Earlier that month, Inner Rim, Coruscant
The Imperial fleet dropped into Coruscant orbit in multiple waves, the first wave was comprised of units like Hades that had jump capable fighters and Immobilizer Interdictor cruisers. The fighters engaged the initial Republic response fighters while the Immobilizers set up their perimeter and keyed in their gravity wells. Seconds after they powered up, the remainder of the fleet vaulted into the system with pinpoint precision only possible with the interdictor fields. The Republic had no idea what was happening. The second branch of the fleet broke off several medium and light cruisers to guard the Immobilizers while the frigates, heavy cruisers, and star destroyers moved towards the Republic defenders who were rushing to engage the Imperial forces. Garin couldn't believe how stupid they were being as the heavy cruisers and destroyers continued to execute the micro-jumps, thwarting targeting computers and weapon locks as they advanced into Coruscant's spacelanes with devastating effect.
"Here come the shields," Toth said over the com. "About time they came up."
"Fools," muttered Harth.
Garin nodded as the planetary shields came online, unlike the Empire before it, the Republic did not constantly employ the powerful shielding system constantly to ensure security. He understood the political reasons why they didn't, but to not do so during wartime just seemed stupid and foolhardy. They were certainly paying for that mistake now, he could see areas of the planet-wide cityscape that had been hit by turbolaser fire from the destroyers and cruisers*. With a private wince he ran a geographic and topographical check through his Defender's systems and sighed in relief. They were on the opposite side of the planet from his family's home. She had to be safe then and he could fight without a conflict of interest.
"Alright Hades roll them up, Shadow and Wyvern engage enemy fighters, Diamond you've got cap ship duty, Golem and Mantis continue screening the Interdictors; Reaper you have target discretion, happy hunting everyone."
Hades broke apart into its various elements and engaged the Republic forces with a vengeance; the Defense Fleet was being downright stupid if anyone cared to ask Garin as he went head to head with a flight of A-wings firing his cannons in paired linking scattering the lighter fighters. He knew better than to try and outrun them, there was no chance of that, but he could outmaneuver them. He just had to be careful of their rotating cannons. His wingmen broke off on opposite sides to follow through with their own attacks. Whoever was flying the A-wing was an idiot and got into a turning competition with him, he easily outturned the interceptor and peppered it with his cannons, the shields crumpled almost instantly and a laser burst lanced the cockpit, the fighter flew apart and Garin rode through the debris field dispassionately turning to engage his next target. He stole a glance at his sensors and snorted, the Republic fleet was being all but stupid, instead of falling back into high orbit where the defense platforms could provide covering fire they were moving to fully engage the Imperial fleet. What were they thinking? Not that he was complaining, if they wanted to throw themselves at the more heavily armed Imperial forces they were welcome to do so.
An X-wing moved to engage him and he smiled, throwing the Defender into a drop the other fighter couldn't follow and brought himself up again on the X-wing's aft. To the credit of the pilot, he managed to turn himself around using the X-wing's maneuverability and began firing into Garin's front section just as Garin too opened fire. The pair rushed past each other, Garin checking over his systems and finding his shields intact, the X-wing had maintained its defenses as well, which meant another pass. He saw two friendly blips fast approaching, they registered as Interceptors; he wondered who that would be as they made a run against the X-wing that had been tangling with him and blew it apart. His com buzzed and he keyed in the new channel.
"Sorry for taking your kill Garin, I thought you might like some company."
He chuckled, "hello Vic'que, what brings you to my end of space?"
"You looked lonely, Shadow Two and Three are off chasing some A-wings and I thought you might like company."
"Feel free to join me, think you can keep up?"
"Don't make me laugh Commander."
Garin smiled, "alright then, you cover the flanks and I'll give them something to think about."
"Provided I don't kill them first," she quipped dangerously.
The two Interceptors formed on his wings and he was pleasantly surprised to see that the latest model had an up rated engine that brought its speed closer to the Defender. Not bad at all. They zeroed in on a squadron of B-wings making a run towards a dreadnaught.
"Vic'que can your shields handle those things?"
