RWS Obi-Wan Kenobi- Gandrini Ship Yards.

Galen Zaun was on the bridge staring out, scowling at the window as the bridge made the final preparations for battle. They were swooping down on the main battle station and the surrounding facilities that made up the dry docks and warships.

He felt helpless, he did not know what to do or what 'orders' to give. He just attended to his ship, continued to look out the window, and then back to the sensors.

"Captain, we have a squadron of enemy ships breaking for our formation." A tech manning one of the threat boards reported.

"Good, head towards them and prepare all weapons. Let's cut them off." The Captain of the ship, a Rodian, commanded. A feral smile now spread across his features, "Fire control relay targets to gunners."

The fire control officer's fingers raced across his console as he relayed the fire control orders to the gun crews. Then he nodded.

Galen arched an eyebrow at the display before him.

"Fighters incoming!" Another tech yelped, and then he calmed himself before continuing the report. "Two groups, coming from the ship yards and the fleet group moving towards us."

Galen sighed. "Here we go."

Maier gave the next set of commands in a gruff monotone. "Steady, steady people, remember your training. Communications tell the fleet to launch fighters, lets coordinate and pincer them."

The communication officer nodded laying in the commands on his board.

"Here we go." Galen whispered, audible enough to be heard by Maier.

Maier shot him a shushing look.

Consoles beeped, and crewmen relayed more orders throughout the ship as the two forces collided.

Red bolts of high intensity energy shot forth from the batteries all along the Kenobi's bow and portside. They streaked off rapidly into the cold depths of space, quickly disappearing in a blink of an eye at targets unseen.

The two forces were ninety kilometers distant, and closing. Galen stroked his beard in interested concentration as he watched the battle. The enemy returned fire with less precise accuracy, obviously stretching the range of their guns.

"Enemy fighters closing to fifty kilometers." The fighter tech alerted.

"Order our fighters to close on them, beat off the initial response and then make for the enemy capitol ships and defense platforms." General Maier commanded.

"All defensive batteries on standby to shoot down any leakers that the fighters miss." The Captain ordered from the textbook, balancing out Maier's tactics.

"Here we go." Galen uttered automatically.

Red Squadron-Red eight.

John Zaun was in the shockingly quiet cockpit of his XT Class X-Wing. Only the hum of the powerful engines and the occasional twittering of the droid behind him to interrupt what would be serene boredom in normal circumstances was ruined by his tense mood.

He was edgy, nervous, worried, this was his first taste of this kind of battle, and he was not supposed to be a pilot. However, he was alert, and his Force sense was on maximum, that was one advantage, he could feel the enemies around him. But he could be felt as well.

"Hey John." Death's voice came over his headset, "don't worry I will watch your wing."

John smiled behind his helmet and was about to reply when he was interrupted.

"Stay off the line and cut the chatter!" Their CAG snapped. "Anyways, we just got our assignment from the Mothership, lock S-Spoils in attack position and roll in. Reds 1-4 on point, Reds 5-10 stay back a bit . We are going to be joined by Yellow and Blue Squadrons. Tallyho!"

John rolled his fighter on the side, and he raced into the fray with four other X-Wings in close formation with him forming an X of their own.

The forces met.

RWS Obi-Wan Kenobi

"Missile salvo barring 2-2-4." One of the techs reported.

"Fighter squadrons have met with enemy fighters." The flight control officer said in a monotone.

"All defensive batteries track incoming ordinance and destroy." The Captain Ordered looking up at the master board on the ceiling.

"Too late!" The same tech yelped panicked, clenching onto her console.

The floor shook as the missiles struck harmlessly on the Kenobi's shields. Galen braced himself on the console in front of him before straightening back out.

"What is the status of the fighters?" Galen turned to the control pit.

The tech looked up startled at being asked a question, he then blushed and then ran over his boards. "Sir, the fighters have broken up the enemy assault with minimal casualties."

Maier forestalled the next question. "Relax Galen, I am sure your precious son is fine."

"I am sure he is." Galen responded bitterly.

"Well it looks like theory has won out this day." The Captain's smile twisted, shooting the two flag officers a sideways glance.

Red 8

John rolled his fighter on its side and dumped a full burst from his quad cannons right up the tail pipe of the fleeing fighter.

"Hey the Jedi got one!" Red 10 yipped excitedly over the net.

"Very well." Their Squadron leader/CAG sounded pleased. "It looks like our three squadron attack might have actually worked, enemy forces are splintered and trying to regroup. We are now in the fold gentle beings, let's give them all we have got. We have been given independent assignment from the flag, let's go for that Cruiser bearing on the nose." Red 2 reported.

