Chapter 8
Location: Resistance Headquarters, Planet Hrill
"General, the Rhen Var garrison is arriving," Lieutenant Ko Connix called out from under the communications tent, a temporary setup that was a fair distance from the loud construction zone where their company of engineers from Serenno was going to work tunneling out a base for them from the gray granite using tunneling machines and duracrete sprayers brought from their now gutted shell of a homebase back on the opposite side of the galaxy.
"Very good," Leia nodded and she knew that the Resistance that they had available was assembled, "How're we looking so far?" she asked her now second-in-command, General Cal Garul, the commander of the base on Serenno.
"Progressing smoothly ma'am," the man responded, his red eyes looking down at the schematics the engineering company were working from, "We've got the main hangar just about hollowed out and we're getting duracrete sprayed on as we go. It won't take long before we'll be able to start flight operations, maybe a day or two."
"And when will we be able to get our personnel under the mountain?" Leia asked.
"I'll have to ask the good captain, maybe a week before all personnel will be in a barracks and command and control can be established. The engineers have got at least a month before they can have a break."
"We'll have to have our troops lend a hand to make sure we don't overload those men," Leia ordered.
"Already done, most of our men are helping to get the fighters camouflaged and the digger debris processing for more duracrete base, those that aren't doing that are processing timber for fortifications," the general nodded.
At this point one of the Vakbeor cargo frigates from Rhen Var landed at the clearing. Escorting it down was a pair of A-Wings from its home base. Immediately out of the ship came a line of troops led by a colonel and a major, both from Republic Intelligence. Leia was surprised by this, their presence at Rhen Var hadn't been told to her by Temmin.
"Republic Intelligence?" Leia asked, pointing at the officers who came walking over to them.
"Spooks, they have a habit of surviving without anyone having a clue about it," General Garul responded.
"General Organa, General Garul," the colonel said politely, saluting to the two of them respectfully, "Apologies for the lack of communication about our presence but we couldn't risk our presence being revealed by snooping First Order intercepts."
"And you are?" Garul asked.
"Colonel Frey Juun, Republic Intelligence," the human replied.
"Major Gliis Sann, same," the Bothan reported respectfully.
"What were you doing on Rhen Var gentlemen?" Leia asked the two as they were allowed in.
"Trying to survive. We witnessed the cataclysm of Hosnian Prime, so we returned to our post on Rhen Var, and tried to contact our comrades in Intelligence, but we couldn't reach anyone, so we've been tracking Republic forces that have gone underground."
"Any luck?" Leia asked, curious about what they'd found out.
"There's some naval units hiding out in the far outer rim and wild space. Army units are rallying as best they can, stealing, buying, bartering their way into hiding spots around the outer rim as they can, but they're harder to find, not all of our garrisons can get word out and are just stuck," Colonel Juun responded, shaking his head.
"Any of note?" Konnix asked.
"A couple, a naval task force operating based near Bespin is still fighting. And another larger one we believe is gathering near Ryloth," Major Sann responded immediately.
"How large are these fleets?" Poe asked as he arrived, "Sorry to interrupt, Commander Poe Dameron."
"We know," both intelligence officers responded.
"To answer your question we've identified at least twenty ships ranging from corvettes to a Dreadnought Mk. III at Bespin and there might be some capital ships at Ryloth, no idea how many," Major Sann responded, "They're definitely on the First Order's radar."
"There's actual cruisers out there? Actual battleships…" Poe whispered to himself, acting as though he'd just gotten hit in the face by a stick.
"We'll need to find them and rally them, those kinds of assets cannot be wasted," Leia told them all, "We're too few now to not pursue every avenue for more troops and more ships."
"I can go," Poe volunteered.
"I need you to organize our squadrons here Commander," Leia ordered, their people were still new, and they had to get organized now that they had so many.
"We're as organized we'll get at the moment ma'am, I've got seven X-Wing squadrons and three A-Wing squadrons organized into three wings, I'm keeping Black Squadron independent for now," Poe responded quickly, excited at the prospect getting out in his own X-Wing and finding more allies.
"General, that is quite a lot of ships, we can start striking out once we're ready for flight operations," the Colonel suggested, gesturing to the scattered camouflaged fighters behind them underneath the shade of the red-leaved trees.
"I would like to have our base fully operational before we start launching strikes and raids. We've seen what happens when we go into a campaign half-cocked Colonel, it cost us last time," Leia retorted.
