Captain Luv Shara gnawed open a small sealed package of rations with a grunt. Fenelli held up a finger sized piece of food and smelled it. Shara peered into her package and snorted in disgust.
“The very next chance we get I want a big plate of pasta with spicy oregano sauce.” Fenelli said.
Shara nodded, taking a bite of the nutritionally correct, barely palatable, ration.
Nichols walked onto the bridge, carrying a small foiled wrapped package. She upwrapped it, withdrew a small oblong brown bar and took a large bite and chewed it with great relish.
“What is that?” Shara asked.
“A chocolate bar.” Nichols replied, taking another bite.
“A chocolate bar?” Shara asked in disbelief, “Where did you get a chocolate bar?”
“I packed my own rations.” Nichols said. “I’ve eaten combat rations, they’re not for me.”
“I wish I’d thought of that.” Fenelli said, eating the last of his ration meal.
A sensor alarm started to chirp, Fenelli turned to his instruments. “Sub-space distortion forming, ships coming out of hyperspace.”
Shara set her ration down and checked her own instruments, suddenly five ships appeared.
“Damn!” She cursed.
“Star Destroyers.” Fenelli said, surprised. “What are they doing here?”
“It’s Thrawn.” Nichols said. “Ten minutes until the Rebel fleet arrives.”
“And no way to warn them.” Fenelli said.
“When they drop out of hyperspace we’re going to need to buy them time until they can get to the Wormhole,” Shara said. “Change course, take us close to the lead ship, sound the red-alert.”
A small alarm sounded and the lights dimmed to combat levels.
“The system appears to be empty.” Commander Hark said to Admiral Thrawn.
“Prepare all fighters and bombers, full combat load.” Thrawn ordered.
“Sir?” Gaskin asked surprised, “Full combat load for what?”
“Full combat load, Lieutenant Commander, launch when ready.” Thrawn ordered.
“Yes sir.” Gaskin replied. “I’ll go down to the flight launch bay and supervise personally.”
Thrawn nodded and Gaskin hastily departed. Hark moved up behind Thrawn quietly.
“Do you think they’re on their way here?” Hark asked.
“They’ll be here.” Thrawn replied. “Send to the rest of the squadron. Prepare for battle.”
“Aye sir.” Hark said, and turned to the communications station.
“Sir!” a young officer at the sensor station called out. “Ships coming out of hyperspace!”
“Battle stations!” Hark commanded.
“Star Destroyers!” someone yelled, but Stardrifter already knew that.
“We’re recieving a transmission from the Dragon.” the communications officer reported. Stardrifter walked over and looked at the small monitor.
“They came out of hyperspace about ten minutes ago.” Shara said.
“It looks like the distraction wasn’t enough.” Stardrifter replied.
“We’re in a position to cover you while you get to the Wormhole.”
Suddenly the ship lurched and shook.
“Battery fire from the Star Destoyers.” Embers reported. “They’re launching fighters as well.”
“Time to the Wormhole?” Stardrifter asked.
“Twenty minutes.”
“Take us nice and close...” Shara commanded.
The ship rocked gently as heavy turbo laser blasts streaked by them towards the Rebel cruisers.
“The Exetus and her escorts have turned towards the Star Destroyers, it looks like they’re attacking.” Fenelli reported.
“Okay,” Shara said. “This is close enough. Prepare to transfer power to the phasers. Disengage cloaking device!”
“Disengaging cloak!” Nichols reported, “Phasers fully charged!”
Thrawn watched.
It had been no stroke of genius to know that the Rebels would come here. The pattern had been clear. Had they stayed to mop up the fighters at Shalidan they would not have made it here in time to intercept the Rebels, and they would probably have gotten away. The loss of the Goroloius facility was a blow, but nothing compared to the blow it would strike to destroy 4 of the Rebel cruisers and their acompanying frigates and fighters. This time the Imperial Navy had managed to beat them here and cut off their avenue of retreat. The end of the Phantom Rebels was at hand.
However there were some peculiarities. He had expected to see the Rebel fleet scatter immediatly upon sighting them. They knew that they were outgunned badly here. Yet with the exception of a single Frigate, which was obviously intending to attack, they were staying together and holding course, exchanging battery fire at distance. Why? Why were they not scattering to the edges of the system to flee? The Ties were already forming up and moving in, but the Rebels were not taking evasive action in anticipation of the onslaught of torpedo’s and missiles that was coming. Had they given up so easily? Or did they have a secret weapon or plan?
“Prisoners.” Thrawn ordered sharply.
“Sir?” Hark looked up from a tactical display in confusion.
“Order all ships, I want prisoners.” Thrawn said. “They’re up to something and I want to know what.”
“Yes sir.” Hark replied. “Relaying you orders now.”
An Interdictor is what we need here, Thrawn thought, something to prevent any of the ships from escaping to Hyperspace.
Had Thrawn not been staring out the window when it happened he probably would not have believed it. The space in front of the Titan shimmered slightly then there was a ship. Had Thrawn been a superstitious being he might have actually believed he was indeed seeing a phantom. But he knew better, he didn’t know what the strange ship with the stubby forward swept wings was, but there was no mistaking what it was doing as beams of energy lanced out and touched the Titan’s shields. Thrawn felt the deck lurch and his feet go out from under him, he managed to turn himself slightly and landed half on his side. Pain flared up his left leg and arm.
“Target!” he shouted at his stunned crew, “Target and fire on that ship, destroy it!”
Despite being stunned by the mysterious appearance of a strange craft, and the power of it’s weapons Thrawn’s crew reacted with cool professionalism, the set to work carrying out his orders and Thrawn was pleased to see hard green energy bolts lashing out at the alien ship by the time he regained his feet. But the alien was fast and anoyingly few of the high powered blasts were hitting home, and those that did encountered some kind of shield, Thrawn could see the turbo laser energy washing over the shields with little apparent effect on the ship itself.
