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Chapter 3 - Chapter Two: Trial By Fire

Gennad had some time to think as his ship sped through hyperspace, the field of stars whirling by in a dazzling display of cascading light. He ignored it. Having been with the rebellion since before the battle of Yavin four years ago he had seen the sight a multitude of times and it had long since lost its allure.

He hoped Captain Bel'far was correct in his evaluation of the admiralty seeing the value in the campaign and rewarding success with additional resources. As it was they sorely needed them and the more ambitious their goals the more they would need to successfully complete missions. He found it bitterly ironic that they had been assigned this mission, with no say in whether or not they took part, yet had to beg and plead for the necessary resources to accomplish it.

The condition of their ships aside the Y-wing was a dependable craft. Although sluggish compared to other fighters like X-wings and TIE fighters they made up for it with strong shields, reliability and a heavy armament that was almost unmatched. Only the new B-wings could compare. They had all of the Y-wings strengths and none of its weaknesses. He decided then and there that to see his squadron outfitted with B-wings was a worthy goal he was dedicated to pursuing. With their assignment to this campaign Scavenger squadron would make a name for itself and make a contribution to the war effort that would be remembered in the histories; or they would all die trying. He smirked, "Likely the later," he said to himself. Then frowned and shook his head. Sala's influence was rubbing off on him.

Before long they emerged from hyperspace, reverting to real space in the middle of nowhere with nothing around them but the vast expanse of stars. There was nothing to be seen to indicate a hyperspace shipping route ran through this section of space, but it was there regardless. The ships split up into two groups with the Y-wings on the port side of where the ship would emerge and the Lancer class frigate, Vulture, the Kyprin Renegade and the Skipray blastboat carrying the commandos on the starboard.

The Kyprin Renegade ejected the mines it was carrying within its hold into space, lining them up in an orderly fashion before it retreated to the outer edges of the engagement zone. Originally a small cargo ship it had been modified into a maintence ship by the rebels. It's main hold, despite the ship only being just over a hundred meters long, could accomodate two Y-wings silmutaniously. Rozhdenst hadn't asked, but he suspected it had been included in the strike force to help make up for the sorry state of its starfighter squadron.

Sala and her wingman emerged from hyperspace shortly after, their ships suddenly appearing as if by magic. "Welcome back S3," Gennad said.

"Thanks Commander. Mission accomplished; it was all too easy!" Sala replied.

"Good. Form up on my starboard and await instructions. Now we play the waiting game," Gennad said, turning his attention to where the Vindicator class Heavy Cruiser would be dragged out of hyperspace and set upon by the rebel forces. Red and blue lights blinked on the four barrel shaped mines as he studied them. Now they just had to watch and wait.

They waited in position for some time, the hours ticking away as the members of Scavenger squadron began to grow restless in their seats. Starfighter cockpits didn't make for comfortable places to be for long periods of time. Gennad allowed his pilots to talk among themselves, it kept them distracted from the cramped confines of their starfighters and alleviated any anxiety that could build.

The comm link to the Vulture crackled to life, startling a few of the pilots, the commander included. "Bingo! We've got contact with the tracking beacon as Centares. Prepare for action!" announced the communications officer.

"Copy that. This is S1 to Scavenger squadron, fire it up!" Rozhdenst ordered as he began pressing buttons and flicking switches on his command console, igniting his engines and bringing the ship's systems online. The Y-Wing squadron's engines erupted with a roar as they burst to life, flashes of ignitions flickering through space as the starfighters readied for action.

"All wings report in and move into combat positions!' Gennad barked over the comm as his shields and weapon's systems came online.

"S2, good to go! S3, we're all green! S4, ready to rumble!"

The pilots of his squadron sounded off as they moved into position for the coming attack.

"Scavenger squadron in position and ready to commence hostilities," Gennad reported.

"Copy S1; ETA of the target is two minutes and counting," came the voice from the Vulture. "Prepare to engage."

The seconds seemed to be minutes as they passed painfully slow. Then finally the clock reached zero and.....nothing.

