SPACE – THE NEMESIS
After launch, Blue Squadron immediately broke off to the rendezvous point with Gold Squadron. When the TIE Bombers split up into four flights the TIE Fighters did the same and together, in groups of three and three and in the classic arrow formation, the bombers and fighters manoeuvred into position according to their flight plans. "Gold Lead, this is Blue Lead. We are standing by." Madaan called to the leader of the bomber squadron when his flight of three fighters had positioned themselves at the high 7 o´clock.
"Copy that Blue Lead. We are starting our flight to target."
The bombers made a long side manoeuvre to get in the right position for their attack run. The three TIE Fighters shadowed the three bombers, searching for anything that might come in the bombers way. But the sudden presence of the imperial warship seemed to have surprised the attackers and momentarily they had lost the initiative. But suddenly Madaan spotted two blips on his tactical display coming dangerously close to the bombers flight path.
"All right, Blue 2 and 8, i think we have our first guests. Two marks at three fifteen. Go and say hello."
"Copy that Lead." the reply came through the headset as the two TIE Fighters made a sharp turn and flew off to intercept the two R-41 Starchasers coming their way.
The two Starchasers spotted the two TIEs coming at them and split up to engage one fighter each. The TIEs responded in a similar fashion and soon enough the four fighters were entangled in a deadly dogfight dance. Madaan watched his tactical display, looking for other enemy fighters.
Interceptors have two main goals. One is obviously to attack the bombers. The other is to draw away any escort or tie them up so that others may get in and attack the bomber formations. But perhaps that was too complicated for this bunch of...
Then hist tactical display gave a warning.
"Blue 2 and 8, this is Blue Lead. We have a second wave coming in. Three marks at five nine. Finish up and return, i´m going for a head-to-head."
"Hang on Lead, we are already on our way." Madaan could hear the confident voice of Roy in Blue 2.
The R-41 Starchasers were outdated compared to the newer and faster TIE Fighters and when the imperials turned up the flying a few notches they would soon back down and run off. At least Madaan hoped so, or this would be a complicated situation. He pulled his control stick hard and turned sharply to meet the oncoming enemy fighters. Unfortunately, these were not any slow Starchasers but faster Belbullab-22 starfighters.
Feethan Ottraw Scalable Assemblies constructed the Bellbulabs for the Confederacy of Independent Systems, but even after the defeat of the Confederacy, Belbullab-22 fighters continued to roam the space lanes. They were old, but they were fast and easy to modify with newer technology.
In this three-to-one scenario, Madaan needed to buy time so his two wingmen could return, but still keep the enemies away from the bombers. So, he chooses to meet them head to head with blazing green lasers. This was a very risky move to make, due to the lack of shields on his TIE Fighter.
But by constantly moving his little fighter, using its superior manoeuvrability, Madaan managed to stir the Bellbulab formation and they were forced to break off or be hit by his fire (or his ship if they were really crazy). Then Madaan made a sharp turn, pulled his engines to full and began hunting the Bellbulabs.
One of them broke off to engage Madaan and to stop him from attacking the remaining two still on route to the bombers. But Madaan had seen it coming and ignored the one and kept pushing for the remaining two. He let green laser rain down on the Bellbulabs and even though it did not stop them, they sure were disturbed by it and they were forced to constantly adjust their course and thereby slow down.
Madaan on his part could see the lonely Bellbulab line up behind him and just as the first burst of fire came to tare his rear apart, he rolled his TIE away, making the two Bellbulabs in front get hit by friendly fire.
Then he quickly rolled back, because the firing Bellbulab had of course stopped blasting away his comrades, fired a short burst again and rolled away in another direction. But this time the enemy pilot wasn´t falling for it and turned quickly to follow that illusive TIE.
This is where the operation got complicated. Madaan was now hunted by a Bellbulab and the two remaining was still on course to the bombers. The time he had bought had run out and he had to save his own fighter now. That wasn´t too hard to do. The Bellbulab may have been updated but it was still outmanoeuvred by the faster TIE.