Lieutenant Commander Terico banked his Y-Wing sharply. He was the surviving senior Y-wing pilot from the battle and he knew something had to be done or this was going to end in tragedy. He checked his instruments, he still had 2 proton torpedos and his weapons were fully charged. Quickly he keyed his mic.
“This is Commander Terico, all remaining Y’s form up on me,” he commanded.
The Y wings slipped through space finding and joining with their leader.
“Concentrate your deflectors forward. We’ll make a run at the lead Star Destroyer, watch for fighters!”
Stardrifter picked up a head set and put it on.
“Commander Terico? This is Admiral Stardrifter.”
“Go ahead Admiral.” came Terico’s quick reply.
“We’re picking up Ties coming in, break off your attack, you’ll be destroyed.”
“They might waste enough time destoying us to give the fleet a chance to escape.” Terico said.
Stardrifter bit off her response, he was right, and without some form of distraction they might all die here. The Dragon had pounded the ISD Titans sheilds down, and the ISD Huntress was shooting it out with the Frigate Exetus, although that fight was going badly.
“Blue and Green squadrons cover the Y’s the best you can. All remaining ships cover the fleet.”
There was a chorus of replies as the pilots acknowledged their orders.
“We’ve still got a large quantity of torpedo’s left,” Terico said. “We’ll see if we can’t slow down the Star Destoyers a bit.”
“Understood, Commander.” Stardrifter, “Good luck, and may the Force be with you.”
Shara coughed in the dense smoke. The Dragon had made two runs at the Star Destoyer Titan, using their speed and firepower to batter the big ships shields down. However, things were not looking too good.
“Shields at 28%.” Fenelli reported.
“Impulse power down to 66%.” Nichols said, “And I think we’re leaking plasma in the warp drive.”
“You think?” Shara asked trying to bring the shields up a little more. The Dragon shook again and a auxilary panel exploded adding more smoke and fire to the bridge.
“We have no internal sensors at the moment, captain.” Nichols said. “But we’re showing a power loss.”
“That’s it for the Starboard outer phaser. The power couplings have been severed.” Fenelli said.
“We can’t stay here!” Shara shouted over another wracking explosion. “Get us out of here!”
“The Y wings are coming in for an attack run!” Fenelli said. “They’re headed right into the teeth of all those Ties.”
“Change course to intercept. Let’s see if we can’t blast a few holes though those Ties!”
“The Exetus is taking a bad beating from that other Star Destroyer.” Fennelli reported. “They’ve taken heavy damage and their shields are gone.”
“We can’t tangle with another Star Destoyer, we’re barely holding together as it is!” Shara snapped.
“Coming up on those Ties.” Nichols warned.
Shara turned her attention to her console, Ties were easy targets for the Dragon’s phasers. She fired several quick shots destoying several of the small fighters before the rest scattered, now things got a little trickier...
“James is on the Exetus.” Fenelli said.
“There’s nothing we can do!” Shara snapped. The ship lurched several times as several Ties got in shots as the Dragon rocketted though them. “Our shields are barely over 10% !”
There was another explosion and an alarm sounded on Nichols console. “Temperature warning in the Warp drive, probably a plasma fire, I’m venting the drive plasma.”
“Damn!” Shara cursed, there goes the Warp Drive...
Terico was surprised to be alive.
They had been headed straight into the mouths of the Tie fighters that were escorting the Tie Bombers on their way for their own attack on the Rebel cruisers when suddenly that strange Maquis ship had shown up and scattered the Ties.
More than half of the Y wings that he had started with were now gone but the X-Wings and A-Wings were doing their best with the others.
Terico checked over his shoulder. The two Y’s behind him were crisscrossing rapidly, trying to keep the fighters off of his tail. Terico reached over and activated his targeting computer. He selected the Titan as the target.
“This is Commander Terico. I’m starting my attack run.” he said into his Mic.
“I’ve just heard from the Dragon.” Embers said to Stardrifter. “They report that they have suffered heavy damage and have lost the use of their warp drive.”
“Damn!” Stardrifter cursed. There was no room in the landing bays of the M-80 cruisers. Several ships had crash landed and the rest were filled with other damaged craft. “How big is the landing bay on the Medical ship?”
Embers looked surprised. “I don’t think it’s big enough...”
“It’s their only option.”
“I’ll inform them.” Embers said. “If they can get it in there, it’ll be tight!”
“Time to the wormhole?” Stardrifter asked.
“Two minutes.” a crewman responded.
Terico gasped in pain, his hand was badly burned, as was his leg. He had fired his torpedos and they had struck home. Four other Y’s got torpedos off with varying degree’s of success. But there were simply too many Tie fighters. There was almost nothing left of the X wing and A wing squadrons that had been detailed to protect them and now Y’s in singles and pairs were fleeing like mad for the Wormhole.
Terico was no exception.
His ship was in bad shape, with no shields and a damaged, leaking, life support system. The other two ships that had been covering him were both gone, and now as he craned his head to look around he could see Ties breaking off and coming towards him.
He could see that the Medical frigate had taken two bad hits from Tie Bombers, but the Dragon was over there and the Tie’s had fled. Several of the M-80 cruisers had also suffered hits but they were still moving, almost at the Wormhole now. The Exetus was not so good. It was being held motionless and powerless by the tractor beams of the Star Destroyer Huntress. That meant that the Imperials intended to board and Terico silently wished his surviving comrades luck. He was almost home free. The Wormhole was opening and the lead cruiser entering!