The stars streaked back in forth in blurry white lines as Bryan juked side to side, dodging the potshots from the two TIEs chasing him. The space around him was lit up with tiny explosions as the dogfight continued. So far the Alliance was keeping the Imperials from blocking their escape route, and a few dozen of the smaller ships had made the jump to hyperspace. The past twenty minutes had still been hell though. Nineteen Cruisers and one Frigate had been destroyed, including Admiral Kensic's ship, the Chalsoc. Emilie was constantly giving orders, and Bryan feared it would only be a matter of time before she too would perish at the beam of the Punisher.

Bryan maneuvered below the underside of the Frigate Asender, zooming fast towards a dogfight being fought around the Cruiser Perion, hoping that someone could help him out with his chasers. "A little help here if anyone can spare it." He felt his X-Wing shudder as the shields sucked up more TIE fire. Bryan flashed a glance at the HUD. Shields were down to fifty-seven percent. Not good. He jammed the accelerator and flew head-on into the fray. Lasers bolted and ships veered and bulleted this way and that, a giant mosh pit of chaos. But at his speed, Bryan was able to fly through and clear the mess without any more damage. The TIEs, however, stuck with him.

But that didn't last for much longer.

"I'm on it, Bryan," Kate Steigerwald's voice came over the comlink. "Just keep flying towards Mark 334-223. I'll help you."

Bryan looked around for his old friend. But her X-Wing was no where in sight, not even on the HUD. So he kept flying, juking when he had to to keep the TIEs chasing him.

Suddenly, from inside the Perion dogfight, an X-Wing broke free, hugging the Perion's starboard hull, flying faster and faster towards Bryan. That was Kate: Red Thirty-two. She chased behind him until he was almost past the Cruiser's bow, shields now at thirty-nine percent, then finally barrel-rolled away from the Cruiser and placed the TIEs on either side of her X-Wings nose. Immediately firing, the long distance shots went unnoticed to the TIEs until the right TIE lost half its left wing, causing it to abandon the chase and break formation. Bryan veered at a descending forty-five degree angle towards the Perion, dodging another laser blast, and giving Kate a few more seconds to lock the other TIE in her sights. It didn't take her long. Now closer, she unleashed another round of laser fire. The bolts shredded the TIEs engines and cockpit, and the little ship exploded an instant later after a shower of sparks.

Bryan heaved a sigh of relief. "Thanks Kate. I owe ya one."

"No problem."

He turned away from her and the Cruiser, sighting the place where he thought he would be needed the most; the very front of the battle: the escape route that was trying to stay open. It didn't take him long to realize that that wasn't happening. In fact, they had failed. Five Imperial Star Destroyers had taken perimeter positions in front of coordinates Mark 649-070 through Mark 862-563. At least seven more were on the way, including the Super Star Destroyer Titan. The Cruisers' escape wasn't looking good.

And no sooner had he spotted it then Emilie Rodenski's voice began to bark out more orders over the com; her voice alone, no one speaking over it. "They're closing us in! Concentrate all fire on those Star Destroyers blocking our exit. Every ship!" Her voice left the comlink, and it became a fight in itself, voices overlapping every other voice.

Bryan spoke next, yelling as loud as we could. "You heard the lady! Don't bicker, don't argue! Just do it!" He charged straight ahead towards the front line dogfight, blood rushing, shields now charged back up to above sixty. "Here we go Puck."

LET'S GO.

"Mother fuckers."

Maxie squeezed the trigger and braced herself for the aftershock, shooting a storm of lasers at her targets.

One Fighter and an Interceptor had just sliced up a flight of four B-Wings, splitting them up and destroying one. The death scream still echoed in Maxie's mind. The laser volley made short work of the Interceptor, and it only took a tiny course adjustment to pick off the Fighter.

"All right, Gray Thirteen, your group should be clear for now. I got your back. Green Fourteen and Twenty-three help me out, we've got to protect those B-Wings."

"Copy five."

"Copy five."

"Thanks Colonel," said a voice that Maxie guessed was Gray Thirteen. Heart pounding, she dropped her A-Wing behind the three remaining B-Wings and kept a sharp lookout for any attacking TIEs, her eyes jumping from the darkness of space to the deep, swamp-green HUD screen. Seeing the scarce amount of red blips on the screen was a relief and made her thankful that she had zoomed in on the monitor to block out the craziness of the battle. It was getting to be overwhelming.

Ahead, fiery hot torpedo silhouettes rocketed at full speed towards the targeted Star Destroyer. They converged slowly, homing in on the two shield generators atop the command deck.

The B-Wings then broke formation, Maxie following suite, every one of them being harassed by the Destroyer's powerful turbolasers.

The torpedoes were too small to hit though, and they smashed and exploded unforgivingly into the generators. For a moment the entire command deck disappeared under a gigantic fireball. When space cleared away the flames, both shield generators were sparking and were missing their domed tops.