"Well we have a detachment of engineers and quite a lot of equipment to help that task, it should be coming down in the next cargo frigate," the same man responded.
"Excellent, well Commander, you think you're up for a field trip?" Leia responded.
"Where to?" Poe chirped immediately, excited for the coming mission.
"You'll take Rey to Ryloth, Zay and Shriv will go to Bespin. Take your pick from Black Squadron to go with you. You will need to locate and convince those fleets and bring them back here," Leia ordered, "I want you to first get some rest. None of your pilots have had any real rest in quite some time. So you'll leave tomorrow morning. Understood?"
"Yes ma'am, I'll let 'em know," Poe acknowledged, and walked out of the tent without a salute, a bit of an oddity to the assembled command staff from the new Republic garrison additions.
The Resistance now had an actual brass, two Generals including Leia, a pair of Colonels, three Commanders, multiple majors, more than a dozen captains, and enough lieutenants to manage their much larger forces. Troops, crew, pilots, and engineers swarmed about getting jobs of all kinds done as quickly as they could. Leia could see the makings of a new Rebellion before her, and from what she'd just learned they had a chance of growing further still.
"So General Organa," Colonel Juun asked as he straightened his uniform properly and smoothed his goatee, "What is our plan going forward? I don't think I've been briefed in."
"We're establishing our base here, digging into the mountain for cover and concealment. Once that's done hopefully Commander Dameron will have returned with a sizeable fleet that we will use to strike First Order bases and patrols in hit and run tactics, rallying the galaxy to our side as we did before," Leia explained, "Hopefully, depending on what our intelligence can gather, we will also try to make contact with Mon Cala, and gain the support of those vital shipyards."
"Unfortunately you may find that task difficult General," the intelligence major sighed.
"Mon Cala was attacked five days ago, the planet's shipyards are destroyed and the majority of their defense fleet along with them. The First Order is more than likely pounding away at Mon Cala's planetary shields at this very moment," Colonel Juun reported dejectedly, but was more than willing to share this.
"Have you told anyone about this information Colonel Juun?" Leia asked.
"No ma'am, it wasn't confirmed, and I didn't want to squash morale, for what it was back on Rhen Var," the man whispered.
"See what you can do about confirming it please. We need to know."
Location: Resistance Headquarters, Pilots' Bivouacs, Planet Hrill
The large tent that was set up underneath a pair of large white-bark red-leaf trees was hidden well enough, and had room for the members of Black Squadron that had survived this far. Poe had, assembled in this tent, Captains Temmin Wexley and his wife Kare Kun, two very influential leaders within the group of starfighter pilots assembled here, along with Lieutenants Nien Nunb, the veteran, Niv Lek, Jessika Pava, Cova Knell, and C'ai Threnalli. The eight of them were all they had left of the original Resistance starfighter corps. At the moment they weren't fighting the First Order, they were fighting the elements, trying to seal slight tears in their very old tent fabric as the rain poured in.
"How're we supposed to last for a week out here? It's bloody ridiculous, I could get better sleep in my cockpit!" Niv groaned as he wiped the rain out of his eyes as he held two parts of the fabric together that just refused to seal as Jessika applied another attempted patch of sealant along the tears.
"Well you're more than welcome to, after you patch that," Poe said as he laid back onto his cot, thinking of what awaited them out in the territory of those rogue Republic fleets.
"And count yourself lucky Niv, a lot of the infantry are sleeping on the ground, under tarps strung under the Falcon and around the shuttles," Kare reminded the man as she, C'ai, Nien Nunb, and Temmin played Sabaac on the stump they'd snagged and put on their side of the tent.
"Speaking of sleeping around…" Jessika teased, looking at Poe with a sly grin, "I hear the Commander here and Zay Meeko are an item nowadays."
"Where'd you hear that?" Poe instantly asked, feeling the flare of heat in his temples at his little romance being discovered.
"C'mon Commander, the way you two look at one another…it's pretty obvious," Kare replied, "It's the same way genius here looks at me," she pointed at Temmin who shrugged.
"It's true sir, you two aren't as low-key as you think," Temmin replied with a smirk.
"Well that's good to know, get those leaks patched and get some shut-eye, we're doing briefing and pre-flight tomorrow at 0600, then we'll take-off immediately after that," Poe said as he set an alarm and then threw a towel over his face to hopefully get some sleep.
