Hey, everybody. Back with another chapter.
Also, to the multiple reviewers, or more likely one reviewer with different accounts, no, I will not be writing a separate story just about the Colossus. Stop asking.
Let's get to it.
Rico: I'm still weighing a few options for Rey's lightsaber.
Ke-Pa: You'll just have to wait and see
GREAT CELESTIAL DRAGON: Well, we did see Snoke use Force lightning in The Last Jedi.
tristian5: It's much larger than Acclamator class and can hold a full division from one of Earth's armies.
Guest: Calm the hell down and deal with it.
Jedi Kyle Katarn: I'm referring to the Bacta War in 7 ABY. As for Snoke, you'll see.
Chapter 25- Hammer Strike
(August 10, 2049)
In their uniform room, the members of the Hammer Squadron are all kitting up for their next mission. Pilots are zipping up their flight suits, strapping on additional gear, or zipping up their boots. The pilots are trying to joke with each other, but at the same time, there's a sense of seriousness in the room. All of them know the urgency of their mission.
It's been over 2.5 months since the Second Galactic Civil War started. Since then, the First Order has been on an unstoppable advance across the galaxy. The Alliance has tried to stop them as much as possible, but has lost so many ships and troops trying to. However, they had mostly managed to stop the First Order from advancing "south" through the galaxy. However, the First Order has thrown their power into advancing "north" and "east".
And their advance has been devastating. The First Order now controls almost the entire Core, Colonies, Inner Rim, and Expansion Region, and were now advancing into the Mid Rim and even the Outer Rim. The Alliance was trying to stop them on all fronts, but was so far meeting with little success.
However, one thing was of incredible concern to the Alliance. The First Order had recently captured Mygeeto, and was now advancing towards Dantooine. The Alliance feared what would happen if Dantooine were taken. If the First Order could capture Dantooine, they could continue moving into the Outer Rim and even move to the outer regions of the galaxy, threatening more territory and much more vital planets.
After discussion with the Joint Command and some of his staff and other commanders, Jonathan had issued orders to all Terran, Resistance, and remaining Republic forces: Hold Dantooine at any cost.
However, this was a tall order. As of now, Dantooine had only three Allied divisions stationed on the planet: the American 17th Airborne Division, the Thai 5th Infantry Division, and the Elvish 2nd Infantry Division. A second Thai infantry division was on its way to Dantooine. However, it was believed that a massive First Order invasion force was on its way to Dantooine.
Jonathan was now diverting all of available troops to Dantooine. About 10 divisions were being prepared, including the bulk of the German Army. However, at this point, they would not be able to reach Dantooine in time to keep it out of First Order hands. And Jonathan knew it would be far easier to defend Dantooine than to retake it.
For that reason, the Hammer Squadron had received orders for a new mission. Jonathan knew that the First Order was staging their move against Dantooine out of Mygeeto. However, if their staging areas and supply stores on the planet could be destroyed, it would disrupt the invasion and force the First Order to delay, allowing the Alliance to get reinforcements to Dantooine before the First Order arrived.
That was the mission they were about to undertake. Destroy the staging areas on Mygeeto and slow the advance towards Dantooine.
In the center of the room, Daniel is finishing tying up his boots. He picks up his flight helmet and looks over at his wingman, Lieutenant Kenzo Hatanak. "You ready, Kenzo?" he asks.
"You bet," Kenzo responds.
"Good. Then let's do this," Daniel says before walking out of the room with Kenzo, following the other six members of the squadron who have already headed out to the flightline.
Daniel and Kenzo get into a small speeder once they're out of the building, and the driver speeds off, driving them out to the area of the flightline where the Squadron's Mustangs are parked.
As they reach the parked fighters, Daniel and Kenzo hop out of the speeder and begin doing their walk-around pre-flight inspections, walking around and checking out all the control surfaces, seams, and weapons. It takes about 10 minutes before they are fully ready.
By this point, the rest of the squadron is out on the flightline and finishing up their inspections. Sharing a glance and a nod, Daniel and Kenzo proceed to slide their helmets on and climb up into their cockpits.
Across the flightline, the rest of the Squadron board their fighters and begin powering up the Mustangs for flight. Soon enough, all of the Mustang's engines are whining, and the pilots begin closing their canopies.