The seconds continued to pass as Gennad felt his anxiety begin to build. Where were they? What had happened? Had something gone wrong? Was their intel flawed? He frowned and was about to comm the Vulture when a hole seemed to tear in the fabric of space itself. An explosion rippled out of nowhere with a blinding flash as the Vindicator class Heavy Cruiser appeared before them. Gouts of flame flashed within its portside engines as chunks of debris were blown free into the vacuum of space. The imperial ship surged on ahead, driven by the momentum of the speed it had been travelling at. But it quickly slowed to a crawl and skidded to a halt as its engines died and its crew began enacting emergency procedures.

Gennad slammed his foot down on the accelerator and shoved the stick forwards as his Y-wing leapt forwards and dived towards the crippled ship. "Split up into designated flights and begin attack runs," he said over the comm. "route weapons power through your ions canons, remember we want this one intact."

A chorus of agreement echoed over the comm as the squadron confirmed his order and broke up into their flight trios.

"Tick bring our shields up front and reroute 20% power to our engines," he commanded his astromech droid.

The R5 droid socketed in behind the cockpit tootled in acknowledgement.

"Trax, Wade; on my wings. Let's give 'em hell!" he said, addressing the pilots flying alongside him.

"Copy Scav leader," Wade replied as he fell in on the commander's port side.

The Y-wing's engines roared with fury as it began accelerating and picking up speed; the two other snubfighters nipping at its heels.

The surface of the heavy cruiser came to life with bursts of superheated energy as its weapons opened fire on their attackers.

Sala led her trio of fighters into a pass on the enemy ship. It retaliated by firing salvos of laser cannon fire at the fighters before Sala led them through a backwards S shaped manoeuvre that saw them fly in close towards the cruiser and follow its length, before pulling up and across its bow as they split from the rest of the squadron and raced to join the other incoming rebel forces.

The blastboat and Lancer class frigate raced towards the battlefield, the smaller ship's rotator shifted its wing into an upright position so it resembled a dorsal fin, as it returned fire on the much larger vessel. The quad laser cannons on the Vulture unleashed a storm of lasers, barrage after barrage of fire hammering the heavy cruiser's shields.

Gennad led his flight towards the command tower of the ship; zig zagging around incoming streams of turbolaser fire. One impacted with his shields as another grazed them; and he narrowly avoided colliding with another as both Trax and Wade banked their fighters in opposite directions to avoid the lethal barrage.

Gennad led them up and around the ship's bridge as they swooped down to attack, flying along the length of the ship as the three Y-wings targeted weapons emplacements and began pouring streams of ion cannon fire into them.

Scavenger squadron's third flight joined them, following a few seconds behind Gennad's trio while fourth flight made a direct attack run on the ship's starboard side.

Sala's group suddenly broke off from their trajectory towards the other rebel ships and swung around in tight U turn to come about and make an attack run at its port side.

"Arm torpedos and be ready to fire on my mark," she said, weaving her fighter from side to side so as to present a more difficult target for the enemy guns. Her wingmen came up on either side of her Y-wing as the cruiser loomed ahead. A flurry of bolts flashed past her ship as she narrowly avoided the brunt of the attack, several bolts impacting with her shields with flashes of crimson.

Her astromech squealed in protest.

"Shut it! I know!," Sala snapped.

She righted her ship and settled her targeting array on the ship.

The crosshairs immediately went green with a target lock.

"Mark!" She declared, pulling the trigger on the yoke as a pair of torpedos erupted from her ship and sped towards their target.

Her wingmen fired an instant later and half a dozen torpedos ploughed into the side of the warship, exploding in a fiery inferno against its shields.

A secondary explosion engulfed the ship's starboard side as its shields shook, buckled and then fell.

The hail of incoming fire from the Vulture abated and became more concentrated as it began targeting weapons emplacements.

Gennad brought the other half of the squadron around as they reached the command tower and swooped down to attack. Flying along the length of the ship Gennad spewed bolts of ion cannon fire at a turbolaser. One blast went wide while another two slammed into it, overloading and frying its circuits; rendering it useless as flashes of lighting slithered along its barrel.

The cruiser's turbolasers flailed about uselessly, unable to get a lock on the y-wings swarming the ship. Big and bulky the cumbersome guns were designed for combat against other warships at a distance, not close quarters combat with small, fast moving fighter craft. The ship's laser and ion cannons were another matter. They swivelled back and forth firing frantically at Scavenger squadron, scoring hits but being unable to destroy any of the ships.

