Chapter 9

All three of the freighters had begun to drift further apart, slowly spreading a net between the planet and the asteroid belt. “The jump coordinates are ready; you’ve also managed to kill our shields, in case you haven’t noticed.”

Caz was pulling the Devil’s Daughter in a long circle, pulling out of the Taurus’ range as he formulated a plan. The freighters were happy to wait for their prey to come to them, so they sat eerily quiet in the darkness of space. Caz was lighting another cigarette as he flipped off the two alarms on the console, leaving the cockpit quiet again. “You’ve got a real smart mouth on you Jaelley. Did you know that?”

His co-pilot grinned at him, although her eyes betrayed the concern she really had for the situation. “Well you are trying to get me killed.”

Smoke drifted from between barely parted lips. “You’ve no faith in me girly, that’s your problem. Did you know that?” The Devil’s Daughter came out of its turn facing straight at the middle freighter. Caz clicked on the com, “Gunner’s concentrate fire on the two quad laser turrets. Jaelley, you work on seeing if you can get anything back into those shields. Everyone else, hang on.” Mekita looked down at her hands and she realized she already was. Her knuckles were bright white and parts of her fingers were red were the harness strap hand been digging into her skin. The thought that she didn’t want to die on a bounty hunter’s ship drifted through her mind. If she was trying to turn her life around, it certainly wasn’t fair that it should end this way. Suddenly she thought about how things had brought her here. How her gunning down a vessel trying to escape a planet so radically changed her perceptions of reality. She unconsciously began squeezing her harness straps even tighter. She would not go out that way, not like some fleeing refugee, gunned down like some helpless animal.

The cockpit was as quiet as a room of mourners as Caz took one last slow drag off of his cigarette. “Okay, lets hit it!” The Devil’s Daughter lurched forward as the engines were pushed to their limits. The black craft hurtled towards the center freighter, both ships filling the space between then with neon. Caz tapped the controls left and right, causing the ship to drift between the freighter’s offense. Dara remained quite for a moment, readying herself for the attack. She could see Ren’s blasts hitting the center ship’s shields. Dara shook out her fingers before wrapping them back around the gun’s controls. She aimed her own blasts to strike the same areas as the first shooter. The Devil’s Daughter went into a spin as it closed in on the Taurus. The other two ships broke from their formation and began pushing towards the craft. The constant punishment on the center Taurus’ shields finally caused them to buckle. Ren’s blasts missed vital areas though, biting into the freighter’s thick hull plating. Dara on the other hand took another breather and then pushed down on the trigger. Her blasts shot directly toward the starboard quad laser and detonated it in a brilliant explosion. Before the center ship could maneuver away the Devil’s Daughter sailed directly over it’s bridge. The outside wings almost dragged over the ship’s surface as Caz tried to push even more energy into the ship’s engines.

The outside Taurus struggled to close on the escaping ship’s aft, while the third craft dove to not hamper the others from catching their prey. Jae-le tensed in her seat, “You’re going to go into the asteroid field too hot!” Caz didn’t say anything though, his eyes glued to the viewport and the large floating rocks as they seemed to grow as he sped towards them. The Imperial ships were on his tail, their blaster bolts trying eagerly to eat at hull plating of the Devil’s Daughter. Caz sent the craft into a nosedive, moving under the first asteroid. A loud alarm screeched in the cockpit as one of the Taurus hit their target. The entire ship rattled hard, but Caz leaned into the control sticks and put the asteroid between the Imperial craft and his. Small debris pinged off the ship’s hull unimpeded by shields. Caz refused to slow though, engines flaring brightly as he shot between to other asteroids, only to pull up into a tight climb to avoid a third.

Mekita was suddenly sorry she had taken a seat where she could see out the view port. The universe outside was spinning rapidly. Huge rocks leaped in front of the window, only to disappear as the ship made another immediate change in direction. The whole process made her stomach lurch. Despite what ever else he was, Caz was very good at making his ship move in ways it probably wasn’t designed for, at speeds it definitely wasn’t designed for. The Imperial ships had tried to match speeds, but as asteroids began pounding against their shields they realized they’d be better off waiting for the other ships that would be trying to escape their death. The Devil’s Daughter broke from the asteroids shortly after that and slipped into hyperspace.

