Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

"'It's not as if I like the Empire, I hate it but there's just nothing I can do about it right now… It's just all such a long way from here…'

"Fellow citizen of the galaxy, it's easy to make excuses. It's easy to say that you are powerless. It's easy to look the other way and say it is someone else's problem to solve. If you think that way, remember Jedha, remember Alderaan and think about what happens if your world, your hometown or your family is chosen by the Emperor or one of his puppet tyrants for the next 'demonstration'. You can do something. You must do something. Inaction is consent and we have all seen what implicit consent means, even for Core Worlds like Alderaan!

"Do not consent. Do not be a victim. Resist; find a way to fight back. Gather friends, allies and resources to turn on the Oppressor and his jackbooted thugs. Even the smallest blow counts towards a great victory. The Emperor is not so powerful as to silence a whole galaxy. Scarif and Yavin show that his enforcers are not invincible. Join the cry of 'Restore the Republic'!

"Rebel."

Chapter 1 – I, Rebel

"Okay, Lieutenant! This patrol zone is clear!" Sergeant Cassedra Dorna announced from her gunner's seat, just in front of me in the pilot's seat of the Subpro Z-81M Sunfighter police craft, having just completed a full scanner sweep of the area.

"Got that, Cassie." I turned to my side panel and began to set the navigation coordinates for the final and primary patrol area. "Boring day out here; beats the alternative, I guess." The blonde woman from Zeeman-III, a completely-anonymous mid-rim agricultural planet, laughed in acknowledgement. 

I may have been sarcastic but there was a little nugget of truth and resentment in that statement. I don't like to imagine that I'm really any different from anyone else of this 'second wave' of recruits to the Rebel Alliance. Like every other citizen of the galaxy, Ressel Terrek was horrified when I heard of the flattening of the capital city (and holy shrine city) of Jedha, the latest in a series of atrocities going back to my infancy that the Empire had gleefully publicised as 'police actions against insurgent forces'. 

In truth, I'd been looking for an opportunity for a long time. Since graduating from the local schooling, I had been trying to find some way to express my dissatisfaction with the Empire but had struggled to find any way to do so that didn't also coincide with a way to commit suicide for almost no gains. The most I could think to do is steal a small ship and somehow fit it with cannon but what was that supposed to achieve?

As an in-system courier pilot working out of a small spaceport for a private mail firm, I was still working on my civil hyperspace navigation qualification when the first news reached my homeworld of Avalyn of the nearby Battle of Scarif and of the Rebels' successful raid, destruction of two of the supposedly-invincible Imperial-class star destroyers and looting of the Imperial archive there which was only stopped by the Empire blowing up the part the planet where the archives sat. The Rebel losses, as the Empire had boasted, had been horrendous but, in the end, the Rebels had won.

"Hey, Ress; heard of the action out at that interdicted system?" These words, uttered by one of the older pilots who worked the interstellar runs for my employers would actually be my first contact with Senators Mon Monthma and Bail Organa's Rebel Alliance. A few days later, Alderaan was gone.

I'd listened with growing horror as the Empire's official story that the planet had somehow been destroyed by the Rebellion began to liquefy and dissolve. No-one could explain how the Rebels could have done it. Let alone why the Rebellion would have destroyed the homeworld of its most vociferous political allies and its leadership's closest friends, the Alderaanian royal family. Cover story after cover story emerged and failed over just a half-dozen days. No-one had that power; not even an accident at an illegal weapons plant, no matter how large, could have disintegrated an entire garden world into an asteroid field. 

Then the story began to emerge of the Empire's new secret weapon: A moon-sized battle-station whose only purpose was to carry a gigantic weapon capable of annihilating the largest inhabitable world. Of how the Rebellion had discovered the existence of this Death Star and had somehow contrived to capture its technical blueprints at that little-known uninhabited and interdicted world named Scarif. At the greatest sacrifice, the Rebels had forced their way through the Imperial Starfleet and spirited these plans to their hidden base (now known to be Yavin-IV). 

It was just two weeks after the destruction of Alderaan that the Empire's official news agency reluctantly admitted that the Death Star had been destroyed. Initially they claimed that this was the result of a technical malfunction, then suicidal sabotage and then, as the news (including actual combat footage) spread through the Holonet communication web from various Rebel information sources, admitted that in 'a freak outcome' Rebel starfighters had destroyed the 160-klick diameter starship when it attacked their base world.

Remember Jedha! Remember Alderaan! Yavin was just the first blow! That was a Rebel propaganda phrase but it was already being uttered by every disaffected youth in the galaxy. Even peaceful worlds turned restive and every Stormtrooper got used to having rocks and filth thrown at them whilst on patrol and, when they confronted the crowds, just got blank, silent insolence in response for their demand for their attacker to come forwards. Even massacres, previously a guaranteed way for Imperial governors to quell dissent, only made matters worse.

What had previously been a nebulous intention had hardened into a firm determination. I had a clear destination and a cause. I'm thinking that my boss must have been a Rebel sympathiser given that he didn't blink an eye when a half-dozen pilots all applied for leave at the same time and left on a medium transport with nearly fifty kids from various parts of the planet, all planning to go to 'find themselves' out-of-system at the same time.

~*~*~

"You thinking about that dream girl again?"

I blinked at Cassie. "Cass, there isn't a 'dream girl'."

The sergeant laughed uproariously in a way that reminded me that she was six years older than me and already an experienced spacer with all that implied in terms of a dirty mind and worse mouth. "Bet you wish there was one!"

There were a lot of things that I wished. Not the least of these was that, after a fantastically abbreviated training and familiarisation process that lasted less than a month, I had been assigned to some front system to take the fight to the Empire. However, no, instead, I found myself on a deep-space cruiser, an EF-74H Nebulon-C called the Guiding Hand, whose main role seemed to be to ensure that the Empire didn't interfere with various independent transports getting 'lost' and handing over their cargoes to the Rebellion.

Don't get me wrong: Protecting logistics is a vital mission; armies march on their stomachs after all and a blaster without a power-pack is just a horribly over-engineered hammer. However, this wasn't what I expected when I joined up, my eyes filled with stars and the hope of getting revenge on an Empire capable of murdering whole worlds in the name of its hegemony of power. 

Still, it isn't all humdrum routine. Indeed, things were heating up for me and my crewmates. The Battle of Yavin had apparently relieved Imperial High Command of its belief that the Rebel Alliance was a rag-tag bunch of anarchist malcontents that couldn't cause any long-term problems for the Empire's control over the mid- and outer-rims, let alone the New Order as an epoch of history. Suddenly, they were a lot more serious about flushing out and destroying rebel cells and I'd found myself deployed pretty much in the middle of a just-barely organised evacuation of monitoring stations and other outposts before they could be attacked by Imperial 'police' forces.

That's how I lost my rookie card and why there was the silhouette of three probe droids and a Cygnus Alpha-XG1 assault gunboat painted on the side of my patrol ship's hull.

"Watchdog Three, this is Watchtower."

Watchtower; that was the call-sign of the ops centre on the Guiding Hand and probably meant something was about to happen. "Go ahead, Watchtower."

"Watchdog Three, be advised that we have an evacuation convoy incoming ahead of schedule. Be ready for a contested hyperspace egress in your main patrol area."

"Great news!" Cassie's normally raucous and irreverent voice was suddenly muted and I knew why. The Sunfighter was a pre-Clone Wars design intended for hunting small-scale pirates and escorting convoys. Armed with only a quad blaster turret forward, a warhead launcher (which was not even installed on this particular vessel as the Rebellion wasn't exactly flush with resources for second-line units) and a tractor beam, it wasn't exactly intended to fight off a major attack force unsupported.

"Uh, Watchtower, just what kind of 'contest' are we looking at here?"

"No intelligence available Three. Be reminded that High Command has standing orders in place that no ship or crew is 'expendable' at this time." That could be taken two ways but I already knew what this meant for my decisions in the coming fight. "We have dispatched Watchdog One to your location. ETA six minutes."

I blew out my breath. "Understood Watchtower." I turned off my microphone. "And may the Force be with us!" 

"I'd trust my blasters over the Jedi's failed religion, Ress," Cassie remarked. 

I wasn't about to get into one of those arguments, not that I entirely blamed her for her scepticism. I checked the patrol boat's scanners and detected the spatial distortion of approaching suparalight starships. "Heads up, Cass: Multiple incoming marks at zero-fourteen!" 

A few seconds later, there was a ripple of pseudomotion ahead of us. With the scanner on maximum range, I picked up the silhouettes of two DX-9 assault shuttles, a CSS1 'Star Shuttle' and a GR-75 medium transport. In other words, it was pretty much what I'd expect from a scratch evacuation convoy that had been arranged at the last minute.

Unfortunately, they weren't alone. "Ress! I'm getting a warhead targeting sweep!" 

There was a yellow flashing light on my control panel. "I can see it too Cass! Hang on; this is going to be rough!" I hauled over my flight yoke and slammed the throttles for the patrol boat's twin sublight boosters at the ends of the two s-foil/pylons right up to the fire-wall. We had to get into the action now. 

Far ahead I could see the quin-stabiliser foil outlines of two Assault Gunboats. This wasn't surprising. Most Imperial starfighter-type ships weren't jump-capable and would need a carrier vessel of some sort and we'd have seen one of those coming from far off. That didn't make them any less dangerous and they were obviously planning to pick off the transports with proton torpedoes. 