"Shields are down," Maxie said to basically no one. "Fourteen and Twenty-three on me, let's finish this thing. Target the ioni–ion–" she moaned. "That—ball thing on the bottom side." She heard someone laugh at her through the comlink. But Maxie didn't find this funny. "You know what I mean!" she snapped. "Quit laughing and do it before a TIE blows your ass up!"

The laughing stopped, and the two A-Wings fell in on either side of her own. The triangle flew below the top hull and then doubled back towards the belly of the beast-like starship. Tiny explosions blossomed from all over the Destroyer, as the Alliance starships fired salvo after salvo. Targeting the large hub reactor near the back end, she waited patiently for the cross hairs to go from blank, yellow, then red, all the while juking to avoid Star Destroyer pot shots. The hairs went to red, and Maxie keyed off two rounds on concussion missiles towards the reactor. Green's Fourteen and Twenty-three fired a split second later.

They were now closing in too close; the Star Destroyer loomed larger with each passing second.

"Break!" Maxie ordered. Bracing herself, she jammed the throttle to full. Instantly she was thrown back against her seat, the force of gravity pinning her against her chair. She fought against the pull to push the stick forward, gliding the A-Wing down and away from the Destroyer. And she laughed the whole way. Yes, she was now acting like a hypocrite, but there was a reason she chose to fly an A-Wing: for the thrill and the speed of the ride. The A-Wing was the fastest fighter the Alliance had, and Maxie always enjoyed a thrill.

Meanwhile, the concussion missiles made quick work of the reactor, destroying almost all of it in one volley. Although Maxie couldn't remember the name of it, she knew what happened when it was destroyed. The primary reactor inside the Destroyer became de-ionized and unstable—magnetic. Ten seconds after the reactor exploded, the primary one began to magnetize. All at once, the Star Destroyer's hull was yanked inward, as if pulled by a giant. The observation and command modules at the base of the command tower caved in at the pull, duranium collapsing on duranium, an avalanche of tumbling metal. It became a pile of trash sticking to the pull of the core. Even the remains of the shield generator, sparking still, were yanked, taking two small chunks of the tower with them. The ship twitched and jolted as it became more unstable. It then started pitching terribly, right and left, up and down; bow swinging like a club, until it finally stopped altogether and tumbled, drifting ghost-like in frozen space. It was no longer a threat.

Maxie didn't look back as she changed course, not exactly knowing where she was going. "Nice hunting everyone. Let's move on to the next one. Would you mind if it was on of those Destroyer's blocking our exit?"

"Sure thing Colonel," Gray Thirteen. "Just give us some cover again."

"You got it. Fourteen, Twenty-three stick with us."

Hesitation, then:

"Copy Five."

"Copy Five."

Maxie felt like chiding them; she knew why there was a hesitation. They didn't seem to like her, probably because of her yelling a few minutes ago. She didn't care though. Toughness came with a command job. At least that's what Bryan had taught her. And once again, for the umpteenth time in the last few months, she felt a tingle go down her spine at the thought of finally having her own command after nearly one-and-half years of being Bryan's right hand "man" as it were. Readiness filled her. She knew she could do the job, if only there was an opening...

But now was not the time to think about that. She might not even get a command, much less survive this battle; if she was lucky...

"Heads up, she's firin' again!" she heard someone shout over the comlink.

Heart filling with dread, Maxie's senses hyped up in anticipation of the Punisher firing its next four superlasers. The energy readings from the superweapon surged, and then were nothing a moment later. Maxie spotted one of the beams, a good distance away from her, streak across the stars—and collided with a Star Destroyer! Maxie could barely contain her laughter at the site of the Punisher hitting one of her own ships, even by accident. Idiots, she thought. Still amused, she checked the HUD for the other casualties. Besides the Star Destroyer,–God that was still funny–the Cruiser Teraswey had been destroyed, along with the Cruiser Putchera, and finally, the Cruiser—

Maxie's eyes welled up with tears almost instantly after she read the last one.

—the Faith.

The Faith.

Bryan read it, even out loud once, but he couldn't believe it.

All at once, a thousand things seemed to happen. The faces of those on board the Faith flashed into his mind, like picture slides; the tech crew, Darlow Nihil, Neelix, Pora; the officers, Vanessa Hiller(who thankfully was in a hospital with mono at this moment), the substitute Captain, Fash Deser, Lieutenant Ver Cadlo and the bridge crew; all gone. Even pictures of the pilots, most of whom were still alive; Maxie, Kevin and Evan, Danny Jefferies, Yurnold. For a moment, his heart had thought they were on board when the Faith exploded but his brain told him that they were in the battle, still alive. However, that train of thought lead to another; the Faith pilots that had perished already: Dassa Frull, Haro Lur'terrt, Lindsay Raker, Karmu Dellik, most of the B-Wing pilots...

