Commander Ciena Ree
The entire viewport of my TIE Fighter was filled with the mass of the Armadia. If I wasn't wearing a helmet hooked into the starfighter's computer system then I wouldn't be able to see either end of the massive vessel. It was always daunting, being this close to a Star Dreadnought - even Star Destroyers felt small when flying next to them.
The bombers Crimson Squadron was escorting made their pass on the Armadia, brilliant blue balls of energy slamming headlong into the seemingly infinite shields. Despite not breaking through, the cumbersome TIE Bombers flipped around and raced back to their mothership - a Vindicator-class Heavy Cruiser hiding beneath one of the Star Destroyers. The Hierophant, not one of Tullius's.
Chatter filled my ear; Wer Bintir and his flight were chasing off another wing of intercepting TIE Fighters. The Bellator-class carried a respectable number of starfighters, but even if they were fielding everything available, I would not have given them good odds against our numbers. Instead, the Armadia was deploying its fighters sparingly, sending them out to intercept bombers but little else.
"Crimson-Lead, we are on final approach for landing."
"Copy, Anvil. Breaking off-" I started hands tightening around the controls as I made ready to break off of the TIE Bombers, only for a warning flash to appear behind me. I jerked back on the yoke, sending my TIE careening upwards wildly as I looked 'down', relative to my orientation. A turbolaser bolt hurtled below me. The IFF tag for one of the TIE Bombers we were escorting, Anvil-5, vanished with a flash. I pushed my controls back forward, evening out the climb just in time to see the Vindicator-class take the turbolaser bolt directly on its bow.
Its shields must have been down as the bolt met armor and detonated. The narrow Cruiser seemed to bulge out as the bolt made contact, before splitting down the center. Explosion rocked up its surface as the ship's bow dove downward under the force. Light flickered across the hull before dying out, the ship floating away from the Star Destroyer above as it died. I grit my teeth and pulled my yoke to the side, only just seeing escape pods jettison from the rear sections of the Vindicator-class.
"Anvil, how're we doing?" I asked, glancing down to see the scattered TIE Bombers regrouping.
"Alive minus one, Crimson. We are being re-routed to the Hierophant for retasking."
"Good luck, Crimson out." I closed the communications and focused on coming about to assist Bintir. I needn't have worried; the Fighters he was engaged with had retreated back to the safety of the Armadia and he was nowhere near crazy enough to try his luck chasing them.
I sent out a quick command with the press of a button, urging the squadron to regroup on me. They returned in short order - most had already been with me whilst we were escorting the bombers.
"Poor showing, this lot." Klilt, Crimson-6, commented with a smug tone. She already had two kills under her belt in this engagement, while my Squadron hadn't suffered so much as a hit.
"Don't get cocky." I spoke up in the Squadron comms, bringing my fighter fully about to face the Armadia again. The other Squadrons had suffered more damage than us, the Yevethans just hadn't dedicated a large enough force to deal with this Squadron. Still, it was hard not to agree with Klilt's confidence - we were getting off quite easy.
I was saved from whatever Klilt was going to say next by a priority message from the Conqueror - not sent to me, but over the entire fighter communications network. I wasn't given a chance to accept the request as the familiar voice of Matread butt in.
"All units, this is the Conqueror. Stage two is underway; await retasking."
In the short brief a few hours before, we had been made aware of Tullius's latest plan. For a man who was so mild mannered outside combat, he did appear to have a proclivity for the insane. New orders flickered across my heads-up display before new identification diamonds flashed to life behind me. I brought the whole Squadron around to race for the Conqueror again.
A pair of oddly-shaped craft detached from the Star Destroyer's hull, flipping and reorienting relative to the Conqueror. Customs Frigates, evidently Tullius was using everything available for this boarding action. Luckily for us, the Frigates could defend themselves to some degree.
I brought the pair - the Feld-I and Grant - into our communications network.
"Feld, Grant, confirm you are receiving." I said as we fell in on either side of the Frigates.