Cassie basically only controlled the patrol ship's weapons and active defences (if we had any) and could run the sensors if necessary. In the back seat, I had control over basically everything else: Piloting, navigation, systems control, damage control, system repair and power distribution. I switched power from the weapons to the shield capacitors to overcharge them and set for double-forward. "Cass, target any warheads first. We'll engage when we hit visual range!"

I couldn't afford any distractions, such as reassuring the crews of the transports, who were flooding the airwaves with panicked distress calls. As I guessed, the two Gunboats all launched pairs of proton torpedoes, two at each of the two larger transports. "Anzat, Anzat, Anzat!" Cassie yelled, the traditional warning for incoming warheads. 

We were close now with the proton torpedoes visually identifiable as blue-white sparks and fanning out around our approach path in between them. As ordered, Cassie hauled her gun targeting controls around and the quad AG-2G blaster turret under the patrol ship's nose began to spit opalescent orange fire at the Imperial warheads. We only had seconds but she was good enough for that to be enough; both warheads on that side of the ship flashed into little sparks of fire. I half-rolled around and hauled back on the yoke and Cassie fired again as soon as the warheads were in her field of fire. One exploded from her fire and another flashed into flame as the gunner on the Star Shuttle caught it with a single laser shot.

"Nice shooting, Cassie."

"Yeah, well I think that we got their attention, Boss."

I looked at the Master Tactical Plot and agreed. Both Alpha-XG1s had broken off their attack runs on the transports and were vectoring towards us. I rebalanced the power distribution to recharge the guns and gave them a kick of power from the propulsion capacitors. In dogfights, the Sunfighter was at a disadvantage. Despite its very long range and quick-responding engines in close quarters, it turned like a nerf, even when compared to the Alpha-XG1, which was classified as a bomber by the Empire and Rebellion alike. You had to be ready to do the unthinkable to survive a fight in these old tubs and I did that now. I throttled back to mess up the Imps' targeting solutions and hauled on my controls as best as I could to turn towards them as fast as possible. Emerald green laser fire filled the cockpit canopy, most missing but a few flashing off of our flank shields. 

"Here they come!" Cassie yelled.

"The closest one, Cass!" I responded. Like most starfighter-type designs, the Sunfighter had a very narrow head-on profile and I used this to my best advantage by coming head-on at the Gunboats. More laser fire skipped off the side, upper and lower shields, wearing them down fast. However, like a lot of true fighters, the Gunboat's cannon only had maximum vectoring of maybe fifteen degrees around the forward-rear axis. On the other hand, the Sunfighter's turret could be slewed out to up to sixty degrees around the axis and Cassie made use of this, sending a continual hail of blaster bolts into the nearest Gunboat's cockpit area. Blasters aren’t great against shields but they don't have to be when you've got a multi-barrel turret on dual fire mode; the Gunboat's cockpit exploded and the next volley of fire punched out the other side of its hull, basically slicing it in half. "Scratch one Spiky!" Cass yelled, the normal Rebel nickname for the Assault Gunboat.

Unfortunately, that left a surviving Gunboat (with a very angry crew) that could outmanoeuvre us and at such close quarters that getting a firing solution would be very easy for the pilot. I set the shields to double-rear but they'd already been worn down a lot so that wouldn't do much. I pulled back on the yoke and, through the front viewing blister behind which Cassie sat, I saw a hail of emerald laser fire shoot past. I reversed our turn angle and rolled but I knew I was on borrowed time. 

In its original configuration, the Sunfighter had a concussion charge launch rail in the tail and that would be great for shaking off pursuit. However, in the thirty years since the old girl's assembly, it had been left derelict for longer than it had been used and, besides, the Rebellion could hardly afford the rare warheads.

Suddenly, inspiration struck. The other bit of the type's legacy equipment was a ventral tactical tractor beam turret intended to snare smuggling ships or ejected light cargo pods. Most Sunfighter crews on the Guiding Hand didn't bother charging up the beam weapon, considering it an unnecessary load on the power system that could be better used for the cannon or shields. I was either lucky enough or sufficiently inexperienced that I still blindly preflighted the ship by its original checklist, which was actually a decade older than me. 

I remain quite proud of myself that I was able to keep evading and use the elevation and traverse thumb sticks to align the tractor beam turret directly aft. I looked at my scanner screen, now displaying a visual rear view. "Hang tight Cassie and wait for my word!" This was the bit that took more than a little guts: I had to fly straight and level with a fighter on my tail and shooting at me. 

"Booossssss…!" Cassie screeched as a hail of laser fire smashed down our shields but the Gunboat flew right into my crosshairs and I triggered the tractor beam. Now, boosters to full reverse thrust! Once locked, the tractor beam automatically remained locked on so long as its target was in its field of movement and I made sure that the fast moving Gunboat did just that. Realising he'd overshot, the Imp pilot tried to turn back to get back onto our tail but the tractor beam was holding them steady, below and ahead at maybe two-hundred metres. It was twitching and writhing on its centre of rotation as its pilot tried to yank it free.

The power gauge for the beam weapon was dropping fast! "Cassie! Now! All we've got!" Once again, the quad blaster simply just outlasted the Gunboat's shields, penetrating them just as the tractor beam shut down. Bits of the tail structure containing its boosters and reactor were quickly shredded. Unshielded and damaged, the reactor failed almost immediately, turning the patrol ship into a blinding golden-white explosion outside the forward viewport.

"And that's two!" Cassie sounded mystified. "Not complaining Ress but… how the kriff did you do that?"

With a fresh and slick layer of sweat in between my g-suit and my skin, I just shrugged modestly. "Panic-induced inspiration and an antique starfighter with equipment that no-one uses in dogfights," I explained.

~*~*~

"Watchdog Three, this is Lead." The voice over the communication channel had the characteristic growling tones of a Duros, which meant that this was indeed Commander Surin 'Gav' Gavjunt, the Guiding Hand's fighter wing commander. "Report your status."

"Watchdog Three here, Lead; two Spikies vaped; no damage to any of the transports."

"Noted and acceptable, Second Lieutenant; take up flank escort position and prepare to return to the barn." Typical Commander Gavjunt: No praise, just acknowledgement and the next set of orders. I mean, it isn't as if I wanted effusive praise for what I'd just achieved but…

Ah shaffit, who am I kidding? Yes, I wanted effusive praise for somehow pulling me and Cassie's butts out of that particular inferno. It wasn’t coming from him though. Still, the transport crews were practically singing our praises for a while there and I figured the first round of drinks were on them back at the Pilots' Open Mess. 

Actually, being the hero was kind of cool but also weirdly embarrassing. I was just doing my job, this then transitioning smoothly to keeping myself alive and relatively intact. Honestly, I wasn't really sure if I deserved that praise.

Almost without conscious thought, I aligned my fighter around the formation of transports as ordered and set the ship's autopilot for return to base. 

"Ressel?" I looked at Cassie, who'd turned around in her gunner's chair and was looking over her shoulder at me with her usual goofball smile. "Great work, flyboy! We'll make you a space ace in no time!"

I laughed.

~*~*~

The Guiding Hand was a Nebulon-C, the largest of the EF-74 Nebulon-series of escort frigates and was different enough in equipment and capabilities that it was actually classified as a light cruiser. Instead of a single ventral equipment fin, it had two forming an open-bottomed triangle, it added an ion cannon to the type's standard weapon fit and had two launch bays below and to either side of the inter-hull dorsal. As capital ships went, it was still, something on the small side for a ship that had pretentions of being a mini-carrier. 

As a junior pilot officer, I shared a four-bunk cabin with other pilots for the ship's fairly small starfighter wing. The cabin was just about large enough for the four sleeping berths, our lockers and a single wall-mounted terminal that let me and my three bunk-mates access the ship's data network, mostly to see the day's orders and any announcements.

Just to emphasise: You could not stretch out on these bunks, no matter how short you were. Also, as by far the most junior pilot in the wing, I got the bottom bunk in the stack of two on my side of the cabin.

"Hey space-ace!" That was First Lieutenant Dak Veeves, the guy who had the bunk above mine, leaning over the edge. "So, I hear that you got a double-kill! Partly you, anyway."

That was an old taunt already and I didn't see any point to debate it. As we were on a dual-crew ship, it was standard and long-traditional protocol that Cassie and I shared any kills, so we both actually had three 'halves', or assisted victories rather than the three whole ones. Dak exclusively flew A-Wings, the two kills that he had scored were solely his. When I first came aboard the Hand, he'd promised to give me the top bunk if I ever overhauled him. I honestly wondered if that was a promise made in good faith. 

"Hey, kidding aside, that was good work man!" Jodan Cohar had spoken up, a Rybet and the bunk room's only non-human. Despite the inter-species tensions that the Empire had long fostered, Jodan was quite at ease with his human colleagues (although he had shame-facedly once told me that the 'musk' of humans took a lot of willpower to handle). The amphibioid pilot shot Dak a reproving look. "Every imp we take down is a step, right? What does it matter how it's recorded."

"Nah, fair point man, fair point," Dak said easily, leaning back on his bunk. "I guess I was wondering why such a hot-shot is still flying one of those antique junkers. Maybe Command knows something we don't?"

"Two Shift mess call!" That was a relief. I didn't know if I could handle Dak's continuing needling for much longer.

~*~*~

As I’ve already said, the Nebulon-C is pretty small for a fighter-carrying capital ship and the Z-81M is large enough that it can’t fit inside any part of the hull (except the engine module and said engines mean that there is no room in there anyway). Because of that, crews gain access through boarding ladders running through pressurised tubes and maintenance has to be carried out by various kinds of droid or by mechanics in EV suits. 