He was still on Dantooine time, and his internal clock was saying it was late afternoon, hardly time for sleep, but he was still tired, Black Squadron had spent quite a lot of effort on taking a shift with the engineers on mixing duracrete and then setting up camouflage for their fighters and making their own tent. Then he himself had to map out a route for the squadron to move towards Ryloth and then Bespin, this took time because he wanted to evade the main hyperspace routes and but he'd managed to accomplish the task. Hopefully Black Squadron would be able to accomplish this coming task, a more important one by far.
Location: First Order Star Destroyer Carnage, Orbit over the Planet Mon Gazza
Fire and debris enveloped the bridge of the Carnage, a once proud First Order star destroyer, the bodies of her bridge crew littered the floor, and there was no sign of a turnaround in the battle that the ship found itself losing. The captain was long-dead, the XO and the auxiliary bridge were unable to control the ship with the extensive damage that the ship had sustained and the gunnery officer was probably dead in the infirmary for all that the last surviving officer on the bridge knew. She knew it was a lost cause to stay with the ship and hope to turn the tide. But the training that instilled a fight-to-the-death mentality was winning out.
"Status," the injured lieutenant commander coughed out, holding her side.
"Weapons systems don't answer ma'am, hull breaches on all decks, comms are down and only number one engine answers to the helm," the ensign who was their ship's second-in-command responded, limping around to different control stations, shoving a body off of the last one, "The reactor's been compromised, it'll go critical in less than five minutes, the ship's lost commander."
"How'd they do it…how?" the young officer panted, leaning against the sparking and damaged control panel at the windscreen which was cracked and about to be breached.
She looked up, and saw the equally-sized enemy ship looming over them, and then saw the blinking of red turbolaser fire get loose aiming right at them. It proved to be the last thing anyone on the bridge ever saw. Around the Resurgent-Class Star Destroyer Carnage were its two sisterships, the Ferocity and the Sovereign, both drifting powerless and dying, pieces of the once-powerful ships tearing themselves away as explosion wrecked both ships. But the Carnage died a horrifically public death when its reactor detonated and tore the ship in two, eliminating whatever chance anyone left aboard had for survival. But it wasn't as though their opponents were in a merciful mood anyways.
As escape pods launched they were pounced upon by vengeful awaiting starfighters, by the end of the slaughter only the fleet that had jumped the First Order task force remained alive in orbit. But they didn't feel the need to stick around, as rapidly as the fleet appeared it left, pouring into hyperspace and disappearing. The carnage that they had wrought upon their foes was something that the galaxy hadn't seen since the destruction of Starkiller Base and the hyperspace ramming of the Supremacy.
Dropping out of hyperspace behind a moon near this poverty-stricken world came eleven T-70 X-Wings of the Resistance's Black Squadron. The X-Wings immediately detected the distress signals emanating from the First Order warships that had gotten jumped in high orbit. Seven of the X-Wings were painted with black markings over their gray hulls. Poe's X-Wing was as he always had it, with black and orange markings. Rey's was gray and blue, and Zay and Shriv had theirs marked with black and markings on their gray hulls. All eleven fighters now had a mystery on their hands.
"Looks like it was a heck of a battle," Rey said as she looked out at the fragmented hulls of the destroyed First Order warships.
"A one-sided battle," Shriv noted over the comms, "I'm not seeing any ships that aren't First Order."
"And no escape pods either," Temmin called out, "Can anyone else confirm that?"
"Bloody hell he's right, Commander I thought those star destroyers had a crew of over eighty thousand, some should've been able to get out."
"Something funny's goin' on here," Poe informed them, deciding to search the debris, "Black Squadron, get in there see if you can find anything on your scanners up close. We might be able to find something important."
"Roger that Black Leader," Kare acknowledged and the squadron proceeded forward, spreading out into five two-ship duos of X-Wings.
Poe found Rey on his wing, her white and blue helmet visible on her head with her own droid, BB-3C, painted blue and white and awaiting something to do as the two of them headed towards the wreckage of the star destroyer that had gotten torn in half. There were pieces of hull and ship innards everywhere, along with bodies, thousands of them drifting around the wreckage as they made their way into the field. Poe checked his comms and switched to a secondary channel with Rey so that he didn't clog up the squadron-wide channel.
"Watch your speed here," Poe advised as they got in close and started weaving around debris floating around them, some still glowing with heat, "One good hit from a piece of debris like that reactor plate and your fighter's had it."
