-Prologue-

"I am sorry, Princess Organa," said the strange voice of Admiral Ackbar. "You know that Home One cannot escort you to Endor under these circumstances. We are currently tied up in the Zsinj crisis. You know that the council wants me to make sure Zsinj takes out no more of our convoys. Until we set up the base in this sector we cannot go. You'll have to take another starship."

Leia nodded and flashed Ackbar a smile. "I know . . .I just thought that you could spare some time. I need to get to Endor within a week. I don't know of any others who aren't in the middle of some other conflict. Could you assign me one?"

Ackbar gave Leia a smile that almost resembled a human's, except that it came from someone who looked like a giant squid. "We have several, in fact. But, I recommend the CRS Morning Star."

Leia arched an eyebrow. "Really? Isn't that that new CRS just out? The one made specifically for warfare?"

Ackbar nodded. "Exactly. It holds two squadrons, both renowned--Red and Blue. Red Squadron took care of the Wisp and had their training platform destroyed. Blue Squadron was the resident squadron on the Happy Jack. I believe that would be enough to escort you?"

"I think so, too," said the Princess. "How soon should I be able to board?"

"They are four hours from here, hyperspace wise, I mean," said the Mon Cal. "They are fairly good. No need to worry, Princess."

She shook her head, "It's not that, it's just that . . . I don't know. I just feel like something will happen there."

Ackbar nodded, "You are part Jedi, no? Maybe you should heed the warning and be extra careful. We should ally ourselves with the Yar'Plath Sector. They suggested the meeting there because they wanted to see where the Emperor was defeated."

"I know that, Admiral," Leia said in a matter-of-fact tone. "Sorry, I need some sleep. Tell Captain Ru'kaart that we'll meet at 0930, at the Dar'Oora Sector. That should be enough to get our needs aboard. I will tell Han to give me a lift."

Leia arose from her place in front of Ackbar's desk. "Thank you, Admiral Ackbar. I will see you again."

She smiled and left the room. The Admiral sat down at his desk and keyed the comm for the CRS Morning Star's frequencies. "Lieutenant Commander Jack Uoart at your services, Admiral. Should I send you to the Captain, sir?"

The Admiral nodded. A salute from the communications officer and he was patched through to Captain Ru'kaart. "Yes, Admiral?"

The Mon Cal gave the CO of the Star a resemblance to a smile. "We have an assignment for you, Captain . . ."

Major Sean "Leo" Healey, XO of Blue Squadron, looked down at the order list. He was finally about to receive the order of twelve brand new B-Wing which he had ordered about six months ago. Along with the B-Wings, two dozen X-Wings and a dozen A-Wings had come in, too much to be stored on the Star at the moment.

Next to him, was the XO of Blue's sister Squadron, Red. Major Neill "Ranger" Magill had at one time been Leo's own XO, and even TrnO. He was happy to see all the new replacement craft, especially the shiny new A-Wings, Ranger's own personal favorite.

"So, Leo. What are you going to do with those Y-Wing you guy's have got laying around?" asked Ranger, nodding towards the Blue Squadron portion of the hangar.

Leo winced, looking at the four battered Y-Wings, which were only a portion of what the Squadron originally had been given to work with. The two that were missing had found their doom about two days ago on a hit and fade mission. One had been Rogue's old Y-Wing and the other belonging to Lonewolf. Luckily, both had survived and weren't injured too badly. Luckily, a flight of Red A-Wings had prevented the other four Y-Wings from going down. Next to the Y-Wings were the two barely used X-Wings they had as well as four shiny B-Wings, unassigned due to the lack of B-Wings at the moment. A few Blues had actually done missions on them, but almost always came back to shine them. He was one of the lucky ones assigned one, along with his wing, Wildstar and two other pilots, Schmitty and Target. The four B-Wing were rarely used anyway. Dobber and Lobo were the ones who had the X-Wings assigned to them. This would all change, soon, Blue Squadron would have ships to spare, even better, B-Wings to spare.

He smiled, "Well, I believe your trainees might like them, and you know they've only had one since what happened at Red Base."

Now it was Ranger's turn to wince, it had been his bright idea to take them out training in Y-Wings when the attack came. "Well, I guess it's a good idea. Suggest you scrub 'em clean."

Leo nodded at the blonde pilot. "Sure, I'll get your cadets to do it, give 'em experience in maintenance."

Both laughed evilly.

Captain Orlando West turned off the comm unit, his spy aboard CRS Home One. He smiled. So, Princess Leia will be aboard the Morning Star, eh? We'll see how long the Star lasts against my Wisdom. I wonder if my old friend Ru'kaart remembers me?

He left his office and went to the bridge. "Set course for the Imperial Choice, then we'll intercept the CRS Morning Star. Full ahead."

-Chapter One: Welcome-

2^nd Lieutenant Chris "Pip" Layne's X-wing exited the hanger, right behind his wing mate's X-wing, Major Neill "Ranger" Magill. Behind Pip exited Lieutenant Rob "Biggs" Baden and Flight Officer Jamie "Shadow" Wetherill. "Red Flight, form up on me." He heard Ranger say over the comm. "Delta Formation."

Ranger moved ahead of them, and Pip sped up to catch up when Ranger was about fifteen meters away. He aligned himself about a meter from Ranger's left S-foil. He looked over and saw Shadow's distinct X-wing roll about a meter from Ranger's right S-foil. As Pip looked back he saw Biggs bringing up the back.

"Blue escort launching," came Leo's voice over the comm. Four B-wings exited the hanger. They, too, formed up into Delta Formation (they'd run a sim on this escort mission, so the pilots knew what to do).

The four B-wings formed up about thirty meters from Pip's left side. He recognized Target's B-wing closest to him.

Pip turned back to concentrate on the mission. According to the sim, the Millennium Falcon would appear from hyperspace to drop off Princess Leia Organa when the clock read ten minutes, and they were only two minutes into the mission. Pip was clearly surprised that they would be escorting Princess Leia to Endor--where they would discuss a peace treaty with the Yar'Plath Sector.

Pip's home sector. He wondered who would be the diplomat; he knew all Crolles's, the exact planet on which he was born, diplomats personally. He actually hoped that Mynock Squadron would be escorting the diplomats. He hoped that he'd see his father again.

Though Pip never got along with his dad--both were too stubborn to give in to one another's ideas--Captain Robin "Pepper" Layne was his father, and it'd been six months since he last saw him.

What really surprised him though, was that Crolles was still under the rule of Prime Minister Esoj Ranza, an open Imperial supporter, and it wouldn't surprise that Crolles was now under Imp rule. The other planets in the system, Dahna, Plahu, Saba 1, Saba 2, S'baa, and Man Lutra, had different systems.

Such as Dahna, Saba 1 and 2, and S'baa were clearly Rebel supporters, while Plahu was run by Imperials. Man Lutra was loyal to itself and the Imperials had paid dearly when they tried to run it over. The otterish people who lived there were usually peaceful, and rarely left home--but strangely, like the inhabitants of any other water-covered world, were exceptional ship builders, though they only built the large luxury cruisers that took ten or so years build. Each. Those ships were only seen in the Corporate Sector though, and cost about as much as an SSD to build. Rumor had it that one of these traveled with the Katana Fleet.

Pip rolled to port, following Ranger towards the area in which the Falcon was to arrive from. I wonder if I should tell the Princess what I know of the sector?

He dismissed the thought; clearly she knew everything he knew.

Uoart's voice came over the comm. "We have a YT-1300 approaching us from your location, Blue and Red Two. Prepare Operation: Welcome."

Operation: Welcome was really nothing, just a couple of patrolling flybys and an ID on the Falcon. Then they'd patrol the area for about half an hour before they returned and went to hyperspace, en route to Endor. The trip would take fourteen standard hours, including the fact that there'd be four stops along the way. One at Tholatin, then at Barab 1, after Tatooine, and finally Sluis Van before going straight to Endor.

"Okay, Reds. Look sharp," he heard Ranger say over the comm. "Split into wing pairs. Six follow my lead. Nine and Four, hang back a bit. Cover our butts."

"Copy, Two."

"This is Nine, I Copy."

"Copy, following your lead, Nine."

Pip took his X-wing behind Ranger's, easily coming up behind him. He saw Leo and Wildstar split off from the other B-wings to accompany Ranger and Pip.

An ugly ship, also known as an YT-1300, came up.

"Two, I'm going in for an ID reading," Pip said following the script that they had planned out. Pip neared the YT-1300 and at a few meters the cargo was labeled Leia and the ID registered correctly as the Falcon. "Two, it's her."

Ranger's X-wing came to his side and over all comms he said, "Welcome to the CRS Morning Star, Falcon. You are clear to land in bay two."

The voice of Han Solo came over, "Copy, Red Two. I have the package. I'll just be here for a few minutes."

"I copy, Falcon," said Ranger. "Nine and Four, escort Millennium Falcon to bay two."

Two X-wings came to form up above the Falcon, while Schmitty and Target went bellow it. "This is Blue Two, Blue flight will take the aft patrol area. Want to take up front, Red Two?"

"I'll take it, Blue Two. See you in a bit."

Ranger and Pip broke off to begin their patrol in front of the Star. They veered perfectly to the right and lined themselves at the Star's front. Fifteen minutes went by just fine, and Pip began to get bored. Began being because his boredom ended when the mystery VSD entering the system.

"Two, we've got a VicStar here, orders?" Pip asked his wing.

"Nothing yet, Six. Blue Two and Nine, I think it'd be better if you came up here, uh, sooner better than later."

"I read you, Red. Blue Two and Nine heading in," came Leo's voice over the comm.

Ranger spoke again, "Orders, Star?"

Uoart's voice came over the comm, "None of the other fighters are fueled, so we can only send out Reds Nine and Four and Blues Four and Five. Han Solo has also volunteered to go at them."

"I read you, Star, something is better than nothing. And tell General Solo thanks." Four fighters and the Falcon launched from the Morning Star's bay. "All Reds on me. How do you want to go about it, Falcon?"

Han's voice came over the comm, "I'll just launch at the VicStar, and I have a payload of about twenty concussion missiles here. Plus the stuff from four B-wings--I think that's enough. You just keep those fighters off our butts."

He heard Ranger reply. "Copy, Falcon. Reds, take out the fighters. Nine and Four, keep your eyes peeled for any bombers. Those are your primary objective."

Affirmatives poured in from the others pilots, and Pip found himself swimming in anxiety as the first wave of fighters launched, four squints. "Six, take out the squints. I've got the next wave."

Pip double click the comm and aligned himself to intercept the squints. He linked up his lasers to quad and went straight for the squints. The HUD turned green and he fired, the four shots hit the eyeball dead center, leaving the squint dead in space. He turned his attention to an oncoming fighter, obviously out for vengeance. He fired at Pip and the green death splashed against his shields. Pip targeted it and veered his X-wing towards the squint.

The HUD turned green almost instantly, the angry pilot was not watching himself--an accident, which would be that pilot's last. Pip tapped the trigger slightly and four blasts hit the engines of the squint. The squint lost maneuverability and went spinning off. Pip rolled right behind it and fired again and the squint became space dust.

He had been too concentrated on getting the second squint. He hadn't realized that the other two had latched onto his six and begun to fire. His shields dropped to lower than 50 percent. He hit the shield recharge and dumped some cannon power into the mix.

Pip then hit the cannon recharge and his speed dropped to 75. He slammed his stick to the right, and to the left, jinxing with the hope he wouldn't be hit before his lasers were fully charged again. One of the squints hit very close to his cockpit, and was a bit surprised to see the bolt coming right for his face, then stopped by the shield before him.

His cannons finished recharging without further incident, so he turned off his cannon recharge and decided to go for the squints again. He slammed his stick to port and quickly came up behind the--as far as he could tell--worse flier. His HUD went green and his shot grazed the top of the ball, creating sparks but not much else. He aligned the squint back into his targets and fired again, this time the squint exploded into a fiery mass.

Pip targeted his last squint, and soon found himself on its six. The HUD turned green and he fired, but the squint rolled downward and the shots went past it into space. He aligned himself behind the squint and tried to fire again, but the TIE did some maneuver that somehow ended with the TIE on Pip's six and Pip jinxing as best he could to avoid the squints shots.

Had it not been for Pip's ego, he'd have been calling for help. He glanced down at the squints ID. Alpha One. He nodded to himself. Well, you've got to be good to be the commander of an Imp squadron, especially if you are in a squint.

Pip suddenly remembered a sim he did with Ranger. He cut his throttle to zero and shifted his shield to aft. The squint pilot never even saw that coming. Well, maybe he did, but now no one would know. An explosion rammed into Pip's backside, and he heard several squawks from Fate.

"Fate, tell me what's down." He glanced at the screen that communicated him with his R2: LASERS DOWN: 40 SECONDS, SHIELDS DOWN: 20 SECONDS, PROPULSION DOWN: 1 MINUTE, COMMUNICATIONS DOWN: 15 SECONDS, HYPERDRIVE DOWN: 2 MINUTES.

Fate's list ended and Pip sat back into his fighter. He switched to his in-flight map and saw that the VicStar had nearly no HULL left, and that no one had been shot down at all. "Fate, give me a list of kills."

A list popped to the side of his in-flight map. Ranger had just earned his seventh kill of the engagement, while Shadow and Biggs both had three. Leo had two, as did the rest of the blues. He looked at his name, which mentioned four kills. There were no more TIEs left so the Red were just patrolling while the Blues pumped what missiles they had left into the VicStar. A few minutes later, when all his systems were repaired, the VicStar exploded in a brilliant display of oranges, yellows, and reds. Pip smiled. "Six here, sorry but a bunch of my systems had gone down."

"No problem, Six." Said Ranger, pulling up next to him. Pip looked over and could see Ranger give him a thumbs-up from inside the cockpit. "Let's go home. Prepare to launch."

Pip smiled. "I copy."

Ranger's voice again. "Another time, General Solo. And thank you for honoring us with your flight capabilities."

"I'll see you when I come to pick up Leia. Bye." With that, Han Solo went to hyperspace.

"Sir, they've defeated the Concoction." Said the bridge officer to Captain West. A tinge of anger waved over him, but he soon dismissed it. He'd sent the Concoction only to assess the Morning Star's forces, and they had proved that Red and Blue Squadrons could handle themselves.

He smiled. Not for long, he thought. I will be made Grand Admiral after this, the death of Princess Leia and the death of Blue and Red Squadrons.

"That is all, Mr. Kane. Thank you. I will be in my quarters if anything new arises." He left the bridge and entered the turbolift, and evil grin blossoming on his face.

-Chapter Two: Delivery-

Lt. Colonel Kelly "Zoom" St. Clair was tired, hungry, and hurting. Every step of the way to Endor they had engaged something. He sat in his A-wing, chewing on a protein bar that tasted like the best thing he'd ever eaten--through at any other moment it would have tasted like cardboard. The planets on course had all been close enough together that he'd have little or no chance for relaxation--especially with dogfights every step of the way.

So far they'd been forced to face two more dreadnaughts and at least three Corellian Corvettes. And they'd racked up kill after kill after kill.

Zoom was so happy that they'd finally reached Endor, and that they had two weeks of relaxation before them. And he'd use it to his advantage.

"Okay, Star. This place is clear. Prepare the tractor beam, I'm going in." He swerved his A-wing back towards the Morning Star and entered. When Zoom got out he yawned, a big long yawn and staggered to Pappy. "Take care of her, Pappy. I'm going to the Fishtank and then to sleep."

The mechanic nodded as Zoom made his way to the Morning Star's bar, the Fishtank. Zoom admitted that he missed Trix and the Mug, but had to do with what he had available. As he entered he nodded to Dargon. "A Corellian whiskey, I need something strong."

"Coming up, Zoom." The bartender grabbed the bottle of whiskey from behind him and handed it to Zoom. He looked at it quizzically for a second and was even more puzzled when a tray with a crowded bunch of shot glasses was brought to him.

"Uh, Dargon? I asked for one glass only." The bartender looked over to where the Reds usually sat. Suddenly he understood. His pilots waved him over, but first he said to Dargon, "Put this on Pip's tab."

Dargon chuckled a bit and nodded, then went back to shining glasses.

Zoom headed over to the Red's table, which was right next to the Blue's table. Some one had connected them together so both Blue and Red Squadron sat together now. It was clearly noticeable whose table was whose. Red's table had their crest drawn on it, while Blue's had theirs. The couch and table were the squadrons' colors and all over the seats were the pilots' crests--or for those who didn't have any--names. Zoom sat at his typical spot, right next to Ranger and on the verge of the blue's border, which was where Dobber sat, next to Dobber was Rogue, and across from Dobber was Leo. In front of Zoom sat Yale, though he wasn't present at the moment.

It wasn't that the pilots had to sit exactly where their name or crest was--it was just that their sign was usually where they sat. Such as Pip, he usually sat next to Ranger, but right then he was on the completely other side talking with Biggs and Shadow.

Zoom set down the shot glasses between the tables and nodded. All of the pilots grabbed one, and one by one Zoom poured them as shot, one-fifth of the bottle was gone when he finished. He noticed that one glass was left, but he realized it belonged to Stony, who was on Corellia for a little while.

Zoom raised his glass. "To the Rebellion and the Morning Star--who have both suffered many attacks and many, many pranks."

A few pilots chuckled, the memory of the smiley face the Happy Jack had worn was found two weeks ago painted on the stern of the ship. No doubt that some of the older Blues and--as usual--Pip were involved. Luckily, they had managed to clean it off before Princess Leia arrived aboard.

"Bottoms up!"

All the pilots drank their shots, Pip being the last one to finish the hard liquor. The pilots pointed at Pip and a few of them started to tell him that he would have to pay for the bottle. Zoom almost thought, Poor, Pip. The kid just couldn't drink this stuff. Then he remembered the prank that he'd pulled on Zoom by switching all his underwear with that of a female's . . . Zoom was still trying to figure how Pip got into his room in the first place.

"Okay, we all know the rules. Pip, you're paying." The younger pilot pretended to whine as he sat down but was soon engrossed in his conversation. Zoom turned to Rogue, who had moved himself so that the two COs could talk.

The Blue CO looked at Zoom and said, "How'd the last patrol go, Kelly?"

Red's CO sighed. "Yeah. Just great. Ran into a small patrol of Gunboats. So we lit up a couple. Good thing that we're on the way to Endor right now. I really don't think I could stand another attack from the Imps. And same goes for the pilots."

Rogue nodded, "I agree. But, you know that Princess Leia is on board--that's almost an automatic target for nearly everyone related with the Empire." He sighed. "Two weeks' leave though. You better brief your pilots on conduct. I told mine that they are not to bring Ewoks as souvenirs."

Zoom chuckled. "Yeah, I guess at least one will try and bring one aboard. We'll have to mount patrols, and the Princess said we'd have to be present for the meeting."

"Yeah, I got invitation, too." Rogue sipped his drink, "I'm going to leave Leo in charge of organizing patrols, then bring Dobber with me when I go over to whatever ship the other diplomats are in. Maybe you should bring someone along."

"I was planning on bringing Pip with me, but you know how he is. He'll just run around and be stupid. Maybe some one like Redjed would be better, show the diplomats that there are more jedi other than Luke Skywalker out there. Yeah, I think I'll bring him and leave Ranger in charge of patrols. You plan to do anything on leave?"

