Chapter 10

[Somewhere near nav-buoy ZR-256]

As soon as the X-Wings reverted back to normal space Kyp looked at his scanners and saw a swarm of Gunboats, he immediately locked his s-foils, as did the rest of his flight.

"This is lead," Kyp said to the rest of his flight. "Report in and then engage those gunboats."

"Lead, I'm OK." Rapier replied.

"Roger that lead, I'm OK." Ranger said quickly.

The three X-Wings started to accelerate rapidly towards the gunboats, they watched the distance rapidly reduce and their missile indicators start to flash. Then they started to spit orange death at the gunboats, who answered back with green fire. The two forces closed to almost nothing and then broke into all directions, and started to dance with each other as they tried to get on to their opponents six so they could blast them into space dust.

Abruptly a Nebulon-B frigate came out of hyperspace in a blur of pseudo-motion. It quickly launched three Y-Wings who turned towards the vicious melee, that was going on several kilometers away, and started to move towards the Patrol Base.

"Lead to B flight prepare to engage that base, I'll take out the corvette and then take out the stationary fighters, you lot take out the base and then go after the stationary fighters." Rainman ordered.

"Yes boss, I'll be right on it." Corran answered happily.

"OK lead, will do." Redjed responded.

The X-Wings saw their missile warnings going off again as another wave of gunboats arrived to re-enforce the first lot, causing the pilots to go into defensive maneuvering. Suddenly a gunboat which had received a massive pummeling exploded into several thousand pieces.

"Yeah haw, scratch one bogie." Ranger shouted.

But he had to pull back hard on his stick as a dumb fired missile slammed into his fighter, a second missing him by centimeters. His CMD sparked as its circuitry was overloaded by the blast.

"You OK?" Rapier asked as he was dogfighting a gunboat and evading another two's lasers at the same time.

"Yes, just a little shaken that's all." Ranger replied.

Rapier moved his X-Wing so that he could cover Ranger while he recharged his shield system. He pummeled a gunboat that was trying to track Ranger, it broke off its attack to late and became a ball of expanding debris. Some of the gunboat pilots noticed that three Y-Wings were making an attack run on the base. They immediately broke off their attack on the X-Wings and drove their fighters at maximum speed towards the Y-Wings. Kyp saw two of the gunboats were trying to get to the Y-Wings and started to fire on one of them, the gunboat suddenly preformed a corkscrew maneuver just as Kyp's rear shields were spattered with laser fire.

Rainman's lock indicator turned Red and he loosed a salvo of torpedoes at the corvette, he was just about to launch another when his missile warning went off. He pulled back into a graceful loop to face the oncoming missile, he fired a burst of lasers at the missile which exploded harmlessly. Rainman started to fire on his attacker, the gunboat pilot skillfully dodged almost all of his shots. Rainman reset his ELS to give himself more speed and he managed to loop on to the tail of the gunboat and fire a couple of shots at it. The gunboat pilot grinned evilly as he looped onto the Y-Wings six. 'I've got you now, Rebel scum.' He thought to himself as he started to fire into Rainman's fighter. Seconds later though his fighter was turned into a ball of frozen gas as two dumb fired torpedoes from Corran's Y-Wing hit home.

"Yeah haw, got him Rain." Corran shouted in excitement. "How are you doing?"

"I've been better," Rainman remarked, looking about the damaged cockpit, several of his instruments were fried. "But I'm goin' to nail that corvette."

The two Y-Wings continued towards the base. Suddenly one of the containers exploded in a brilliant flash of light, as three of Redjed's torpedoes rammed into it. Rainman launched four torpedoes at the corvette and watched in satisfaction as secondary explosions ripped through its hull.

The last of the gunboats desperately tried to evade the three Red Squadron X-Wing's fire, suddenly the gunboats reactor gave out from the stress and it exploded causing the gunboat to spin wildly out of control and finally explode. The three X-Wings turned towards the remains of the Imperial base to see the Y-Wings finish off the last of the parked gunboats.

"This is Kyp, all Alliance craft jump to preset 4."

A host of Rogers came over the comm and the Alliance craft made their way to the hyperspace point. The Y-Wings were out first, Kyp held the X-Wings back until the Regis was nearing its jump point. Suddenly Kyp's targeting computer went announced the arrival of an Imperial stardestroyer at 15 kilometers and the launch of some of its fighters.

"Shall we engage?" Ranger asked.

"Negative, we will be long gone by the time they get here."

The Regis accelerated as it entered hyperspace. The three X-Wings closed their s-foils and accelerated towards hyperspace. The TIE's turned angrily around frustrated at the loss of their prey, and headed back towards their mothership.

[3 days later…]

Lt. Commander Rob 'Kyp' Cashman strode into the Mug, closely followed by Lt. Ali 'Corran' Winston. They walked up to the bar and Corran turned round and shouted, "The next round of drinks are on me, my transfer to Green Squadron has been approved!" Red Squadrons pilots came up to the bar ordering drinks and congratulating Corran on being accepted in to one of the Alliances best bomber squadrons.