"Roger," Rey acknowledged and steered carefully around the piece Poe had pointed out, staying nearby the more experienced pilot and his distinctive black and orange X-Wing.
"So," Poe started calmly as they flew about, looking at their scanners for anything of interest, "Heard you slept in your fighter's cockpit."
"Oh, yeah I did," Rey responded with a shrug, "Didn't seem right to have someone else sleep on the ground when I had my own fighter with a chair I could sleep in. Plus the rainstorm was cool to look at on the canopy."
"Yeah I've never been able to sleep in the cockpit," Poe shook his head, "Well actually that's not technically true, I can in hyperspace, but that's it."
"Is this channel secure? Just the two of us?" Rey asked as they got to the hangar, which looked like it had been wrecked by a series of explosions that tore and bent the hull plating away, pausing as they looked at it for signs of what could have done this.
"Yeah, why?" Poe asked distractedly, bringing his X-Wing in close to the hangar opening and shining his front beam lights into the space, and was able to pick out TIE Fighter panels in the racks within the hangar and pieces of troop transports on the deck or floating about. If what he was seeing was correct this ship hadn't launched fighters before its opponent had rained hell into the hangar, destroying them in their cradles.
"I heard about you and Zay, that you two…did it," Rey replied sheepishly.
Poe was snapped out of his analysis and cocked his head slightly before tapping the controls and cleanly spun the T-70 around to shine his bright lights at Rey's own ship, hovering about fighter-length to his left.
"How'd you find out about that?" Poe asked suspiciously, he had a feeling that his squadron was using their big mouths a bit too much.
"Zay told me," Rey said in reply, shielding her eyes from the lights hitting her light gray and blue fighter.
"She told you?" Poe deadpanned, not quite sure if he was to believe her, "Zay did?"
"Yes, well sort of," Rey started to explain, "Leia's given me some textbooks, I've been reading one on how to read people, body language, facial expressions, that sort of thing. Zay fits the bill for recently being in…a relationship, according to the book at least. Now would you stop shining those things in my face?" she growled.
Poe turned the X-Wing back, and returned to the task at hand.
"Looks like the First Order got taken by surprise, these TIE racks are full, none of them got deployed, at least on this side of the hull," Poe told her, "To be able to do this kind of damage though…this isn't fighter-based damage, the armor itself is blown away, look at the point blasts, only turbolasers can do that, I think I'm right in saying Republic ships did this."
"Think they're nearby?" Rey asked as she examined the damage for herself.
"Maybe, but we're told they're waging a guerilla campaign like we did, hit-and-run," Poe shrugged, knowing that this damage was very recent.
"Uh…they might be closer than we both expected," Rey called out, pointing out something on her scanners, four craft entering the system from hyperspace, "Small craft entering the system."
"Black Squadron go dark now!" Poe ordered, shutting off his lights and waved to Rey to duck into the large destroyed hangar.
The two X-Wings swiftly ducked into the hangar, out of sight and facing out. They could see the glowing of red engines approaching through the heavily crowded wreckage field. The Star Destroyer continued to spin and they lost sight of the craft approaching them. But Poe had an idea of what they were. He waved to Rey and then crossed his hands to form an X and then pointed out towards the approaching craft, the hand-signal for X-Wings. Rey lifted her palms then shook her head and motioned out towards the approaching craft, as if asking why they weren't out there greeting them. Poe shook his head, knowing that X-Wings weren't only used by the good guys nowadays, it was best not to reveal themselves before they were completely sure who they were.
The four X-Wings appeared in front of them, slowly moving around the field of wreckage, and Rey watched them scanning the field and she tried to get a look at their markings to see if she or Poe could identify them.
"Red and gray with the phoenix," Poe called out, "Republic Navy for sure."
"Let's go say hello then," Rey replied, relieved a great deal and powered up.
"Rey no wait, we're not broadcasting IFF's!" Poe cried out as Rey's engines powered to life and revealed their position to the scanning X-Wings.
"What's an IFF?" Rey asked, still slightly unaware of some of the military procedure knowledge needed in this situation.
"In a nutshell it means that it tells them who we are, without it they won't know not to shoot until they are close, but they might not wait that long before firing," Poe warned as all four T-70 X-Wings came about and accelerated towards the two of them and locked their S-Foils in attack position.
"Uh oh," Rey realized and punched activated her deflector shields and dove back into the heart of the debris field.
