Wedge Antilles settled stealthily into his seat, hidden among the alien ferns. The plants surrounding this corner of the Woonseer Cafe were dense, with heavy leaves that persisted in catching him as he tried to maneuver into the bench. Pushing them out of the way had eventually allowed him victory and he tried to smile at Iella as if he hadn't just nearly lost a battle with an overgrown weed.

Her expression was deeply amused. "Should I call for backup?"

"You mean you don't have a vibroblade in your clutch? If you do call, make sure it's Page's commandos. I don't want to lose a battalion of troops to the Adarian Building's maze of alien plants." He glanced over the menu, forcing himself to relax. By the end of the week, Fifth Fleet's repair and resupply would be complete. The fleet had just gotten in thousands of additional proton torpedoes, which would allow his squadrons to return to full battle readiness—no small feat, with the rate the New Republic went through torpedoes—and Lusankya's final repairs were nearly finished as well.

But the whole point of dinner with Iella was not to think about those things for a while. Wedge knew as well as anyone, and better than most, how important it was to allow people to take a break from preparing for combat and worrying about the casualties from said combat . The accumulated mental fatigue and stress would break a soldier down, if given half the chance. Wedge had seen it happen, especially in the Rebellion's early years, and then again during the Thrawn Campaign. The constant press of battle, of advance, of retreat, of sortie and rearm and sortie again, might not kill you—might—but it would gradually wear down even the most dedicated sentients and leave them vulnerable. These days, he felt more tired than ever.

"Any news from Corellia?"

He winced as the words left his mouth. No, that wasn't going to help! Yes, he wanted to know what had happened on their homeworld; there had been rumors all over the HoloNet for days now, with extensive recordings of pro-Imperial forces fighting across all five of the Corellian latest reports indicated that there had been a battle, and that at least some of the Imperial squadron assigned to guard Corellia from the New Republic had mutinied when ordered to bombard Corellia and put down the uprising. Wedge's squadron had been rushing through its repair cycle specifically to try to capture the system before that could happen, though it now seemed evident that even their rushing had not been fast enough. But as much as he wanted to know the latest on Corellia, that was just another reminder of everything he was trying not to think about tonight.

Iella pressed her lips together, and Wedge could see the same mental debate going on in her head. She could answer the question, giving up on the hope of keeping the war far away tonight. She could ignore the question, knowing that it wasn't going to make it go away.

But Iella was as proud a Corellian as he was, refusing to look away from harsh realities even as they stubbornly carved out time for each other.

Iella answered the question. "Yes." She sipped her wine, then placed the glass down slowly, letting the silence linger. "It sounds like the fighting is finally done," she said. "This won't reach the newsnets until tomorrow or the day after; the Corellians are still keeping their HoloNet on lockdown, so most information is trickling out via small traders after making the run. Corellian Home Defense has scattered or destroyed the pro-Imperial militias and garrison fleet. Most of their leaders were arrested—Corran had some hot work at the head of the rebels, but he came through alright."

The jolt of surprise at her answer was quickly followed by a swell of utter, joyous calm. He laughed, disbelieving. "You and I have been fighting to free Corellia for how many years? And just as the New Republic has put me in charge of a fleet and told me to go free our homeworld, it goes and frees itself without our help." He shook his head, grinning madly. He knew he looked like a fool, and he didn't care. "How very Corellian of it."

"If there's one thing Corellians—wherever we are—do best, it's defying expectations." Iella finally let herself smile. She reached across the table and took his hand in hers, squeezing it. "You might not be sent out after all. I don't know exactly what happened with the Imperial fleet that was guarding Corellia, but I do know that more than half of its Star Destroyer strength is now loyal to the new Corellian government. Rumor has it there are five Imperial-class Star Destroyers already in the new defense fleet, and they're being renamed Corellia, Selonia, Drall, Talus, and Tralus."

"I think that will get confusing," Wedge said, shaking his head. His grin refused to fade. "But I suppose it does drive home the message that each homeworld will be defended." He squeezed Iella's hand. "I'm so glad to hear—"

His communicator buzzed. With a frown, he reached for it. Had he forgotten to set it to screen his calls? But no, the little light that indicated privacy mode was active was illuminated. His comm buzzed again, shivering in his palm and overrode the block with an emergency signal.