Madaan entered a series of scissor manoeuvres and gradually pulled back on the engines letting the attacker slowly come closer. He watched his displays, making sure he timed this perfectly or he would be shot to pieces. He also noted his two wingmen just returning from their mission and attacking the remaining Bellbulabs. Well done lads, he thought with a proud feeling in his chest.
Just when his pursuer got in position and opened up his guns, Madaan pulled hard to one side and pushed his engines into reverse, making the other overshoot him. He then pulled the engines to absolute maximum and the unexpected speed drop combined with the superiority in the TIE manoeuvrability turned the table and the hunter now became the hunted.
Madaan could quickly get a lock on the Bellbulab and the small fighter exploded in a ball of fire.
Soon after the TIE escort was once again in formation over and behind the bombers.
"Good job Blues." the bomb leader called out. "Never doubted you could chase them off."
"Our pleasure Gold's." Madaan answered. What he did not mention to his fellow Squadron Leader was the fact that once the enemy realized the bombers were launched and on their way to target, things would get nasty.
Every fighter pilot feared the bombers. The usual target for bombers in a space fight such as this, were the capital ships. And if they were successful, the fighters had nowhere to come home to. Especially if they lacked hyperdrive capabilities. So, soon they would have enemy fighters swarming all around them.
And sure enough, his tactical display soon showed a large number of hostile fighters coming their way.
"Blues, listen up." he called, ignoring the communications protocol at this point. "Numerous bogeys coming our way at two ten and six three. The odds are not in our favour but then again, what would be the fun in that? You two take on the first group and i´ll introduce myself to the second. On my mark, three, two..."
"Abort that Blue Leader, and stay with the bombers." a voice interrupted. Madaan immediately recognized the voice, even though it sounded even more mechanical over the ComLink.
"Understood, my Lord." he replied and the moment after, the TIE Fighters of Red Squadron, led by the dark Lord himself, passed in front of them and engaged the enemy. Spooky or not, Lord Vader sure had a great eye for battle tactics, Madaan thought.
"All right Blues, You heard Lord Vader. Adjust course to..."
The explosion came from nowhere and Madaans small spacecraft jolted fiercely and was sent spinning around as if a giant's hand hit it. All possible alarms and warnings was flashing, whooping and telling him things were seriously wrong and to top that, his HUD went crazy and an enormous amount of information dazzled in front of his eyes. He closed his eyes and concentrated on not throwing up but he also listened carefully for his twin ion engines but he could neither hear them (or anything at all) through the cacophony of alarms and warnings nor feel the vibrations from the engines through his seat. Not good, he thought and opened his eyes.
The surface of Warasolis dominated his view and it grew larger by the second. Madaan pulled and pushed the control stick, stamped the pedals and pulled the throttle but nothing had any effect. The small TIE Fighter still fell like a rock towards the planet.
"All right, take it easy now." he said to himself. It felt good to talk out loud, almost as if he would do when talking another pilot down with a damaged fighter.
"First, we need to end that Drukish noise." he said, or shouted, to howl down the noise. Patiently he worked the controls and cleared alarm after alarm and finally the last siren stopped.
"Frell, that´s better." he said with a sigh. He could now hear a coughing and knocking sound from the engines behind him. It sounded as if one of the two ion engines was dead and the other one was about to retire at any moment.
"Right, if one of my Twin Engines is gone then what am i flying? A SIE Fighter perhaps?" He could not stop himself from giggle which made him feel a bit better.
The small fighter now entered the top layer of the Warasoli atmosphere and the shakings got a lot worse. I sure hope the heat shielding isn´t to damaged, he thought. But when he could see through the transparisteel how the flames shot up he knew the shields were holding. For now.
None of his navigational systems were functional so the ship computer could not tell the difference between up, down, left, right or anything at all but instead just kept falling down like a large burning rock from space.
"Ok, next step is to stop this thing from spinning." he said to himself and began to reboot the gyroscopic core system. It took a while and Madaan was getting edgy.