"Nah, I've got reports and plenty of other work to do. Though I might just drop by one of those Ewok villages. Might be something fun around. I'll take my taser."

Zoom nodded, "Same here." The older pilot yawned and then stood up. He squeezed through the two tables and was out. "See you later, Rogue. I've got to get me some beauty sleep."

And with that, Red Squadron's Commanding Officer left the bar to the other pilots.

Flight Officer Jamie "Shadow" Wetherill gulped in the fresh air as he exited his personal X-wing. Next to him, Pip and 1^st Lieutenant Chelsey "Vape" Maxfield exited as well. Shadow stretched as the cockpit closed and Chance popped out. He walked into the middle of the three X-wings, the three pilots and three R2s enjoying the fresh air.

But after a little bit, Fate, Tooby, and Chance began to chitter and Vape, Shadow, and Pip fled the scene. Vape was first to speak, "Wow, un-recycled air! This is awesome! This forest is awesome! I wonder if we'll bump into any Ewoks? Come on--let's go look around."

As the two followed Vape, Shadow over heard Pip mumble something along the lines of "I hope they don't have ticqs. Then they won't be so cuddly and no way am I going to be scratching any of you all day!"

Vape paused, frowning at his words. She sighed and gritted teeth. Why did I have to get stuck with the new guy? "Yeah--that's for darn sure, Flight Officer Wetherill."

2^nd Lieutenant Rob "Biggs" Baden was bored.

There were no other words to explain it, how would you be after three full hours in the cockpit of an A-wing? He looked over to see Flight Officer Jeni "Angel" Courtner and Major Neill "Ranger" Magill, both in A-wings as well. Behind them were two B-wings, belonging to Schmitty and Wildstar.

Good thing tomorrow I have no flight duty at all! Otherwise I wouldn't be able to stand this, Biggs thought to himself. Ranger had organized the flight plans so that three pilots would have to fly patrol each day. Today, it would be himself, Ranger, and Angel. Tomorrow Pip, Shadow, and Vape. After that, Arc, Stony, and Wire. And the last flight would be Zoom, Redjed, and Sentinel. Also, Ranger had organized these patrols so that the same people with each other on the patrols would also be sightseeing together. Then the day right before their patrol, the group would go sightseeing--thus the reason that Vape, Shadow, and Pip were down on Endor today.

A beeping sound broke Biggs out of his train of thought. He looked down to his monitor, but it was too late. The large ImpStar Deuce floated into view. "Um, sir. I've got an ImpStar Deuce in my view port. Orders?"

Ranger's voice filled the comm. "No need to worry, that's a friendly. But, let's go and ID it just in case."

The three A-wings lined up, with Ranger in front and Angel and Biggs on his sides--forming a triangle formation. Biggs looked at the ship in awe. It was the regular ImpStar he was used to, but it was different. It seemed bigger and stronger--but at the same time more fragile.

The three A-wings came up and swung past it, the fighter's computer confirming it the ISD Tarot, and belonging to the Yar'Plath System. How that system had gotten a hold of an ImpStar Deuce eluded Biggs.

Ranger's voice came over the comm. "Okay, Nine and Three, continue escorting the Tarot. Let's move it, Reds."

Princess Leia Organa stepped into the Lambda-class shuttle Bygone. She immediately entered the cockpit and was surprised to see four men already there. Two she recognized easily as Lt. Colonels Kelly St. Clair and Paul Sweet. One of the others reminded her of Captain Andrew Dobson. "Mr. St. Clair, Mr. Sweet, and Mr. Dobson. Would you please introduce me?"

St. Clair turned around in his co-pilot's chair and looked at her. Suddenly everyone stood to attention and Leia told them to sit back down. "Princess, this is 2^nd Lieutenant Mark Hagues. He is a pilot in Red Squadron and a Jedi trainee."

Redjed saluted smartly.

Leia nodded. "Nice to meet you, Mr. Hagues. It is nice to know that my brother isn't the only Jedi around. At ease and carry on."

The four saluted and returned to their work, and Leia reluctantly went into the passenger area of the shuttle.

Zoom watched as she left and went back to work. "Okay, and the lasers for this dump are where again? They should be over here, but that's just a caf holder."

Rogue looked over to the co-pilots area. "Ah. Over here." He pointed to a strange control panel. Zoom moaned.

"Well, the Princess is here, let's get this show on the road." Dobber said from behind them. "The Reds said that the Tarot reads out just fine. And I want to get out of this ugly bastard."

That brought some laughter to the pilots. And that brought a quick pip in from Rogue, "Forgot to go to the little Gamorrean's room, Captain?"

This brought some more laughter. Zoom felt the muscles of his face relax, laughing felt good he decided. Looking around he realized that even though they had passed through so much aboard the Star or on other missions they would still be young and like that first combat mission at heart. Laughing, joking--it all reminded him how fragile a life could be and how quickly that laughter could never be heard again.

He sighed and leaned back into his chair and awaited the order to launch.

The dense forest world of Endor reminded him a lot of Toprawa, so much that Shadow had to hold back a tear. The peaceful landscape soothed the soul and luckily there wasn't an Ewok in sight. Pip had helped. As had Shadow.

They'd began to sing one of Wildstar's songs, and Pip's singing voice had sent the birds fleeing from their nests--eggs and all. Vape was mad at them, yes. But hell, it was worth it. After an hour or so, they had stopped sing to take a lunch break.

"Well, well, well. What do we have here?" asked the Lieutenant next to him. "Slop, a.k.a. Pudding with Gray-Colored Chocolate Stuffs that I doubt is chocolate chips. Oh, and a bottle of Lomin-Ale I bought from Dargon. What about you guys?"

Vape took a bite of her sandwich, and instantly pulled it out of her mouth. A green trail of gloop followed as well as her spitting. "Yuck . . . since when is baloney green? Who makes this stuff?"

She looked into her pack, pulled out a couple potato wedges, and held them to her scraped knee. She looked up to see Shadow and Pip looking at her strangely. "What? You want some? These are colder than the coldest thing we have in the freezer up in the lounge."

"Uh, that's just like--gross" was all Pip said. Shadow was spitting out what he'd packed. Pip looked over. "That's even more disgusting."

Shadow looked down to his calamari squid sandwich. "Okay, that's the last time I listen to what Abodar thinks is good. Looks like were stuck with only a flask of Lomin-Ale."

Vape looked up at him. "You're from Toprawa. Couldn't you scrounge something up?"

"I could, but it would look less appetizing than my squidwich. And of course it might not be any healthier--though I doubt it. What I mean is that I don't know the biology of this place and am unfamiliar to it so I might get poison mushrooms or something."

Vape nodded at Shadow's response.

Pip stood up. "Well, I don't know how you all can stand to walk so much. I'm heading back to the X-wings." He stretched. "Coming?"

Vape looked around reluctantly. To her, Endor's forest was like heaven, and she knew from his expression that Shadow felt the same way. She didn't want to leave so soon, but as ranking officer, she was responsible for the others--and her instincts told her that they should stick together. St. Clair wouldn't be happy if I lost someone. "Yeah, all right. Come on, Shadow--we shouldn't get split up."

"I understand," answered Shadow. He stood up and looked around at them. "Let's get going, I guess. Good thing we didn't find an Ewok, or I don't know what I'd do."

It took them two hours before they actually got back to their fighters. Pip was the first one to arrive, and his R2, Fate, began to screech at him. "Yeah, yeah. I know that I need to eat--just not what we brought along."

Shadow smiled as he went to greet Chance. "Heya, little guy. How well did you guard?" A series of hooting answered him. "Good job then. Well, we're going before we starve to death."

The pilots helped their R2s into their fighters and soon were in the air.

Lt. Colonel Paul "Rogue" Sweet landed the Bygone smoothly onboard the Tarot. He opened the hatch and the four pilots left the cockpit.

Rogue was the first to see that Leia was awaiting them to escort her out. "Mr. Sweet, if you will be kind enough to escort me?"

He smiled and offered her his arm. She linked her hand into his and he smiled at her again. "Thank you, Princess. It would be my honor."

"Interdictor Imperial's Choice entering system, sir," said the comm officer as the Wisdom exited hyperspace just above the planet Endor. Though the Empire had been defeated here one year ago, West was not frightened. He looked to his port viewer where an Interdictor floated in space next to him. In front, there were two corvettes and behind him a dreadnaught barely flying through space.

"Give the order to attack, fire all turrets at that ISD before it gets away, the Choice will hang back, protected by the Forgotten," ordered West. "Launch all fighters, I want the bombers to concentrate on the ISD, and have the fighters cover them. The Advanced are to go for the fighters and I want the interceptors cover us as we enter the fight. Oh, and get a squadron of the fighters to sweep the moon, we wouldn't want unexpected arrivals."

West smiled. Princess Leia would be no more soon, very soon.

-Chapter Three: The Second Battle of Endor-

Flight Officer Jeni "Angel" Courtner rounded a turn behind Ranger and Biggs. She looked down to her sensor and was about to tell Ranger what he'd picked up when an Imperial battle group entered real space just above her. She used the A-wing quickness to dodge a couple of stray shots and made her way to Ranger. "Orders, Two."

"Form up into a trio, Red Extras, launch." Even as he spoke, four X-wings exited the hangar of the Star, soon followed by two B-wings. Obviously Leo was thinking along the same lines as Ranger. Ranger soon began to dictate orders. "Blue Two, the Reds will cover you--which one are you going for?"

"The dragship, Red Two. As soon as we take that out, we'll be able to escape." Leo's voice crackled over the comm systems. "Getting ready for a bombing run. Red A-wings, it'd be useful if you went for the Brights coming right at us. Reds in X-wings, take out the bombers."

"Sounds like a plan to me!" said Ranger. Angel pulled her A-wing to follow Ranger on another turn, this time heading out at the TIE Advanced.

"Reds, this is Mynock Lead, leave the brights to us--maybe you should take out those squints escorting the Wisdom into battle," Commander Sam "Mossy" Jensen's voice crackled over the comm. "What do you think?"

Angel noticed that Ranger had paused for a minute, but then finally said, "Good idea. There are way too many Brights for three pilots in A-wings. We'll hold position until that Star Destroyer gets closer."

"Copy, Red Two."

Angel pulled her throttle to zero, as did Biggs and Ranger. She watched as the twelve X-wings from Mynock Squadron charged into battle. Mynock Squadron, which reminds me of something . . . Wasn't Mynock the name of the squadron that Pip said his dad was XO in?

1^st Lieutenant Paul "Nomad" Schmitz slammed his throttle to 100 percent and followed his wingman, Captain Robin "Pepper" Layne as they wove through the Brights.

Nomad had been a Mynock for almost twenty-one years, about as long as his best friend, Pepper. Strange that he was only a Lieutenant--most thought that he should be a Lt. Colonel at least--but that would mean that Nomad would've had to leave his squadron, and his friends. He had decided that he wouldn't assume a higher rank than Pepper, and Pepper seemed to want to stay a Captain.

Mossy, relatively new to the Mynocks compared to Pepper and Nomad, had eagerly accepted the rank of Commander at first chance. Oh, he wasn't bad, all the contrary--Mossy was very good--it was just that Nomad felt strange being lead by a pilot with five years less under his belt.

The forty-three year old was beginning to think he was getting too old to fly with these younger pilots, as he was a Clone Wars veteran--as was Pepper.

He locked onto a bright with a duo of torpedoes and fired. In a brilliant flash of light, the TIE exploded into fiery wreckage. Nomad smiled. If I'm getting too old for this, then these kids don't have a chance.

"Two, how about that trio to our left?" he asked into his comm.

Pepper replied after a few seconds. "Copy, Eleven. Converge on those three." Nomad followed his XO in a sharp left turn. He switched to lasers and quaded them. He chose his target quickly and fired. His first shot weakened the shields a lot, hitting the TIE on its starboard engine and wounding the deflectors

He fired two more times and soon the TIE was limping back home. He quickly came from behind and finished off the TIE. "This is Eleven. One down. How about yours' Two?"

"Deader than a toenail, Eleven. Follow me against that last one."

Nomad clicked his comm in an affirmative and set out behind the last TIE Advanced. He let out a torpedo, which knocked out its shields, and Pepper finished it off with another. "Good flying, Eleven."

Nomad smiled at his friend's admiration for his skill. "What else did you expect old pal? I'm not as ancient as you!"

Pip's X-wing lifted up into the air, making a gap between him and the ground. Obviously, Fate was enjoying it about as much as he. The R2 was hooting and tooting happily.

An annoying beeping sound suddenly came on sensors. He looked at it and then said over the comm. "We've got a half dozen drop ships and about as many assault transports. Any one has anything to add?"

"Copy, add an escort of twelve eyeballs," Shadow said over the comm unit. "Orders, Twelve?"

After a pause, Vape announced, "Six, wreak havoc on those walkers. Four, follow me in for an offensive on those eyeballs. No fancy stunts."

Pip and Shadow responded with clicks and were off to do as they were told. Pip slammed the stick in the direction of the landing drop ships which were at who knows how many kilometers away.

As he approached, Pip saw that four AT-ATs had already landed, as well as all of the troop transports but one. Pip quaded his lasers and began a strafing run against the lead walker. The lasers did partial damage, but not much. "Fate, primary tactics not effective. Switching over to secondary weapons. No, I don't have a tow cable."

Pip armed an Advanced Torpedo and targeted the lead walker. He decided not to wait for the tone and dumb fired it. The blue streak flew straight for the neck, slamming just under. The neck of the walker broke and its head crashed down to the floor. Then the rest of the body came crashing down and exploded so that trees flew out of its area, hitting the legs to the two behind and toppling them over.

Now, only one walker survived and he decided to dumb fire another torp. He loaded it and flew at it, weaving so the blast would not hit him. He turned his fighter upside down and fired the missile at the walker's underbelly. It was an instant explosion, rocking the air.

Pip smiled. "The four cows are down, I repeat, down."

"Copy, Red Six. This is Eight and Five. Cover us as we make a pass for those other drop ships." Now, this confused Pip, as there were no pilots for the positions Eight and Five in Red Squadron. Wait, Schmitty and Lobo was Five and Eight with the Blues. "Copy, Blues. Tell me if you need anything."

1^st Lieutenant Chelsey "Vape" Maxfield looked back to where Shadow and Pip were. Pip had already turned to do as she had told him, and Shadow was following closely. "Four, arm torps and target the leader."

"Copy, Twelve."

Vape switched to advanced torps and locked on an eyeball, but noticed that Shadow, too, was on that one. She switched to the next target and the HUD began to beep in a yellow color. Suddenly it turned red and she hit the fire button. A blue streak went streaming towards the TIE, and another for the one next to it. Both exploded simultaneously.

"Outnumbered Scenario tactics!" She switched to lasers and targeted the next TIE and fired a quick shot, taking the TIE through the cockpit. It swerved out of control and crashed into one of the drop ships that Pip was to be taking out. Well, I guess one less for you, Pip.

"Twelve! You got a couple on your six, slam right!"

Vape hit the stick immediately, turning right as several green bolts flashed by her, and hit a close-by tree. She targeted another TIE, which was on Shadow's tail. She aligned herself rapidly behind it and took it in a clean kill.

Shadow seemed to realize what her plan was and took out a TIE on her rear end as well. Less than half of the eyeballs were left, about five. She'd taken out three, and Shadow four. She targeted another and it went to bits. A smirk blossomed across her face, now she was even with Shadow.

Three dived into the trees, and Vape followed, using all her skill in a cockpit she'd proven over the time she'd been with the Reds. She locked onto one and fired a shot. The two red laser bolts slammed into the left ion engine, causing the eyeball to loose flight control. It headed forward and slammed head on into a large tree. It exploded brilliantly.

"Twelve? Were are you?" Shadows voice came over the comm. "It says I'm right on top of you, but you're nowhere in sight."

"In the trees, Four. Cover me. There's still a missing TIE fighter loose around here."

"Copy, I'll keep an eye out for it."

Vape took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She goosed her throttle to full. She was constantly dodging between trees and such, but gaining on the other two eyeballs. He locked onto one and fired a missile but all it did was crash into a tree and knock down a lot more.

She decided to switch to lasers and locked onto that same one. She fired and the fighter exploded. Now, she zeroed in on the last one, getting closer . . . closer . . . almost . . .

Suddenly her X-wing rocked forward and her shields began to drop rapidly. She looked back to see who was firing.

Bad call.

Her X-wing slammed into a tree that was drooping over.

"Incoming missiles! Don't let them get to the Star!" yelled Ranger into the comm system. He pumped his throttle to full and shot down a missile coming right at the CRS Morning Star. Two of the six that had come by them exploded on the Star's shields.

"Okay, I want those dupes down, and now!" he ordered.

Biggs and Angel responded with affirmative clicks as they turned to engage the TIE bombers. Ranger switched to missiles and nailed one right off the bat, blowing it to smithereens quite rapidly. He targeted another and also took it out with his concussion missile launcher.

Ranger targeted a third one, and switched to lasers. This one, seeing that it'd be better to evade, dropped into an evasion maneuver, though it served about as useful as muck. The bomber was gone about twenty seconds later.

He dipped his A-wing into a dive, Angel and Biggs followed since they'd finished off the remaining bombers. "Hold back Reds. Protect the Star at all costs!"

-Chapter Four: Aggressive Negotiations-

Captain Andrew "Dobber" Dobson followed at the back of the group with Redjed as they followed Princess Leia to the Ambassador's Office at the meeting chamber. He was filled with wonder, and memories, and he passed through the Star Destroyer's interior.

The memories came from his realizing that this ship closely resembled the Happy Jack. He could tell that Captain Ru'kaart and Rogue were also affected with the memory.

Wonder also filled him. The walls, ceiling, and floor were a white ivory color and he could see his reflection in it. Dobber looked from side to side, the ship had pieces of art here and there, and a few violet uniformed pilots walked by. The rest of the crew wore turquoise and the military wore the common green camo color.

Dobber followed the others into the Ambassador's office, well, more like a conference room. It was a large room with a long black table. At the end sat a large man in his mid fifties. He looked decidedly powerful. He had a big flashy white smile and almost white blonde hair.

The man stood up. "Hello, Princess. My name is Redman Bluesun. I am the ambassador of Crolles." Redman motioned to his right and nodded at the full admiral next to him. "And this is Admiral George Tesar. To my left are Commanders Sam Jensen and Don Dare."

Leia nodded at him and presented the pilots with her. "Here are Lt. Colonels Paul Sweet and Kelly St. Clair. The others are Captain Andrew Dobson and Lieutenant Mark Hagues."

They exchanged welcomes and then finally sat down. Dobber sat next Commander Jensen and Rogue next to him. Then, Princess Leia at the other side of the table from Redman Bluesun. Zoom and Redjed sat opposite of Rogue and Dobber.

Just as Leia and Crolles' Ambassador began to speak, a warning klaxon began to scream, followed by a voice. "All personnel please report to your combat positions. All fighters launch."

The Admiral and Commanders ran out of the room. "C'mon, Princess Leia. We've got to get out of here!"

He didn't know who yelled that, because suddenly Redman Bluesun was holding a blaster, with three or four guards holding E-11s at them were in the room screaming for them to lie on the floor.