"We are reading you, Crimson."
"Loud and clear, Crimson."
We ran through our next steps, but it was fairly straight forward. The pair of Frigates had their objective and we were to escort them there. We took off fast, racing between the empty void separating the friendly line and the Armadia. Turbolaser fire zipped around us, the fleet trying to keep our gap open while the Star Dreadnought unleashed withering return fire. A glance back told me another vessel - one of the Strike-class Cruisers - vanished.
Halfway to the Armadia, the Yevethans finally played their hand. Hundreds of Fighters escaped the massive ship's hangars, all of them aiming for the boarding shuttles.
"Guess the Yevethans got wise." Crimson-2 muttered as we broke off from the Frigates.
"It was too much to hope they would fall for the same plan twice." I responded, before addressing the Squadron: "Look alive and stay close to the Frigates - bait them into their turret's firing arcs."
They affirmed my orders and we waited. Nearly twice our number in TIE Fighters were bearing down upon us, but fortunately Tullius had a plan of his own. The Escapade had deployed its own complement of fighters, a second wave after its own TIEs were already on the field: nearly four-hundred droid starfighters swarmed the Armadia's starboard side. A dozen of them reached us moments before the Yevethan TIEs did, moving in four single-file lines. I didn't know how they got them working but I was notified as the Escapade transferred command of them over to me. I quickly uploaded my pre-prepared commands to the droids, having expected to have them under my command. I couldn't put up anything too complicated - Matread hadn't sounded too sure about the capabilities of these droids - so I kept it simple: half were dedicated to the first Frigate, while the other half were dedicated to the second. A simple guard command with a decently sized radius around either Frigate. They would defend the craft directly while we engaged the enemy fighters.
Then they were upon us, like a crashing wave threatening to swallow us whole. Pinpricks of light, representing their flaring twin ion engines, quickly became the dark shapes of Fighters.
Two bore down right in front of me. I broke off into a spin over my left side, diving beneath the Feld-I as Marie picked off one of my pursuers. The other followed me under, only to evaporate as it passed in front of the Frigate's point-defense guns. I didn't see how the rest of the Squadron fared, only able to glance down and confirm no one was dead. Two of the droids vanished, but the rest were all locked in dogfights of their own.
I pulled up and out from under the Feld-I on its port side, spinning my fighter over its right wing now to face toward the Armadia. Crimson-2 and 3 followed me under, sticking to my wings as we moved to assist Crimson-4's flight. Six TIEs engaged three, while a seventh was chasing down a droid. He got too close to the Feld-I, jerking up in time to avoid a crimson laser cannon volley. Unfortunately for the Yevethan, he realized his error in direction when his wing was torn apart by a burst from my fighter. His craft crumpled, spinning away wildly as the droid flipped and followed us toward the dogfight.
The Frigate's gun crews made occasional shots, but did not seem eager to fire into the melee. While they probably had friend-foe identification programs, the TIEs were packed too closely together - any shot taken could hit a friendly. Fortunately, we were not so restricted. Two Yevethans broke off, leaving a third to chase Crimson-5, and raced to join us. I squeezed off a burst of fire at the same time as the lead TIE, breaking off as his brilliant bolts hurtled by. He was not so fast. The twin blasts took his cockpit directly, making it vanish in a brilliant flash while the wings spun ahead wildly. The second TIE, which had been flying far too close to his wingman, made a hard turn to avoid the flailing debris. He vanished from my direct line of sight, but his ping vanished under Kurmen's blasts - having presented the man a perfect target.