"Come on!" he cried out. "We´re in a bit of a hurry here!" Suddenly his display gave the long awaited 'Ping' sound and asked for a fix position for calibration procedures, which normally used the starts and went on automatically. "Yes! Now that wasn´t so difficult?" he said smiling and configured the computer to use the planets magnetic poles in it its calculations. A few more seconds went by, but they felt like hours, and slowly the small spaceship began to level out and stop spinning.
"Thank you very much." Madaan said. "Now to the last chapter. How to avoid crashing into the ground without any engines." Even though the ship had stopped spinning it was still shaking and bumping. A TIE Fighter had outstanding flying capabilities in the zero gravity of space but in an atmosphere it was clumsy, slow and very hard to manoeuvre even under normal circumstances. With broken solar panels and only a single coughing engine it was in fact only a large piece of flaming durasteel falling to the ground. But it also had a pilot inside and this pilot had no intentions of giving up.
Madaan kept on pushing buttons, pull handles and restart systems at a fierce pace. "Aargh!" he shouted. "This ship is farkled!" He then sighed and fell back in his seat.
"And i´m with it." He could now see he was falling right down towards a very large city and things would go very bad for both himself and the people down there while the city clearly lacked any type of falling-debris-protection-system. Being helpless made him angry and a hot wave of anger welled up from within making him slam his fist in the wall of the cockpit and stomp his feet in the floor.
"Druk, you piece of junk!" he shouted. Suddenly as if a higher power just had been teasing him, a loud boom was heard behind him and his Twin Ion Engine woke to life with its characteristic shrieking.
"I take it all back!" he shouted and pulled the control stick but nothing happened. "The flight controls are probably fried." he said but then he sat up and smiled.
"But we do have engine power!" He slammed the engine into full reverse and pulled the repulsorlifts to max, but it still would not be enough. He kept on falling like a rock and did not have time enough to slow his descent and avoid a crash. The ship fell downwards and he could see a small green spot right underneath him coming closer. Cosy, a park, he thought. Then he saw a dark spot in all the green.
"It´s a lake!" he shouted. "That´s my landing spot! With any luck, the water will take some of the impact." He pulled the control stick like a mad man to make the ship hit the water instead of the ground. He was not going to crash any longer. He was going to crash-land and that was a huge difference.
"Come on!" he yelled. "Just a few degrees!" The last thing he saw was the city, the park and the lake, all rushing towards him.
When he woke up, he did not know where he was. Everything was still pitch black, his body felt sore, beaten up and cold. Very cold. Then the memory of the crash hit him and he realized he had after all managed to hit the lake in the park.
Madaan was for once very thankful that the TIE Fighter didn´t have integrated life support built into the ship or he would be dead by now. The hull had cracked by the impact and the cockpit was flooded with water. But his flight suit was still intact and that was his real life support system and it had saved him from death by drowning. In the darkness he carefully felt his arms, legs and fingers, looking for any serious injuries but besides from pain in his face, head and chest he had done pretty well. He unbuckled himself from the seat and slowly felt his way around until he felt the access hatch switch. Nothing happened when he pressed it but it was no surprise. In fact, it would have scared him if it would have just wooshed open. Instead, he groped around and pulled out a small handle next to the hatch that would open it manually. It almost took forever but finally he managed to squeeze himself out of the small opening. He kicked with his legs a few times to clear himself away from the wreck, then he activated the flight suites floating aid and it made him slowly ascend to the surface.
The lake was a lot bigger than it had looked from the air but the shoreline to his left was quite near. And when he spotted a group of people pointing at him from that side he started to swim in that general direction.
It was only about 200m left and Madaan was really beginning to feel he was going to walk away from this crash and soon be back on the Nemesis, when they opened fire on him. At first he could not comprehend what was happening but then he got angry, pulled his sidearm and returned the fire.
Druk! he thought. I haven´t escaped a hit from a cruiser, survived a fall through the atmosphere, walked away from a crash landing and avoided drowning only to be shot in the water by some local laserbrains!