As soon as Daniel's canopy closes and locks into place, Daniel pulls back on the lift lever to lift the Mustang off of the ground. As it reaches a height of 20 feet, Daniel pushes the throttle forward, and the Mustang begins to climb into the sky along with the rest of the Squadron.
In a matter of minutes, the entire Hammer Squadron is airborne and climbing out of the atmosphere. As the Squadron exits the atmosphere, Captain Parker calls out to the ship serving as the traffic control center, "This is Hammer 1. We are ready for hyperspace jump."
"Copy that, Hammer 1. You are cleared for hyperspace jump. Good hunting," a controller responds immediately.
"Copy," Parker responds to the controller before calling out to the Squadron, "Alright, boys. Jumping to hyperspace on my mark."
Each pilot rests their hands on their hyperspace throttles as Parker counts down over the radio, "5, 4, 3, 2, 1, mark!" And on his mark, each pilot pushes the throttles forward, and the Squadron jumps to hyperspace.
(Mygeeto)
"Two, one, mark!"
Listening intently to Captain Parker, Daniel yanks back on the hyperspace throttle, and his Mustang immediately drops out of hyperspace, simultaneous with the rest of the squadron. Below them, they can see the planet of Mygeeto.
"Hammer Attack!" Captain Parker orders, and immediately throttles up and dives towards Mygeeto, the rest of the Squadron following him.
As the Squadron enters the lower atmosphere, Captain Parker calls out, "Alright. Fan out in pairs! You know priority targets. Hit 'em hard, and rain hell." Parker then banks left with his wingman to search for a target.
The Squadron begins to break up into pairs to search for their targets. As they do, First Order personnel notice the Mustangs overhead, and several officers hurry to sound the alarm that the Hammer Squadron has arrived on Mygeeto.
In the cockpit of his Mustang, Daniel scans the ground as he and Kenzo rocket north at Mach 1. Soon enough, he spots something. What looks like a series of fuel dumps, with large pumps capable of carrying the fuel to a dispenser to transfer the fuel to ships.
"That looks like a juicy target. Let's hit it!" Daniel says before nosing down and banking slightly right towards the fuel dumps, Kenzo right behind him.
Down below, First Order gunners manning a few anti-aircraft cannons spot the two Mustangs diving on their position and begin to shout and ready their weapons. Before the Mustangs can start their attack, the gunners begin firing their weapons up at the two Mustangs.
"Evasive action!" Daniel calls to Kenzo over the radio. The two pilots begin barrel rolling and weaving from side to side to avoid incoming fire. Kenzo levels off slightly while Daniel noses down even further. Although still evading the incoming fire, Daniel arms his pods of unguided rockets that hang from the outermost pylons and then squeezes the trigger, launching a volley of rockets down at the anti-aircraft cannons. Rockets slam into four of the cannons, breaking apart two completely and damaging the other two beyond function.
The incoming fire much diminished, Kenzo pulls up slightly before performing a Split S. As Daniel pulls up slightly and circles around for another run, Kenzo pulls out of his Split S, arms the 1,000 pound unguided bombs hanging under his wings and presses the pickle button, dropping four of the bombs. The bombs impact two of the large fuel tanks, tearing apart the tanks, spilling the fuel over the ground and setting off a series of fuel explosions, with the rest of the fuel setting ablaze.
Kenzo streaks away from the fireballs as Daniel prepares for his run. As he does, Kenzo spots several TIE fighters streaking in and lining up to fire on Daniel. "Daniel, you've got some TIEs on your ass," Kenzo calls.
"You mind handling them?" Daniel asks.
"Already on it," Kenzo responds as he turns his Mustang tightly to intercept the TIEs coming up behind Daniel.
In moments, Kenzo is aimed right at them. Aiming his nose out ahead of the TIEs, he squeezes the trigger, spraying laser fire into their path. One TIE is hit and explodes immediately, another just evading getting hit. The two remaining TIEs break off their pursuit of Daniel and turn to engage Kenzo. However, Kenzo blows one of them out of the sky before they hit the merge.