There were other friends from other ships that he'd lost, but he dare not think of them or else he'd get lost in thought and be finished before he knew it. So he shoved the dead out of his brain and continued fighting. Mourning would come later. He still had something to fight for now.

Emilie Rodenski was starting to lose her voice from all her shouting. This battle had turned into a fray of chaos, which was bad for her because she hated messes. And this one...

She watched the corner of the viewport as the Frigate Salvation suffered dozens of small explosions as three Imperial Star Destroyers ate it alive. It's neck had already been cut in half, and was bleeding debris and fluids. Emilie forced herself to look away from it, and saw, straightaway, TIEs chasing Rebel fighters all over the map, several of them scoring mortal hits to the outnumbered Rebel ships. On the left side of the view, the Cruiser Perion's core exploded, consuming the massive ship in one huge ball of flame. Emilie winced and hissed out a breath, eyes closed, trying to fight back her tears. She would have given up if duty allowed it. But it didn't. She had to get her people out of this, no matter what. Which meant that crying wasn't an option right now.

"Emilie!" Ilan shouted. "The Cruiser Independence got through the blockade. It's sending us its coordinates. Mark 755-136 through Mark 801-068. That's where the blockade is the weakest."

"Good," Emilie said. "Tell the Independence...nevermind." She watched in the distance as the Independence plunged into hyperspace, followed by the Frigate Caratur. Her mind calmed down and began to think again. "What's the nearest capital ships to those coordinates?"

Ilan ran the commands into his console. "Ummm–here it is–the Cruisers' Defiance, Returion, Wasuk, Libordeon, and the Frigate Jollow."

"That'll be fine," Emilie concluded. "Open a channel to only those ships."

A beat.

"Channel open."

"To everyone that's hearing this, this is Admiral Rodenski. There's a weak spot in the Imperial blockade at coordinates M 755-136 through M 801-068. Your job is to clear the Imperial ships completely from those coordinates so we can try and make our escape. You'll get more help once you've cleared the way. And don't worry, I'll have the entire rest of the fleet watch your back. Rodenski out." She paused to catch her breath. "Ilan, open a broadband channel to every ship in the fleet save the ones I just talked to."

"Aye, ma'am."

A beat.

"Channel open."

Emilie stood up. "This is Admiral Rodenski. We've found a weak spot in the Imperial blockade, in between the coordinates M 755-136 through M 801-068. I've already sent a detachment to clear that area: the Defiance, Returion, Wasuk, Libordeon, and Jollow. The rest of the fleet is to engage as many Imperial ships as they can so that the detachment can do its job without getting outnumbered. Only battle those ships not between M 755-136 through M 801-068. Rodenski out."

Tilleper turned around to face her. "Are you sure this is a good idea? I still think we should–"

"Not now Tilleper."

"–call in the other ships. We could easily clear this blockade."

"No, Tilleper!" Emilie snapped. "The more ships we call in, the more that have to leave, the more time this is going to take. No." A pause. "We can get out of this ourselves."

Justin snapped the joystick to the left and set the throttle to full, which wasn't much speed for a Y-Wing. But it did get him out of the clustered battle raging behind him. He had enough of those types of fights.

However, doing that caused him to look ahead of him at an X-Wing spiraling out of control, in flames, and then exploding. Justin looked away and veered his Y-Wing to the right. "This battle is not going well," he said quietly to himself.

AFFIRMATIVE, said his astromech droid, who he had named R2.

Justin laughed stagnantly, then targeted an unsuspecting TIE Interceptor. It was charging towards a damaged Medium Transport. Justin set a course to come down right on top of it, and kept the throttle at full. He slowly crept up on the TIE, and fired at the right moment. The little gray TIE flew straight into the lasers, and then madly corkscrewed out of control, sparking then blowing up.

"Ha ha," Justin said proudly. "What a moron."

"Justin," said a static-drenched voice.

Justin glanced strangely down at the com. "Um, yes?"

"It's Sam," said the voice again, not sounding any clearer.

"Oh. It's you. Sorry, Sam, you're breaking up on this end."

He heard her groan in irritation. "Justin, can you hear me?"

"Yeah, but–"

"That's good enough. Okay, Admiral Rodenski said that we have to clear the blockade at Mark 755-136 through Mark 801-068. Get over here and help us," she ordered, rather sharply.

"Okay, okay. Just say the word, babe, and I'm there. But shouldn't you tell the others?"

"I already did. Everyone else is already over here. We have to do this though. Berislo out."

Justin changed course, heading back towards the Defiance. "What's she talking about? R2, did we get any messages from Sam?"

NOT THAT I CAN REMEMBER.

