VIII: Veteran from Naboo

To keep a decent atmosphere in the mid-sized warehouse, known as Hangar 18, its employees often played popular music. On the inside, while the music blared, anywhere between 2 and 12 mechanics would work on any vessel brought into their warehouse. They could do basically anything to whatever could fit in the warehouse: swiveling turret on a land speeder, extended torpedo magazines in an A-wing, just about anything anyone could ever want for their vehicles.

The owner of the warehouse was a human fighter pilot, named Kol Kotha. In truth, that wasn't his name; it had originally belonged to a skilled Gran pilot who flew along Bravo Flight near 30 years ago during a trade dispute on Naboo. He died inconspicuously, however; not many people remembered his name by the time the Clone Wars had ended. No way in Hell anyone would remember him 3 years after the Battle of Yavin.

Kol had been sitting in his office, taking a short nap when a coworker walked in. "Excuse me, sir, there's a slight problem."

Kol yawned, took his legs off his desk and stared at the technician for a short while. "…What kinda problem?"

The technician led him out to the hangar. There were 4 more people than there should have been, and they were wearing white. Imperials. What do they want? Kol walked right up to them. "Well hello there, welcome to Hangar 18. I'm Kol Kotha, the manager of this hangar. What do you need? Repairs? Upgrade? We could put a hyperdrive on a TIE Fighter, if anyone outside the Empire owned one."

The stormtroopers stared at him for a second. I hate looking into those helmets' eyes. "We've been sent by order of Moff Nakov to investigate reports of stolen merchandise in this hangar."

Kol narrowed his eyes. "What are in those reports, can I see them?"

One trooper, wearing an orange pauldron over his right shoulder, seemed distracted for a bit as he checked his suit's record for the reports. "Stolen starfighter ordnance. Stolen hyperdrive systems. Stolen laser cannons. Stolen torpedo magazines. You've kept the local police force quite busy, I must say. So many citizens with stolen merchandise, and every time they're asked where they got it, they all point back here."

One tech spoke up. "What're you going to do about that?"

The lead trooper moved his arm to prevent the left trooper from attacking the tech. "We're going to have to shut this warehouse down. You have one day to move out, after which anyone still here will be arrested."

Kol took a few steps away, his hands in his pockets as he shook his head slowly. "Well, well…" He glanced to his left and watched a tech, concealed from the troopers' view, pull out a rifle. Trying to keep their attention away from the tech, he turned around quickly. "You're sure you're not mistaking us for Jaal'Dan Supply? They're just down the road to the east; more than once someone bought faulty merchandise from them and tried to return it to us."

"We're 100 certain the stolen merchandise came from your shop. Now get out of here before I blast you."

Kol smirked. "On the contrary… you're the ones who're 'bout to be blasted." He quickly raised his right arm, two fingers extended, and pointed at the troopers. They recognized threats when they heard them; they were less than a second away from blowing Kol into oblivion before the tech's shots distracted and subsequently silenced them. "…That was almost too close. Well, you heard what they said, let's get the hell out of here."

The tech with the rifle was as shocked as the others. "B-but, Kol, we don't have to now!"

What remained of Kol's smirk left his face. "Yes we do. The Imperials are gonna notice one of their patrols're missing, and next time they send someone here, they won't wait a day to start blasting. Get to your ships." He seemed distracted while the others hurried to leave. He stopped one employee who passed by him. "Hey… if you can, call the owner of that speeder, tell him to pick it up outside, alright?"

Kol and his employees formed a pseudo-squadron in orbit of Corellia. "Alright…" The entire squad was confused by the sudden pause. "…What the hell should we call ourselves now? You have any suggestions, Duncan?"

The mechanic he addressed thought for a second. "Lessee… maybe Squad 18?"

Kol smiled. "Perfect! Alright, Squad 18, let's put as much distance between ourselves and Corellia as possible."

Before they could enter hyperspace, a large gray wedge blocked their way. Duncan sighed. "Surprise, surprise. Star Destroyer, and it's launching fighters!"

Another mechanic chuckled. "What's it gonna throw at us, plain TIE Fighters? Those things couldn't take more than one shot from Kol."

The good nature of the pilots faded when they saw what was attacking them. Duncan was near speechless. "What… the hell are those?" Whatever they were, they didn't look like any TIEs ever seen before: they had what was like the wings of a TIE Interceptor, connected to the pod on the other side. The three wings gave it almost the appearance of a triangle. It opened fire, immediately destroying one of Squad 18's A-wings.

The squad scattered as more bolts headed towards them, intending to do the same to them. "Power up your shields! Keep your lasers at heightened charge, we'll see how long these guys can last." Kol turned back, firing on one of the TIEs. It was shielded. "Squad, some jackass is breaking Imperial protocol, these things have shields."

An X-wing and a Y-wing had both focused fire on one of the TIEs. Their prolonged barrage had managed to finally slice through the shields and stab at the fighter inside. All three of the wings blew off, leaving a flaming capsule, which self-destructed shortly after. The X-wing pilot remarked, "They probably have hyperdrives, too, I bet."

One of the pilots initiated contact with the squad. "This is GM-185 from the Imperial Star Destroyer Tyrant. If you surrender now, you will be allowed to live."

Kol grunted. "Dream on, pal. You'll have to disable us to get us in that ship."

GM-185 nodded. "As you wish." The TIEs began firing ion cannons. Over half of Kol's squad was disabled within seconds.

Kol and one A-wing were the only fighters who had avoided the ion bolts, but the A-wing soon fell prey to them as well. Kol now had a full squad of the TIEs tailing him, the whitish-blue ion bolts tearing through the vacuum of space. He attempted to turn in a circle to put himself behind the TIEs, but they followed him the entire way. "Damn it!" He didn't get a second chance; the ion bolts finally began colliding with his ship. His shields, his cannons, his targeting computer and subsequently his engines were all disabled.

The TIEs brought their ships to a stop near Kol's fighter. "All hostiles destroyed or disabled. Get some tugs out here and pull the disabled ones back to the Tyrant."