Every good pilot is personally involved in the maintenance of their bird and I’m no different. So, I was present when my crew chief, a big human who could pass for a shaved wookie, was prepping to go out in his EV suit along with a few other techs. “I’m pretty sure that there wasn’t any damage after that last flight!”

Chief Charlton grunted in response. “This might come as a shock to you, pilot, but the Rebellion isn’t made of credits and it can’t afford to provide the best equipment for every rookie, especially now Alderaan and its bankroll is gone.” I nodded and made it clear from my expression that I expected more than that. The big crew chief’s face twisted up into something resembling a smile. “Because of that, it doesn’t issue the best equipment or even full equipment to every new pilot that comes along. No point losing thousands of credits of equipment for some blaster-fodder that’ll get blown out of the sky on their first flight, right?”

“Your confidence in me is heart-chilling, Chief.”

Now the bigger man laughed. “Fortunately for you, you’ve survived enough missions that the high-ups are ready to take a risk on you. So…” He gestured to an equipment crate sitting by the airlock running along the connecting dorsal where the Sunfighters were docked (in between the A-Wing bays). It had the markings of the Freitech Corporation and a set of part numbers that I had no chance of interpreting. 

“So?”

“So we’re adding a torpedo launcher to your bird.” Charlton’s grin was a bit brutal, frankly. “Don’t make High Command regret it by getting it, and yourself, blown up on the next mission.” I shook my head. I could get the logic here and even approved of it but, shaffit, it would be nice if they at least tried to sugar-coat it!

Yes, being a Rebel wasn't all I expected it to be but, no matter how you looked at it, it was still better than Sheev Palpatine's idea of a 'new order' for the galaxy. 

Chapter 2 – Rescue Run

"Pilots, at ease." Commander Gavjunt growled. "This is not a standard patrol briefing so pay attention." Ouch, Gav; I am capable of paying attention even to routine briefings you know! I looked at my fellow semi-rookie, Pilot Officer Deeka 'Deek' Kopiko, an Aqualish male who actually was junior to me (if only by a few days). The Aqualish as a species didn't need to sweat so I couldn't entirely work out why Deek seemed to be doing so. First time of the Commander's carpet, I guessed, not that the Duros's tiny office at the forward root of the connecting dorsal was really large enough for any kind of decoration or comfort.

"You should have noticed the increasing number of Imperial interdictions of evacuation convoys over the past few weeks. High Command has decided that the only way to increase the likelihood of successful exfiltration of our front-line monitoring stations in this sector is to insert counter-interdiction forces into the station's host system itself shortly before the evacuation is due to take place to prevent Imperial raiders from interfering. For that reason you are going to be heading out away from the battle-group."

The Commander shifted some flimsies out of the way and touched a recessed control at the front of his desk. With a building hum, a small holo-emitter rose out of the desk and snapped on, showing a standard strategic map of the nearest space. "Watchdogs Three and Four will depart the task force and make the lightspeed jump to the destination system, the exact coordinates of which will remain classified until just before the jump." On the hologram, two inverted 'T' shapes indicating the two Sunfighters appeared next to the Rebel crest indicating the Guiding Hand's location and flashed to the upper-right corner of the map where a yellow wireframe sphere appeared. "Once you are in the destination system, you will set up a watch around the destination planet and eliminate any Imperial interdiction forces until such time as the evacuation convoy, made up of two GX1 Short-hauler stock light freighters, departs the system." Several Imperial crests appeared and then disappeared with spherical white flashes before two triangles appeared on the planet, off of the planet and jumped to the distant location of the Guiding Hand.

Commander Gavjunt looked levelly at us with his spooky eyes with the black-red nictating membranes. "I want this understood: It is not your mission to rack up large kill scores. As soon as the convoy is away, get out of there with a clean pair of heels if possible." The Duros officer looked through his flimsies. "Opposition should be limited to two or four Assault Gunboats but it isn't beyond the bounds of possibility that a light Imperial capital ship – probably nothing more than a corvette – might be sent instead." He looked up again. "Are there any questions?" That's my Commander: Asking for questions whilst making it abundantly clear that they are not in any way expected or welcome and he spoke again even as Deek seemed to be trying to get up the nerve to ask a question. I felt that I had to ask, no matter how unwelcome it might be. "Sir, do we know how the Empire knows where to find our convoys so precisely?"

The Duros looked at me levelly. "That is outside the scope of this mission, Lieutenant. However, I believe that I can reveal that it is the subject of an urgent counter-intelligence investigation even as we speak." He looked down at some of his ever-present avalanche-in-waiting of flimsies. "The countdown has already begun so get to your ships."

As we exited the office, Deek turned to me and started speaking. Aqualish 'speak' using two resonating chambers roughly where a mouth would be on a humanoid or similar species and it sounds like a series of painful heaves, chokes and grunts. However, I had been given a UTrans implant when I joined the Rebellion and instead heard: <<Do you think this is as simple as he says?>>

"Oh, it's simple from a tactical point of view. That doesn't mean that it's going to be easy for us to execute it."

Deek seemed to swallow nervously, which for a species that ingested nutrients using a cluster of external digestive tentacles on the abdomen that liquefied food and absorbed it osmotically, was quite an achievement. <<Lieutenant, I'm asking whether this is going to be safe!>>

I chuckled. "Deek, we're starfighter pilots. They wouldn't send us if it was 'safe'." I looked at the very obviously nervous other pilot and gave him a brotherly light punch on the shoulder. "Look, we're doing this together. You just stick to me and keep your eyes open. I'll be with you every step of the way." I hoped that the rookie would get his nerve if things went bad (and my gut said it would) or me and Cassie were going to be doing two crews' work on our own.

~*~*~

"Okay, power from umbilical to Energiser One." I held the switch on my overhead engineering panel over to the left and watched as the red LEDs on the energiser's charge indicator snapped on one after the other. Theoretically, an energiser start took only 50% charge but there was no rush so I waited until the second yellow LED was on before I pushed the switch over the other direction. "Charging Energiser Two, starting Energiser One." I flipped back the safety gate to unlock the igniter, flipped up a second safety gate and pressed the ignition switch for the left-hand reactor. There was a light shudder as the hypermatter rotor revved up, beginning to gobble liquid ionic sodium fuel and the rate at which Energiser Two was charging increased. "Safety umbilical; starting Energiser Two."

In front of me, Cassie was reading her own consoles. "Charging cannon capacitors… Charging shield capacitors… aaannnd charging beam weapon capacitors." There was a brief snort as she considered her status panel in between her knees. "All warheads loaded too; a whole two proton torpedoes, lucky girl that I am!"

I finished my checklist, making sure that power was being fed to the engines and hyperdrive. "Everything is on internals. Firing booster one… and booster two." I opened the channel to the Guiding Hand's sub-vessel flight operations station. "Barndoor, this is Watchdog Zero Three. We're ready to detach and manoeuvre."

"Copy that Watchdog Three, you are clear to detach and manoeuvre at your discretion."

I changed channel. "Watchdog Four, this is Three; Deek, are you ready?"

<<Spacecraft systems ready, Lieutenant.>>

"He's not a total rookie you know, Ress?" I looked up from my flight control panel at Cass. She smiled at me over her seat. "This is his fourth mission; he's just never had enemy contact before."

I briefly thought of saying something profound but thought better of it. In the end, any combat pilot has to face their first blooding at some point; the most I could do is maximise his chance of surviving it. "Okay Four, detach and turn onto departure heading cherek." I grasped my flight control yoke and pressed the buttons on the top of both sides, the simultaneous press unlocking the docking clamps holding the Sunfighter to the Guiding Hand and letting four spring-loaded plungers push the patrol ship down and away. I pushed forward the throttles and yawed out to the left and pitched down slightly. Watching the rear scanner screen, I watched as Deek carried out the same manoeuvre with his own ship. Good: There was no wing-waggle or difficulty in controlling the acceleration. As Cassie had not-so-subtly reminded me, he wasn't a total rookie and I didn't need to micro-manage.

"Barn-door, this is Watchdog Three; ready to copy jump coordinates." I watched as a stream of aurabesh alphanumerical characters flowed across the data screen. Jump origin and destination points as well as anticurve angles in four dimensional planes and turn waypoints. Very few of them in this case; there weren't any gravitational anomalies in a jump of only a few dozen light-years, barely a milli-parsec duration. Not having an astromech on these old pre-Clone Wars patrol ships meant that I had to rely on the navi-computer to verify them but it didn't take much longer. So smooth that you wouldn't think that I qualified as a star pilot only a month ago and that this was only my third ever jump in a pilot's seat. "Coordinates set; Four, you got them?"

<<All input and verified, Three.>>

"Okay then; set up for the jump to lightspeed on my mark. Remember your SOP – Deflectors up before you jump." I touched a small lever on my overhead engineering panel. "Three, two, one, mark!" I pulled the lever back and, outside the hardened viewports, the star-field turned into streaks of light and then into the whirling blue, white and indigo tunnel of hyperspace. Almost as soon as it started, I was pushing the levers back forward and the streaks of light shortened back into stars. Ahead, our destination zipped into visual range as the last few percentage points of lightspeed bled off.

"Nice place," Cassie remarked. That was sarcasm, of course. There are hundreds of billions of worlds in the galaxy. The vast majority of them are uninhabited and uninhabitable. Unless they are rich in a valuable resource or were first mapped by an important person, they don't normally rate names. For this reason, the dull muddy-red medium-sized icy cold desert planet orbiting a cool red dwarf star was known only by an obscure catalogue reference: RSC12C-12445-II according to the navi-computer. I decided to think of it as 12445-II for ease of reference.

