Trulalis

[Beth Andromina]

The old model Quasar class cruiser carrier dropped out of hyperspace a moment before the rest of its escort. Its heavy engines fired into a pulse of evasive maneuvers in case the Sith Fleet was waiting for them. Next the heavy sensor package came online, pulsing its wave of energy across the near face of the system, taking its return and spitting it back out to the fighter pilots. 

 

“Templars.” Beth glanced down to the comm display to make sure she was not transmitting on anything other than their squadron frequency. “Prepare to engage. This will get dicy fast. Lock S-Foils into attack position.” A chorus of affirmatives sounded off in her ears and then Dimitri gave a warning and automatically switched her comm receiving channel to TAC 1 command as well as the squadron tactical frequency. 

 

“Angle to grid four Templar One.”

 

Orders were flying over the comm and encrypted nets. The flight controllers aboard the Quasar were issuing terse and simple commands to the flight officers, as they looked at the emerging battlefield expanding in their maps.

[Beth Andromina]

The commander of the Cruiser Carrier, a Tapani Baron by the name of Admiral Ambrose d'Artois, was quick to dial in his comm pod to reply. 

 

“Did your mother’s call you that? Or did you pick the names from your favourite YA Novel? We do not fear the Sith Lords. You will taste our steel, unless of course you wish to turn yourselves in and swear allegiance to our dear Empress?" 

 

Beth laughed as she began her sharp turn towards where the map on her console told her a stream of red marked fighters were being deployed.

[Beth Andromina]

The controls shuddered under her hands as the X-wing experienced the turbulence of the planet's distant gravity well. She glanced down to the readout display and saw that everything was green. Six proton torpedoes, whose variable warhead had been switched to a medium yield indicated that she was fairly ready to go toe to toe with any pilot in the Sith Armada. She spared another glance off her right wing and saw the X-wing of her wingmate gliding along beside. She waved and Beth gave a laugh. Kailia gave a mock salute then looked back towards the looming Sith strikeforce. 

 

It was nearly go time. 

 

“Templar one-one, fighters, designated Supremacy-class interceptors.” An intercept order, finally. Her mind raced for a moment to find the information about the Supremacy class interceptor, given in a briefing not too long after the fall of Kuat. Fast. Incredibly fast compared to her X-wing by a factor of one point five. Likely extremely dangerous to the fighterbombers who were about to make their pass on the Sith Cruisers. Then the control officer inside the carrier’s Early Warning and Control center continued his transmission. “Intercept orders. Engage.” 

 

A flurry of red dots, slightly larger than normal emerged at the edges of her starfighter’s sensor screen. Dimitri, in his safe socket behind her chirped as the floating reticle from her HUD aligned with the distant squadron of Fury’s. She gently pressed the pedal at her right foot and brought the reticle fully on the enemy squadron.  

 

She thumbed her shields to double front in case the enemy had the first opportunity to launch missiles her way. She squinted at her display then activated her internal net link to her Astromech. “The Supremacy-class have large drive signatures, focus lock onto that.” There was a chirp of acknowledgement, then a low whine as he found lock on the distant leader. As soon as the whine became a constant, she depressed the trigger on her control yoke. Once, twice. And two emerald torpedoes blinked away towards the Interceptors. 

 

All around her the X-wings and My’tils were following their own orders, and dozens of torpedoes and concussion missiles streaked towards the distant squadrons.

 

((1))

[Beth Andromina]

Beth narrowed her eyes as a warning light blared a bright red in the threat receiver. This was joined by a howl of alarm from Dimitri as he screamed about enemy missile launch. Radar guided. And enemy ECM was blasting her own scopes to the pure white static of concentrated jamming.

 

“Vampire, Vampire. Enemy missile launch detected.” 

 

This was from the cruiser carriers early warning control center. Unnecessary information for now, but the man was doing his job, and that at least she appreciated. She waited a split second longer then her thumb depressed her yokes’ second defensive option. Another split second later, a little behind the astromech mount a small rocket fired, its solid fuel expending almost as soon as it launched. Then the small rocket's internal explosive went off, shattering the rocket and spreading six thousand small mylar metallic shreds in a small expanding blast behind the X-Wing. Highly radar reflective, the shreds of fluttering mylar, also known as chaff, would seem like a huge and very delicious target to any radar guided missiles.

 

Around her the rest of the templars and My’tils, went after the ECM ships. 

 

“Templar One defending!”

 

Beth muttered into her mic, as she pressed her control yoke down to force the X-wing into a dive that would clear her from the coming blast of the Sith missile. That missile did its job, detonating in the cloud of mylar in a blast of concussive force, rocking, but not damaging the X-wing. Her dive however, intersected with a single of the enemy laser blasts, and the cockpit hazed over with white for a split second as the shields ate the impact. 

