPPPPPlease review, I love your reviews, your reviews are brain and muse food I love to partake in :D :D They keep me writing and make my day!
Enjoy!
Zelina trailed near the back of the group of X-Wings since she didn't belong to any one squad, and she wanted to take these last few seconds to readjust to being in a fighter. The ship swayed from side to side, tilting, accelerating, slowing down—just basic things to help her acclimate.
The X-Wings rounded the other side of Yavin where the Death Star had come out of hyperspace, and Zelina's attention snapped away from her jittery actions and idle thoughts back to the present and what was outside the numbing haze she'd allowed to linger over her mind to try and hold back the nerves.
Now she felt the tension, the hum of dread and fear that seemed to cloister around almost every X-Wing like a dark nebula. Their anxiety only made her hand tremble again on the controls, a slight shudder in her ship's flight mirroring the action.
"All links report in."
Zelina listened to the Red Squadron number off in no particular order, making a mental note that Luke's was Red Five. She wanted to keep tabs on him, have some way to keep track of him in the fight, but she had no astromech to give that kind of a command to.
Keeping track of him in the Force would have to be enough.
"Red Rogue, standing by," Zelina announced after she'd heard Luke's call sign, tentatively reaching out to him in the Force to start keeping tabs on the young Skywalker. Considering her lack of experience flying X-Wings, she'd made a request that she not be put in any squads that would be doing trench runs, for everyone's sake. Instead, she wanted to help cover those that were going to try to make the one in a million shot—she felt that was where she'd be more useful.
And she was Red Rogue because she was also acting on her own judgments, not on the directions of the Red Leader. No, she didn't have extensive knowledge in an X-Wing, but she knew what she was doing in a firefight, and had always flown under her own directions. She was the one who knew her true capabilities—the only one here who knew what she could do in a cockpit once she tapped into the Force.
The Death Star loomed into Zelina's view, and she felt a quiet chill seep into her insides at the sight. They had fifteen minutes to destroy the station—fifteen minutes before Yavin 4 was within firing range. Fifteen minutes before the rebel base and every other living being on that moon was destroyed.
Fifteen minutes before Zelina failed to protect one of the only two members of Anakin's family that was still alive, before she broke one of the most important promises he'd ever asked her to keep, again.
Zelina's grip tightened around the controls as her X-Wings S-foils shifted into attack position at her command, her gaze turning to cold steel as she glared out at the Death Star, an old fire sparked inside her and rapidly being stoked into a raging inferno.
She felt Luke sense the shift inside her, felt his concern for her through the Force, but she didn't spare any attention for his reaction.
She was up here for two reasons: to protect Luke in the fight, and protect Leia on the ground.
"Look at the size of that thing!" one of the other pilot's exclaimed over the communications.
"Cut the chatter Red Two," Red Leader admonished sharply. "Accelerate to attack speed."
Zelina didn't hesitate to comply, putting on a burst of speed that easily helped her catch up to the front lines of X-Wings as they collectively raced towards the Death Star like a small but angry swarm descending on an enemy hive.
The flight leaders shared a brief exchange over who would be making the first attempt at firing on the trench, something Zelina largely ignored except for the bit about Gold Leader being the one to make the first run. Which meant all of Red Squadron was the distraction for now.
As Zelina hit top speeds, she angled the fighter so it would pull up at the last second for a fast and low run along the surface of the Death Star, keeping her eyes peeled for the defenses that would be firing at them any moment now. She almost botched the last second pull up, still trying to run the X-Wing like an Interceptor, berating herself mentally one more time before her focus sharpened again.
For the first time in over twenty years, she tapped into the Force to strengthen her instincts and guide her actions, letting the old battle companion seep into every fiber of her being.
Towers erupted into fire everywhere an X-Wing came into targeting range, green blasts piercing the void of space as the rebel pilots began to weave around the fire. Zelina focused on the first source of enemy fire that was within her range, thumbs eagerly playing with a breath of pressure against the trigger, not yet enough to start firing but just enough that as soon as her instincts said yes—
Red spewed from her X-Wing, landing a direct, Force-guided hit on the gun and gunners that were sheltered just under the Death Star's shell, a fiery explosion and the sudden silence from the defensive weapon her confirmation that she'd scored a direct hit.
"Nice shot, Red Rogue."
