Teren Rogriss' flagship was at the center of a formation of Star Destroyers and their escorts, clustered in a hemispheric formation, and the view through Agonizer's forward bridge windows was lit chaotically by turbolaser fire and explosions. His ships formed a curving fan, as though they had once been part of a sphere sundered from its whole; as one they pointed towards the distant World Devastator. The space between his fleet and their enemy glowed and crackled with a slashes of green with bursts of blue; added flares of red and orange detonations punctured the starry dark.
Some of those flares were small, evidence of the ongoing struggle between Rogriss' fighters and the enemy TIE droids. The droids were more capable than they had been at the last battle of Poln Major and they came in greater numbers. TIEs of all varieties—fighters, interceptors, Defenders, and the UREF's Clawcraft—struggled to deal with the swarm.
Rogriss had only cursory attention to devote to the starfighter battle. Fel was in charge of his fighters, and besides the real fight was being waged by the ships with the big guns. Silencer Station was absorbing far more fire than it was delivering, its shields glowing under the strain of absorbing everything Teren Rogriss' formation had to give it.
But so far it was absorbing it all.
Beside him, Captain Tigan's expression was flat, carrying a hint of dire seriousness that he was usually better at hiding. "Gunnery and ComScan haven't reported any shield breaches yet. Not even fluctuations."
Rogriss merely nodded. Panic was not an emotion he was easily prone to and as the senior officer of Poln Major's defense fleet it was not one he could afford. "Concentrate fire further," he ordered. "Target single locations and see if we can force a breach."
"Another wave of corvette missiles detected and inbound on a constant bearing, decreasing range, sector Besh Sixteen!"
Signals that bespoke a handful of lean, triangular shapes detached from the sides of the distant World Devastator, emerging out of enormous construction bays. Each one looked like a Raider-class corvette, with a swollen nose packed with explosives and a cluster of redlined engines to hurl it into ships packed with living beings. Their engines lit and hurled them out from the Devastator towards Rogriss' formation.
"Flak ion fire, now!" ordered Tigan furiously, striding to stand in the middle of Agonizer's bridge, staring out at their still-distant enemy.
They had already nearly lost the Star Destroyer Unremitting to missiles just like those. One of them had breached everything the fleet had to defend against it and struck the big Imperial II just behind its forward nose section. Unremitting remained in action, the guns it had left still firing defiantly, but most of its forward weapons were gone and it surely could not sustain a second strike.
Rogriss spoke, calmly and with deliberation. "Enforcers, advance and intercept the shipkillers. Do not stray into our Destroyer firing arcs." It would be better for an Enforcer to take the hit than it would be to lose another Star Destroyer—they needed the bigger ships' guns if they had any chance to hurt Silencer Station.
TIEs exploded between Agonizer and her sister Star Destroyers as they darted and weaved over durasteel hills in their deadly conflict. One of the ships that was part of Asori's squadron, the Lively-class Discipline, hugged close to Agonizer, its anti-fighter guns spitting lethal bursts of blue fire that knocked down multiple TIE droids as they made attack runs.
Rogriss' attention was locked on his sensor and gunnery readouts. ENEMY SHIELD CAPACITY UNDIMINISHED. NO BREACHES REPORTED.
How could they kill something they couldn't even hurt?
"All Star Destroyers, adjust fire!" Rogriss called. "All gunners concentrate on this point!" He tapped on his screen, picking a location at random from the areas his ships had already struck. "Repeat, concentrate all fire!"
And if this doesn't work, then our next option is close to point blank range, Rogriss thought. He looked up at the image of the World Devastator, slowly growing larger, and its enormous fiery maw. Right into the jaws of the beast. "TIE bomber squadrons, prepare for your attack runs."
Engines straining, the Enforcer-class cruiser Staltavin surged forward above Baron Fel's head. The corvette-sized missile that had been bearing down on the Star Destroyer Admonitor slammed into the center of the cruiser instead, ripping its guts out before detonating.
Fel's canopy briefly turned completely black, shielding him from the glare of the fireball that followed. When it was no longer opaque Staltavin was gone, with only a few escape pods marking its passing.
Fel twisted his Defender in a tight arc, spitting laser fire at the TIE droids attempting to mount their own attacks on Admonitor. His ions flickered over their engines; he followed the disabling bursts with green laser fire that erased the enemy droids from space as thoroughly as Staltavin had been erased.
