Star Wars: The Parody Strikes Back
Part Seven
Guo Xi stared at the map. Due to the fact the galaxy was on a two dimensional plane, it could be represented easily on a two dimensional map. A vast series of blue lights represented the Rebels, red lights were the Imperials, green lights were the independent worlds, and yellow lights were contested zones. All kind of beautiful in the way the lights came together to form a bright neon image. If you blurred your eyes in just the right way, and let the colors blend, it appeared white, untouched, in pristine condition. The Empire and the Rebellion became little problems yet to occur. It'd all be in the New Republic, he hoped. Back to the present now; it was his job to take one of those innumerable lights and turn it off. Who'd notice? It'd take hundreds of years to be noticed from another planet's surface. He took another bite of his bagel. One could not do this on an empty stomach. His reached and pressed the power button for the display. In a split second the galaxy died, all the trillions of people on innumerable worlds were just killed with a flick of the switch. Then he pushed back on. The whole galaxy came to life. Then off again, then on again; it was the intoxicating feeling of being god.
"Yes, yes, Guo, we all know the display works. Could you step away from it? You're dropping sesame seeds into the keypad. Good, now I'll continue with my briefing," Grigori said. He was one of the most patronizing Rebels he'd ever met. He was most likely born a Rebel, with a blaster in one hand, and deck of cards in the other. "Now we expect the Imperials to arrive some time in the next few days, so were doing constant patrols. The Imperials caught us with our pants down 8 days ago, and so we don't want it to happen again, they'll have a much bigger paddle this time. Most likely the Imperials will be entering between the 6th planet of the system, Taretum, and the 5th planet, Tingis. They'll do this so that they can use the asteroid field as general cover for their strike-craft. Also their capital ships can advance on Coruscant from behind the cover of the most planets and moons, denying most of our orbital defenses a clear shot. Naturally, we've set up a few surprises of our own. The asteroid field has been extensively mined, so don't wander into it. That means you, Lee. I've seen some of the more... shall we say... distracting holo-videos in your X-Wing." Normally an officer would confiscate them, but he had his own extensive 'library' and was not very good at keeping it a secret. "Blue squad will escort our Y-Wings to Tingis, and run interference as the Y-Wings ambush the Imperials as they drop out of Hyperspace. Guard those Y-Wings! There'll be at least a dozen other squads out there: Red, Green, Magenta, Copper, Burgundy, Yellow, Light Yellow, Dark Yellow, Really Dark Yellow..." One thing he couldn't understand about the Rebel fleet was that all the squads had colors, not numbers for identification. It wasn't so bad when the fleets were small, but when there are over 300 squads, colors can run out quite quicky. "... Apricot, and squad vermin, er vermillion."
"Will we be facing any Imperial Gunships, sir?" that was Tarren, an X-Wing hot-shot, with 8 kills to his record. The guy was so stiff, he could almost see a metal rod down his back, forcing a perfect posture.
"Yes, I suspect that there will be at least 3 dozen Imperial Gunships. Don't get cocky, one these ships is easily capable of wiping out an entire squad. Don't forget what happened to squad Mahogany." Wait a minute, Tarren did have rod down his back. He could see the head of a golf club poking out from underneath his shirt. "Don't try to take on one of them alone, that would be David v.s. Goliath." One of the things on the base we did for entertainment was reprogram protocol droids (which he thought were useless anyway), and use them in boxing matches against other droids. The winless one was one called David. Guo had a droid too, an old massive battle droid with built-in weapons. It took a lot of reprogramming, but he got it boxing well. He named it after a character in an ancient Human text. He hadn't finished reading it, but he had a good feeling about this 'Goliath.' "Of course, don't try to take on Star Destroyer by yourself. You all know what happened to Troy, our last squad leader. Leave them to the Y-Wings. That would be David v.s. Godzilla."
"For the last time, to not use Zilla's name in vain! My gods are not for your mocking!" That was Smilah, a rather unusual looking alien. Extraordinarily tall, due to its long neck. Very thin, pale skinned, and they had eyes that seem to have the galaxy reflected in them. Almost... hypnotic... "Guo, would you please stop staring at me?" Very touchy too at times, especially about their religion.
"In the event that the Y-Wings you're escorting, squad Reddish-Orange, are destroyed, you're to take on the Imperial fleet in a skirmishing mode. That means you sting like a butterfly and float like a bee." Then Grigori lost control of the briefing.
"What would this 'butterfly' be?"
"Well, butter comes a cow, I think. So maybe there's a cow with wings."
"What of this 'bee'? I'm not well versed in Human ecology."
"Floating, hmm... Well those things that go 'Quack' float."
"A duck?"
"Yeah, that's it."
"So sir, you want us to sting like a bovine with wings, and float like an avian? Yes sir!" Sometimes you couldn't tell if Tarren was being sarcastic or enthusiastic. There was a very thin line between the two. Maybe there wasn't a difference, and the two were the same, just different interpretations, depending on the mood of the listener.
"Wait, I heard that saying before. Doesn't it go: Float like a butterfly-"
"Enough! You have your orders. Suit up and head to you craft. We launch in half an hour, right after squad Yellowish-Indigo," Grigori managed to yell loud enough to get over the inane chatter.
A few minutes later he was doing the pre-launch inspection. The R2 droid was already inserted in the craft. Sometimes he had the feeling that the droids were held more importantly than the pilots. Maybe it had to with the 'eject' button ejecting the droid instead of the pilot. Smilah was already in her X-Wing. The craft really was designed for a smaller creature. She looked all tangled in an knot. It was amazing she could fly it, but she could. With relative ease, he got into his cockpit. The R2 unit began beeping out information. He said aloud, "All carry-ons are in the underseat compartment. Seat is now in the upright position. Restraints are in place. All electronics are turned on. Ready to launch."