I looked up from my console at the sarcastically grinning Cassie. "Well, if you want a secret base, I don't think that you'd normally want some bustling vacation spot at the bright centre of the universe."

<<Lieutenant, should we hail the base?>>

Yeah, let's let the Imps know that something is worth finding here or, if they're already looking, let them know that it's here. "Negative, Four; maintain communications silence, keep sensors on passive and stay on my wing." Harsh, but he should know better.

As we swept in closer and closer, I immediately noticed that we weren't alone. The object on my scanner at first looked like a Gorzanti-class light cruiser, a mass-produced medium freighter and one of Corellian Star Yards' biggest money spinners next to the YT-1300 series. However, it was almost immediately apparent that this was something else. "We're picking up bounce-backs from targeting sensors, Boss!" Cassie called out. "It looks like they're trying to find the monitoring base for an orbital bombardment!" This was a Gorzanti-IIM, known to the Empire as an Armed Auxiliary Escort, basically a military transport with two dual light turbolaser turrets and several close-in defence lasers. More importantly, it has four external 'hotshoes' for everything from starfighters up to drop-ships for AT-AT walkers. Personally, I didn't think that this ship's intention was destruction, they'd already be shooting. What they were trying to do was pin down the station crew so that they could land an assault force to capture them.

I rammed the throttle up to emergency maximum, trusting in the order of 'stay on my wing' to persuade Deek to keep up.

Cassie was frantically checking her sensors. "Looks like they've launched two Eyeballs, boss. They're heading down towards the location of the monitoring station!"

I knew immediately that the real purpose of that was to stop the evacuation shuttles from launching. "There's no way we'll be able to overhaul them; let's give them something else to worry about. Switch to warheads and give them a double-tap." I triggered the communications channel to Deek. "Four, set your deflectors to double-front and attack my target!" I immediately switched the targeting sensors to 'active'. As I'd expected, the Gorzanti responded almost immediately. It took a few seconds for its turbolasers to swing around to face us but the laser turrets on our side of the hull began to fire at once, sending emerald tracers lashing out at us.

"Targeting sensors have a lock; getting a signal!" Cassie reported. "Ten seconds to firing range."

"Three…!"

"Stay loose and stay on target Deek! Cassie, you're weapons free on this one!"

I checked my own sensor repeaters; the Eyeballs had broken off from their attack runs on the station and were ascending again. We were close enough to the capital ship that I could see that there were two DX9 short-range assault shuttles on the Gorzanti's remaining occupied hotshoes. Gee; it was good to realise that I'd worked out the tactical situation. However, I couldn't shake the feeling that this might lead to some unwelcome surprises. "Deek, keep up your scanning; they might call up some Assault Gunboats for support!"

"Almost there… Almost… Torpedo lock!" Cassie moved her thumb onto the button on the back of her gunnery control yoke and pressed twice, sending two blue-red sparks flashing out of the new warhead launcher on the right-hand side of the main hull. "They're away!"

I didn't wait or waste time on verbiage; I hauled the yoke to the left and began to roll and weave to get out of the way of the ever-strengthening Imperial counter-fire. On the MTP, I saw Deek's Sunfighter launch its own warheads and, impressively, continue to follow my course as I'd ordered.

The Gorzanti is basically a modified medium freighter and doesn't have the toughest shields in the galaxy. Two proton torpedoes is, frankly, a bit of overkill but the Imperial capship wasn't a sitting target and proved it. One of my torpedoes and one of Deek's fell victim to its defence lasers but the other two go through and slammed into its shields. My shot collapsed them and Deek's torpedo slammed into the hull at mid-length. A huge golden fist of fire exploded out of the impact and the ship's internal lights and boosters both faded for a moment before returning to normal levels.

Inverting relative to the Gorzanti, I pulled the yoke to my chest to reverse course and the Imperial turbolaser fire from the ship's ventral turret tracked me. "Target the underside turret and then the centreline engine Cass! Deek, you're weapons free; attack at will!"

"Got it boss!"

<<Complying, Three!>>

The police ship's nose turret was sending a continue stream of blaster bolts up-range on single fire mode as the turret tried to track us. Its' ray shields held for a split second but couldn't hold forever. The turret structure seemed to swell for a moment before exploding with a fist of flame that boiled out into the night. Cassie then re-targeted and the blaster cannon started tearing a track of explosions down the ship's centreline sublight booster. Taking a peek out of my side window, I saw Deek's ship carrying out the same move on the left-hand booster.

"Boss, Eyeballs coming up!"

I nodded. "Four, break and engage the Eyeballs; I'm right behind you!"

We both shot away from the burning Gorzanti and towards the two TIE Fighters. They were invisible at this distance but the scanner was showing that they were just clearing the top of the thin film of carbon dioxide and argon that 12445-II laughingly excused as an atmosphere.

Behind me, the Gorzanti's gunners were briefly stymied. If they kept shooting at me and my wingman, they might hit their fighters. It would take their captain a few seconds to decide whether to take that risk and it gave us the chance we needed to get into engagement range with the Eyeballs.

Maybe a few months back and I would probably have been a lot more afraid to be in this situation. The TIE/ln TIE Fighter was, for nearly two decades, the starfighter – blindingly fast and agile and, thanks to its lack of other tactical systems to drain the charge from its gun capacitors, able to chew its way through shields given enough time (and that is only seconds). To get a TIE Fighter on your tail was to die, or so most independent pilots thought. However, time with more experienced pilots and time in the sims had taught me to understand them a bit better.

Now, there's no doubt that, in a Sunfighter (which, as I've said before, turns like a nerf), having a far more agile fighter with fast-firing guns on your tail is a bad day. However, head-on, most of the TIE Fighter's advantages are negated. The Sunfighter's nose turret is actually a little bit more powerful than the TIE Fighter's twin guns and with the Eyeball lacking shields and all but the most rudimentary armour, its only defence is to use its agility to stay out of your firing arc until it can get behind you.

Cassie is a very precise and very skilled gunner. As the two TIE Fighters broke to either side of my approach vector, I just needed to roll to keep my narrow edge aligned with the nearest Eyeball's flight path. Cassie did all the rest and I saw the opal blaster bolts slam into the rim of the viewport and the solar array pylon's root and turn the fighter into a bright fireball.

Deek was a lot closer to his Eyeball than me but his gunner obviously was a much greener and missed with several wild volleys. The TIE Fighter broke high and began to barrel-roll, clearly intending to try to get into his vulnerable six. Deek then showed his qualifications by rolling to let his gunner fire on the turning TIE Fighter and one of the two quadinium solar arrays was shed away, its support spines reduced to a blazing skeleton.

I had no intention of playing the slacked-jawed spectator and was already heading back for the Gorzanti as its close-in weapons and its dorsal turbolasers began to fire again. "Hit the bridge, Cass!"

The Imperial escort's shields were just beginning to recharge but it wasn't enough with the blasters on single-shot mode. Once again, the blasts tracked fire across the hull, this time by the wide arc of viewports at the front of the hull. I doubt that the attack destroyed anything but it did disable their flight controls and, this close to 12445-II and with only one booster fully functional, the off-axis thrust send the converted transporter heeling over into the planet's gravity well, completely out of control.

"Boom! That's a capship kill!" Cassie yelled excitedly.

"Three from Four; hostile eliminated." Deek's translated voice paused for a moment.

"Looks like the evacuation is happening Ress!"

I checked my scanner and saw what it was that I wanted to see: The trace for a GX1 Short-hauler light freighter rising away from the station. "Evacuation transports, this is Watchdog Zero Three!" I signalled. "We've probably got more Imps inbound guys. Make your jump when you reach minimum distance from the gravity well!"

"You don't need to tell us twice, Three. Calculating lightspeed jump now!"

Deek, slightly further out from the planet and thus with a wider field of view for his scanners replied with some very unwelcome news. "Three, this is Four. I'm picking up multiple starfighter-class hyperdrive egress traces!"

I looked at my sensor and, yes, as was predicted by the briefing, there were the traces of four Assault Gunboats coming in. "I don't like these odds, boss!" Cass hissed as the four Spikies poured on the speed, trying to get to engagement range as fast as they could.

I wasn't about to disagree. I was already stabbing figures into the navicomputer. "Deek, lay in your return trajectory, break off and return to base!"

There was a pause. "Sir, shouldn't we at least attempt to engage the new hostiles?"

"Our orders were to get the evacuation underway and then withdraw, Four. There's no need to go into fights with the odds stacked that high where we stand right now."

I think that the Aquilash pilot was on a bit of a high after shooting down the Eyeball and getting the assist on the Gorzanti (which was now descending into the atmosphere trailing ionised atmosphere from its leading edges with no sign of recovering from the dive). However, he was clearly disciplined enough not to lose his focus. "Calculating jump now, sir." Good boy.

"Evac One to Watchdog Three; bugging out now!" There was a blur of pseudomotion and the two GX1s vanished into hyperspace.

I reached for my own hyperdrive controls as the electronic sensor signal repeaters on my console showed that one or more of the Gunboats was trying to lock on its laser targeting system. "Watchdog Four, this is Three. Match vectors and make your jump to lightspeed!"

"Complying."

I levelled off my trajectory to radially away from 12445-II, a few hopeful long-range laser shots flashing by far behind me. I pulled back on the lever and the star-field turned into streaks of light and into an indigo, white and blue bottomless whirlpool.