"Status report," he ordered.
"Three is gone," Four said, his Chandrilan accent clipped. "Enemy just launched another hundred clankers at us."
And not just TIE droids. Another wave of the corvette-sized shipkiller missiles were streaking away from their foe also, once again targeting Admiral Rogriss' larger capital ships—and this time, Staltavin was not present to make an intercept. A furious fusillade of ion cannon fire streaks out towards them, combined with tractor locks to try to hold the incoming missiles at bay.
"Form up with us then, Four. Status on the planetary evac?" Fel asked.
"In progress," Four said, tightness underlined by rigid control. "More scooters just docked with Pellaeon; the NR smuggies are clearing atmosphere. I don't know how many people are left groundside."
Too many. We don't have nearly enough ships to get everyone off a planet, even one as small as Poln Major.
Fel's HUD blinked at him. Another Enforcer-class cruiser was gone and the Star Destroyer Unremitting was no longer combat-capable. The UREF's strength was already starting to wane… and so far, they had yet to even hurt the enemy.
"This is Admiral Rogriss," said Rogriss' voice over the comm. "We are going to close the range. Shift all power to your turbolasers and continue to concentrate fire as we close. TIE bombers, launch now. We are clearing paths for you to make attack runs; salvo all your torpedoes and bombs. We must breach the enemy's shields."
The remaining Star Destroyers of the UREF tightened their formation and surged forward, maximizing their acceleration to close the distance as quickly as possible. They sacrificed their defenses to do so, shifting power to engines and weapons. As the distance closed, their weapons struck with greater punch, pounding the enemy's shields, making them glow in response.
Glow and flare with impact, but not break.
Teren Rogriss stood with Captain Tigan at Agonizer's front bridge window. They were close enough now that they could see the bursts of turbolaser fire battering the World Devastator. Concentrated lines of green and blue struck with metronomic weight, battering potential vulnerabilities, trying to stress the enemy's defenses past their breaking point.
TIE bombers darted between those streaks of coherent green and blue, curving towards the enemy. The enemy's TIE droids swarmed after them, and a vicious dogfight ensued as the fighters under Baron Fel's command tried to protect the bombers long enough for them to make their runs. Some of the bombers vanished as single-minded, suicidal TIE droids willingly sacrificed themselves to make kills, but Fel's people got most of them through.
Space rippled blue and orange as their proton torpedoes and cluster bombs launched from the bombers. The Defenders added some concussion missiles for good measure, despite their weaker yields.
"Breach!"
The shout from Agonizer's tactical station was a banshee cry of triumph. The torpedoes had breached the Devastator's outer layer of shields, and Rogriss' ships took advantage of the sudden vulnerability even before he could order them to. The coherent beams of fire blasting from the UREF formation sought out the breach, punching into it to drill into armor below.
Irek Ismaren flinched. A burst of pain erupted on his arm, like someone had touched him with a hot poker. "Ow!"
SHIELD GENERATOR TWENTY-ONE OVERLOADED. ATTEMPTING TO COMPENSATE. SHIFTING MANUFACTURING RESERVES TO REINFORCE ARMOR IN SECTION TWENTY-ONE. PREPARING ADDITIONAL ANTI-SHIP COUNTERMEASURES.
Rogriss' formation had already lost seven Enforcer-class cruisers and the Star Destroyer Unremitting, and their mad charge to point blank range had left them vulnerable.
A new wave of anti-ship missiles erupted away from the World Devastator. They could not gain as much speed as they had when Rogriss' ships had been more distant, but they also did not need to travel as far and there was less opportunity for those missiles to be shot down before impact.
"Incoming!"
Rogriss turned his head, his eyes widening as he saw one of those missiles hurtling towards his bridge.
"Reinforce bridge shields!" he heard Tigan yell, dimly in the back of his mind.
Images of Terek and Asori flashed before him as he watched the missile close. They were good kids, they'd always been good kids, obedient and even-tempered and loyal, and he loved them and hadn't spent nearly enough time with them—
The Enforcer-class cruiser Davrikin cut in front of the bridge viewport, coming so close to Agonizer that they nearly collided. It hovered there, racing through Rogriss' vision, entirely filling the bridge window, and then it exploded. It was torn apart from the inside out, the explosion coming squarely in the middle of the cruiser center-of-mass. Debris swept over Agonizer, flung at ridiculous velocities, but the smaller fragments were absorbed by the flaghip's shields.