Rogue reached for his blaster but was put down with a blue bolt from the Ambassador's gun. Dobber crawled over to him to check if Rogue was still alive. He checked his pulse. Affirmative . . . good.

Suddenly everything went fast. Redjed pulled out his lightsaber and jumped at a guard, and Zoom pulled out his blaster and fired at one of the others. Princess Leia took out hers and began to fire, killing one of the guards.

Dobber seized the moment to jump at the Ambassador. The man fired once, the shot hit Dobber in the left arm. Dobber dropped to the floor and pulled his blaster out. He quickly pulled off a shot, which went wide, and instead of hitting Redman in the stomach; Dobber hit him in the hip.

Redman fired at Dobber again, this time, the Ambassador's great aim managed to hit Dobber's hand, making him drop the blaster. The Ambassador walked over calmly. He stood over Dobber triumphantly. To make it worse, the man shot Dobber in the leg, agony raced through his nerves and exploded in his head. Tears sprung into his eyes.

The Ambassador lifted his blaster level to his head. Preparing to hear the whine of a blaster about to hit him, Dobber closed his eyes, preparing to die. He waited. Nothing.

Instead of hearing the blaster whine, he heard the humming of a lightsaber. He opened his eyes to see Redjed leaping over the table and a quick twitch of Redjed's wrist flicked off the hand of Redman Bluesun. The bloody forearm of the Ambassador dropped into Dobber's lap, blaster and all.

Flight Officer Rob "Stony" Huberty juked his X-wing to the left as a missile flew past him. He targeted the missile coming at him and hit the chaff. Stony slammed the throttle to zero quickly and let the missile slam into his chaff coming out his aft. The missile scattered and again Stony goosed his throttle to full.

The dupe came up in his targeting box and Stony armed a missile. A few seconds later the dupe was space dust. He rolled his eyes that so many novice pilots were out in the battle today. "Seventeen, I'm thinking that these pilots are just a decoy. They're too new for more than just shooting them down, there has to be more."

"For now, who cares, Fifteen?" Wire's voice came over the comm a little tense. Stony nodded to himself and followed Wire into quad position. "Eighteen and Seven take out those dupes coming at the Star from the right. Me and Fifteen will take out those on the left!"

Pip cruised calmly above the tree line, hoping for a chance to catch a glimpse of Vape or Shadow. Schmitty and Lobo were finishing off the dropships and troop transports.

"Six, we're done here. Moving up to the battle."

Pip picked up his comm, "I'll go and get Vape and Shadow. See you up there!"

"Copy, see you in a bit."

Two B-wings ascended into the upper atmosphere and then disappeared up above where the shape of a Star Destroyer and a Mon Cal cruiser could be seen. A little more distant was a flotilla of Imp warships.

"Four or Twelve, do you read me?"

Static responded to his call.

As Vape's ejection seat shot upwards, Shadow breathed a sigh of relief. He smacked his forehead for not seeing the black TIE slip between him and Vape. The two TIEs lifted upwards above the canopy and Shadow followed.

The two TIEs ducked and weaved as Shadow tried to get a lock on them. It was no use; they were just too good. As he thought this, one turned around and charged at him. Shadow smiled and moved his fighter straight for the TIE; a small beeping sound came up, as the HUD turned green.

He smiled. Gotcha!

He had no more time to think anything else. Suddenly he was engulfed in flame and reaching for the ejection lever. He pulled it and was free in the air. Then he dropped.

Ejection seats were more so designed for space, most people didn't think you'd ever have to use a starfighter on a planet, so, as you'd probably guess, that means that there's no parachute.

Shadow fell like a rock. He closed his eyes as he crashed through the canopy and his seat crashed him flat on his ass.

He moaned. Then he pulled his straps off. Then all went black.

Yes, he definitely missed Torch behind him.

Torch would have been able to fix the shot stabilizer, his left cannon, put more charge into his shields, and even speed up his engines.

He gritted his teeth as he tried to start up again. Oh, and Torch would be able to find out why his damned A-wing couldn't start up.

Biggs was a sitting duck. His A-wing was out and wouldn't start up again. "Heya, a little help over here?"

Static.

"Dammit! Is there anything that does work?" He rolled his fists into a ball and angrily slammed them against the start up. Suddenly, his A-wing's engines began to hum, then died out.

He moaned and slopped back into his A-wing's ejection seat. He was about to pull the ejection lever, but then saw a small red light. Weapons!

He instantly sat forward and tried to target a craft, but it was down as well. He would have to do it manually. Biggs rolled his A-wing to the side, so his cockpit could see the battle. An eyeball passed by and he lit it up.

Two of the eyeballs must have thought that this corpse was probably not dead enough, so they turned to finish it off. Biggs fired wildly at them, blowing one and injuring the other.

He rotated his A-wing to track the target. He saw it. He fired. Nothing. He tried again. Still nothing. He looked at his laser battery.

It was empty. Biggs cursed the A-wing to and through Corellia's nine hells and switched to missiles. He looked at his numbers and saw that he had only five left. He dumb fired the first one, which slammed right through the incoming eyeball's cockpit and detonated.

Shots painted his shields above him and they failed him. Biggs immediately ejected as the fighter exploded. Fire streaked out singing his leg. He finally realized that now he'd be safer, at least he knew the SAR was coming.

Nomad sighed as Mynock Six exploded into a fiery ball, pieces flew out here and there, crashing into TIEs and blowing them to bits. He evaded yet another missile fired from a very persistent bright.

"Two, this guys' getting annoying. Could you get him off of me?"

"Coming, Eleven."

Nomad twisted and slammed his X-wing to different sides as the TIE Advanced tried to get a lock onto him. This made the novice TIE pilot stick onto him and forget about everything else. Just long enough for Pepper to pop a torp into him.

Nomad smiled. Nothing like having a buddy with you to help you knock off a few TIEs.

Pip had just barely caught a glimpse of fire caused by either Shadow's or Vape's mangled X-wing burning a streak across the forest. Tears came into his eyes as the realization that one of them had died.

It felt as if an invisible hand had come over his heart and squeezed. Memories of Big Byrd's death came to him and a desire of vengeance burned through his soul. The sight of two TIEs made him go to full attack speed and fired randomly at the TIE fighters.

They caught sight off him and dodged him easily. If Pip had been thinking right, maybe he would have been able to sneak up on them and kill them, but basking in his rage, he charge dumbly forward.

These pilots were clearly experts and weaved and evaded him constantly. He'd not scored one hit, and he was already to 10 percent shields. Less.

The two eyeballs out of nowhere attacked with force, firing wildly at him, and blowing his fighter's port engines and tearing up those same S-foils. "Fate get ready for a nasty ride!"

The R2 hooted a screech at him and Pip rolled his eyes. "Let's eject!"

Pip pulled the lever and nothing. He pulled it again. Nothing. "Dammit Fate! The ejection's sithed up! Fix it or you're screwed too!"

Fate's response had been just as harsh as his. Pip turned back to trying to land the craft, but it was no use. Pip slammed through the thick canopy and slammed into the forest's floor and continued on for a while, leaving wreckage as a 'yellow-brick-road' to his fighter.

As Pip relaxed and let out his fears, the ejection came up. He popped out flying from his X-wing and went off into the canopy, then came crashing down. Luckily, he landed in water.

He in attached his flight straps and climbed out furious. "Fate! You managed to do that on purpose!"

Fate hooted innocently, then something about Pip getting Fate free of the fighter. Pip climbed into the cockpit and punched the code to let Fate out. The R2 came up and tried to roll off of the X-wing by passing over the cockpit, but then Pip hit the X-wing to shake it a little and let Fate fall off head first.

The R2 hooted madly and then picked himself up. "I love you too, Fate. Now let's get out of here."

Pip grabbed the field rations and his holdout blaster and set out to reach Shadow's crashed X-wing.

A small furry feeling awoke Vape.

Their hands were small and brown in color. Strange voices accompanied the throbbing drums in her head. "Whaa?" she managed to say before she went out again.

-Chapter Five: Escaping the Tarot-

Zoom heaved Dobber onto his shoulder. Blue's former CO had many blaster wounds and would probably be in bacta for weeks. Redjed said that with his force powers that a shot had punctured one of the arteries in his leg. Redjed had clogged the bleeding, but couldn't fight and hold it at the same time.

Rogue had recovered and known what to do, stealing bact-aids from one of the guards, he pressed it against Dobber's leg and stopped the bleeding, but again, the bacta bandage would only do so much. In the meantime, Zoom would have to carry Dobber, since he was the least experienced of them in light fights. Even Princess Leia surpassed him. How embarrassing.

It shouldn't have surprised him, as Leia had fought her way out of the first Death Star and had taken part in nearly every major battle since Darth Vader captured her.

But it still didn't mean that Zoom liked lugging Dobber around.

Redjed went point, while Rogue covered they're backs. Zoom, Ru'kaart, Leia, and a few of the Star's security detail went around the middle; ready to spin in whatever direction they needed to.

They followed Redjed and only had minor fights on the way to the hangar, where they paused. Redjed came back. "We've got three X-wings and the Bygone there. Plenty of guards and some pilots though. I think that Zoom and I should go for the fighters and Rogue, you should pilot the shuttle. The rest just cover us while me and Zoom get to the X-wings, then go and get into that shuttle."

Zoom nodded. "Good plan, Redjed. You heard the Jedi in training! Let's move it!"

He set down Dobber and looked at him. "You hanging in there, buddy?"

Dobber breathed in heavily. "Yup. Just get out of here."

Zoom nodded and told the biggest trooper that he was to carry Dobber aboard. The man nodded, and Zoom left to where the decoy would start.

"So, ready, Mark?"

"Copy, Lead."

The two men snuck around the hanger, behind the crates to be exact. He noticed that there were no R2 units in the fighters and took that as a good sign. At least there won't be a stupid super loyal astromech in that thing!

Zoom popped his blaster cartridge out and inserted a full one. He nodded to Redjed and hit his personal comm. A few seconds later, Rogue's group opened fire on the troops of the Tarot.

Redjed ignited his lightsaber and charged for the nearest X-wing fighter. He deflected a few shots and brought down one of the pilots trying to get in his way. The entire time, Zoom followed his squadmate, firing at those shooting at them.

They hopped into two of the three X-wings and started the ignition sequences. In the chaos of trying to avoid becoming crispy critters, Rogue's group made a dash for the shuttle. Two guards dropped dead as they ran, leaving only four living.

The rest got inside the Bygone and the SHU started to launch. Redjed and Zoom exited first, taking out two TIEs and clearing the path for the SHU to reach the Morning Star.

"I'm hit!" yelled Flight Officer Bill "Arc" Doellefeld to his squad mates. "I could really use some help here!"

"I'm coming!" Arc turned his head to see a sight he didn't want to see. Sentinel's X-wing was coming at him in an effort to help Arc, but at the same time, four mean looking TIE fighters were converging on him.

The poured a rain of green death over him, killing his shields. "Never mind--I'm punching out!"

His X-wing exploded and Sentinel's ejection seat flew out, as did Sentinel's R5 unit. "Rescue, Eighteen is EVA, I repeat, Eighteen is EVA."

"Copy, Seven. Just picked up Nine and am heading over there to get him."

"Dammit! Better come and pick me up too!" Just as Arc's X-wing blew, he punched out and his R2 with him. They joined Sentinel and his R2 in the cold of space.

A torpedo blew past Angel's A-wing, brushing against her bottom shields. Sweat dripped down her face and her arms ached with fatigue as she turned her craft to target it before it reached the Star.

Her HUD turned green fairly quickly and Angel instinctively fired a quick shot when she heard that sound. Two red shot hit the nose of the torpedo and blew up. Jeni celebrated with a short "Whoop!"

As Angel took out the missiles fired, Ranger would take down the dupes that had been evading them. Before she had heard Tessa's confirmation that she'd picked up Biggs, Angel thought him dead.

He'd been pretty beat up; two mag pulse missiles and a proton torp had hit him at the same time dead on. His fighter had gone spinning off and crashed into a TIE fighter, which Angel thought had been his A-wing blowing apart.

"Three follow me. I'm done with the dupes and we need to peel those other TIEs bugging the Blues off of them."

Angel smiled. "Love to, Two."

Only two things mattered to 2^nd Lieutenant Kristofer "Target" Chester.

One, destroying that dragship so they could get out of that place. Second, the damned bright that had latched onto his six and prevented him from firing a single missile.

Leo's voice came over the comm, "The shields are down! Dump what you guys have got left into that dragship! Too bad I'm out."

"I'm dry."

"Me too, Two."

"What about you, Four?"

Target juked once more to try and get the bright off of his six. "I'm full up of missiles. I just can't fire because I have a bright on my six."

"Copy, Blue Four. Reds Two and Three will take care of him for you."

"Thanks, Red Two."

Target looked behind him to see two A-wings converge behind him and fire. There was a small explosion behind him and the bright was off of the radar. "Thanks, Reds. Locking onto dragship. Doubling up torps. Locking . . . three . . . two . . . one . . . mark."

Target held down his trigger button as sixteen missiles charged out to lash out at the dragship. They hit one after the other fairly close to the engine, and then the dragship detonated.

It was a brilliant flash, and made the all the pilots left in starfighters cheer over the universal line. Above it all, Target could hear Leo saying, "Target, that's your kill!"

The Blues regrouped where Leo was, Schmitty and Lobo catching up to them. "Okay, Blue Squadron, we're going for those two corvettes. Ranger, if you and Angel could split up to cover us, we'll be splitting up into flights of three."

"No prob, Leo."

"Okay, myself, Wildstar, and Lobo with go for the one charging at the Tarot. Ranger, if you would accompany us. Angel with Target, Schmitty, and Lonewolf will take out the one heading for the Morning Star."

Wordlessly, they split up and attacked the corvettes.

Rage built up in Captain West's interior at the incompetence of the Choice's Captain.

"Sir, the B-wings are making runs against the corvettes. Our fighters are getting chewed up by opposing squadrons," said the first mate.

West sighed. "How many of their fighters have we destroyed?"

"We've reports of fifteen out of a possible forty confirmed kills, sir. Including the three that were annihilated on the surface of the planet."

"And our casualties?"

The first mate swallowed the lump in his throat. "Forty two and counting sir. Out of a possible eighty-four."

"What!?" roared West. "I want those B-wings annihilated, and plot an escape course away from here, now!"

"Yessir!"

Captain Orlando West sat back into his command chair and waited.

-Chapter Six: Fleeing the Battle-

Nothing was harder for Ranger to do than escort a couple of B-wings while the rest of his friends were in danger. His in-flight map told him that only he, Angel, Stony, and Wire remained of those who had started the battle, and that even Vape, Pip, and Shadow were listed MIA.

"Red Two, we have five squints coming at us from two o'clock. Could you give them a welcome while we take out this corvette?"

"Roger that, Blue Two."

Ranger swung his A-wing around to meet the incoming squints. He targeted the first and fired a couple of shots at it without really trying to hit it. One hit the fighter dead on, badly scathing its port wing. The other shot blew clear through the cockpit of the lead squint.

As the dead squint dropped back, the other four scattered, making it harder for Ranger to get a lock on any of them. He continued after the one he'd hit earlier and swung his A-wing behind it quickly. He fired once, blowing it to pieces.

The other three formed up into a trio and this made Ranger's job easier. He targeted the next one and switched to missiles. He armed the first one and swung his fighter around to go head on with the three TIE fighters.

The HUD turned red and the tone went flat and he fired. The missile hit the fighter before he even noticed it. Ranger switched back to lasers and fired at the remaining two without needing to target them. He lit both up pretty well and turned around to help the B-wing destroy the Corvette.

2^nd Lieutenant Richard "Wildstar" Vogel fired a parting shot at the corvette as the ship exploded. "Whoo hoo!"

"Check the cheering, Nine."

Wildstar stopped cheering and followed Lobo and Leo to where Ranger was heading to meet them. "Two, maybe we should clear a path for the SAR?"

"Good idea, Nine. Rescue needs all the help she can get to get out of this mess. Ranger, this flight and I are going to head back to the Star and switch into those spare A-wings we've got and help you guys clear the fighters."

"I'll go and see if Wire and Stony need help over where they are, which is pretty much in the thick of it."

"See you on the other side, Red Two."

The three B-wings turned around and goosed their engine to full. "Blues, give some of your cannon power to speed. We need to get there, and I mean fast."

Wildstar hit his cannon power and goosed it up to full. The ship went noticeably faster and the Star's tractor beam was pulling them quickly into the hangar. Wildstar was the first one out, followed by Leo and finally Lobo. Leo marched straight to Pappy.

"Pappy. We need to get into those three spare A-wings."

"Sorry, Major, but they's not be done and prepped yet. Y'alls might as well use Red's A-wings. Pip's, Vape's, and Shadow's are battle ready."

"Thanks, Pappy," replied Leo and jumped into Vape's A-wing quickly, followed by Lobo, who got into Shadow's, and finally Wildstar, who got stuck with Pip's. "Pappy, are you sure there aren't ANY other A-wings prepped?"

"Naw, just go!"

Wildstar groaned and put on his helmet then closed the hatch. Soon the three flew out the of the fighter bay and were ready for some action.

Lieutenant Tessa Valis wove through the battle to reach the next pilot, which was Arc. "Biggs! I've him right under us. Activate that tractor beam!"

"Copy, Tessa!"

Since Tessa had picked up Biggs, he had decided that he'd take his bacta dip for exposure later and help all he could to save his squad mates.

The beam pulled up Arc through the hatch, along with his R2. "Got him! Let's start for the Star now!"

Tessa rotated the ship in direction of the CRS Morning Star. Quickly thinking in advance, she called over Biggs. "Could you man the guns on this boat? One person can't do everything here!"

Biggs sat down in the co-pilot's seat. "I didn't know these things had guns."

"Kinda hard to pilot and shoot and pick up pilots at the same time. Sentinel! Get on that sensor board! Arc! I want you to put out those fires that start up when we get a bad hit!"

"I've got four eyeballs coming this way, Tessa!" said Sentinel from behind her.

"Charming."

"Pepper! We've got a couple TIEs converging on that SAR!"

"Copy that, Eleven. Let's discourage them!"

Nomad clicked his comm twice to indicate that he'd heard him and turned to engage those incoming TIEs. He targeted the first one and came close enough to pop a dumb-fired missile into it.

He was pretty surprised when two exploded without reason. Then he noticed a gun shooting at the TIEs. "Oh yeah!"

Pepper took out the last one, and they escorted the SAR back into the hangar.

"Eleven."

"Yeah."

"This is boring."

"I know. Too bad there's no more of those old rough-and-tumbles from the Clone Wars."

"Yeah. Let's get back into the fight."

Captain Steve "Schmitty" Michadick fired his last torp into the corvette before it blew to pieces.

The rest of the Blues followed him out as Angel peeled off any resistance from the badly trained TIE pilots. "Let's get back to base. We're no good out here anymore."

They followed Schmitty out from the wreckage of the corvette to the Morning Star's hangar.

A shot from a bright went by 2^nd Lieutenant Iddo "Wire" Geva as he evaded it. "Stony, you could lend a hand here!"

"Sorry, Wire! A bit busy!" Stony was currently trying to unlatch a bright, but the faster TIE Advanced stayed on.