"It's just one of many, Red Leader, don't start praising me yet," Zelina returned, already angling her X-Wing towards another target. She did a quick check on Luke, noting in the back of her mind that he was just as focused as she was—though far more tense—and was attacking surface defenses like she was.
Her starboard side running parallel to the Death Star's surface, Zelina swung around to take aim at an outward tower that had directed it's fire towards her seconds before she'd destroyed the other gun, letting the Force guide her as she dodged the blasts headed her way as she blasted straight towards the tower. When she opened fire, it took a few hits for the tower to explode, with Zelina angling her X-Wing away a second before the explosion, allowing her to miss flying straight through the fireball.
I need to see where Gold Leader is making his attack run. That way I can start taking out towers closer to our objective—destroying a bunch of defenses in random spots of this battle station is pointless in the long run unless I'm destroying defenses that's an obstacle for what we're trying to do.
As the analysis flashed through her mind, Zelina was already angling the X-Wing towards where she was reading some of the other Rebellion pilots on her scopes. There was a slight whine from the X-Wing as she tried to take too tight of a turn again, causing her to grimace and reprimand herself again, though she still was making a dash towards the trench they were making runs through.
"Luke, pull up!"
Zelina's attention suddenly snapped away from what she was doing as she heard Luke's name pop up over the radio chatter. Not only because it sounded like he was in a bad spot, but because someone had actually used his name.
A flash of panic went through her. Had he told someone, despite her warning?
"Are you all right?" the same voice inquired, and a suspicion took root in her mind. That voice sounded familiar…
"I got a little cooked, but I'm okay," Luke assured the other pilot. It eased some of Zelina's nerves for her to know he was fine, but he also seemed to be unaffected by the fact he'd been called by name. So it was someone he already knew, or he had indeed told someone when she wasn't around.
Deciding to trust him narrowed it down tremendously, and suddenly she had a suspect that matched the voice in her mind.
"Biggs?" she asked in surprise.
"Nice to see you're here, too, Miss Ahn," came Biggs' answer.
Zelina didn't keep the conversation going, knowing they needed to keep chatter that wasn't related to battle at, preferably, zero. Part of her wanted to admonish Biggs from using Luke's name, but the damage was already done. For some reason, Zelina felt exposed now that it was out there, knowing everyone at command and everyone in the fight now knew Luke was Red Five.
His name would spread. No matter what she did now, it was going to spread. They were officially on a timer for what they could do before the Empire found out who he was.
First they had to survive this assault. Worrying about Luke's identity and grilling Biggs about keeping Luke's name under wraps could come later.
The trench was within range, Zelina flying so close to the Death Star's surface she could see viewports. Some of the towers turned to take aim at her, and her grip tightened enough on the controls to give her a sense of pain in her hand. Dodging fire from more than two towers was far more difficult, and her body was rigid as she mentally reminded herself she was not flying an Interceptor over and over. She didn't have room for any margin of error now that it was the real thing.
Zelina barrel rolled the X-Wing in what felt like a painfully slow fashion, avoiding the blasts of the towers and managing to get one of the towers in her crosshairs at the end of her roll, opening fire and igniting another fiery explosion on her port side before she banked to starboard, coming around as sharply as she could on her starboard side as she gunned for the second tower, still dodging the fire of a third and now a fourth as she came within range of another tower.
Taking out the second tower, Zelina zipped over the trench Gold Leader was making his run through, aiming for one of the other towers firing at her. She'd been tuning out all of the chatter, focusing on what she was doing and keeping track of Luke in the back of her mind. However, as she worked on bringing another tower into her line of fire, she heard something that she needed to know.
"Squad Leaders…we've picked up a new group of signals," came a new voice, one that was originating from the Rebel Base instead of one of the fighters buzzing the Death Star's surface. "Enemy fighters, coming your way."
"My scopes negative, I don't see anything," Luke's puzzled voice announced over the coms.
"Pick up your visual scanning," Red Leader ordered.
A silence suddenly fell over the entire group of fighters as they all collectively started looking for enemy fighters. Zelina had to split her attention, since she had no one to watch her back and, as she took out the third tower that had been shooting at her, one more tower to take care of before she was clear enough to start searching. But she still needed to know if there were TIEs coming her way, which meant any prompting she got from the Force right now needed to be acted on instantly, without any hesitation.
"Here they come!" someone announced, and Zelina felt her focus broaden at the proclamation.