THE NEMESIS – NK-7 ION CANNON NR. 42
The Borstel Galactic Defense NK-7 ion cannon number 42 continued to fire after a well-rehearsed procedure. Crewman Shiri Tayen and Ensign Piki did not have much else to do other than to monitor the cooling grid and make one or two minor adjustments of the channels polarization. Piki wondered if there really was an enemy out there or if it was all a drill after all and they were shooting at target droids again. Shiri wanted to point out that by the look at these energy patterns they were most definitely firing live ammo and no training charges, but she did not say anything. Instead, her very own theory was that the enemy either lacked heavy artillery or their gunnery crew simply were lousy at their job.
Their station were placed several levels below the actual gun tower but they could still feel the vibrations from the heavy guns firing. This was as close to actual combat Shiri would ever get when serving on the Nemesis and she took her job dead serious. During battles in the past there had been a busy task keeping the cooling grid stable, all depending on how heavy hits the Nemesis would take. And if the power couplings to the generators got fried and needed immediate replacement, things could get really crazy. But even she was getting bored with this. It could just as well have been a simulation because nothing happened.
The ion cannon worked like clockwork and Ensign Piki reported "Cooling grid stable." every now and then just like every other station. So when Piki got a call in his headset she listened up.
"Yes sir, this is Ensign Piki sir." He nodded and said "Yes sir, i can handle this, sir." Then he looked at Shiri with a peculiar expression on his face. "Right away sir." and then he ended the communication. "Well now." he said and he could not help but letting a smile spread all over his face. "They have asked you to report to sick-bay and assist if any wounded will show up with broken prosthesis." Shiri nodded, feeling a joy inside her.
"So run along and do something useful. I´ll try to manage all this" he waved a hand at the display, showing the most stable cooling grid in the galaxy. "all by myself." He leaned back in his chair, put his feet up on the desk and let his hands rest on the back of his neck. "I´ll call you back if anything fun should happen."
Shiri got up and saluted. "Sir, yes sir" and Piki laughed.
"Don´t look so frellish pleased." She laughed back and said "I´m not laughing, sir. It´s the muscles in my face you see. They have a cramp, sir." Then she dodged out of the room before he could find something to throw at her.
Shiri felt elated and in a way pleased with herself. If she was anything else but a trained and disciplined crewman in the Imperial Navy she would even allow herself to be happy. But of course, the regulations did not allow that so she settled to be elated and grateful to be able to fill an area of competence the Imperial Navy was asking for in this very moment. She walked in a quick pace but stopped and looked through a viewport overlooking hangar bay 12.
Perfect! No activity at all. Only a lonely Lambda Class Shuttle. Then she could take a shortcut right across the landing bay and avoid the long walk around all the generators connected to the hangar bays. She went down a level, stepped through the blast door to the hangar bay itself and made her way quickly towards the blast door on the opposite side.
"Hey there!" she heard the synthetic voice of a Stormtrooper call from the shuttle, but she pretended not to hear and hurried along.
"Hey, Gambling Girl!" the voice called again and that made her stop. On the shuttles entry ramp a lonely Stormtrooper stood waving at her.
"I´m collecting that debt of yours." the Trooper continued. "We´ve got a bad transmitter here, could you take a look at it?"
Shiri giggled and jogged over to the shuttle. "Always a pleasure to help the Empires bravest." she said and shook the troopers outstretched hand.
"Yes it is, isn´t it?" he said in a cheerful voice. "This way." he continued and they walked up the ramp and in to the shuttle itself where eleven Storm Troopers were sitting, all buckled up in their seats with their backpacks in front of them.
"Troopers!" the armour clad Trooper next to her suddenly called out. "This is Crewman Shiri Tayen, special call sign within the Legion; Gambling Girl." Shiri blushed a bit when the sitting Storm Troopers greeted her with nods or grunts. One of the Troopers pulled off his helmet and Shiri walked over to him and took it.
"The transmitter in the internal ComLink seems to be fried. I can hear them but they can´t hear me." Shiri smiled and nodded.