Rian began taking precious few seconds to line up his attack. Besides juking his craft to avoid their fire, there was little he could do to the four TIEs behind him. The two in front of him on the other hand, they were targets. Green laser fire streaked toward his cockpit and he pushed his craft into a spin while trying his best to gut one of the eyeballs. His rear engines began to shake as one of the TIE fighters behind him managed to land another shot. Tubby squealed loudly. Rian’s shots nailed one of the TIE’s coming towards him, igniting it into a rolling ball of flame. Behind the remaining TIE another X-wing dropped out of the clouds. The bottom of the snub fighter bounced off of the front TIE’s solar panels. The impact threw the lighter ship into the rocky ground and shredded it. Soto Madry gritted his teeth as his inertia compensator completely failed and the impact rattled him down to the bones. “Hold on Bleep! We’ve still got a job to finish!”

Rian dove his X-Wing under Soto’s and jammed his foot on his etheric rudder. One of his engines wasn’t responding but he still managed to pull his craft into a bootleg turn. The four TIEs had slowed down to open fire on Madry and Ikner. Rian slapped his finger down on the trigger to his cannons; there was a loud explosion behind the cockpit but no energy beams emerged from the weapons. The diagnostics of his ship scrolled across the screen. One of four engines blown, weapon and shield systems were both in the red. “Tubby I need systems up and working now.” The R2 whistled loudly in dismay.

Soto’s ship slipped in front of Ikner’s and two green energy blasts slammed into his hull. “Captain, I know its not my place, but get out of here. You can’t do anything with your ship like that. Bleep and I can take care of this slime for you.” The six ships flew past each other and then scrambled to reface their enemy. Rian pulled down on his flight stick, sticking the nose of his snubfighter towards the sky and pushed all the remaining energy into his engines. Soto looked down to his own ship’s status, shields were gone and it would take a miracle to get them back. On the radar he could see Rian starting to pull away, one of the four remaining TIEs took off at an angle to intercept the fleeing ship. Madry poured power into his engines and was pushed back hard into his seat. He gritted his teeth as he remembered the compensators had been blown with the collision. Red bolts of energy flew through the air and slammed into the ship. The blasts walked across the hull of the TIE fighter before if blew up. The other three ships opened fire on Madry, the impact sending his X-Wing into a spin.

Soto’s hands and feet worked frantically in the cockpit, until the world outside stopped spinning. Two of the TIEs broke off to chase down Ikner as one closed in on Madry, ready to finish off the spinning craft. The TIE’s lasers slammed back into the Soto’s craft, sheering one of the wings off. Three blasts hit the TIE’s cockpit window and ignited interior. Again he pushed power into the engines, the whole craft shaking violently from the loss of a wing. Both remaining TIEs circled back in a tight formation and fired towards Madry. Ikner had turned his craft around, hoping he could at least distract the enemies on Soto. More energy blasts hit the nose of Madry’s X-Wing, stripping away metal and catching it on fire. Bleep screamed requests across his screen for Soto to eject. Madry ignored it though, the engines of his fighter flaring brightly as he plunged his X-Wing into one of the TIEs. As the impact sounded loudly he slammed both feet down on the left etheric rudder and fired thrusters. The thrusters sent the collision crashing into the remaining TIE. Screaming in protest metal twisted and interlocked all three ships together in a perverse and deadly embrace.

Rian screamed as he watched, his ship so battered he was helpless to do anything but scream, so he screamed even louder. Below him he watched the three starfighters tumble the last few feet to the ground. The whole intertwined mess was so unbalanced it spun end over end as it fell until it slammed into the rocks. Soto’s X-Wing had pushed its nose so far into the first TIE fighter that the ball shaped cockpit had wedged the X-Wing canopy closed. There was no way for the X-Wing pilot to eject. All three ships hit the rocks and erupted into a humongous fireball. Through tears Rian could see the green dot on the radar that represented Soto Madry blink out of existence.