"Your help is coming, boys!" Rang out Ranger's voice through the comm. He must've taken the TIE Advanced by surprise, because suddenly, Wire and Stony were clear of them and back into the action they'd been missing out on.

"This is Three, I'm clear to begin beating up on Imps again."

Wire smiled. "Well, what are four Reds to do in a place like this?" He juked his X-wing out of the way of a shot from a squint. He turned around and fired again on the squint, which went into a ball of flames.

A pause came from Ranger. "Ru'kaart has ordered us to cover the retreat. We are to escort the shuttle Bygone, which has two friendly X-wings with it piloted by Redjed and by Zoom. Then we'll land on the Star and leave. We'll be back for Six, Three, and Twelve later when these Imps are gone."

Wire's heart felt as if it had suddenly stopped. Three of their pilots would be left behind, alone on Endor. Though he didn't like it, he liked less the lives that would be lost if they stayed around and fought until a SAR could get down there and pick them up. "Yessir. Me and Stony'll head out to it."

"Right, Seventeen. And me and Three will hold the door open at fifteen klicks from the Star."

Wire turned his X-wing in the direction that the shuttle was coming from. They could tell where Redjed and Zoom were tearing up the fighters in their way getting close to the Morning Star.

Wire asked his R2 to open up a channel for him to Zoom's fighter. "Were do you need help, Zoom?"

"Thank the sith! We need someone to cover our tails. I have reports from Rogue that they have multiple impacts in their aft side."

"Yessir. Moving to cover the Bygone's butt now."

Stony and he moved around and came up behind the shuttle's rear end. They had few problems as they fought off the fighters, just two or three that thought going from behind would be better than from the front. The shuttle entered smoothly right after them, followed by the blues in A-wings and then Zoom and Redjed, then finally Ranger and Angel.

A few minutes later, the CRS Morning Star and ISD Tarot hypered away from Endor, to a point only Captain Ru'kaart and Admiral Tesar knew.

-Chapter Seven: the Stranded-

Vape awoke about four hours after the battle had ended. Her head throbbed and the light air confused her. She was in a type of hut, made by wood native to Endor. The pelts of various species of animals that Shadow or Pip had pointed out to her were woven into a pretty and quite soft cover. On the wall hung four spears, all perfectly shaped and all with flint tips. Towards the middle of the spacious hut burned a small fire, and a smell from in front of her feet greeted her.

The roast whatever-it-was looked a lot like roasted mynock, which could as well be, considering that mynocks were found just about everywhere in the galaxy.

She pulled off her covers to find that she was still in her flight suit, though a few odd colored patches were quite noticeable. Her helmet was about a meter way, next to Shadows', judging by it's helmet art. She crawled on her bed over to where the food was, and pinched off a piece and ate it. It was wonderful!

A groan could be heard from the next bed over, the one she'd assumed was Shadow. Vape stood up, but found that her ribs still hurt. She unzipped her flight suit to see that she was bandage all over her torso, and she'd assumed that she'd broken a few ribs.

Vape managed the pain and headed over to Shadow, who was worse off. He had his head bandage and by the look of it, it seems that he had a concussion. She poked him and he slowly awoke.

"Shadow," she whispered. "Any idea of where we are?"

The male pilot used his working arm to lift himself up, as his left was in a primitive sling. He sat up so he could talk to her at eye level. "No idea, Vape."

She sighed and looked towards the door. "You stay here."

Vape un-holstered out her holdout blaster, which who ever had found her, had not removed. She cautiously pointed towards the door and slowly exited. She discovered that the breeze was coming from here, obviously, and the smell of cooking was now entering from the same spot.

She poked her head out the door to find no one, and slid out cautiously. Vape could now hear a humming sound, as if someone was singing to himself or herself. It was from her left. She jumped out with her blaster drawn at whoever it was, "Hold your hands up were I can see them!"

The man turned around, he had a scruffy beard, but other than that, he seemed only about twenty years old. "You can put that away, Miss Maxfield."

Vape eyed him warily. "Who are you, and how do you know my name?"

The man stood up. "Excuse me, but my name is Captain Jen Clour. I fought in the Battle of Endor against the Second Death Star as Green Two under Green Wing, which took out the Executor. I was hit and I was forced to crash my A-Wing miles away from here. There were three others, but they were killed, I am the last one."

Vape was still not convinced. "And explain how you know me."

He pointed at her nametag on her flight suit. She felt her cheeks turn red and put down her blaster and holstered it. "I am 1^st Lt. Chelsey Maxfield, call sign Vape. Yours?"

"My friends called my Squint." He responded, obviously relieved that he'd not been shot.

Pip was hungry. He was almost afraid to pick out his field rations, because he didn't know how long he'd be down here.

Behind him, rolled along Fate. In the black R2's storage compartment that he had, was a recharge for the R2 and weapons and about a month's rations. In Pip's bag he carried some spare clips, a holo-camera, a tool kit, and the food that was meant for today. He had rolled the sleeves of his violet flight suit up and had nearly unzipped it entirely. Slung across his chest, was an E-11 blaster that nearly all fighters had in them, and strapped onto his leg was Pip's own personal holdout blaster.

He'd been traveling the last four hours to where he thought and knew (because Fate had told him) where Shadow's X-wing was. He was fairly close by now, since he could smell the burnt metal and fried circuits as well as the charred vegetation. Smoke also lead him to the crashed fighter, the unmistakable fire helped a little in locating the X-wing.

He pushed some vegetation away from his face and looked out into what was now a crater. The X-wing had landed how it should of, a one in a million chance that that would happen. What surprised him the most was the hooting that came from on top of the fighter.

"Chance! You're alive!"

Pip crawled over the cockpit, which was in relatively good condition, and sat in it, which was difficult because of the missing ejection seat. He pressed in the code to release Chance and the R2 popped out of the fighter.

Chance landed on his side, and Pip immediately jumped down to help up Shadow's R2 unit. "You okay? Fate." Pip's R2 rolled over. "Could you run a diagnostic on Chance and Shadow's X-wing?"

Fate hooted an affirmative and began to work. Pip smiled. If he could get the ship's engines and sensors online, he might be able to summon help after all!

The Wisdom's Captain's laughter filled the bridge.

West had defeated the Rebels at Endor, like what would have happened if the damned Emperor had recalled the Wisdom. He stopped laughing and went to the view port. Three ships had diminished his fleet--one was a great loss, since his fleet now had one INT left. The two corvettes hadn't bothered him. Outside, floating magically by, were the Forgotten, a frigate, and the dreadnaught Chaos.

"Lieutenant Cleain. Bring in the rest of the fleet. Those rebels will be back in force. We'll have a few surprises for them yet."

"Yessir!"

Captain, no, Admiral Orlando West smiled. Soon he and the new Emperor, Esoj Ranza, would be the ruling power in the galaxy. He smiled. It always felt good to win. He left the first mate in charge of the bridge as he headed down to the hangar, where the twelve surviving pilots had been ordered to wait.

Also, he was to see to Lord Ranza's ambassador, Redman Bluesun. The ambassador was more commonly known as Jacob Star. He had been reported handless, but a mechanical hand had been given to him fairly rapidly. Now, he was waiting with his shuttle that he'd escaped the Tarot with.

He reached the hangar and looked at the TIEs in the racks. One TIE bomber, two TIE fighters, three TIE interceptors, and six TIE Advanced had survived the battle. He came to the highest ranking of their pilots, a man who flew in one of the TIE fighters.

"Commander Garn Dacyon, how nice to know that you survived down on the surface. I heard that you accounted for one kill?"

The man about West's age nodded. "Yessir. 2^nd Lt. Sol got the other two."

West nodded and went over to the fairly young pilot. "What have you got to say for yourself, Lt. Sol? Remind me of your past before transferring here."

The young man stood at attention. "I am Corellian, and have a twin brother that is Commenorian, a long story, but to shorten it, I was born on a freighter heading for Commenor when my mother entered labor. I was born as we left Corellia, and he was born as we entered Commenor. At the age of seventeen I entered flight school with my brother and we both have many medals and recommendations." He had a smirk on his face. "Then we were admitted directly into the 181^st. After the battle of Brentaal, he left and joined of the rebellion and I have heard nothing of him since. I was transferred to Avenger Squadron and spent four months there before I was transferred here."

West nodded. "Good job, pilot. I want all of you to form my new elite squadron. Colonel Dacyon will be the CO with Major Hyan as XO. I want Captain Sol as TrnO. That is all. Get training, battle will be in store for us soon, Zeta Squadron."

West left smiling. He entered the turbolift and rose up towards the bridge. Come back little Rebels, we won't kill you. At least not yet.

Morale was low for the pilots of the Morning Star.

Red Squadron had lost three pilots, though all thought that they were somehow alive and on Endor. With that spark of hope, Zoom had proposed that his pilots plan a rescue mission.

Several ideas had come up, but with only three ships and thirty pilots they couldn't do much. So, that was when Ranger came up with the recon mission so assert their strength. At first Zoom was reluctant, saying that with only nine pilots, he couldn't spare any. Two pilots were constantly on watch, doing one-hour turns with those from Mynock and Rancor Squadrons.

Zoom's memories of the pilots lost were already closing up. Vape had been lost once before under his command, and he still blamed himself for it. When she'd come back he had felt like a great weight had been lifted and now loosing her again affected him deeply. Schmitty was taking it worst of all; wounds of losing Hijack under his command were reopened and left him numb inside.

In the end, Ranger convinced Zoom to let him bring two other pilots with him and they would quickly get in and get out to assess the enemy's force. Then a planned attack could be set up without relying on old info, which was the cause of plenty of pilot deaths. When Ranger told him this, Zoom was all for it.

And that was the reason why Biggs was in hyperspace right now, with twenty seconds before they reverted to real space. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine how they would come out of hyperspace. Ranger would be in the lead, with Biggs to his right and Schmitty to his left. Torch hooted from behind and Biggs readied to revert to real space. They exited as Biggs had imagined, and immediately they goosed their throttle to full and the X-wings lurched forwards at higher speeds than what hyperspace felt.

Biggs was totally not prepared for what he saw when he looked up at the fleet that was supposed to be only an ISD with a DREAD and a FRG. Instead, accompanying those ships were another INT and two VicStars.

"Dammit, Two!" Biggs heard Schmitty say in surprise. "We'll need more than just thirty fighters to take those down!"

Biggs responded quickly. "Thirty fighters doomed the first Death Star. And we'll have capital ships as well."

Before Biggs could say anything else, Schmitty interrupted him. "Well, I'm sure that the Death Star didn't have any of those!"

Biggs looked forwards and felt as if his heart had dropped to his toes.

Twenty-four TIE Advanced and twelve TIE defenders charged at them. The Brights were enough to deal with the thirty X-wings, A-wing, and B-wings by themselves, but on top of those were the meanest TIEs around. Defenders. Also known as trips.

Though very few were ever made, TIE defenders had reached the Imperial service. The Reds had heard all sorts of stories on the holo-vid about squadrons that had the mishap of running into a few. He quickly did some adding. With the thirty-six TIEs, there were one hundred and twelve more Imp craft than they possessed.

Damn. They were really going to need help. "Back home, boys--I mean now!"

Biggs hit the hyperspace button and seconds later the three were on their way home. He breathed a sigh of relief at not having to deal with those fighters, and he ignored the fact that soon they would be dealing with them.

Pip was getting along just fine; he'd even found Shadow's ejection seat about three klicks north of the crash site. He'd lugged it back in an adventure that had lasted all of the previous day.

Chance's systems had been recovered, as had the sensors of Shadow's X-wing. Good luck must have been shining on them because they had also found Vape's crash site, and though he hadn't visited it, he knew she wouldn't be there.

He'd found tracks of Ewoks near Shadow's ejection seat, as well as a fragment of Vape's flight suit. Poor Shadow, he'd have to put up with Ewoks, and he guessed he felt a bit sorry for Vape as well. He had vowed he'd find them before they were tortured with seeing an Ewok victory dance or banquet.

He'd gotten a pretty good readout on the biology of the area, and had named a little magenta-colored lizard a delicacy. The local greens weren't bad either, but Pip had never been a big fan of veggies anyways.

Today, Pip was heading out to Vape's X-wing, to see what he could scrounge. He'd fixed the systems on Shadow's fighter with his own, but needed a new port engine, because Shadow's had been fried, as had been Pip's. He was fairly close to her X-wing, or so said Chance, who had volunteered to go on the mission as Fate took his turn fixing the navigational computer. What Pip needed badly was a new canopy, having been half ejected through his, and Shadow had busted his pretty bad in the crash.

Pip wasn't really in a hurry, he was actually expecting that they thought him dead, and there was no rescue coming. He had to find Vape and Shadow, then get off planet and get to the Morning Star. Then he had to tell them that indeed he, Vape, and Shadow were alive and well. Well, he hoped that Vape and Shadow were well.

He brushed some foliage from his face in front of him and was surprised to see two things. One, a B-wing in perfect condition except for the fact that one of its engines were gone, and Vape's X-wing, with the entire top and bottom part of her X-wing intact. Two, Tooby's head right before him. Chance wailed in horror and Pip picked it up.

He looked at it. "Chance, this isn't too bad. Could you weld it on? I'll go find his torso."

Pip left Chance there and went to where the R2 units were located on an X-wing. Tooby's body was definitely inside of the X-Wing. He jumped into the cockpit, which was intact, and hit the eject button for Tooby. The R2's body came out and fell over, as dead weight this time, not an accident and lack of mobility.

He picked up the body and dragged it to Chance. "I think that if we transfer one of Vape's X-wing's engines to that B-wing, I could fly it back to where Fate is at. Could you get Tooby back online? It doesn't look too bad."

Chance hooted an affirmative, and Pip nodded. He headed over to the X-wing fighter and pulled out the standard tool kit that all X-wing pilots were made to carry, as well as rations and Vape's blaster. He immediately set to work, and by mid afternoon, Tooby was among the active again and helping him and Chance mount the engine into the B-wing.

They finished by nightfall, and decided to send a comm to Fate to tell them that they would see each other the next day. The night passed and they un-mounted Vape's cockpit glass and set it into the two man B-wing. They decided that Chance and Tooby would be tied to the sides on the return trip. It was either that or they walk home, ah excuse me, roll back to Shadow's crash site.

In the morning, the B-wing started up perfectly and he flew it back and landed it near Shadow's crash site. Pip quickly decided that flying it too much would drain what fuel was left in it, and soon he'd have to go back to Vape's and his X-wing to empty their tanks into the B-wing and the X-wing.

The cockpit from Vape's X-wing fit into Shadow's with minor difficulties, the first being that Pip was no mechanic, but after this he felt that he could fix just about anything.

The rest of the X-wings repairs went by just fine, and by the tenth day, they were totally complete. His current problem was how to fit three astromechs into an X-wing or B-wing. Pip's brilliant mind was to shove Fate into the missile chute of a B-wing and draw lot for the second one in. The R2 units, not really liking the idea, decided to mount the two spare R2 holders into the missile chutes, that way, neither of the two in there would get shot out.

They had it mounted within two days of the decision. Soon, after little more than two weeks, Pip would begin his search with a B-wing and an X-wing.

Two weeks had passed since Vape and Shadow had awoken.

Squint had told them his life story, and they theirs. They discovered that he'd been saved by ewoks, and had been awaiting the New Republic to come and aid him ever since he crashed.

He'd already waited a year, who much longer would they?

-Chapter Eight: The Endor Station-

Pip ignited the B-wing's engines and they fired up smoothly. The modifications that he and Fate had made on that baby were really noticeable, and he was currently in search of new debris. He'd done at least one sweep each day, and had even been able to latch an A-wing and another X-wing onto his B-wing and drop them off at a little place he called the 'Junkyard'.

The Junkyard was filed with bits and pieces of anything he found. He'd moved his fighters, which he had four of now, to a large cave about a five minute walk from the Junkyard.

At the Junkyard, he'd built up quite a building. Using a downed TIE Avenger's tractor beam that he'd attached onto his B-wing, he had dragged bits and pieces of the shield generators from various places on the world, as well as a couple Death Star fragments.

What he got was about ten square meters in a domed building, which on the inside had a desk that Fate had forged from some hull fragments and other such things.

Endor was filled with junk. There wasn't a day that Pip didn't find some new piece of junk, or another downed fighter. Out of all his fighters, an A-wing, an X-wing, Shadow's X-wing, and his B-wing, the B-wing was his favorite. He'd even found a droid, which had been taken down and built it again-, then renamed Bob. He had Fate hack into his programming and made the droid piloting-capable, as well as his normal war-droid functions.

He had to admit, though he gave himself the credit, and yes, he did help out, most of the work had done by the R2s. He'd been able to help with some replacements, as at the academy he'd been trained to do just about anything.

"Bob, do you see anything?"

Bob's mechanical rasp answered back. "No, sir. Nothing located."

Pip nodded as he flew higher. What he was trying to do was get at a distance that he could send off a message to the Star. But, he'd soon discovered that there was a large Imp battle group waiting on the outside.

But today he'd try something new. He'd exit on the moon's dark side, swing his B-wing around the planet, and fire off a message he already had planned out.

He rose through the atmosphere and looked at his sensor, which showed that no Imps were in range on this side of the planet. He goosed his throttle to full and hit the decoy beam the B-wing's new decoy system had.

He was soon on the other side of the planet and dialing up Red Squadron headquarters. Well, actually the Morning Star.

Lt. Commander Uoart came over the comm. "Uh, Lieutenant Layne? Aren't you dead or something of the sort?"

Pip smiled and cocked an eyebrow. "Hurry up, Jack! I need you to put me through to Zoom. Tell him it's his grandma."

Jack Uoart smiled. "Will do, nice to see you are still among the living. Uoart out."

The Red Squadron crest hung there for a second before Zoom face appeared. "Okay, unless you got some major wrinkle care, you're not my grandma, Lieutenant Layne."

Red's leader smiled. Just by seeing Pip, he knew that the mission that he was planning wouldn't be in vain but of actual use. Because Pip was alive, that meant that Vape and Shadow probably were too. "Report, Lieutenant."

"Nice to see you too, sir." Pip smiled. "Okay, here's the deal. I've found everyone's fighters, and it seems that their bodies are gone. I even found the ejection seats. I've fixed Shadow's fighter, as well as the B-wing I'm in right now. I've also got an A-wing and another X-wing half repaired. The current location of Shadow and Vape are unknown to me, so . . . I guess I have to look for them. Oh, and I have Fate, Chance, and Tooby with me, and Chance and Tooby report that their pilots weren't dead when they ejected. And if they say that, then I believe them."

It took Zoom a minute to absorb the information. Then slowly he nodded. "Okay. Good Job, Six. I need you to do one last thing. Find Shadow and Vape ASAP. Do you understand?"

"Copy, Lead. I need to head back before those Imps find that I'm sending you a message. Red Six out."

Pip didn't wait to turn off the message, and he looked at his sensor boards. Four TIE fighters were coming at him. "Bob, target the lead TIE with the ion cannon."

"Copy, Master Layne."

