Chapter Seven
Liberty, pilots cantina
It was only two days later that Coreena Mallan got her active status back and could begin to plan the rescue mission for Kesra Devlin. She had been briefed on the information and development by Saron Kenzy and now was working on the first stage to get their squadron member and maybe even the other soldiers and civil employees back.
Her XO, who had been cleared on the same day as her, entered the pilot cantina and looked around for her. He found her sitting on a table in a corner, obviously totally wrapped up in some paper work. At his greeting she just mumbled something sounding like "Hi." and kept on tapping through some file, adding some notes here and there. He observed her for a while, noticing her concentration as she absentmindly bit her lip and started chewing on it. Her forehead creased and she was constantly playing with a lose strand of her hair. Marcus allowed himself a little smile. This woman intrigued him, as he had never experienced someone concentrating so hard on a task that he or she lost interest in everything else.
After watching her some time he finally made a move and waved his hand before her. "Control to Captain Mallan: You still with us?" Her head jerked up.
"Huh? What? Oh, yeah… you…" He made a face.
"This doesn't sound like you really wanted me here…" She put some lose strands behind her ear which helped nothing as they were coming down again immediately. Nevertheless he liked the movements her fingers had made during the little gesture.
"Oh… um… sorry, but I was so worked up…" He smiled.
"Never mind. So, why'd you call me?" She gave him some data cards and when they had been read she began to explain the facts and figures displayed.
"See, the first paragraph here is mainly a summary of what Kenzy found out, showing that an extraordinaire amount of female Alliance personnel got captured in the area of Alzoc III, the same area where the IV. Imperial Battle Group under Admiral Arvin Chesfer is operating. She obviously did some research on this guy and found out that he seems to be an expert on the field of prisoner interviews, torture and the like. To my mind he's just a disgusting pervert who likes to take advantage of females of any kinds, torturing and maybe even abusing them. We have to stop this man." He looked up and saw two different colored eyes blazing with emerald or respectively azure fire. During this short, but intense look he had quite a hard time disguising how much these eyes intrigued him. He cleared his throat.
"And the other parts…?" She looked at the data pad again and pointed at some numbers and charts.
"This one's about the latest movements of the battle group, some assumptions what their orders are at the moment, where they're going, you know the usual… Here's something 'bout past encounters with our forces, tactics and doctrines they seem to use… This one's interesting, it's about all recent pilot captures and it seems that the IV. Group has the major share in this. Some Intel crap on this, too… Well, just look it up when you got time, 'kay?" He nodded, put the cards in one of his pockets and looked at her again.
"So… you have some action planned yet?" She continued trying to tame all the red-golden strands that had escaped her braid during the hours she must have been working but they seemed to have a life of their own.
"Yes… I'm working on convincing Zifra to let us go after this man… pity we aren't an independent operating unit." He cocked an eyebrow.
"You want to convince Zifra to go after a battle group? You are nuts, you know this?" Captain Gatton Zifra was a very cautious Captain, always well-considered, taking his time with decisions, rather running from attacks than placing his ship in danger.
"I mean…, I detected some signs of what people less in favor of him would call cowardice but… anyway, it's worth a try, don't you think? And apart from that… we don't even have official orders, and with everyone concentrated on that Death Star thing, we shouldn't turn a blind eye on other things." Coreena Mallan captured more and more parts of him. The blaze of her eyes and the way her hands had moved throughout her argumentation mesmerized him. So he turned his profile to her as fast as he could and replied:
"Yeah… maybe you should try it… if you manage to convince him… than… let's say, you… um… earned yourself a backrub, okay?" She gave him a strange look but said nothing. He felt the slight change in the atmosphere between them but this time he wouldn't let her slip away like the last time.
"So… you wanna tell me what brought you to the cause?" She leaned back and sighed, staying silent for several moments. Obviously not the right topic, either. But then she answered nevertheless.
"Something really silly." She told him of her mother, her fiancé, everything she'd never told anyone before.