Chapter 3 – Interception

I wasn't expecting any real praise or more than the normal acknowledgement from Gav. However, I did feel a bit vindicated when the Duros officer gravely noted that he approved of my decision to withdraw when I did. "In all likelihood, there was another capital ship with light fighters following behind those Assault Gunboats. Whilst you may have been able to destroy them, continuing in the zone of operations would have been rapidly become unnecessarily more dangerous." At that point, I was shocked to receive an awkward pat on the shoulder. "You are becoming a useful enough asset that the Rebellion could not afford your destruction for no real purpose, Second Lieutenant Terrek."

~*~*~

I don't mind saying that I was on a bit of a high from that approval as I went into the mess for my post-mission ration-pack. Being in the Rebellion didn't mean a luxurious lifestyle but they knew enough to keep their fighting crews fed and watered as needed.

"So, I hear that you got lucky, Ress!"

I looked over at Dak Veeves, who was leaning over my mess table with a supercilious smile that just failed to hide an odd element to his voice and body language. Oh yeah, I was now credited with four 'assisted' kills on a starfighter and one on a capital ship. Technically, that put me parallel to him on the kill board.

"If that's how you want to think about it, Dak, yeah. So, ready to swap bunks?" Eh, maybe I shouldn't have needled him like that but there was no point trying to wish away the past.

The other pilot had the oddest look on his face. "Don't get too cocky, Terrek. You haven't done anything without the help of your pretty turret jockey and don't you forget it!"

I blinked at the other pilot. Firstly, I didn't realise that this was some kind of competition with official rules. Secondly, I didn't get why the fact that the Sunfighter has a separate gunner station somehow invalidated the work its crew did together as a team and, thirdly: "Dak, seriously, what is this about?"

"There's only room for one top ace on this ship!" Dak snapped and then his mouth closed with an audible 'click' of teeth. So, was that it? He needed to be the best of his little kingdom because… I don't know: self-validation?

I honestly didn't know what to think or say. I never imagined that you could have that level of unprofessionalism in a military force but, thinking about it, it wasn't as if the Rebellion could pick and choose if a volunteer turned out to be psychologically marginal or something. I suppose that I might have come up with something if the alert siren had not begun to shriek loudly. "All fighter crews to your ships! Imperial attack force approaching!"

Just something to note here: As already discussed, the Rebellion wasn't exactly awash with qualified or even semi-qualified pilots. Although I was primarily tasked with flying the Sunfighter police craft, I was also on the roster for the Guiding Hand's compliment of RZ-1 Spearheads, known colloquially as 'A-Wings' due to their resemblance of their planform to the first character of the aurabesh script. I am not normally on patrol rotation for these ships but, for a general defensive launch like this, that's where you'll find me.

This would be only my second real-life flight in an A-Wing, by the way. Going into harm's way too; which reminds me again that the Rebellion is not and never will be a low-risk peacetime employer, no matter how close or far you are from the front line!

Our argument forgotten, Dak and I were already running for the access arms to the Guiding Hand's to flank hanger bays.

~*~*~

As I scrambled to pull on my flight helmet, my crew chief was just dragging himself out of the A-Wing's cockpit, having started prepping the fighter's systems the moment that the alarms started. When you had an alert launch like this (known for reasons long forgotten as a 'scramble') speed was everything. You needed fighters out there and now, not when they'd finished their checklist. Hell, even buckling in was a luxury, which is why two ground crew were already buckling up my seat restraints almost before I was into my fighter's seat. As they jumped out of the way, I reached out for the canopy close lever.

"Barndoor, this is Thatchback Nine! Ready for launch!"

"Received, Nine, launch and break left to zero-eight-zero at maximum speed."

I exchanged a salute with my crew chief and quickly verified all the A-Wing's systems were nominal. Then I reached forward to pull the two levers on either side of the 'hump' under the main instrument console in between my legs. There was a 'thud' as the two spring-loaded docking clamps opened and the A-Wing dropped through the magnetic field into the vacuum under the Guiding Hand's left-hand hanger pod. As instructed, I rammed the throttles for the fighter's ludicrously-overpowered sublight boosters forwards and pushed my control stick to the left.

I emerged, basically as I'd expected, into a firestorm. The Imperial attack force wasn't that large: Two CR-92 Assassin-class corvettes and a pair of Gozanti-IIM armed auxiliary escorts but what really caught my eye was the fact that the sky was filled with Imperial fighters: About twenty TIE Fighters and Assault Gunboats and at least four TIE Bombers. Meanwhile, the Guiding Hand and her three escorting CR-90 Consular-class corvettes were exchanging turbolaser fire with the Imperial capital ships at what was basically back-alley vibroknife-fighting range. The sky with was filled with blinding red and green turbolaser blasts and the occasional sapphire blue ion cannon blast from the Guiding Hand's chin-mounted single ion cannon turret.

"Alert, alert! All fighters, you have eyeballs coming in! Six marks at eighty-ten!" That audible warning from Watchtower was joined by the laser targeting alert from my ESM (Electronic Scan Monitor) computer and a red light blinked on my HUD.

My response was more-or-less instantaneous and instinctive. I pulled up my fighter's nose and began to barrel-roll, trying to throw off the enemy's targeting sensors. Emerald laser fire roared past the canopy, one shot glancing off of my forward shields as my A-Wing and the six TIE Fighters shot past each other so close that I could have probably touched them. I hauled back on the control stick and, as the TIE Fighters appeared ahead, I squirted off a hail of shots from my twin lasers. An un-aimed shot in these conditions was never likely to hit but it had the effect of making the Imp pilots scatter.

In space there is no noise but my hindbrain still filled in a roar of wind as the Guiding Hand's flight pods and dorsal shot by above me again.

My hands shot to my controls, taking the moment's reprieve to set power balances and system settings. Laser recharge to 40%, shield recharge to maintenance, engines to 40%. Link the fighter's twin RG9 laser cannon to synchronised fire.

Things were happening too fast to easily follow. The Guiding Hand was slowly closing with an Assassin-class corvette, close by one of the Gorzanti-IIMs; the sky between them was thick with turbolaser fire. "All ships mayday! Outward Vigilance under starfighter attack." I looked at my MTP to see that a pair of TIE Bombers was closing with the most distant of the task force, a CR-90 corvette. Fortunately (if only by blind chance) I was in the right part of the formation and was going in the right direction. I took power from my laser capacitor and diverted it to the A-Wing's boosters, piling on the speed.

As the range spooled down rapidly, I switched my weapon selection to my fighter's twin warhead launchers and locked onto the leading 'Deuce', as we rebel pilots called the TIE Bomber. One of the most ludicrous designs to come out of Seinar Fleet Systems, the TIE/sa bomber was a slow, unwieldy spacecraft that, puzzlingly, had no easy means of self-defence against fighters from the rear which, when it was designed, was surely the most obvious threat it would face.

The slowly rising tone in my headset suddenly turned into a harsh and repeated bleep and I squeezed the fire trigger. A concussion interception missile shot out of my left-hand launch tube and I followed up by switching back to my lasers and spraying shots in between the two bombers, making them break off their runs both with the CR-90's close defence lasers and turbolasers tracking ruby red fire in their wake.

Every good pilot knows that staying straight-and-level in a combat zone is asking for a quick death and so I immediately began to dodge and weave to try to prevent anyone from getting a lock on me rather than observe the effectiveness of my missile attack. It was a good thing that I did because, suddenly, emerald green laser fire was trying to tag me. I looked over my shoulder and saw a TIE Fighter trying to slot into my six.

"Thatchback Nine, good shot! Splash on that Deuce!" Well, that was gratifying; I even saw out of the corner of my eye the orange explosion as the Deuce was hit and went tumbling away whilst trailing fire and debris.

However, I had other things on my mind. The Eyeball and I were in a dogfight and that was something in which I didn't have any real-world experience. I kept switching my throttles up and down, pitching and rolling as I tried to cut across the Imperial fighter's flight path. Much to my shock, I was doing a lot better than I'd expected. It was then that I remembered that the A-Wing was as agile as the TIE Fighter; even more agile in fact. This realisation in mind, I switched from random jinks and rolls to a more focussed series of orthodox dog-fighting tactics and I quickly found myself on the Eyeball's six. The targeting reticule on my HUD went green to indicate a good deflection angle and I squeezed the firing trigger again.

Seinar never intended for the TIE Fighter to have much in the way of survivability; without superior agility, the type was a flying coffin and he now got his wish. Blood red linked fire from my RG9s tore up the Eyeball's twin engines and its rear viewport. A half-second later, the back of the fighter blew off and the burning remains carried on for a few klicks before breaking apart.

If I weren’t so focussed on avoiding the hail of laser fire from one of the Gorzantis, I'd probably have been excited at a second kill but, as it was, I continued to have other things to think about. I was looking for a moment when I could switch from flying evasively to look at my MTP. Things seemed to be going well; the Imps had come in with a numerical advantage in terms of starfighters but it looked like only two A-Wings had been lost so far and the Imps were down to one third of their original numbers…

At that moment, another Eyeball vanished from the display. Things were getting even better!

As I focussed on getting back towards the active end of the battle and the rest of the enemy, the sky beyond the Guiding Hand went gold, then white and faded to yellow and red fire amidst tumbling debris as one of the Imperial corvettes exploded. The odds were now rapidly turning against the Imperial strike force and they began to turn and accelerate away from the engagement zone, their remaining fighters and bombers trying to protect their retreat. The Guiding Hand and the corvette Emancipation-VIII had turned the full weight of their fire on a Gorzanti-IIM and the escort was burning and beginning to break up as more and more turbolaser blasts detonated in its unshielded hull and guts.