"No problem. It´s a known issue and i´ll have it fixed in no time." She pulled out a small tool from her belt and dismounted the small access panel hiding the ComLink itself inside the helmet. She knew at once why the problem had occurred. His helmet had an older type of ComLink circuits but she did not want to tell the Trooper he had an older helmet. This was a known quality problem and on the new ones this was taken care of. Well not that new. How long had he been wearing this helmet anyway?
As usual when she was working, the world around her disappeared and she entered a bubble of concentration. That was why she did not hear the steps walking up the ramp or the monotonous hissing of the breathing respirator.
"Take off immediately." a voice said and at once she knew to whom it belonged.
The Trooper who had waved her in had already snapped to attention and yelled "10huut!" and all the sitting Troopers saluted Lord Vader, though still strapped in, when he entered the shuttle. The repulsorlifts roared and the ramp closed up behind him when the shuttle slowly lifted from the hangar bay floor . He nodded to the standing Trooper and turned to walk down to the cockpit.
Shiri was shocked and the Trooper, whose helmet she still held in her hand, must have seen this and he put his hand on her arm.
"Ma'am?" Shiri jolted back to reality and the Trooper smiled at her saying "It looks like You´ve just hit the Jackpot, Gambling Girl. Welcome aboard."
She smiled a nervous one back at him and said "Thanks. This must be my lucky day, huh?" Then she returned the helmet. "There." she said and nodded. "As good as new."
The Trooper pulled the helmet over his head, talked for a moment before he in turn nodded to her. "Thanks again." he said. "I really mean it. Without proper communications, i would have been dead meet out there."
"No problem." she answered with a wider smile this time. "Just glad i could help." You´ll die anyway she thought to herself. You´ll all die anyway and i´ll die right there beside you.
She felt a tap on her shoulder and when she turned her head she found herself looking into the dark eye lenses of another Stormtrooper. This with them looking all the same was already beginning to get to her. No insignias, no numbers, no nothing. How could they tell one apart from the other anyway?
"Sorry about this Gambling Girl." he said and she knew who this Trooper was. "This was not my intention. But don´t worry, this is what you´re going to do. Auxiliary station #2 is vacant in the cockpit, right behind the gunnery station on the starboard side. Take your seat there and buckle up. After our drop, the shuttle will return to the Nemesis and you´ll simply follow it along, right back where we came from. Ok?"
She looked at the cockpit, looked back at him and nodded
He nodded again and said "Good. And by the way, you have 12 Stormtroopers with you and Lord Vader himself. What could possibly go wrong?"
Everything she thought but she answered "Like i said, no problems. Just glad i could help you guys out." Then she turned and walked over to the shuttles cockpit.
Lord Vader was sitting to her immediate left on Auxiliary station #1 and her empty seat was on the right side. She slid down on her seat, strapped herself in and pretended like this was just another day at the office. Through the viewport she could see they were not alone but in fact in the middle of a large assembly of vessels on route to the planet's surface. Even though she really was afraid she could not help but to feel a certain amount of excitement.
Here she was in the middle of the landing operation, and in addition to that, in Lord Vader's shuttle! She was not even going to unbuckle her seatbelt during the operation but it still made her proud to be here. She had never been this close to actual combat before and certainly not on this high level either.
Simulations and training were one thing but this was something completely different. In a childish way she felt as a part of the operation and not as merely a spectator. She felt more like an...observer, actually. That´s right! She was an observer. She had heard of those before. Unconsciously she straightened up and turned her head to 'observe' her surroundings. She let her gaze play over the interior of the shuttle, the Gunnery station just in front of her, The Co-pilot seat in front of that, the Pilot-seat on the port side, the other Auxiliary station ...her blood froze to ice when she realized Lord Vader was looking at her.
"Crewman Tayen." he said with his synthetic voice. "We meet again." She could not make a sound and just pointed backwards, then at herself and then managed to gasp
"Yes my lord."