Iella's face suddenly froze as her own purse vibrated.

With a sudden sense of dread, Wedge activated his comlink.

Major Dorset Konnair, leader of Polearm Squadron, took another quick glance at her HUD as she continued her evening patrol, ensconced in the compact A-wing cockpit that gave larger pilots fits. Lusankya was still in drydock, undergoing its final maintenance cycle. The Super Star Destroyer was scheduled to be back in the field at the end of the current weekly cycle. When that time came, Fifth Fleet—and Major Dorset Konnair—would be heading to Corellia.

Maybe.

That had been the plan for the last two months. Lusankya's accumulated aches and pains, hard-won from cutting out the heart of the Imperial Starfleet, had finally earned her some much-needed maintenance time, and Fifth Fleet had been in combat zones for much longer than the New Republic Military preferred.

There were only a handful of facilities in the New Republic which could handle maintenance and repairs on a Super Star Destroyer. Kuat and Bilbringi were two, but Coruscant also had one—a legacy of the years Executor had been the Imperial flagship—and that massive, skeleton-like structure had Lusankya wrapped up in its tentacle-like appendages. Repair droids and personnel swarmed over Lusankya's hull at all hours of Coruscant's day, polishing and restoring armor and equipment.

The Rebellion hadn't had any choice, in those early years, except to put the same people into combat again and again, but it had gone to great lengths to offer its soldiers and pilots time for leave. Dorset had heard the old veterans of Rogue Squadron talk about Hoth and their time there and as prevalent as the Battle of Hoth itself loomed, the nostalgia many of them had for the camaraderie. Oh, it had been frigid and miserable and none of them wanted to go back… but Hoth had also been a sanctuary, without most of the amenities, but with ample time for the time for the Rebellion to lick their wounds, train hard, and even give its fighting sapients some much needed rest.

So as Hoth was to the rebellion, Coruscant was a temporary rest station for Fifth Fleet. Their ships were under-crewed as the safety of Home Fleet meant they weren't needed on a moment's notice, and those crew members could indulge in all the luxuries that Coruscant had to offer. As a native, Dorset didn't see quite the same appeal as everyone else had. She'd been home, seen her parents, and then gone back up to the docks and volunteered for extra duty. Hobbie—Wing Commander Klivian now—had placed her in command of Lusankya's CAP for the night shift.

She was a Major now. Being in command of a Super Star Destroyer's CAP was something she could just do, now. Secure in the privacy of A-wing's familiar cockpit, the small Coruscanti woman brushed a pale hand over the gleaming rank insignia on her flightsuit as if to assure herself it was still there. Still real.

Her promotion to Major had come after Carida. It had been six months since Carida and she still woke up shaking some nights, feeling the sputter of overheated engines, the pulsating hum of a depleted shield, and the depressing thunk of an empty missile magazine actuating, all while a wingpair of Defenders bored in on her. Then there was nothing left but streaks of red behind her and fiery explosions ahead. Hobbie and Janson had arrived at exactly the right moment, and in the flash of relief after their arrival she'd pulled herself back together.

The Polearms had suffered losses at Carida. She'd lost Polearm Twelve early in the fight—he'd been part of the initial A-wing slash and found himself tangling with a skilled TIE Defender. Twelve had reminded Dorset of herself. In some ways they couldn't have been more different: He was an Outer Rim kid, she was a Coruscanti, but they were both speed demons who loved to push their ships to their limits.

Twelve hadn't been the last, and replacing her lost pilots had—

"Sithspit!"

The exclamation came over her helmet com and Dorset jerked instantly out of reverie, her hand slamming down on her com pickup. "Status report!"

But the order was entirely unnecessary. Her A-wing's computer was already bringing up the target of her wingman's alarm, and if it hadn't been, she was close enough to see what had happened. Her brain sluggishly tried to make sense of it.