Red laser fire lanced towards the two of them, and with weapons fire came the rest of the X-Wings the Resistance had deployed out here. The four X-Wings that had arrived and opened fire saw the new signals and then started to turn away as Poe broke free in pursuit of them.
"Attention Republic fighters!" he called out on an open frequency, "This is Commander Poe Dameron of the Resistance, hold fire, I say again hold fire! We're friendlies."
As Poe pursued the four fighters another eight X-Wings marked up the same way jumped into the system right in front of them and readied for combat, but they were extremely close, as in mere meters in front of them. Poe rolled immediately, banking up and coming practically cockpit-to-cockpit with the fighter that was in front of him. Both pilots looked up and saw one another from five feet away, able to pick out the details on one another's faces and helmets and could see each other's orange flight suits and white survival vests. Then the Republic fighters began to break away, but kept their distance with S-Foils locked.
"Attention Resistance fighters, this is Sabre Leader, you are not broadcasting proper IFF signals, verify identity or you will be fired-upon," the female squadron leader of the fighters said as Black Squadron arrayed themselves to face off with the Republic ships.
"Activating IFF now," Poe replied, typing in the command and BB-8 assisted and started broadcasting, the green light triggering on his control panel, "IFF broadcasting."
"Roger that, authenticated, welcome back to the Republic Fleet, sending coordinates for hyperspace jump," Sabre Leader replied, "The admiral wants to speak with you."
"Well so do we," Poe said and saw the coordinates, "BB-8 plug 'em in and let's go. Sabre Leader we've received coordinates and are ready for jump."
"Black Leader, Jump immediately, we'll be right behind you," the woman said in response.
"Black Squadron mark coordinates and jump," Poe ordered.
With a slight delay the X-Wings made their hyperspace jumps, pouring into hyperspace and were followed by the strangers' squadron. Poe sat back and looked down at his timer, he saw it was only a twenty-minute jump, meaning that it was just out of long-range sensor range of their former destination. He was able to get a transmission sent out to the Resistance base at Hrill before they dropped out of hyperspace at the coordinates, and were confronted with a powerful tractor beam. In fact all of their fighters were caught and to both sides Poe looked and saw that two Free Virgillia-Class Corvettes had their guns turned and trained on his fighters.
"Hey what is this?" Poe demanded through the comms as the Republic fighters zoomed past him.
He tried to call out, but no one answered, his input readouts showed that they were getting nothing, he was being jammed. Poe then looked forward and saw a sight for sore eyes, a pair of MC85 Star Cruiser escorted by ten Vakbeor-Class Cargo Frigates, five more Free Virgillia-Class Corvettes, three Nebulon-C Escort Frigates, a pair of smaller Nebulon-D Scout Frigates, and lastly a trio of MC80D Mon Calamari Cruisers. Tucked in amongst them were three Baleen-Class Heavy Freighters and a pair of tankers. The freighters didn't have military markings at all and were not stock, instead their massive racks of cargo had two long hangars on the top and bottom, so they were probably stolen/confiscated for some other use.
The only two classes of ships that were in any way modern were the Nebulon-D and the MC80D. The scout frigate was an exclusively anti-piracy and anti-smuggling vessel, barely two hundred meters long with only four docking collars on its thin midship spine and a simplified bow section more wholly armored compared to the older Nebulon-series frigates and six powerful engines in its stern engine section. For armament it only had eight point-defense laser cannons, three turbolasers facing forward and one single ion cannon under the bridge.
The one thousand two hundred meter-long MC80D was easily more powerful than its original configuration. It was born out of a budget crunch that saw older Liberty-type MC80's, the most numerous of the class, refitted with eleven modern sublight engines each more powerful than their nine originals and the large broad wings of the Liberty-type cruisers were trimmed and newer slimmer thinner ones were tipped by powerful forward facing ion cannons, giving a much-needed boost of speed. The hull was still perforated with its complement of precision targeting turbolasers, point-defense laser cannons, and new deflector shield generators but all were within retracting bulbs on the surface. The hangar was enlarged going forward to add another squadron and four more shuttles. To the enlarged hangars' stern, the two batteries of powerful three-gun ventral broadside ion cannons remaining in place acting as the ship's most powerful weapons. Added to that was a more modern system of automation reducing its class's substantial crew of more than five thousand to an average of a thousand depending upon its mission. These ships were a sight for sore eyes for the capital ship-deprived Resistance, a single MC80D could turn the tide of a battle.