The fighters all maneuvered to attack the target in question.

"Looks like Yellow nine has taken heavy damage and is heading back to the barn, Blue six is gone. Blue Squadron is heading for a Command Cruiser target, and Yellow is hanging back for the defense."

John mulled this over, but he did not have a lot of time to do so as his Commander came back over the net.

"Alright, tallyho! Reds 1-6 break in for attack, Reds 7-10 hang back and provide cover."

They were flying XT Class X-Wing Starfighters. Over 200 hundred years old they were used in the last major conflict and a majority of the pirate conflicts over the years. The Republic had tried to replace them nearly eighty years ago with the much cheaper, much lighter Starfighter known as the XU Class X-Wing. But they were not liked by the military or any private organizations for becoming a favorite with local planetary guards, they proved to be a design disaster nowhere close in capabilities to the older XTs. The Military made the compromise of giving a larger, longer nosed, version of the vintage XT Class Starfighter to carry twelve Torpedoes instead of the standard eight on the smaller older brethren.

Reds 1-4 were the latter class, the torpedo version. The Captain's plan would have been to dominate and overwhelm the shields of the target ship with as many as 16 torpedoes and then have the other two follow up with key Laser Cannon strikes and maybe more torps to destroy or disable.

The plan worked brilliantly, the four lead fighters streaked in and unleashed their thirteen proton torpedoes. Then the last two fighters unleashed a stream of laser darts and two torpedoes of their own at the crippled ship, one of them went up the tail pipe and blew it to shreds.

A small group of fighters maneuvered to jump the X-Wing Squadron that just destroyed the larger ship.

"John let's go get them." Death reported over the inter com. John nodded to himself.

They separated and rolled into battle, John lifted his nose at the climbing fighter now trying to escape the unexpected threat. He maneuvered behind the enemy fighter and squeezed the trigger. His cannons fired and vaporized the fighter, Death eliminated the other two. He now had two 'kills'.

"Hey John, looks like a gun boat is trying to get through our lines and make a run on our fleet, do you want to go get it?" Death asked.

"Sure." John returned evenly, knowing that he could not change the mind of the aggressive Jedi.

They lined up nearly wingtip to wingtip, their eight cannons all pointing in the same direction as they flew in formation.

The gun boat panicked, tried to maneuver out of the way and attempted evasive maneuvers and to use whatever countermeasures they had.

But they were ineffective against the two predators sneaking up on them. They had no small defenses to destroy the threat.

John and Death launched their torpedoes at once, the pink orbs streaked into the target and then exploded, one taking out the shields and then one mere seconds later ripping into the hull, breaking the ship apart.

Death then spun off to go after two more fighters trying to flee the area, leaving John all alone.

A fighter managed to get in behind the young Jedi, the droid shrieked as bolts of low intensity energy streaked passed his fighter, some of them hitting his stern and his engine compartment, his aft shields were over powered. He rolled his fighter away from the bandit on his tail.

"Death!" He yelped over the net.

"Coming." Death sounded mad, at what John could only guess, "Roll left, break hard break hard!"

John did as he was told, violently shoving the stick into his knee and his fighter snapped to the left, then he gently rolled it around again to the right, before diving through space, gaining separation.

The fighter was caught by a bolt causing it to spew sparks and spin out of control before consuming itself in its own fire, Death's fighter shot past.

"Thanks." John said chagrinned.

"You are welcome." Death replied sounding guilty.

"Having fun you two?" The voice of their Captain asked annoyed.

"Not really." John sighed.

"Alright Jedi, reform on my wing, all fighters join in standard formation. Let's go after the defense platforms, clear the way for the big boys, make our way for the command hub in the center." The CAG ordered, the squadron quickly obeyed.

A sense of dread shot its way through John's stomach, a worry in the Force. But he could not do anything about it, he was not in charge of the mission and there was nothing he could do about it, just follow orders.

Obi-Wan Kenobi.

"Sir, Red Squadron looks as though they are heading for the defensive platforms at the heart of the shipyards." One of the techs reported perplexed.

"What? Who gave that order?" The Captain asked walking down into the pit.

"No one sir." The tech sounded flustered at getting such close attention of the Captain.

"Well does not matter now, we may need them to do what they are doing to survive. Be aggressive, we need that." The General waved a hand forestalling any recall order.

Galen shot his counterpart a curious look, but did not say anything, he was not in charge.

Red 8

John spun his fighter ducking under a piece of debris that flew from a crippled defense platform.

The predators were in the hen house and they had made their first big mistake, they had already managed to cripple three of the main defense platforms, and were busy going deeper and deeper into the web. They had to duck under scaffolding of some of the repair and construction facilities, as they headed deeper and deeper.