"Warrior and Wrath are hit!"
Davrikin had saved Agonizer, but two of her sisters had not been so lucky. On the plot Warrior blinked yellow with serious but not crippling damage. Even as the ship's captain struggled successfully to maintain formation its forward firepower dropped to a trickle of what it had previously been producing. Wrath was gone; an enormous gaping hole in its aft sections was all the evidence of the corvette-sized missile that had torn the heart out of the vessel, leaving it drifting.
He'd lost three of his Star Destroyers. His TIE bombers had been savaged, their munitions already expended. And the wound they had inflicted… as Rogriss watched, the hole in the World Devastator's shields sealed itself up, as if it had never been there at all.
SHIELD GENERATOR TWENTY-ONE REPAIRED. REPAIRS TO ARMOR UNDERWAY. PREPARING ADDITIONAL ANTI-SHIP COUNTERMEASURES.
The pain on Irek's arm had faded some, but it had drawn him out of a dazed, suffocating stupor. He could feel Silencer-7 working, responding, countering the enemy fleet's efforts. Information poured through the command throne into Irek and he was getting better at managing it and interpreting it. The battle was no longer a swarm of information, too much for him to sort through, but a manageable tide that he could pick and choose from, concentrating on things he cared about.
"What are all those ships around the planet?" he asked.
EVACUATION VEHICLES. TRAITORS FLEEING IMPERIAL JUSTICE.
There was a pause. In his heart Irek felt a swell of emotion; his only-recently developed empathic sense overpowered by a sudden sense of determined malice. A desire to inflict harm on those Silencer-7 had decided were deserving of it.
THE PUNISHMENT OF TRAITORS IS A PRIORITY OBJECTIVE. THIS IS THE WILL.
The TIE droids fighting Fel abruptly broke off. They spun away, flying away from the TIE bombers they had previously been targeting. The bombers, suddenly free, immediately lined up a new strike against the World Devastator, but with their numbers so diminished it was unlikely they would be able to breach its shields a second time.
"Where are they going?" asked Phennir, somewhat confused.
Baron Soontir Fel had never fought Silencer Station, nor had he ever fought anything like the AI that governed its actions, which meant he had no way to guess. He brought up his HUD, tracking the enemy TIEs…
He inhaled sharply, his eyes going wide. "They're going after the refugee ships!" he said in astonishment. There was no military need to do that—and doing it compromised the enemy's battle plans! It was sheer, pointless spite!
"Gilad, you have incoming." Teren Rogriss' voice was harsh and strained almost to the breaking point. "There's no more time to get another round of evacuees, get out of the gravity well and get out of here!"
"Status change!"
As Fel's gut churned in dismay, his HUD obediently reported more than a dozen new icons arriving nearby. As he watched, a dozen became far more, as each one of the arriving ships disgorged squadrons of starfighters that vectored towards the fray.
X-wings and A-wings and B-wings and many E-wings, each one automatically tagged in a hostile red by his targeting computer.
A new transmission came, piped into his helmet with a staticky crackle. "This is Commodore Atril Tabanne, New Republic Defense Forces," a female voice cut through the comm static with reassuring glass-smooth tones, nearly Imperial in their precision. "I'm here with Captain Rogriss for reconnaissance and diplomacy. Tell us what we should look at and we'll go shake a few hands."
Fel couldn't help it. He smiled.
That would be one of Wedge's subordinates.
Asori Rogriss stood in front of the holo-display in Rendili Vigil's bridge, staring at a massacre in the making.
Her father's ships were clustered in a last-ditch, mutually protective formation, trying to use their tractor beams to repel incoming corvette-sized missiles long enough for their turbolasers to destroy them. Closer to the planet, Pellaeon's three Star Destroyers were laboring to collect as many refugees from Poln Major as they could. Surrounded by transports burning from space to surface to ship and back as quickly as possible, the entire formation menaced by a cloud of countless TIE droids.
The voice over the comm belonged to Gilad Pellaeon. "Commodore Tabanne, the best use of your—"
His voice cut off. There was a smear of light on the holo-display and another one of her father's Star Destroyers vanished. As a steel fist gripped her heart she scanned the combat plot and was relieved—so, so relieved—to see that Agonizer remained, fighting on.
Pellaeon's words were interrupted by punctures of static. ". . . will hold them off . . . evacuation should be . . . combat data to the New Republic to prove that we all have to fight . . . use it to find a weakness . . ."
