Chapter One, Part A (if you want to read the rest, you have to R & R)
Kothlis, a beautiful oceanic planet, with island chains where the Bothans who colonized the system had built magnificent cities and towns. Being the birthplace of Borsk Fey'lya, the forth planet once had a small, yet decent sized flotilla provided by the New Republic. Now, however, it had little more than a planetary shield generator, an all but abandon space station, a ex-smuggler who promised to protect the planet in his two corvettes, and a few dozen defense squadrons. Now, all of them are going tobe put to the test, Asyr thought to herself as the city evacuation alarm stared to blare. In the small cor'les, or hidden, hanger Asyr and her pilots shared with two medium transport that could hold almost all of the population of the base, military technicians began to patch up small holes where they were working just a few moments ago. The doors to one of the launch tubes, the smallest Asyr noticed, started to open as her chief mechanic, a human named Allston from Kolann of the Hapes Cluster, taped on her window and gave her a thumbs up after securing her droid and jumping down, then moved on to another Fighter.
"All right people, lets show those scar heads what there up against."
Almost as soon as she had said this the local traffic controller's voice came into her comm "Honor squad, the party awaits you. The Last Defense and Ray of Light report a total of five Vong capital ships, one of them is a carrier, the other four are all cruisers. Sensors pick up another group, twice its size, with a world ship on the outskirts of the system. Good hunting, control out"
"Fun for the whole family, huh lead?" this was her second in command, Kleer's voice. "Which one to destroy first?"
"Well that isn't your choice for a reason, Kleer. Anyone not at full status?" Asyr asked, referring to the startup checklist. "Well then we launch numerically by two starting with twelve and six, then form up in diamond formation. Righty, Pax, if you will?" as soon as she had finished saying this two of the XJX-wings rose a few feet, then making a 180 went up and out of the small hanger they were using.
The starfighters were all soon out, and in a formation in which three groups of four fighters each made a diamond shape then formed together in a triangle format.
"Honor squad, this is Ray of Light, we could use a hand with this cruiser, our shields are almost gone, and-" the rest of the transmission lost as the front of the corvette was hit by a magma missile and started blowing out atmosphere, then veering back toward Kothlis as another hit its starboard engine.
"Ok people lets give the rest of that ship a fighting chance, on my mark, break by shield trios, and hit that sithspawned rock with everything, but save at least half your torps…And fire the torps SEPERTLY!" this she emphasized to remind her newer pilots that the black holes would suck down two torpedoes easily, but might miss one if launched separately.
"3, 2, 1, mark!" The snub fighters all snapped into four groups of three, with Kleer and her Twi'lek pilot, Luceno, on either side. As she and her followers straitened out , she directed them directly toward the front of the massive piece of coral, which was headed straight at them. "Kleer, break at 500 meters, and strafe the port side, Luceno, at 300, strafe the starboard." as they quickly approached the ship, a void appeared dead ahead of them, 50 meters away from the front of the ship. Prefect Asyr thought to her self, and allowed herself a small smile. The two other pilots broke seconds from each other, and Asyr, noting the void not flinching from where it had been, pulled hard on her stick, bringing the sleek snubbed-nosed fighter up in what looked like pulling out to the Vong. She felt her fighter stutter, then noticed the star plane moving even without her moving the stick, and her shields beginning to weaken. Predictable, targeting those who flee. Then her droid, beeped, once, loudly and shrilly, knowing exactly what to do. She Grinned coldly leveled out, launched two torpedoes, and hit the stutter-fire trigger. The torpedoes detonated, one near a void, toward the back end of the ship, and the second she launched impacted in the dead center on the ship, which, along with the laser shots, penetrated deeply into the ship. Several other detonations crumpled the sides of the vessel, and several voids, Asyr noticed, completely disappeared.
"Three's gone, repeat, Honor three is down!" one pilot said rather sadly
"No, she's EV, headed toward the station" Asyr reported watching as her wing mate flailed about in the cold of space. "Control can we get a pickup shuttle? We've got one EV pilot, and Ray of Light isn't going to survive going through the atmosphere" Asyr commed back to the city, as she swung back around shooting up the side of remains of the Vong Cruiser.
"Roger that Honor Lead, we have two shuttles on the way. We also have a wave of skips closing on you, honor, be sharp."
"Great, more fun" Kleer commed in.
Asyr usually frowned at making jokes over the comm, but with all the guns that were still working on the ship, she was to busy dodging projectiles too yell at him.
"Here they come!" Someone yelled out.
"Two form up on my port, and lay down the fire. Everyone else, form up into shield trios, blast those rocks up, and save your torps!" Asyr emphasized again, and, as Kleer pulled up next to her, held down the stutter fire trigger. The blasts were not aimed at any particular ship though. Where most pilots will focus on one or two fighters, Asyr liked semi-random attack patterns that were focused on a large group of targets, so the Vong could not as easily lay a trap, or predict where the blows would land. Too, Asyr had learned long ago the danger of dwelling on one thing too much.
"They're all over the place!" came a frightened voice, Asyr knew to be Honor eleven, her youngest pilot, an other Bothan, who wasn't even old enough to join the Galactic Alliance Pilot Corps. "There's three behind us!" she exclaimed.