"Hmm." He shrugged. "Eh, it was probably a glitch in the system. With these...old things, I wouldn't put it path–put it past them." He chuckled inside at his speech error. Taking a deep breath, he took a long look at the skirmish ahead of him: two Star Destroyers duking it out against three Cruisers, the Defiance leading them, a Frigate, and a small hive of Rebel fighters. Although it seemed the odds favored the Alliance, Justin knew for a fact that the Empire had the upper hand; one Star Destroyer was supposedly enough firepower to take on a whole Alliance task force. Two Destroyer's versus three Cruisers was going to be a close match. Readjusting the microphone, he signaled the Defiance. "Justin to Defiance. I need orders Sam."

Flying low alongside the Defiance's starboard side, Justin glanced over at it, as if expecting the ship to give him an answer. Static suddenly jolted into his earpiece, scaring him so much that he hit his head on the canopy. He would have jumped a meter into the air if he had the room. Finally, a voice crackled through the mess. "Right-side Star Destroyer needs help," said Gessy Stiyler, the Defiance's tactician. "Green and Red group's got your back. Stiyler ou–"

"Wait how's Sam doing. Is she all right?"

Justin heard what he swore was an irritated groan.

"She's fine, Justin. Get to work. Stiyler out."

Justin heard the click of the comlink, and felt a sudden urge to punch Stiyler in the face. It didn't take much to just look at someone; look at their face for a second and just see if Sam was all right. Was that so hard? He was worried about her, that's all. The last five months had been hard on her, stressful; with the Defiance having been stuck in dry dock for repairs the entire time. It had been a part of Admiral Colvon's defense force when the Empire pushed an offensive against the Finnit sector seven months earlier, and it had taken the most damage out of any of them by far. Eighty percent of the crew had died, and the ship had practically been annihilated. He couldn't count the number of times she had woken up in the middle of the night screaming and/or sweating from her nightmares. And he couldn't imagine what it must have been like for her, the Captain, to deal with all the deaths of not just her crew, but a good deal of her friends. To add even more pressure, she had to sit around and do nothing for an entire five months while the Defiance was getting repaired. This had been bad on Justin, because not only did he have his duties as a pilot, which he was able to get out of until the Empire attacked the dry dock they were stationed at while Sam was going through a depression spell, but she sometimes didn't even want to talk to him. He wanted to help her but he couldn't.

And now she was being forced to make up battles plans for her ship during an attack that had gone wrong, all the while trying to clear the way for the fleet to escape, all eyes on her, all pressure on her. Naturally, Justin had a right to be worried.

R2 tweedled. HEADS UP, came the response on the monitor. INTERCEPTOR ON OUR SIX.

Justin's eyes widened, and instinct made him turn and look out the back viewport. He frowned when he saw the Interceptor homing in on him, fast. "Shit!" he whispered intensely, then banked the Y-Wing to starboard just as the Imperial started firing away. Interceptor's, like all TIEs, had rapid-fire installed into their four laser cannons, giving the pilot a steady stream of fire, which wasn't good for Justin in his slow, somewhat outdated Y-Wing. He swerved and banked as the Interceptor poured on the fire. His shields took too many hits, and forced Justin to jam in the port rudder pedal. That sent the fighter into a barrel roll, aimed in the direction of the Defiance. Head spinning, Justin kept his foot on the pedal but pulled back on the stick a little, leveling the fighter out. The Interceptor followed him down, firing away and scoring five back-to-back hits on his aft shield. The rest of the shots impacted the Cruiser's heavy shields. Justin, head spinning, kept the fighter in a roll but yanked it to the right, going back across the Cruiser's surface. The agile Interceptor followed though and Justin, getting very dizzy, let go of the pedal and straightened out. Blinking quickly, he flew, close, along the contour of the Cruiser's hull. Several chases passed him by, all Imperial's after Rebels. Up ahead, another Y-Wing flew parallel to the Defiance, unchallenged. The next second, another Interceptor came out of no where and fired a long volley of lasers, which hit the anonymous Y-Wing dead on. The fighter sparked then exploded in under a second. Justin winced, trying hard not to imagine that being him. But that Y-Wings's shields must have down, and his weren't quite—weren't yet.

GULP.

"Quiet R2."

Veering from side-to-side, Justin saw an Alliance corvette, relatively free of any attack, with its shields at a strong seventy percent. He banked to port and flew straight at it. The Interceptor followed, still firing relentlessly. Come on, Justin prodded. Keep coming. The TIE's lasers that missed sailed on to hit the corvette, and after a lot of misses, Justin had to guess that the corvette was getting a little annoyed. And he guessed right. A few seconds later, the corvette's two powerful turbolaser turrets fired several shots in Justin's direction. With a slight chuckle, Justin veered out of the way and allowed the shots to fly past him. Three missed, but the forth one smashed into the TIE's right solar panel, snapping it off like a twig. The Interceptor spun madly out of control showered in sparkles. The ship then overheated and blew up. With a sigh of satisfaction, Justin reset his course again, heading for his target, the right-side Star Destroyer.