Pip positioned his B-wing to deal with the TIEs. If all went well, he'd be able to take them out and get away before they sent reinforcements. They seemed to notice him, because they changed course to come at him at full speed. Pip switched to triple lasers and put one in his sights. He fired and the TIE exploded, and the ion cannon fired from Bob hit another, leaving it dead in space. The other two broke off and tried to position themselves behind him, but when moving around, Bob nailed a second with his ion cannon.

The last one proved more difficult, because the faster and more agile eyeball had an edge on the B-wing. Pip finally noticed why he couldn't go to attack speed. "Locking S-foils in attack position, going to full speed."

The S-foils locked at full speed and the cross shape of the B-wing was fully opened. He began to randomly juke his B-wing, causing the TIE behind him to loose patience and open fire. Pip slammed his stick downwards and turned to come up behind the TIE. Bob then nailed an ion bolt into him and the dogfight was over.

Pip closed his S-foils and silently crept back to the moon. He and he B-wing slowly advanced forward, trying to make sure that no Imps saw him.

The next thing in the line of his sights surprised him a lot.

A large base had already been mounted, only about three hundred kilometers from the Junkyard. He cursed and changed his course away from the Endor Station. A little bit later he was landing is B-wing in the cave when eight TIE interceptors passed by. Good thing that he'd hidden his B-wing and not gone back to warn Zoom about the base, but he knew that soon he'd have to.

The oldest pilots of Mynock and Rancor Squadrons sat in the bar, discussing the past events. Nomad was sitting between Pepper and 1^st Lt. Creg "Partyboy" Konsyl, who'd been in the Squadron just about as long as Pepper and Nomad, and was a Clone Wars vet.

The others sitting there were also Clone Wars vets, even Mossy. Others were Rancor Lead, Commander Jon "Chomps" Dare and Captains Duke "Sharky" Vote and Ferdinand "Topaz" Tiles. All were Mynock Squadron veterans and all felt the loss that Pepper had felt when Lt. Colonel St. Clair had come to him and told him that his son, Chris--a.k.a. Pip--had been lost on Endor, but soon a rescue operation would be mounted to save him and two other pilots.

Mynock squadron had lost four pilots, and Rancor Five. Of those lost, one of their own, Lt. Commander John "Fender" Clown had been killed. Of the twelve original Mynocks, three were already dead, Fender had been the last one, and two had been killed twenty-five years ago. Of the other two, one was the reason that the other had died two years ago.

Their first commander, Colonel Fred "Cumber" Denill had betrayed the Mynocks to the Empire, and a large battle arose where the Mynock's charm was broken and two of the pilots were killed. The other, 1^st Lt. Tyler "Westerner" Bridgman had been romantically involved with one of the pilots whom had died. When the Mynocks discovered that their commander had sold them out, Tyler went on a hunt after Cumber.

As far as they heard, Tyler was leading a pirate band and Cumber was a General in the Imperial Navy and in a sector close to Yar'Plath. Though Nomad had also wanted to go, his bond the service of the Old Republic Navy stopped him. When the Republic had become the Empire, he'd entered the service of CroSec, Crollan Security, which was pretty much their version of CorSec.

Long before the Galactic Civil War, the Yar'Plath Sector made itself independent from the Empire. The Empire hadn't found it amusing and had sent two Victory-class Star Destroyers and one of the first Imperial-class Star Destroyers. One of the largest battles had been fought over Crolles, with the newly initiated Rancor Squadron using Y-wings and Mynock in Z-95s. Only Mynock's vets and two or three Rancors, along with very few of the Nerf (R-45s) and Bantha (T-wings) Squadrons, had survived the battle.

One of the VSDs had been destroyed, while the ISD and one of the VSDs had been captured. The ISD was the Tarot itself, which was assigned Mynock and Rancor Squadrons. The other VSD, the Crystal Ball was assigned Nerf and Bantha Squadrons.

After that battle, two more squadrons had been initiated, Krayt and Tusk. Then, the final breaking had happened to Mynock Squadron. Half of the pilots still flying had been assigned to Rancor squadron, and Sharky, Fender, Topaz, and Chomps had been assigned to with the Rancors. Though they were still on the same ship, they felt different. Neither Pepper, Nomad, nor Partyboy wanted to step up as the CO of Mynock Squadron, and that left Mossy, the youngest of the Mynocks, with the job.

Other pilots, like 2^nd Lt. Andrew "Barb" Crowden, had been with them for what seemed like forever, or just since the Battle of Yar'Plath.

"What about all those promotions that the Admiral has sent through for us?" asked Partyboy. "So far he has Mossy and Chomps as colonels and Nomad and me as captains. Pepper is a Lt. Colonel and both of you two are majors."

Nomad nodded. The Mynocks had always been oriented around Admiral George Tesar. He was a tall man--near the seven-foot marker--from Iberya and bald. He was the old CO of Mynock's old FRG, the Shackle--for which this bar had been named--that had been scrapped to fix the Tarot. Though Tesar had always wanted them to accept promotions, he'd never forced his pilots to.

But, obviously, he'd thought after the last battle that there would be no refusing a promotion. The Mynocks had once again proven to be one of the best to fight against the Empire, and though not as good as the Rogues, they could be called elite.

Nomad smiled. "Bring it on. I'd like to see all of you get the promotions you deserve."

"What about you?" asked Sharky. "You're easily the best pilot among us."

This made him blush. "No, you're just saying that. I'm one of the worst pilots here, not counting Mossy."

"Hey. I heard that."

This brought laughter from the group of friends. Pepper spoke up. "I think that we should accept the promotions. I know that none of you have accepted promotions because you don't want to be upped too high to be forced to leave the squadron."

A wave of silence came over them as they realized that this was true, Nomad didn't worry about this, because he had told Pepper that as long as Pepper had a higher rank than he, Nomad was happy where he was, because what reason would someone of higher rank have to listen to his lower ranking XO?

Tanya Delia, who had known them as long as she was alive, came up to them. "What will you have, uncles? Same as always?"

Tanya had been born on the Shackle twenty-six years ago and had been directly involved with the Mynock her entire life, her mother being the one who ran the bar. When Cleo Delia had died, Tanya had taken over and then transferred to the Tarot when the Shackle had been ripped apart to fix the larger ISD.

Same as always meant that Nomad and Pepper would have Alderaanian Ale, as would Sharky, Topaz, and Mossy. Nomad and Partyboy would order Corellian Whiskey, while Fender and Chomps would order Coruscant Cola.

One of the most surprising aspects of the ISD Tarot was that the original captain of the ship had had a taste for Alderaanian ale, and an entire cargo hold was filled with all sorts of liquor, though mostly Alderaanian Ale.

"A toast, to those living, and to those who made our lives possible." Pepper raised his glass up for all to see, and the rest repeated Pepper's words and emptied their glass. All the pilots were quite, remembering those that they'd lost.

Mynocks had died today. Though all were relatively new, they'd been with them for a few months, the newest one coming seven months ago. They'd earned their place with the Mynocks, all were heroes of Crolles, and Nomad would remember each one in his heart. Cast, Klutz, Tick, and Two-Tone, you will not be forgotten.

Captain Dirr Sol, the Training Officer of Zeta Squadron, sat down in briefing room of the Imperial-class Star Destroyer Wisdom of the Emperor. He had been promoted after the Second Battle of Endor, and the Corellian had already gotten off to a promising start within the Squadron. He'd organized the pilots into numbers, placing himself and the three other best pilots in Three Flight.

He'd put the rest evenly within One and Two Flights. Major Hyan, the squadron's XO, hadn't done anything productive since he had been promoted, so he put all the worst pilots in that flight. The intermediate pilots were crowded into One Flight.

Dirr had been born on a dreadnaught named Gray Horizon, as had his brother. The difference was, Dirr had been born in Corellian space while his brother, Canix, had been born in Commenor Space. The two had excelled in most matters of flight; entering Carida by the time they were seventeen. They beat records set by Baron Fel, a distant cousin, but family nonetheless. When they graduated, they were admitted directly into the renowned 181^st Fighter Group, and Dirr had fought hard at the Battle of Brentaal with his brother. They had both survived, but Canix had been impressed with the cause that the Rebels fought for and tried to convince Dirr to go with him to sign up with the rebellion.

Dirr had warned him not to, and that he would be forced to call security if Canix tried to get Dirr to go along anymore. After that, Canix Sol left Dirr and he'd not heard of Canix again. He was transferred to Avenger Squadron, but spent only four months there before the Empire decided that he would do better on the Wisdom, which was a power close to the Corporate Sector. He transferred and there he was, one of the twelve survivors of a battle in which few rebels had died.

"Colonel on deck!" yelled one of the pilots closest to the door and Dirr stood at attention as Colonel Dacyon and Major Hyan walked by him. "At ease, pilots."

Colonel Dacyon looked around at his pilots as they sat down to listen to their CO, which had been Dirr's old CO of a squadron that had been eaten up by three X-wings. But, every time that Dirr killed an Alliance fighter, he wondered inwardly if he had killed his brother, or if he was still alive.

"As you all know, a cross was found and four fighters were sent to deal with it, only two of the pilots came back, and those were the ones that got hit with ion bolts. Admiral West has asked of us to patrol the area and combed the planet for the now-missing B-wing. My plan is simple. One Flight will patrol the side of the planet in which the B-wing was spotted, then in the space around. Two Flight will comb the ring of debris that is rotating around Endor, while Three Flight combs the planet's surface."

He waited for his words to sink into the pilots. "This will be your first assignment, but you'll probably find nothing at all--so don't get nervous. We will launch in four hours, when Hidden Squadron finishes their run."

Hidden Squadron was one of the first squadrons to fly the spectacular TIE Defenders. The other advanced squadron apart from them was Avenger, which had been ordered here by Isard, believing that Admiral West was working for her, and not for the Crollan Government.

"Any questions?" he asked, and looked around at his pilots. One in the back raised his hand. "Yes, Scratchy?"

Scratchy was a tall pilot who had a feline constantly in his quarters and often had claw marks all over his body from the cat. "Uh, yeah. What would our orders be if we found it? Is this a SAD Mission or a SAC mission?"

A SAD mission was a Search and Rescue, while a SAC meant Search and Capture.

"It would be better if you captured the pilot, Flight Officer. Wouldn't it be more useful to find out the locations of various ships, like the Morning Star which killed so many of us?"

This caused the pilots in the room to murmur. Soon they began to leave as the briefing was over and four hours later, they were combing the sector.

-Chapter Nine: Convoy-

The nine pilots of Red Squadron and seven pilots of Blue Squadron (Dobber was still in bacta) sat in the Fishtank, all doing something else to deal with three of their own missing. Biggs sat on the barstool in the darkest spot of the Fishtank. He was contemplating on going down to visit Trix at the Mug, but had decided against it.

No one was in a mood to do anything. A few pilots had made an attempt at a Sabacc game, but those pilots, Arc, Lobo, Wildstar, Sentinel, and Stony were now just staring at their cards, playing halfheartedly, sipping at their drinks more than anything.

Wire, Redjed, and a couple blues were chatting lightly, while Schmitty and Angel sat close by Biggs, quietly talking about the latest gossip aboard the Star, fruitlessly trying to avoid mentions of anything Shadow, Pip, and or Vape had done.

The most constant chatter came from Ranger, Leo, Zoom, and Rogue; who where planning out a rescue mission. "Okay, and them the Star appears here, and sends out the SAR. We'll cover the shuttle with A-Wings, while the rest of us hold back the fighters."

"Sounds good," said Zoom about Ranger's plan. "But that'd only get the Star beat up, and Starfighter Command won't approve of a plan which is intended on saving three pilots and get the Star and Regis murdered."

Rogue nodded. "Of course! I know what we need! We need more ships, we can petition over Command for more ships. We'll have a nice ol' battle group formed up and then we plan from there."

Leo nodded in agreement with his CO. "That'd be the best course of action." Leo took a sip from his mug. "The other way is just a date with death."

"Not like we haven't dated her before." Ranger replied. "But of course, it'd be sounder if we got a few more squadrons to play with us...remember, always share!"

Captain Ru'kaart looked up as the door to his office produced a knocking sound. He sighed. "Come in."

He cocked an eyebrow as Lt. Colonel St. Clair and Lt. Colonel Sweet entered his office. "What do want, Mr. St. Clair and Mr. Sweet?"

"Remember how I told you that my three pilots were still alive?"

Ru'kaart nodded, he remembered quite clearly when St. Clair had run into his office whooping when he'd heard the news that one of his pilots had contacted him. "Yes? I have told you before, it is impossible to enter that zone, we'd be completely outnumbered and without a chance."

St. Clair nodded. "Actually, I believe we can form up a battle group and re-capture Endor. We just need some help from you to get it..."

The pilot let his sentence trail and Ru'kaart sighed. "What is it, Mr. St. Clair?"

"I need you to contact the Provisional Council and get us some more squadrons to help us take on that battle group. I have a list of Squadrons that would could probably help us significantly." He passed the data card to Ru'kaart.

"Green...Wolfshead...Corsair? Why don't you just send a line to Rogue too?"

"Well, they are on the list as well, as well as Buccaneer." He said, a bit lowly, trying not to temp the skipper to reject them.

Ru'kaart sighed once more. "Fine, I'll do it. Only because I don't want the Imps to kill Lieutenant Layne before I do. He switched my coffee for laxatives the day he left."

"Yes, we've got a mission. The Regis and the Star need supplies, and the Alliance is just too spread out right now to give us some, so Admiral Ackbar has decided that we should strike at an Imp convoy in the Rangobah Sector. I've split us up into three Shield trios.

"Myself leading the first, with Wire and Stony as my Wings, Ranger the second with Biggs and Angel as his wings and finally Redjed with Sentinel and Arc as his wings. Any questions? We'll be accompanied by Blue Squadron in B-Wings as well."

The pilots sat silently for a full minute before Redjed held up his hand, "What about Vape, Shadow, and Pip?" he asked. "Are we going back for them? I am beginning to doubt it, as we've sat around for a month and a half already."

Zoom sighed. "Yes, we'll be going- after this mission. It's been affirmed that we'll have more ships to aid us in the battle. So far, as you've noticed, the Rehz'nor and Wolf's Lair have met up with us in the past week, and we'll have a possible meeting with either the Vigilant or the Waverunner III within who knows how long. But we plan to continue with or without bye the end of this month."

This seemed to satisfy the pilots. "If there are no more questions, I expect you to be ready and in your fighters within the hour."

Lobo's B-Wing exited the hangar gracefully; the marine-pilot made his was to form up with his wing for the run. He had been put in first flight, with Rogue and Schmitty. Second flight consisted of Leo Wildstar, and target, while Dobber and Lonewolf flew X-Wings in three flight.

"Blue Squadron, prepare for jump to light speed, I am sending you your destination now." Said Rogue over the Comm system. He received the data feed coming from Rogue's star fighter and put it into his astronav computer. "All fighters, jump to light speed in five...four...three...two...one...Mark."

Blue Squadron went to hyperspace, destination Rangobah.

Sentinel saw as Blue Squadron went to hyperspace. "You saw the Blues, Red Squadron. Let's see if we get there first."

Sentinel smirked at Zoom's comment and indirect order to go to hyperspace. "Ten, I'm Green. Ready to go to hyperspace."

"Copy, Eighteen. We'll be launching last, so sit tight."

Sentinel clicked his comm. as an affirmative. Seconds later, First Flight went to hyperspace, followed by Two Flight. "Three Flight, get ready to rock n' roll. Engage hyperspace."

Then they went to hyperspace.

Captain Con Dickerson stood calmly aboard the Harrier, his Corvette. Though the Harrier was only a simple corvette, it was in charge of the entire convoy, which included two frigates, a dreadnought, four freighters, and two other corvettes other than the Harrier.

The four freighters carried only simple things, as two carried food, water, drinks, new holodramas, and extra flight sims and sim packages. The other one carried spare parts while the last one was loaded with proton torpedoes, concussion missile, launch tubes, weapon arrays, and other such war material.

"Sir, I have eleven X-Wings and six B-Wings exiting hyperspace right in front of us accompanied by a Frigate. It reads as the Regis, sir."

"Dammit!" he said sourly, a frown on his face. "Tell everyone to launch everything we've got. I want them to have no chance as getting our convoy."

"Yessir."

"Two Flight, we've got the squints. Stick close to me." Biggs heard Ranger say over the comm.; he'd realized that they'd been in the same groups that they had been in during the Second Battle of Endor.

"Copy, Deuce." He replied to the Major. "I have thirty-six TIEs all over. Mostly dupes, sir."

"Copy that." He heard Zoom say. "Three Flight, you've got the dupes. I'm on the eyeballs and Two Flight deal with the squints, when you finish, help Three Flight with the dupes."

He heard Ranger click an affirmative, and they charged towards the six TIE Interceptors that had launched with six TIE bombers from the frigate Kessel Guard. "Missiles, Sir?"

"Copy that Nine. You and Angel knock them out with missiles, I'll move closer to engage." He heard ranger say as he sped up ahead of Biggs and Angel. The pilot armed a Proton Torp and selected a target. He watched as his HUD turned to a red color and he fired. The blue streak that was the torp charged at his squint and impacted right through the cockpit. Quickly, Biggs targeted another, and waited until his HUD turned Red, then fired again. This time though, the squint twisted out of the way, and the torp flew past him, and turned around to follow the Interceptor. As much as the squint tried to evade the missile, it stayed locked on, until the pilot made a move, which would end his career. Trying to evade Ranger, he met up with the torp and added another squint to Biggs's kills.

He looked at the two squints, which were Angels', and they two were killed, and ranger was finishing off his last one with lasers- wait, he was now returning to them. "Okay, now we've got a couple dupes to scratch. Follow me in. Use lasers as much as possible, save the rest of your torps for that frigate."

"Copy that, Deuce." Angel said over the comm. Biggs looked over and saw Angel's X-Wing on the other tip of the triangle formation, her fighter had been hit at least once today, as a new scorch mark painter her X-Wing just under where it said 'Flight Officer Jeni "Angel" Courtner' identifying her X-Wing.

The first bomber came in close, and Biggs linked his lasers and then fired a shot at the cockpit, hit a little bit bellow where the lasers were located. "Breaking formation to finish bomber."

"Copy, Nine. Hurry up."

Biggs double clicked his comm. and did a U-turn to follow up the dupe. He got it directly into his sights and lit it up just fine. The dupe blew apart, fragments blowing into another dupe right above the one that Biggs had killed. "Scratch one dupe, Deuce. Heading back to join you and Three."

"Copy, Nine. Hurry up, were in the heat of it here."

Biggs craned his neck back to try and find them. He saw the two in the middle of a dogfight with four eyeballs and two dupes. He rotated his X-Wing to an intercept course, and goosed his throttle the highest he could. "Torch, see if you can boost my speed with out taking out shields and lasers."

The R5 responded a negative, and Biggs cursed. He was nearly there, and could see that a dupe and two eyeballs had stopped bothering them, but also that the TIEs had scored several hits, mainly on Angel's X-Wing. As he neared, he pounced on the first dupe, chewing it up with lasers in seconds. This surprised the TIEs enough that the broke off pursuit on Angel's fighter and moved to get away. He had to slam hard to port as he nearly crashed into Angel. Angel managed to get a shot at one of the fleeing TIEs, which killed the pilot. Before Biggs could find the last one, he saw Ranger passing closer through the waste of a wrecked TIE. "How're you doing, Three?"