The communicator crackled, buzzed, and went staticy. The signal struggled to get through, eventually it did force its way on the speaker. "Squad Aquamarine, you are cleared for launch."
He was rather confused by the signal, it was coming no more than a 10 kilometers away. It shouldn't be staticy. He checked the sensors, and then made a transmission to the control tower, "Control, you may want to switch to the short range communications. Your current signal bounces off a satellite in Tatoine before it returns here." The senior communication group was either killed or wounded in the Boba Fett raid. Luckily Admiral Jerad had survived, they would need his experience to match that of Lerutan.
Another signal from Control came in, loud and clear, "Uh... thank you. Blue squad is cleared for take off."
"Engaging engines now." The engine sputtered, and wheezed, but did not start. The R2 unit let out a loud constant series of beep and whistles. "Whoa, can you beep that in English?" A slower string of beeps came across the communication system, since the cockpit was almost sound proof. "Spast! Razorbacks! How did they get in the engine? Where's my blaster?" Then another series of worried beeps from R2. "No, I won't hit the fuel line. It's the green one right?"
An angry series of beeps came across the comm. "Okay, okay, it's the red one."
Several minutes and a few emergency duct tape repairs later, his craft took off. He looked up at the yellow sun as he heard the synchronous rumble of his squadron's engines. Then gradually he broke through the atmosphere. The sun turned to its natural white, and the rumble was reduced to only his own muffled engine. All seemed so peaceful, almost hypnotic and relaxing, like a car-ride for a infant. Then the R2 unit's incessant chirping came across the communicator. "What do you mean you're cold?" Another string of beeps. "Well, I suppose you are exposed to space; but so is every other R2 unit. I've never heard of any of them complain before." A rather moaning and draw out series of beeps. "I suppose you going to have to ask for that subroutine to be removed. What do you want me to do now? Put a blanket over you?" R2 angrily began another series of beeps, but was cut short when he cut off all auditory transmissions. Now he could meditate in the peace for a while.
He had heard of the Old Republic frequently, he was not old enough to have remembered it. He'd read about it whenever he could. He wished those days would return. Why hadn't the Rebellion officially called itself the 'New Republic' yet? The best time to do so would have been when they had taken Coruscant, the Imperial home world. He doubted that Rebels wanted to set up their own Empire, with their leaders as the rulers. The Empire at least understood economics. Most of the Rebels would probably thought that you need profit before you could have revenue. And all of them would have to sit down and listen to people they would have shot 6 months ago. So what were they waiting for? The question indeed needed more thought.
He thought he heard the static sound of a transmission come through, but no voice came because he had muted it. He opened an eye and looked at the holographic display. The squad leader was holding a cardboard sign reading "Turn on your audio you idiot!" The squad leader then saw he was paying attention and began to yell at him. Not wishing to hear him, he switched his visual to another squad mate. She too was holding a cardboard sign. It read, "You're heading for the asteroid field". Then Guo looked out his cockpit window. An asteroid with a huge mine filled his entire screen. With a quick swerve he avoided it, and the device hadn't detonated. Either the mine was faulty, or you needed to be very close. He then swerved again to rejoin his squad. He turned on his audio. "You moron! Were you trying to get yourself killed? Do you know how much those R2 units and an X-Wing cost? I will-" He cut off the audio again. He didn't want to listen to that.
As he orbited Tingis he nearly dozed off. Then there was 8 Star Destroyers and a horde of smaller ships right in front of them. It was no illusion, nor was he lazy. When a ship came out of star drive it just suddenly appeared. The Star Destroyers let out their Tie Fighters and Tie Interceptors like a dog just come in from the rain shakes off water drops. Now he turned on his audio. "Alright! There they are, go get them boys! Kiros, you watch my back. The rest of you deal with the fighters, I'm going after the Capital Ships." Yes, Grigori was an action junky. You needed to be one to survive. Colored beams shot all around him like a disco-tech turned terribly wrong. Bright explosions went off like fire crackers during a celebration. Yet all he could hear was his engines, his guns, both muffled, his squad mate's chatter and the R2 unit beeping something that sounded like 'I'm going to die. I'm going to die.' The sound of hell wasn't demons laughing or the screams of those in pain, or the hiss and bubble of lava. It was silence, total silence.
He noticed that there were no Imperial Gunships present. By sheer numbers the Rebels were winning gradually. Then a transmission came from Grigori, who was normally silent as possible in battle, "Check your sensors! We got dozens, no wait, make that hundreds of new contacts! They're not coming from near Tingis, but Coruscant! They're verified as Imperial. We're fighting a ruse! Squad leader to all pilots in the area, disengage and head for Coruscant. They won't hold out for-" Then Grigori's X-Wing exploded into a dozen shades of orange and red. Green bursts of Tie Fighter fire were puncturing the wreckage again and again. The R2 unit had managed to eject itself and now floated clear of its former ship. Then it was inhaled into the engine of a passing B-Wing, causing it to explode. His R2 unit let out a lamenting chirp. He immediately turned around his X-Wing and headed to Coruscant at maximum speed. The Imperials had won this skirmish by default, but whether they'd win the battle and the war was still up in the air. As demonstrated by the vapor trail of a damaged A-Wing in front of him.
