Beth Andromina

The X-Wing’s fuselage rocked as it sped through the remnants of concussive blasts, the lower half of the shield screen becoming an opaque green-white as the shield generator worked to catch the hail of micro shrapnel that came spitting up from the ground as armoured vehicles detonated. How many years had those vehicles been kept in service by loving mechanics and crews? Dutifully polishing the crests of long vanished empires and republics. Centuries and Decades of loving care turned to molten durasteel. Variable antiques turned to death traps for the noble crews. Liquid metal and fuel, burning crew alive as entire vehicles combusted into gouts of white hot flame. But the Alliance pilots did not have time to think about the consequences of their torpedoes and strafing runs. Their objectives were to clear a corridor for ground ops, then keep the enemy off them long enough to do their duty. But by the look of the projected target board, the X-wings of Templar would be busy for quite some time. Beth pushed slightly on her rudder pedal and nudged the yoke around and put the X-wing in a long banking turn that took her around the central tower and allowed her to send another volley of concussion missiles into a trio of hover tanks that were charging towards the Alliance ground operatives. She didn’t see the explosion as she was forced into another short banking turn to avoid one of the old model anti aircraft towers that had sprang to life. Chattering long beams of green energy that cut through their formation like a knife. Templar three seemed to stumble in the air as one of the beams intersected the fuselage where cockpit and cowling met. Conversation about target acquisition turned to a short high pitched scream, then static, as the eighteen year old Caridian pilot of Three died in her seat alongside her astromech. The now pilotless X-wing turning to cartwheel through the air before falling like a discarded toy into the city below. The tower took its own quadruple blast of energy from Templar 6’s Taim & Bak Laser cannons. Falling silent as its crew laid in their own coffins of slagged durasteel. But now it was time to engage the swarm of fighters, and Beth brought her X-wing around again for another pass. Her thoughts turning dark.

The X-wing’s fuselage began to vibrate horribly as they began their dive through the heavy atmosphere towards the planet’s surface. The S-foils created a great deal of drag as the X-wing did its best to speed through the atmosphere, causing turning to become much more sluggish, and the forward shields to begin to take the brunt of the friction heat exchange. It was a brilliant experience, and required most of the flying to be done by instrument only, as the heat made the starfighter’s forward shields almost an opaque white as the quad generators embedded in the hull tried their best to keep up with the friction. The controls bucked heavily in her hands as the fightercraft fought its way through, and an equally concerning whistle sounded from her astromech. Not the whine of structural problems, or that the fuselage was disintegrating, but the low whistle of potential enemies. And the matching long lists of red that scrolled past her visual scope told her all she needed to know. Comms were now open. And at this range, there was not much more good jamming would do. “One through Six. Engage large ground targets with standoff munitions, sort by size, Seven through twelve engage fighters.” Now the X-wing would prove its versatility. Most of the squadron had grown up in the shadows of the Caridian flight academy, learning every trick and maneuver the TIE series of fighters had to give. Bethany herself had not switched from the venerable TIE Defender to the new model X-wing until a few short years ago. A few short years of a sortie every single day, dozens of kills, missions, and lost wingmen. The TIE interceptors had a great many disadvantages in atmospheric flight compared to the Alliance X-Wing, and this battle would likely show every single one. The large Solar panel arrays that made up the barrel like wings of the TIE interceptor provided so much drag that turning was a beast, mixed in with no countermeasures, and no missiles? It would be an old fashioned Ronto shoot. More akin to a rancher putting down a unruly bunch of womprats than an actual fight. Her Astromech whistled in her ear and Beth let the reticle settle over the heat signature of the cadmium/mercoxit core of the SPAAT that had just fruitlessly fired an artillery round at the U-Wing. She depressed the trigger and white hot jet of exhaust followed a brief trajectory towards the ancient walker, so did a great many other missile from her wingmates. And a brief second later, the stillness of Acrid was shattered by the thunderous explosions of Concussion missiles and detonating submunitions.