The rest of the squadron hadn’t time to notice Soto’s sacrifice; the ground and sky were still filled with too many Imperial dangers. Talos and Ruade were high above the AT-AT and AT-STs when Latha’s voice came over the comlink. “The base is starting to take a pounding, I’ve got an idea.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“Just cover me!!”

“No, don’t!! Wait!!”

With a flick of the wrist Talos cut all power to his engines. Working the foot pedals on his X-Wing he brought the craft as close to a complete stop as was possible. The snub fighter began streaking towards the ground, Talos grit his teeth as he forced the flight stick to keep the nose level as he fell. Ruade’s voice was coming over the com, but Talos ignored it for the moment. As warning sensors in the cockpit began to scream Talos threw on his repulsorlift engines. The impact rattled the entire craft; there was a groan of metal as the repulsars tried their best to keep the X-Wing off the ground. The entire process threw up a huge cloud of dust into the already obscured atmosphere. An AT-ST turned to face him; the two-legged walker twisted its upper portion looking almost like some sort of inquisitive animal with its view port windows looking like soulless eyes. Thrash was barely two meters off the ground when the walker turned to look at him; all four of the X-Wing’s cannons were aimed directly at it. Four streaks of laser fire bit into the Imperial vehicle and ignited something, because the entire upper portion exploded. The two legs rocked for a moment but stayed upright, like a monument to the vehicle that had just been there.

“Thrash, you’re insane!”

Talos’ laughter was easily heard in his reply. “Don’t worry so much Ruade.” Still solely under the power of his repulsorlift engines Thrash continued forward, heading towards one of the AT-ATs. “Nothing can stop the Thrash Tank!” Just as he spoke another AT-ST had ran behind him. Cannon fire streaked towards his sides, Thrash juked the flight stick, his fighter starting to slide back and forth trying to dodge the incoming blasts. He was so close that the tips of his fighter’s wings almost dragged the ground as he moved around. The AT-AT he had originally started for was looming closer. The larger walker wasn’t maneuverable enough to twist or make a sudden turn, so despite the fact that the pilot was well aware of the situation; he could do nothing about it. Thrash spun his craft into a tight turn and ducked between the forward and rear legs of the AT-AT. He continued the turn until he was facing the pursuing AT-ST. The AT-ST’s blaster bolts hit the X-Wing’s shields as Thrash opened fire. Laser blasts ate into the walker’s left leg and sent the whole vehicle tumbling to the ground. Ruade’s fighter streaked overhead, laying down four shots it’s the back of AT-AT before sending a proton torpedo following the lasers. The torpedo blew into the back plating of the AT-AT and sent large bellows of grey smoke into the smoggy air as the large legs ground to a halt.

Ruade shook his head as he flew past his partner and started a long turn to bring his fighter back into the altercation. Shiel and Veid were suddenly behind him and even though he was happy to see the twins, he cursed the atmospheric conditions of the planet again. “Welcome back ladies. Nice to see you again.” Talos’ X-Wing continued along the ground, leaving another AT-ST in flaming wreckage as the three other snubfighters strafed the side of anther AT-AT. The combined firepower ate through the thick armor plating, Shiel finished off the metal walker by sending a torpedo hurtling into the weaken spot. The walker collapsed in on itself, the head and rear of the machine hitting each other before falling to ground.

Nihil had already taken out three of the eight TIE fighters; Zwick had taken out one and felt at a vast disadvantage compared to the planet’s native. It would have been little solace to him, but the Imperial pilots were feeling the same way. “I’ll give you two to one odds that they start running if we take another one out.”