I corrected my spin as my wingmen overtook me. Crimson-2 engaged one of the two fighters still trying to take down Crimson-4, while Crimson-3 finished off the remaining fighter on Crimson-5. I moved to assist Crimson-6 - Klilt sounded anything but smug now, cursing the 'Yev Bastard' that would not get off her tail. She straightened out as I approached, giving me a perfect shot as the Yevethan stopped jerking around. He was smart enough to realize our plan, though, and peeled off. A burst of speed and he was racing away, but I was fast on his tail. I squeezed off a burst - miss! He banked hard right and cut his speed. I cursed and tried to reverse my thrust, but it was a second ahead of me. I flew past Yevethan as he tried to predict where I would be when I hurtled by. Unfortunately for him, he was still inside the protection radius of the Feld-I. His sudden loss of speed meant the droid could catch up to him and I smirked as the hostile ping vanished. The droid made a hairpin turn and returned to the dogfight.
A new objective, a trio of TIE Fighters were making a run on the Feld-I. I glanced at the dogfight - a new wave of three Yevethans had joined the ongoing melee, but since they were outnumbered now they were just trying to keep us distracted. I sent a ping to Crimson-2 and -3 before racing for the incoming TIEs.
Crimson-3 broke off to follow me, as Crimson-2 was still trying to finish off her last target. As we moved to intercept, I realized they were TIE/gt Fighters, not standard line TIEs. The difference was minimal, except for the concussion missile tubes they carried. We were too far away as the Yevethans reached the effective range of their missiles before we could close up and let loose a volley. The Customs ship jerked up and to its starboard side, moving with far more agility a ship of its size would typically be capable of. Credit where it was due, Rendili had made the ship well. It was meant to pursue and out-maneuver illegally modified freighters, so the pilots could bring the ship into a wide spin to avoid two of the missiles. Unfortunately, the third found its mark - detonating against the hull with a flash. Armor was blasted away as one of its turrets vanished, but the Frigate finished its spin and tried to bring the remaining two portside guns to bare. The Yevethans slowed down and broke off, keeping themselves out of the line-of-sight of more than one turret.
Unfortunately for them, that loss of speed gave Crimson-3 and I time to reach them. I squeezed off a burst, catching one of the TIEs on the connecting strut with the second blast. The now-detached wing hurtled ahead as the fighter spunout - I ignored it as I brought the second into target. It tried to maneuver, but it had lost too much speed to do so with any effectiveness. I lined up my shot with no haste, catching it on the engine with all three shots of my next burst. It vanished in a flash, destroyed utterly. Kurmen finished his target as well, tearing through its wing and cockpit.
In mere moments, all three pseudo-bombers were destroyed. The disabled TIE was finished by a swarm of droid fighters.
In the time this transpired, the rest of the dogfights were wrapping up. Crimson-7 was damaged and sent back to the Conqueror but the rest of my Squadron got out relatively unscathed. Half of the droids were gone, but they were never expected to survive for long.
We reached the Armadia's hull, a set of partially obscured escape pod bays. The plan was obvious, the Customs Frigates were designed to board other ships. They would attach themselves to the escape pod bay and cut through the escape pods themselves, allowing the infiltration team aboard to get inside the Dreadnought. Across the Armadia, countless other teams were entering in similar ways - through waste disposal, breached sections of the armor, and hangar bays.
The Feld-I landed first, as there was only room for one of them at a time, but it was fast in off-loading. The Frigate detached and began to drift away before-
An alarm blared on my heads-up. I turned my head even as I began to bring my fighter around. Three things, small and fast moving, were headed our way - hugging the Armadia likely in an attempt to mask their approach.
I grit my teeth as a warning was shouted over comms - aborting the turn into a dive. The trio of fighters blew through our formation, firing wildly as they passed. My Squadron scattered, trying to evade despite being at a stop moments before. One vanished - Crimson-9 was hit by a blast and was destroyed instantly. I yanked my controls around as Crimson-2 narrowly dodged a burst of her own. The trio of Yevethan fighters passed through our formation, laser cannons blazing. As I brought myself around, I was able to watch Crimson-3 get hit - bolts tearing through his cockpit. He was alive just long enough to start cursing, only for his fighter to vanish a heartbeat later.
I gunned my engines, teeth still grit, as I made to follow the trio.