They flew through the atmosphere and sat a course for Warasaan, the capital of Warasolis. At all times they had Imperial War Vessels around them and Lord Vader spoke to the different parts of their small 'fleet'. Shiri did not understand much but apparently the ground assault had already begun and it was going better than expected. It was only at a few locations the enemy put up a fierce and well organized resistance. The other pockets of uprising was quickly locked in, broken down and destroyed.
The largest spaceports were already liberated and patrolled by AT-ATs. The terrorists had definitely planned to quickly take control of the planets administrative centre and then declare some sort of utopia or something like it. That was where they had concentrated most of their troops and it was there the fighting was most brutal and intense. And of course, that was where the shuttle with Lord Vader was going so the Emperors enforcer could clean up among the low lifers and restore the Imperial order to the planet.
The shuttle manoeuvred among the high skyscrapers of the city when System Op Station suddenly called out.
"Sir, i have a distress signal from a location on the ground in our flight path."
"Ok." the pilot answered but he did not seem to be interested.
"Sir, it´s a TIE Fighter pilot and from what i can read, he´s under heavy attack from hostile ground forces."
"Ok," the pilot answered again, his voice a bit tense. "i heard you the first time. He´ll have to take care of himself. This is not a search and rescue operation." The shuttle lowered its altitude and flew in over a green park area.
"Sir!" the Op Station called once again. "He is only a kilometre away and in our immediate flight path, sir. No rescue forces is anywhere as near as we are. Sir."
"Copy that Ops." the pilot answered. "That is not a concern of ours."
There was a moment of silence and then the co-pilot looked at the pilot.
"Sir, maybe we could just make a quick over flight to show our presence. A burst or two from our double blaster cannons would...
"Listen!" the pilot interrupted with an high and irritated tone. "We are not putting ourselves in danger and getting tangled up in a ground battle we don´t know anything about. Is that understood?" The co-pilot stared in disbelief and with a blank look on his face.
"But Sir," he pleaded. "He´s one of us. A fellow pilot. He's our brother?"
The pilot then snapped and shouted "Listen up you idiot! We are not to deviate from our present course! "The pilot was sweating now and his face was red as a warning light. "TIE pilots are expendable. Troopers are expendable. Just like those damned clones before them who were breaded for the single purpose of dying! They accept this and you´d be wise to do the same!" The co-pilot shook his head in disbelief and bravely stood his ground.
"We can´t leave a brother behind, sir. It´s just not right."
That made the pilot really mad. He lifted his finger to the co-pilots face and began telling him off with an intensity seldom before seen in a shuttle cockpit.
Shiri who sat behind the two pilots had been noticing how Lord Vader didn´t move a muscle during the pilots 'conversation' but when the co-pilot first said the word 'brother' she almost thought he had twitched just ever so slightly before he turned his head to the left and looked out through the viewport. Just as the pilot really was building up steam in his verbal abuse, Vader rose a hand and the pilot suddenly choked and turned even more red than earlier.
"I find your lack of faith for your brothers in arms disturbing." Then Vader turned to the only pilot present who was still breathing normally and said "Adjust our course appropriate."
"Yes sir." the co-pilot, now the shuttles new pilot and commander, answered and worked the controls without even looking at his dying predecessor who now were blue in the face and just stopped twitching. "There!" he called out. "He´s alive! I can see him by the water. There are at least 8 or 10 enemies down there and they´ve got him pinned down good."
Vader then suddenly stood up and ordered "Open the entry ramp and circle the area until my return." and then immediately turned and walked out from the cockpit.
What? the co-pilot thought but knew better than to question an order and pressed the switch. The shuttle immediately started shaking when the entry ramp was lowered, disturbing the ships aerodynamics.
"Frell!" the co-pilot then shouted. "He just...jumped!"
WARASOLI CAPITAL – PARK AREA
Lt. Commander Arien Madaan was beginning to feel a bit sceptical about his immediate survival. There were ten or twelve enemies and they were far better armed than he was. This was a pilot's worst nightmare, being shot down behind the enemy lines and attacked by hostile ground forces. He had managed to surprise them by getting out of the water at some distance from where they first shot at him. But they had spotted him of course and then he had not been able to move very far, being forced to stay down and find cover in the terrain all the time.
