Prologue

[NRI Headquarters]

Operative 216 entered the dark briefing room and looked around. He was used to this sight by now—a dark room encircled by mirrors on three sides so one didn’t know from which side they were looking in on him. A single light shining down on a black table in the center of the room. Only two chairs, one occupied and the other empty. Knowing that the empty one was his he casually strode into the room, not bothering to salute the full colonel sitting across from him.

When it came to intelligence, everyone acted cool, relaxed, as if nothing mattered when, on the inside, they were wound up and ready to bug out and, if needed, shoot their way halfway across a planet to get to a space port. Well, in all honesty, that was how an operative like 216 worked. Operatives where, literally, a one man army and basic intelligence gathering was rarely their mission. People like 216 rarely got a mission where they didn’t have to turn someone’s face into charcoal with a blaster at one point or another.

216 was one of the best operatives the NRI had to offer. The fact that he’d been at this game since the Rebel Alliance was only starting to think of a cool name for itself—both on the Imperial and Rebel side of things to boot—was testimony to that, especially when someone in his line of work rarely made it past six months of service before getting themselves killed. 216, of course, had special attributes that no one else had… particularly having been trained in combat by his father since he was big enough to hold a blaster much like the one that 216 had strapped to his thigh. Or the one in his pants. Or the one under his jacket. Or the one in his boot. One could never be too careful, even among friendlies.

He sat in his chair, staring straight at the colonel, smiling at his superior as he waited for the man to talk. The colonel was pulling out datapads, eleven if he’d counted right, and setting them on the table. Into the datapads he plugged a wire that was connected to a small box, no larger than a grenade. The object was black and square, and reminded 216 of a stale ration cube. Coming out of this cube was an extra wire. The colonel took this wire and plugged it into what 216 thought was a blank datapad and then hit a button on the box. There was a buzzing sound that lasted about five seconds. When it stopped the colonel unplugged the datapad and tossed it over to 216.

The operative caught it but didn’t bother reading it yet, setting it on the table as the colonel put the pads away again. He did so one by one. It was as if he were trying to annoy 216. When he was finally done ha folded his hands on the table and let out a sigh, then took an audible breath before he began to talk in a crisp, clean manner.

“Operative Two-One-Six,” he began, his facial expression was a bored one, and his deep voice matched it. “On that data pad are the eleven pilots that will make up Red Squadron’s roster a week from now. Right now, there are only nine of them, so the two additional members will be transferred into the unit here on Coruscant. You will infiltrate Red Squadron as its twelfth member.”

“Nice,” 216 commented off handedly, picking up the data pad as he went skimmed the various profiles, trying to see if any one of the pilots caught his eye. “So, what’s the catch?”

“We believe that there’s a mole in Red Squadron, and not only that, a mole in Starfighter Command itself. A high ranking one, obviously, since he or she was able to help another mole infiltrate into this front line unit.”

“I see,” said 216, not looking up from the datapad. “Go in, find the baby mole and get him to squeal out his momma?”

“Er… yes, that’s the gist of it.”

216 smiled and started to get up. “Welp, that’s it then. I’ll report when this General Arneyan contacts me.”

“W-Wait…”

“What?”

The colonel looked shocked at his subordinate’s behavior, but then seemed to recall something and shook his head, relaxing back into his seat. “Never mind.”

“Alright… the Deal I made is still on, right?” 216 asked.

“Of course.”

“Good. Well, I’ll report back when I’m in.”

216 left the briefing room.

[Unknown Location; Coruscant]

“Agent Four-Nineteen reporting, sir.”

The holo-image of the man before Agent 419 flickered slightly. His superior was wearing a hood so as to not be recognized.

“Copy, Four-Nineteen,” the image said. “Let me be quick about this, I don’t want the NRI tracing this to either of us.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’ve gotten you a billet in Red Squadron, they’ll be contacting you within the week. You know what to do.”

“Yes, sir, I do.”

The image nodded.

“That’s it then. Contact me when you’ve infiltrated them. Three-Three-Oh out.”

The holo image disappeared and 419 started to destroy any evidence of what had transpired here.

Chapter One

[Briefing Room A; CRS Morning Star; Day One - 0930 Hrs.]

“That feeling you should be experiencing now…” Lt. Colonel Rob “Biggs” Baden began. He paused slightly to let the pilots of Red Squadron feel how the Mon Calamari MC-80 Cruiser Morning Star exited hyperspace. “…is the Star arriving into Coruscant orbit. Yep, you heard it. Coruscant. Us. Not Imperial Center. Coruscant!”

Rob couldn’t help but grin as the pilots in his command cheered. The war wasn’t over, but for a few brief moments they could pretend it was—they had captured the jewel, the heart of the Empire this past week. They hadn’t been here personally, they’d been fighting at Balfron but their battle had been just as important as the one that had been fought in the area of space that the Morning Star was elegantly swimming through now. It was the biggest moral boost since the Emperor, Darth Vader and the Second Death Star were destroyed in one sweep. And not only that, it had been starfighter pilots that had done it!

Celebrations had occurred all over the ship during their trip here; they had a lot to celebrate, after all! Even the usually somber Lt. Colonel Baden had joined into the party. They were celebrating their victory at Balfron, the capture of Coruscant and the amalgamation of Red and Blue Squadron. Sure, at first it had been awkward, but since the two squadrons had been close before it had felt more like welcoming home a brother than loosing one and absorbing the pieces which, sadly, was exactly what it looked like on paper.

In the briefing room there was a total of nine pilots including Rob himself. His new executive officer, Major Richard “Wildstar” Vogel stood at his side with his own pleased grin. Richard had previously been the leader of Blue Squadron, but the pilot had taken the change to Red best of all. Although Richard would never admit it, Rob felt as if the older pilot preferred being second-in-command, it was les strain on the mind and soul. Good pay, respect he deserved, the ability to instill fear in all the other pilots of the unit, and not have to put up with the top brass? Sith, Rob might have even considered switching placing positions with Richard if he knew that there would be no repercussions.

The other seven pilots were sitting in pairs or trios all along the briefing room, all grinning the same as Richard. Rob’s former executive officer for a brief few months sat with his wingmate, Second Lieutenant David “Wild Cat” Fate. Rob had never seen anyone to take a demotion from major to captain as happily as Chris “Pip” Layne had. The young man from Crolles might have been able to deal with the job were he Rob’s age, but in his currant state it was impossible to keep him sitting still here and now, much less convince him that he should catch up on paperwork. In fact, Rob didn’t remember a single instance where he hadn’t had to ask Chris to actually do the work before he received it. Chris just wanted to fly, kill Imps, fool around with his squad mates and spend time with his lover, the Twi’lek Ensign Sheva Zolos. Rob envied him—he wished he could spend as much time with Trixel Narmi as Chris did with Sheva.

Second Lieutenant David “Wild Cat” Fate, or “WC” as Chris called him, was never far from the young captain. The two had become fast friends, though sometimes David came off as more serious as he liked—especially with that scar! But the two balanced each other out well, even if sometimes that balance needed to be kept in check. Chris had a knack for getting into trouble and dragging David off with him. Thankfully, though, Chris had been causing much less trouble since David hung around him. If you wanted to find either of them, the Fishtank was always your best bet.

In front of Chris and David sat another pair of pilots. Since Chelsey “Vape” Maxfield had been promoted to lt. colonel and given the command of Eclipse Squadron in the task force which had been organized to pursue the Imperials who had escaped Balfron, the last two remaining female pilots onboard had quickly become fast friends. Just as with Chris and David, it was rare to find First Lieutenant Jeni “Angel” Courtner and Second Lieutenant Deanna “Dee” Hashi apart. Jeni was a long standing member of Red Squadron, having arrived at the same time that Rob himself had. Though small, Jeni was an incredibly beautiful woman and though her callsign Angel fit well her style of flying, it too fit perfectly well with her appearance. More than one new officer had fallen head over hells for the happy, go-lucky Jeni Courtner, the Angel, only to have their heart broken when she turned them down.

Deanna Hashi had transferred into Red Squadron when Blue Squadron had disbanded and was quite an attractive woman herself although much like Jeni she tended to remain single though many men tried to catch her attention. She was slightly taller than Jeni with the infamous Kuati elegance that her home planet was famous for—though don’t let that fool you! She could be found covered in grease with the same frequency as the ship’s chief mechanic, Pappy. She preferred the B-wing Fighter and had been making sure that Red Squadron would continue to have that option, repairing the damaged B-wings that had been left over after the fit-for-duty ones had been shipped of to B-wing squadrons. Rob and Richard had managed to convince command that it was never bad to have a couple of B-wings aboard should the need arise and Deanna had been the person charged in making them work like new again.

Off to the left of them sat Major Paul “Rogue” Sweet, slouched on the steps that served as benches, giving the briefing room an amphitheater-like look. Paul body language showed just how relaxed he was with this briefing—as training officer for Red Squadron he perfectly clued in to what this briefing was about and judging by the smug look on his face he was clearly pleased about the whole thing. Paul had served in just about every possible position in Blue Squadron. As an ex-Imperial commando he’d headed the Intel area in Blue Squadron almost since he’d been no more than an eager rookie. Later he’d become the training officer, then the executive officer, then the commanding officer and, lastly, again, the training officer. He’d held that position in Blue Squadron before the amalgamation and Rob thought that it had made perfect sense to keep him in that job now in Red Squadron.

Further to the left was Red Squadron’s operations officer, First Lieutenant Jamie “Shadow” Wetherill. The pilot from Toprawa had proven himself again and again during his time in the squadron and was very experienced. Rob had been flying with Jamie as his wingmate for almost an entire year now, and owed his life to the man a dozen times over. Jamie was fairly relaxed, too; though probably near as much as Paul seemed to be. He was also in on what this briefing was about, and of the four people in charge of squadron affairs he’d been the one most pleased about it. Being a native to Toprawa Jamie had never really been on a planet with a vast city, even less one the size of Coruscant which was bound to impress every person sitting in this room—except maybe Rogue who’d been there during his tenure as an Imperial commando. Not even Rob himself could boast of having set foot in the capital of the Galaxy… and Rob had been just about everywhere.

Flight Officer Kyle “Gnoizic” Mandal finished up the squadron, being the newest and youngest member in it. He’d only joined during the Balfron Campaign, earning his wings and right to call himself a part of Red Squadron after surviving numerous skirmishes and battles during that time. Originally, Rob had pulled him from the Training Section because the Reds had been hit hard and they needed the extra pilots. It had been Rob’s intention to promote the long-time cadet Aaron “Jackal” Wolff as well but Aaron had managed to sustain another serious injury right before his chance once again. Kyle had proven himself worthy, and now enjoyed all the privileges of being the newest member of Red Squadron which, combined with his making Ace during the confrontation, the victory at Balfron and the conquest of Coruscant, put poor Kyle Mandal seriously in debt with Dargon, the bartender of the Fishtank—the bar aboard the Morning Star. Not even the credits from the bet he’d won against Aaron Wolff had helped to balance that out.

So that was it: those were the surviving members of Red and Blue Squadron, joined together in Red. It was a fine group of pilots and Rob was proud of every one of them, even of Chris sometimes.

“I’m sure that all of you are eager to get a glimpse of the new capital of the New Republic, but I’m afraid that we’re got a mission to discuss before you get the chance,” Rob told them, his face turning serious. He, Paul, Jamie and Richard had discussed at large how to break the news to the squadron and had decided to treat it like every other mission—serious faces for a serious task. “It’s a mission of utmost importance, so listen well.”

The pilots looked at one another, surprised. Even Paul and Jamie played their part, erasing the smiles from their faces and leaning forward to listen up. Chris, on the other hand, leaned back and acted more relaxed than he seemed to be before. Captain Layne had an ego the size of a Death Star and, according to him, just as powerful. He was “la crème de la crème,” and high-profile missions were his destiny to complete. Next to him David crossed his arms. Kyle looked wide-eyed as a child being told that Christmas was coming early while Deanna and Jeni put their full attention onto Rob and Richard.

“We will be one of many units infiltrating Coruscant. We will mingle with its people, feel out the situation… visit bars and get hammered.” Rob grinned. “The mission began at 0800 hours this morning and will end a week from now at that same time—which is when you are to report your findings to me at Starfighter Command Headquarters. They’re calling this one ‘Operation Shore Leave.’”

The pilots stared at Red Leader stunned. After a few seconds Rob looked at them confused.

“What in Corellia’s nine hells are you still doing here?” he asked them, feigning annoyance.

The pilots of Red Squadron suddenly understood what was going up and jumped from their seats, rushing out of the briefing room. There was much chatter of what they were going to do once they got down into the city-planet. Once they had all left Richard turned to Rob.

“You are so evil.”

“Lucky that I don’t have the Force then, huh?”

“All beware of Darth Biggs.”

Rob laughed.

“Am I to suppose that our Shore Leave hasn’t begun yet?” Richard asked.

“Oh, it has. I booked us a nice room with a view at Briefing Room C, Starfighter Command for tomorrow morning,” Rob replied.

“Yippie.”

“Indeed.”

Chapter Two

[General Arneyan’s Office; Starfighter Command, Coruscant; Day Two - 2145 Hrs.]

Rob and Richard had been going from briefing room to briefing room since 0600 this morning, and they still weren’t even close to being done.