But the sense of dread was still there.

Suddenly, John understood why. They were surrounded, all the defense platforms locked onto them.

"EVASIVE!" The CAG yelled over the intercom, finally panicking, the defense platforms fired as one.

John ducked and rolled under the extreme defensive fire that ripped the rest of the formation to shreds. Exploding Starfighters blanked out his vision as he had to clear it, he took two hits and his shields nearly failed. Death came out much better.

Obi-Wan Kenobi

"Sir most of Red Squadron was just eliminated, at least I have lost their transponder links." One of the techs reported, sounding glum at the news.

"Which fighters survived?" Galen asked, turning, trying to sound calm.

"Looks as though Red 7, and 8." The tech read from the screen.

"That is John and Death." Galen sighed to himself relieved.

"I am sure they will be fine." General Maier patted Galen on the shoulder sounding confident but depressed at the loss of the other eight fighters.

"Yes I am sure." Galen responded, turning to the General.

Red 8

"Death I am losing it!" John reported over his coms sounding panicked. "By the Force I hate flying."

"Steady." Death tried to stay confident.

John's fighter was losing power, the control stick was shaking all over the place as his fighter began to shake apart. He was losing it, his alarms were shrieking at him and the panels were lit a pale but insistent red.

A bolt shot forth from the pale, cold, dark depths of space and hit his fighter. His shields were down so it hit his fighter and sparked dramatically, his fighter shuddered and then rocked magnificently.

"John! You alright?" Death sounded worried.

"Yeah." John shakily replied. "For the moment, but my fighter is losing it, I have lost most of my power and one engine."

"Alright only one way to go." Death sounded grim and determined.

"The command center?" John sounded worried.

"Yeah." Death sighed.

"Alright lead the way." John gestured.

The two fighters rushed, shot, and spun through the web of lasers, Death was trying to protect John from the brunt of it.

They quickly approached the command center that did not have any defensive firepower of its own. Fighters were still spilling from it but ignoring them because their electronic brains knew that the defensive batteries would take care of them.

But they were not destroyed, and three of the fighters turned to meet the two X-Wings. Death launched all of his remaining torpedoes and then shot a stream of laser darts, the explosions combined and spread throughout space, destroying nine of the enemy fighters.

"Here we go John, you ready for this?" Death asked nervous.

"Yeah, as I will ever be." John responded.

The two fighters spun and went back through the magnetic field.

Obi-Wan Kenobi

"Commodore, General, we just lost contact with Reds 7 and 8!" One of the techs reported sounding worried.

"What?" Galen asked, spinning on the tech, "what happened?"

"At last report they were going into the command center." The tech sounded confused.

"The command center?" Now it was Galen's turn to sound worried.

Red Eight

John spun under the large glass control bay hanging from the ceiling of the spacious hangar. Defensive turrets meant for dealing with boarders shot at him, most of the shots hit but just harmlessly sparked all along the tough hull, causing damage.

John and Death then began to fire their quad cannons at scaffs, repair tenders, and any other fighter they could get their hands on.

Their bolts ripped into the tightly packed vessels on the hanger floor, ripping into the ships and causing a chain reaction of explosions as shrapnel and hot fuel spread all over the floor causing a massive fire to break out. The lights of the hanger flickered and went out.

They put the S-spoils back into their regular positions and then shot through a tight corridor at the end of the bay, leading to another one at the back, this one was still well lit.

"Hang on!" Death shouted over the coms.

The two of them pointed their nose for the deck slowed rapidly for the approach, their landing feet snapped out just in time, as they collided with the floor and slid on it for another twenty or so meters.

John snapped open his canopy and leapt out in a somersault, before his fighter even stopped, he turned his Lightsaber on in midair and then slashed his way through two droids, sliding on the floor.

Death simply leapt out of his fighter bringing his emerald blade to life, deflecting and slashing his way through his group of droids.

They slashed, hacked, cut, ripped, and deflected their way in a blur of energy from their bladed approach. They cut down any opposition before them with a whirlwind of strikes and counterstrikes, parries and blows.

The two of them met, the droids lay burnt and crippled on the floor of the hangar.

"Looks like we made it." John said.

"Yeah, we need to get to the Command Center, see if we cannot sabotage them, or something." Death nodded off to the hall way. "Ready for this?"

"Yeah, I am." John frowned for a second, "You feel that?"

Death spread out through the Force. "Yeah, Dark oppressive presence."

"Let's go meet it." John nodded confidently, Lightsaber at the ready but not activated.

Death nodded back. "Let's."