Meanwhile, I was still trying to get close enough to target the remaining fighters but the other A-Wings were closer yet. I was just beginning to consider using my remaining concussion missile on one of the more distant fighters when, with a flash of pseudomotion, the last Assassin, burning from several turbolaser hits along its oblong hull, was gone, leaving behind the last semi-intact Gorzanti; the other one was now slowly disintegrating as internal explosions wracked it from end to end. The remaining Gorzanti, was surrounded and being menaced with four-to-one odds.

"All Alliance ships, cease fire!" I heard the Commodore announce on the general com frequency, monitored by all ships. "Imperial crews, this is the Republic Star Cruiser Guiding Hand, you will surrender and abandon your ships or we will destroy you."

There was a brief pause before a very young-sounding and panicked Core Sectors male voice replied. "Message received, Guiding Hand! We are abandoning ship! Please do not fire on our escape pods!"

"Safe ejection guaranteed," was the Commodore's authoritative response. "We will not interfere with your recovery of any starfighter crews who have bailed out." That was the difference between Rebel and Imperial commanders of course. The Imps would by now 'plinking' escape pods for sport and that was another one of the things that I loathed about the Empire.

The abrupt end of the battle meant that I was suddenly flying through open space with the occasional sound of debris bouncing off of my cockpit canopy. All the fear and exhilaration of the battle was no longer pumping through my system and… It was weird how strangely dazed and unbelieving I felt at having survived my first pitched battle as the immense 'down' hit me and hit me hard.

"Watchtower to all fighters: You are cleared for immediate RTB. We are preparing for an emergency lightspeed jump. All friendly EVs, turn on your locator beacons." Yeah, actually I bet that we were preparing to bug out. That was a small force and it was pretty obvious that reinforcements, maybe even a Star Destroyer, were on their way as a follow-up.

~*~*~

The fleet made the jump to lightspeed without any issues, leaving behind one Imperial Lambda-T4a utility shuttle that was trying to pick up all the surviving Imperial pilots whilst the escape pods from the Gorzantis huddled together for mutual protection.

As I hauled myself out of my A-Wing's cockpit, I got a friendly wrist-grasp from Chief Charlton. "Good flying kid! I knew you were worth the high-ups taking a risk on you!"

I was pulling off my helmet, I was surprised to see Cassie in the connecting dorsal, also in her flight suit. As well as being a brilliant gunner, she was also a qualified shuttle pilot and had apparently been recovering friendly pilots who'd gone EV. "Did we lose many?"

"No fatalities, Boss. You'll be interested to hear that a certain wannabe space ace got in too close to one of the capships and had to bail out." The blonde woman grinned viciously. "The bad news is that Dak Veeves is still okay to fly!"

I wasn't sure what to think about that!

~*~*~

After a surprisingly long time in hyperspace, the Guiding Hand and her three consorts arrived in a system seemingly made up of asteroid fields swinging around a faint red dwarf star. The system already had some Rebel occupants in the form of a Clone Wars-era Pelta-class frigate. a Sphyrna-class 'hammerhead' corvette and a pair of G-73 medium freighters, a version of the GR-75 with a fully-pressurised and enclosed payload bay. Obviously, High Command had decided to consolidate its forces now that the Empire was getting ever more serious about hunting our patrols.

Or maybe it was more than that? Not being in a command position meant that I knew frustratingly little about what was going on even at the task force's tactical level.

"So, did you hear what happened with Veeves?" Cassie was very excited about having some gossip to share. I turned from observing the fleet manoeuvres out of the panoramic viewport of the crew lounge (which served as the main ward on the hospital frigate version of the EF-74) to look at the grinning blonde spacer woman.

I didn't like Dak very much because of his condescension. Cassie hated him, partly because he belittled her position and contribution to the missions and mostly because she didn't like the way he disrespected basically everyone. I sighed gently. "What happened?"

"He must have got some kind of brain-misfire because of our ascent up the kill board. So, he tried to take on the leading Imp capship single-handed and got blown out of the sky! I still don't know how he managed to bail out in one piece!" Cassie made a reflective 'hum' noise. "He wasted all of his concussion missiles trying to kill that CR-92 too; the Wing Commander wasn't happy with that." Oh, I'm sure that he wasn't. Wasted warheads were the worst kind of offence to Gav and it would be a black mark on Dak's record, at least for this patrol group.

Speak of the Sith, the man himself, clearly stiff from his ejection and the resulting ten to fifteen minutes drifting in the dread cold vacuum of space, shuffled into the bar. He took a bee line towards me and I shot Cassie a warning glare as I threw back the remainder of my shipboard beer before addressing the scowling black-haired pilot. "Dak, good to see you're okay."

The other pilot drew in a shaky breath; it was obvious from his expression that my concern wasn't welcome or even really taken into consideration as he started with his own direction of the conversation. "Enjoy your time ahead, Terrek," he spat. "I'm not giving you that bunk because, on my next mission, I'm overhauling you again. You're not getting to be an ace ahead of me!" The other pilot, who clearly thought that he was destined to be some kind of hero, then stomped away, wincing in an unflattering way every time his sore leg muscles moved too violently.

As he stormed away, Cassie came distractingly close up to my side, shaking her head sadly at the display she'd just witnessed. "Competitive, isn't he?" she remarked dryly. She looked at me and grinned. "Pick up your jaw, boss. You'll catch flies groundside otherwise!" She shook her head. "Look, Boss, seriously now. Don't bother to try to make peace with Veeves. There is only one pilot on this tub that's worth shaffit to him and that's him." She grit her teeth. "I know the breed; you can only hope that he doesn't kill too many friendlies before he kills himself!"

I shot my partner a concerned look in response. I was hoping that she was exaggerating; Dak wasn’t that stupid or crazy, was he?

However, Dak's monomaniac focus had reminded me of something that I hadn't bothered to look at simply because my thinking had been too badly shaken by the battle. The kill-board wasn't official in any way but it nonetheless showed all the pilots officially-recognised 'scores' (if you want to call it that). Two slots above Dak's name was my name: Two kills, four assists and a capship. Not bad, for a kid from a nowhere mid-disc world with only a dozen missions under his belt!

The arrival of other ships had given me the oddest feeling that things were getting much hotter. I would very quickly find it was right when I found orders to attend a special operation briefing the following dawn (ship's time).

Chapter 4 – Burning the Bridges Behind

"Attention on deck!" the white-haired human marine snapped as Commander Gavjunt walked into the Guiding Hand's only briefing room: Right at the top of the ship's forward hull with a 'dome' with viewports around the sloped sides, looking up into the star-field. Everyone jumped to their feet and quite a collection it was. As well as me and Cassie, Deek was there with his gunner as was Dak and the rest of the pilots from his A-Wing flight section and some unidentified pilots with the markings of the Pelta-class frigate, the RSC Mercy's Wings.

"At ease," the wing commander growled although anyone who had experience with the being knew that he didn't mean it. The holo-projector at the centre of the circular room clicked on as Gav touched a control on the dais in front of him and a 2 metres-wide strategic map of the sector appeared in the geometric centre of the dome. "As I've heard from several pilots in the past few weeks, there is concern as to how the Empire is locating our monitoring bases and forward operating bases so effectively so that they can interdict planned evacuations. Counter-intelligence is working on several leads but the Guiding Hand and her fighters have been tasked with verifying just one of those possibilities.

"Intelligence is concerned that the Empire has developed a way of recover data from computer cores even if we have hard-wiped the data storage media. For that reason, we are starting a process of ensuring that the cores are not salvageable."

"Blowing them up, in other words," Cassie whispered. I nodded and wondered how this affected us.

"Unfortunately, this strategic decision was only made after several imperilled locations were evacuated." Gav pressed another control and the display zoomed onto a system to the lower-left of the display with a binary pair of a red 'carbon' star and a dull magenta deuterium-burning 'failed star'. "The Tridal System; our former combined monitoring station and FOB on the north-east continent of the third world orbiting the carbon star is a particularly tempting target; it is only blind chance that the Empire has not begun tearing it apart for information already.

"The Mercy's Wings has brought with her a commando team with demolitions specialists and some slicers. Their mission will be to ensure that the base there is unusable to the Empire. However, we cannot ignore the possibility that Imperial forces are either already in place or will be there shortly." The display zoomed again until the wire-frame globe with the label 'Tridal-III' filled the middle of the display. Two red triangles and a half-dozen TIE Fighter silhouettes appeared hovering over the flashing blue star representing the abandoned base. "This will be a magnum attack, gentlebeings. Two Sunfighters from Watchdog and two DX9 shuttles will fly to the planet with four A-Wings from Thatchback Squadron as escorts. Once there, any Imperial presence must be eliminated." The two triangles flashed out of existence as the blue inverted-Ts shot past before descending with blue oblongs clearly representing the shuttles. Meanwhile, the blue silhouettes of A-Wing fighters flew up to the TIE Fighter silhouettes and those red marks vanished too.

Gav turned his attention from the display to the assembled pilots and gunners. "Once any Imperial space presence is suppressed, Watchdogs Three and Four will cover the two shuttles' landings, assist in the elimination of any heavy Imperial ground forces and leave the way clear for the commandoes to complete their mission." Gav shook his head. "This is a time-limited mission. Once you engage the Imperial space-forces, there will be only a short period before overwhelming reinforcements arrive. I'm sure that I do not need to remind you that the commandoes are elite ground units and are not in any way 'expendable'… not that any of our meagre forces can be described that way. Once the commandoes' mission is complete, you must withdraw from the system as a matter of urgency."