They had begun in Briefing Room C, yes, but that had only been to be briefing about their schedule for the day. They’d then proceeded to various different offices and briefing rooms—they were being briefed on future attack plans for the New Republic as well as being debriefed on the many missions they’d had since coming aboard the Morning Star. Rob found himself being debriefed for missions of when Lt. Colonel Kelly St. Clair had been in command, which told one exactly how unorganized Starfighter Command was when it came to giving its frontline squadrons debriefings was. In part Rob understood… there must be literally thousands of squadrons… who remembered Red Squadron? The last time Rob remembered the squadron having shore leave on a New Republic world that Starfighter Command was based on was two years ago on Mon Calamari—and that’s when Rob assumed that Lt. Colonel St. Clair and Major Neill “Ranger” Magill had last gone through this process.

Richard himself, as executive officer, usually only would’ve been present to support Rob as he dealt with beurecrats and generals, but he’d also had to answer for a lot of Blue Squadron missions before the amalgamation. The new Red Squadron had yet to be tested in the field, so they luckily hadn’t had to answer for any mishaps that maybe stem out from there, which was a real blessing. Many times during the day Rob and Richard had come close to wishing that the New Republic hadn’t taken Coruscant, and this saved them from this paperwork hell. Rob couldn’t even begin to imagine what would have happened if instead of Richard, Chris Layne had been here. The pilot expected that Rob would probably be looking for a new executive officer while the young man was being brought up on the charges of assaulting a senior officer.

Red Squadron’s command staff reached the entrance to their next stop and hit the call button to the mechanical door. They heard a faint chime from the inside, and then another coming from on top of the button Rob had just hit. The door swung open and they stepped inside.

Inside was a man who must have been in his mid-sixties. He was balding and what hair he had left was a silvery-white color. He had various worry lines all over his face, clearly the face of a man who’d seen plenty of combat and had worried over many commands throughout his life. He was dressed in a general’s uniform and had a noticeably prosthetic right arm, which gave Rob a pretty good idea of why this man had stopped piloting a fighter and had begun to pilot a desk. The man looked up at them as they entered and smiled briefly before standing up. Rob and Richard saluted him and he saluted them back.

“Lt. Colonel Baden, Major Vogel. Please, take a seat.” The man motioned to the two chairs in front of his desk. He himself sat down and waited for the two Red Squadron pilots to do the same. “I am General Bernard Arneyan, I am the person in charge of squadrons based out of Coruscant—and thus the man in charge of cleaning up the Imperial bases near this system.

“As you know, when Coruscant was captured we were also able to obtain the location of nearly every Imperial base in the Inner Rim and near the core—an area which we must protect from outside attacks. Oh, I’m fairly sure that we’re missing quite a few, we all knew how sneaky Iceheart was,” the general said. He seemed fairly confident that the woman was deader than a doornail, killed during the capture of Coruscant. Either that or he didn’t think it was his—or their—business. “Now, you won’t always be assigned to clean up duty, I’ll be moving you about plenty-like, just so you don’t get bored.”

Rob and Richard looked at him, obviously confused.

“Uh, sir, if I may…” Rob began. General Arneyan nodded for him to continue. “But isn’t Red Squadron assigned to the Morning Star?”

“Of course she is, or at least will be again,” he responded grinning but stopped when he saw that Rob and Richard were only more confused. “Ah, I see… no one has bothered to inform you yet. The Morning Star is getting re-fitted. It’s been a couple of years since she’d had any serious damage repair, including important upgrades. She’ll be out of the fight for three to six months tops. The New Republic can’t afford to leave Red Squadron idle for that long so you’ve been slotted up with me for now. The Morning Star will remain in Coruscant orbit for the remainder of the week and then she will be sent to Mon Calamari to begin her re-fit. A large part of her ground-pounding personnel will be staying on Coruscant as well.”

“What about the Regis and the Summer, sir?” Richard asked, speaking up for the first time.

“The Regis will remain in Coruscant orbit as your support ship and part of the planet’s defense force. Once the re-fitting of the Morning Star is over, the Regis will be reassigned to the Morning Star task group.” General Arneyan smiled. “The Summer will be remaining by the Morning Star’s side, and going to Mon Calamari to get a refit of her own. Your pilots will have quarters here on Coruscant and then be transferred back up to the Regis until the Star is back. I’m sorry you weren’t told earlier, but I thought you had since you’d been assigned to my command.”

“Well… maybe it came over last minute or after we left the Star yesterday night…” Rob said. He hadn’t given the fact that they’d been assigned quarters in the barracks much thought—he’d thought they were going to be temporary. Seemed like they were going to have to do a little bit of settling in after all.

He was, though, going to get in contact with Captain Ru’kaart, get the Star’s CO to give Rob his opinion of the situation, apart from getting the squadron’s personal belonging sent down to them. Rob had learned a saying at flight school: “When the pilot is gone, so is their stuff.” There were a few things he didn’t want to end up missing. The Pride of Alderaan, for example.

“Quite possibly. I was only told you were assigned to me this morning,” the general responded, smiling at them again. “Anyways. I know that Red Squadron was given leave to celebrate the conquest of Coruscant, so I won’t bore you with any mission briefings just yet—we’ll save those for when Red Squadron is officially off leave, I think. How about we schedule a briefing? I have mission in mind for you… we can settle it the day after you get off leave at 0930.”

“We’ll be there, sir.”

“Right then. I think that we’re done here.” The general looked from Richard to Rob. “Any questions?”

“Uh… yes,” Rob began, shuffling in his seat. “I know you must get this one a lot, but is there any chance that you’ll be able to assign us some more pilots? I mean, the group I have right now is incredible, but including Major Vogel and I, Red Squadron only has nine pilots.”

“Ah, yes, of course.” General Arneyan grinned. “I’d almost forgotten. I am going to assign three more pilots to your roster. I’ll be sending you their profiles as soon as I get a chance. You’ll also be getting some more fighters… I understand you’re down a couple of X-wings and A-wings, you’ll be getting enough of those to fill your needs soon enough.”

“What about bombers, sir?” asked Richard.

“Bombers?” General Arneyan looked confused for a moment. “Ah yes… you were Blue Squadron’s last CO. I’m sorry, but Red Squadron’s profile doesn’t call for the need of bombers. I understand, though, that you have a pair of B-wings and a couple of Y-wings left over, right? Well, you’ll be keeping those.”

“Ah… thank you, sir.” Richard managed a weak smile. He didn’t really mean it though, from what Rob could tell. Rob knew that it hurt Richard to be called the last Blue Squadron CO. The major still carried a fair amount of guilt because of he hadn’t managed to keep the squadron afloat. Though the two were friends, that was a subject they would never touch.

“Any more questions?” the general asked.

“No, sir,” Rob replied.

“Good! Well, then don’t forget—0930. I’ll see you later, then. A pleasure to be able to work with you, Red Squadron.”

“Thank you, sir,” Rob replied. Richard nodded.

The two younger officers stood up and saluted the general. Arneyan stood up himself and returned the salute.

“Dismissed, Lt. Colonel, Major.”

When the two were finally out of the office Rob turned to Richard.

“Let’s hurry up and get to a comm before the next mission—I want to talk with Ru’kaart ASAP.” He told his executive officer.

“Copy that, Lead.”

[Pilot’s Lounge; New Republic Barracks Block E-4; Day Two - 2303 Hrs.]

“You’re back!” Captain Chris “Pip” Layne announced as a group of Red Squadron pilots came in through the door into the lounge.

“Ever consider changing your callsign to Obvious, Captain?” said First Lieutenant Jeni “Angel” Courtner as she threw herself down on one of the big sofas that were all over the room. She let out a sigh and closed her eyes, clearly tired.

The majority of Red Squadron had been hanging out together the whole day. They’d slept in, and then gone out for lunch before deciding to hit the sites. They’d done the grand tour of the city-planet… or at least a part of it. It was impossible to see everything worth seeing on Coruscant in a day—one needed at least a decade—but they’d tried. Chris had bailed half way through one of the museum exhibits, heading out with Major Paul “Rogue” Sweet to pick up their respective dates.

Chris was sitting at the edge of one of the larger sofas while his lover, the blue-skinned twi-lek Sheva Zolos was sprawled out on the rest of it, her head on his lap. They were both in civilian clothes and had just finished dinner, judging by the empty containers on the table. On the other hand, it appeared as if Paul and Irena were still out, probably choosing to eat dinner out at some restaurant unlike Chris and Sheva had… but Jeni could understand why the couple had made that choice, well, sadly.

Even though Coruscant was now a New Republic planet and the capital, the change from Imperial thinking to that of the New Republic was going to take some time and, sadly, xenophobia was a deep embedded feeling among the Human population of the city-planet. It would be years before that psychological problem settled down, and until then inter-species couples like Chris and Sheva would have to lie low and take care of where they went and what they did, unless they wanted to attract unwanted attention by Imperial Loyalists.

“I have, actually, once or twice,” Chris replied with a grin. Jeni gave an amused snort in reply.

Meanwhile the rest of the pilots in the squadron filled out the chairs around then, flopping down as tired as Jeni had been. Flight Officer Kyle “Gnoizic” Mandal tried to sit down when Jeni had sprawled her legs but the female lieutenant shook her head.

“Come on, Angel, all the other seats are taken.” Kyle whined.

Jeni looked at him for a moment and then sighed, lifting up her legs to give him room to sit down. It was obvious that she was planning to use him as a footrest. Kyle looked at her pleadingly but Jeni shook her head once more. “Take it or leave it, Gnoiz. You have five seconds to decide—sitting or standing?”

Kyle groaned and sat down. Jeni set her legs on his lap.

“Hmm…” Jeni began, chewing on her lower lip.

“What?” Kyle asked.

“I probably should’ve wiped the mud from my boots before…”

Kyle shot up, slapping down the front of his flight suit, trying to wipe off any mud that might be there. Jeni started laughing and Kyle looked at her, then at her boots which were mud-less.

“Sit down, Gnoiz,” Jeni told the Flight Officer. Kyle grudgingly sat down again and Jeni put her feet on his lap again. The Reds were quiet for a few moments. Jeni sighed and decided to break the silence. “So, what should we do tomorrow?”

“I dunno… we’ve seen most of the sites in town, I think,” Second Lieutenant David “Wild Cat” Fate said, yawning as he stretched his arms upward. “I mean, what’s left to see?”

“We could go check out the underworld,” First Lieutenant Jamie “Shadow” Wetherill said with an evil grin.

“Uh, I don’t think so,” Jeni replied as she covered her eyes with the bend in her arm so as to avoid the light. She was so tired that she felt that she could fall asleep right here and now. “I heard one of the guys from Orion Squadron saying that they’re opening up a nice bar not too far from here the night after tomorrow. Well, more than a bar a club. It’s for New Republic pilots only; I think that it might be worth checking out.”

“Me, too,” replied Second Lieutenant Deanna “Dee” Hashi. “I don’t have anything to wear though, except from my flight suit and another outfit—and those, I doubt, are worth taking to a club. Oh! I know, we could go to the fashion district tomorrow—get some nice clothes for the club when it opens.”

“Sounds good to me,” Kyle said, rubbing his chin.

“Yes, I guess that I’m in,” Jamie replied, though he didn’t sound too convinced about it. Red’s operations officer turned to David who nodded an affirmative. Jamie finally turned to Chris. “What about you?”

“Uh… sorry, but Sheva and I have got a couple of things planned for the rest of the week. Sounds fun, though, maybe if we finish dinner early that night we can swing by.” He looked down to his blue-skinned lover. “What do you think, love?”

Sheva made a face and laughed. “I told you not to call me ‘love’, Chris… it sounds so corny.”

“Alright, dear.”

“Oof! That makes me feel old!”

“Uh, what about ‘Generic Affectionate Pet name?”

“How about Sheva?”

“You’re so boring…” Chris stuck his tongue out at Sheva.

Jamie cleared his throat. The other pilots had watched in silence, something in between amused and horrified.

“Huh? What? Oh, yeah. What do you say, Sheva, should we go to the club the night after tomorrow?” Chris asked her anew.

“Sure, sounds like it could be fun.” Sheva smiled. “We’ll have to go out and get you something nice to wear.”

“Shouldn’t be too hard, it’s not as if I’m Gnoiz—I look good in just about anything.” Chris winked a Kyle to indicate he was joking. Having only joined the squadron literally days ago, he was still in for a lot of good-humored harassment for being the new guy. “Anyways, I think I’ll be heading to bed. I’m, uh, tired… yeah…”

“Oh just get out of here, Pip!” David told him, throwing the veteran Red pilot a candy wrapper he bunched up.

Grinning like two little kids Chris and Sheva got up and left the lounge, arms wrapped around one another and whispering to each other. Sheva and Chris had been inseparable since they’d started dating, Jeni reflected with some envy. It wasn’t that she needed someone right away, but it was always nice to have someone.

She sighed.

“Well, I think I’m going to hit the sack, too. I’m dead tired and tomorrow we’re going to be walking around even more.” She swung her legs off of Kyle onto floor and stood up stretching. “I’ll see you all in the morning!”

They all returned her good night as she left the lounge and leaded off towards the quarters she shared with Deanna. Jeni stuffed her hands in her pockets and gave another tired sigh as she made her way towards them, looking down at the floor and not paying much attention as she went.

Perhaps if she’d been paying a little more attention she should’ve avoided running into him.

She bumped against the chest of the taller man and felt herself falling only to be caught by the stranger. Jeni looked up at the man: he was dressed in civilian clothes and in such a way that made him appear that he didn’t belong in the barracks. She had always been able to distinguish who was military and who wasn’t, but whether this man was or not eluded her. He was taller than her by plenty, as her head only reached his chest—but that was normal, as Jeni wasn’t the tallest of pilots anyways. What was most unusual about his was that he had black deadlocks, the tips bleached or something to make them blonde. His facial hair followed his jawline closely, and combined with the dreads gave him in outwardly beast-like and wild appearance. The man smiled at her.