"Twenty-seven ships," Poe thought to himself as his ship was brought in past the picket ships, "Three hundred plus in fighters. Now this is the fleet we need, so long as they believe we are who we say we are."
The fighters were brought towards the center MC85, and Poe was first inside, being dragged into the gaping fighter hangar bay where he saw numerous X-Wings and A-Wings parked about but saw a contingent of blue and black clothed Republic Marines wearing their white helmets and black visors. They weren't the old Alderaan-styled uniforms and helmets of the past, they just retained the coloration for tradition's-sake. The helmets and uniforms were the same as those of the regular troops Poe and the others had on their side now, they were just colored differently. The helmets' fronts were black, and the rest was white, and their black tactical vests and blue shirts were all modern. And they were just as hostile and imposing as Poe remembered, because as soon as he landed he had a Republic Marine's EL-18 jabbing against the canopy as the sergeant was yelling for him to get out of the cockpit.
"Shut off the craft and exit the cockpit! NOW!" the Marine yelled forcefully.
Poe held up his hands and BB-8 shut down the X-Wing and he opened the canopy and the Marine practically threw him from it as the hangar filled with more yelling and ordering around as the rest of the squadron was likewise harassed. After removing his helmet Poe was shoved down the staircase shoved against his X-Wing and his pistol was ripped away and then the moment that he touched the ship's deck he was hit in the back of the knee by a boot and shoved to the ground.
"Spread your hands and legs, now!" Poe was ordered, but it didn't make a difference because someone kicked his legs apart and a single female Marine knelt down and started to very forcefully pat him down, removing his toolkit on his leg and his code cylinders on his arm.
"Look we're on the same side!" Poe yelled back, looking at the two humans pointing their rifles at him.
"Shutup," the female Marine snapped at him, reaching under his white harness and searched around.
Poe just growled in annoyance, the Republic Fleet had always been strict on security, and the Marines were hardasses, even during peacetime. So he was seeing what war and near-annihilation had done to their already grumpy dispositions. He also noted something new, these Marines had black balaclavas over their faces, so he was only seeing their eyes.
"Clear!" the female Marine called out, immediately returning to her feet.
"Just tell me what this is all about?" Poe cried out as he was yanked up by the back of his flight gear, "Jeez! Hey, watch it!"
"Hands on your head! Move it!" the sergeant who'd yanked him out of the cockpit ordered as another Marine shoved him forward.
Poe then noted Rey's fighter was just landing and that he was being forced to a growing group of Resistance pilots all searched and stripped of their weapons and tools. Their BB units were all still in their fighters, restraining bolts having been placed on all of them the moment that their pilots had left the cockpits. All had their hands on their heads, and were looking to Poe in confusion, none were hurt, seeing as they hadn't resisted. But Rey wasn't so docile when confronted by a Marine corporal jabbing his weapon against the glass of her cockpit.
"Oh don't do it…" Poe groaned.
As if on command the canopy was opened and the Marine was aiming down into the cockpit and trying to pull Rey from the pilot's seat. However there was a problem. This last starfighter was now the subject of interest as a fight started with Rey being unconvinced that the Marine with a blaster aimed at her and his face covered was on their side, and when he tried to bat her helmet with the stock of his rifle it was grabbed and a tug of war began with Rey being confused and wanting to stay in the cockpit and the Marine, now with help from another man, wanting her out. To everyone's surprise the two men were sent flying straight back, one of them crashing into another X-Wing's fuselage with a loud bang. Rey was up and out of the cockpit now, holding her NN-14 ready to do battle, and several Marines lifted their weapons and aimed at her.
"Rey!" Poe called out and quickly moved towards her, "Stop! Put the blaster down!"
"When I know they're not with the First Order!" Rey replied, breathing heavily, teeth bared at the Marines surrounding her.
"Of that," a loud male voice called out from the back of the hangar, "I can assure you. I am Rear Admiral Dominis Jaye."
From the back of the hangar came a uniformed Republic Navy Rear Admiral. He was a Kage, with smooth gray skin, white hair tied in a short wolftail behind his head. The most striking feature anyone noticed were his eye's practically glowing yellow irises. He was handsome, built strongly but athletically, typical for a Kage male. He had a tan and blue uniform on and the insignia for Admiral on his chest. He was strangely not wearing a cap, like most Republic officers did. But his eyes and face were drawn into a face of a man who was completely stern. His voice and posture reeked of authority, and he demanded respect.