Kenzo merges with the last TIE as Daniel makes his attack. Lining up on the other fuel tanks on the ground, Daniel punches off six of his bombs before banking hard left and strafing the remaining two antiaircraft cannons with his laser cannons, killing almost a dozen First Order officers and gunners on the ground as his bombs wreck the remaining fuel tanks and set them ablaze.
Daniel levels off and snaps into a hard turn towards the dispenser station. Locking up his Maverick missiles, Daniel ripple fires two of his missiles at the station before he turns hard and climbs. The missiles immediately wreck the dispenser station.
Daniel swivels his head and spots two more TIE fighters heading straight for him. Daniel grins a bit as he throttles up and closes the distance with them.
As Daniel and Kenzo are engaging a few TIEs over their target, miles away, Captain Parker and his wingman are currently engaged in a massive dogfight over a marshalling yard. Although they had already hit some of the dock facilities, they had since been surrounded by almost 15 TIE fighters, both standard and Special Forces.
Parker wings over and banks right to avoid the laser fire from two TIEs on his tail. Glancing over his shoulder, he can see both TIEs still on his tail, and watches as a third joins the chase.
"Alrighty, boys. Let me take you on a little trip," Parker mutters from behind his oxygen mask before leveling his Mustang and then snapping the stick back into his gut while shoving the throttles into full afterburner about half a second later. His Mustang's nose pops up before the fighter rockets up into the sky.
The Mustang quickly leaves the pursuing TIEs in the dust, traveling over twice as fast as the TIEs. Once he hits about 18,000 feet, Parker snaps the throttles almost back to idle and deploys his air brake back from just behind the cockpit. The Mustang stalls in a second and tumbles backwards. Parker immediately shoves the throttles forward and picks up speed again as he aims his gunsight down towards the TIE fighters, which are still coming after him. With two quick bursts of laser fire, he blows two of them to pieces. Parker then barrel rolls to avoid laser fire from the third TIE.
Parker and the TIE streak past each other. Parker quickly reverses course and is on the TIE's tail in seconds. Desperate to escape death, the TIE pilot throws his fighter all over the sky. Parker knows he can't get a good shot with his laser cannons, and smoothly switches over to his Sidewinders. It takes only a moment for Parker to get a good tone, and he squeezes the trigger, launching one of his Sidewinders. The TIE pilot doesn't know the missile has launched, nor does he see it incoming. In only a few seconds, the Sidewinder detonates just two feet behind the TIE's left solar panel, shredding it to pieces. The TIE goes spinning out of the sky. Parker smirks to himself as he immediately snaps into a right turn to re-enter the fight.
Miles away, Daniel and Kenzo have left the burning fuel tanks behind. Streaking low over the Mygeeto landscape, they spot a small camp where a number of First Order walkers are being stored. Daniel chuckles to himself before calling to Kenzo, "You know, these look like pretty juicy targets. What do you say we hit 'em?"
"Agreed," Kenzo says.
Daniel immediately noses over into a dive, Kenzo following a second later. The both of them quickly arm their proton torpedo launchers and launch four proton torpedoes each. The torpedo streak down into the midst of the walkers and detonate one after another. Almost ten AT-ST walkers and three AT-AT walkers are destroyed, with more damaged.
The two streak over the camp and pull up into a climb, circling back for a strafing run with their laser cannons. The two Mustangs streak low over the ground, firing their laser cannons repeatedly. Dozens of stormtroopers and First Order officers are killed by the laser bolts or the explosions they cause.
Daniel and his wingman make a second strafing run on the camp before pulling up into a climb. As they go, Daniel grins to himself and he calls over the radio, "This is Hammer 5! We've hit fuel dumps and a small troop camp. Got any more targets for us?"
"This is Hammer 15. We've got several troopships loading at least two legions. From your location, bearing 2-7-9, distance 40 miles," one of the other pilots in the squadron calls out.
"Copy that. We're on our way," Daniel calls out, and he and Kenzo turn almost due west and move to help their squadronmates as the rest of the Hammer Squadron continue to rain fire down on First Order installations around Mygeeto.
And, I'll end the chapter there.
Not the most action packed Hammer Squadron chapter I've ever written, but I hope still a good one.
The battle for Dantooine will be up next, and will take one or two chapters, as it will be one of the biggest battles of the war. Until the next chapter is up, please leave a review, and stay tuned!