“Caught you there. Next time, though, you won’t be so lucky as to bump into me,” he said.

“Uh… thanks, I guess,” she responded, not exactly sure of what to say to him. “Sorry ‘bout that, it’s been a pretty long day.”

“Sight-seeing, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Seems like everyone was doing that today.”

“And you weren’t?”

The man shook his head. Jeni glanced towards the hallway that led to her room.

“Well, thanks for catching me…”

“Hobbes. Well, Captain Dann ‘Hobbes’ Barelli,” he replied he held out his hand.

“Yeah, thanks, Hobbes.” She shook his hand, offering her own tired smile. “First Lieutenant Jeni ‘Angel’ Courtner.”

“My, well from what I can see, the callsign suits you well.” Hobbes grinned.

“Uh, yeah… well, if you don’t mind, I was going to go and get some sleep,” she said. Jeni was all for making new friends… when she wasn’t tired. “Excuse me.”

“Excused you be.” He smiled and turned as she walked past him. “I hope to see you again, Angel.”

Jeni finally left the man behind, not thinking much about the subject. She met men like him all the time and had learned to shrug off most advances when she herself wasn’t interested. Part of the reason she didn’t care much for the encounter was that in the time it’d taken her to reach her room her eyes were already closing. It took her four tries to put in the right code that would open the door.

When it was finally open she stumbled in, fell on her bed and was fast asleep.

Chapter Three

[Main Ballroom; Imperial Palace; Day Three – 2049 Hrs.]

One of the first things that had been done once the New Republic had taken Coruscant was to raid the Imperial Palace and fix it up in a way befitting the New Republic. They had taken away the Imperial Purple and the black that had given this room just a gloomy appearance and had decorated it in the typical Republic fashion. It was totally different to how it was remembered by two ex-Imperial officers, who’s only memory of this place had been a quite different one.

“This feels so…” Major Paul “Rogue” Sweet began.

“I know, it’s weird,” his date, Major Irena Hesh, said.

They both laughed.

“Last time I was in here,” Irena recalled, “I was a lieutenant accompanying my company commander… what was his name? Colonel Watsbee or something like that.” She shook her head. “Trust me, that was no Ball like this… I was so scared at the thought of running into the Emperor that I wasn’t even able to eat dinner.”

“You think that was bad? The only time I was allowed in here was on guard duty, escorting some senator who I forget his name.” Paul paused for a moment trying to recall the man’s name. Finally he gave up. “Anyways, that was the only time I ever saw the Emperor in person… and trust me, I put in for a transfer as far as way from Imperial Center—I mean Coruscant—the minute I got out of here. It was right after the Academy, during that stint we all have to do on IC before getting our official assignments. My Dad picked up on my transfer and got me into an infantry unit on the Amok.”

“From there you went on to the Commandos right?”

“Yep.”

“So, whatever happened to your parents, Paul?” she asked. “You never talk about them.”

“To be truthful… I don’t know. I more or less faked my own death to make sure nothing ever happened to them. I’ll have to check up on them some day,” he responded, thoughtful. Suddenly a worried expression of realization crossed his face. “Or rescue them if the Imps have finally figured out the connection!”

Irena wrapped an arm around her lover’s waist and hugged herself to him for a moment, trying to reassure him. “I’m sure they’re fine—even proud probably.”

Paul smiled. “Yeah, you’re probably right…”

“How about I go get us a some drinks? I see some of your squadmates over there” she pointed to where Rob Baden and Richard Vogel were talking.

Paul noticed that Rob was accompanied by Trixel Narmi, the bartender aboard the Regis. Paul had almost forgotten that those two were an item. Since becoming Red Leader Rob had tried to keep his relationship with Trixel as low-profile as possible, trying not to let it interfere with his duties. Paul felt a little sad for Rob… he had the burden of an entire squadron on his shoulders and on top of that he couldn’t spend time with the woman he loved. They were both dressed smartly, Trixel according to the fashion of the day and Rob in his dress uniform which was decorated with various medals.

The couple that they were talking to was Richard Vogel, the former leader of Blue Squadron, and Colonel Elise Nosnern, who had recovered from her injuries in the Battle of Balfron. Paul had never realized it before now, but the dark skinned Elise Nosnern was actually a very attractive woman. Elise was in her own dress uniform, similar to the one that Irena was wearing. The skirt ended slightly above her knees, accenting her long legs. If Paul wasn’t in love with Irena and Elise wasn’t accompanying Richard, he might have actually made a pass at the colonel.

“Sure, that sounds great, love,” he said smiling at her. “I’ll see you over there, then.”

Irena gave him a wink and Paul watched as the woman he loved made her way over to the table with drink. With a sigh he turned around and made his way over to Rob, Richard, Elise and Trixel. He threw his commanding and executive officer a salute. They returned it lazily and smiled.

“So nice of you to join us, Mr. Sweet,” Rob said.

“Aye, Chief,” he responded. “Hadn’t seen you here before now, thought that you weren’t coming.”

“Well, we had seen you and thought you were avoiding us,” Richard replied with a wink, which drew laughs from everyone present.

“Where’s Irena?” Elise asked him with a sly grin. She was becoming a good friend of Irena’s, even though she was her commanding officer, and was probably privy to all that Irena had to say about her newfound lover.

“She went to get drinks, told me to wait over here,” Paul replied.

“I’ll have to get her to teach me how she gets you to follow orders!” Rob said with a wink. “Who knows? Maybe it’ll even work on Chris!”

“I dunno… I’ll ask her but I don’t think she’s in the business of creating miracles,” Paul replied. Those present laughed.

“What did I miss?” asked Irena coming up to the group with two glasses of white wine. She handed one to Paul, who gave her a kiss on the head as a thank you.

“We were just discussing about how we can put your methods to controlling Paul here to practice on Captain Layne,” Trixel said, speaking up for the first time since Paul had joined the group.

It took Irena a moment to realize who they were talking about. “Ah? Oh! That rascal Pip?” she asked but didn’t wait for an answer. “I’m good, but I’m no Luke Skywalker!”

They chatted for most of the evening about this and that, greeting anyone who stopped by but keeping mostly to themselves. It wasn’t that they were afraid of talking with anyone else, but when you fought along side someone as long as they had it created bonds. In fact, they were so absorbed in themselves that they didn’t notice when a familiar face entered the Ballroom, looked around, spotted them and headed over to them.

Lt. Colonel Niell “Ranger” Magill snapped a salute to Rob Baden, who immediately went red in embarrassment. The rest of the group laughed. It was well known that Rob had never been totally comfortable being saluted or being called ‘sir,’ so having Red’s former executive officer, one who had been in the position when Rob was just a rookie, salute him was a cause for extreme embarrassment.

“Uh, no need to do that, sir-err… Niell.” Rob sheepishly replied.

Neill had left Red Squadron a couple of weeks before Lt. Colonel Kelly “Zoom” St. Clair’s demise and Rob’s promotion to become an instructor at the New Republic Academy, beating into new recruits the fundamentals of flying an A-wing starfighter, killing them in simulators as he’d done in Red Squadron before the new pilots got themselves killed for real in combat. Paul, as Red’s new training officer and formerly that of Blue, had followed up on Niell’s training methods and was a staunch admirer of the man.

“Long time no see, boys.” Niell was their age, but being their executive officer so long pretty much gave him the privilege of calling them whatever he wanted. The only possible exception was probably Paul because Paul had been Blue’s commanding officer for a short time.

“Aye, how have you been?” Rob asked.

“Pretty good, been training a fair amount of A-wing jockeys… I’ve been trying to get the best ones sent over to you in Red Squadron but Command has ‘better’ ideas for them.” Niell shook his head. “I heard that Red and Blue are one now?”

“Yep… there really wasn’t much choice after the Balfron fiasco.” Richard said, frowning.

“Should’ve called it Purple Squadron, then.” Niell winked.

“Actually, Pip recommended it… and you know how things work…” Rob said. “’Never…’”

“’Never follow any of Pip’s recommendations.’ Yeah, I made up that guideline.” Niell laughed.

“Question…” Paul looked around at those present. “Why do we always end up talking about Pip?”

Richard shrugged. “Some external force? Maybe his ego has mind controlling abilities?”

“Whatever it is,” Rob began, “I’ll kill it when I find it.”

Chapter Four

[Club Space Jockeys; Coruscant; Day Four – 2114 Hrs.]

It didn’t take long to convince the bouncer that they were New Republic pilots from Red Squadron, as Jamie had decided to wear his flight jacket to the club. Fashion on Coruscant was rather lame, and much too extravagant from Deanna Hashi’s tastes, and most of the squadron seemed to think the same. They’d decided to just get something simple and could wear again if the situation called for it—if the new clothes survived that it.

Deanna was wearing all blue: a blue tank top-like shirt that had small red “x” markings over the front of it. The blue was lighter than the official Blue Squadron colors, but it was the closest thing that she could find and actually liked. It was some sort of nylon and it stuck to her body, marking her figure. Accompanying the blue tank top was a rah-rah skirt of the same color, ending halfway down her thigh making a sort of miniskirt. Leg warmers and furry boots that made Deanna feel like an ewok ended her attire for tonight.

Jeni had thought it would be cute if they wore matching outfits, and wore pretty much the same that Deanna wore but in red instead of Blue. She had also proposed a bow in their hair but Deanna had flat out refused to put it on, so Jeni was wearing the blue bow in her hair. It made her look like some sort of birthday present, Deanna reflected with a grin. It would be an interesting night if any of the males present at the Club made the same connection.

Out of the male pilots accompanying them, Deanna thought that Jamie probably dressed the smartest tonight. Red’s operations officer had left his rugged beard and had donned on a simple pair of pants and a plain white shirt, accompanied by his beat up squadron jacket. He had a rugged, wild look that so many women could find themselves attracted to and the man looked, unmistakably, like a pilot. The casual manner in which he walked with his hands in his pockets only added to the ‘look.’

David wore something like a casual suit. A black jacket accompanied by black pants and black dress shoes and a white shirt. The lieutenant would have looked better, perhaps, if he hadn’t cut his hair. Deanna had liked it when he had put it into a pony-tail, and mixing it with the goatee looked pretty good, and would’ve advanced the casual but smooth look he’d been trying to achieve with the casual suit. But other than that Deanna didn’t find it heard to look at David.

On the other hand, Kyle, the last member of their group, had been a gamorrean to find something for. Sixteen years old, the Red Squadron pilot had never been shopping for dress clothes before and had immediately discovered a hate for it. Everything they found he disliked and everything he chose was horrible. They’d spent most of the day yesterday just looking for something for him, and then had had to rush their own choices before the stores closed. In the end they’d gotten him to wear a plain red shirt accompanied by some simple jeans—pretty much what he had worn sight-seeing, but cleaner and not as untaken care of.

The moment they entered the club their eyes and ears were assaulted by the extremely loud music and the multi-colored lights that were whizzing around blinking on and off. The air was warm from the nearly one hundred pilots that were filling the club, either drinking, dancing, goofing off or just talking in some dark corner. The kuati pilot couldn’t help but smile as she made her way through the people to the bar, doing her best not to get separated from her party.

Jeni was the first to finally reach the bar, followed by Jamie and Kyle. Deanna had to grab onto Wild Cat’s jacket to make sure she wasn’t left behind. The taller pilot stopped, and turned around and waited for Deanna to reach him. When she finally managed to squeeze between a gotal and a mon calamari and reached him the pilot smiled.

“Hey, don’t get lost, Dee. This place is probably as dangerous as a battle against a Super Star Destroyer,” he said with a wink.

“Well, then I’ll make sure I don’t loose my wingman, tonight,” she replied with a wink of her own.

David laughed. “Oh? Well, then! Maybe you could honor your wingman with a dance then?”

“Mmm, sure, but then you’ve gotta buy me a drink,” she said. Then, with a sly grin, she added, “its protocol, you know?”

“I’ve never been one for protocol,” he lifted an eyebrow, “but I think I’ll follow this one.”

“Good, let’s go then.”

“Copy that—follow my lead, then, Nine?”

“On it, Eight.”

Out of the three that had remained, Jamie was the first one to disappear. Obviously, his rugged pilot look had attracted a female pilot who automatically dragged him away. Jeni and Kyle had shared a dance, where they’d spotted the missing David and Deanna who had not gone for their drink yet. After their dance, another female pilot had decided to pick up Kyle. Her male-friend had tried with her, so Jeni had allowed him to buy her a drink and then done her best to get rid of him. Eventually he’d gotten the point she was trying to make and had wandered off.

Since then, Jeni had been alone. Jamie and Kyle were nowhere to be seen, and David was still with Deanna on the dance floor. No one else had approached Jeni after they’d seen her so elegantly shoot down the first one to try. Well, no one had tried until one Dann “Hobbes” Barelli came back up to her, grinning as he held a tube glass with a bubbling green liquid.

“Hey,” he said, sliding into the bench next to hers. “Lieutenant Courtner, you look well tonight.”

“Eh, thanks, Captain Barelli.”

“No need to address me by rank, just call me Hobbes—or Dann.” He replied.

“Jeni or Angel,” she said, pointing to herself with her own glass. She looked down at her drink and decided that it had been a while since she’d last taken a sip. She brought it to her lips and drained it. It wasn’t a sip, but she had the feeling that she was going to get another drink soon anyways.