Captain Samantha Berislo dug her fingers into her chair's armrests, and she felt the ship rock beneath her hands and feet.

And, as usual, it didn't take long before their was an answer as to why. Sam always loved to run an efficient ship.

"Proton torpedo to aft-starboard primary thruster," reported Lieutenant Gessy Stiyler from tactical. "Shields are holding, thruster undamaged."

"Where's our cover?" Sam asked to no one.

An awkward pause for a moment.

Then, through slightly gritted teeth, Stiyler muttered, "They're doing the best they can, ma'am." He turned back to her with a grim look. "It's not easy though."

Sam glared back at him. "I do not need any smart-ass comments right now, Lieutenant!" she snapped.

Stiyler continued to stare. "I wasn't. I was only trying to–"

"Shut up and turn around!"

With one last smug look at her, he briskly turned back to his console.

"You back talk me again and you're in the brig!" Sam barked at him. "I don't need this right now!" With a long breath, she now focused on her objective. "What's the status of the Star Destroyers?"

Rebellious attitude still in place, Stiyler checked the readings. "Star Destroyer one has taken damage to its shield generator, however shields are still over eighty percent. Weapons still pose a very significant threat. Star Destroyer two has taken heavy damage to it's command modules, and its shields are only at twenty-one percent, turbolaser recharge rate down to one-and-a-half minutes each. It should be easy to handle."

"Mmhmm," Sam muttered. "How long until the Punisher can fire again?"

"Four minutes," Carna Garrip, the ship's operations officer, answered.

"Okay," Sam said strangely. Biting her lip, she thought of her plan of action and made a quick decision. "We're going after the left Star Destroyer. All ships open fire on the left Star Destroyer, but keep the fighters attacking the right-side one."

Stiyler hesitated a moment. "Aye, ma'am."

Sam fixed him with a look for a split second, then changed her position in the chair in an attempt to relax herself. "Target the shield generators; move to point blank, I want to make this a quick strike, before the Punisher fires again."

Justin watch patiently as the cross-hairs went red, then pulled the trigger and fired a single torpedo. He quickly changed target's to the third and final primary engine, and fired a second torpedo. One right after the other, the torps punctured the two engines and exploded, blowing off a good percent of the aft hull with each hit. Barely able to contain his pride and excitement, Justin pulled off away from the Destroyer, preparing to go around for another pass. The massive Imperial ship floated slowly along its initial course, nothing propelling it, being carried by space as dark as the Empire. "Engines are gone on the Destroyer guys," Justin spoke into the comlink.

"Nice shot Justin," Patricia O'Sheen complimented. "I got the final pass on the bridge."

His mind still on Sam, Justin shrugged and turned around to make the next pass. Suddenly, a new course and a new idea popped into his mind, and he started for the bottom of the Destroyer. "I call the ionization reactor."

"Whoa, whoa, wait a sec. That's mine bitch," Pat challenged.

Justin smirked. "Not if I can help it, woman. It's already in my sites. Haha." That was a tiny little lie; he wasn't that close yet but he would definitely reach the target before Pat. Most of the guns on the Star Destroyer had been destroyed or disabled, so nothing opposed him as made his charge on the reactor.

But then R2 let out a loud tone. INCOMING WAVE. AT LEAST TWENTY-FOUR NEW TIES BEARING MARK 421-953 FROM THE PUNISHER'S DIRECTION!

"Where?"

R2 brought up the chart on the HUD and showed Justin exactly where the TIEs were coming from. A mob of blips charging "down the hill" to the battle, heading specifically for Justin.

"You might wanna change your mind, Pat. We got a bitch-load of TIEs coming in." Jamming the throttle to full, Justin placed the reactor in the center of his crosshair and fired away, just barely in range. A line of red lasers extended from one end at the Y-Wing's guns to the other end at the reactor. With the bottom shield gone, the shots easily starting cutting through the armor around the reactor, but it would take a good amount to penetrate it. And with those TIEs closing in fast, Justin wished that it would penetrate soon. Glancing from TIEs to reactor, TIEs to reactor, Justin began to feel his heart beat quicken. Then R2 gave him more bad news.

LASER'S ARE STARTING TO OVERHEAT.

But Justin had already noticed that. "I see that, R2, just a little more..."

Just as he said that, a chunk of the reactor blew off over where the lasers had been hitting. The exposed remainder immediately began sparking and exploding in small chunks. Knowing that it would soon de-magnetize, Justin practically choked the throttle and blasted off, trying to put as much distance as he could from the dying Star Destroyer. After nearly six seconds, he finally began to feel the pull of the magnetic field forming around the primary core. It yanked and tugged at his Y-Wing, and Justin, hands firmly grasping the joystick, battled with his aging fighter to keep it under his control. Side-glancing all around him, Justin saw his comrades' ship's jerk and veer, them caught in the same vortex of raw force.