"—get all our combat data to the New Republic to prove that we all have to fight this thing! Surely someone will be able to use it to find a weakness in its defenses!" Even as he spoke, Gilad Pellaeon stared at his own combat plot, watching Teren Rogriss' formation vanish before his eyes, terrified that there may be no weakness to find.
He'd seen disasters before. He'd been at Endor and Carida, after all. The New Order's catastrophe here at Poln Major, not that long ago, had been a military debacle on a scale the galaxy had rarely seen. But this was going to be just as terrible a catastrophe—and Pellaeon was going to be on the losing side.
"Grand Moff Ferrouz," he grated out, the words harsh in his throat. He kept them quiet, because what he needed to say was best not overheard by his crew. "We need to withdraw while we can to preserve our strength. We cannot defeat that thing."
"What about the New Republic ships, can they—"
Pellaeon shook his head fiercely. "They aren't capital ships. They're dangerous for their size but don't have anywhere near the firepower we're going to need to breach the World Devastator's shields."
"That wasn't what I was asking." Ferrouz's eyes flashed with anger. "I am aware we cannot defeat the enemy we face. But we still have civilians on the surface of Poln Major who require evacuation. Can the New Republic's ships make landings?"
Pellaeon stared at him. "We don't have the time!"
Ferrouz ignored him, grappling with his own comm unit. "Commodore Tabanne, we still have civilians who require evacuation. Can you assist?"
Asori almost jumped into the air in surprise when Atril started talking from beside her, with a strong, determined command voice. "This is the Commodore. Colonel Klivian, take our starfighters to defend Chimaera, Wild Karrde and the other ships performing the planetary evac. Mareschals, we're not really meant to land but we can do it. Moff Ferrouz, you should know that my ships do not have much in the way of passenger space and if we're crammed to the bulkheads we won't be combat effective."
"Understood Commodore. How many people can your ships—"
"As many as we can," Atril said, "Now mark our landing zones!"
There were further words exchanged, but almost none of it was audible. That might have been because of New Order jamming, but just as likely it was the blood pounding in Asori's ears. The World Devastator was bearing down on the UREF force opposing it now, and Agonizer was at the center of that tight formation.
"All engines, reverse thrust!" Tigan ordered, and Agonizer's thrusters flared. The entire ship seemed to vibrate under Rogriss' feet as she strained, pulling backwards. Green turbolaser fire continued to pour out of his ship's guns, blasting away at the World Devastator, but the enemy's shields were still too powerful and the blasts; guns able to tear continents apart and boil oceans did not breach them a second time.
He blinked in sudden consternation. The enemy TIEs were still closing, but no one had called out an incoming missile in… he wasn't sure how long it had been. "How long has it been since the last shipkiller salvo?" he asked.
"Several minutes. Look, sir," Tigan said. He pointed out through Agonizer's bridge window. The World Devastator was coming forward towards them—and towards Poln Major behind them—its shields still glowing under the weight of the Empire's turbolasers. "It's closing."
Behind the glow of the World Devastator's shields was another glow—the glow of the World Devastator's molecular furnace. Rogriss could almost see teeth. "Increase reverse thrust to maximum," he ordered as calmly as he could.
RESERVE MATERIALS NEARING EXHAUSTION.
The sensory inputs from the command throne poured over the link between Irek and Silencer-7. Knowledge of Silencer Station's capabilities appeared in his consciousness and Irek suddenly knew that the main weapon the station had used against the enemy formation had been expended. The station's massive molecular furnace had been constructing new ordinance out of its stocks of raw materials, but now there was none left.
ALL RESERVES ALLOCATED. SYSTEM ANALYSIS IN PROGRESS. IDENTIFYING POTENTIAL SOURCES OF NEW RAW MATERIALS.
Silencer Station's sensors lashed out at the system. Planets and moons were ranked in a hierarchy of value, with those that offered the most raw materials for new construction at the top. They were then reordered on the basis of proximity and finally on the basis of a third criteria that it took Irek some time to comprehend.
In another sentient being, Irek would have called it 'taste'. For Silencer-7, it felt more like malicious satisfaction.
TARGET IDENTIFIED. PREPARING FOR RESOURCE COLLECTION.
In a dark, angry red, Silencer-7's acquisition subroutines illuminated the Star Destroyer Agonizer as its priority target.