“Angel, then,” he said. “It fits you.”

“Thanks. Hobbes fits you, too.”

“How so?”

“I dunno; you look like a Hobbes type.” She replied.

He laughed. “Yeah, maybe so. At least that’s when my squadmates say. Or they used to say.”

“Used to? What happened?” She immediately regretted asking the question. Jeni could probably guess what had happened, and it happened much too frequently for her own liking. Red, so far, had pretty much been saved from mass death, or at least since she’d been a member.

“Oh, uh, nothing really. I got transferred to another squadron.”

“Ahh, I see.” Jeni felt relived that it hadn’t been what she had thought it had been. “To which, then?”

“Dunno, haven’t been told. Just to report to Coruscant for re-assignment. So, I’m Squad less now.” Dann pouted. “Want another drink?”

“Eh, sure, thanks.” She pretended as if she hadn’t seen that coming. “So, which squadron were you in up until now?”

“Oh, here and there… my most recent squadron was Bishop. X-wing Jockey, mostly, but I I’ve got experience in A-wings, Y-wings, a little on B-wings and most Imp crafts.” He shrugged and waved over the bartender.

“Nice, I prefer A-wings myself, though in Red Squadron we usually fly X-wings, so…” Jeni shrugged.

The bartender came over. “Yeah?” he asked, his voice didn’t exactly sound too happy.

“Uh, I’ll have another one of these—” Dan pointed to his near-empty glass.

“A Dagobah Swamp,” the bartender said, cutting in.

“—Yeah,” Dann continued, giving the bartender an annoyed look. “And my friend will have a….”

“Tatooine Sunrise,” Jeni replied. Then she added to Dann, “a good friend I know loves them, I’ve never had one and since you’re inviting, I decided to try it out.”

“Heh, nice.”

The Bartender left them to get their drinks and Dann turned back to Jeni.

Dann smiled.

That was the last thing she could remember.

[Pilot’s Mess Hall; New Republic Barracks Block E-4; Day Five - 1117 Hrs.]

Chris “Pip” Layne sat in the mess hall, stirring an odd, oatmeal looking liquid in circles as he decided whether to eat it or not. Sheva was not with him, as she’d been called back to the Morning Star for something but had told him she’d be back this afternoon so they could get to the reservations that they had made at Grismon’s Café in time.

Sitting with him were several of his fellow pilots, some doing their best to deal with their hangovers. The one that most amused Chris was Kyle’s hangover, as the sixteen year old kid had probably never have gotten hammered in such a way before. Jamie was also suffering, but dealt with his in a quiet dignity. David and Deanna were complaining about their feet instead of their heads this morning, which Chris found odd because on the Morning Star Chris had gotten drunk with David more times than he could possibly begin to count.

Chris shrugged it off. Maybe if he and Sheva had been able to get to the club in time he would’ve known, but after the holo theater session they’d gone directly back to the Barracks. He sighed, knowing that he should’ve probably gone with them, but Sheva didn’t like spending as much time with starfighter pilots as Chris did (he loved himself, after all, and they who watched his butt in combat would, by extension, be loved as well).

Paul and Irena were also at the table, sharing a meal. From what Chris saw, Irena was much more tolerant of the pilots than Sheva was. Rob and Richard, from what they’d told Paul (and Chris overheard), had gone up to the Star to have breakfast with the Morning Star’s command staff and to talk about something which Chris hadn’t completely caught. By the look on their faces, they hadn’t been too pleased about whatever they were going to talk about.

He was finally about to test it when Jeni staggered in and sat down in a chair without having got any breakfast. She soon realized this and gave an annoyed groan, got up and went to get a tray. When she finally got back she put her elbows on the table and held her head in between her hands—the typical sign of a really, really bad hangover. She finally realized that everyone was staring at her and turned to them.

“What?” she asked, her tone acidic.

“What what?” Chris asked, shrugging.

Jeni started to shake her head and stopped, deciding to just stay motionless. A few seconds passed by and no one said anything.

“Uh, what’s wrong, Angel?” Deanna asked, finally speaking up.

“Nothing.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“You don’t look it,” Chris said, ignoring the oatmeal-looking porridge and deciding to just drink his caf instead.

“It’s none of your business,” she replied without looking at him.

“Fine, Fine…” he said, deciding to drop it.

Deanna didn’t though and she scooted over closer to Jeni.

“What happened last night?” she asked in a calm voice.

Jeni sighed. “Nothing happened.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I’ve just got a really, really nasty hangover—Hobbes was buying me drinks all night until the place closed. I’ve never been so drunk in my life. I, uh, don’t even remember what happened when we left the bar,” she said.

Deanna looked at Jeni for a few moments. “All right then.”

“So, what are you guys planning on doing today?” Chris asked, trying to change the subject when he realized that no one else was talking.

“’You guys’?” Jamie asked. “You’re ditching us again?”

“Not ditching… I’ve got a diner reservation at Grismon’s Café tonight,” Chris said, grinning proudly.

“Grismon’s?” Paul asked surprised. Clearly he knew the same as Chris knew—and that it was a particularly fancy and expensive place. The look he gave Chris, though, worried the young blonde pilot.

“Yeah, Grismon’s. Anything wrong?” Chris asked.

“Uh, well, I dunno… but that used to be a favorite haunt for Imperial officers,” Paul replied uneasily.

“Bah! If you’ve noticed, this isn’t Imperial Center anymore. Now it can be a favorite haunt for Republic officers,” he replied, grinning at himself. “Plus, if things start looking bad Sheva and I will just leave and find somewhere else to have dinner.”

Paul nodded. “Alight, just be careful.”

“Rogue, my dear friend,” Chris said as he grinned and leaned back into his chair. “When have I ever not been careful?”

Chapter Five

[Grismon’s Café; Coruscant; Day Five – 2209 Hrs.]

“Uh, yes, a table for two—we’ve got reservations for 2215,” Chris told the waiter.

The waiter, an aging Human male looked from Human to Twi’lek with disdain. “Uh… you do?”

“Yeah, we do. The reservation is under the name Chris Layne,” Chris told him.

The waiter took out a datapad and started to sift through the list. He paused momentarily but then kept going through the names. “Um, I’m sorry, Mr. Layne, but it seems that your name isn’t on the list. I’m sorry,” he said. “Plus, we’ve got the entire night filled up, so you and your… companion will have to go elsewhere.”

The man turned and left them. Chris’s expression changed from the pleasant one he’d been trying to keep throughout the night to one of fury. He started after the waiter, who ducked into the kitchens, but Sheva stopped her lover before he did anything stupid, which was prone to happen if she let him do what he was thinking about doing.

“Come on, Chris, let’s just go elsewhere,” she said, pulling on his arm as she headed out the door. He reluctantly followed his blue-skinned lover outside. Sheva put an arm around one of his and wrapped it tightly, just in case he tried to bolt back in. Chris seemed to get the message and just followed her lead. Sheva walked quickly at first, trying to get as far away as possible from them.

When they were finally a block away she let down her pace and went into a relaxed stroll with Chris. Both were silent—this had not been a good night for either of them so far. When she had returned from the Morning Star she had given him some rather bad news. Tomorrow the Star would be leaving for Mon Calamari without Red Squadron for some re-fitting, and Chris had not taken it well. He’d gone to his commanding officer and they had told him that there was nothing that he could do other than wait for three to six months while the re-fit was taking place.

As if to add insult to injury he was being told that the Morning Star’s army regiment would be staying on Coruscant as part of the same clean up project. Normally, Chris would’ve been glad, even happy about it because that meant that Paul and Irena could be together, but his competitive and jealous nature had come into play. In a fit of anger he’d nearly resigned from the squadron and asked for a transfer to the Morning Star. Rob, knowing that Chris didn’t mean it, denied it and sent him to Sheva, who’d managed to calm her boyfriend down.

And now, on their last night together, they had been denied entrance to a restaurant because Sheva was a Twi’lek and not a Human. Sheva felt the same anger that Chris did, but for his sake she was holding it down. She was outraged that a New Republic planet would be so xenophobic towards members of its military. To anyone, really! But, if she had let her emotions get the better of her, they’d both probably be in some sort of brig right now, waiting for Captain Ru’kaart and Lt. Colonel Baden to come and get them. Not only that, their last night in three months would have been cut short, and she wanted to savor tonight.

They finally reached a park of sorts, or at least what passed as a park on Coruscant—a collage of odd trees from different planets planet in an artificial environment along one of the lines of the sky-scrapper buildings. The two entered, mutually deciding that this was where they wanted to go. Chris and Sheva found a bench near an artificial pond and sat down. They remained quiet for a few more minutes, simply enjoying one another’s company. Sheva wrapped her arms around his torso and lay into him as they sat there.

“I hate this place,” Chris said, finally speaking up. “If it’s not the loyalists, then it’s that damn pollution. If it’s not that, then it’s the fact that I’m stuck in this hellhole until you get back with the Star.”

“I don’t think that you’ll just be here, you’ll probably get missions to other worlds… and if you don’t like Coruscant, you could stay on the Regis,” she replied.

“Pff… the Regis. There’s a reason that Red’s on the Star, now, you know?”

“Chris, you where never even assigned to the Regis. You came in directly to the Morning Star,” she told him. “Who knows? Maybe you’ll like the Regis?”

“Blegh… it’s not the same.”

“Why not?”

“’Cause you won’t be there.”

Sheva laughed. “I won’t always be there, you know? I mean, I’ll be back and we’ll be together again. Just you watch.”

“Watch you go away?”

“You’re just not going to drop it, are you?”

“Hey, what can I say? I’m a pilot. Once I get my target on something I follow it through thick and thin.” Chris grinned.

Sheva was about to respond when some from behind them spoke up.

“So, a pilot, huh?” the voice asked. It clearly belonged to a male, and it sounded rather antagonistic.

Sheva let go of Chris, surprised. The two lovers turned around to look at where the voice had come from. Five Human males stood behind them, half hidden between the shadows. The one who had spoken stepped out completely into the light, revealing his face, which had a pretty nasty scar that covered most of the left side of it. He clearly had a mechanical eye, as well as a mechanical arm. He was a beat up black flight suit that Chris knew beyond a doubt belong to an Imperial pilot. Imperial lieutenant, if he caught the rank bars right.

As soon as their leader showed their face, the other four, all Human males with beat up old Imperial uniforms, appeared into view. Two of them looked like bald wookies, one of the others had injuries similar to the leader while the last one was skinny, appearing almost inoffensive. Or he would’ve if he hadn’t thrown a look of pure disgust at Sheva.

“Hand over the snake-head, boy, and you’ll live to pilot another day,” the leader told Chris.

Chris immediately got up and pulled Sheva with him, putting her behind him. He put himself in a defensive position, ready for any trouble. He wasn’t going to let these Imperial scumbags even have the chance of getting close to her… even if it was five to one odds. Chris had done that before, it wasn’t like being out numbered was new to him. Sure, maybe it had been in the cockpit of an X-wing, but the point still stood. There was no way he’d allow it.

“Get out of here, Imps, or I’ll have to kick all your asses,” he told them, violence in his eyes.

“Chris…” Sheva said, her voice trembling slightly. She knew that her hard headed lover would fight them all if he had to, but she, on the other hand, knew that the odds were horribly on the side of the Imperials.

“Stay behind me, Sheva,” Chris told her. “And run if you have to.”

Sheva didn’t respond. There was nothing she could say or do…

“Alright, kid, if you want it that way…” said the leader, pointing at him with his mechanical arm. “Regun, Guirge. Get him.”

The two bald wookie looking men rushed towards Chris, surprising the pilot by how fast the two were. One slammed into the pilot, ramming his shoulder into Chris’s stomach and knocking the air out of him. Though Chris had good intentions and was physically fit, he was no brawler, and after the hit he immediately dropped to his knees.

“Run, Sheva!” he yelled at the blue skinned Twi’lek as the second man rammed his knee into the pilot’s face.

Sheva was frozen—she shouldn’t leave him here like this, but on the other hand if she didn’t run they would certainly kill her. She turned around to start running but felt someone suddenly grab her by the lekku, pulling back hard on them. The movement temporarily paralyzed her with pain, obviously whoever had grabbed her knew something about Twi’lek physiology. Either that or it had been done out of extreme spite.

She dropped backwards onto the ground and caught a glimpse of the two large men pounding on an already unconscious Chris and tears began to well up in her eyes. She heard someone laughing as he stepped on her right hand. Sheva screamed in pain as he twisted his heel and she felt various bones crack. She looked up to see that it was small skinny one.

Another approached her, one with a mechanical arm but not the leader and began to rip at her clothes—ripping the front of her shirt to expose her breasts. She felt the Human hand he had left grab at her, squeezing so tightly that it made her scream out in pain. She was dawning upon what they were planning to do to her when she heard the leader of the group yell and speak up.

“Get off her, Chennyai! What do you think you’re doing?” he asked the man who was groping her.

“C’mon, Boss, just having a little fun. I ain’t had no Twi’lek dancing girl before!” he said, temporarily letting go of her. Someone kicked him off of her and she almost began to thank them. “Hey! What was that for, huh?”

“We don’t mix with animals, nor do we tolerate zoofilia, Chennyai!” the leader said, disgust in his voice. “Regun, Giurge. Leave the boy alone, he’s already unconscious. He’s too young to really know what he’s doing so we’ll let him live.” He stepped over to Sheva, looking down at her. “You, on the other hand…”

The man pulled out a blaster, aimed it at her head and fired.