"You're saying this guy's mother was responsible for you joining the Rebellion?" She shrugged.
"If I had been from… say… Commenor, I'd maybe joined the Academy at Prefsbelt IV. Who knows?"
"Yeah… I was there."
"Where?"
He smiled. "At Prefsbelt. I was trained by one of the Empire's major celebrities, Soontir Fel." Coreena shrugged again. "Never heard of him. And how did you get here?"
pilots cantina, at the bar
At the same time another pair of Grays entered the cantina. The two Kar'Esta sisters walked in and joined Randy Krennel at the little bar. Deraani was the first to see their CO and XO sitting together some tables away from them. She smiled one of her wicked smiles and said in her usual self-assure voice: "He has the hots for her." She got raised eyebrows from both of them. "Lochlin and the Cap. Just look at them. I'm not quite sure 'bout her, but he's in it, full force." Now Krennel and Kara looked at them, too. They saw them talking amicably, laughing, being together just like friends.
"Rani… you're imagining it. Sure, they like each other, but love…?"
A lop-sided grin. "No, no, you have to take a closer look. See how she keeps fidgeting with her hair? And see how his eyes follow her hands? If you observe them long enough you might notice that from time to time he seems to remind himself that he's not supposed to be attracted by his CO. Look! First his eyes seemed to be glued on her face and then – puff – he takes them off so she wouldn't notice it." Randy and Kara exchanged a look she didn't miss. "You aren't hiding anything from me, are you?" Both innocently smiling, Kara answered: "Moments ago you proved that no-one can hide anything from you." Her sister downed her ale at one go and smiled again, now looking quite devilish. "You're damn right, little sis."
When she was about to order her second lomin-ale, the alarm klaxons began to wail through the ship.
Fighter hangar
When Blenwell arrived at his ship, his astromech unit Tin hooted and whistled impatiently. As fast as he could he climbed up and jumped in, trying to calm down his R5-unit in he process. "Shut up." More whistling and excited chirping. "I said, shut up!" Tin didn't obey. But when will he ever…, Blenwell sighed inwardly and got his fighter started. He was one of the first Grays out on the battle field. Their opponents consisted of a dreadnaught and a Corellian blockade runner which Control had identified as Nightmare and Bloodshed. As he could see it, a squadron of TIE-fighters was out there, supported by some interceptors and even bombers. He switched to the open frequency. "This is Gray Seven. How're we looking?" While waiting for an answer he caught sight of his wing-man, Tyan D'Ar and throttled up to him. He switched to group-frequency. "Eight, this is Seven. I'm taking the lead. What the hell is going on here?" His wing-man didn't answer and Marten assumed his comm-system was malfunctioning, so he switched over to the open frequency again. "Anybody else here form Gray Squadron?" He got answers from Nunb, Flann, Banon and Kenzy.
Gritting his teeth he swung behind a pair of TIE-fighter on their run on the Liberty's surface. He just hoped D'Ar was getting what he had in mind and covered him. He did a barrel down and in his dive he shot the first fighter, when the second was shot by another fighter coming form right behind him. "Thought you needed some help, Seven.", a gloating Kenzy told him. He just grinned and answered with a "Me? Never!" while targeting another fighter pair, this time two interceptors. Suddenly his comm crackled and D'Ar's voice came up, constantly interrupted by static hissing.
"This… Eight… comm-system… repaired… stabilizer hit…" Blenwell allowed himself a look behind. Smoke was trailing from the left wing and D'Ar's fighter spiraled uncontrolled through space. Damn! "Eight, can you hear me? Go back to the Liberty. You took too much damage Try to fly back, Kenzy'll take my wing."
"Not in the least, Flight Officer. You will take mine."
"Stop that damn bantering, Twelve and Seven." He broke hard to port as green laser beams were coming from behind.