Dorset Konnair led more than a hundred New Republic snubfighters into battle. Through either side of her cockpit she could see allied fighters: Knave Leader and his E-wings were redlining their engines to keep up, but her A-wings still outpaced them. Farther behind, Colonel Klivian and the Rogues were at the center of their formation. Engines glowed in the void and ahead of them the first bursts of green laser fire were visible as the TIE droids reached Admiral Pellaeon's formation.
The four 'friendly' Imperial-class Star Destroyers were spread farther apart than they normally would be, because that made it easier for them to rapidly capture and release the freighters ferrying refugees up from Poln Major's surface. Those transports, by contrast, clustered as closely together as possible once they escaped the Star Destroyers' massive hangars, their guns offering one another protection.
She flicked her comm to wide-band as they closed within ten klicks of the Imperial formation, but Colonel Klivian's voice broke through first, in the clear, in a precise diction she'd never heard him use before. "UREF forces, this is Rogue Leader. The New Republic starfighters coming up on you are friendly, repeat friendly. Tag us blue or we'll have a problem."
He didn't get a reply, but she hadn't really been expecting him to. After all, her HUD made it clear that all the Imperials were busy.
TIE droids swarmed over the Imperial ships, taking advantage of impressive speed and even more impressive maneuverability. Without any concern for the health of a sentient pilot, they could pull turns that even with a full inertial compensator would have turned Dorset into gravity-pressed goo as they skimmed over the ships, firing ruthlessly. They targeted the freighters first, which suggested that their priorities were more about inflicting harm than they were about getting back out of this engagement alive.
TIE droids, the Empire had demonstrated at Coruscant, were expendable.
Well. She was a New Republic pilot flying one of the fastest, meanest ships ever devised and the ships under threat were packed to the gills with civilians. That meant she was expendable too. Dorset smiled and flicked her communicator to the Polearm Squadron channel. "Polearm Squadron, Polearm Leader. One Fight, we're going to protect the Wild Karrde. Two Flight, Three Flight take targets of opportunity. All fighters, shoot, scoot, and maintain your energy or you'll get swarmed. In and out and we let the Slowbies pick up after us."
There was an echo of acknowledging comm clicks, and then nothing. Her people knew their jobs. When the range hit seven klicks she started hunting for targets, her HUD occasionally flickering yellow with semi-locks on her concussion missile launchers, but the TIE droids were too maneuverable to confirm a lock, rolling between the cluttered freighters.
Her twelve A-wings were the first into the fray. They rocketed ahead at full throttle, tearing through the center of the freighter formation and bursting out the other side, leaving explosions in their wake. Dorset wasn't sure if they had killed anything, but in her HUD she could see the Knaves and Rogues and the rest of their fighters swoop in after them, laser cannons firing, reaping kill after kill after kill. X-wings and E-wings chopped their throttles, their veteran pilots dancing between freighters, pursuing and pursued by TIE droids; their shields absorbed green energy and their lasers sent red blasts back. Fiery explosions punctured the space between the freighters; red and green blips vanished from her HUD.
Green blasts zipped over her shoulder so Dorset flared her throttle and swung her A-wing around a SoroSuub medium runner, taking her back in the direction she had come. Acceleration mashed her back into her seat as she came back into the melee. This time her missile lock was good, the solid hum of her launcher confident, and a fierce orange flare roared out of her fighter towards its target. The TIE droid, clearly aware it was incoming, tried to spin out of the way. A more experienced pilot—or a better programmed one—probably could have used all the freighters for cover, but the TIE droid's evasive maneuvers were more rudimentary and her missile tore through it. Ahead of her, an E-wing skimmed just over the shield perimeter of a small bulk freighter, its trio of powerful laser cannons obliterating another TIE droid as it lined up for an attack run.
"Starfighters, stay on the freighters," said the voice of Rendili Vigil's Bothan communications officer. "The carriers and Tempered Mettle are making a run for the surface for more refugees. Keep those TIEs off us while we do."
Dorset glanced at her HUD, then inverted her fighter. Below them were the twelve larger, almost aquatic shapes of Mirage Formation's Mareschals. The Rendili-built ships were an odd mix of Rendili and Mon Calamari design sensibilities, blocky and curving, in a way that looked like half art piece and half picket ship. TIE droids moved to intercept them, some of them vanishing as they encountered precisely-aimed bursts of red lasers. Ahead of the formation was the oval-shaped Tempered Mettle, moving with a speed and verve that belied its rotund design, Imperial-green lasers firing with uncanny precision—additional evidence, Dorset thought, that the Jedi deserved every bit of their reputation in the Fleet.