I wondered if I was the only one who saw Dak roll his eyes and visibly mutter: "Run? Yeah, only when I'm done with racking up kills!" It turned out that I wasn't, or if I was, the Wing Commander had been thinking ahead, as shocking as the outcome of that was for me.

"Second Lieutenant Terrek will command this mission." The Duros's red-membraned eyes locked onto mine. "He must be considered to be speaking with my authority and, post-mission, I will be reviewing his performance."

Dak Veeves was on his feet with almost blurring speed. "Sir, with respect…" Wow! I've never heard a word uttered with such an opposite to its meaning! "Terrek is still a relatively junior pilot whilst I have more experience and far better one-on-one mission performance! Why is he being given command?"

Gav stared at Dak silently for just long enough that I was pretty sure that the human pilot had started to sweat. "It may come as a surprise to you Mister Veeves but I am not in the habit of justifying my command decisions. However, to ensure that no-one shares these doubts, Lieutenant Terrek has impressed me with his thoughtful tactics and measured responses. The nature of this mission requires this rather than the undisciplined behaviour of a… hmm, what do you humans call them…? Ah, yes, of a 'hotshot'." The Duros kept his gaze on Dak until the young human, grimacing with mortified embarrassment, sat down again.

"Ouch; someone's gonna need burn treatment!" Cassie whispered.

"If there are no more… 'questions'… then report to your ships and may the Force be with you."

~*~*~

My first mission command! Well, technically, I'd been the commander before but never of more than a flight of two ships. Commanding such a large mission with so many ships was something utterly new and I wasn't enjoying the feeling at all. Actually, I was sweating so hard that I felt that I was pretty close to dehydrating as the tunnel of a lightspeed jump dropped into starlines and then into a star-field and the pink and white ice world of Tridal-III expanded into being before us. As the last of our jump velocity bled off, the A-Wings formed up ahead of the Sunfighters and shuttles in a perfect 'diamond four' formation.

I sucked in a breath before toggling the squad-com all-ships frequency. "Watchdog Three to all ships: Report in."

"Grey 4; standing by."

"Beige 7; standing by."

"This is Beige 6; standing by."

"Beige 8; standing by."

"Shuttle 2 standing by."

"Shuttle 1 standing by."

"… This is Beige 5."

I didn't miss that Dak had responded off established communications protocol and with the clear impression that he wasn't waiting for orders, at least not from me. I hoped that this wasn't a bad omen for the mission. "All ships observe communication silence and maintain formation; passive sensors only for now."

Cassie looked over her shoulder, her face 'bad news blank'. "I'm seeing lots of activity closer to the planet, Boss." I checked my MTP and she was right. Two light Imperial capital ships (a CR-92 Assassin and a Gorzanti-IIM) were in orbit right where the briefing said they'd be in stationary orbit above the base, making any kind of entry and landing hazardous. There were also six TIE Fighters, again more-or-less where the briefing had predicted. Damn, was intelligence recruiting precogs now?

My mind raced to create tactics but that was a bit too long for Dak's patience… and may be too long for his ambition. "Beige 5 goin' in! See you later you losers, I've got a battle to win!" The A-Wing is fast; even more so if you're willing to dump your laser and shield charge power into the boosters. Dak clearly was doing just that. With that stupid transmission on an open channel and the sudden thermal bloom from Dak's boosters, all hope for a surprise attack was lost.

"What…? Five, get back here!" Dak didn't respond, which didn’t surprise me. "All Beige ships, stay with him and try to keep him alive!" I looked up at Cassie. "Cass, arm proton torpedoes and target the Assassin! Four, your target is the Gorzanti! Set your shields on double front and divert gun charge power to your boosters!"

I was already following my own orders and my Sunfighter was accelerating towards the Imperial formation far faster than one might expect. The two capital ships started spitting turbolaser and laser fire at us. "Hang on tight, Cass; this is probably going to get rough." There was a loud 'ting' noise as one laser shot hit the dorsal shields, knocking a quarter off of the strength.

"Lead, this is Six! That Gorzanti has just launched two Bricks!" 'Brick' was Rebel pilot slang for the TIE/ad TIE Avenger escort fighter – a reference to its box-like inwardly-curved and elongated solar panel pylons and a beaver tail at the rear that made the spheroid TIE-type pressure hull look more like a trapezoid. The big fighter, the fourth and largest product of the TIE Advanced program, had shields, hyperdrive and double the gun capacity plus two warhead launchers and it still was as agile as the X-Wing. Their presence could cause us some serious problems. "Beige Five and Six, this is Grey Three, focus on the Bricks and don't try taking them on alone!" Whether or not Dak would listen was anyone's guess at this point but I had my orders out there and on the record.

Cassie, to her credit, was always a professional in these situations. She transferred power from the blaster capacitors to the shields, bringing their strength almost up to maximum. "What's the fire plan boss?"

"Double-tap them Cassie and then follow up with a strafing run; target the command section!"

"Ha! That's one! You watching this, Terrek?" I thought about telling Dak not to use names on open channels but why waste my breath? Still, as long as the A-Wings were killing fighters, I suppose complaining would be mostly wounded pride. So, I focussed on keeping a weaving approach whilst keeping the Imperial corvette in the warhead targeting 'cone' ahead and twenty degrees to either side of the long axis.

Cassie was keeping her eyes focussed on her targeting scope. "Almost there… almost… They're away!" There was a sound like an old-style slug-rifle firing twice and two warheads surrounded by a crackling nimbus of red-blue energy shot out from the right-hand side of the hull, rapidly pulling away and heading for the corvette. I immediately 'cleared the datum', turning ninety degrees from my previous path and turning edge-on to the corvette before stabilising the shields and resetting my power balance so that the shields and blasters would start recharging properly. I then turned belly-on to the Assassin and started to slowly curve back towards it.

There was a method to my madness. I figured that the Imp gunners might be lured into suffering from 'target fixation' and ignore the warheads if I presented an obvious enough target and I was right. Emerald daggers of turbolaser fire skipped off of the reinforced shields and all-but collapsed them but the proton torpedoes were ignored until they slammed into the circular side end plate of the command module. The first hit collapsed the bridge deflectors and the second penetrating the hull.

"Cassie! I'm going to cut across their nose! Strafe them!"

"Got that, boss!"

I turned the fighter side-on to the corvette's nose as we flew across it, making the continuing turbolaser fire miss above and below whilst letting Cassie keep her turret on-target for as long as possible. From my place within the police craft's hull with only a few flank view ports around my piloting station, I didn't initially see the effect of the attack but others did and it confirmed the cause for Cassie's wild cry of triumph.

"Three, this is shuttle two; good shooting, sir; the command deck has blown out! She's going into a death dive!"

I began cycling through the optical sensor options and noted that the Gorzanti was also burning amidships, right next to its lateral docking ring. Both capital ships were descending into the atmosphere and clearly not long for the 'active' roster. As I watched, the Assassin started to deploy escape pods. "Great shooting, Four; descend to primary target; shuttles, follow us in!"

"Think that the wing commander was right to expect Imp back-up, Ress?" Cassie asked, looking around the canopy, searching for threats.

I looked up at Cassie with a quirked eyebrow after setting the shields to accelerated recharge and transferring the remaining charge from the cannon capacitor to the shields. The s-foils began to glow with ionisation as we entered the atmosphere, similar in gas mix to a garden world but lethally cold. "I know that I'm not going to ignore that chance, Cass. Set up for ground support; I'll bet that the imps have already got men down there!" I flipped open the ship-to-ship channel. "Three to Four and Shuttles; head for the deck and get ready to suppress enemy fire. Shuttles, stay at least three klicks back!"

Fortunately, the Imperial landing was still in its early stages: A pair of Lambda-4a utility shuttles were offloading snow-equipped Stormtroopers. A short distance away, two much larger IDTs were deploying combat speeder-bikes and a pair of AT-ST scout walkers. At the last possible moment, I pulled out of the dive and angled towards the landing zone. I was pleased to see Deek managing to do so without slipping out of formation; the other pilot was every bit as good as he should be. "Four, pop up and hit the walkers and infantry!"

"Engaging now, Lieutenant!"

I don’t know who it was that the Empire assigned to be ground commander here but if I'd been there after losing contact with the space forces, even if they didn't get off a distress call, I'd have the walkers looking for airborne attackers. As it was, the second scout-walker only started shooting in our direction after the first's 'head' popped into a ball of orange flame as Cassie volleyed single-fire into it. The shields took the half-dozen hits and then the second walker exploded from the attention of Deek's gunner.

The ground troops were utterly in a panic and scattered everywhere so I doubt that Cassie hit more than just one or two here and there as we shot overhead. "Three to shuttles; the way is clear, land on the base and start ground ops."

"Copy that, Three."

"Three, this is Four. The Imperial utility shuttles are launching."

I selected the main scanner set (being a patrol-optimised design, the Z-81 had very good sensors) and scanned the nearest shuttle. Yeah, it was gunship rigged with two dual lasers and a warhead launcher. "Okay, let's get them thinking, Cass; target the nearest Lamb."

As the shuttle rose, its bird-like s-foils folding down to flight position, Cassie got an angle and started laying on quad-fire blaster shots. That halved the rate of fire but doubled the damage and that made a big difference. The wedge-shaped cockpit section exploded and the shuttle fell from the sky; the impact wasn’t that hard and the remains just kept burning rather than blowing up but it was still a kill.