Through her A-wing canopy was an Imperial-class Star Destroyer that hadn't been there five seconds before. Less than ten kilometers away, the massive ship had struck a fleet logistics vessel solidly amidships. A glancing blow, the underside of the ISD's triangular bulk was shedding armor and hull plating even as TIE fighters awkwardly sprawled out of its hangar, avoiding the debris both from their mothership and from the Republic vessel it had struck.

The transport had been split in half by the impact. Escape pods and debris spiraled away from it, some of it deflecting off the Star Destroyer's shields.

That Star Destroyer couldn't be there. There was no way for it to have gotten this deep into Coruscant's space without being detected!

No. There was one way. "All fighters, this is CAG, Lusankya! Urgent scramble, we have cloaked Destroyers in the nest!" Dorset ordered. Hearing panic in her voice, she took a moment to let herself breathe, forcing herself to calm down. The enemy TIEs weren't coming in yet; they were still trickling from the obscured hangar of the Star Destroyer, which was using its tractor beams to clear more room for them to launch.

"This is Captain Kre'fey," Lusankya's commanding officer said over the com, and Dorset was relieved—and reassured—to hear that despite the obvious surprise in his voice, the Bothan was not panicking. "An Imperial II-class Star Destroyer has appeared in Sector 7. All ships prepare for combat and look for signs of other cloaked Imperial vessels!"

"With me, Two!" Dorset ordered, kicking her A-wing's engines to full throttle she raced her ship to intervene. She expected a handful of the TIEs to break from the mass—there were at least thirty of them, maybe forty—bearing down on Lusankya, but to her surprise none of the fighters did. Her HUD lighted with a representation of them on the display, and she didn't recognize their boxy, rectangular solar panel array from any TIE she had ever fought.

X-wings, A-wings, and E-wings from the on-call squadrons blinked into existence on her HUD as they launched, and other fighters from Coruscant's defense fleet appeared at maximum range, racing towards the intruding Star Destroyer. Like Dorset, the other fighters were moving to intercept and engage the TIEs. Her comm echoed with snippets of combat chatter. "This is Captain Darklighter. Rogue Squadron, form up!"

Above her, the Star Destroyer—which her computer now labeled Tyrannic, and noted that it was a known member of Admiral Daala's squadron—was firing on Lusankya. The much larger Super Star Destroyer returned fire, but it was also confined to a skeleton repair structure which blocked firing angles. That station, unlike Lusankya, was unarmored and not meant to absorb punishment. Even minimal turbolaser fire caused it to splinter into debris, droids and maintenance personnel vaporized by the gouts of lethal energy which carried on until stopped by Lusankya's armor.

The range dropped and Dorset was the first pilot to fire her lasers. She and Polearm Two came in on the TIE formation from the side, getting a good look at the slim, rectangular cut-out of their solar panels. Not as easy a target as the typical TIE starfighter, it was still easy to see, and her first burst of stuttering laser fire ripped through a solar panel and into the fuselage of the TIE beyond.

The resulting explosion sent a glare over her canopy and her A-wing shuddered as the outer edges of the burst of energy caught the nose of her fighter.

"—alright Lead?" Two asked over a staticky com line.

"I'm fine," she replied. "That was an awful big explosion for a TIE fighter."

"There's a lot more of them!" Darklighter exclaimed, the timbre and tone of his voice rising despite his own experience. "All fighters, maintain extra distance as you engage!"

She checked her HUD and her heart sank. The TIEs were spread out enough that the explosion that had just rattled her A-wing wouldn't extend enough to reach the other TIEs around it… and all of them were aimed, unnaturally and with growing velocity, on collision courses with Lusankya's massive bulk.

Then both her computer and her comm yelped with alarm and Dorset realized things had only gotten worse.

Still encased in the perfect dark of the cloaking shield, Stormhawk moved steadily in the direction the computer insisted Coruscant would be found.

Daala's four Star Destroyers had each been given a target. She checked her chrono and watched it tick steadily downwards to the time that had been chosen for the assault to begin. This was the riskiest part of her entire operation: the approach. Her ships were invisible, but they were equally blind and space around Coruscant was always busy. With all the freighters and warships constantly moving around the capital of the New Republic, Daala could not risk having one of her small craft pop out of cloak to take a quick look around. There was far too high a chance it would be spotted.