He heard the annoyance in her, "please sir, what the shields don't absorb my skills will."
He smiled and keyed his unit com, "Mantis Lead you in the area?"
"Alive and well Shadow Lead, how can I help?"
"Feeding you targeting telemetry, care to say hello?"
Toth took a moment to respond, "got it." There was another pause as he coordinated with his flight. "Incoming, wish them well."
Garin switched channels, "Vic'que maintain distance, we've got a missile volley from Mantis coming in."
"Copy that, glad to see Luixana is making himself useful."
Garin smiled grimly as the missiles appeared on his sensors and approached the B-wings, they saw them too and broke formation, chaff and flares discharging wildly.
"You're thinking of Kalan and Matrin, they're the useless ones."
"Shadow Lead this is Shadow Four, we're moving to intercept your targets."
"Shadow Two and Three moving to rejoin you sir."
"Shadow Lead copies all, feel free to join in gentlemen; it looks like we have plenty of targets."
Indeed they did, the B-wings must have called for help because two more groups of Republic fighters were coming towards them now, it looked like two-dozen A-wings and a handful of X-wings were coming to their friends' aid. This would be interesting. The five additional Defenders formed up and joined their ad hoc formation. The B-wings certainly were bold, Garin had to give them that; the missile barrage hadn't done the amount of damage he'd hoped but it had served to scatter them somewhat. Still they were coming straight on, he wondered idly what they were configured to carry, and B-wings were notoriously hard to predict the armaments of**. They were one of the few truly modular fighters in the galaxy. Just as the B-wings and Garin's ragtag formation met each other, the A-wings caught up, the result was a vicious two wave lashing that left the Defender's shields down for the precious seconds it took for them to regain their charge. The A-wings, in Garin's opinion little better than TIE Fighters, had paid for their run though, he'd counted six going up in brief fireballs as their fuel stores lit up and died. Vic'que and her wingmate had been smart about the pass and dropped behind a Defender each, allowing the larger craft's shield to overlap and allow for additional protection.
Even given that, with the X-wings were bearing up on them now as well, this could actually get complicated.
"Commander Durives, if you're really not interested in taking the Captain back into Hades you'd better stop taking her off on these excursions of yours."
Garin was pleased to see a firestorm of laserfire rip into the X-wings in front of him, those that survived the barrage scattered frantically as the red stripes of the 181st dove in amongst them.
"Don't look at me Major, she's following me."
"Indeed," Stele responded coolly as his Interceptors joined the mounting furball.
What had started out initially as a minor dogfight ballooned into a full blown battle within a battle as both sides threw more fighters into the skirmish; soon all of Wyvern and Shadow were involved and added to the 181st. Despite the obvious superiority in skill though, whoever was in command still threw more fighters into the mix wasting lives as if he were an old school Imperial. Garin wondered just what was going through the commander's head as he blew another fighter into pieces and checked his sensors to find the Reavers moving to join the fray.
Present, interrogation room aboard the Mon Cal cruiser Home One, Bilbringi Shipyards
"I saw the footage of that dogfight, it was…" she closed her eyes and took a deep breath before looking at me with a deep coldness. "Thirty-one of our pilots were killed against you and we only recorded eleven Imperials being destroyed."
"Don't blame me, I was doing my job. Whoever ordered those pilots to keep engaging when it was obvious they were outmatched is to blame."
She leaned back and regarded me quietly, "I suppose I'm just glad that General Bel Iblis took over when he did, if he hadn't, Hades and the 181st would have slaughtered even more of our pilots."
"Is he someone I should know about?"
"He's the one who recalled our forces back behind the defense platforms."
I smiled, "if you ever meet him, tell him it was a good move."