 

“Shields at 62 percent.” 

 

"Spast it, set next torpedos to short fuse. Hold onto the drive signature data."

 

She ignored the response from her astromech and flipped the fighter back into an oblique angle towards the now very close interceptor. It was in a roll and loosing momentum, so she fired a triple blast from her quad-linked laser cannons at the fighter as it whipped by, then she pulled the X-wing into an upward climb to bring her back around in a sharp angle towards the enemy starfighter. They were in a dogfight now and she had never felt so alive.

 

((2))

[Beth Andromina]

“Oh spast.” Beth whispered as a sudden stream of laser bolts played across her forward shield. It held for the moment as she began a roll to get her out of the gunsights of the enemy starfighter. There was no time for an answering snapshot, and the sudden screech from her astromech told her a missile was about to cut her day very short. She punched the throttle forward to pull out of the spin just as her shield capacitor overheated with a crash. Next came another chaff rocket, and the enemy fighter passed her in a flash of durasteel and gaudy paint. 

 

The missile detonated in the chaff cloud, and Beth was thrown forward against her crashwebbing from the impact of the blast. Dimitri piped up a wicked howl of danger and she cut her engines and pulled back on the control yoke. Her third engine was on fire, but otherwise she was still alive, as was Dimitiri. Which was all the good news she could handle at that moment. 

 

The reduction in thrust allowed her to flip the X-wing back around and she punched the throttle to full again, following the tail of the Interceptor as fast as her three remaining Incom engines could push her. It was hardly as fast as she wanted, but it would be give her enough time to pour withering fire into the Interceptor before it pulled out of effective range. She briefly took in the destruction of a few of the Templars and Fighterbombers, but she only had enough time to center the reticle on the close and fully burning drives of the Sith Interceptor. There would be time to mourn for the brave Rebel pilots later. For now, the other pilot had let herself become distracted by another engagement. It was time for the Sith to pay for that arrogance. 

 

Once, Twice her black gloved finger pressed the trigger and emerald torpedoes leapt out of their launchers, their computers locked in on the drive data of the enemy interceptor. She shifted the reticle up  to lead the interceptor by a healthy margin and then held down the trigger again. The linked heavy laser cannons on the tip of each of her S-Foils thundered away, spewing their death towards the distracted Sith Starfighter. 

 

((3)) ((Great duel as always. It was a pleasure.))

[Beth Andromina]

With one of the jamming birds coming apart in a burst of yellow light and black soot, followed quickly by the explosion of its twin ion engines, Beth let out a whoop of joy. Even if it hadn’t been her target exactly…

 

And just like that she overshot the Sith starfighter she had been engaging and let a curse fly. Instinctively she knew that the starfighter would be on her tail and jammed her control yoke to the side flipping her over on her wing. Dropping her nose she bled her speed away with another roll as a hail of laserbolts cut through her starfighter. There were no shields to bleed away the edge of the emerald blasts, and they cut through the thin durasteel of her starighters fuselage with ease. 

 

The world went white for a moment, as a blast blew through the bottom of her cockpit and transited out through the transparisteel dome above her head. She screamed and blinked away the stars in her eyes as she pulled another evasive maneuver, wincing as her EV systems came online, as she jammed the air filter mask firmly in place with one hand. Her cockpit became very cold very quickly, but she would live. 

 

“Dimitri?”

 

A whistle informed her that the droid was at least still alive as she jammed down her rudder pedals and pushed forward her throttle to give her enough evasive velocity to clear the next strafing pass. She flipped the starfighter on its wing and spun the fighter around again, glimpsing the Sith Starfigher for a moment and squeezing her trigger. An emerald torpedo lanced out and detonated at the rear of the interceptor. Blowing its twin ion engines in different directions as the enemy starfighter came apart. 

 

It was survivable if the other pilot had immediate medical attention, but for now Beth needed to get to the carrier. A glance at her display told her that the fight was narrowly going for the alliance. And the fighterbombers were getting their payback on the Sith cruisers. 

[Beth Andromina]

Beth looked at the comm unit and laughed, sith cruisers were burning brighter than the system’s star and he thought that he had won? Her heart ached for the young Calamari that she had foolishly sent to the surface, but this battle was far from over. The rebel fleet was holding their own, but it was time to retreat. They could not hold this planet, but they had dished the Sith a horrible blow. And with the amount of burning star ships she could see from her vantage point in the Cruiser Carrier’s bow hanger, this could only be seen as a pyrric victory for the Sith Lords. 

 

They had won on the ground, but lost in space. And whoever had been in charge of the Sith armada would be punished. That she was confident of, the Sith always ate their own. She said a quick prayer for the soul of the Jedi Knight, and with a flash, the Rebel Fleet dashed into hyperspace.

 

Operation Tripwire was now a certainty.