Coruscant was far too well defended for her to try any kind of conventional direct assault. With Home Fleet on guard, and Fifth Fleet also here for repairs and refitting, the combined firepower of the New Republic formations surpassed her four Star Destroyers more than ten times over. So while she was blind, blind was the only option she had.

She and Captain Markarian watched the chrono tick downwards, Stormhawk's engines pushing the Star Destroyer closer and closer to their intended target. The holo-display indicated a projected map of the space around Coruscant, the typical freighter paths, the patrols… and the blue lines of her ships. Only Stormhawk's line was a solid blue; the other three ships were all hidden away under their own cloaking shields. Daala knew only what their planned approach was, so the computer plotted their trajectories with uncertain, dotted lines.

And… now!

"Drop the cloak!" ordered Markarian. "Sensors, get me a full combat plot! Launch our TIE droids!"

"Target facility dead ahead!"

Space ahead of Stormhawk swarmed with activity, but that was expected. Their target was one of Coruscant's largest orbital docking frames… because large warehouses full of proton torpedoes were not something the denizens of Coruscant wanted on the ground.

The warehouse was guarded by no fewer than four Golan platforms. Their massive turbolasers would, if given the opportunity, easily destroy even Stormhawk, but Daala did not intend to give them that chance. Even as she watched, TIE droids streaked out of Stormhawk's hanger, building speed with reckless abandon. Their rate of acceleration would have strained a pilot even under full inertial compensators as they blazed in like malevolent meteors.

"Admiral, we have a problem." Frowning, she turned to look at Markarian, who had come in close. "Tyrannic is already under fire. It looks like they hit a freighter that strayed into their approach trajectory. Home Fleet is already scrambled and heading their way."

Daala swept her hands over the holo-plot to zoom out and see the entire battlefield. Her other ships—Nemesis and Larriken—were hitting their own targets even now. Those two ships were following the plan with precision, but Tyrannic had closed to outright turbolaser range and was raining fire down on Lusankya, and that had never been part of the plan. Coming so close, especially with Home Fleet and Lusankya's consorts already closing…

Tyrannic was doomed.

Unaccustomed sorrow descended over her. Daala was used to casualties in combat, to seeing ships and men under her command die following her orders. That was part of the job. But Tyrannic was the ship that Kratas commanded, the ship he'd earned with his loyalty, his talent, and his effort. For years, Kratas had been her strong right hand, the loyal subordinate that every commanding officer needed to govern her men.

She was going to have to watch him die.

With an iron grip she forced the sorrow back. Maybe she was, but his death would not be a waste. Even with Tyrannic's unfortunate accident, all of her ships had reached their targets, and if they could destroy them she would cripple the New Republic's ability to launch an offensive against the weakened Empire. Kratas would die, yes. But his death would buy her the time she needed to prepare the Starfleet to meet the threat it faced.

That would have to be enough.

"What happened, Grand Admiral?" asked Loyalty Officer Sarreti from just behind her. She had entirely forgotten the man; he'd done the best possible thing for him to do during the fighting and made himself scarce.

"They engaged maybe five, six minutes ago," she said, her tone almost that of a tutor, coldly explaining to a diligent, if slightly stupid, student. "Their cloak must have failed when they collided… that or Captain Kratas decided to drop the cloak after the collision, knowing he was revealed either way. He knew their Home Fleet would be alerted, so he decided to draw all attention towards him, so that we'd have the best chance to escape." She nodded firmly. "Let's not waste it. If we destroy our targets we'll set our enemy back months, but if we're destroyed in the process it won't matter. Proceed as ordered."

"Report three additional Star Destroyers!" That voice belonged to Lusankya's communications officer, Commander Needa, who announced the sudden, unexpected appearance of the additional enemy ships with remarkable steadiness. "Confirm—"

There was a sudden eruption on Lusankya's hull and his voice vanished. The TIEs, which Dorset had assumed were racing to launch proton torpedoes or concussion missiles with maximum effect, never pulled out of their dive. The first of them slammed headlong into Lusankya's hull. The resulting explosion left a decent-sized crater in the Super Star Destroyer's armor, wiping away a turbolaser emplacement.