"Not good, Deuce. I've lost life support and shields. I'm running on my EV stuff right now." She responded, heavy regret in her voice. "What do I do."

"You are returning to the Regis right now, good thing that we brought the old girl along or you'd be royally screw with three hours of life support. See if you can get a hold of any other prepped fighters and join us. Nine and I will be doing our job." Responded ranger, giving everyone a task.

"I copy, Deuce. Save some for me." There was a hint of anger in her voice, as well as reluctance. Obviously, she felt as if she were being robbed. "See you later."

Though Dobber was still considerably weak, he had been cleared to fly. Weeks ago, he'd been shot up by the Crollan Ambassador Redman Bluesun, but had survived. His shoulder still felt strange, and he'd be walking on a cane for about another week, but other than that, he still felt as if he could take this whole convoy by himself.

"Incoming eyeballs." He heard the only other blue pilot in an X-Wing say, Lobo- to be exact. Dobber saw his wing mate pull up closer to him. "Orders, Captain?"

Dobber thought a second. He was used to being called 'chief' or another of the nicknames that blue pilots had given him. He tried o smile, but giving over Blue had been one of the hardest things that Dobber had been forced to do in his life. "Take out, keep them off the B-Wing's backs."

He smiled, at least he was doing what he loved best- flying. Maybe things weren't so bad, he could've still of been stuck in that damned tank. He shuddered. He'd been in that bacta tank longer than nearly everyone of Morning Star. Every time he heard the word bacta or shot, his mind drifted to the Crollan Ambassador, Redman Bluesun, who had had shot him up so neatly, but now (thanks to Redjed) was only one armed. Dobber, though it went against his morals, decided that he wanted revenge, and knew that it would soon come to him in the coming battle.

He targeted a TIE that came up, and fired a quad-shot, which burned right through the cockpit's cockpit- killing it. He smirked. I wonder how many of these rookie Imp pilots the Empire can dish out...

"Stony, Wire, cover me." He said. "I'm going in to ID those freighters."

"Copy, Lead." He heard Wire say as Zoom dove his X-Wing on interception path for the convoy. He saw two TIE Interceptor's peel off towards him, he was about to curse and turn to take them out when he saw eight red bolts cut through both of them. He smiled. These shield trios were a good idea after all... he thought to himself.

Zoom neared the convoy, inking as a few random shots went towards him. "Wire, go for the guns." He head the click of Wire's comm.-link and he goosed his throttle to full to fly close by the freighter. HE tagged it and he got the scan. He repeated the process for the rest of them. "Okay, now for the 'vettes." He said to Stony and Wire. "Anyone want dibs?"

"I'm on them, Sir!" he heard Stony say as the young pilot's X-Wing charged forward and few close to the CRV Harrier, shooting at the guns. He saw burst apart before the X-Wing was forced to pull up and recharge shields. Zoom went right in, "Jo, give me all you can to shields and engines."

His R2 responded, and Zoom saw an almost instant boost in his shields and speed, but his lasers started to drop. "Good girl."

As he dropped low to get as close as possible, he got the scan and flew off. He opened his channel to Captain Daly immediately. "Captain, you're not going to believe this..."

"Believe what, Lt. Colonel?" asked the veteran Skipper of the Regis.

"That corvette has prisoners."

"Say what again?" he asked in pure disbelief. How can there be prisoners? This was just a regular supply convoy!

"Prisoners, Skip. Prisoners. Orders?"

"I want Blue Squadron to knock out that corvette with ion cannons now!"

"Copy that, Regis." Said Blue's CO, weaving his B-Wing out of harms way. Two TIE Fighters had formed up on him, and he was currently try to get away from them, evading a fast as he could, or his B-Wing would let him.

"Three, get these kind fellows off of me now!"

"Copy, Lead!" said Dobber as he moved his X-Wing to get behind the two TIEs, seconds later, the former CO of Blue Squadron had liberated him of the eyeballs. He clicked a thanks to Dobber as the X-Wing flew off to chew up any more fighters bugging any other Blue Squadron pilots.

Rogue switched his guns to ion cannons and linked them, targeting the ship. Soon, he was firing along with every other pilot with a B-Wing blue spray that began to drop its shields, until it was dead in space. "Regis, this is Blue Lead. I've got the Harrier down."

"Copy that, Blue Lead. Hold off and take out any ships that try and get away, we've almost a complete surrender." Rogue sighed, and then asked: "Any casualties?"

"None," replied Daly, "Just Angel who had to come back, but she's okay and in a bacta dunk right now."

-Chapter Ten: Rescue Planning-

Pip lifted his B-Wing into the air, he'd been here for nearly two months, and had found plenty of fuel sources from other crashed fighters and a couple of downed supply ships, which were completely loaded at the moment. The B-Wing lifted itself higher, until he was above the tree line. There was just one area he still hadn't over-looked, which was a few klicks south of here, completely on the opposite side of he planet from the base, which was in the dark side, facing away from the Imperial Fleet that now controlled the entire system.

He'd engage and killed about ten fighters in total, and for each one he killed, the searched for him were sent out more often, he even thought that they'd caught him once, when a platoon of Stormtrooper walked about ten meters from the Junkyard and his 'Hangar'. Bob the wardroid had dealt wit them easily, and Pip had wasted what was left of his E-11 blaster there, leaving him with only one (Shadows') and two hold out blasters.

Pip had a feeling that they were in this direction, but it was also in the direction he least wanted to go, as most of the Imperial activity appeared close by. He flew low, so low that he could see the forest floor.

Then he spotted it.

The building was small, about the size of a hut, but built up in a tree. These must be where the ewoks lived, but there was one thing that he saw that attacked his attention, Shadow as sitting on top of the roof, looking to the sky for no reason at all, when he saw the B-Wing approaching. The pilot waved and Pip sighed a breath of relief. He landed the B-Wig on the platform, in reality, the platform was very strong, and could hold the B-Wing, well, for a while.

He flipped the hatch and jumped out.

"Pip!" said Shadow jumping off of the hut's roof. "I thought you guys had forgotten about us! Vape's inside with Squint- the guy who saved Vape and I."

"I'm here alone, and the whole planet is overrun by Imps. We need to get back to the hangar, and I mean now. Won't do us any good to get caught, and there should be a patrol in about an hour." He jumped out of the B-Wing as Vape exited with a strange man. "Hey Vape. Uh, hey person."

"The name's Captain Jen Clour, call sign Squint." He said, stretching out a hand to him. Pip accepted and introduced himself. "Flight Officer Chris "Pip" Layne, Red Six. I have three other fighters at the Junkyard. C'mon, it's about three day's walk from here!"

Zoom closed the commlink, he'd just spoken with Vape, as Pip had supplied her an X-Wing of those salvaged. She had told him the situation and reported all of Pip's and her findings and information about the situation at Endor. All I need is a historical site captured by Imps with four pilots alone against those same imps.

He actually felt a little bit of pride, three of his pilots had survived-against all odds, mind you- on an Imperial controlled world. He'd been little worried about Shadow, as the man from Toprawa was used to the hiding, and Vape had experience in this sort of this. Pip, well, it was a miracle that that pilot was alive at all- much less (with the aid of three R2s) fix four fighters and provide for a quick way out.

His real problem was Captain Clour, or Squint as Vape had called him. Clour would be hailed a hero of the New Republic and marched all around the galaxy as a publicity stunt. He sighed, poor man. Zoom tried to recall the names of pilots lost at Endor, some had been friends of his- especially Clour, which he'd known forever. Clour had been one of his good friends since his days in school, and had been in Fool Squadron with him. He had also been one of the few survivors of the Fools on that one tragic day. He closed his eyes shut at them memory. Pops, Nerf, Droid. I've lost too many friends in this cause. Is it really worth it? I don't want to lose any more, and it's even harder under my command. He though back to the days when he'd been just new to the job, Dragon, Assassin, Hijack. All had been under his command when they had died, though Schmitty tried to blame himself for Hijack's death, deep down, Zoom knew that he'd been the one to send the two in.

The comm at his office's door beeped. "Come in." he said, wiping his eyes. He put on a broad smile as Ranger entered the briefing room.

"Any news, Zoom?" asked Red's XO. Ranger had been in Red Squadron with Zoom for quite a while now, and the two had also been good friends the whole time. Ranger had come been upped to the job of XO when Captain Robert "Kyp" Cashman had left the job, and Zoom hadn't felt a loss though yes, Zoom thought it was a little sicko how much Ranger loved to torture the cadets and pilots in the sims. Not.

Zoom nodded. "Just got commed by Vape, she says their running out of toilet paper and would like us to have the party at their house next time. Oh, and I almost forgot. They're stranded without hope of getting to hyperspace because when she was sending the message, she'd already picked up two Ties coming at her. I hope she got back alright."

Ranger nodded and took in the information for a few seconds. "Okay, that's good because the CRS Liberty, STRKC Wolf's Lair, FRG Regis, and the FRG Rehz'nor have just arrived in system. COs have called a meeting to plan for the rescue and the next Battle of Endor. I have Three Flight on patrol, and there's a flight of Mynocks out there today. I've met their XO, Captain Layne."

"What? Captain Layne? As in Chris Layne?"

"Nah, his Dad. He is harder taskmaster than I am." Ranger winked. "he had everyone that could fly in sims, and wanted to lure me in as well. Good thing I pulled rank on him, or I'd be in those sims shooting down Mynocks and Rancors right now. That's why I promised him everyone that's not on duty. Angel, Wire, Biggs, and Stony should be having fun right now."

"I've got one on me!"

"I'm punching out!"

"Screw your one, I've got all of Alpha following me!"

"Sithspawn! Who set these all on Jedi Master level again?"

"Yup, shouldn't be too hard. We could head over there in about an hour, see how their doing. The Mynocks do have a lot of hot pilots." Said Ranger. "Funny, their almost all older than you."

Ranger teased and left the office. Zoom thought for a minute. "Hey!" he said following his XO, "And what is THAT supposed to mean?"

Stony popped the hatch on his simulator's lid, and toppled out. He was sweating from head to toe. This was bye far the toughest simulator experience he'd ever had so far. He was breathing heavily, his hands on the back of his head to let the air in. "So tired. Need a drink!"

Wire, sweating and breathing heavily came to him, and grabbed his shoulder. "Let's get the Mynock boys to pay."

He nodded. "Affirmative."

Biggs and Angel joined them and they headed to the group Mynock and Rancor pilots. They recognized one, 1^st Lt. Paul Schmitz, aka Nomad. He was also the one who, along with their XO, Captain Robin "Pepper" Layne, had eaten them up nicely, neither of them getting shot down once during the whole time. The other pilots were okay pilots, though the vets were the best of the lot.

"Hey," said Wire, who was the most senior, if you went by experience, officer of the Reds present. "Who wants to buy us some drinks?"

Nomad stepped up. "Why don't you?" he asked challengingly. "A contest to decide the buyer?"

Wire looked at them, and they nodded. "Copy that. But, we choose the mission."

"Fair enough."

Wire looked at them and they went over to the database, and scrolled down the missions list. "Ah-ha!" he said smiling to them. He pointed to the screen, "How about this one, 'Battle of Crolles'?"

Nomad smiled and looked at them. "Sure. Partyboy, Barb, and Whizkid, your in this one! We'll take the squints, as we've already actually flown the real version of this. One of my masterpieces, if you will."

Wire groaned, they already had an edge, they'd flown in the battle themselves and also had the man who'd designed it. He looked at his four pilots and crawled into the X-Wing simulator and when the hatch closed, he was suddenly in the midst of battle. He was labeled Mynock One, with Stony in Eleven's place, and Angel in Five's place. Finally, Biggs was in Mynock Nine's place. Lucky.

A starfeild came up, with an Imperial-class Star Destroyer and two Victory-class Star Destroyers. To his right was the world that he was defending, a small blue orb with green blotched of land. Other planets were around him as well, he could see the Sabian Cluster, Saba 1, Saba 2, Man Lutra or Saba 3, and S'baa. The last two planet with life on them, the gigantic Plahu and the tiny Dahna also hung around. Wire had studied this area on his time off after the battle, trying not to concentrate on too much that would remind him of Pip, Vape, or Shadow. He sighed. Damn. Pip was from this world.

"We've got forty-eight TIEs incoming!" yelled Biggs from the Z-95 up in front of him. Mynock Squadron had used Z-95s when they'd just been developed as one of the first squadrons to use them. As he looked around, he could see a squadron of R-45s and another of T-Wings, and finally Rancor, the Y-Wing Squadron. "Or Four Squadrons!"

During this time period of the Empire, only the TIE Fighter, or eyeball, had been developed, and not in sufficient quantity to fill the ISD Tarot on it's campaign against the Yar'Plath Sector. Both of the Victory-class Star Destroyers were carrying one squadron each, while the ImpStar had two. He guess that each of the four pilots would be the commander of each Squadron, and Nomad's would be in the lead. "Break by flights, I want three flight on Rancor Squadron! Two, I want you to cover the R-45s while First Flight covers the T-Wings!"

He heard the clicking from each of the pilots, and the sim pilots followed him as he moved to cover the pilots of Bantha Squadron, in the T-Wings. Two Flight flew over Nerf Squadron with the R-45s. He looked around, and saw that Beta Squadron had made a move for them. Wire smiled. "All pilots except Rancor and Mynock three flight, draw the fighters attention so Rancor can take out the VSD Wand. I want Nerf and Two flight protecting our capital ships!"

The capital ships of Crolles were few, two FRGs, one VSD, and three corvettes. They had little chance of surviving. The FRG Shackle Mynock Squadron was stationed, while Nerf and Bantha came from the VSD Wiseman. Rancor was stationed on the FRG Caliber.

Now that everyone knew their goals, the pilots moved to attack the TIEs head on, and one of the Banthas blew apart, hit dead on by the blasts from about six TIEs. Wire avenged him by spraying red blasts like red death over those TIEs, killing three and scattering the rest, only to be eaten up by the other Mynocks. Of his group, three more T-Wings were eaten up before the last two TIE Fighters flew off to join the other TIE Squadrons that were fareing better. So far, no Mynocks had been lost.

He suddenly saw the flash of a VicStar blowing apart, shattering even. He smiled. So far, so good! The Crollan Squadrons boosted ahead, going straight for the TIEs, trying to get them. Then it hit them. Three more squadrons eyeballs had launched from the Star Destroyers, one from the VicStar Crystal Ball and two more from the ImpStar Tarot. This must've been their plan all along.

He saw the T-'Wings and R-45s blow aparts in pairs almost, and lost one of his own flight, while two more blew apart in two flight, and only seven Y-Wings and two z-95s were trying to disable the Tarot. The Imperial Capital ships loomed over them, concentrating fire on the Wiseman, and soon the explosion of the VicStart rattled them. Wire was killing plenty of TIEs, there wasn't a place he shot were he didn't hit a TIE Fighter, and he was the Crollan Fighters begin to decimate. In all, out of the forty-eight Fighters, only twenty were left, seven Z-95s, six Y-Wings, five T-Wings, and two R-45s were alive and about, shooting up anything in their way, and the TIE fighters had gone considerably down from eighty-four to thirty TIEs, and Wire had more than a Squadron's worth of kills- and he really doubted that Angel, Stony, nor Biggs had anything lower.

"All Mynocks form up on me!" he said over the comm clutter, and saw the seven z-95s positioning themselves close to him. "We need to make time for the Y'Wings to take down those Imp ships!"

"No missiles, Lead." Said Biggs, who, along with Stony, were defending the Y-Wings. "they had to use them to get that VicStar and to get us out of there."

"I'm jumping for joy, Biggs."

1^st Lieutenant Sazril "Yale" Murshid stepped down the lambda-class shuttle's boarding ramp, then turned around to watch it's occupants get out, in total, apart from himself there were ten people in there, three pilots from Blue Squadron--Red, Switch, and Sonic--, two politicians who had been imprisoned for supporting the New Republic, Colonel Nosnern with two of her G.I.s and a pair of Gundarks.

When the three pilots got out, he motioned them to him. "Okay, you three know the drill. You are never to speak of this operation to no one. Now I want you to report to Blue Lead while I report to Red Lead. Got it?"

The three pilots saluted and nodded, then moved off to report to Rogue. Yale sighed and then went to the rest of the team members to tell them exactly what he'd told the three pilots. After ten minutes or so of light talk with the Gundarks he waved good-bye and himself went in direction of Zoom's office.

"Hey Yale, your back!" Yale turned around to see Leo, his former wingmate before Leo transferred to Blue. Yale saluted him. "No need to be so formal around friends, Yale. I'm still your bud Leo. Except with wrinkles."

Yale chuckled, "Oh well. I've just gotten back, yeah. I was on my way to report to Zoom." Looking around the hangar he noticed plenty of missing craft as well as battle scarred and heavily damaged craft. "Did I miss some big battle or something?"

Leo nodded. "Big time, worse thing is that we have three pilots MIA."

Sazril was surprised at the news, and instantly forgot that he had to go report to Zoom, "Who? How...?"

"Pip, Vape, and Shadow." Replied Blue's XO sadly.

Yale was stunned, Not Vape, not again.

"Want the good news?"

He nodded and looked at Leo, "Yeah, give it up."

"We know their alive and are mounting an operation to go in and get them though they could almost do it by themselves, but our main excuse is freeing Endor."

"What proof do you have that their alive?"

"Zoom has daily reports from Pip and Vape, sometimes from Shadow too."

Yale sighed, feeling greatly relieved. "Well, gotta go report in to Zoom."

Leo shook his head, "You won't find him there, he's at a meeting to which I am late for."

With that, Leo rushed out of the hangar and grabbed a turbo-lift. Yale shrugged and calmly strolled to the Fishtank.

"So, let me get this straight. Next time they report in we tell them that they have to find a way off by themselves, right?" asked Ranger, not all together liking the plan. He'd opposed it just as Rogue, Leo, and Zoom--along with Wolfshead's CO Ibero and his XO Solo. But, there was a majority. "Then they are to contact us and a small force is to go in as bait and play around until everyone gets out then get out themselves. And how many tops? Twelve? If that's possible then the sith are Jedi!"

Leo shrugged, "Well, technically, they are."

Ranger cocked an eyebrow, "You know what I meant."

"Well, whatever. It's a go and we can't do anything about it. So, if you have a problem, you'll have to deal with it, Ranger." Zoom was noticeably aggravated, mad, and pissed, if there was a difference. "We now have to evaluate and choose which pilots have a chance from our squads."

"I volunteer." Said Ranger immediately.

Zoom looked at him questionably. "I thought you said it was impossible."

"Yeah, but if I get out of this, then my ego will inflate to but-ugly-and-with-a-butt-the-size-of-a-frigate hutt size."

"I think we should send in Schmitty and Dobber." Said Rogue, ignoring Ranger's ego comment. "They're pretty good and I need you, Leo, here for mission planning."

Leo nodded.

Zoom shrugged, "If you want, go. I can do without your brainpower for a while. I might not even notice it."

They reached the Fishtank and Yale waved them over. Zoom looked at Ranger and nodded. "Hey, Yale. You're the person I wanted to talk with. I've got a mission for you..."