Two were TIE Interceptors - their familiar wings unmistakable. I had flown them for years and knew giving chase was a fool's errand. It was their leader that was the greater cause for concern. I had never flown with or against one before, but I knew them by reputation: a TIE Avenger. Its bent wings were reminiscent of the Interceptors it flew alongside, but they were longer still. The body of the fighter did not betray the danger it represented, as I knew it to be faster and better-armed than any other fighter present.
The trio turned as one, flipping over to ready themselves for another pass. I glanced to the corner of my heads-up display for a moment. One of the droids had also been lost in the initial pass. I couldn't see what the rest of my squadron were doing, only that Marie was still on my tail.
I squeezed off a shot as we got in range, but quickly dove to avoid the return fire of the enemy fighters. I hit nothing and was thankfully not hit in turn.
Marie went the other way - up and over, trying to get on the tail of the Interceptors as they continued toward the rest of the Squadron. The Avenger did not join them and I pulled my yoke to avoid the burst of laser cannon fire as it chased me now. I cursed, loudly, as I finally brought myself fully around and tried to make it toward my reinforcements. It wasn't to be as I had to swing left to avoid another burst. I was tempted to try the same trick I had at Bakura - rerouting my engine power forward and letting the Avenger pass me - but that worked against droids because they were droids. If the Yevethans were confident enough to put whoever this was in an advanced prototype fighter then they wouldn't fall for a trick like that. I spun erratically, trying to keep the Avenger's targeting off of me. My movements were slowly bringing me closer to the hull of the Armadia, adding a new level of complication as its laser cannons began firing at me. This did reduce the effectiveness of the Avenger's pursuit, though - it was forced to avoid friendly fire.
I got close enough to the Armadia to begin skimming along its surface, racing my laser cannon ports as I put every drop of power into my engines. The Avenger gave chase as we both became too close for the cannons to target effectively. Immediately, his superior speed was put on full display as he closed the distance.
I put myself into another wild spin - desperately trying to get close enough to friendly forces. One of the Interceptors was gone, the second running off as two TIEs gave chase. My heads-up screamed at me as I narrowly avoided volley after volley, but I was being hemmed in. My maneuverability was restricted this close to the Armadia and I couldn't break off lest the laser cannons managed to get a targeting solution on me again.
Miss, miss, miss- Hit!
I swore, my fighter jerked as a laser bolt hit me somewhere on the right strut. It was a glancing blow - I hadn't died so that much was obvious - but the Avenger had landed its hit.
Then, the fire stopped. I dared a glance back and nearly sighed in relief: the Avenger had broken off as the surviving droids raced toward it like a swarm. Two of them were destroyed on the approach - either to the Avenger itself or the Armadia's anti-fighter cannons. It was enough.
I twisted around to get on the Avenger's tail in turn. It was time to get revenge, for the chase and for Kurmen. The Avenger had lost all its speed, maneuvering erratically to avoid the droids that seemed to be trying to ram him. A flight of TIEs were incoming, but as another droid vanished in a flash I knew they would not arrive in time before the Avenger had a chance to escape.I made my run, firing a burst from my cannons. Three of the four hit his left wing, but there was no visible damage. The deflector shields held and I hurtled by. I rerouted my engine's direction and put myself into a flat spin. I could feel the TIE Fighter shudder beneath me, almost hear the shrieking protest of metal, but I was back around.
The Avenger had disengaged from the surviving droids and was starting to pick up speed. In a couple of seconds, it would be away and far too fast for me to catch. He never got the chance. I squeezed the trigger as I approached, forgoing any discipline in my burst and spraying the Fighter. My initial pass definitely weakened its shields as after the first two hits it disintegrated. Its wing was shredded and the body beneath gave way, the prototype exploding with a brilliant flash. All that remained, the right wing and part of its connecting arm, spun away into the void. I breathed a sigh of relief and, more calmly, brought my fighter around. Alarms filled my ears once more as I returned to reality, the TIE Fighter emphatically complaining about the punishment I put it through.