"When are you going?" Zoom asked.

"Well the shuttle will be here in three days."

"Lt. Commander Cashman report to the bridge." The intercom buzzed.

"Sorry guys, duty calls." Kyp said to the pilots. He turned towards the door and walked towards the nearest turbolift.

[Bridge of the FRG Regis]

Captain Daly surveyed his crew as they went efficiently about their duties in the usual bustling of the bridge, when the Regis was at Red Base for re-supply and routine maintenance. He looked up at the turbolift doors just as they opened and Kyp walked out. Kyp walked over to Lt. Kristy McCall, the Regis' communications officer.

"How are you today Kristy?" Kyp asked.

"I'm fine. The Captain wants to see you."

Kyp walked over to the Captain, who just motioned Kyp to follow him. They both walked into the Captains ready room.

"Ah, Lt. Commander Alliance Intelligence has just sent me a report indicating when and where Red Leader is to be moved." The Captain looked into Kyp's eyes, to see relief flood into them, much of the strain that had been in his face seemed to disappear. "He is being transported on the Corvette Dargo to the Atrivis sector for interrogation on board the Star Destroyer Iron Fist . He will probably be taken to Stars End after his interrogation. Alliance High Command has asked that you come up with a rescue plan by tomorrow morning."

"Yes Sir." Kyp said. "If I may be excused I have a mission to plan."

"Dismissed."

[Next morning…]

"Very well Lt. Commander, your plan will be approved." Admiral Ackbar rasped. "Every thing you need will be ready for the attack. May the force be with you. Ackbar out."

The Communications screen went blank. Kyp and Captain Daly turned away from the screen. Kyp got up and walked out of the door and into the turbolifts. Captain Daly got up out of his chair and walked onto the bridge and sat in the command chair.

"Helm prepare to get under way as soon as the last of our pilots are on board. Lt. McCall recall Red Squadron to the ship and send Captain Harrison my compliments on the fine repair job his techs have done."

Daly relaxed back into his command chair thinking about what was to come. The Empire would not be happy at all.

[1 day later… Briefing Room 1]

Rainman walked into the briefing room last and quickly sat down on the front row. He turned to Zoom who was sat next to him.

"Do you know what is going on here?" He asked.

"No, but it does seem a bit strange that we were pulled off of leave early and have not even had the slightest hint at why."

"Have you noticed that Kyp has…"

"Shh, Kyp is here."

Kyp walked into the briefing room followed by Captain Daly, they walked to the front of the room and Kyp sat down.

"Gentlemen, we have good news and bad news for you," Daly looked around at the gathered pilots who looked tense in expectation of the news. "The good news is that Alliance Intelligence has located Red Leader." He stopped to wait for the excited chatter to die down. "The bad news is that we have to take him from the 'comfort' of the Corvette Dargo, which is transporting him to the ISD Iron Fist . Kyp will now brief you on your assignments."

Kyp stood up and looked at all of the pilots seeing the high hopes in their faces. "The Corvette Dargo will rendezvous with the Iron Fist in the Atrivis Sector, in about twelve hours. The Iron Fist has a complement of TIE Advanced on board rather than TIE Fighters. We cannot take out this Star Destroyer without many more pilots and so we must take Spectre from the Dargo. There is only one problem with this, it is only scheduled to have one stop, the rendezvous point, where the Iron Fist will be waiting for it." Kyp looked around to see some confusion on the faces of the pilots. "The solution to this problem should be relatively simple, High Command will send another squadron to attack the Iron Fist before it makes its jump to the rendezvous point. We cannot predict how long we will have before the manage to beat off the attack and then arrive."

"Sir, won't the Iron Fist just go to hyperspace if it is attacked?" Rainman interrupted.

"Well, the attack force will be to small to be a big threat to it so that the Imperial commander will try to crush the force, and not run away." Kyp looked at Rainman and saw that he was satisfied by the answer. "Our operation to rescue Spectre will use four flight groups. First A-Wing Red A, consisting of myself, Rapier, and Redjed will exit hyperspace, to clear away some of the fighters and to inspect the corvette to ensure that Spectre is onboard. Once the Dargo has been identified Y-Wing Red B, consisting of Rainman, Gargoyle and WildCat will exit hyperspace and disable the corvette. When the corvette is disabled Shuttle Rescue Riker will hyperspace in, the shuttle will be escorted by X-Wing Red C, consisting of Ranger and Zoom, the shuttle will dock with the corvette and rescue Spectre. Are there any questions?"

"What resistance can we expect to face?" Zoom asked.

"The Dargo will receive an escort of Gunboats from its last port of call."

"Are we going to abort the mission if the Iron Fist arrives?"

"No, once the operation has started another squadron will have lost many good pilots, we cannot let their sacrifice to go to waste. Also their starfighter compliment should be greatly reduced. If there are no more questions." Kyp paused. "Very well, we will meet in the hanger in eleven hours. Dismissed."

[11 hours later, some where in the Atrivis sector.]

Three A-Wings exited hyperspace and turned towards a distant corvette…