"This is where the fun begins," she murmured wistfully, attempting to keep her voice low enough the coms wouldn't pick up on her words, or at the very least if anyone heard anything it would only come across as a low hum.
A glancing shot along the side of her ship forced her to refocus on the task at hand. She instinctively shifted her course, trying to re-evaluate her approach on the final tower since it was already locked onto her.
She banked to her port side, purposely bringing herself closer to the tower at an almost alarming speed. Most likely she was going to end up flying straight through the explosion if she fired now, but at least the tower would no longer be a problem for her, and she could focus on the incoming TIE fighters.
A chill went down her spine, a clear warning that danger was fast approaching. Her focus shifted once more, eyes searching for a visual line of sight on the TIE that had to have decided to target her while her Force senses stretched out to give her a more accurate read of where her enemy was.
She couldn't see the TIE, but she could sense her tail, close behind and possibly seconds away from a target lock and certain kill shot.
That was something she couldn't allow.
Pulling back on the controls of her X-Wing, she started to climb upwards from the surface of the Death Star, putting on a burst of speed to give herself some distance between her X-Wing and the TIE. Turning to the Force for guidance on when she needed to act, Zelina waited several agonizingly long moments before she felt a faint pressure in the Force.
Instantly, Zelina let her speed plummet and angled her X-Wing just enough to make sure that as the TIE zipped past, it didn't collide with her craft. Once the startled TIE was in front of her, Zelina opened fire, feeling a tingle of satisfaction as the TIE exploded in front of her, with Zelina dipping back towards the surface of the Death Star to avoid the resulting fireball.
This was turning out far easier than she'd expected. With the way her simulations had gone, she had been a little concerned—
"Watch your back, Luke, watch your back!"
Focused on Luke once more, Zelina sought him out in the fight, pinpointing where the young Skywalker was in relation to her position. It didn't seem to be too far away from where she was at now, but either way, she didn't hesitate to immediately angle her ship in his direction and flash forward in a sudden sprint.
"I'm hit, but not bad. Artoo, see what you can do about it. Hang on back there," Luke announced, voice sounding like he was starting to stress.
"Red Five, where are you?" Red Leader asked. Zelina didn't ask, because she already knew—she could see him, too. There was a TIE flying fast and keeping nearly on top of Luke. She was surprised the TIE hadn't managed to get more than a scratch on Luke with how close it was.
She saw Luke try a few evasive maneuvers, but the TIE remained, and now Luke was openly stressed.
"I can't shake him!" Luke exclaimed.
"I've got you," Zelina returned in a calm, steady tone, watching her targeting computer as the TIE came into her cross hairs as she flew towards Luke from his starboard side. A few seconds later, she'd fired on the TIE before it could realize it was no longer chasing a lone straggler.
She heard a soft sigh of relief from Luke's end. "Thanks."
"It's my job," she said simply, even though her hands were easing up from a death grip she'd had on her controls as she guided her ship back towards the main action. The dogfights that had broken out with the arrival of the TIEs seemed to have sputtered to a stop, though Zelina noted that their numbers were significantly reduced to perhaps three teams that could make a run through the trench. And one of those teams were down there now.
She'd been so focused on what she was doing, she hadn't even realized the rebels were being picked off one by one around her while she played chicken with the guns to try and reduce the fire the trench runners would be under.
A somber air suddenly filled the cockpit the same time an unease started to rise inside her, the kind that also made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.
"The guns…they've stopped," someone from the Gold Team currently in the trench announced.
"You're about to have company," Zelina told them grimly, flying overhead and resuming her search for towers to destroy to ease up the pressure on the remaining rebels.
A cold darkness suddenly permeated the air around her, causing her breath to catch as a thick sheet of pain and hatred fell over them all. She noticed another X-Wing keeping on her port side, and quickly confirmed it was Luke.
"Is that—" he started to ask.
"It is. Keep your eyes open and your senses sharp."
Her grip was tightening on the controls again, tension building. How much longer did they have before the Death Star had a clear shot at Yavin IV? Before she failed in protecting yet another member of Anakin's family?
That thought brought a vehement defiance right to the front of her mind.
Not again.
Ignoring the fight for the time being and keeping a safe distance from the main conflict, Zelina took a moment to poke at the dark sider that had joined the fray. If they sensed her investigating them, they paid her no mind, instead solely focused…on the trench runners.