Chapter Six

[Briefing Room A; Frigate Regis; Day Eight – 0930 Hrs.]

“I think that’s all of us then,” said General Arneyan as he sat down at the head of the table.

Rob Baden and Richard Vogel sat side by side at the table, with Captain Gideon Daly to Rob’s left. Rob was unaccustomed to working with Daly, even though he knew the man fairly well from the time he’d spent aboard the Regis with Red Squadron before the transfer to the Morning Star. To the other side of Captain Daly sat his first officer, Lt. Commander Ta’aba Jemol, a Mon Calamari, and in front of Jemol sat the Regis’ Intelligence officer, Major Gord Faulkner.

The Star had left orbit two days ago, a day after they had supposed to leave, due to Ensign Zolos’s death. They had stayed as long as possible, for the short funeral and then had gone at top speed towards Mon Calamari. Sheva’s death had had a profound effect on everyone. While everyone knew that Coruscant still had a way to go before becoming completely a New Republic planet, most people had put that at the back of their mind. Who would’ve thought that a New Republic officer who had gone through thick and thin would be murdered in a little park on the capital planet of the New Republic?

Red Squadron was especially feeling the effects because the Twi’lek woman had been close to one of the pilots, Chris Layne. He’d nearly been beaten to death and had been found unconscious lying near the dead Twi’lek. Chris, who had always seemed happy and eager, was now a complete emotional mess and uncharacteristically quiet, something that worried not only Rob but everyone else. Red’s pilots were doing the best they could to support him during this horrible moment in his life.

Sitting across from Rob was a sullustan pilot who bore the same rank insignia that Rob did, so he assumed that the Sullustan lt. colonel was the commanding officer of the squadron they’d be working with on this mission. Next to the Sullustan, and across from Richard, sat a Human with the insignia of a major—the executive officer if Rob’s guess was any good.

Across from Captain Daly sat a gruff looking man with one eye and a square chin with an incredible amount of gray stubble on it. He was barrel-chested and muscular and his hair was something in between gray and white, though Rob assumed that he wasn’t even close to the age that his hair would indicate. This man had the rank of colonel.

General Arneyan was at one end of the table and at the other was a handsome Human male with short blonde hair and goatee. He had a strong jaw and bright blue eyes, as well as a winning smile that would’ve made any woman melt but, even though he was smiling now, Rob sincerely doubted that the grin would have any effect on the people present at this briefing. He wore the uniform of New Republic Intelligence and held the rank of major.

The general stood up, offering them a smile and began to introduce everyone, beginning with Captain Daly. “Captain Gideon Daly, Commanding Officer onboard the Regis. Lt. Commander Ta’aba Jemol, First Officer onboard the Regis. Major Gord Faulkner, Intelligence Officer onboard the Regis. Colonel Joshka Nayel, of the 41st Regiment. Lt. Colonel Rob Baden, Commanding Officer of Red Squadron, and his Executive Officer, Major Richard Vogel. From Orion Squadron, Lt. Colonel Sen Soruub and Major James Dejma. Finally, Major Leif Nastein, New Republic Intelligence. Major Nastein will be giving us the briefing on your mission today.”

“Thank you for the introduction, General,” said Major Nastein as stood up momentarily to hit the lights. As soon as he did so light appeared in the center of the table, revealing that there was a holoemitter planted on the ceiling above the table and showed the image of a planet. Nastein returned to his table and pulled a datapad to of his pocket.

“This is Sonoma, in the Rantar System, about two parsecs from here,” Nastein said. “On the planet, at thirty-two degrees latitude, One-hundred-twenty-nine longitude, we have the Imperial Base Omega Eight-Two-Bee. It is a top secret weapons testing facility. Mostly biological weapons like this damned Krytos Virus that we’re dealing with now.”

Rob grimaced at the mention of the Krytos Virus. Non-Human military personnel had been restricted to Barracks and, if possible, put on one of the various ships in orbit. Red Squadron, luckily, didn’t have any non-Human pilots, so Rob had been saved from having to worry about it. He had other, much more important things to worry about, to be honest, no matter how much pity he could summon for those infected with the horrible virus.

“Uh, how exactly did you come by this information, Major?” asked Colonel Nayel.

“Well, when we took Coruscant we took all the buildings as well… obviously. The Imperials had done a good job of wiping the place clean, but we’ve managed to recuperate some of the erased files. We’ve discovered various systems in the Coruscant area which have some sort of Imperial Outpost—we can’t be sure which are abandoned or not until we’ve checked them out first.” The “spook” paused momentarily. “This one we’ve already had a chance to look at—we sent a pair of A-wings to check on it two days ago and discovered that it was still fully operational. The Council has decided that we should go and greet our new neighbors!” Nastein smiled. “And you are going to do the greeting.”

Nastein hit a button on his data pad, and an image altered to show the Regis in orbit around the planet, as well as a total of twenty-four starfighter flying towards the planet—twelve X-wings and twelve Y-wings. Rob cringed slightly at the thought of Y-wings. He knew that the surviving Blues would have a hard time adapting to covering them instead of doing the actual blowing up. Behind the Regis were about ten troop carriers, which Rob guessed would be Colonel Nayel’s troops.

“Now, the plan is simple. Due to the A-wing’s recon, we were able to determine that the base has exactly twelve TIE Starfighters, ‘Eyeballs’ to you pilots, defending the base. They will probably detect the arrival of our forces and launch the moment we arrive in system. Red Squadron will deal with the TIE Fighters while Orion Squadron makes a run for the base, knocking out the troop barracks located here—” the image zoom in towards the base. Nastein pointed to the troop barracks. “And the planetary defenses located here and here.”

Lt. Colonel Soruub and Major Dejma nodded. Rob and Richard did so as well. The mission was obviously a simple one, perfect for Red since it still hadn’t had a chance to break in the new members in the unit. While Rob expected the amalgamated units to work perfectly, he’d also learned to be ready for the unexpected. He’d learned the hard way at Esseles and in just about every damn combat mission he’d ever flown, as a matter of fact. He decided not to mention, yet, that he only had nine pilots—not twelve like the plan called for.

“Once all that has been accomplished, the 41st Regiment will land and take the Base. Aaand that’s pretty much it. The Regis, Red and Orion Squadrons will stay to make sure the area is secure while we check out everything and then destroy it if the Outpost brings up nothing of interest. That, of course, will be decided by Major Faulkner.” Nastein motioned to the Intelligence officer stationed onboard the Regis. “And I think that’s it—any questions?”

There were a few moments of silence. It was a relatively simple mission, after all.

When no one responded General Arneyan spoke up. “No, Major, I think that will be all. I’ve sent the information to your squadron base in case you need to review it before you brief your people. The mission is set to begin a day from now, so I suggest you be quick about it.” Arneyan stood up. “That will be all. You’re dismissed. Baden, Vogel, would both of you stay for a little bit? I need to talk to both of you.”

Arneyan stood up and waited for everyone to leave. When they finally had, he moved around the table to sit down where Lt. Colonel Soruub had been sitting. He had three datapads in his hands, which he passed over to the two pilots. Rob took them and looked at the first one, seeing that it was a pilot’s profile.

“New pilots?” Rob asked and Arneyan nodded. “A captain and two lieutenants—nice.”

“Captain Dann Barelli, served with Bishop Squadron. We decided to transfer him because his skills would be better used in a frontline squadron such as Red,” the general explained as Rob skimmed the captain’s bio. He passed it over to Richard and the general began to explain the next one. “First Lieutenant Micheal McCauley, formerly of Krayt Squadron. Krayt suffered heavy losses during the Battle of Coruscant and Starfighter Command decided to disband it and move the pilots around. The last one is Second Lieutenant John Kimberly, formerly of Brown Squadron which flew Y-wings. He was the sole survivor of an Imperial ambush. When we approached him about moving to another Y-wing squadron he requested to be put behind the stick of an X-wing. Frankly, I can understand why—I always hated Y-wings.”

Rob and Richard half-heartedly joined the general in a laugh at the comment about Y-wings. To be honest, very few pilots liked Y-wings.

“Anyways, that’s all. They’ll be arriving within the hour. I must leave now, so you can tell me how it went. Good luck with the mission, and may the Force be with you”

Chapter Seven

[Briefing Room B; Frigate Regis; Day Eight – 1422 Hrs.]

First Lieutenant Micheal “Lock” McCauley entered the Briefing Room aboard the Regis nervously. He always seemed to be nervous in moments like these as he’d never been one to give a good impression, or so at least he thought. His palms were sweating and he was pretty sure that his feet were as well, a reason to stay far away from the rest of the pilots as possible.

There were already nine pilots present that he could see, and he didn’t even recognize a single one, even though he’d been told that the Red Squadron pilots had been assigned to the same barracks that he himself had. Perhaps if he’d bothered to go into the Lounge he would’ve come across one of them but seeing as he’d spent what free time he’d had in a hanger fiddling around with his X-wing with his astromech droid, R3-O6 or James, he might have come across one of them at some point or another over the weeks leave he’d been given.

He took a deep breath and spotted an area which was more or less empty and sat down there, nodding slightly to the pilots he passed. He had only just sat down when the door slid open once more and two pilots came strutting in. These two he’d already met—Lt. Colonel Rob Baden and Major Richard Vogel. His first impression of them was that they were reserving their opinions of him based on their first impression of him—a nervous, sweaty pilot.

Rob Baden reached the podium and cleared his throat. “Alright, I see that we’re all here so let’s begin—we don’t have much time and we’re going to have to put in a lot of simulator practice in the next forty-eight hours. For those of you that don’t know me, I’m Lt. Colonel Rob Baden, callsign Biggs and leader of Red Squadron. The man next to me is Major Richard ‘Wildstar’ Vogel, Red Two and my executive officer. I will now begin a roll call so you can all place names on faces. When I call your name, stand up.” He looked around. “Let’s begin.”

“Red Three, First Lieutenant Jeni ‘Angel’ Courtner.” A short, attractive pilot in a white flight suit with black hair and blue-green eyes stood up at the name. Michael wondered how good she was behind the stick of a fighter, and by her size he assumed that she probably fit well behind one of the deathtraps the New Republic called A-wings. Anyways, judging by her rank she was obviously skilled because if not she wouldn’t be alive still.

“Red Four, First Lieutenant Jamie ‘Shadow’ Wetherill, our operations officer.” Jeni sat down and Jamie stood up, a normal sized man. He had dark brown hair, nearly black, with a beard of a matching color. Michael saw very few pilots who wore beards nowadays, and for some reason it was a refreshing change. Michael had contemplated growing a beard once but it came in so patchy that it looked embarrassing and took away from the self-perfection that Michael was continuously trying to maintain. Apart from the beard, Jamie’s camouflage flight suit set him apart from the others. Michael wondered what the lieutenant’s duties as operations officer actually were. Jamie sat down as Rob called the next name.

“Red Thirteen, Second Lieutenant John ‘Dune’ Kimberly. Mr. Kimberly comes to us from a Y-wing unit, Brown Squadron, which was completely destroyed due to faulty intelligence… something, I believe, that most of us can relate to.” There was a slight chuckle from the pilots at the remark. John stood up uneasily, scratching the back of his head. He had blonde hair and amber eyes, which, along with his darken skin, made him stand out, as the combination didn’t seem… natural in one way or another.

“Red Six, Captain Chris ‘Pip’ Layne, ex-tactical officer and ex-executive officer…” Rob looked as if he was going to say something else but decided not to as the somber pilot stood up lazily. The purple flight suit and the smiley face shoulder patch indicated to Michael that this pilot usually wasn’t like this, so sad looking, as if someone very close to him had died. His dirty blonde hair was… dirty and his green eyes looked tired, as if he hadn’t slept in days. Chris stood up for only a moment before plopping back down in his seat.

“Red Seven, Major Paul ‘Rogue’ Sweet, our training officer.” The ginger haired pilot stood up momentarily. Michael couldn’t tell much about this pilot, other than he was wearing an Imperial TIE pilot’s black jumpsuit, which lead the Alderaanian to believe that at some point in this pilot’s history he’d served the Empire—perhaps even as a TIE pilot. Paul was sitting directly in front of Michael so he couldn’t see him very well.

“Red Eight, Second Lieutenant David ‘Wild Cat’ Fate.” The scarred fighter pilot stood up and took in a deep breath. By how close he was sitting next to Chris Michael assumed that the two pilots were friends or wingmates, at least, and that David was trying to help Chris get through a hard time. Michael didn’t know if he could’ve done that—he’d never been particularly good with people. Machines, he could understand. They were predictable. If they didn’t work there was always a reason, a solution that one could implement and know that it would be effective. People, on the other hand, were wild cards. One never knew how another would react and what they would react to.

“Red Nine, Second Lieutenant Deanna ‘Dee’ Hashi.” Deanna was the second and last female pilot in the squadron and was sitting next to Jeni who had been called before. She, too, was fairly attractive; he almond eyes gave her an exotic flair that attracted the Alderaanian pilot to her. He considered perhaps approaching her, or perhaps Jeni, after the briefing but he knew that it would be completely futile. It would be better for him to go back to the hanger and work on his X-wing.

“Red Ten, Flight Officer Kyle ‘Gnoizic’ Mandal.” A young teenager stood up, and Michael could barely believe it. How was a kid so young flying combat? There should be some rule against that… The New Republic was desperate for pilots, sure, but Micheal had never imagined that they’d be that desperate! Well, who knew? Maybe he was a good pilot. It would just be a matter of keeping an eye on him.