"Lead and two have you covered." Asyr assured the girl, "Ten through twelve fall in behind us. Two, loop-de-loop at my mark." She waited until her three pilots settled in behind her before going on, "engines to seventy percent, Kleer, ready? Two, one, mark!" the two ace pilots rose in perfect sync in a large loop, during which time her three pilots, and the skips chasing them passed underneath them. "Be careful not to hit the others" Asyr said as she and her second in command dropped out of the loop and fell in behind the pursuers. As soon as they fell in line, the command "fire!" was given, and the streams of super heated lights poured out of her fighter, and disappeared as soon as they got near the lead Skip, but a few shots escaped around the void, and, with the course changed by the gravity well, pierced into the skip, and skewed the pilots chamber, while another blast hit a forward gun, the resulting explosion engulfing the piece of coral, and leaving only some chunks of debris behind the size of a fists and fingers. Kleer's kill, on the other hand, disabled the void producer, and pierced the pilots cabin, causing the skip to spin out of control venting atmosphere, and crash into the cruiser on its way toward the surface.
As Asyr moved to catch a lock on the third skip, it started firing rapidly, for a coral skipper, anyway, into the formation of XJX-wings in front of it, then darted off. "eleven! Break, now!" Asyr was fast two react, but it was too late, for no sooner than she started to dive down, Honor eleven's shields were over-whelmed and disappeared, as another blast of superheated-rock destroyed the top engines, wings in all, as well as the R4 droid secured in the back of the fighter. Without the top side engines, the X-wing pulled up much to fast, and started going in a loop at a speeds that made Asyr's head spin. "Eleven, bail out, NOW!" Asyr yelled at her comm, and looked on helplessly.
"Cant… pinned down…too fast…too heavy…." came the scared and extremely pained voice. Asyr knew, as well as all in her squad that the inertial dampeners didn't even have to be destroyed, a spin at that speed would overwhelm the dampeners, and if it weren't for them, Honor eleven would probably already be dead.
Asyr glanced over her shoulder at her droid, a R2-Z16 she named Given, as the droid was a gift from her last commander when she learn of her getting her own squadron, after spending a year as his second in charge. "Given, can you tell her X-wing to eject her?" the droid beeped back a negative. As Asyr tried to urge her pilot on "Come on eleven, you can reach it, its right there."
"Can't… move…."
Suddenly the comm broke into static as the rear of the fighter exploded, engulfing the cockpit with it. Asyr looked away as the blast burnt the sky as bright as a supernova against the dark backdrop of space. The skip that got off the potshot was destroyed a few seconds later, as the concentrated fire of Honors 2, 10, and 12 chipped pieces of coral off the skip, until it eventually crumpled, lost control, and atmosphere, then burned up entering the atmosphere.
"Alright, all ships report status" Asyr commanded, trying to control her voice.
"Two here, pulling up behind you, boss"
"Four is still green"
"A little busy, but five is good"
"Six, likewise"
"Eight here, seven is dead in the water; grutchin hits"
"Nine is good"
"Ten here, I'm good"
"Twelve, I my R5 is offline, but my shields are still good"
"Right, ten and twelve, you two form up in standard formation with eight and nine. Comm is reporting Midnight and Dark Forest squadrons on station, busy with cruiser number four, and the rest of the first wave of skips, and Last Cord is eliminating the handful of coral skippers that entered atmosphere. Were going to go assist the ithorian rain on its run, then its two skiprays and flight of C.A.S.es (A/N: Conqueror class Assault Ship) are gonna help us take out that carrier. Questions?"
"One, five, who said we need help?"
"Shut it, Gutoswki. Honor squad, form on me, and come to heading 225." Asyr didn't really like making the choices for her squad, but neither did she like leaving it in the hands of some controller down on the surface, as they never cared for the individual pilots the way a squadron leader could, but that also made it easier for them to control ships, running on pure statistic, and best place fittings. Of coarse, it she and her people didn't do a good job, that controller would be very concerned about the air battle and leaving transports.
The Ithorian rain was little more than a Y-4 Raptor transport, with an extra double laser added atop the ship, which was becoming more of a common occurrence, as the Vong had a tendency to attack transports, no matter how lightly they were armed, so now at least they could put up a fight. In tow, in addition to the escort were two lambda shuttles, the first of two had its own escort of four E-wings.
Asyr's puzzlement was answered as a picture of a middle aged human woman appeared on her forward monitor. "Well, I see you people haven't messed things up too badly yet, Sei'lar"
"That nice comfy office get too hot for you, senator Duesler?" Asyr shot back at her, eyeing the screen with murderous contempt.
"Operation War Hammer is good to go" the light haired woman declared, choosing to ignore the comment "Once the carrier is disabled, the rest should jump in system, you know the rest. Better hurry up though, the Last Defense is going to last much longer…." The transmission cut out as the three ships jumped to hyperspace, leaving the escort behind.
"Huh," a new voice on the comm chipped in, "the whole flight experienced a technical error which prevented us from going to hyperspace."
Asyr grinned "Oh really, what was the error, fire lead?"
A younger man appeared on the monitor that had just recently had the senator in it, and shrugged "My astromech was babbling on about something like 'forgot to turn on the drive system.' Guess we'll just have to join the you guys in taking down that carrier"
"Well good, weapons range ETA is at 49 seconds" Asyr said more to her squad than to the other pilot "But she was right, the second that thing is disabled, retreat to the fallback position my 'droid is sending you, it'll get messy real fast" and, she added to her self we're gonna need every pilot we can get to pull this off…
So what do y'all think? this is the first story i have EVER let anyone else read, so im kinda protective of it. please R&R, and if ur gonna say stuff like it sucks, at least say why it sucks.