One of the Y-wings shields fell as it was hit by an ion canon blast, before a volley of fire from a quad laser peppered one of its engines, tearing pieces out of it as gouts of flame erupted over its surface. The engine mounting was ripped apart and the cylindrical engine flailed about as the fighter went into an uncontrollable spin, sailing off beyond the battlefield as the pilot shut it off and struggled to retain control of the errant fighter.

Space around the heavy cruiser was aglow with flashes of electrical energy and frantic laser cannon fire as the Y-wings poured over the ship.

Gennad grit his teeth as pulses of turbolaser fire flashed past his canopy and starboard engine mount.

Beside him Wade's fighter dove and banked to the right as he attempted to avoid the lethal barrage. He was partially successful, avoiding several shots, but another buried itself in his shields making his craft vibrate with the force of the blast as his shields shook and absorbed it. "Sith spawn!" the rookie swore as his shields fell.

"Easy kid, watch out for those big guns," Gennad warned as they cleared the cruiser and came about for another run in the opposite direction. They had knocked out about half of its guns on their first run and now aimed to take care of the rest as the blast boat reached the cruiser and merged with its portside docking ring.

Meanwhile on board the blastboat Leiutenant Slade Auryn sat strapped into his crash webbing as he studied the men and women that made up his unit. They were a ragtag bunch of humans and aliens that had been brought together just as much for political reasons as the diverse array of skills their particular species were gifted with. The Shadow Stalkers were the brainchild of Mon Motha, a way to display the diversity of the rebel alliance and what they could achieve if the different species and worlds worked together to overthrow the empire. Put together not long after the battle of Hoth the unit had come to prove itself more than up to the challenge; and this deployment as part of the Scavanger strike force had the potential to make them famous throughout the galaxy.

A group of commandos made up of different aliens from all over the galaxy working together to steal warships out from under the Empire's nose to hinder their effort while simultaneously aiding the rebellion; it was the stuff holomovies were made of. Top tier propaganda; the public and media would eat it up. He couldn't help but smile. Being a former member of Imperial special forces he was the perfect man to lead such a unit; showing that even defectors from the empire could serve the rebellion and find themselves in positions of prominence. Beings from all over the galaxy had found themselves in his unit. Humans, Bothan, Mon Calamari, Wookie, Bith, Barabel, Rodian, Twi-Lek and even a Trandoshan.

"Thirty seconds until docking," the pilot announced over the ship's comm. Leiutenant Auryn grit his teeth in anticipation as he counted down inside his head. As he reached zero the ship gave a shudder and the same voice declared "Docking process completed, commence boarding."

Slade unbuckled himself and cast the webbing aside as he stood and retrieved his blaster rifle from the weapon's rack, the other members of his platoon coming to their feet as they armed themselves and prepared for battle. "Ready Chuppa?" Slade asked the hulking wookie.

The wookie grunted in response and flashed the Lieutenant a smile as he brandished about a huge vibroaxe as if it were a toy.

Slade smiled back, "Sure; of coure you are."

At three meters tall Chuppabacca was huge, even by wookie standards, by contrast he made adult humans look like children.

The unit's demolitions expert; the Bith, Daros Furo took charge and moved to the docking bay doors as he worked fast, rigging the airlock with explosives strategically placed to blow it open without damaging the seal that kept the air in. The rest of the Shadow Stalkers stood back, ready and waiting as he set the charges and with a thumbs up signalled that he was done as he stood and moved clear of the blast radius. The Bith's huge, bulbous eyes fixated on the Lieutenant as he turned to him to give the order.

Lieutenant Auryn nodded "hit it!"

Without a word the Bith nodded his huge, bald cranium and detonated the explosives.

The airlock door was blown out and collapsed onto the deck with a heavy clang, revealing the ship beyond as Auryn motioned his troops forwards and the platoon scrambled through the docking ring and onto the cruiser. As soon as they had assembled within the ship the platoon broke up into three separate teams. Lieutenant Auryn led the first to seize the bridge and take control of the ship while the other two went about their own objectives.

The Lieutenant's team wound their way through the twisting hallways as they made their way through the belly of the ship, making a beeline for the bridge. Along the way they encountered few crew members who offered up no resistance.

"Heh. This is easier than I thought it would be," Daros commented as they jogged through the ship, keeping an eye out for any hostiles.