At first they had just come running right at him and a series of quick shots from his sidearm had taken out three of them. That made them a bit more careful. They were not very organized and that was something Madaan was very glad for. They could easily have covered each other and advanced in groups or pairs, pinning him down under constant fire while they closed in on his flanks. That way this would already be over. But they did not think that far ahead so instead it was him up against nine individualists who could not think as a group. But even so. They slowly came closer and as soon as he put his head up, blaster bolts were flying everywhere. He did manage to take another one out and for the moment they had stopped in their tracks.
That was when he heard the sound of a Lambda class shuttle flying by right over them. For a moment he thought those double blaster cannons would play their tune so he hit the ground for cover. But it just flew away so he risked putting his helmet up and saw how it turned back again, giving him new hope. But then he noticed the shuttle was flying with the entry ramp open! Was the ship damaged or was the pilot drunk or something? And then he got his next shock when he saw a black shape suddenly lunge itself out in the open air and fall down like a giant bird of prey diving down for the kill.
At first it looked as if it would fall right at him, but then he saw what or who it was and the next thing he knew, Lord Vader gracefully landed on his feet, squated down with one hand in the ground and the other stretched out , holding a short cylindrical tube. When the roar of the shuttle engines had died out, things got almost unnaturally calm and quiet around them and Madaan could hear the monotonous hissing from his breathing apparatus.
Slowly, the dark Lord rose to his full height, still holding the cylinder in his outstretched hand, turned slightly back to him and said "This will soon be over." Then a beam of concentrated red light shot out from the cylinder with a strange snap-hiss sound, like rod or a sword.
That somehow awoke the paralyzed enemy and they all opened fire at this new player. But Vader was not there anymore but had taken a giant leap in the air and landed in the middle of the enemy line. The red sword of light whirled around like a tornado, blocking blaster bolts with incredible speed and sending some shots right back at the ones who fired them in the first place, killing them with their own fire. The battle was over in less than a minute. Vader chopped limbs off to the right, opened guts to the left and sent a huge rock in the air by a twist of his hand. The rock then knocked down two enemies, crushing spine, chest bones and vital internal organs as it came down.
He fought with what Madaan only could describe as a deep and all-consuming anger feeding him with an enormous power.
The last enemy threw his rifle to the ground and threw his arms in the air. "I surrender!" he cried. "I surrender!" he cried again when Vader walked up to him, towering over the seasoned veteran mercenary that moments before was firing a blaster rifle, but now mostly looked like a panicked little boy. "Mercy." he snivelled.
Vader took hold of the man's throat with one hand and lifted him up into the air. "The Empire brings peace and order to the galaxy. It shows no mercy to traitors." And although Madaan were some distance away, he could still here the sound when the man's neck snapped.
Vader tossed the dead man away as if it were only a doll, put his weapon away and walked back to Madaan. "Pilot, are you injured?" he asked and rested his hands on his belt. "No sir, nothing serious, sir." Madaan answered and stood up from his cover. A sharp pain erupted in his left shoulder and instinctively he put his right hand on it.
"Only my shoulder, sir. I fell pretty bad a while ago."
"You fell?" Vader said with a sudden interest. "Where, show me." Madaan turned around and pointed with his other arm in the general direction of a pair of large boulders.
"Over there, sir. I had to throw myseEEEEAAaaaahhh!" He cried out in pain when Vader's giant hands quickly took hold of his injured shoulder and twisted.
"The joint was dislocated and had to be adjusted back into position." Vader said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
When the bright spots vanished from his eyes and he could breathe normal again, Madaan said "Thank you sir, it feels much better already."
There was a kind of grunting sound from the large man's helmet and it struck Madaan that Lord Vader must be chuckling. "No, it does not." Vader said. "But in time, it will." Suddenly he bent down and threw Madaan over his shoulder as if he were just a bag and not a full grown man in pilot gear.