Zelina mouthed a curse, not wanting to cause any kind of panic by saying it out loud to be heard by the rest of the Rebels and Luke. She shifted to intersect, noting out of the corner of her eyes that Luke had left his position beside her after she'd answered his question to rejoin the main group.
Halfway there, a sudden volley of green pierced past her viewport, a nudge in the Force causing her to dip down towards the Death Star's surface instead of up into the shots. She rolled the X-Wing away from her attacker as far as she could without crashing into anything, followed by a sharp 180 so she could come at her attacker head on.
There were two of them ganging up on her, apparently deciding she was a threat that warranted the attention of more than one TIE. She was offended—they should have at least sent three.
Trying to ignore the fact that stray thought made her sound like Anakin, Zelina ground her teeth together, focusing on the task at hand as she turned her attention away from the darksider and instead found her two immediate threats in the Force. Now she wouldn't lose track of them if they dipped out of her range of vision. Charging the TIEs head on, Zelina opened a fresh volley of fire, meaning to scatter them and try to take on one before the other. They did separate as she opened fire, both weaving past and regrouping as soon as they had passed her.
So much for that idea, they weren't going to let her separate them.
She took a sharp turn to keep them from staying behind her, chewing back a curse and narrowly missing another volley of fire as the faster ships took advantage of the brief chance they had to fire at her.
She was going to need help.
"This is Red Rogue—I've got two stuck to me like leeches, could use a little help," she ground out, abruptly tilting her X-Wing sharply to port in an attempt to make the TIEs overshoot.
"Coming," she heard Luke's voice respond promptly, and within moments she felt Luke's presence draw near once again, his own volley of shots added to the mix and clipping one of the TIEs just enough to make them smoke. He sent her a gentle nudge in the Force, one she followed without hesitation, dropping down towards the Death Star's surface and pulling up swiftly at the last moment, the TIEs close behind her, and Luke staying near enough to be there at a moment's notice but not close enough to make the TIEs too antsy to fall for the bait. Her fingers flexed around the controls again, tension gathering in her shoulders as she waited for Luke's ready signal. While she waited, she kept her X-Wing close to the surface, close enough that a tremble could mean a fiery crash, hopefully making the TIEs focus more on avoiding a crash than taking shots.
With another nudge from Luke, Zelina sharply reduced her speed, barrel rolling to her starboard side and a little ways up from the Death Star's surface, causing the TIEs to slow down to avoid crashing into her and line up perfectly for Luke to swoop in and with a quick strafing run, managing to shoot down one of the TIEs and do some damage to the other one. By that point, Zelina had sped up and hooked back around, her remaining pursuer trying to put some distance between the two Force sensitives and itself. She let loose another volley of fire, scoring a few blasts along the sides of the TIE, which caused the ship to shake off its planned path and directly into a well-aimed shot from Luke.
"Thanks for the assist," Zelina told him as she angled back towards the main action, Luke flying past overhead.
"It's my job," Luke echoed back to her. The relief from the brief scrap's outcome was short lived, as Zelina turned her attention back to the main conflict to discover that the Gold Team had already been wiped out, and Red Leader was already taking two other ships into the trench.
"Luke, take Red Two and Three, hold up here, and wait for my signal to start your run," Red Leader called as soon as it was clear that he was no longer caught up in a spat with TIEs. Zelina grimaced to hear Red Leader using Luke's name, trying to muscle past her displeasure that her hopes to keep his name secret had already been so far derailed.
"Copy, Red Leader," Luke answered, his X-Wing swiftly leaving Zelina's position to meet up with the other two Rebels.
She'd lost track of the darksider. She could still sense their oppressive presence in the area, but she could not pin down their exact location. Perhaps her prodding them earlier had alerted them that they should shield their presence when they were trying to favor a stealth approach.
Since she didn't know where the darksider was, and she no longer had TIE's on her tail, Zelina turned her attention back to taking out the towers in the trench, coming close to the surface of the Death Star was she skimmed near the top of the trench looking for the towers. Green blasts fired at her, possibly thinking she was one of the trench runners coming in a little high, giving away the position of one of the problematic towers. Once she was closer to its position, she felt her heart flutter as she did something admittedly risky for her lack of experience piloting X-Wings.