I glanced up, seeing a renewed attack from another wing of Yevethan fighters as the Frigates broke away from the Armadia. Unfortunately, there would be no rest for this old Starfighter.
CT-8812 "Talik"
I was never stationed aboard the Executor. In hindsight this was a boon, but that meant I had only ever heard stories about what the interior of a Star Dreadnought was like. Star Destroyers were already known for their dizzying, featureless hallways - but there was an interior logic behind it, as if the ship were built on the experiences learned from the War rather than a project formed by Kuati madmen. Unfortunately, there was no logic inside a Star Dreadnought - even one purpose built as the Armadia supposedly was. Hallways stretched for kilometers, seemingly uninterrupted. They were crossed by a dizzying array of intersections, sometimes in a pattern and other times seemingly at random. It felt less like a ship and more like a maze.
It made traversing the ship a challenge, if the Yevethans themselves hadn't already made that apparent. I hunkered down in a doorway, head bowed as a blaster bolt hurtled by. I glanced across the hallway, where another Stormtrooper took cover. He had two behind him, just as I did.
Resistance was getting heavier so I knew we were going in the right direction. Communication with the rest of the strike force and our commands was lost the moment we set off - another team was sent to take control of a communication relay station, but evidently they had yet to succeed.
I peered around cover and raised my carbine, placing a few shots down range. Unlike the hallways of Black-15, the Armadia was not nearly as heavily fortified. This came with the unfortunate consequence of better armed and trained Yevethan soldiers. Down the hallway, maybe twenty meters - exactly twenty-one meters, my helmet told me - the aliens were using doorways as cover of their own. They were armored in plastoid chest plates and greaves, pieces clearly pulled from Stormtroopers or Navytroopers. Their helmets were custom, shaped to fit their strange heads. This lot was disciplined, moving and fighting in a manner reminiscent of Special Mission Armytrooper units. Unfortunately, they were outnumbered and outgunned. This skirmish was a delaying action, but we kept pushing through nonetheless.
I went back behind cover just as I saw a Yevethan take a bolt to its barely exposed leg. It collapsed forward before it could stop itself, taking a blaster bolt to the side of its head for the trouble.
"This is taking too long!" The Stormtrooper across the hall growled, his voice betraying himself as a non-Clone. He was part of the Black-3 garrison, but carried himself like a combat veteran - I could commiserate with that. The rest of his fellows were green - they knew the movements, but fighting a slave rebellion was not the same as actual warfighting. They had given a good accounting of themselves, but competence was a baseline for the Corps.
"Agreed. Database, Zones, get ready." I didn't need to look back to see the two Clones crouching low and getting prepared to spring around the corner. I pressed a button on my forearm, sending a chirping signal to the rest of the team further back down the hallway. A hail of blaster bolts hurtled down the hallway as suppressive fire. I pushed off the floor and took the corner, slamming my shoulder against the wall before sprinting down the hallway. I saw a trio of Stormtroopers on the opposite side, pushing down the right as we took the left.
Most of the Yevethans had been forced to cover, but a few braved the hail of blaster fire to squeeze out shots of their own. One on the right side saw me and my men pushing and tried to bring his blaster up. Mine was faster, putting a duo of blaster bolts down range. The first missed as I tried to aim while maintaining my speed. The second hit on the lower part of the Yevethan's torso, making it topple forward. I didn't stop to see if it moved, focusing forward as we neared the Yevethans. Those few seconds felt like they were stretched over hours, but more of the Yevethans came into view where they hid in doorways.