“Red Eleven, First Lieutenant Micheal ‘Lock’ McCauley. He comes to us from Krayt Squadron, who took heavy losses during the Battle of Coruscant. Much like what happened recently with Blue Squadron, Krayt was disbanded and put in different squadrons.” Finally his own name had come up and he stood up, managing a weak smile. He could feel everyone’s eyes burning through him and he looked down to make sure that this wasn’t a bad dream or that he was naked. Micheal wasn’t he most attractive of men—he was slightly pudgy, not a fighter by any means, at least, and he had heavily accented widow steps. Rob started talking again and Michael let out a sigh of relief as he sat down—at least that was over!

“Red Twelve, Captain Dann ‘Hobbes’ Barelli. Captain Barelli was formerly of Bishop Squadron, and Starfighter Command decided that his skills were best put into a frontline squadron such as is Red Squadron.” Dann stood up, towering at just under two meters. He had black facial hair that ran along his jaw line and black dreadlocks which fell across his shoulders and onto his back, the tips dipped in something that made them a golden-blonde color. He seemed fairly intimidating, and at the same time he looked very… relaxed. Dann caught Michael looking at him and Micheal immediately changed his gaze elsewhere.

“And finally, Red Thirteen, Second Lieutenant John ‘Dune’ Kimberly. Mr. Kimberly comes to us from a Y-wing unit, Brown Squadron, which was completely destroyed due to faulty intelligence… something, I believe, that most of us can relate to.” There was a slight chuckle from the pilots at the remark. The final member of the Red Squadron stood up uneasily, scratching the back of his head. He had blonde hair and amber eyes, which, along with his darken skin, made him stand out, as the combination didn’t seem… natural in one way or another.

Coincidentally, he turned to see Jeni Courtner scowling about something. She glanced briefly at Dann Barelli, so Michael assumed that the two had some sort of history. Or something. He didn’t have any more time to speculate because Rob immediately began talking again.

“Now that we’ve finally made our introductions, how about we get to the mission briefing?” Rob said wit ha feint smile and turned to Richard. “Major, if you would do the honors.”

“My pleasure, sir.” Red Squadron’s executive officer hit a button and the lights dimmed. In the center of the room a holoemitter flickered to life and the image of a planet appeared in it. “Now, Reds, pay attention. This is the planet Sonoma, in the Rantar System, about two parsecs from Coruscant…”

And so the mission briefing began.

[Briefing Room B; Frigate Regis; Day Eight – 1458 Hrs.]

“Mr. Layne, could I have a word with you before you leave?” Rob asked as the pits began filing out the door. When everyone had finally left, the only people present in the room were Rob Baden, Richard Vogel and Chris Layne. Richard folded his arms and leaned back against the wall, allowing Rob to do all the talking.

“Mr. Layne, Chris… we’re worried about how… recent events might affect your flying this mission. If you don’t feel up to it, you can sit it out. We’d understand perfectly,” Rob said, using the smoothest tone of voice he had. Rob wasn’t exactly used to talking this way to Chris, who usually needed someone to be stern with him because if not he got out of hand. The young man was reliable behind the stick in the cockpit of a starfighter, but he was a loose cannon out of the fighter. Rob thought that his recklessness was an asset at times… to get into a hunk of metal to go and shoot people or get shot at every day for your paycheck meant that you had to be at least a little bit crazy.

But today, Chris wasn’t that same man. He seemed like a shadow of his former self… he’d obviously taken the death of Sheva Zolos extremely hard and he was clearly blaming himself for what had happened. Rob could relate to that feeling—his fiancé had been killed right before his eyes as he watched during a holo-call. It had been one of the most horrible experiences of his life and no matter how much he tried to shake it and forget about it still haunted his dreams every night. And it wasn’t only Lela’s death, but that of so many people he’d known since joining Red Squadron that were no longer with him. Chris knew all about that, of course, but loosing the person you loved… well, to be honest it wasn’t the same. Loosing a friend, a pilot hurt like hell… loosing the love of your life, that hurt like all of Corellia’s Nine Hells.

Chris looked up at Rob for a moment, not saying anything for a few seconds. He finally nodded. “Yes, sir, I’m ready to fly.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, sir. I… I, uh, I need… well, I need to do this,” Chris said. “I would never forgive myself if anything happened to any of you while I was off duty, not after this… I-I couldn’t…”

“I understand, Captain.” Rob put a supportive arm on his shoulder. “That’s all then. I’ll see you later in the simulators.”

“Yes, sir… thank you, sir.” Chris saluted Rob and Richard, who returned his salute.

When Chris left the Briefing Room, Rob turned to Richard. “Keep an eye on him.”

[Unknown Location on Frigate Regis – 2238 Hrs.]

Operative 216 sighed as he punched in his identification code into the comm system, and immediately a comm signal was directed to NRI Headquarters, which would undoubtedly be expecting him. The imaged fizzed to life, showing him the face of Major Nastein instead of the colonel who had originally briefed him. Nastein smiled at him and Operative 216 rolled his eyes.

“Operative 216, reporting in,” he said.

“Copy that, 216,” Nastein said.

“I’ve successfully entered Red Squadron. I’ll be commencing the mission ASAP.”

“Copy that, 216. Anything else?”

“No, sir, nothing else,” he said. “216, out.”

He turned off the commlink and sighed.

[Unknown Location on Frigate Regis – 0101 Hrs]

“Agent Four-Nineteen, reporting in.”

The comm station he’d commandeered didn’t have image and it, thankfully, has a slot in which he could insert a chip that redirected the incoming messaged directly to his earpiece. 419 recognized the voice of his superior, even through the slight crackles that popped in and out during the transmission, distorting words slightly. It, sadly, was a necessity of the program he’d installed into the comm station so as to avoid being caught.

“Copy, Four-Nineteen. Have you successfully infiltrated Red Squadron?”

“Yes, sir, I have,” 419 replied. “What are your orders?”

“The Empire wants you to sabotage their operation however you see fit. The Rebels are not to take Outpost Omega Eight-Two-Bee.”

“Copy, sir, but I won’t have much access to The Y-wing squadron.”

“I know, but without the protection of the X-wing squadron they will be vulnerable to starfighter attacks.”

“I Understand, sir.”

“Good. That will be all. Three-Three-Oh out.”

The transmission ended and 419 quickly began to pull his data card out and started a program to erase the fact that he had ever been there. As soon as that was done he erased his own virus, the one that had permitted him to contact his Imperial Superior, and then left, fairly confident of not having been spotted.

Chapter Eight

[Richard Vogel’s X-wing; Sonoma System; Day Ten – 1200 Hrs]

Just as had been planned, twelve X-wings burst out of hyperspace into the Sonoma System. They immediately moved into formation, changing their course towards the planet. Seconds after twelve Y-wings burst out of hyperspace behind them, followed by the Frigate Regis and about a dozen or so troop carriers. Richard Vogel moved his flight into position.

“Two Flight, keep an eye out for Eyeballs,” he said into him comm, then switched for the squadron’s frequency. “Lead, this is Two. Two Flight is in position.”

“Copy that, Two. First Flight is in position as well. What about you, Seven?”

“Three Flight is in position as well, we had a slight confusion as to who brought up the diamond formation but we got it settled,” Paul replied. At the sound of that Richard frowned and looked over to where Three Flight was. Of the three flights, Paul’s was the one that had most of the new pilots, so it was also the one that was most likely to have any problems. Paul, though, had asked for those two pilots to be put into his wing as the training officer so Rob had consented. Richard, though, would have preferred to divide them up between the three Flights.

Captain Barelli, or “Hobbes” as he like to be called, had been placed in First Flight as Deanna’s Wingmate while First Lieutenant Micheal “Lock” McCauley and Second Lieutenant John “Dune” Kimberly were pair together as the second element in Three Flight. Richard himself was the only one of the three flights that didn’t have any of the new members, but instead he had Chris Layne, who was another potential troublemaker in this mission.

“Copy that, Seven,” Rob said. “First Flight has detected multiple signals taking off from the planet. Estimated Time of Arrival… five minutes. These are probably that squadron of TIE Fighters that Intel reported, so be alert Reds. I want us to get through this in one piece. It’s only twelve eyeballs, but they can still cause a lot of damage.”

The rest of the squadron affirmed Rob’s message and then there was silence as Red Squadron charged towards the upcoming furball. Richard spent the short time he had making sure that all his systems were online, then switched to proton torpedoes. As soon as the TIEs were visible he quickly selected the nearest one, locked on it and fired the torpedo.

It streaked towards the TIE Fighter at top speed, clearly indicating in the direction it was flying—if the pilot’s own HUD hadn’t notified him before hand. The entire TIE Fighter squadron broke to the sides, and the Torpedo followed its target. Richard pulled on his flight stick, forcing the X-wing to pull upward at nearly 90 degrees to follow the TIE he’d locked onto. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Jeni Courtner following him closely on the turn.

Richard finally leveled off and caught the TIE Fighter in his sights. Red Squadron’s executive officer put his lasers on quad momentarily and hit lightly on the trigger, grazing the TIE Fighter’s left Solar Array Wing, and forcing it to juke to the right to avoid any other oncoming fire from Richard. Richard followed it but by now the TIE knew that Richard was onto him so it was spinning, turning and juking to various sides, doing it’s best to avoid getting shot down by Richard.

Grunting and annoyed, he continued on the TIE’s tail as he waited for the Proton Torpedo to catch up with the TIE Fighter. He was not pleased at all when his R2 unit informed him that the Torpedo had run out of fuel and had detonated in space. Richard pushed forward his speed and started firing on the TIE, trying to get it to break away and do something stupid—which the pilot did.

Grinning Richard cut his engines, while using his fighter and launched the fighter upwards when he brought his speed back up to full again. His mind barely registered that the movement had probably lost Jeni but there was nothing that Richard could do about that. In combat people tried to stick to their wingmates, but sometimes there was simply nothing you could do it. Richard followed the TIE through the loop, doing his best to keep on track while the more agile TIE juked through the turn. This decreased the TIE’s speed enough to allow Richard to catch up on it.

Richard closed in on the TIE, coming up right behind it and set his finger on the trigger, waiting for the right moment. The TIE pilot wasn’t particularly intelligent since he was sliding from side to side, so all Richard had to do was wait until the moment before the TIE slipped into his crosshairs. Wait for it… wait for it… there! Richard pressed the trigger at the exact moment.

The four red lasers tore into the back of the eyeball, ripping through it and causing the shield less fighter to explode. Richard let out a triumphant “whoop!” and began to turn his X-wing to see try and get to the next starfighter when suddenly green lasers began to hail against his shields right above his canopy. Cursing, Richard swung his fighter hard to port, trying to avoid too much damage, though the raining on his shields had already caused quite a lot. Cursing to himself for letting his guard down, even for a second, he started to juke his X-wing fighter in an attempt to get this fighter off of him.

He was in the process of a complicated evasion maneuver when suddenly he heard an explosion behind him. Richard looked at his sensors and saw that the TIE had been destroyed.

“You’re clear, Two,” Jeni Courtner’s voice came through the comm, informing him that she had been the one who’d saved him. She had managed to find Richard in the furball and had spotted the TIE zeroing in on her wingmate and had hung back so as to get a good shot on the TIE.

“You really are an angel, Three,” Richard said, chuckling.

“Haha, thanks, Two,” She replied. “Let’s go poke some more eyeballs.”

“Copy that, Three—I’m your Wing, lead the way!”

[Deanna Hashi’s X-wing; Sonoma System; Day Ten – 1217 Hrs.]

Deanna slammed her stick to the left, narrowly escaping the shots coming at her from behind. Cursing she began a barrel roll, escaping yet another barrage of shots coming in her direction. She had managed to destroy one of the fighter in a flight Trio, and then, along with Dann “Hobbes” Barelli, her assigned wingmate for this mission, split off to hit the other two. Sadly, that meant that when she had locked onto one of the TIEs, the second one followed on her tail.

She was pretty sure that Dann was chasing after that one, or at least she really hoped he was because it was nearly impossible to stay on her target’s tail with this blasted eyeball chasing after her. Grunting she hit the throttle on her X-wing so it would push forward and close the gap between her and her target, while at the same time trying to get the TIE behind her to try and do the same, lining him up so Dann could get a good shot at it.

She heard an explosion behind her and let out a sigh of relief as the TIE fighter disappeared from her sensors. “Thank the Force, Hobbes!” she said, though her commlink was off. Her R2 unit informed her that Dann had pulled himself over to fly her wing as she chased after this TIE.

Deanna switched her lasers to double and zeroed in on the TIE who was half a kilometer in front of her now. She lined up her sights and fired. The two bolts narrowly missed the TIE as he juked to one side. Knowing that it would be damn near impossible to hit him at this range she had her R2 sacrifice some of her shields to give her, temporarily, some more speed. The X-wing shot forward, closing the gap between it and it’s prey.

She switched over to Proton Torpedoes, but untargeted the TIE Fighter, that way his Heads Up Display would not be able to warm him about his impending doom. Due to the increase in speed she found herself exactly behind the TIE. She pulled up on her fighter which hitting the release, then did a U-Turn to escape the blast. The Torpedo hit the dead center of the TIE Fighter, destroying it.

“Nice one, Nine,” Dann said over the comm. “You’ll have to teach me how to do that.”

“Sorry, Twelve, bomber-jock secret. That one’s going with me to the grave,” said Deanna, laughing. “Thanks for the compliment, though.”

“Welcome, Nine. I think I still see a few Eyeballs left.”

