"Target has just dropped out of hyperspace, General." Perez cried into the nervous tension that permeated the bridge of the Redemption so thickly it was almost tangible.
"Execute order One." Ben ordered, jumping to his feet and approaching the view screen. From this distance it just looked like a TIE right outside of the window.
As he watched, more than eighty thousand federation planetary defense ships started moving in near synchronus harmony to completely cut off all vectors Soul Reaper could use to beat a hasty retreat. The trap he'd planned sprung without a hitch, Soul Reaper was trapped between Aaronia and a fleet of over one hundred thousand ships, mostly planetary defense ships that would hopefully prove too small for the fleet killer weapon to be effective against. "Execute order Two." He ordered then walked over to where Rey stood, looking deathly terrified. He leaned down and kissed her on the brow. "Stay here, I'll be right back." He said gently then kissed her goodbye.
He rushed to his quarters, stepped into his waiting flight suit, Force pulled his light saber and data pad into his hand and dashed to the elevator outside of the bridge that would take him directly to the forward fighter bay and his TIE Silencer.
He was just starting to climb the ladder into his cockpit when the hair on the back of his neck stood up. He took a glance around and his heart skipped a beat.
"No." Ben shouted. "Absolutely not!" He rushed towards her across tarmac. The trap was sprung and he didn't have time for this right now. "Get out of that flight suit and back on the bridge!"
"Not happening." Rey didn't slow down as she stomped past him with only a brief glance his way while she'd spoken. She'd really hoped he would have already taken off by the time she got here, but apparently she'd been a little too quick to follow him. When the Soul Reaper had dropped out of hyperspace and started firing it's secondary weapon, colloquially known as 'Fleet Killer,' and he'd rushed off to join the fray she'd given him a ninety second head start just to try to avoid this. She could've kicked herself for not waiting thirty more seconds.
"Get down from there!" He jerked her off the second rung of the ladder leading to the cockpit of her shiney new TIE Silencer and bodily placed her back on the tarmac. "You have to stay here!"
"If you go, I go." She insisted, trying to step around him.
He grabbed the chest of her flight suit in a tight fist and snarled into her face, "You're six months pregnant!"
Rey dug her fingertips into his wrist as hard as she could and snarled back, "And you're three months away from becoming a father! What does that matter if you're dead?" Then snapped, "Let go of me!"
He let go with a frustrated growl and shook the blood back into his hand. "You're safer here where there are thousands of ships between you and that thing." He argued.
"What happens if that thing does manage to hit the Redemption? What do you think that's going to do to you in the middle of a dogfight? Huh?" She demanded, poking her finger into his chest. "What do think it's going to do to me if you get killed out there?"
"You'll still have the baby." He said as if that settled the issue.
"I wont survive long enough for that." The gravity in her voice let him know that was a promise. "Even if this ship does."
"Please don't do this." He tried begging. "I need to know you're safe."
"We're safer together." She argued. "Our fighters are too small for the bigger weapons to target." Her tone gentled, "All we have to worry about out there is keeping each other alive." Her eyes softened. "We've been pretty good at that so far. Besides, I'm as much a part of that prophecy as you are. My staff will be the glimmer of hope, remember?" She grabbed the front of his flight suit, leaned up on tip toe, getting as in-his-face as she could manage, and said in a persuasively gritty tone, "I'm coming with you."
He let out a defeated puff of air then grabbed her and kissed her with everything he had. "Stay on my wing." He murmured taking a mental photograph of her glowing face.
"I'll be right beside you the whole time." She promised and they hugged briefly before splitting apart to climb into their respective cockpits.
Three minutes later, as they cleared the front of the battlegroup, his voice sounded in her head, 'Remember, the main objective is staying alive, the power generator is secondary.'
'You remember that, too.' She thought back to him as 500km ahead the front sections of both sublight engine compartments began to boil with activity and thousands of light fighters exited from hangar bays that nobody had even known existed. From this distance they looked like a swarm of tiny insects buzzing around the big square solar arrays of a TIE fighter.
The distance between the Federation Fleet fighters and Soul Reaper fighters closed quickly as Rey and Ben wound their way to the front of the swarm of roughly three hundred thousand Federation light fighters.
'You can do this.' His voice startled her out of her near catatonic state of fear. 'Just breathe, pretend like it's a sim... Have fun with it.'
'Fun?' Her voice echoed back sharply, distracted from her fear by annoyance. 'Have you gone mad?'
'If they don't kill us young…' He reminded her.
She looked at the swarm of well over half a million rapidly advancing enemy fighters and finished it, 'We'll live forever.' A whole new meaning of the quote sprang to life inside her mind. 'Drop in behind me, let's see if we make them more afraid of us than we are of them.'
'Why don't you drop in behind me?' He suggested, liking the idea of putting himself between her and the enemy far more than her alternative.
'Because you're better from behind.' She sent him an image that had nothing to do with flying.
'Did you just…?' His shock sent the last of her nervousness skittering away on a giggle. She sent him the memory of the manuever he had taught her their first time in the simcaps together and said saucily, 'Have fun with it.'
Ben slipped in behind Rey just as she sent her fighter into a tight spin, firing as fast as her guns would let her, he immediately did the same in the opposite direction.
Enemy TIEs, with their bright red cockpits and trim, started blowing up in a direct line in front of them as they plowed a path through the swarm.
'That was easier than I'd expected.' Rey thought triumphantly as they broke through the enemy line like a giant blaster bolt.
'Don't get cocky.' He admonished, pulling up beside her on the right. 'Now we have close to half a million enemies at our backs.'
'We only have to worry about the one in front of us for now.' She said, 'the ones behind us can't keep up.'
'No, but they'll catch up.' He replied.
'Then we better come up with something pretty quick.' She said, sticking to his side as the giant ball completely filled her view and he went into an inverted dive.
'Just follow my lead.' He said, swooping down through a hail of bright red turbolazer blasts to skim Soul Reaper's surface.
'Always.' She said, dodging a red bolt and returning fire with her own green one which blew up the turbolazer turret that had fired at her.
The Soul Reaper's automated guns were no match for a pair of Jedi in advanced fighters, but they could easily prove disasterous for anyone less qualified.
The pair skimmed side to side, knocking out lazer turrets as they spotted them.
Ben tapped his coms button to open the fleet wide channel. "Execute order Three." He said with authority. "Authorization: CB-AA23."
A bright red flash to her left and the galaxy began to spin dizzily. "I'm hit!" She yelped as her Silencer spun out of control.
"Rey!" Ben's shout boomed through her cockpit sound system.