The squeal of alarm that came bursting into her almost silent cockpit, made Bethany’s blood run cold for a millisecond as she scanned her readouts for signs of damage. But the shrill whistle from the R9 astromech that was perched a half meter behind her in the fuselage was enough to tell her what they had accidentally run across. Dimitri, in the way only Astromechs could, told her that there was in fact, a cloud of buzz droids coming after them and the U-wing. An interesting layer of unforeseen defense, but not one that was particularly dangerous as both the X-wings and the modified assault transport carried heavy shields. But was that something they could risk? A look at the visual scopes that showed a glowing mass of the droids coming up quickly on their rear was enough to confirm the very real danger if all of them managed to get within range. Another glance at her readouts gave her another, if slightly nastier idea. “Dimitry, activate warheads on missiles one and two. Set engine burn for two seconds, detonation after five.” A simple squawk of resignation came over the intracomm, and she pushed down on the left rudder pedal slightly, bringing her to the portside of the U-wing. And as soon as the display burned green, she depressed the firing controls twice. Click click. Rocket motors fired, and two SR-3 concussion missiles blasted out of the launch bays on the the X-Wing. The engines fired for two seconds, long enough to clear the fuselage, then the missiles began to tumble. Losing their momentum and falling back towards the formation, tumbling beside the U-wing’s long extended s-foils, their internal computers ticking down the miliseconds until they committed a fiery suicide. Adding the remaining fuel in their reservoirs to the detonation of the concussion warhead. Swallowing the majority of the hand sized droids that followed the formation in a massive dual explosion. Though that might have alerted elements on the ground, they could now safely make the dash to the planet’s surface.

Whatever lay in front of them, likely hidden within the tower, or perhaps some kind of air or land based defense force, the objective remained the same. Stay within the envelope. Stay within the invisible jamming cloud of the U-Wing, inside that comfortable pocket that hid them from nearly everything except the visual scopes some defense forces employed. Useless for direct fire, and even more useless for hypersonic missiles of the kind a planet surrounded by an ever shifting asteroid belt would employ. The only difficulty would be the quick dash from the asteroids to the surface, and staying within the V shaped formation the Templars were flying. They had extended their own S-Foils in case something lurked in the asteroid belt, but it was unlikely. Tin pot dictatorships like the kind that ran Acrid did not normally expect an outside threat to their sovereignty, nor could they afford an adequate countermeasure. Preferring to torture their own populace under the cloak of restricted holonet access, and flying under the suspicions of the outside galaxy. But someone had kriffed up, let the torture and slavery leak out, and some Galactic Alliance commander had decided in turn to lay out the corpse of the Acrid Government as a warning to the outer rim. Nailing their hides to the galactic fence to scare off the little sector governments from thinking themselves safe from the hand of justice. And what was the cost of two SOG squads and a few dozen concussion missiles to the potential results? Plus, Templar squadron needed a win. After the disaster at Nar Shaddaa, a blue milk run of a coup would be enough to bring morale back to where it needed to be. Or at least that was what was running through Beth’s mind as she gently eased her X-Wing into a dive towards the planet. Atmosphere was only ten minutes out, and there was only a little bit of asteroid to go.

Even as the Galactic Alliance began its first pattering steps into galactic rule, its soldiers and pilots still carried its wil into the farthest reaches of the galaxy. Exerting justice where there had been none, and enforcing rule of law in lawless territories that had not seen galactic influence in decades. One such world was Acrid. Once holding a Jedi order operations complex, some three decades before, it was now a facet of galactic entropy. Where once there was peaceful order, now there was chaos and slaughter. A world that had fallen into disarray and destruction, a dystopian vision of what the galaxy could become. So the Galactic Alliance, in its infinite wisdom, had decided to reach out its magnanimous hand and free the people of Acrid from their indentured servitude. For even here, on the remotest frontier of the galaxy, sentients deserved a chance to strive against the evil that oppressed them. As such, twelve modern X-Wings, straight off endurance test flights from the Kuati manufacturers, were hurtling towards the planet on afterburner. Followed by a single U-Wing gunship which held the majority of the well trained operatives. Such a primitive planet did not need the might of Imperial Star Destroyers, and a small special operations group would be enough, or so the experts hoped, to topple this ‘Imperial Empire’ and pave the way for peaceful rule. And Templar squadron would answer the call.

Hearing her own first name over her headset was such a bizarre thing for someone whose brain was so completely frazzled by months on end of mindless combat air patrol, that she physically jumped against her crash restraints. The intonation was familiar as well, like a ghost out of her dreams. Where had that familiar lilt come from? That tired and studious disposition?PLus the name of the ship could only come back with: Sophia? With a little too much eagerness she rekeyed her comm, trying her best to keep her voice level and professional. “Receiving manifest now Moriarty.” She glanced at the data scrolling across her screen and she angled her fighter’s nose up a half degree by lightly pulling on the yoke. “You are clear for departure when you would like. Turn to Freq 403.33.” A shortwave frequency. She clicked her own comm over. “Sophia, I thought you died. Back from beyond the grave are we?”