In the end, it was decided that all the Rogues would go, seven already, then with Dobber, Rogue, Ranger, and Yale. The last would be Tessa Valis, a surprise to most, but it was well known aboard the Star and Regis she was very good. They transmitted the plans to their pilots back on Endor and they had a reaction similar to that of Ranger, which just made him proud that, as he said, "They turned out like me."

The plan was ready to be off within a day, with a report from Vape that they'd scrounged up enough missiles to make a decent fight. Zoom stood on the flight deck, awaiting Ranger to come, as he'd spoken to all of the pilots except his Executive Officer. When he came, grim faced, he was immediately worried. "Last minute doubts?"

Ranger shook his head, "No. Just that I was thinking if I die today, just wanted you to know that you should shove your foot up Pip's ass and don't make him XO whatever you do."

Zoom smiled, "You'll come back, so don't worry. Your as good as any of the others who are going. Remember to keep an eye out for Yale, he hasn't flown for a while."

Ranger nodded and climbed up into his X-Wing. He waved to Zoom and sighed, then closed the cockpit and started up. Meanwhile, Zoom got out of the way. He dashed off to the Deck control and took up the comm., "Okay, Reds and Blues (and Tessa), remember to cover one another and take out as many enemies as you can. The more you take out now the less there'll be later. May the Force be with you."

Commlinks clicked and one by one the X-Wings left, Ranger's fighter being the last one out.

Pip slapped the side of the B-Wing Fighter that would bear him, Bob, and Fate out of Endor as a sign that he was done and ready to go. Close by was the X-Wing belonging to Shadow who was helping his R2 in. He stretched and zipped up his violet flight suit all the way up and set his sleeves right, then picked up his helmet.

He walked to Squint's A-Wing. "So, ready?"

Squint nodded and smiled looking at the helmet art. "Nice art. Who made it?"

"Vape." He smiled, "So back to what I was saying. Ready to go?"

He sighed and looked at Pip, "Sorta, just feels like leaving home."

"Really, where are you from? I'm from Crolles in the Yar'Plath Sector." He said, interested.

"Churba"

Churba...wasn't that were Zoom was from? Let's ask... "Do you know a Kelly St. Clair?"

"Zoom? Why? He was Fool Five, I flew with him as Fool Three." Replied the pilot.

"He's Red Leader now. My wingmate actually." Said Pip, before Squint said anything else Pip blurted out, "Where you there?"

"Where? If you mean the Fugazi mission, yes. Me and Zoom were of the few that made it out. I'd lost contact with him after a few months, I heard he'd been transferred to Red, but nothing more." He sighed, "I didn't ask anyone before just incase it would be bad news. I think now I have a reason to leave this place."

Before Pip could reply, Vape came up, "C'mon, it's time to go. I'll brief you as we go up on Flight assignments."

Pip nodded, and waving to Squint jogged to his B-Wing, and hopped in. "Bob, set up the ion cannon. Link the hyperspace controls to Fate. Leave flying manual and main weapons and warheads to me. What the sith is this? Fate, give me a real HUD."

NOT POSSIBLE, FIGHTER MODIFIED TO ONLY USE THIS CONFIGURATION.

The HUD was very awkward, on top, instead of the triangle, circle, square, etc. was the following: capital ship-a wookie figure, warhead-a skull with crossbones, fighter-a TIE Fighter, and for tractor- a net. Then the actual HUD was also messed up, as instead of a square with a dot in the middle it was a circle with a half circle with three large dots and two small dots, the large for lasers and the small for warheads. The top half was perfectly empty, and in the dividing line between the half circle and emptiness was a large one. Then, one each side of the HUD was a large dot, one for the tractor beams that he and Fate had added, and another to eject Fate, which was wired to be controlled only by the R2 as a precaution just incase Pip's finger slipped.

As soon as the B-Wing was ready to go, he said "Red Six ready to party."

"Red Four here. I'm all set."

"Red Twelve okay as well. Squint? Do you have a designation?"

For a few second there was no response, then he said "Yeah, Fool Three ready to par-tae."

"Lift off on my signal." Said Vape and they all waited silently.

Captain Andrew "Dobber" Dobson exited hyperspace after an hour and twenty minutes of hyperspace travel. "Flame, make watch my tail."

The R2 whistled an affirmative as the pilot swerved to hook up with his wingmate Lt. Colonel Paul "Rogue" Sweet. The mission was planned out very well, and he saw exactly what he wanted to see as soon as he looked to where the capital ships where. The ISD Wisdom of the Emperor was beautiful as ever, which was strange. No ISD had ever made Dobber consider itself beautiful except the Jack. The Wisdom was a piece of art, its color was a crystalline diamond colored white, so it seemed like a diamond floating in space.

"Let's party Three." He heard Rogue say.

"Copy that Lead." He replied into the comm, acquiring Rogue's target, a TIE Fighter on intercept course. He toggle to the eyeballs wingmate and targeted that one. He set his lasers to quad, because today it would have to be quick clean kills, and less firing.

"Rogue Leader here, sending signal to the Cast Aways." Said Rogue Leader, Colonel Chris "Jalb_k" Reynolds. "Rogues, into the thick of it."

Seven black X-Wings charged forwards to complete their part of the mission, which was to hold back the main part of the force while everyone else flew on to clear a path for Vape and the pilots with her. He shuddered as he saw all the fighters dump out of the Imperial Capitol ships. So it begins.

"Okay, Boys. It's time to play!" said Chelsey into the comm link. Immediately everyone lifted off. "Okay, a small force of starfighters have come to help us get out. Three, you fly ahead and clear a path for us until you get to the group of Five fighters in X-Wings marking a path for us. Then Six, you are to shock all the fighters you can, and dump what you can at Capitol Ships that come for us. Lastly, it'll be me and Four. But first, we'll do a pass to scan the Endor Station. Got it?"

All the pilots hit their comm links and did as they were told. Vape swung to the left, with Shadow's X-Wing behind her like last time. She watched as Pip and Squint left the atmosphere. "Let's do this fast, Four."

"Got it, Twelve." He replied.

Within ten minutes they were there. "Four, take the E-Web. I'll do a close-by and then we pull outta here." Shadow double-clicked and quickly she lowered herself within ten meters from the building. "Tooby, give me a complete scan."

Twelve seconds later, she was pulling up and calling back Shadow, who had just racked up an E-Web. "Let's get out of here, Four. I want to sleep on a bed tonight."

-Chapter Eleven: Reunion-

The battlefield was a complete chaos, as soon as one TIE was downed, four more would replace it. And at the rate they were going, there wasn't enough space in this sector to hold that many fighters, so either they were limited, or they were magical, or the response no one liked, they wouldn't live long enough to know.

But, the rebel pilots refused to believe they wouldn't make it, and they showed it. Soon enough, Vape and Shadow made it off planet where chaos reigned, and immediately Ranger was assigning jobs to the pilots, as the highest ranking Red Squadron pilot. "Twelve with Four, Thirteen with Six and I, Squint with Valis. Blue Lead, I assume that you are with Blue Three."

"Affirmative, Red Deuce." Replied Blue Squadron's commanding officer.

Immediately he saw Pip and Yale form up behind him, and he pushed his throttle forward. "My flight, were going to deal with anything big that comes in our way. Squint and Valis, take point with Twelve and Four behind you. My flight will come up the back."

"Red Deuce, Blue Flight will cover your back."

"Copy, Blue Lead."

Ranger watched the A-Wing and the X-Wing belonging to Captain Clour and Lieutenant Valis zip off into the thick, taking two squints that were in front of them. After, two X-Wings belonging to Vape and Shadow went by, both seemed dirty and moss covered--but seemed to work perfectly. Immediately, an eyeball succumbed to Vape's lasers as she passed through the gap. Shadow had it a little harder to pass through, as a dupe stuck onto his six, and forced him to do a weaving maneuver. Ranger sped up and aligned himself with the fighter and gave him what for. "Your six is clear, Four. Get to the hyperspace point."

"Copy, Two."

Ranger watched Shadow move ahead, and come up to Vape who'd cut throttle to let her wingman catch up. Then both followed Squint and Tessa. "Come on, My Flight. Our turn."

The B-Wing and the X-Wing belonging to Pip and Yale turned to cover his back as he pushed his throttle to max and pushed his craft forward through the gap that everyone had gone through. Immediately, a pair of squints whooshed through and set to light up the fighters. With lightening reflexes of his times as a fighter pilots he hit the trigger and injured the lead Interceptor. It broke off and Ranger followed it, flying a semi circle around to try and come up on the interceptor's back. He switched to single fire and burned a bolt right through the TIE's engines. "Two, you've got the other one on your six. Moving to engage."

"Neg that, Thirteen. Escort Six to jump point. Give the sign to Blue Lead that he can go through."

After a slight pause, "Copy Sir. But we don't plan to leave until your back."

Niell didn't answer but swung his fighter around to search for the TIE Interceptor that was hunting him. He watched two X-Wing with Blue Markings fly past and join the rest of the Rebel fighters that were coming together to jump.

His R2 suddenly screamed and his HUD showed him that there was a capital ship firing upon him. Cursing, he swung his fighter around to see the near by Corellian Corvette Sane Decision looming near him. Evading another volley of green death, Ranger moved to try and find the persistent TIE. Then he got an idea.

Switching to Proton Torpedoes (and linking them), he targeted the CRV and flew in close, evading the shots turned at him. "Sek, where's that squint?"

RIGHT BEHIND YOU

"Good." At .06 km he fired two proton torpedoes and slammed upwards, letting the squint slam into the Corvette and knocking out it's shields and damaging it. Turning around, Ranger shot two more torps and finished off the CRV. "Whoo hoo!"

Seconds later he arrived to where the other rebels were and then they went to hyperspace before any Imp reinforcements arrived.

Flight Officer Jamie "Shadow" Wetherill was exhausted. It was three hours since he arrived and he'd been debriefed for about two and a half hours of that time, the rest he spent stuffing his face with food. Real food. Just like a real bed.

He flopped onto his bunk and soon sleep claimed him...

"Look at you, Kelly! A Lieutenant Colonel!" said Jen Clour happily. He hugged Zoom, and Zoom returned the hug to his long lost friend. "How you been, you old Fool?"

"Leading a Squadron, and you Captain? Became leader of an Ewok tribe, I hear?" asked Red Squadron's Commanding Officer.

"Nah, just got them to thinking I was their oh so powerful messenger of the gods or whatchamacallit. I've been living the good life as a jungle boy. Just until one of the Ewoks found two of your pilots and brought them to me. Then the third one almost blew up my house as he came bye."

"That'd be Pip. Wouldn't be the first thing that he's almost blown up. Starting with the briefing room and my room." Zoom smiled. "Remember when we broke into Comet's quarters and tried to place a zinger-clash high-powered firecracker?"

Squint nodded. "Yeah. We got caught by Pol."

"Well, Pip wasn't exactly caught, though he did have to give me his bed until I got replacement. He had to sleep on the floor. It the thing had gone off right though..."

Old friends continued to talk of old times.

"Clearance authorized Red Six." Said the flight control officer. "By the way, welcome back, Lieutenant."

"Thanks." Chris hit the throttle for his X-Wing fighter and slipped out of the magcom field and slipped out into space. As he left, he saw the Regis looming close by, then about a km away was the Star's sister ship, the CRS Vigilant. On the other side of the Star would be the Wolf's Lair, the Rehz'nor, and his destination, the CSD Tarot. He was going to see his father.

As Pip moved his fighter into the correct position, he noted that Wire and Stony were on patrol, but were soon to head back in to be replaced by Ranger and Angel. He sighed and put his X-Wing into a spin, just lightly holding the stick, not thinking. Just enjoying.

As he passed the Star's aft side, the Star Destroyer came into view. He recognized it immediately, with a pair of X-Wing as it's escort. He looked at his friendly list and opened a comm channel to the Mynock Flight. "Hey One and Five. This is Lieutenant Layne requesting permission to land aboard CSD Tarot."

"Pip? Thought you were on vacation on Endor. I'll give your Dad and the rest of the Mynocks a call to meet at the Shackle. Though I guess they're there anyways. Just head in. Mynock Lead out." Commander Jensen had always been very talkative. But always straight to the point as well. That made his talkativeness a good trait, somewhat.

Red Six set his fighter gently inside the Magcom field and hopped out of his fighter. He called over a tech. "Hey, Lieutenant Hugo. Could you get Fate down?"

The tech smiled. "Sure thing Chris."

It wasn't strange that everyone aboard knew Pip, as he was Pepper's son and had been aboard a lot visiting his father and (when still living) his brother. And Lieutenant Hugo had gone to school with him. After a few minutes, Fate was happily whistling and rolling along behind Pip as he made his way to the Tarot's bar, the Shackle.

He was greeted by plenty of people on the way there. As he neared, he heard shouting and laughing. The shouter would probably Mossy, Mynock's CO. The man had a really short temper to when it came to pranks on him. He knew very well, as did every other pilot aboard. When he entered, it seemed that no one noticed him, so he made his way next to his father and sat down.

After a few minutes went by, Partyboy was telling one of his stories again. And as usual, no one could make sense of it. Even Pip who'd learned to fib from him had a hard time trying to put the fact that Mossy's drink was purple instead of the normal clear of water was the fact that the Tarot's sensors were set to minimum and that Partyboy had a bruise on his butt combine with the after affects of battle on a full moon on Crolles at the same time it was a half moon on some weird planet called Fevered 6, who inhabitants were clear. This was just the beginning, he was still ranting on when by chance Pepper turned his head and saw his son. With a loud "Whoop!" he let out his emotion and after a few minutes he was being overwhelmed with questions.

The questioning lasted about three hours, in which slowly everyone cleared out, leaving only Pip, his father, and Nomad. They had fallen silent, with nothing to talk about. Then Pepper stood up. "Chris," he began, searching for the correct words to say. Then after a few more moments he continued. "You sure did give me a scare back there, and I've had two months to think on things I've wanted to tell you, that I should of a long time ago. About your past..."

Nomad started to get to leave, "Uh...I think you two want to..."

"No, no, Nomad. Stay if you like. You know most of this story." Taking a deep breath Pepper plunged into the telling: "You know that our family comes from Corellia, and your grandfather, Almer Layne, was one of the original settlers, and coming from a family of considerable wealth (which he inherited completely) built the Layne Estate. Now, I doubt you know more past that. In truth, what I know was very difficult to find--you should know Nomad, you came with me. I decided I wanted to know more about my family after your grandfather died, so I left the squad with Nomad and your uncle Tom and went off to Corellia, where I immediately got answers.

"Your great grandfather was none other than Colonel Daniel Layne, who later your cousin Lock was named after. So, there's a long line of military leaders starting off there, but what interested me most was this: your great grandmother was Isara Tiahn. She was a Jedi. With a bit more searching I soon discovered that your grandfather was one as well, and your grandmother. Why I had never been told I have no idea. My mother was the daughter of the Jedi Master Michael McCauley, who died with Alderaan.

"Now, with the Tiahn part of the family there is a lot to tell, Isara was the daughter of Cris Tiahn II, who was a great Jedi Knight back in his day. But sadly, he was killed in a conflict before the Clone Wars. Continuing my story, your great-great-great grandfather Tole was the Chief of CorSec, and was murdered along with his wife. Cris avenged them. His sister Dene went on to be one of CorSecs most celebrated chief inspectors, though she was killed in the line of duty, and her son in the Clone Wars, he had no children to that banch ended there. Martii Tiahn was the youngest sister of Cris Tiahn, and was the first in our family to become a pilot, and was Colonel, as was her husband. Her line died off during the Clone Wars as well.

"Going back further along the line, the father of Tole Tiahn was Oran Tiahn, a very successful Jedi Master, and brother of your family's greatest hero. Cris Tiahn I lead a small Jedi strike force to F'rassl, which belonged to a cruel pirate army comparable in might to Black Sun. Only Oran and another Jedi Knight survived. Cris himself set the flagship of the pirates to crash into the capital city, killing everyone in a nuclear explosion of twelve thousand kilometers in diameter. Luckily, Oran and Kyna Jheen had been knocked out by Cris Tiahn and taken far away, and by the time they awoke Cris was crashing the ship by himself. Oran was on the planet for forty years until his grandson Cris Tiahn II found them.

"After that, Oran and Cris's father was Jars Tiahn who married Falmy Halcyon. But, searching four millennia further back, I found that this"-Pepper pulled out a lightsaber-"was the lightsaber that struck the death blow to the Sith Lord Exar Kun. Upon finding this, I returned home to search for my father's body, as it had been lost in the deep mine shafts of the Estate. I found two lightsabers, one belonging to my father, and the other to my mother. Today I have both, I will keep the one belonging to my mother- unless you need it, and you...you are the rightful heir to the Tiahn Mantle."

Pepper tossed the lightsaber to Chris and fearing it would break he caught it softly. Immediately he saw that it wasn't heavy nor fragile, but light and smooth, but hard a transpersoteel. He didn't recognize the metal it was made out of, but immediately he felt he knew--even though he didn't have a clue. The saber was black in color, and near the bottom it had a red line wrapping around it. The top was the same, except it had the part where the blade would spring to life from. The button to turn it on was near the top of the saber, and red in color matching to the decorations. Looking at it, he immediately knew that this Blade was from long forgotten planet of where his ancestry began. He flicked on the blade, and it sprung to life. The actual blade was violet in color and unlike most lightsaber it did not make a horrible humming sound, but a soft one that sounded like music to his ears. Standing up, he waved the blade around, and softly, the blade's sound increased as it moved, but then went back to the normal state when it was still. "So...I'm a..."

"No." Pepper shook his head. "When you were born I named you Christian, if you change the letters it's Cris Tiahn, which is what I wanted to name you. But for fear of the empire I modified that. But, I wasn't able to trick Old Man Mauldin. He knew who my father was. One day, he came toe me, telling me that he wanted to speak to me urgently about you. You were about six then. It was a few weeks before the old man died. He was nearly ninety at the time. Naturally I was worried and he asked me to bring you along. You might remember. He looked into your eyes and said you didn't have the power of the Force in you, so he couldn't train you. Seeing that he couldn't do so to anyone else, or didn't want to, he told me everything he knew about the Estate."

Pepper smiled, "You'll be happy to know that your inheriting a Jedi Fortress." Before Pip could say anything, Pepper stopped him "Let me finish please. Byrd came and took you to your mother while Old Man Mauldin and I explored those "caves" under ground. Did you know that I'm the only person on the planet who was oblivious to the fact that there had been a battle fought in my house and that the secret controls to the fire power of a Super Star Destroyer were under a secret passage under the refresher?"

Pip chuckled. "That's a relief. I thought I'd have to give up flying to go off on a Jedi Holy quest."

"There's a Jedi pilot in your squadron, isn't there?"

"Redjed? Yeah, he's my roommate. Mark's a totally different story." Pip got up and pocketed the lightsaber. "Dad, Nomad. I have to go back now, I really should be getting sleep, from what I've heard from Zoom, I'm going to have a long day tomorrow...."

Pepper nodded and smiled "Think about what I just told you, son."