Then the second struck.

Then the third.

One after another, bracketed over Lusankya's vital systems, TIEs rammed home, each leaving an oversized explosion in its wake. One struck the ship's bridge tower and, horrified, Dorset thought it had been destroyed. To her relief, as the glare from the explosion faded, the tower re-appeared—Captain Kre'fey had raised the ship's bridge shields in time.

"—c-confirm," coughed Needa over the com, and then continued more steadily, "confirm they include Stormhawk and Nemesis. Daala is in play!"

Distantly, in the periphery of her vision, there was another bright light. She looked instinctively and there she saw another flash, followed by a much larger third.

"What was that?" asked Two, sounding stunned. They had chased the TIEs as long as they had, but now there were no more to chase… each of them had struck Lusankya's hull. Dorset pulled her A-wing up, swallowing back a lump in her throat as she saw the array of smoking craters where turbolasers and tractor beam emplacements had once been. The Imp Destroyer delivered a rain of green turbolaser fire, skittering over Lusankya's armor to mar it further. No one blast did as much damage as the suicide TIEs, but the vulnerable, encumbered Lusankya could not mass her batteries while still in dock.

Her computer answered Two's question before she could and the answer only amplified Dorset's sense of dread. "That was the primary logistics and supply facility for Fifth Fleet," she said flatly. "It's gone… and it looks like the Empire took out one of Home Fleet's primary supply centers too." Stormhawk was out there, too distant to engage, almost taunting her with its inevitable escape. Hate bubbled up in Dorset's chest; with a snarl, she kicked her A-wing back around, pointing its nose straight at the Star Destroyer that she could reach and which was still attacking Lusankya. "With me!" she ordered, sending that command out not just to Polearm Two but also to all of Lusankya's fighters. "We have a Star Destroyer to kill!"

Commodore Atril Tabanne sprinted out of the bridge lift over Lusankya's long bridge walk. On either side of her, surprised—but remarkably disciplined—officers fought with their stations. Lusankya shuddered over and over, and now that she was out of the lift she could see why: TIE fighters struck Lusankya's hull like flaming meteors. She momentarily was awed by the sight, as the TIEs accelerated until they struck the ship's enormous hull, producing gouts of explosion and flame on impact. A-wings and E-wings fought off some of them, but that often resulted in TIE fighter debris striking Lusankya at high velocity. It was a dangerous thing to try to stop those TIEs, because the enemy Star Destroyer which had launched them was still filling the space between it and Lusankya with turbolaser fire.

"Incoming!"

Atril turned to look at the call. One of Lusankya's officers was pointing out the ship's bridge window and in the distance Atril could see the rapidly growing dot that was an incoming TIE.

"Reinforce bridge deflector shields!" ordered Captain Kre'fey. Still a young officer with little time in command, and one who had little direct combat experience before being handed Lusankya, Kre'fey responded to the surprise attack in space-dock with aplomb despite the speed of the assault and the damage Lusankya had already sustained. "Are we free of the station's docking clamps?"

"The last clamp has disengaged, sir!"

They watched together as the TIE hurtled towards them. Atril stared as the starfighter flew right at them, building speed for its ramming attack and she couldn't resist the urge to flinch as it smashed into the forward bridge window.

A terrific burst of light and fire washed over the polarized transparisteel, which tinted in response. The brightness still left splotches of glare on her eyes that she struggled to blink away.

"The bridge shields are holding," Kre'fey muttered next to her. "Good." Then he raised his voice. "Engage maneuvering thrusters! Bring us up and away from the station. As soon as we have reached a minimum safe distance, raise all shields!"