"Nice you decided to join the party at last, Captain." Mallan's X-Wing did an exceptional run on a furball of eyeballs as she was doing a barrel roll and fired her lasers non-stop. It got her three kills in one run. She did not comment on Blenwell's remark, though. The next thing he heard her say, was: "Anyone wondered what the capital ships are there for? They only exchanged some shooting with the Liberty but nothing else. Let's make a run on them. Gray Squadron, One Flight and Two Flight take Nightmare, Three Flight, you take some fighters from the Cats and take Bloodshed." As they began to assemble in lose formation, Control suddenly interfered.
"Control to Gray Leader. Abort your attack. These are direct orders from Captain Zifra and are not to be questioned. I repeat…" The tone all the Grays had had to experience some days ago now took on Control.
"You don't need to repeat. We're doing this run whether Zifra likes it or not. These ships belong to the IV. Battle Group and we need at least one of them captured. Mallan out." With that, Blenwell believed she had switched to the fighter squadrons' frequency. "Silver Cat and Krayt Squadron, this is Gray Leader. I suggest we change the attack coordination to the following: Cat One Flight, join Gray Three Flight, you are covering their first attack on Bloodshed. Once the shields are down, Krayt One Flight use your ion cannons and disable the ship. The rest of you take care of these fighters while we try to take out Nightmare. All leaders acknowledge."
"Gray Leader, this is Krayt Leader. We really shouldn't be messing with Control and the Cap. I suggest…"
"No, you don't. We are in a fight for the Jedis' sake. We don't have time to discuss. And by the way… you don't want to be renamed Coward Squadron now, do you, Krayts? Let's show Zifra what we are capable of and we will get some real missions."
While their leaders had been busy exchanging blows, their squadrons had fought hard, minimizing the fighters down to a dozen eyeballs and three or four squints. But Coreena hadn't missed Tyan D'Ar's way down to the Liberty and the fireball his crash on her hull had ignited, nor had she missed Kara's punch-out and the return to the Liberty of Flann's badly damaged fighter, meaning that Two Flight only consisted of two fighters now. While making the first run on the Nightmare's shields she just hoped Blenwell and Banon were clever enough to react appropriately to the new situation. If they all got alive out of this she would have to do a heck of a performance analysis. She hated that.
space around the Liberty
"Twelve, this is Seven humbly requesting your assistance as a wing-mate." The mock tone of his voice made his words a farce but she could play that game, too.
"Seven, this is Twelve. Happy to be able to be any support to you. Now shut your mouth and kill that dreadnaught." With that Kenzy's X-Wing overtook his and raced down towards the surface of the Nightmare, doing a mad dance of twitching and sweeping to escape the dreadnaught's lasers. Blenwell just had to admire the way she seemed to always find a way through the tick mass of laser beams without difficulties while his movements cleared mirrored the efforts he had to make.
"Gray One and Two Flight, use the co-ordinates I give you know and fire two proton torpedoes on my mark." He let Tin set the co-ordinates.
"Ready, Grays?" One after one acknowledged.
"Good… three, two, one… now!" A volley of blue torpedoes made their way towards the shield-generators of the Nightmare. With a glorious bloom the generators exploded and let the ship defenseless immediately. Cheers could be heard over the comm.
"It's not over yet, peeps." And true to Mallan's word the wall of laser beams surrounding Nightmare even grew thicker and the last remaining TIEs themselves on the X- and Y-Wings.
Blenwell had a hard time keeping Kenzy out of real trouble while she was eliminating the sensor phalanxes to make the cannons blind. Her shooting was utterly precise but it still needed two runs to make one half of the right side of the ships blind.
"You're not getting anywhere with that, Twelve." Her only response was a grunt and something like: "Shut up and keep your senses on those fighters. They are really starting to annoy me." Suddenly his R5 hooted and the message "BLOODSCHED DISABLED." appeared on his HUD. And some moments later Mallan announced: "Okay, guys, the party is over. Retreat from Nightmare, she's gonna blow in some moments and we got what we wanted. I repeat, all fighters retreat from Nightmare and concentrate on Bloodshed." As fast as he could, Blenwell pulled back from Nightmare and watched with satisfaction how the explosions started to consummate her hull.