"Hang on." he said and Madaan did not have time to think if Lord Vader was ironic, before he took a giant leap into the air, just when the shuttle came passing over them. He landed on the still opened access ramp and walked up and in to the shuttle itself.
Two Stormtroopers quickly took hold of Madaan and he let out a grunt when the pain from the shoulder hit him again.
"Are you all right brother? Do you have any injuries?" one of the white Troopers asked.
"What? No. No, it´s nothing." Madaan said somewhat confused. "It´s the shoulder. It was dislocated but he..."
Madaan turned to catch a glimpse of Vader when he marched in to the cockpit. "...he just pulled it back into place. Just like that. Like it was nothing."
"Ok, that´s fine." The other Stormtrooper said and the both of them supported Madaan to the only two empty seats. "Here, take my seat and just relax. Soon you´ll be back on the Nemesis and then straight to sickbay."
But Madaan shook his head in protest. "No, listen. You guys need to sit. My part in this is over but i guess yours haven´t even begun yet?" The two Troopers didn´t say anything. "Look. I was pretty sure i was going to sign out for good back there when that big black statue of a man just fell down in front of me. Believe me when i´m saying i´m happy sitting on the floor. Alive." and then he ended the discussion by simply sitting himself down on the shuttle floor, leaning against the wall opposite the refresher. The two Stormtroopers looked at each other, shrugged and let the obviously still confused pilot do as he pleased.
Madaan pulled his helmet off and he probably looked like a Drovian or somethingin his face because the Trooper next to him asked "You had to take a lot of beating huh? How´s your head? Did you land on it or what?"
Madaan grinned and that made his face hurt. A lot.
"Very funny. You know, standard emergency landing procedure. Put your head in the sand."
He then put his hand to his face and very gently felt the swollen skin with his fingers. When he looked down into his helmet, he could see blood all over it. He probably hit his head on the impact and that was what knocked him unconscious.
Then Madaan nodded and smiled. "Well, i´m glad you guys turned back for me."
Some Troopers looked at each other and then one of them said "It wasn´t any of our doing. It was Lord Vader who commanded it."
Madaan looked at the white helmet in doubt. "What?"
"Yes." the Trooper said and then he hesitated, looking around as if to make sure nobody was listening.
"I mean, this is third hand information and all, but Ops picked up your distress signal, but the pilot wouldn´t hear anything of it. The Co-pilot argued you can´t leave a brother behind, a fellow pilot that is." The trooper then leaned forward as if speaking of something confidential.
"But the Pilot freaked out and started yelling about how you weren´t any brother of his and all TIE Pilots were expendable just like all Troopers and so on."
Then another trooper picked up, eager to tell the tale. "But that didn´t please Lord Vader at all, no sir! He simply choked the guy to death and ordered the shuttle to turn around."
Madaan had to take a deep breath to take it all in. "So you mean" he said, slightly tilting his head "Lord Vader, himself, turned this very shuttle around and jumped off in mid-flight just to pick me up?" Both Troopers nodded.
"Yes sir, that´s how it went down and if you don´t believe us you are welcome to have a look in the cargo bay where we put the pilots body."
Madaan put his hands up "I believe you, i believe you." he said. "I just can´t believe it."
The Trooper nodded. "I understand how you feel." he said and made a twitch with his head towards the access ramp.
"When the ramp was opened we all thought it was some kind of improvised air drop." Then he slowly shook his head.
"But then 'he' casually walked down the ramp and just jumped off. I´ve never seen anything like it."
Then they all sat in silence for a time before Madaan asked "Did you say 'Brother'? You can´t leave a Brother behind?"
The Trooper nodded. "That´s right. Whatever it meant, Lord Vader sure didn´t like the way he talked."
"Brother." Madaan said to himself. "If i remember it right, that´s what the Clone Troopers used to call each other. Maybe Lord Vader fought with them in the Clone Wars and it brought back some memories" The Troopers looked at Madaan and nodded.
"Sounds reasonably." Then they sat in silence again, each deep in his own thoughts.