Praying she could channel her inner Anakin, Zelina made a hard turn, purposely drifting the X-Wing along the surface of the Death Star over the trench and allowing herself a few extra seconds to get a well-placed shot to destroy the trench tower. Just as the tower was about to disappear from within range of her guns, and as Red Leader's squad swiftly started to approach the section of the trench she was drifting over, Zelina let loose three quick shots, one landing harmlessly in the trench, another glancing across the corner of the Death Star's surface, and the third hitting true and rewarding her with a beautiful explosion.
Her breath seemed to have left her as she got her X-Wing back under control, lifting partially above the surface to avoid crashing into the Death Star as she reoriented herself and made sure everything still seemed relatively all right after the sudden demanding move she'd put the X-Wing through. No one made a comment about her assist, but Zelina didn't mind—they only had a handful of minutes left to stop the Death Star, and they were all focused on saving Yavin rather than handing out praise.
Angling her speeder upwards to momentarily fly in open space as she reoriented herself and picked out her new target, Zelina momentarily tuned back into the chatter over the comms to make sure she knew what was happening in the battle. That cold presence was getting stronger…"
"Coming in point three five," Luke was warning the trench squad as Zelina refocused.
"I see them," came the reply.
Zelina started to turn so she could engage the fighters before they could reach Red Leader's squad, hands barely starting to tilt her X-Wing starboard when all that malicious intent bubbling in the dark presence suddenly sharpened and directed itself straight towards Zelina.
She gasped, all sense of the outside world disappearing as the agonizing mental lance slammed into her with unrelenting force, the pain detaching her entirely from reality and all sense of time. Every fiber in her being vibrated with an invisible agony, cutting straight through her mind simultaneously faster than light but slow enough to draw out the agony. What could have been a flash in time felt like it was stretching for days, weeks, endless and yawning—
No, this was a phantom pain, a mental illusion—she had to push them out, had to regain control before her attacker had the chance to pick her off in her vulnerable position or end the Rebellion while she was out of commission. She would not let them dominate her like this when so much was at stake!
Drawing into herself, Zelina centered herself at what she believed was her core before she pushed outward in every direction in an attempt to dispel her attacker from their mental assault. There was the faint sense of grappling with a foreign entity, pushing back will against will, before something in reality caused the other to slip and Zelina was able to push just enough to break through the pain.
Just as quickly as the pain had appeared, it left her, disorientation nearly costing Zelina her life as her senses were overwhelmed by the sudden rush of information.
The Death Star yawned in front of her viewport, rapidly approaching while Zelina remained hunched into herself, immobile in the cockpit of her X-Wing, tears of pain running down her face, breaths shallow. Red Leader was yelling something about a surface impaction, and Luke's frantic presence suddenly made contact with her own in the Force.
Her hands snapped forward and yanked the X-Wing back upwards from the surface of the Death Star before she crashed, sweaty hands slipping momentarily on the controls as she sucked in deep breaths and reinforced her mental barriers against any other attacks, refusing to let her attention slip and a exploitable vulnerability show again.
Luke's concern and fear was smothering as Zelina still didn't answer his non-verbal but deeper-resonating questions about her well-being. Before he could lose all sense of himself and do something rash, Zelina finally reached back as a way to say she was fine, feeling the battlefield in the Force to figure out what state the rebels had been reduced to while her attention had been elsewhere and she'd been incapacitated.
"Get set up for your attack run—!" Red Leader shouted moments before Zelina felt his life snuffed out by the same pilot who'd incapacitated her.
It was just Zelina, Luke, Biggs, and one other rebel.
She could feel time slipping away from them, the moment of incineration closing in on them like a collapsing star.
And she could feel fear settling over Luke as the last hope of the Rebellion shifted squarely onto his shoulders.
A protective, hostile fire ignited in Zelina's chest, teeth grinding together as her attention sharpened to the fine point of a blade, seeking out the darksider that was putting everything at risk, and would no doubt dare to go after Luke next.
Luke's confident voice perforated the comms, though Zelina could feel the tension, fear, uncertainty, and pressure roiling around his presence despite his outward appearance. "We're going in, we're going in full throttle, that ought to keep those fighters off our back."
"Right with you, boss," came the voice of the other rebel still alive.
"Luke, at that speed, are you sure you'll be able to pull out in time?" Biggs asked.
"It'll be just like Beggar's Canyon back home," Luke reassured him. Zelina had a brief flash in her mind's eye of a yellow pod sliding through the canyon on Tatooine under fire of Tusken Raiders at the comment.
Finally, Zelina let her voice rejoin the chatter of the Rebellion's communications.