Behind them, the Destroy—the Raptor(Justin finally saw its name in the upper-left hand corner of his HUD, him thinking of the Corellian gunship that he knew that had the same name—) convulsed and surged as everything on it and in it was pulled towards the core. With one final toss that coincided with an explosion blossoming from the top surface, the Raptor ceased pitching; all the power shut off; the lights went out; and the ship drifted, a dead weight, helpless.

The Y-Wing escaped the magnetic field and returned to normal flying, as did all the fighters around it.

"Everyone all right?" Justin asked, looking around at them.

"Yeah–"

"I'm fine–"

"Yeah–"

"I'm okay–"

"Good, because that was one helluva pull it had on us," Justin said with a chuckle.

"Yeah–"

"That's for–"

"Definitely–"

"Whoa!" Justin said as he watched another Alliance Cruiser explode from an assault by the Super Star Destroyer Titan. The explosion took a Medium Transport and a gunship with it, and reminded Justin that one Star Destroyer meant nothing in the long run of the battle; they were still losing badly, and the destroyed Cruiser served as a reminder of that.

"Fighters coming back," someone said over the com. "Heeeeads up."

All the Rebel's turned to face the oncoming attack, Justin included, Pat moving in on his right wing. "Let's go get 'em!" she said excitedly.

Smirking joyfully, Justin targeted a Fighter and closed in. Seven Rebels versus twenty-four Imperials...fun, fun, fun. Concussion missiles flared towards targets, breaking up part of the twenty-four. Some even caught up and destroyed their targets.

1.9 klicks...1.8 klicks...

Justin's index finger itched to pull the trigger.

1.7 klicks...1.6 klicks...

Justin pointed the nose down and fired away, and watched as his targeted Fighter ran right into the lasers and blew up. He had no time to celebrate the kill though, and immediately pulled up to face the rest of the TIEs as they and the Rebels exchanged fire. Red and green light flooded Justin's vision as space suddenly became a madhouse again. He set his shields to double-front and plowed into the mess, firing at nothing in particular, and destroying another TIE without much effort. Imperial's are stupid.

But he didn't have time to fight all these Imperials. He had a Star Destroyer to attack. And a Y-Wing wasn't good in ship-to-ship combat. So he broke off from the battle and headed for his next target.

HEADS UP, R2 tweedled. BEHIND US COMING IN FAST.

Justin sighed and rolled his eyes. I'm really getting sick of him saying that. He looked back and saw the alleged TIE, chasing after him and closing. Justin grabbed hold of the stick and prepared evasive maneuvers. Right as he was about to move, a red light flashed right by the TIE and blew it into a million pieces. A scarred X-Wing burst through the wreckage and fell into formation beside Justin. It was, of course, Pat O'Sheen. And judging by the condition her ship was in, Justin hoped she was all right. "That X-Wing isn't lookin' too good there Pat," he commented, expecting the battered starfighter from hind to front. Black scorches were imbedded all along the hull, with dents punched in every few meters. One engine was flickering on and off, causing the X-Wing to flinch and jitter every few seconds or so.

Inside the cockpit, he saw Pat lift then drop her shoulders. "So long as my shields stay up, everything else is fine."

"I don't know, Pat. It doesn't look safe from over here."

"Don't worry about me, I'm fine. Let's take down that Star Destroyer." Pat accelerated up and off to starboard. "You attack, I'll take the fighters."

Justin watched her battered X-Wing bungle towards a four-flight of TIE Interceptors about to attack the Frigate Jollow. "Gung-ho to the last," he said aloud. He finally turned and got his first look at the second Star Destroyer—in the registry as the Yeliaz. He couldn't help but feel sorry for the ship: it was being swarmed by fighters, attacking on all sides; it was surrounded by the Cruiser's and the Jollow. Every laser blast picked apart the Yeliaz's shields; a steadily declining percentage on Justin's HUD. The total percentage was just below fifty.

Then, the comlink surged with static again, and caused Justin to jump in surprise for the second time.

"This is the Defiance," came the sharp voice of his wife, and it sounded like she was stressed, so Justin started to get worried all over again. "Keep your last torpedoes. Do not, repeat do not fire any more torpedoes at the—Star Destroyer until I tell you to." A momentary pause. "Target the dorsal shield and fire on my mark."

Justin obeyed and switched back to lasers, keeping his final two torpedoes.

"Wasuk to fighte–!" someone suddenly shouted over the comlink. "–e nee—stance!"