Pip nodded, and shook hands with Nomad and left. When he was gone, Nomad chuckled, "Well, he took that well didn't he?"

style="font-size: 12pt">-Chapter Twelve: Tactics-

Over the next few days, Pip spent a lot of time alone in his room, and whenever Redjed came, Pip left to the sims. If he wasn't in either, he was out flying his time on patrol, which he tended to avoid speaking with anyone. On the third day, Redjed caught him in his room. Grabbing him by the shoulder, the older pilot turned Pip around to make Pip look Redjed straight in the eye. "Six, tell me what wrong or I'll Force you. And this isn't dark side, this is caring what's wrong."

"Redjed. I really don't think it's your business." He said, trying to pull away. "Your Force Puns suck..."

Redjed smirked at him, "I know. Please, Pip. Tell me what's wrong. I won't tell anyone, I promise."

Reluctantly Pip gave up and sighed. Walking to his bed, he pulled out the lightsaber from under his pillow and tossed it to Redjed. As Redjed looked at it, Pip recited what his father had told him. When he ended, Redjed looked up at him. "Well, that Old Man Mauldin fellow was right. Your so Force-blind your hardly detectable. But this is a good lightsaber. I envy you."

Redjed tossed it back to Pip, who caught it and tucked it under his pillow again. " I don't even know why I have it. I don't know how to use it."

"I could teach you."

"What?"

"I could teach you." Sad Redjed a second time, "It's not that hard actually."

"Weren't you taking classes from Vape?" asked Pip.

"Well, yeah. But training against a real lightsaber is what I need." He said smiling. "Pip. You should learn how to use that. You might not be as good as me, but I do have the Force to help me."

After a few minutes Pip nodded. "Yes, I think I will accept your help." And then he remembered, "If you want, I can get another lightsaber for you, you know, so you can train with Vape or Biggs."

"Biggs?"

"Yeah, he does his sword thingy too. Just don't mention it, he gets all pissy when I start talking about it to him."

"And you learned that how?"

"Nothing, just ran into him when he was doing it. He almost cut off my head too. He's pretty good though. That's why I'm still jabbering." Pip felt like he was back to normal, he mood was gone and he felt relieved. He had been wondering what to do for days now. It was just as if the wait of having a lightsaber had been lifted. "So, what about that other lightsaber?"

"I don't know. Maybe we should talk with Vape or Zoom about having a spare lightsaber in our armory."

"Let's go then. I have to go talk to Zoom now anyways. Want to come? He said that if I wanted I could bring someone. Might as well bring you."

Pocketing the lightsaber, he and Redjed headed to Zoom's office. He knocked and Zoom admitted them in. "Lieutenant Layne and Lieutenant Hagues. Close the door behind you." Redjed made sure the door was closed al the way. "My first order of business. "Pip, I want to know what's wrong with you, and now."

Pip smiled at him and told him everything his father had told him, finishing by setting his lightsaber on the table. "By the way, I can get another...."

Zoom shook his head, "Better not. One in a crew of who knows how many is not good. But feel free to keep yours though." Leaning back, Zoom smiled, "Now, the official reason you're here, Lieutenant is that you're your being made Tactical Officer for the Unit. I just looked over your records and what you've helped out in is considerably good. Your first job is to work on an idea with me and Ranger to take on the Imps at Endor."

Ranger waved from behind Zoom, he had been in the corner, leaning against the walls in the shadows. Ranger spoke for the first time, "Lieutenant Hagues, you are welcome to help as well. We'd of invited Vape of Shadow, but in their reports, they said that you knew the area better than they as you'd been flittering around for weeks before them. What we need is a plain to take out both the Ground Facility and drive of the Imps that are space born as well. No one in the Alliance is yet to come up with answers to that yet. We are betting you, Pip."

"That's a first." He mumbled under his breath.

"What did you say?"

"Nothing, Sir. When do we get to work?"

Zoom punch a number of key pads on his desk and pulled out a data card and gave it to Pip. "This is going to be where your working for a while." Standing up, he motioned to Ranger, Pip, and Redjed to follow him. The four pilots went through the hall to a door that had always been locked. "Lieutenant, open this up."

Pip stepped through the rest and slip the card through the slot. The door opened and they stepped inside. The dull silver colored room was vast, and shaped like oval like, like the largest briefing room on the Star which was meant for all personnel to attend. This was much, much smaller, and in the middle there was a table with a holo projector on it. On the wall there was gigantic computer and under it a central access spot for R2 and R5 units to plug in and download data. Already inside was Vape, Rogue, Leo, and Dobber. He saluted automatically. Vape smiled. "Let's get to work, shall we?"

Ranger nodded. "Vape is our new Operations Officer, so she's going to be here." Turning to Redjed he said, "Sorry Mark, but you can't be here. You'll learn soon enough what we'll be doing."

The Jedi pilot nodded and saluted, and left the room. "So, let's get to work."

Zoom stepped up to the central computer and pulled out a data pad. Hitting a couple of buttons, a list of ships, which their corresponding squadrons and their pilots. "This is a list of the recourses--ships and fighters-we have available."

Pointing to the table, he motioned for Ranger to hit a button, which brought up Endor's system, as if in a holo chest board. Except that There was only one side, the Imperials in their formation above Endor's moon. "This is coming from a comm sat that we dropped off there less that a week ago. As you see they are pretty well equipped. The ISDII Wisdom of the Emperor is the Flagship obviously, with Admiral Orlando West at the command. We did a search on this guy and we've found that he's pretty much in control of the Yar'Plath sector, so we can guess how he found out about this meeting." Pointing to the rest of the ships, Zoom continued: "Then we have an assortment of various class of capital ships. Two VicStars, one normal and one a Duece, the Hadlet and the Harbor Dragon(Duece) are actually under his command since the he was at the Yar'Plath Sector, as his surviving interdictor, the Biolodrown. Then we have a trio of Frigates, the Forgotten, Yule, and Yearling. The Forgotten is about as old as the Regis, so we want to capture it if possible, the other two are old as the hills. The Empire has instated it as a medical frigate--just as we use the Redemption. The only difference is that it's about a hundred times more advanced. Then they have a Dreadnaught cruiser called the Chaos. Apart from that they have about ten corvettes positioned as a shield for the other ships, so any attack we have planned has to get past these with minimum casualties. Apart from these ships, we have the Endor station. What Vape picked up on her IDing it is that we have about a thousand Imp troops and officers to deal with. We don't want to bombard it because they have prisoners there. Nothing of major importance to us, but they are not in this conflict, but are paying for it. Any operation there has to be quick and clean."

Zoom finished with the situation. And the other pilots sat silently looking at the battle field. Then Zoom went on: "Now, our forces aren't as great as theirs, but we are to be reckoned with. We, of course, have the Star and the Regis at our disposal, as well as the Tarot. Then, there is the STRKC Wolf's Lair with Wolfshead Squadron. Apart from them, we have aid of the Vigilant- from there we can count on support from Rogue, Buccaneer, and Corsair Squadrons. Then we have the heavy assault unit Green Squadron with the Rehz'nor. Apart from that we've received aid from the VicStar Heroic and about seven corvettes and a pair of Frigates named Beagle and the Airam Runner. At a minimum, we'll be outnumbered well over four to one. By fighters, I mean..."

Everyone of them look a bit queasy at that statement, even Pip and Ranger who considered themselves hotshots and capable of that--it was the rest of the pilots that they were worried about. It seemed impossible for them to win. Then Pip remembered something. "If I remember correctly, when we were escaping, there were two ImpStars and another VicStar. Is it possible they are reserving them to spring a trap on us?"

The rest of the pilots who had been there nodded as well, "Yeah, I forgot about those. I was sort of busy killing eyeballs really" said Dobber, scratching his chin and sighing, "But I think we can do it, if we won the Battle of Endor, we can win this...look at the bright side--at least we don't have to deal with an SSD and a Death Star along with the rest of the Imperial Fleet."

"I'd hate to learn what you think of the dark side..." commented Vape, Pip noticed that she had patched up her tie-dye colored flight suit since they'd returned. "Couldn't we doing something in turn? I assume that once where fully engaged they'll jump us from behind. How about we get them as well, like when they jump we jump them?"

Pip nodded, ideas scrambling into his head at what seemed lightspeed, "We also have to work the base into our plans. They looked like they were building an ion cannon into that place. Our priority should be first cover a couple troop transports to the surface and then have a pair of fighters take the e-webs so our troops can storm the base."

"Good idea." Said Zoom, "We could also leave a couple of pilots on reserve to help them out and fight anything that dares enter the atmosphere."

"Okay, we can set that as a maybe and concentrate on the space battle, where the bigger danger will be." Said Rogue, "I suggest that we reserve a flight to go in there and duke it out, two from each squadron? Including at least one of us?"

Leo spoke for the first time, "Agreed. Now, about that barrier of corvettes. I think the best idea for that is have every B-Wing we have go in first and from a safe distance have a certain amount of specialized ones hit them with heavy rockets. What lives through that will be hightailing it outta there. We can get Green Squadron to do that, escorted by A-Wings from the Trainees aboard the Regis."

"I don't feel too sure about the Trainees though," said Pip, expressing his worry. "I believe we should save them to protect the actual fleet from the inside. How about a flight of Reds? I think we should have at least one of our flights use A-Wings. One and three flights can use X-Wings and come in with the rest of the fleet."

"Rest of the Fleet?" asked Zoom asked Pip, warily.

"Yeah, we trick them. Send in the Frigate Rehz'nor and all our corvettes with four A-Wings and Green Squadron. The Imps will probably think it's a joke and send only a couple of squints our to make friends with us. So, once they're well away from their mother ship, we pound them and bring in the rest of the fleet while Green kills all the corvettes they can get in their sights. Arm the A-Wings with proton torps and anything that isn't hit with at least one heavy rocket is A-Wing food."

Ranger nodded, "I agree."

It was his flight, so it was good that he agreed to be bait. Zoom nodded, "I guess it sounds good."

"So, when we're all there," began Vape, "our space battle should just be a distraction so our small assault group can go in and take the Endor Station. Once there, we can try and take it with out blowing the ion cannon and use it from the ground."

"Another possibility," said Rogue. "What about that spare ISD and VSD?"

Pip smiled, "Simple, we'll have spares as well. I think that the Wolf's Lair with those two frigates, the Beagle and Airam Runner, can take them from behind. The Wolfshead pilots have B-Wings, A-Wings, and X-Wings, so they can take care of themselves. The Frigates should just be there to support the Lair, because a Strike Cruiser can't be too trusted, no matter how good it is, or how good it's squad is."

"Well, the assault is planned, now what we need to do is position our pieces on the holo board." Said Leo, he stood up and hit a button on the holo board, all the ships belonging to the Rebels who where part of this Battle Fleet came up. "And then work on movements and the actual briefing."

 "It's not approved yet, Leo." Vape smirked, "and when they found out who helped plan it I doubt it will. Just joking. Hey, why are you staring at me? I have a right to make groaners too, Pip."

A day later, the planning was finished and the plan approved. Immediately, Zoom and Rogue called both the squadrons for a joint briefing. When the call came, Sara "Red" Ayana had been sitting in the Fishtank, talking with the Red pilot Jeni "Angel" Courtner and her fellow Blue, Nuba "Sonic" Pek. Angel groaned at Zoom's voice came over the comm. "All pilots report to Briefing Room-B for a briefing, obviously. That means Blue pilots as well."

The three female pilots dragged themselves to the briefing room fairly quickly, as they (apart from the command staff, Vape, and Pip) were the first ones there. When they saw the three female pilots enter, Pip and Vape headed over to them. Vape smiled. "Hello."

They replied "Hello" Almost in unison, except Pip, who just nodded and smiled, then said "Hey Girls. Pay attention, today."

That got Red thinking. Pip serious? Is that possible? Dammit, it's the end of the world! "Why?"

Vape smiled uneasily, "You'll see when everyone gets here."

As if on cue, most of the other pilots arrived. Among them, Red saw one she didn't recognize. She turned to Angel. "Who's that?"

Angel shrugged and sighed. "Dunno, but I can tell you he's a Red." She pointed that the pilot's shoulder patch, then to his rank insignia, "He's a Flight Officer."

"Duh. I could see that, Angel." Red sighed and leaned back into her chair.

Flight Officer David "Wild Cat" Fate was the last to enter, as he'd just came aboard the Star not even an hour ago. All he had time to do was report to Zoom and was told to go to his quarters and put his stuff away before he had to go to the briefing room for his first mission with Red Squadron.

He sat down next to a brown hair lieutenant near the front, the pilot was talking with a female pilots in whispers. He looked over to them. "Um, Sirs? My name's David Fate. May I ask in which squad your two are in?"

The pilot turned around and smiled. "I'm a Red Pilot, the name's Chris Layne, callsign's Pip. Nice to meet you."

The female next to Pip smiled as well. "Nice to see another new face around here. I'm Chelsey Maxfield, though I'm usually called Vape around here."

Wild Cat smiled. "I'm Wild Cat, I've just been transferred into Red. Just came aboard an hour ago, Sirs."

"Blegh, don-t call me Sir, please. I can-t stand that." Said Vape, and seeing that Pip didn't say anything nudged him in the ribs.

"Ow! Fine! I don't like it either, though you are aloud to inflate my ego at every possible minute." he smiled. "Nah, just joking. Don't call me Sir--just not my thing."

"Okay." replied the new Red pilot. Then he said, "Do you two know what this mission is about?"

"Well," began Pip, "we helped plan it. It's the final assault of what is commonly called 'Holy Crap, this place is so unlucky' and officially called the 'Second Battle of Endor.'"

Wild Cat nodded and smiled. Oh Joy. Battle, and not even a day after I join Red Squadron. Not even half a day. I knew this a front line unit....but I didn't expect action so soon. "I see."

"Okay, peoples," said Rogue as he entered with Zoom. "We've got a briefing and we need you to be very quiet and very alert."

The tone of Rogue's voice made everyone shut up and Wild Cat decided that it was best to do so as well. Zoom said something to Rogue and Blue's Commanding Officer nodded. Stepping in front of Rogue, he addressed the squadrons: "Hello, before we begin to drone on with the mission briefing, I have a couple of announcements to make. First, the introduction to our new Reds Eight and Eleven.

"The Red Eight slot will be filled by Flight Officer David "Wild Cat" Fate, and the Red Eleven slot by Captain Jen "Squint" Clour." Some of the pilots waved at himself and Squint and Wild Cat smiled. "As per tradition, drinks on those two. My next announcement is the promotion of one of our most distinguished officers. This particular pilot has flown mission after mission against the Empire and has resurrected not once, but twice. Once being rescued by our good friend Schmitty and just recently by using her wits and command skills on Endor. For 1^st Lieutenant Chelsey Maxfield's devotion to the New Republic and friends, I promote her to Captain Chelsey Maxfield. Congrats Vape."

There was a long moment of cheering and congratulations, though Wild Cat felt a bit weird congratulating someone he'd just met. But, he did so anyways. After a few moments, they were back to normal. "My next announcement is 2^nd Lieutenant' Chris Layne's promotion to Tactical Officer of Red Squadron."

Pip stood up to receive applause but everyone was silent. Dead silent. After a few seconds he sat down, and Zoom continued. "Well, now, Lieutenant Layne, you may come up here and do your job."

"Yessir." Standing up, Pip went over to the holo projector and flipped it on. "Okay, here we go peoples."

Hitting a button, the Endor System came up, then a box formed around Endor's moon and did a close up on it. There, they could see the entire Imperial fleet and Wild Cat shivered. I've never seen so many Imp capital ships in once place in my life!

Pip began the briefing.

-Chapter Thirteen: So it begins-

2^nd Lieutenant Chris "Pip" Layne sat in his X-Wing in silence, going over and over again though the operation he had helped plan out. Red's new TacO could almost say he was nervous. Damn nervous, that's what I am.

One Flight and Three Flight were sitting behind Endor, one of the modifications that had been made from the original version. Half of the entire starfighter force would jump ahead and hide behind the planet Endor, like the Empire did at the First Battle of Endor. They would jump in seven minutes after the fleet did so, which would come in six minutes after the Rehz'nor, Green Squadron, and Red's Two Flight in A-Wings. It was dangerous, but probable, seeing that it would be Renegade Wing staying with the fleet. The Wolf's Lair would jump in only when the Empire brought up it's gravity wells.

The plan was good, the pilots were good. Pip had seen that setting plenty of times, but he knew that it didn't always go good. Few of these missions ever went right, to tell the truth. And this time it wasn't likely that they're luck would change. Well, let's not jinx this and hope to get through it alright, intact and hopefully with a promotion.

"Red Leader, this is Red Six. Second Flight should be coming into the system now, do you want me to keep a timer?" he asked Zoom.

Lt. Colonel Kelly "Zoom" St. Clair gave him a thumbs-up through the cockpit. "Copy that, Six. Get it going. Tell me when there's only thirty seconds left."

"Copy, Lead." Pip set the timer and sat back in his X-Wing, waiting.

***

Flight Officer David "Wild Cat" Fate's A-Wing burst into hyperspace directly behind his wingmates', Captain Jen "Squint" Clour. Moving into the assigned spot in the wedge formation before the B-Wings of Green Squadron and the Frigate Rehz'nor, they zoomed towards the unsuspecting TIEs. "How you doing back there, Eight?"

He clicked his comm, "Just fine sir, a bit more used to X-Wings, but this A-Wing has a fine hold."

"Nice to know, Eight. Follow Eleven's lead, and be very careful. We don't want to loose you on your first mission. We don't want to loose anyone." Replied Red Squadron's Executive Officer. He double clicked his comm. Easy mission, just cover Squint's A-Wing and protect the B-Wings, then if damage run to the Star when the rest of the force jumps in.

He kept repeating the resumed briefing to himself as he neared the enemy fighters. He hit his "select nearest hostile target" button and a TIE Interceptor came up. Obviously, the Empire was falling for their ploy, they'd send out the more manageable fighters to intercept them, saving the TIE Advanced and Defenders back with the rest of the fleet. He kept nearing the flight, ten kilometers...nine kilometers...and so on.

He switched to a missile and targeted the fighter, as soon as it came into his range, the HUD start to beep and finally turned red. He fired, as did all the reds as well. His particular missile hit the fighter dead on, marking his first kill with Red Squadron and first kill of the day. Well, it's started well.

"Admiral," said the Captain of the Hadlet nearest of the Star Destroyers from which the Rebels had attacked. He was in holo, smaller than usual, so he had to look up at Admiral West. "We have reports of several rebel fighters and one rebel frigate moving to engage. Our starfighters have already received casualties, we've lost of Alpha Squadron's first wave. Do we launch Avenger Squadron?"

West pondered that a moment then shook his head. "Negative, Captain. Save those for just in case. Let loose all other fighters except for Zarron, Avenger, and Hidden. Make the corvettes move to engage them, with the Forgotten and Chaos backing them. That should be more than enough to deal with these pitiful fools. Have Operation: Ace up our Sleeve ready for just in case. Inform Captain Loror on the Biolodrown to wait for my mark. Have the Gunboats protect our only Interdictor. Admiral West out."

With a motion of his hand the holo went out as the Captain of the Hadlet bowed. He cocked an eyebrow and walked to the bridge quickly to see the battle. He felt a deception, he had expected more. He's heard of several Rebel Ships forming up in a nearby sector, with his spies informing him that soon enough they'd be attacking him. Maybe this was just to test his strength. He shrugged. It didn't matter.

All the Rebels daring to come into the Endor System would die.