"I'm getting into position—if those fighters come back and you need a hand, I'll come pay them a visit," Zelina told Luke in a low voice, further down the trench than Luke's current position thanks to the mental attack from earlier throwing her off course. She could have closed in on their position, but instead she stayed in the general area she already was in, lying in wait for the return of the TIEs.
"We'll stay far enough back to cover you," Biggs added.
"My scope shows the tower, but I can't see the exhaust port. Are you sure the computer can hit it?" the other Rebel asked Luke. Zelina cut in before anyone could say anything.
"Forget the computer—you have a targeting system better than any computer," she reminded Luke, knowing he would understand her.
"What do you mean by that?" the Rebel asked, but Luke cut him off.
"I know what she means, it's fine, I've got this. Watch yourself, increase speed full throttle." Then, a moment later, "Artoo, that stabilizer's broken loose again, see if you can't lock it down."
Then she felt it again, the swelling of that dark presence as it made itself known once more.
"Fighters, coming in point three," the other rebel announce, and the tension in the air grew to crackling intensity.
Waiting further down the trench, Zelina aimed at one of the two fighters, allowing herself to risk the longshot and firing at the same time as the other TIE.
Both of them landed a hit.
"I'm hit—I can't stay with you!" the other rebel shouted out as Zelina watched one of the three TIEs spiral into a fiery explosion. She also felt that dark presence focus a little more on her once more as she caused trouble once again.
"Get clear, Wedge, you can't do any more good back there," Luke ordered firmly.
"Sorry!" the other pilot—Wedge—called out before his X-Wing flew out of the trench.
That just left Zelina, Luke, and Biggs, and Luke and Biggs were fast approaching where Zelina was hovering above the trench.
Zelina worked on lining up the next shot, but a sudden volley from the other TIE wingman in her direction forced her to abandon aiming in favor of rolling away from the potential damage, teeth snapping together in frustration as she looped back a little further down the trench.
"Hurry, Luke, they're coming in much faster this time, I can't hold them!" Biggs suddenly shouted as Zelina was reorienting herself.
"Artoo, try and increase the power!"
Zelina rightened herself once more, lining up with the trench and picking out the two X-Wings closely pursued by two TIEs.
"Hurry up, Luke! Wait—wait!"
Another death in the Force, one she could see the fiery explosion is accompanied, followed swiftly by a sudden sharp pain of loss from Luke, who was momentarily distracted from the task at hand.
An indescribable panic seemed to grip Zelina as she saw a distracted Luke's fighter open and vulnerable to attack from the darksider, and she threw all caution out the window, suddenly diving straight for the two TIEs at full speed, letting loose a volley of fire with a low growl ripping up her throat, jabbing tauntingly at the dark presence in front of her. They didn't swerve from their flight through the trench, but they did return fire.
Both of them infuriatingly dodged the blasts they sent one another's way, and the darksider refused to be budged from their pursuit of Luke, apparently understanding that Luke posed the greater overall thread. Instead, she saw the spare TIE break formation and suddenly start flying upwards towards her, which meant the darksider remained on Luke's tail.
"C'mon, fight me, you coward!" Zelina suddenly snapped at her opponent even though she knew they couldn't hear her.
She'd just have to make herself the more immediate threat, if regular fire wasn't going to deter the darksider.
Kriff it.
To the surprise of even herself, Zelina dodged under the TIE that had been flying towards her, angling her X-Wing directly towards the darksider's TIE at full speed, with no intention of easing up or wavering off course.
She'd crash straight into the TIE to stop them from shooting down Luke, and she willed the darksider piloting it to understand she was not going to move—they would.
A slight tremor in the Force told her to briefly lock her foils together, allowing the shot the TIE had fired at her to pass through open space instead of colliding with one of the foils that sprang right back into position, the green blast sailing straight towards the darksider. Her target swerved slightly to avoid the blast, anger slicing what little space was still between them as Zelina came close enough to taste the crackling fury oozing from the cockpit—
And at the last moment, the darksider was forced to accept that she was not going to panic at the last moment. The darksider's TIE swiveled to the side at the last moment so that the underside of the TIE was parallel to one of the walls of the trench, causing Zelina to zip right through the space they'd been in previously. Again, Zelina attempted a tight drifting turn, the ends of her foils clipping the walls of the trench as she sent a handful of rapid shots after the TIE, hearing her targeting computer beep rapidly as it tried to line up the darksider's ship. A couple of her shots glanced along the surface of the TIE, causing it to swerve dangerously in the tight space, and finally, finally, she felt the snap in the Force she'd been hoping to instigate.