I came to a stop, dropping to a knee and sliding for a heartbeat as I brought my blaster up. I fired at the first Yevethan that came into view, forcing it to retreat back into the room it was hiding in. A thermal detonator followed it in, bouncing off the doorway and into the room as the door slid shut. I moved my blaster to the next doorway as the Yevethan there fired. He wasn't aiming at me, either not noticing I was kneeling just across the hallway or thinking someone else was a bigger threat. My blaster bolt hit his chest. The Stormtroopers on the opposite wall had finally gotten in position to fire on the Yevethans on my side, and in the next few seconds the fight was over.
A small army of Stormtroopers reached us and flooded the rooms where the Yevethans had been taking cover with blaster fire.
Database and I stood over the corpse of Zones - the Clone had been the one hit by the Yevethan that fired back, directly in the throat. There was no chance for his plastoid armor to save him.
"I'm getting sick of these space stations." Database muttered, kneeling down to loot the dead Clone of his thermal detonator. He placed the cylinder at his back where the now missing one had been, turning to face me.
"Not everyone is as lucky as Skip." I pointed out, glancing toward the group and picking out the younger Clone as he left one of the rooms. A short stay in bacta and he was back to full health, though the injury had made him more cautious and withdrawn. That, and the fact he was absent for the assault of the Intimidator. The loss of Bite in that engagement soured any victory it gave us, that and the clear disappointment Tullius wielded regarding it.
"I wish we were back on Hoth." Database muttered, but said nothing more.
"Gather up, boys. Show's over!" I barked at the group, making a signal for them to fall in. We took off down the hall once more, a sea of plastoid armor.
We found our objective soon enough and after clearing the guards, we were left to wait. The doorway to the auxiliary bridge was one of the few places marked, if only to warn anyone without clearance to steer far away. A pair of engineers, Navytroopers instead of Stormtroopers, worked to cut through the blast door. Fusioncutters, not small handheld ones but the big industrial type that had a powerpack. With nothing but time, the Navytrooper made sure to cut cleanly all the way through.
"- silon team, come in. Epsilon team, report status." The voice of Colonel Maab came to life through a sea of interference until he sounded clear as crystal, "Communications are under our control."
"Epsilon here, we are at the auxiliary bridge." I reported. "Minimal casualties."
"Good, keep us posted." Maab gave no update on the rest of the operation, but I assumed things had to be going relatively well. I turned as the engineers pulled away from the door, having primed explosives against it to blow it the rest of the way open. We stacked up, waiting silently for the detpacks to count down. Seconds later, there was a bright flash - the doors collapsed down and into the secondary bridge with an equally resounding crash.
Blaster fire was exchanged immediately through the smoke. With the benefit of our helmets, we could see the Yevethan defenders and crew making their final stand within. A Stormtrooper in front of me took a blaster bolt to the chest, crumpling without a sound. I avenged him as I rushed into the room, following the swarm.
The Yevethans fought valiantly, but this battle was decided the moment we got through the door.
TK-1011 "Garm Corrend"
I stepped over the corpse of a Yevethan as I entered the Armadia's main detention center. Its defenders lay in heaps where they had fought, blasters still gripped tightly in cooling hands.
"A lot of effort to protect a prison." One of my men muttered as he pushed around me and into the room, "Do the Yevethans even take prisoners?"
"No." I said, moving into the room. An injured Yevethan glared at me as I walked around the main computer; I finished it with a shot from my carbine. Every other alien in the room was already dead, so we investigated with a more relaxed air. Like all space-based Imperial detention centers, the actual prison itself was a long hallway with cells spaced out along the walls.
Curiously, despite our preconceptions regarding the Yevethans, one of the cells was occupied. We moved down the line until we reached it.
Inside was a human, which would have been a surprise by itself. However, this became all more concerning when we realized who it was. I did not recognize the man - pale skin, bald head, I'd seen plenty like him - but the uniform was familiar. A dark grey naval uniform, though the right sleeve was folded over where an arm used to be. The man appeared far worse for wear, but he glared up at us with more fire than his body should have been capable of.
"Did Paret send you?" He asked with a hoarse voice, not moving from the bench on the far wall. On his chest was the rank plaque of a Commodore.