Nihil’s fighter streaked in front of Zwick’s and spiraled towards another TIE. He tapped both etheric rudders in tandem, forcing his snubfighter into an “S” turn. The Imperial pilot reacted too slowly and found four red lances of energy shooting through his engines and vaporizing him in his cockpit. The TIE began its decent to the ground in an awkward, tumbling flight path. Zwick’s X-Wing suddenly began to shake as the remaining three fighters battered its shields. Staamas pushed his flight controls hard, the nose of his fighter suddenly pointed towards the ground as his engines flared brightly. In the middle of the power dive he cut his power and rolled the craft on its starboard wing.

“It doesn’t look like they’re running away.”

“I noticed that. Of course you know if you want me to pay up, I have to live through this fight.”

Nihil laughed, “Now you’re changing the bet. You didn’t say anything about that before.”

Carson Dire stiffened as the mists cleared and the racetrack of Cree appeared around him. He was in his Sky-Blade the roar behind his head was a sure give away. The air speeder had two oversized engines mounted directly behind the cockpit that rattled the craft at full speed and would nearly deafen any pilot without earplugs. He was behind Los Burdett and quickly gaining. Burdett’s SoruSub flier had a distinctive diamond shaped engine pattern. Dire eased his control stick, sending his speeder over Burdett’s. A blue light flashed on the control panel and Carson cursed under his breath. The Sky-Blade had enough thrust to break a planet’s atmosphere but an automatic kill switch would temporarily cut power to the engines if the ship breached a certain altitude. It kept the unprotected speeder jock from suddenly finding himself in the vacuum of space. The blue light was a reminder that he was edging closer and closer to the kill zone. His sensors screamed as Burdett started a climb, forcing Dire to climb also. Carson poured more power into his engines, trying to get past the Byss pilot.

Ahead of them was a large plasteel tube that was large enough to let four speeders enter it at once. The tube was laid out in a slow curve giving the audience a perfect view of the racers as they took one of the four turns that made up the Cree Royal track. Carson felt disgusted as he eased off his thrusters. If his engines cut out this close to the turn he knew he’d never make it into the cornering tube. Los Burdett pulled ahead, the diamond pattern of engines flaring brightly. Carson worked the wing rudders, hoping to come up on Los’ side. The Sky-Blade’s thrusters roared as he pushed them back into full speed. There was a jolt as the Sky-Blade jumped forward and then suddenly decelerated. Blue lighting crackled over the instrument panel. Outside the cockpit the ground was starting to come closer towards him. Carson looked frantically; his controls still sparkled with the ionization. There wasn’t any way he was going to be able to pull out of the dive, he was going to have to eject. Dire’s eyes looked forward and were instantly drawn to the stands. Stands full of people who wouldn’t have a chance if he ejected.

Carson could see his flight path would take him underneath the cornering tube and into the base supports of the crowded stands. He let out an angry growl and grabbed onto the control stick again. The energy moving over the controls flowed up through the stick and into his hands. It felt as if he had shoved his hands directly into a fire and grabbed a handful of hot coals, but he continued to fight the resistance. His eyes went back to the stands; he could see the panicked mass of people. The nose of his air speeder had pulled up a little. He calculated he’d now run in the center of the stands. The cockpit was filled with the smell of burning flesh and it felt like the burn hand eaten its way all the way to the bones in his hands. He was shaking and already close to being physically exhausted. He pushed harder on the stick, it barely moved now. In fact it threatened to move in the opposite direction, which would send him back into the foundation. Dire used his weight, tried to get more leverage, but the control stick wasn’t moving anymore. He was only seconds from collision now. He could see he had gotten the Sky-Blade aimed toward the top portion of the stands, but it was of little consequence. His hand moved to the ejection handle, if he wanted to live he’d have to use it now.