"Who you are is another question," he told the Resistance squadron and then looked Rey dead in the eye, "Now, drop, your, weapon."
Rey challenged the man with her eyes, looking him solidly in the eyes without wavering. Part of her knew this man was more than likely on their side, but the actions she'd experienced from the Marines around her put doubt to that in her mind. But this lock of the eyes was mere distraction from a clearly clever adversary. Because a BB-unit painted in Republic colors lowered itself from the ceiling behind Rey and an arc projector deployed and shocked the young woman who tensed and then collapsed from the shock. Rey's own droid most definitely did not appreciate that, and so BB-3C deployed rapidly from its hole in the X-Wing when the other BB-unit dropped to the wing and the two droids smashed into one another in a flurry of angry beeping and crashing. A pair of Marines rushed over to break up the fight and out of sight got the two separated and BB-3C was attached to a restraining bolt and disabled.
"Now," the Admiral stepped forward and stood before Poe, "We'll see who you all really are."
"Look, she just sent those two Marines flying twenty feet through the air," Poe protested, "We're Black Squadron and Inferno Squad from the Resistance, and that's Rey, the last Jedi."
The Kage looked over at the unconscious girl brought over to them and dropped onto her back after being searched. He then looked to the group of Marines.
"Is this true?"
"Yes sir, she…launched two of my men without touching them," the Marine officer tentatively responded.
"Hmm…" the Kage nodded to himself.
He turned around from the Resistance pilots and lifted his arm and then raised his hand, keeping it open. This was a signal the well-trained Marines knew well. Poe heard them charge their weapons and tighten them to their shoulders. Poe assumed that a clenched fist meant to execute them, and anything else meant that he believed him. The hand stayed there a moment, each and every Resistance member staring intently at the single appendage with all their might hoping for a positive gesture.
"Welcome back to the Republic Fleet Commander Dameron," the Kage calmly said, lowering his hand and then clenched his fist and the Marines squeezed their triggers, sending stun blasts into the entirety of Black Squadron and they all collapsed, "Search their ships, find their base."
Location: Resistance Headquarters, Planet Hrill
"Construction is progressing quite rapidly General Organa," Captain Xwue, their engineering officer, told Leia as the two stood in the center of the nearly structurally complete main hangar in all its cavernous glory as drillers went to work boring through the granite to craft three-high stacked starfighter cubbies along the walls, "The captain believes he'll be able to have flight operations going by tomorrow or the next day."
"Where'd you get the idea for the cubbies in the walls?" Leia asked curiously as they walked in, passing piles of rubble being shoveled out along with equipment and personnel working dubiously.
"I saw the same technique used on Naboo, but I adjusted it here so our fighters will have added protection from battle damage to the facility itself," the man replied as they reached a project that was also progressing smoothly, "And here we're using the presses from the facility on Rhen Var to power these elevators."
He pointed down, showing Leia how the engineers had come up with a clever way to mitigate their workload by cutting a shaft down into the rock to start the lower level of their maintenance hangar and then bore through to the second and third locations for additional elevator shafts that would go to the three separate parts of the hangar, one in the middle in back of the hangar across from the hangar entrance, and two more on the sides in protected storage areas for the fighters themselves. The engineers had then installed the elevator press shafts in along the sides and attached them to their baseplates which were bolted to the natural granite. These granite platforms were then cut out in the proper shape with a 1/16 inch of clearance on all sides and the elevators were complete. The lower hangar rested beneath ten feet of solid rock with reinforced durasteel bars laid on the walls and ceilings and then sprayed with duracrete to insure nothing fell from the natural carved ceilings.
At the moment Leia was watching cylindrical fuel pods being gingerly lowered down into the maintenance hangar where a pumping station and fuel lines were being laid to be able to service all the craft from several outlet pumps and attached fuel lines being bolted to the walls alongside electric and water lines. The shuttles were slated for storage in the far rear of the hangar through an arching blast door that was being installed later. It reminded Leia of Echo Base, back on Hoth, except here it was humid and warm, and it was a different army.
"And what of base power? Are the power generators we have gonna cut it Captain?" Leia asked as he showed into the first of many halls into the base.
"Yes ma'am, they should do just fine. But if we get a shield generator…not a chance. The dozen generators brought from Serenno are Grade C, only about the size of a speeder. It takes Grade A or B power generators to power a shield that will be of any sort of use."