“Copy that, Twelve. Let’s go wreck some havoc!” Dee turned her fighter towards the melee, setting her shields back to normal and reducing her speed a little so they had a chance to grow back.

[Kyle Mandal’s X-wing; Sonoma System; Day Ten – 1224 Hrs.]

“Sithspit, Seven!” Kyle “Gnoizic” Mandal yelled into his comm as a TIE converged on his wingmate’s tail. “You’ve got an eyeball trying to stare you down!”

“What are you waiting for, Ten? Poke the damn thing!” was Paul’s response.

“Er, of course, copy Seven. Poking in process!” he replied as he zeroed in behind the TIE Fighter. Kyle fired his lasers, set to quad, at the fighter and missed by a long shot. Cursing his put yanked on his throttle, shooting the X-wing forward towards the TIE Fighter.

The TIE saw him and decided to break off his attack on Paul’s X-wing, shooting upwards in a spinning motion as he tried to loose his pursuer, but Kyle stuck with him. He’d done this in a simulator lots of times, and he’d had plenty of practice during his time with the squadron at the Blockade of Balfron, so sticking with the TIE Fighter was relatively easy. The TIE wasn’t the most experienced pilot, which was lucky for Kyle who wasn’t all that experienced himself. Not that that meant that Kyle or the TIE pilot were bad pilots, they just didn’t have the hands on experience to deal with the situation in the most effective manner.

To then it was the hunter and the hunted—one did his best to lose the X-wing pilot using conventional moves while Kyle stuck with him using the moves he’d learned in the simulators and at Balfron. They danced for a few minutes that felt like hours to both of them before Kyle nailed his port wing with a lucky shot. Crippled, the TIE pilot knew that he didn’t have a chance of surviving, and if he did the return through the atmosphere of the planet would rip his fighter apart. So he did the only thing he could do.

He turned around and went face to face with the X-wing.

Kyle, at first, didn’t understand why he would do that but realization soon dawned on him and he put his shields forward and to maximum so as to avoid too many bad hits during this face-to-face. He lined up with the TIE fighter and began shooting. The TIE did so as well, and started to chew up Kyle’s shield amazingly quickly. The TIE starfighter had no life-support, no shield and no missile tubes, but they had amazing agility and horrendously powerful lasers.

Kyle wasn’t going to let that faze him though and he continued to fire at the TIE, even though the splashes of green against his forward shield temporarily blinded his view of the TIE. He, instead, replied on his HUD and fired whenever the targeting reticule turned green. He couldn’t tell how many of the shots were reaching the TIE, though. Suddenly, the TIE stopped firing just as the two fighters collided in mid-space. Kyle gasped as he saw the TIE pilot inside his fighter crash into his shields and cause a fiery explosion that rocked his X-wing and sent him flying off into space without power.

This viewport was cracked and leaking air so he put on his EV helmet as quickly as he could. He couldn’t allow himself to be killed now that he’d finally beaten the TIE pilot. Once this EV was on Kyle began to hotwire the systems, trying to re-boot them. His comm was the first one he got back up and running.

“—ceed, Orion Squadron. The TIEs have been dealt with.” That was Rob’s voice, informing the Y-wing squadron that they could proceed to the planet to commence the aerial bombardment. Kyle grinned. They’d accomplished the mission!

“Ten! This is Seven, do you copy?”

Kyle momentarily fumbled the comm. “Er, yessir, Ten here. My viewport got cracked when that TIE rammed me and I’m leaking atmosphere. I’m also trying to get engines back online.”

“Copy that, Ten, good to hear your voice. I thought that we’d almost lost you back there!”

“Heh, thanks for the vote of confidence, Seven.”

Kyle heard Paul chuckle. “Stand by, Ten. We’re sending a SAR shuttle out to tow you back in. Good job with that TIE.”

“Thanks, Seven. I’ll wait here…”

“Good, sit tight and we’ll have you on the Regis in no time at all.”

Chapter Nine

[Unknown Location on Frigate Regis; Sonoma System; Day Eleven – 0411 Hrs.]

“Agent Four-Nineteen! I’m surprised that you have the gall to return to us! Very well, I suppose that you wanted to save us the bother of tracking you down and putting you down like an old nerf. Clearly you have lived too long for your own good.”

“N-No, sir, it’s not like that…”

“Not like what? Sonoma has been taken by the Rebels. I’ll have to double check, but I believe that your orders were to impede this, correct?”

“Actually, sir, your orders were only to…”

“And to impede the Rebels from taking the planet!” The voice was obviously beginning to loose temper.

“Sir, I’ve devised a way to… you know… deal a crushing defeat to the Rebels here in the Sonoma System.”

“This had better be good, Four-Nineteen. For your sake...”

[Briefing Room A; Frigate Regis; Sonoma System; Day Eleven – 0955 Hrs.]

“That was a successful mission if I ever saw one,” Jamie “Shadow” Wetherill announced as he entered the Briefing Room, a grin on his face.

Including himself, there were only four people present today for the squadron debriefing. Rob and Richard were present, of course, as well as the training officer Paul Sweet. Even though only a lieutenant, as the squadron’s operations officer he was privy to these command staff meetings. Some were dull and boring, though he didn’t expect today’s to be. They had won after all, and had not lost a single life in the process. It was a good victory in his humble opinion.

“Yeah, it seemed almost like a blue mi—” Paul Sweet began.

“Don’t say it,” Rob cut him off. “You’ll jinx us.”

“What? Blue Milk Run?”

“Yes, thanks, Rogue,” Rob said, rolling his eyes.

“Milk Runs have a tendency to go sour,” Jamie said, shrugging. Then he grinned and clapped Paul on the shoulder. “Nothing to worry about, old Red Squadron superstition.”

“Ahh I see,” Paul said. “Anyways. I think that there’s anything more to say other than: we kicked their asses so badly they won’t be sitting for a couple of weeks.”

“Yes, though we have a couple of other things before I dismiss you,” Rob said, motioning for Paul and Jamie to sit down. Richard sat down as well. “First off, what’s the state of Mr. Mandal’s X-wing?”

Paul, as his wingmate and flight leader, answered that question. “Ah, well there was some external damage… it wasn’t very extensive. The damaged viewport will have to be replaced though. According to Pappy and Lieutenant McCauley it won’t take long at all to repair and they should be done within the day.”

“McCauley?” Richard asked, puzzled.

“Yeah, it seems that he’s some sort of mechanical genius. You should see the modifications he’s done to his own X-wing. Anyways, he’s helping Pappy out in the Hanger since most of Pappy’s own crew went with the Star to Mon Calamari.” Paul replied and shrugged. “McCauley isn’t the only one who spends a fair amount of time down there anyways. Hashi is pretty good with fighter repair and the other new guy, Kimberly, spends quite a large amount of time there. Barelli is known to drop by once in a while too.”

“I see,” Rob said as he jotted it down in his datapad.

Jamie didn’t see anything particularly odd about that. Most fighter pilots liked preening their fighters, and many had an extensive career in mechanics. Hashi, for example, and McCauley, too, from what Jamie had read on the report provided by Starfighter Command. In fact, it was McCauley’s natural ability with mechanical objects that had gotten him into Red Squadron because he most definitely wasn’t the best pilot in the galaxy—he hadn’t gotten a single kill in the furball yesterday. A frontline unit like Red Squadron was could never have too many people well versed in mechanics—especially if something went down in the field.

“By the way,” Richard began, turning towards Paul. “What was that mishap you had yesterday? When it took you guys a while to get into diamond formation…”

“Oh, that was Thirteen, I mean Kimberly. He tried to position himself in McCauley’s position. It was a quick error, Kimberly soon realized that he wasn’t the element leader and put himself at the end.” Paul shrugged again. “I have already slotted him for some extra time in the Simulators—same with Mandal. He’s got to learn that head-ons are a no-no and that they make you die-die.”

Jamie laughed. “Hey, but at least the kid got him, right?”

“Actually, if Kyle hadn’t had full shields we’d probably be attending a funeral…” Paul said, his voice low.

They were all quiet for a few minutes. Rob then spoke up, turning to Richard. “What’s Layne’s condition?”

“Eh, well, I couldn’t really tell you,” Richard said thoughtfully. “He’s still moping around, spends most of his time with Fate—his wingmate, not his driod—and most of that time is spent in the Mug. I was really worried about him during the furball, wondering if something would happen ‘cause, you know, he’s in a near catatonic state, but… the kid racked up three kills!”

“Three?” Rob asked, surprised.

On a twelve on twelve engagement, it was odd for a pilot to get more than one kill. Jamie himself had only gotten one and Rob as well. As far as Jamie knew, only Deanna had gotten two. But then again, there had been three pilots that had scored zero kills—Lieutenants McCauley, Fate, and Kimberly. Well, at least Jamie now knew what had happened there.

“Yeah, I’m surprised as you are. It seems that he really wants to make the Empire pay for what they did to Ensign Zolos,” Richard said. “When I asked Wild Cat about it, he described Pip as…” Richard picked up his datapad and read aloud, “’a rancor among nerfs.’”

“I see… we’re going to have to keep a close eye on Layne, he’s a loose cannon right now. It’s only a matter of time before he breaks and goes off to do something stupid in the name of love,” Rob said, keeping his face calm. Jamie knew that Rob had lost someone dear to him and the “dumb thing” that he’d done was join the New Republic in a war against the Empire. Chris was already part of the New Republic, and had in his possession an X-wing fighter, one of the most deadly weapons in the galaxy. “Richard, I expect you to take care of him.”

“Of course. Want me to keep him on the duty roster?”

“Eh, yeah. But if we get a mission I’ll want a complete psych report on him before we allow him to go on that mission,” Rob said. Richard nodded and jotted it down on his datapad. Rob continued talking. “This was our first mission as Red Squadron after the amalgamation at Balfron. How do you guys think the unit’s performance was?”

“Pretty good, to be honest,” Jamie said. “I mean, we got everything down, we had zero losses. Everything went by the books—what else can I saw? Reds and Blues have always gotten along… we’ve always been brothers and sisters onboard the Star. Amalgamating the squadrons only brought us closer together in my opinion.”

“I’ll have to go with what Shadow said,” Paul said, following Jamie up. “I mean, we looked good out there! One or two minor mishaps with the newcomers were to be expected… and those that happened weren’t even that bad. We’ve got a pretty dangerous dozen here in Red, Chief, that I promise.”

Rob smiled, obviously pleased by Paul and Jamie’s words. “What about you, Richard?”

“Well, yeah, I agree with what they said, pretty much… but as Paul said at the beginning of this meeting… this was a blue milk run,” Richard said, giving Rob a lop-sided grin. “I’d love to believe what Jamie and Paul are saying—hell, I do believe it! But before we come to any hasty conclusions we’re going to have to enter a real combat situation, not a minor furball against ground pounders in eyeballs.”

Once again there was a temporary silence as they all took in Richard’s words. Rob, once again, was the one to break that silence.

“A valid point, Wildstar. Very valid.” Rob took a deep breath, which signaled to Jamie that Rob was about to give out orders. “Okay, people. We won that furball but the mission isn’t over. Wildstar, I want you to form up a duty roster. Patrols by flight pairs. Rogue, I want you to form up a simulator of what could happen—ambushes, fleet attacks, anything and everything you see fit. Shadow, you help him.”

The Three pilots stood up and snapped to attention. “Yes, sir!”

Rob groaned—he hated being called ‘sir’ and they all knew that. At first only Chris “Pip” Layne only bothered in annoying him that way, but eventually the entire squadron had picked up on it to mess around with their leader. Rob shooed them out, threatening them with flight duty in jest.

When they were finally gone he sighed, clearly tired.

[Unknown Location on Frigate Regis; Sonoma System; Day Eleven – 2348 Hrs.]

“Anyways, that’s about it,” 216 said as he finished his report. “We successfully captured the Base with almost zero-losses. When the troops hit the ground and the Imps saw that their Fighters weren’t coming back they laid down their weapons in surrender. I think there was one or two Stormtroopers who tried to make themselves Heroes of the Empire or something and did some shooting but our guys got them before they could kill someone.”

“Good, 216, good.” Nastain flashed him another of his grins, which made 216 sigh and roll his eyes, clearly annoyed by the grin. “Any progress on your mission?”

“Actually yes. I’ve narrowed down the possibilities to be honest, and I’ve seen some sighs that various comms have been tampered with, so I’m guessing that whoever is doing this is reporting in just about every day to his superiors.”

“I see… well, we need to know who it is that’s the mole in Starfighter Command.”

“Stating of obvious, Nastein…”

“I know. Anyways, we’ve been trying to narrow down the possibilities here at NRI as well but, sadly, most of our resources are otherwise committed or dealing with the Celchu Trial.”

“Ah… yes, well, not interested. 216, out.”

Nastein looked as if he were about to say something but Operative 216 cut the transmission before he could say anything.

Chapter Ten

[The Mug; Frigate Regis; Sonoma System; Day Twelve – 1335 Hrs.]

Jeni “Angel” Courtner almost left the Mug the moment she entered it. He was here!

The female pilot had spent as much time as possible avoiding Dann “Hobbes” Barelli as possible. Sure, he was charming and not that bad looking, he was also very hard headed and never took no for an answer, which also made him really, really annoying. She would’ve made a clean escape if someone hadn’t spotted her before she could make her exit.

“Hey! Angel!” Deanna “Dee” Hashi called out. Apart from forcing her to stay, her friend had also given away the fact that she was had entered the Mug.