The Sky-Blade’s astromech squealed loudly to get his attention. Carson shook his head as if to clear his thoughts. The Sky-Blade didn’t have an astromech; there was no need for it. It would weigh the ship down and take up space. He looked at the controls and felt his stomach tighten; he wasn’t in his Sky-Blade any more he was in a X-Wing. Outside him the rocky crags of the Black Peak Mountains were whipping past his cockpit. His body was bathed in a thick, sticky sweat that smelled like boiling rum. He wasn’t on Cree anymore; he was in a life or death fight on Luvius. It all came racing back to him as his X-Wing was rocked by a duo of laser blasts. Once he had split from Ikner, Dire had locked his wings down for maneuverability and speed. Even though he had to rely on his instruments to move through the smoggy atmosphere he had easy outdistanced the TIEs that originally dropped behind him. The blasts that were hitting him were coming from too far away to do more then rattle his ship. There were only two TIE fighters even remaining behind him. Four of the others had met their fate against the sharp rocks of the Black Peaks. “Well Shadow, looks like I still got it. Should only take a moment to get back to the others.”

Carson was expecting a reply from the droid when the com unit drowned the faint beeps out. “Okay Problems, this is Lead, I’ve just gotten word that the base is clear and its time to get our behinds off this planet. You know the jump point; it’s in your mechs. Call out now if you need some help dusting the Imps off your tails.”

Carson couldn’t help but smile as he flipped on his microphone. “Lead, Two here, I’m just about clear hear. You or anyone else need some help?”

“That’s a negative Two, get clear and I’ll see you on the ship.”

Dire studied the radar display for a moment, focusing on the two TIEs behind him. “Boys, its been fun but its time for you to eat it.”

Rian listened to each of his pilots checking in. Zwick was the first calling in for Nihil, Ruade, Thrash, and himself. The twins called in next, followed quickly by Dire. Ikner pulled out of the atmosphere without any problems, Soto had made sure of that. His thoughts weighed heavily on him, he knew he would lose pilots in these missions, but it had happened too soon. He still wouldn’t even know if Mekita, Dara, and Skeng were still alive for another day or so. Tubby gave out a low whine like beep and Rian nodded, the low mournful sound summed it up better then he could. Tubby gave a more up beat sounding beep and Rian looked at the controls. “You’re right, start the hyperspace jumps.” Rian closed his eyes just as the stars streaked into long lines as if someone was pulling then into strands and draping them out in front of him.

A soft beeping pulled Rian out of a deep sleep. He looked outside and saw that his X-Wing was already moving towards the Renaissance. Tubby had piloted the X-Wing through three short hyperspace jumps, and then a much longer one that finally had him meeting the transport ship in a deserted area of space. The multiple jumps would make it almost impossible for anyone to track the retreating X-Wing squadron. Rian wiped the sleep from his eyes and ran his tongue over his teeth. For such a short nap he certainly felt like had been asleep for years, everything was sore and he still felt worn out. The cockpit offered little room to move around, but Rian had spent so much time inside one that he was able to roll his shoulders and stretch out his back and legs. After that he tapped on his com. “Tubby, I’ve got the controls from here, thanks.”

It was only a moment later before Rian had placed his X-Wing down in the transport’s hangar. As he started down the ladder to the floor he noticed Atros Sardina standing patiently with his hands folded behind his back. Rian jumped from halfway down and looked up to the Renaissance owner. “Is everything alright Captain?”

Sardina nodded slowly. “Actually it is; I’d like to ask you a favor.”

The sound of another X-Wing entering the hangar echoed through them. “I’ll do anything I can to help you, you should know that.”

“Nothing like that son, just I’d like you to send Soto Madry up to see me after he’s gotten a chance to get out of his flight gear.”

Rian felt his knees buckle and almost fell to the ground. “S..Soto? Well, that could…” He suddenly couldn’t get his mouth to form any words at all. He was pretty sure he was making some sort of sound, but nothing resembling any language.

“Yes, right before we were able to get off planet we ended up drawing the attention of another half dozen fighters. It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Sure, two TIE fighters against one X-Wing has been done, but that boy took out all six on his own. The whole bridge crew wants to thank him.”

Somehow Rian forced his tongue to shape itself around his words again. The feeling of loss he felt when he saw the explosion sank back into his pores. There were footsteps of at least two of his pilots walking behind him. “Sir, So…Soto died on the planet.”