Earlier that month, Inner Rim, Coruscant
Garin flew his patrol pattern again, watching the Republic forces hanging out of range and within the protective reach of the defense platforms and planetary cannons. They'd finally withdrawn, it had been quite a change in tactics; from running full tilt into Thrawn's forces to forcing the Grand Admiral to decide if he wanted to risk Coruscant's static defenses. If the goal of the mission had been to capture Coruscant there would have been no question, but since the only goal was to initiate the Grand Admiral's trap there was no real need to be concerned about the Republic's retreat. His sensors registered a nearby ship being hit, a Republic frigate, there were no ships near it, no fighters either; it had to have hit one of Thrawn's asteroids. What would happen now, did this mean the Republic would find them out? He watched as a Republic dreadnaught moved in on the injured frigate, a moment later an asteroid appeared on his scope, they must have disabled the cloaking device; panic seized him for a moment. Then the asteroid vanished, fragmenting into dozens of smaller pieces. He hadn't been facing the incident, and had no idea who had shot the floating rock, but he'd bet it was the Grand Admiral showing the Republic what was in their skies without letting them have a good look at the technology behind it.
"All ships, withdraw, mission complete. I repeat, mission complete."
At Pallaeon's words Garin punched his throttle and swung towards the Knight, his com unit buzzed and he keyed the channel.
"Commander Durives," Stele's voice sounded forced, even ragged.
"Major, what can I do for you?"
"I wanted to thank you for what you did earlier. I wouldn't have done it, but thank you."
Stele had been hit earlier, his fighter disabled and cockpit breached; Garin had used his Defender's micro tractor beam to pull Stele back to the safety of the star destroyers where the warships could recover him. Colonel Turr Phennir had complimented him on saving his second in command and even gone so far as to offer Garin a place in the 181st. Garin had immediately declined and he got the feeling that Phennir had been insulted by the sudden refusal, but that was not Garin's concern, he had his unit. Stele and Phennir had theirs.
"Are we done now," Garin asked quietly.
"Yes, we're done; you know that is one thing that Captain Sajuuk says she likes about you more than me. That you'll put yourself at risk to save your subordinates; if someone made my mistake, they'd have to clean it up."
Garin chuckled and shook his head, "the Empire can't afford that kind of thinking anymore Major, it's how we got into this mess in the first place."
There was a long pause before Stele spoke once again, Garin expected some rebuke but instead Stele was thoughtful as he responded.
"Yes, you might be right about that. Fel once told me something similar."
"You should listen to him; I recall he had quite an effect on you. Take care Major, rest up and we'll fly together again sometime."
"I'll look forward to it Commander, stay alive."
Garin touched his Defender lightly into its cradle and powered down, settling the wing pylons into their clamps with the familiar metallic clank. He unsealed his helmet and sat back for a moment with his eyes closed, taking a much needed respite. The battle had been brief, no longer than an hour at most—he'd lost track of time during the furball—but it had been intense, flying in that miniature warzone. The familiar smell of ozone, liquid fuel and weapons gas assaulted his senses; to civilians these smells would be acrid and unpleasant to his military sense they were signs of home. There was a banging then, breaking his moment of bliss and he looked out of his cockpit to see Daru scowling at him on the gangway. He tucked his helmet under one arm and popped his hatch, climbing out and down onto the gangway besides her.
"What did you do to my fighters," she growled like some kind of brooding animal as her lekku spasmed angrily at her back.
Garin looked back at his Defender and felt a smile tug at his features, a smile he fought desperately to keep under control to avoid driving Daru to further ire. The Defender's paint was scorched and blackened were cannon and ordnance fire had made their marks, his portside solar panel wing had a chunk blown out of its after quarter and there was a hole in the top solar panel wing's center just forward of the support pylon. If that shot, he mused to himself, had come in at a different angle it would have penetrated the cockpit hatch and vaporized him. The damage went to show that numbers could count for something when skill was lacking. He looked down the gangway on either side and saw similar damage to greater and lesser extents to his own fighter.
"Who got it the worst," he inquired as calmly as he could.
"The Avengers and Defenders have the worst of it," she grumbled, still seething over the damage, he noticed that she forget to use 'sir' this time. "Honestly I'm surprised the Howlrunners are still in one piece if this is what our advanced models took; but they're more or less unharmed."
"What about the DBs?"
Slowly, ever so slowly, a smile crept across her features as her lekku twitched excitedly, "they barely have a scratch on them."