Now that they were free, Kre'fey could raise Lusankya's entire array of shields without blowing up the repair station in the process—what was left of it. Three of the station's grasping arms were gone, destroyed by TIE impacts. Lusankya had taken some heavy blows as well; the ship's status display was replete with orange and red lights indicating combat damage. But while the explosive-laden TIEs had done more damage than fifty proton torpedoes would have, it took more than fifty proton torpedoes to knock Lusankya out of a fight. The General had needed many, many hundreds to do it at Thyferra, after all.

"All fighters," Kre'fey called confidently, "target Tyrannic. Helm, bring us to combat range… let's see if we can get there before our fighters deprive us of our prey."

Daala watched as Lusankya's fighters swarmed over Tyrannic. Proton torpedoes struck home, knocking holes in shields, but Tyrannic fought past the minor wounds. Kratas' ship tore away at Lusankya, targeting weapons and vital systems with the precision that came from meticulous planning and excellent gunnery practice. Given enough time, Tyrannic would have inflicted considerably more harm than it already had… but Kratas did not have that time.

More squadrons of fighters, belonging to the New Republic's Home Fleet and flown by some of their finest pilots, raced up from Coruscant's surface. Unlike Lusankya's squadrons, currently under refit and largely believing their mothership safe from attack far behind the planet's outer ring of defenses, Home Fleet's squadrons were always prepared to defeat an attack or combat unrest on the capital of the New Republic. With no fighter cover, Tyrannic could do nothing as the B-wing and Y-wing squadrons lined up and launched torpedo volleys from their maximum range.

As Tyrannic was struck by the first volley, Stormhawk charged away from Coruscant, trying to escape its gravity well. The New Republic outer orbit defenses which they had snuck by on the way in now tried to maul them on the way out. A Victory-class Star Destroyer clawed at them recklessly, clearly hoping to prevent Stormhawk from escaping; its fighter squadrons managed a few ineffectual torpedo salvoes, unable to produce the kind of massed fire that Tyrannic faced. Stormhawk scattered the Vicstar with ion cannon fire to disrupt its attempts to lock tractors. When Stormhawk finally crossed back across the hyper limit, and her engines glowed with the energy required for a jump, Daala was rewarded with a last glimpse of the dying Tyrannic and the wounded Lusankya before all was lost to the spinning lights of hyperspace.

She felt Kratas' absence, an iron band wound tight around her heart. Then she took a breath and stared at the stars swirling through the window of Stormhawk's long walk, trying to put him away.

Lusankya had seen better days. Wedge and Han stared out at the massive Super Star Destroyer, and Wedge's heart fell as he got a closer look at the wounds she had sustained. Daala's TIE droids—rigged with explosives and aimed to ram—had managed to catch his flagship while Lusankya was in drydock, locked within the cradling embrace of a repair facility… and unable to raise most of her shields. The fact that Lusankya's bridge shields had been operable had saved the vessel even more severe losses—Wedge would have lost Captain Kre'frey, not to mention Atril and most of Lusankya's bridge crew. Even with that small grace, Lusankya's damage was horrifying to see. Even after Carida, and the subsequent hard-fought campaign to force the New Order farther and farther back into its Outer Rim territories, Lusankya had not looked so damaged.

And she's supposed to be brand new right now, he thought dismally. Just finished her repair cycle. Ready to go out and fight the Empire once again.

"'Least we don't need to go liberate Corellia," Han drawled philosophically. His large hand patted Wedge's back.

"Yeah, right," Wedge sighed. "We delayed and delayed and delayed getting ready to face the enemy, wanting to make sure everything was perfect. We waited too long. I should have had the fleet out hunting her down days ago."

Han scoffed. "Then you would have been out there hunting her before you were ready, and who knows what she would have hit on Coruscant if you hadn't been there to take the hits. Besides, this changes nothing." Han pointed at Lusankya through their shuttle's forward window. "That's a Super Star Destroyer. The flagship of a fleet of Star Destroyers and Mon Calamari cruisers, and we're building and crewing more every day. They aren't. This attack wasn't a show of strength, it was a sign of desperation."

Wedge knew Han was right. But in his gut, the fear wouldn't quit.

Far worse, some time later, was a different realization, one that left him hollow when it hit him. I didn't even think to ask how many people we lost.