In a split second, Zelina went from pursuing the darksider, to the darksider flipping around and firing at her with dizzying, precise fury. Instantly Zelina pulled the fight out of the trench, rolling out and skimming along the surface of the Death Star as the darksider followed close behind with the ship she quickly realized was superior in speed to her own.
At the same time, she could sense that while Luke was no longer in crushing danger from the darksider, he was not free of it, either, as the remaining wingman stayed behind to take shots at the exposed Luke while Zelina found her hands full with the darksider.
She could only hope that Luke kept a level head and stayed in one piece.
How much longer before Yavin's in range?
Zelina forced the idle thought away as another volley of green blasts headed her way, weaving between them with only a few glancing hits to show for the attack. Without any kind of warning, Zelina suddenly let go of the acceleration, hoping she might catch the pilot off guard and managed to strike a final blow. Instead of decelerating, or flying wildly out of the way, the TIE instead whipped sharply around so Zelina suddenly found they were both facing each other, her heart leaping into her throat at their temporary vulnerability towards each other.
She took a chance and fired, hoping to score a direct hit, and was dismayed to discover this particular TIE…had deflector shields. And they had been directed to the front of the TIE that now let loose two missiles towards her ship.
"Chuba!"
Already close to the Death Star's surface, Zelina felt trapped even as she yanked her controls and willed her X-Wing to contort in a way that would avoid both missiles and the surface of the Death Star, without colliding into the other ship. The foils of her X-Wing snapped shut again, a jarring shake rattling the ship as the end of one of her wings clipped the Death Star's surface with enough force to pitch her back upwards before she regained control, watching the cluster missiles that had been fired at her sail past by some miracle. She didn't get a moment of relief as the green blaster fire followed, and she was forced to circle wide to avoid them, the TIE whipping around to face her every time she seemed to get out of their view. For a moment, she thought they would both spin in circles—Zelina around the darksider, and the darksider spinning in place to avoid letting her get behind them again. Before they could head for a second rotation, the darksider suddenly arched upwards from the Death Star, coming over her circle as she passed by, trying once again to drift around to face the TIE, hearing something in the X-Wing protest loudly at the abuse—
A sudden sense of imminent danger slammed into her as a joyful—and welcome—hoot suddenly blasted over the comms with enough force to break her concentration.
"Yahoo!" Han Solo cawed victoriously. If she hadn't been directly across from a clearly skilled Force-Sensitive pilot, Zelina would have been looking for visual confirmation of the Falcon. "You're all clear, Kid, now let's blow this thing and go home!"
Forget her opponent—there would be plenty of other opportunities in the future to face them, but there would be no future for her if she didn't disengage now and high-tail it away from the Death Star that was now rapidly approaching destruction.
In a split second, Zelina went from trying to get another hit in at the darksider to sharply angling the X-Wing away from the surface, then towards Yavin IV, weaving around the blasterfire of the initially pursuing TIE. The attempt to fire at her only seemed half-hearted, however. No doubt the darksider could also feel the imminent danger, as they broke off and suddenly pushed in a different direction, fleeing a danger that promised death if they couldn't outrun it.
She stretched out with her senses, feeling Solo's giddy presence first, closely followed by Luke's own roiling presence that was too much of a mess of emotions for Zelina to make any sense of what the young man was feeling. The two ships, plus Wedge, who must have been hanging back somewhere above the battle all this time, turned away from the Death Star and back towards Yavin IV a little ways off to her port side. Zelina angled her trembling ship towards the main group, putting on one last burst of speed to outrun the Death Star explosion to the best of their abilities. Before the station exploded into a billion particles behind them, Zelina reached for Luke's presence in the Force, soaking in its vitality as an assurance that yes, he survived that fight, he was still in the realm of the living with her.
She didn't even want to stop and look back to see the Death Star explode, the mass of death that slammed into her from the living beings who had been aboard the station not nearly as painful as the Alderaan explosion, but enough to make her need another moment to reorient herself again.
She leaned her head back against her seat, closing her eyes as she clung tightly to Luke's presence in the Force for reassurance, taking slow and even breaths to try and calm herself down.
Anakin would be proud.