"These people aren't soldiers or even security officers. They're test flight crewman employed by SFS. They couldn't put up much of a fight even if they wanted to," Slade replied.

Some of the crew moved to hide from the commandos, while others raised their hands in surrender or put them behind their heads and fell to their knees in submission. The squad ignored them and continued on their way, making it to the bridge in record time as the crew there were still arguing about what action to take.

"Surprise!" Slade yelled as his team bustled onto the bridge, training their weapons on the dozen crewman that occupied the deck.

The occupants of the bridge froze and a furious looking imperial officer turned to face them. "How dare you have the audacity to….."

"Shut up!" Slade snapped, interrupted him. "Everybody out! Get your hands up and keep them there!" Slade demanded, keeping his blaster fixed on the imperial officer.

"You; slowly draw your blaster and place it on the ground. Try anything and I'll pump you full of bolts. Got it laser-brain?"

The officer sneered at him, but complied as he placed the pistol by his feet. "You won't get away with this."

"Uh huh. Well we'll see about that. Until then shut your pie hole and get moving,"

Slade said, nodding in the direction of the bridge crew where they gathered by the entrance.

The imp grumbled to himself as he moved to comply. He didn't get more than a dozen paces before Slade's blaster went off, pumping him full of a stun shot that made him convulse violently on the deck as he emitted a series of strained grunting noises.

"Whoops!" Slade said with a grin. "My finger slipped."

A chorus of chuckles came from his team.

At his instruction all but the two of them assigned to guard duty moved and began manning the computer terminals and controls of the heavy cruiser.

The lieutenant slid into the captain's chair and rested his blaster rifle across his legs. "Open us a line to the Vulture."

"Yes sir."

A few seconds of awkward silence followed before the captain of the Vulture's voice came over the comm. "How are we looking Lieutenant?"

"I'm happy to report that we've captured the bridge and are now in control of the ship. The rest of my force is rounding up the crew and seizing control of the ship's systems and clearing any possible trouble makers," Slade said.

"Excellent! Bring her engines back online and prepare to move out."

"Copy that. How are we going for time?" Slade asked.

"Good so far, lieutenant. We're halfway through our allotted time so provided your men get things moving in a timely fashion and nothing goes wrong we should be out of here with time to spare and no sign of us when reinforcements show up," the captain of the Vulture said.

The lieutenant commed his other two teams. "Alpha squad to Beta and Zeta squads, do you copy?"

"Read ya loud and clear Lieutenant; Beta squad have conducted a through sweep of the ship. We encountered a squad of half a dozen stormies and a firefight ensued. Put three of em down permanently and took the other three prisoner. We've rounded everyone up and are watching over them in the main hold."

"Zeta squad, not much to report. We reached and secured the ship's main systems without incident. Awaiting orders on our next course of action."

Slade smiled at a job well done. "Nice work boys. I don't think things could've gone any smoother. Zeta move out and join Beta squad while we get the ship up and running. As soon as she's ready to jump we're out of here," Slade said.

"Roger. Copy sir," came the replies.

"Sir? What do we do about the prisoners?" Kaiser Sozay, the Twi-Lek and leader of Beta squad asked. "We're not taking them with us, surely?"

"No, we don't take prisoners," Slade confirmed. "Keep them manacled and put them all into escape pods. Then launch the pods to be picked up by the Imps when they arrive. It'll be a nice little parting gift."

"Are you sure, sir?" she asked, a bit uncertain. "I mean they wouldn't do the same with us. We'd be bantha fodder."

"I have no doubt we would," he agreed. "But we're not the empire; and the force willing we'll never conduct ourselves the way they do."

"Right. As you wish, Lieutenant," she replied, cutting the comm.

Lieutenant Auryn turned back to his team. "Right, let's get out of here! Get this bucket moving!"

His team chorused an affirmative and set to work, bringing ship's systems online and restarting her engines as lights flashed and the cruiser rumbled to life once more.

"Only bring the necessary systems online. Cut life support systems to any part of the ship that's not vital and reroute all available power to the engines," he instructed. "With one of her three engines out of commission we'll need to get all the power to the remaining ones we can get."

His team went diligently about their tasks as he leaned back in the captain's chair and wondered how well things had gone for Scavenger squadron.

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