Garin heard the pride in her voice and couldn't help it this time, he smiled.
She caught it and scowled, "didn't I tell you not to get killed?"
"I'm not dead am I," he asked innocently.
"Your fighter looks like you might be," she grumbled.
"Can you fix them," he inquired sedately, still smiling.
Now she really became incensed and he saw a fire kindle in her eyes as she looked from him to the damaged fighter.
"Of course I can fix them," she snarled, her voice growing in intensity. "What I can't fix is nerfs like you getting them shot to pieces!"
There was a silence; the other pilots who had been on the gangway stopped and looked at her, her face went from its usual deep blue to a darker, almost purple shade as she ducked her head.
"Sorry…sir," she added sullenly.
Garin smiled and looked at his pilots pointedly, nodding them towards the ready room at the end of the gangway. After a moment they moved, most, the ones who had been with the unit for a long time, were smiling, the clones though looked uncertain. Their flash training not allowing for mechanics to speak to the commanding officers like that; guided by the veterans they were quickly shooed away from the pair as Garin continued to smile and Daru pointedly avoided his gaze. Slowly he put a hand on her shoulder; she tensed at his touch but didn't pull away when he put his arm around her shoulders and touched his forehead to the top of her lekku.
"Sorry, I'll take better care of the fighters in the future, promise."
When he released her she was trembling, practically shaking herself to pieces. He didn't take it any further than that as he let her go and turned to follow the others; he hoped that he hadn't taken the recent ease she'd been allowing herself around him for granted but really it had felt like the right thing to do in that situation given everything. However he had been drastically wrong in prior cases and this could be a very bad repeat of those cases.
"Garin," he turned back at her voice; she was staring at him quietly her light blue eyes blazing intensely. "You'll keep that promise?"
He nodded his face uncommonly solemn. "Yeah, I'll keep it."
She returned the nod slowly, a hesitant smile creeping across her face, "go do your job pilot. I'll do mine."
Author's Note: in case I have any A-wing fans in the audience that are aghast I'm beating the crap out of their favorite fighter; here's why: The A-wing has barely any shields, and it has an even weaker hull. Most of its size is taken up by its massive engines and the fuel to supply them. They are designed to be fast, not survivable and in all their incarnations they've had terrible attrition rates against more advanced TIE models such as the Defender which have the shields and armor to survive multiple passes. They are also the most widely produced fighter in the Republic, making them in many ways the Rebel/Republic TIE Fighter equivalent. So using the example of the A6M Zero, when fast, light craft come up against heavier, more agile fighters they tend to get trounced. So against equally armed and armored (or lack thereof) craft such as TIE Bombers, Fighters, Interceptors etc they would do quite well but against Defenders especially (and probably Avengers as well) they'd have to be very well handled to have a chance which these weren't. It should also be noted that while the A-wing is faster than the Interceptor, the Interceptor is far more maneuverable (quoted as being able to 'fly circles around an X-wing'). This would mean that if an A-wing got into a turning dogfight with an Interceptor (the Defender and Avenger were similarly maneuverable though as larger craft to a lesser degree) it would be hard pressed to keep the Interceptor off its tail. The only real hope it would have would be to use its superior speed to pull away and out of range of the Interceptor and come back for another pass.
*The Imperial line of battle is roughly like this from smallest warship to largest: frigate, light, medium, heavy cruiser, and destroyer. Frigates are generally used to screen the larger cruisers and destroyers from starfighters. Cruisers fill a variety of roles (i.e. battleship, carrier, escort etc) depending on size, armament, and equipment they carry and there are cases (such as at Bakura) when destroyers are not available and cruisers form the backbone of a fleet. Destroyers are the battleships and carriers of the fleet and their purpose is to move into range of the enemy and hit hard while deploying fighters. There are other classes of warship that the Empire uses however these are the most commonly occurring in major fleet actions.
**B-wing design allows them to switch their armaments to various configurations relatively easily and in very little time. This customizable nature has led to many pilots becoming personally attached to their craft and it is not uncommon for ships in the same squadron to have completely differing armaments.