The densely packed ‘fab housing looked like concrete mountains whose long slopes stretched out to the horizon. Here and there a splash of neon colour indicated a mall or shopping center, in the mass of refugee housing, but mostly the housing units were dark. Enforced dark zones by the imperial authorities in the event of a Sith Raid. Something that was becoming more likely by the minute. Her scopes blinked for a moment as another ship showed up on the long range sensor suite and Beth lightly pressed on the rudder pedal and pulled on the yoke to bring the starfighter in a long loop as she and her wingmate rounded on the Corellian Light Freighter headed towards the Red and Black. “Take a look at that registration ping Lieutenant.” This Machine Kills Fascists Now that was an insulting name if she had ever seen one, even though it brought a stifled laugh in her headset from her wingmate. Someone was playing a funny game on the imperial starfighter corps. She lifted a finger and depressed her comm interface, broadcasting to the freighter on the Guard Frequency. “Corellian Freighter Machine Kills Fascists, this is Templar One. Please transmit cargo and load data. You may need an inspection before heading to Red and Black Tower."

The thirty first Infantry division slowly spread out through the underground caverns that made up the capital city of Ryloth. These were the cream of the old Imperial Military, their uniforms crisp and their armour shined to a grey brilliance. Most did not wear helmets and kept them on loops attached to their belts. The directive to make the face of the Imperial Military and also the Rebel Alliance a humane one was a brilliant change compared to the army only a decade before. Smiles were returned with smiles, and the old imperial military officers conducted their house clearing with grim and effective precision. Evidence was collected, slaves freed, and their prior owners and smugglers ushered to the hanger bay, where they were assessed, evidence shown to the three generals in charge of the takeover, and then when found guilty, packed into the back of four gallant class shuttles. Slavery was a horrible crime, and an unforgivable one in the jurisdiction of the Imperial Remnant. A capital crime which carried a sentence of death. And when the four transports were in orbit over the tidally locked planet, the cargo bay doors were opened and some two hundred criminals experienced something that would stick with them for the rest of their life. Explosive decompression

“Not a bomb ma’am.” The sergeant helpfully added as the sounds of the droid crashing into the caverns below echoed back to them. At least the fall had dimmed the grating sound of his tinny voice. As the Rebel troops moved slowly forward Beth let her rifle trace any sign of movement. She did not glance at the body, just gave a grimace and pushed onwards. Letting the white armoured medic give the body a prod with his boot before moving forward. “Getting dark, press forward with NV and Thermal. If there is something down there I want to know about it the moment it shows its slimy face.” “Copy commander.” The imperial strained rebel soldiers slowly picked their way down the incline following the distant protocol droid.

“Stay where you are Droid.” Beth and her soldiers leveled their blaster rifles at the 3P0 unit. There was clear doctrine here, on a long term Sith occupied planet, treat all left over entities as potential traps. All it would take is stuffing the core of a protocol droid like that with detonite and that would be the end of this little search party. She gestured to one of the soldiers who pulled a scanning tool from his pack and levelled it at the droid. He looked at his datapad as the device began to scan the droid, searching for anomalies as well as explosive residue.

Beth knelt by the dying beast, looking at the cracked carapace, and feeling like that would be her some day. A dead and long old beast of war. But there was little time to ponder such things. “Fall in.” The stormtroopers fell in behind her, their pale armour reflecting the soft lights of her armour and the blades of the Jedi and Imperial Knights. There was something foul here. And her heavy blaster rifle hummed as she jacked in another powerpack.

Spread. Line. Stun. Fire. The soldiers with Beth scattered to either side of her, their BlastTech rifles chattering away with blue ringlets of stun. Bether herself added to the mix with her E-22, aiming for the eye stalks, where the stun would earlier work its way through the thick outer shells. She hoped that the Knights would be able to assist in calming it as they stunned it in a relatively painless manner. But if that did not work, well they were in for a real fight.

Beth followed Knight Skyshatter as they descended, her four troopers fanning out behind her. Their mood was a good key as to their feelings on the mission and they seemed to be using their squad helmet comms to make commentary and jokes as they walked. Which kept Beth’s hopes up as to their destination. She pushed to the head and led the way down the central passage as Knight Tarko had desired. Her helmet searching for thermal signatures.

“Only me today sir.” Beth said with a cocky smile. “I’m the only one in my squad afforded a cloning chit. Sponsored by a Moff, so I am a bit more disposable than say my copilots.” She laughed and then followed the men into the lower levels. She hated water, but life was full of things she hated doing. So she followed them into the depths of the sunken city.

Beth almost grimaced at the thought of her starfighter combat being played at the royal academy, there were plenty of other aces in the Old remnant or even the new Rebel Alliance to draw from, but she was flattered none the less. Even if she hated the feeling of pride and shame bubbling up at the same time. It made her feel awkward, especially with the bulky exo armour covering much of her lithe frame. “Thank you sir, and as always I am ready and willing to serve. Lead the way.” She was ready after all, and it felt good to stretch her legs after a dozen hours in the cockpit.