At that moment, my ship's left-hand shields flashed brightly and nearly failed. I stood the patrol ship on its tail, lit its boosters and began to barrel-roll along my flight path. "Lead, this is Four, stand by and I will…"

"Stay with the shuttles, Four; I've got this!"

"Have you?" Cassie asked, visibly wincing as another hail of emerald green laser fire shot by the cockpit.

"Have I ever let you down before, Sergeant?" I replied with a shaky smile. She responded in kind and I had to admit that this was a hell of a time to maybe start doing so.

Fortunately, the Z-81 was designed for just this sort of engagement (if with a smuggling ship rather than a naval utility shuttle) and I was able to keep jinking out of the way. Suddenly, a yellow light began to flash on my electronic scan monitor (ESM) repeater panel. Great; he was going to use his concussion missiles. Fortunately, the benefits of what Chief Charlton said about the high-ups 'taking a risk' on me meant that I had a card to play. "Stand by on countermeasures, Cass!"

The red-orange energy field that surrounded the concussion interception missile shot across the gap between the Lamb and us. "Chaff away!" I ordered and Cassie immediately jabbed at the countermeasure launch control on the inside of the left-hand stick of her yoke; as per SOP, I waited three heartbeats before pulling back on the yoke to turn our climb into an inverted level flight. This gave the chance for the small grenade-like object to get some distance away before 'detonating' into a cloud of sensor-reflective metal strips that blinded the missile's sensors and caused it to proximity detonate as it entered the countermeasure cloud. I returned to my zoom climb and ordered another chaff release, leaving only one more countermeasure on the rack. The Lamb had tried to follow my manoeuvre but the chaff confused its gun sensors and the volley of laser fire fell way behind and gave me chance to get more distance.

"Mayday, mayday, this is Beige Six! I can't shake him!"

I set the optical sensors for best zoom and I saw Dak's wingman's A-Wing, trailing fire from its right-hand engine and with a TIE Avenger on her tail. "Five, where the hell are you?"

"Sorry, Terrek, got an Brick with my name on it!"

This was bad, Avenger vs. A-Wing was pretty much an equal fight with the A-Wing's better agility offset against the Avenger's shields and heavier war load. There was a reason why I told Dak to stay with Steece. Just to complicate matters, the remaining Lamb had got its act together and was lining up on my tail again, just as the atmosphere began to quickly thin around me.

At that moment, I had a brainwave. "Six, this is Three. Turn to nine-zero and engage the Lamb on my tail; scratch my back and I'll scratch yours."

It was to Steece's credit that the woman worked out what I was saying at once and the A-Wing went into a dive right towards the ascending Z-81, the wrong-footed Avenger losing ground before resuming their pursuit. "Cass, lock torpedoes on the Brick."

Damaged engine or not, the A-Wing shot past us so quickly (and close enough that I and Steece could have 'high-fived') that Cass barely had time to lock on the last proton torpedo on the Imperial heavy fighter as it loomed in the viewport. I turned our wide axis perpendicular to avoid the opening volley from the fighter's quad lasers. "KRIFF! It's away!" Her voice had risen to a squeak and I couldn't blame her.

The proton torpedo wasn't a fighter-verses-fighter weapon but at this speed and a reciprocal heading at basically point-blank range, the Imp pilot had no time to evade, launch a countermeasure or react in any other way. The projectile, surrounded by blue-red energy, slammed into the forward shields just in front of the octagonal forward viewport. The megatonne-yield 'proton spike' shield-piercing warhead blew a hole straight through the shields and through the centre panel of the viewport, causing the entire fighter to blow apart in a cloud of super-fast shrapnel.

I cut back towards the planet to see Steece's A-Wing slowly limping back up to orbital altitude. To one side was a sheet of flame descending deeper into the atmosphere, the remains of the Lamb after taking a double-shot of the A-Wing's concussion missiles in the 'face'. "Six, this is Three; status report."

"One Lamb vaped, boss. I've got auto-repair working on my boosters but my hyperdrive motivator and shield generators are both gone."

I searched the sky beyond the horizon of Tridal-III and that search confirmed my MTP's information that the skies were blessedly empty. "Four, I'm heading down to join you. Six, form up with the rest of Beige Squadron."

~*~*~

I was glad to be back planet-side, orbiting the base and helping Deek keep the remaining Imperial ground troops back as the commandoes did their deadly work. That way, I had something to concentrate on except Dak's bragging about his treble kill. A notable achievement but one that came nearly at the cost of his wingman, something that he'd apparently either not worked out or just didn't care about. The muted responses of the rest of Thatchback Squadron suggested that they had worked it out. As loyal as you are to your wingmates, the knowledge that you don't matter to one of them was enough to cause trouble inside a squadron.

The ground operation took only twenty minutes, something that, given that setting the demolition charges would have taken time, was remarkable. As soon as possible, the shuttles were buttoned up and following us into orbit, leaving behind the huge fireball that was Tridal Base.

"Boss…" Cassie didn't need to go into any more detail as an Imperial-II-class Star Destroyer dropped out of hyperspace almost right in front of us.

"All ships, match headings and jump to lightspeed!" I ordered before not doing so. Instead, I angled towards Steece's crippled A-Wing, so ludicrously small compared to the oncoming behemoth of a capship, which was now spitting out Eyeballs from its launch bays at an enormous rate. "Kill your boosters, Six!"

"I… Complying!" The tone of Steece's voice was more puzzled than fearful. Had she really expected us to leave her behind? Even given Dak's behaviour to date, it was still a fear that I didn't understand. I didn't elaborate as I was doing a lot of multi-tasking, plotting an evasive micro-jump whilst locking on the Z-81's tractor beam on the A-Wing. As soon as she was tucked in behind, I hauled the yokes to get on the right vector and yanked back on the lightspeed engine controls as hard as I dared. We vanished into hyperspace just as the first turbolaser and ion cannon fire from the ImpStar began to slash through the space we'd occupied moments earlier.

~*~*~

Making a three decoy jumps to make sure that the Imps weren't following us meant that Cassie, me and our rescuee were the last back at the fleet by a long margin. I got into the lounge in time for Dak's third drink that he'd insisted that all the pilots buy him for becoming an ace (six kills now).

I hadn't even bothered to go to the debriefing and I fully expected to be dinged for that but I really didn't care. "Veeves!"

"Terrek, you're alive?!? Well, that's good because you owe me a…"

I fully expected to be dinged for punching a superior officer too. However, the impact of my knuckles against his jaw just felt too good for that to matter. I stared down at the brutally-handsome pilot, who was wiping a small rivulet of blood leaking down from where he'd bit the inside of his mouth. "Veeves, I don't care what problems you have and why everything has to be a kriffing competition to you but the next time you disobey orders and nearly get people… your own squad-mates… killed because they just don't matter to you, then you'll wish that I had only punched you, got that?"

Veeves hauled himself to his feet. "You know what, bomber jockey? I've been itching to put you in your place from the moment you got into that bunk at the bottom, where you belong, so smug from getting your first assisted kill. Well this is where…"

At that point, one of the shuttle pilots, a huge Wookie, placed his dish-sized hand on Dak's chest. He didn't seem to shove but the fighter pilot still looked like he'd just run blindfold into a duracrete wall. <<Enough,>> my UTrans automatically turned Shyriiwook into Basic but the growl was still audible over the translated speech. <<There is no honour in your conduct, Lieutenant and you know this.>>

Veeves looked at the Wookie with wide eyes, his hands flexing into and out of fists as he visibly sized up the situation. There is no telling to what could have happened next but at that moment Commander Gavjunt strode into the compartment with Cassie and Steece, the latter of whom was glaring at Dak as if she was about to attack him too, no matter what I or the Wookie (Flight Sergeant Hiyyijiir, according to his uniform) did. "Stand down!" he boomed. "Everyone, eyes on me!"

The room fell silent and all eyes were indeed on the Duros. "Good. Now, firstly, welcome back First Lieutenant Terrek; no losses and all objectives met which is… more than adequate." Wait, First Lieutenant? That was new! The Duros turned to the kill board. "Additionally, I suspect that this is no longer accurate." He pointed a remote on the screen and pressed a button; my results from the mission – two more assisted kills and a cap-ship, appeared next to my name – two kills, six assists and two cap ships, which immediately jumped to just ahead of Dak's six full fighter kills but no cap-ships. "Secondly, Lieutenant Veeves, come with me; now."

Dak actually looked like he would protest but thought better of it. He scowled at me and stormed off after the wing commander. The rest of Thatchback Squadron's pilots surrounded Steece, slapping her back and a few even hugging her.

Cassie sidled up beside me. "I can't take you anywhere, can I boss?" I grimaced in response. "Do you think that we've seen the last of him? I mean, our record of the mission doesn't look good for him!" I shrugged. It was a nice thought but I doubted it. The Rebellion was too short of skilled manpower to dismiss even a dangerously-narcissistic mind like Dak when he was also a fairly competent pilot. However, I hoped that something would be done.

"Hey, Ressel! Or should I say 'Mission Commander, sir'?" I looked at Steece, who was standing in a cluster of her squad-mates. The dark-skinned human woman shot me a thin, professional but still-genuine smile. "I think that I owe you two a drink."

"Yeah, he deserves it more than that loud-mouthed wildcard!" one of the other A-Wing pilots muttered. Oh dear; Mr Veeves seemed to be running short of allies in his squadron, which wasn't a good portent for his next combat assignment and he was sure to blame me for that. Yeah, something told me that I was down one rival and up one enemy.