Justin didn't need to check his HUD to find the Cruiser Wasuk. It was the only Cruiser that was taking a severe beating by both the Yeliaz and numerous TIE Bombers. It's surface was all black from battle scars and craters were on almost every meter of the outer hull. The ship was spinning on an axis, shields down for good. Bow pointed to open and unhindered space, the Cruiser was trying immensely to leave the battlefield and lose its attackers, but the Bomber's weren't making that easy. Only a single pair of thrusters were working. And as Justin got his first look at the Wasuk, a proton torpedo impacted inside an already huge crater near the aft. A moment later, the Cruiser suddenly let loose a vile explosion that swallowed it whole. When space finally sucked the air out of the fire, all that remained were thousands of pieces of debris darting harmlessly in all directions. Justin swallowed hard and looked away. More casualties...too many had been lost now. His eyes fell on the Defiance. "Justin to Defiance. Sam, whatever you're planning to do, do it now."

"Justin, shut up! Don't call unless you have something important to say!" his wife responded. She cut the channel, then came back on a general channel. "All fighters: one torpedo each on the dorsal shield of the Star Destroyer; mark!"

Justin pulled back on the stick, then pushed it down again to get the dorsal shield in his sights. Switching to his torpedoes, Justin waited patiently for the crosshair to go red. It took only a few seconds as it warmed up from yellow to red. He then released his lone torpedo and broke off. His torpedo, along with at least a dozen others and a few concussion missiles, hit the shields hard. In an instant, the percentage died from thirty-nine percent to zero. Two torpedoes breached through the barrier and impacted the hull, biting two whole chunks into the surface. When the shrapnel finally cleared, all that remained were four Y-Wings descending upon the Yeliaz in a plain diamond formation. They had polished hulls and were undamaged. Justin surmised that they had never even entered the battle up until now. Four brand new-looking Y-Wings amongst dozens of damaged, blackened, sparking, limping starfighters all around space, with the stars twinkling like oil lanterns in a dark, stormy night.

The Y-Wings swooped to a relatively close strafe level above the Yeliaz, still in their original diamond formation. Moments later, when the Imperials finally realized they were about to be attacked and opened up their guns, the Y-Wings opened their bomb bays and shot down bombs shaped like eggs, gold in color.

They were heavy space bombs, the most powerful shells in the galaxy; filled to the bolts with lukanium dynamite and Typyr explosives. One had enough power to single-handedly destroy a Rebel corvette, shields and all.

In what seemed like total desperation, the Star Destroyer's guns fired wildly at the bombs, trying to prevent them from hitting their target. It gave the Yeliaz an appearance of insanity. Justin was well out of range of the guns so he had nothing to worry about except for the TIEs. And for now, none were chasing him. Looking around for anyone who might need help, he spotted an X-Wing chasing two TIE Fighters above him and awfully close to the Yeliaz. Justin realized that it was Pat, judging by the identification that his HUD told him, and how the X-Wing was limping to one side.

Looking up at the starfighter, Justin keyed his comlink. "Pat–"

He didn't get to finish his warning.

The explosion from the bombs blinded him. Each one collided and exploded at the same time, hitting the surface at almost every section; the module's, the bow, even the bridge was taken up in a fiery hurricane. The four Y-Wings pulled up and out of the way in time, as the Yeliaz disappeared under the coat of orange.

Shielding his eyes, Justin couldn't figure out why he was so alarmed all of a sudden. This meant that the Star Destroyer was...wait a minute!

Pat!

Now he remembered: a split-second before the bombs hit, Pat's X-Wing had taken a hit from the Yeliaz's guns, and had erupted into a flaming shooting star.

Luckily, the explosion lost its oxygen rather quickly, and the brightness died. Immediately, Justin's eyes scanned around for any sign of his friends ship. He finally found it—and his heart sunk. Pat's ship was tail-spinning out of control, down and away from the TIEs she had been chasing.

"Pat!" Justin cried over the comlink. All he got back was static. Then the fuel tank exploded and scattered her X-Wing into hundreds of little bits, and Patricia O'Sheen died. Justin tried to cry out again, but nothing came out of his gaping mouth. So he closed it.

DAMN! FUCKING, FUCKING DAMN! GODDAM BASTARDS! They...THEY'RE MURDERERS. ALL FUCKING...ALL OF THOSE FUCKING BASTARDS...AHHH!

He forced those thoughts, those shouts of anger, out of his mind and tried to breath and concentrate. To take Pat's death off his mind, he switched over to Admiral Rodenski's fleet channel.

"–eed to your jump coordinates," was the first thing he heard the Admiral say. "Lead the way out Captain Berislo. To all other ships, move towards the hole in the blockade but keep the Imperials at bay, we don't want them to close the gap again. In fact, I'm—I'm going to divide you into task forces. Task force one will be the Cruisers...um, the Cruiser's Justice, Iolarion, Defaera, and Juliak. Those Cruisers are to safeguard the hole until the first task force has entered hyperspace, then it's their turn. I'll name the task forces as we go along."