Jeni glanced over to where Dann was sitting, wearing a smile and saluting her with his mug of lomin ale. Sighing she went over to Deanna and slid into the booth, leaning her back against the wall and putting her feet on the bench in the universal sign for “seat taken, so don’t bother.” She put one elbow on the table and then turned to look at her friend.

“Next time, don’t call out my name,” Jeni told her.

Deanna looked back at Jeni, clearly confused. “What do you mean? Why?”

“I’m trying to avoid Hobbes.”

“Why?”

“I just am, that’s why,” Jeni replied, her voice irritated. Jeni didn’t want anyone finding out why she would want to avoid the pilot. Deanna herself knew that her friend wasn’t going to break and give her any information so she simply sighed.

“He’s not bad looking, you know,” Deanna commented, looking over to Dann who was looking over the booth, trying to decide whether to approach them or not.

“So?” Jeni asked.

“So… I dunno. Sure, he’s a flirt… and at times he seems a bit silly, I guess. But that’s no reason to avoid him.”

“He’s… too flirty,” Jeni told Deanna, scowling.

“Too flirty?” Deanna laughed. “What do you mean by that?”

“I dunno… I just want to avoid him as-much-as-possible,” Jeni replied, stressing the last four words. “Don’t ask why… I just do.”

“Hey, wait a moment; weren’t you talking with him that night at the Space Jockey?” Deanna said, recalling seeing her with someone like Dann.

“No,” Jeni replied immediately, giving her friend all the affirmation she needed.

“Oh, yes he was!” Deanna grinned and pressed on. “C’mon, tell me what happened.”

“Nothing happened.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Why not? It’s the truth!”

“Well, something had to happen for you to avoid him like you say you’ve been!” Deanna said, resisting the urge to say “checkmate.”

“Okay, look. We talked, we drank, we danced a little, we talked some more, we drank a lot more and then he carried me home ‘cause I could barely walk,” Jeni said, talking quickly in an annoyed tone. “That is it. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happened afterwards. That. Is. All.”

“Oh, I dunno, Angel…” Deanna began.

“Of course you don’t know, you weren’t there,” Jeni snapped. She was already tired of this game of twenty questions.

“Oh? You’re going to be like that, huh?” Deanna said in mock-annoyance. “Well, if you aren’t going to tell me I’ll have to interrogate the only other person who knows what really happened!”

“No, wait, Dee—!”

Ignoring Jeni Deanna called out to Dann. “Hey! Dann! Bring us a couple of ales, will you?”

“Willco!” he called back to her as he turned back to the bar and called Trixel Narmi over. Afew a few words she nodded and went to fetch the ales. Jeni tried to get up and leave but Deanna caught her and forced her to sit down. Jeni began cursing the moment that she saw him coming towards them with three mugs in hand up until the moment he finally reached them.

“Hi!” She said, smiling, as soon as he arrived. Deanna looked at Jeni if something was wrong with her.

“Hey, Angel.” Dann smiled and slid onto the bench next to Deanna so he was across from Jeni. “What’s up, wingmate?”

“Oh, not much you know… Angel and I were just talking,” Deanna said as she grabbed one of the mugs he’d brought with him and taking a sip from it. Lomin Ale was always a bit bitter for her tastes… yet she kept drinking it. Why she did so was a mystery.

“Really?” Dann asked, taking a swig from his own mug. “About what?”

“Nothing…” Jeni replied, looking pointedly at Deanna. Deanna, though, pretended she hadn’t seen the stare from Jeni.

“About the night you two met up at the Space Jockey,” Deanna said.

Dann paused momentarily, as if remembering something, and then chuckled. “Wow, I was so drunk that night… hey, yeah, we did meet up, didn’t we, Angel?”

“Yeah… we got pretty, uh, drunk.”

“I remember… or rather, I know I got drunk, ‘cause there’s a pretty wide gap in my memory that night. I remember that I took you back to the barracks and took you to your room ‘cause you could barely walk. To be honest I wasn’t much better off… heh.” Dann shrugged. For a moment he looked as if he was going to say something else but took a swig from his mug instead. Jeni grabbed one of the mugs herself and took a swig from it.

For a few moments they were quiet, no one making eye contact with anyone else. Finally, Deanna got fed up.

“Gah! You’re both impossible!” Deanna stood up on her side of the bench and hopped over Dann onto the floor.

Once she was there she scowled at both of them before finally leaving the two alone at the table with three mugs of Lomin Ale. Jeni looked at Dann and caught him looking at her but as soon as he realized that she had seen him he averted his gaze back to his mug. Jeni did the same.

“Eh… uh…” Dann began.

“Yeah…”

“About that night…”

“Yeah…”

“We, uh…”

“Forget about it…”

“Right…”

“Okay…”

“Well, I should, um, you know… get going….”

“Alright…”

Dann stood up and left Jeni alone with three mugs of Lomin Ale. She looked at them and sighed.

Forty-five minutes later Jeni herself got up and left, leaving no one at the table and three empty mug of what used to be Lomin Ale.

[Flight Simulators; Frigate Regis; Sonoma System; Day Twelve – 1719 Hrs.]

“You know, I really can’t consider it fair—you guys are active duty pilots, and I’m just a cadet!” The Duros pilot complained.

Flight Cadet Justin “Forcekill” Cormeau was one of the many flight cadets assigned to the Frigate Regis. Red Squadron had always been a squadron directly linked with teaching new pilots to fly in live-combat, and the Regis had always been the vessel that transported that mobile Training Section. When Red Squadron had been transferred to the Morning Star, the Regis had been converted specifically for use by the Cadets… and then again for use by Red Squadron when they had been temporarily re-assigned to the Frigate. Red Squadron pilots participated daily in the simulator runs now, and they were really pounding on the cadets. Even the recently promoted Kyle “Gnoizic” Mandal was noticing it.

“Bah! Stop complaining, Comeau. Consider this special training. When you join the combat section the other pilots will be better and more experienced with you… will you complain when TIE pilots with years of experience come after your fighter, too?” Paul Sweet, the training officer, told the flight cadet as he entered the Simulator Room. He’d been watching the flight data from the back room and had now come to give out scores on the exercise.

This particular mission, the famed Attack on the Imperial Star Destroyer Dominance, had been a mission to build up team working skills among the pilots. Paul had put the four pilots participating in pairs, to fly as the legendary Rogue Squadron as they took on the Imperial capital ship. As usual, the Duros pilot had thought of some “special strategy” that had only caused him to get vaped. Again. The other three cadets had, because of this, been unable to complete the mission and had been shot down by the Red Squadron pilots he’d gotten to fly as the enemy.

One of these pilots was Kyle, another was Jamie “Shadow” Wetherill and the last had been John “Dune” Kimberly. The three had been flying the TIE Interceptors from Alpha Squadron and had wrecked some major havoc upon the cadets and their AI counterparts as soon as Justin went under from Jamie’s lasers. Justin was easily the best of the Cadets present and it was only a matter of time before he fully graduated into the combat wing. Now, if he could only learn to work with a team…

Paul sighed. “Cadet Comeau. Explain your actions in the simulation.”

“Well, sir, I thought that they were pretty obvious…”

“I told you to explain, Comeau, not to tell me how obvious or how obscure your tactics were. Now, explain.”

“Well, I knew that the we needed to get through those TIEs as soon as possible so we could launch our missiles at the Dominance, so I thought that if I managed to distract them from the rest of my squadron they would be able to get through while I vaped their Imp butts.”

Paul shook his head. All pilots had ego, but this one had a serious case of ego inflammation. Perhaps Paul shouldn’t have posted the scores… He’d remember for next time. “What went wrong, Cadet?”

“Alpha Lead saw me breaking off and ordered Alpha Three and a flight of Interceptors on me. That was Gnoizic’s flight, and he’s a real pilot, so he knew what I was trying to do so he shot me down. It would’ve worked if Gnoizic hadn’t been in that squint.”

“Now, explain to me how that would’ve worked in the real world, Cadet.”

“Uh, well…”

“Exactly. If you don’t treat every simulation like the real thing you’re never going to get anywhere but killed. And, due to your ‘heroic sacrifice,’ your wingmates were one pilot undermanned, and six torpedoes short of being able to destroy the Dominance. Poor tactics, Cadet. This is not a game—this is to teach you to fly as a team. I told you about Flight Officer South, didn’t I?”

“Yes, sir…” the Duros pilot mumbled.

“Excuse me, Cadet?” Paul asked, elevating his voice. “Could you repeat that?”

“Yes, sir! I said ‘Yes, sir!’” Justin replied, elevating his voice so Paul could hear.

The training officer smiled. “Good. This isn’t just a rant on you, Cadet. Cadet Forrester did a couple of really stupid things, too, didn’t you, Forrester?”

“Yes, sir!” the female cadet said from behind Paul.

Paul turned his attention to the female Human who had already gone stiff with fear. Justin sighed, waiting for the dressing down to be over. He could really go for a cool drink right about now…

Chapter Eleven

[Comm Station; Frigate Regis; Sonoma System; Day Thirteen – 0424 Hrs.]

Second Lieutenant John “Dune” Kimberly snuck through the dimmed hallways as he made his way towards his destination. He’d already used most of the comm stations on the Regis, and this particular one was the one he’d saved for last due to how close it was to the pilot’s quarters. He’d checked it out before, on the excuse that he was thinking about sending a message to his folks back home on “Caladan.” Little did these pathetic rebels know that he was really a Coruscant native, born and bred on Imperial Center to loyally serve the Emperor and his rightful domain of the Galactic Empire.

John Kimberly, though that wasn’t his real name, was the Imperial spy in Red Squadron. He had been born Nomar Graykius and had entered Imperial service at the age of sixteen when he had been offered to join a Rebel Cell. He informed his father, a high ranking agent in Imperial Intelligence, and his father had had him infiltrate the Cell. After weeks the cell had finally been able to move and that was when Nomar had betrayed them. Everyone but himself had been killed. Soon afterwards Nomar joined the Imperial Academy and graduated as a TIE pilot. His time as a pilot didn’t last long and his father soon contacted Nomar again, this time to offer him a real post in Imperial Intelligence as an undercover agent. He infiltrated the Rebellion as a pilot, thwarting Brown Squadron at every turn for years until their recent demise. Sure, he hadn’t been the most important agent and his work had been menial, but now he’d had the chance to deal a serious blow to the Rebels.

Over the past few days he’d been working on his plan so as to fit in the time-tables. Now all he do was make sure he got to the Comm system to inform that everything was ready on his end and that they would attack when ready, as well as give him the codes to his X-wing fighter, and that way avoid dying among the rest of the Rebels. The attack would go as planned even if he didn’t tell them that everything was ready so, to be honest, this was all about saving his own skin—something that Nomar had no problem admitting.

Nomar reached the comm and looked around once to make sure that no one was watching but he was met with what he’d expected: silence. This entire area was void of Human presence, and that meant that he had a greenlight to proceed with the commlink. Humar inserted his data chip and his virus immediately went into effect. He plugged his earphones in so noone could hear what he was being told and waited for the signal to connect. A bleep informed him that it had and a crisp Imperial voice came on the other line.

“Four-Nineteen,” it said.

“Yes, sir,” he said. “Everything is in place—I’ve placed the bombs on the X-wing so when they launch they’ll take the hanger with them. I’ll be making my escape on my own X-wing. You’ll be able to verify it by the code I’m transmitting to you… now. Is everything ready on your end, Captain?”

“Yes, yes it is.” The captain’s voice sounded annoyed, as if Nomar dared to ask him if he was ready. “We’ll arrive in the system shortly, be prepared. Dansi out.”

Nomar took a deep breath and was about to start the clean up virus when he felt a blaster’s muzzle touch the back of his neck. How could this be? How had he been spotted? He hadn’t heard any of the doors open…

“Turn around,”the gruff voice said.

As Nomar did so he recognized who the man that was holding him up was. The man’s features where unmistakable, especially with those black dreadlocks and the goatee that crawled along his jaw line. Captain Dann “Hobbes” Barelli, Red Twelve. Damn him.

“Now, Mr. Kimberly, if that’s your real name, put your hands behind your head.” Dann told his prisoner.

The Imperial agent did so. The look of hated coming from his eyes was unmistakable.

“Now, now, John, don’t get like that on me. You should’ve known better than to have used that virus—as if the NRI didn’t have Imps join our ranks before.” Dann said, in a light, mocking voice. “And to switch comm stations? It was obvious that you’d use this one last so all I had to do was wait for you to access it.”

“I see. Quite a good job you did, then, Barelli.” The agent replied. “If that’s your real name.”

“Oh, it is.” Dann replied with a grin. “See, operatives of my caliber don’t need to hide their names. Now, start talking.”

“About what?”

“You know exactly what I’m referring to. I heard that transmission. I want times of arrival, the number of the force and exactly where those charges are.”

The agent shrugged. “I dunno.”

Dann flipped the safety off on his blaster and his face turned extremely serious. “Now.”

The agent was about to say something but suddenly a door opened and Kyle stepped out, yawning and rubbing his eyes. “Care to keep it down? Some of us are on patrol is four hours.”

The distraction was all the agent needed. He pulled out his own blaster and fired at the two Rebels, hitting Dann in the shoulder and hitting Kyle in the stomach, immediately throwing the young pilot down to the ground, screaming in agony. Nomar turned and ran off. Cursing, Dann put a hand on his shoulder, pressing down to stop any bleeding and ran after the Imperial.

The sound of two blasters going off was enough to wake Jamie. The toprawan pilot fumbled out of bed and grabbed his own blaster then rushed out of the quarters h