"I know, we had big ones back on Hoth, the one powering our shield was too exposed," Leia shook her head, she knew that the Rebellion got too lax with its generator being left in the open the way it had been, that was not a mistake she intended on making here, "If we could get a Grade A or B generator could you bring it into the base itself, underground?"
"A Grade B, probably, they're only classed to be as big as…say an AT-AT's main hull, a Grade A is a different monster, it will be like trying to hide a corvette underground. If I had ten tons of duracrete mix, two industrial earth movers, and six weeks, yeah it's possible. But not recommended ma'am. You would lose the protection of the mountain and the work site alone would alert any orbital observation of our presence until plant-life could reestablish itself."
"Your suggestion then Captain?"
"Well General, Grade B's we can partially disassemble and move under the mountain and reassemble for protection. It'll take some engineering and lots of work but I can carve out a power station complex under the north wing of the hangar to be large enough to house two or three of them. And it would have to be more than one by the way General, alone they're not powerful enough for their cyclic RPM's to sync with the needs of even a theater shield generator's refreshing rate, with two we can sync them to provide a constant power flow enough for a shield plus the added bonus of an unlimited power supply for day to day operations. A third just gives added strength, depending on the make and model of both devices."
"But we don't have any of those right now do we?" Leia sighed, bringing up the obvious limitation.
"No ma'am we do not."
"Then let's focus on getting our people out of those tents and get a roof over our heads," Leia said as they got to the new command center, which was just completely filled with dust as men holding digger tools carved away the rock, "What're you planning on for our command center captain?"
"We've got the command center planned to be fully equipped, the training facility at Serenno and the outpost at Rhen Var were gutted for just this purpose. There's enough comms gear to reach across the galaxy with all the encryption gear that we could scrounge."
"That'll do, we'll need that when we get more ships on our side," Leia nodded, "Speaking of which, we'll need to get our long-range comms set up in here sooner rather than later."
"Once the duracrete dries I'll have that as first to be done and I can have a crew start on the comms dishes," the engineering officer responded.
"Good, hopefully we can have some more help arriving, assuming that our people made some beneficial contact with those naval task forces," Leia responded with a smirk.
"General, we've got ships coming out of hyperspace," her comm piped up, this time in a much more pleasant tone than such a declaration warranted, "They're Republic ships!"
"How many?" Leia asked.
"Twenty-seven, including five cruisers," the man responded.
"Any sign of Black Squadron?" Leia asked, noting that Poe hadn't contacted them.
"None, we're receiving a comm from the flagship. Shall I patch it through to you?"
"Yes please," Leia ordered, knowing that they were probably a naval admiral who would need to be melded into their command staff, "This is General Organa, who am I speaking with?"
"You are speaking with Rear Admiral Dominis Jaye. And be advised you are no longer commanding officer of these forces. I am."
"I beg your pardon?" Leia asked immediately.
"General! Shuttles are landing!" a man called out.
"Shuttles?" Leia said.
"As I said," the voice on the other end replied, "I am in command now."
Leia narrowed her eyes and walked out to the hangar and saw a crowd of her own troops responding with weapons drawn as shuttles landed and deployed blue-uniformed Marines jumped from the shuttles and aimed at her people.
"General, they're Republic, but," a man cried out, not sure what to do.
Leia stopped him, and walked past her people in time to see a uniformed Admiral looking down at her people from the lead shuttle. A Kage, Leia knew that the man was a warrior, the Kage usually were. Not only that she saw there was going to be violence if something wasn't done, and she herself was very persuasive, and they were on the same side, so it made sense for Leia to deescalate the situation.
"Stand down," Leia ordered her troops, "Return to your work."
"General…" Captain Xwue protested.
"Go, I'll handle this," Leia silenced him and walked towards the Admiral, "So, what is it you intend on doing here? Usurping the Resistance?"
"It's not the Resistance anymore, it's the Republic Defense Forces, and I am in command. You will either swear loyalty or be placed under arrest," Admiral Jaye responded.
"No," Leia shook her head calmly.
"Then you are under arrest, Princess."
And so the next phase of the story begins. Inter-Resistance conflict, a natural progression of growth of forces. If anyone has suggestions let me know, this is quite a complicated story arc going forward. Also, I have a theory, the Rebellion's ships (The ones of the original trilogy), were either phased out or upgraded like the MC80 Liberty Type was in this story, should I do that with ships like the CR90's or Nebulon-B's?
Next Chapter Preview: A coup d'tat in the Resistance, what comes next?