Though, she didn't need any more evidence. She had, after all, seen Skywalker flying with the Rogues at Linuri.
Her HUD flashed with a situation update. She was much too far away from the main fight to see what was going on; Silencer Station and Admiral Rogriss' ships were grappling with one another further away from the planet. But she didn't need to be close enough to see the slugging match to know how it was going as yet another of Rogriss' ships vanished off her tactical plot.
The Tempered Mettle boasted a pair of hidden laser turrets for mid-range combat, not unlike those mounted on the Millennium Falcon. Unlike the Falcon's, however, their mountings were too small for proper gunnery stations, so they were operated instead from Mettle's bridge. Luke and Leia each took a station, one on either side of the bridge, targeted the incoming TIE droids, and opened up in a dazzling array of hard light.
It was a strange experience. Luke had grown accustomed to feeling the minds of enemy pilots during battle. Each one gleamed in the Force, the glow indicative of sentience and emotion. It made finding an enemy easier for Luke, because they did not know how—or even that they needed to—shourd themselves from a Jedi's empathic sense. Of course, it made killing an enemy far more difficult, because Luke could feel every pilot he killed, sense the moment their light went out.
The TIE droids, by contrast, had no such light. They were machines, dark to the Force, as black in his empathic sense as the emptiness of space itself. That made them harder to find, but it also meant that each one he killed did not further burden his soul.
He fired again, Tempered Mettle's starboard turret spitting out a burst of green fire at the TIE droid attempting to strafe the much larger Rendili Vigil, also racing towards Poln Major on a hasty landing trajectory. A puff of flame and sparks later and the hostile contact vanished from his screen.
He could feel Mara in the pilot's seat at the front of the bridge. She was immersed in the Force, linked to both him and Leia. Emotions and intentions flowed easily between Luke and Mara and Tempered Mettle had a tendency to roll in just the right direction, shift its courses minutely to improve his firing prospects, or suddenly go still and steady so he could line up a shot, without him even needing to. He could also feel Leia, on the opposite side of the bridge at the starboard turret station, and her intensity and focus on both the enemies they fought and the mission that had brought them all here.
Leia's mind was busy, balancing her awareness of threats and the need to help the people of Poln Major with the bigger picture. The threat of the massive military machine—which, Luke realized with some consternation, was not as dead to the Force as the TIE droids it had rallied to fight them—was not just to this one provincial world, but to the entire New Republic. And her presence here, the sudden ad-hoc alliance between the Unknown Regions Expeditionary Force and the New Republic task force sent on "reconnaissance", had implications just as great for ending the long galactic war, which had been one of Leia's great goals ever since the New Republic was founded.
Luke knew his sister was brilliant, but the depth and constancy of her thought—and her utter inability to turn off the part of her brain ever-focused on the bigger picture—still sometimes startled him. When Mara was in a fight she shrank the universe down to a single point, focusing unerringly on the problem in front of her and how she was going to deal with it. Leia did not, could not, ever do that.
And, of course, Luke could feel that Leia and Mara were just as aware of one another as he was aware of each of them. The depths of his bond to both women, the intensity of the connection, served as a conduit through which each could sense the other. Just as Tempered Mettle shifted and danced to help Luke, so too did it shift and dance to help Leia.
That part of the connection was much harder on Mara than it was on Leia. Leia was open and comfortable, with a good politician's instinct to share and reveal in order to make their constituents comfortable and trusting. Mara was the opposite, typically choosing to reveal herself to Luke and only to Luke. But even though Luke could feel her consternation he could also feel her resignation and acceptance. Leia had always been able to see more than Mara was comfortable with, after all. Deeper in the ship, in the cargo bay, were Iella, the Devaronian Kapp Dendo, and his commando team, veteran professionalism overlaying pre-deployment jitters with rote-learned rigor.
Artoo whistled. The computer translated for all of them. LANDING SITE ASSIGNED.
Mara took them hard into the atmosphere, heat burning around her ship's shields. All around them, fire clawed at the Mareschals as they likewise made almost-too-quick atmospheric entry, each aiming for a landing location of their own. Like meteors they streaked towards the ground. Above them, New Republic starfighters and TIE droids dueled for control for the sky above.