"Won't that leave us vulnerable to the Punisher?" someone asked.

"Not if you move fast enough it won't."

"But we'd still be–"

"Rid, we're always going to be vulnerable to the Punisher. There's no way to change that. More people are going to die no matter what." A long pause ensued. "Now let's get moving people. We have a way out, let's not lose it. Rodenski out."

Justin let her words sink in. That's right, he thought. People are still going to die. He sighed and turned back towards the Defiance and the rest of the Cruisers that were now slowly trudging to the exit. His eyes soon found the Jollow too, a second before the Frigate's engines lit up and transported the ship into hyperspace and out of the battle. Justin felt a sense of relief at this. Another ship had escaped. More people were saved.

Watching the Jollow leave, Justin didn't see the Punisher's energy readings spike and fall. He was starting to relax into his seat a little more until a crimson-red beam shot by his Y-Wing on the port side. The Punisher's superlaser ran its course, keeping Justin in suspense until—

"Noo!"

—the beam hit the Defiance on its aft-right side, blowing a hole into the hull.

"Justin to Defiance! Sam! Sam, are you all right!"

Nothing. Justin hurried.

"Sam, can you hear me! Sam!"

Justin was now charging full-speed towards his wife's ship. Fighter's dogfighting blew past his canopy, shot past his fighter in all directions.

The first series of explosions started on the Defiance. Lines of orange burst along the Cruiser's hull on all sides. The engines exploded, taking the whole aft hub with it. The ship was thrown off a straight course, twisting it around.

Justin listened to the comlink, hoping to hear an answer from his wife, or anyone for that matter. "DAMN IT, STIYLER," he shouted, breaking the quiet of the cockpit. "OPEN THE FUCKING—!"

The bridge exploded into little bits like thunder, and Justin's eyes reflected the fire of lightning. The comlink went dead, and Justin practically broke the control shutting it off.

JUSTIN, CALM DOWN.

"Shut up, R2–"

Secondary explosions bruised the surface and wiped out more of the Defiance.

"–Don't talk to me right now."

The main core went next, and burst the Cruiser apart for good. Hunks of debris shot freely away from the devastated piece of space the Defiance had just been floating in.

JUSTIN...

"Shut up, R2...or I'll eject you from your socket."

OH, YOU CAN'T DO THAT.

"Well I feel like it all right? Now shut up!"

ALL RIGHT. FINE.

She's gone...she's gone.

His eyes were staring ahead, but he wasn't looking at space. All he saw was his heart caving in and turning into a black, empty hole darker and deeper than space. The one person he loved the most in the entire world, the star of his eye, the...

No, don't think about her. It'll only make it worse. Justin, you can't...

She was so beautiful though. Everything about her...physically, mentally; smartest girl he knew. Her spirit was something he had come to rely on in the past few years. He loved being with her, even when she wasn't in her happiest mood. He always found ways to make her smile, and she always found reason to smile; a smile he adored...just to hear her voice again...oh God, he loved her...

There were a thousand things he could describe; could talk about her for the rest of his life until he died. He'd die talking about her...

It sucked. She was finally beginning to recover from the stress of the last few months. Finally, she was smiling more than frowning. She slept more now, instead of crying over her dead shipmates and cussing out the Empire in her nightmares. Everything was getting better; and yes she was stressed from the battle but she was handling it with flying colors. Why did the Punisher have to choose her ship to fire on? What about the Liberty, or the Denat, or the Frigate Redemption, or any other ship. Why the Defiance, damn it, WHY?

She was so lovely, everything about her—

R2 squealed and tweedled in alarm.

Justin snapped out of his thoughts for a moment. "R2, shut—ah, shit!" He finally saw the debris he was about to crash into, and yanked the stick to starboard, moving out the way and missing the collision by inches. The rest of the Defiance's debris vanished to port as he pulled away from it and got to the battle from a distance. Cruisers and Star Destroyers were moving and shooting, creating a deadly dance of good and evil. Or at least that's how Justin's heart perceived it...

It beat harder and faster, almost in rhythm with the explosions happening all around the battle arena, a steady drum beat that added to the dance. All the rage built up in him. He wanted to crush them all, all the ships, all the fighters, the Punisher—everything!

He couldn't fight like this. No way. His mind would somehow finds its way back to Sam's death; it already was. Justin veered the Y-Wings nose so that it paralleled the debris field, then put it on full throttle, looking away from the debris of the wrecked Defiance. He put the jump coordinates into his computer, and R2 confirmed them cautiously. A few seconds later, Justin's Y-Wing vanished into hyperspace, and he was finally able to heave forward and let out all the tears he had blinking back and sucking in.