[Merrill System]

The vacation world of Merrill in the Merrill System was a back end resort that very few knew about, except for those close by. The golden and blue sphere was surrounded by hundreds of beautiful rings around its equator. It wasn't uncommon for worlds like this to exist, just like in the way that there were sometimes special vacationing spots near the place you grew up at that no one but the nearby residents knew anything about. Imperials had learned of it when they blockaded the Gordian Reach and every once in a while officers or ships would head over for some Rest and Relaxation. They deserved it, in their own way.

According to the briefing that Lieutenant Chris "Lock" Layne had received twelve hours ago before this mission began, today the man visiting was an Imperial Ace that went by Commander Joel Larson. Larson was the commanding officer of the fighter wing aboard the Imperial-class Star Destroyer Battle of New Plympto that had attacked the Ugly Mynock in the Selitan System little over a week ago.

In a way it felt good for Lock to be on this mission, even if he was flying one of the battered Y-Wings they had manage to salvage from hundreds of different screws and bolts. According to Flight Officer Amit "Hacker" Nyz, the Quarren pilot that this ship was usually assigned to, the Y-Wing flew beautifully well... but to Lock it still felt like a slow piece of crap. Though he'd received training in the Y-Wing like every Rebel pilot, Lock wasn't as experienced with it as some, having been transferred to the X-Wing program when it was still a relatively new craft in the Alliance's armed forces. Many pilots, such as his wingmate, Flight Officer Garak "Pinto" Pha'elid, had had an entire career flying the wishbone-shaped bomber.

Pinto was in his own Y-Wing near Lock's. Their engines were turned off and their fighters were settled on an asteroid floating in orbit amongst the rings of the planet. The Y-Wings were on stand-by, prepared to take off at a moment's notice. Nearby, settled on another asteroid, would be the Rimward Liberty, a ship commanded by Ensign Jack "Frosty" McCauley, ready to complete it's part of the mission as soon as Lock called on him.

The mission was simple. Commander Larson was due to leave the vacation planet today. He was using a modified TIE Interceptor with hyperdrive capabilities. At some point Starfighter Command had decided that they wanted to get their hands on the special starfighter and had given Red Squadron its first mission. Two pilots in Y-Wings would chase down and disable the fighter with ion cannons. Once the fighter's system was fried, they would call on the Liberty and it would tow the squint into its cargo bay. Not only were they capturing a new starfighter, but also the wing leader of the biggest warship in their vicinity. It'd be a big blow to the Empire, as well, loosing such a good pilot and great for moral in Red Squadron... Commander Larson had led the starfighters that had torn apart Bantha Squadron.

The memory still pained Lock, but he dealt with it like he always had. Not having Jet around was harder than Lock had ever thought possible, but he'd lived through it. Back when he'd been an Imperial pilot flying TIEs, wingmates came and went. TIE Fighters were relatively unprotected, so many would die. Later, when he joined the Rebellion, pilots would come and go just as quickly because of inexperience or because of equipment failures and, many times, because of how badly they were outnumbered by the Empire in this Civil War. Missions like this one, with undertones of vengeance, kept people going. Revenge was a darker sentiment, so if it could be blocked away by actual military objectives it kept soldiers happy.

"Six here, I'm picking up a signal," Pinto said, breaking comm silence as well as Lock's thoughts. The pilot looked at his sensor board and nodded, even though the Bothan pilot couldn't see him. Behind Lock the R2 in its socket, Lock's own Fate, fed him clearer readouts of the sensor data on Lock's screen, confirming who was leaving the planet's atmosphere. "It's our objective."

"Copy that, Six," Lock replied and started hitting switches to get his Y-Wing up and running. Fate was initializing the engines. "Let's get moving." He opened his comm frequency to the Liberty. "Liberty, Red Five here. We've got the objective in sensor range; we're moving out to engage. Prep for boarding op."

"Copy that, Red Five," Frosty's voice came through the comm with a slight slur. "Be quick about it. I've got a sabacc game to get to."

"Will do, Liberty," he replied.

By now his fighter was ready to go. Lock started retracting the legs of the Y-Wing and it hovered above the rock he had set upon. Not too far away from him, Pinto was doing the same. Both seemed to push their throttles forward in unison and began to duck and weave their way through the rings surrounding the planet.

The rings were mostly composited of ice and rock of different metals. When the sunlight of Merrill's star hit the rings they would glimmer in many hues of greens and blues... it was truly a spectacular sight. Now, though, on the far side of the planet the rings looked more like a plain old asteroid belt surrounding a planet.

As the Y-Wings made their way through they caught a glimpse of their objective doing the same. Apparently, he hadn't noticed the Y-Wings yet and Lock couldn't blame him. There was always constant movement inside of the rings, meaning that sensors had a harder time detecting enemy ships until they were too close. That was why pirates tended to make their bases inside of asteroids because sometimes it was just not worth getting into a "nest" like that. The Y-Wings were coming from under the TIE Interceptor, creeping as quickly as they dared. Their shields would bounce the smaller pieces of rock away but they had to be careful and avoid the bigger chunks completely, lest they wanted to die early. The TIE was under even dire straits, because it didn't have any shields whatsoever. It would have to skim and avoid even smaller pieces of rock and slow itself down considerably to get through the rings. Normally, a TIE would completely avoid getting into an area like this... but it was alone and not expecting anyone would be crazy enough to attack in a place like this. Apparently, these Imps really didn't know at what lengths Rebels would go to for the chance to turn them into dust and a bad memory.

"Alright, Six, let's split. I'll take him from under; you try and get behind him. Hopefully, he'll only see me so you can catch him off guard," he told his wingmate and switched over to ion lasers and linked them.

To his right, he saw Pinto's Y-Wing follow orders and veer off to get its attack vector. "Copy that, Five, good luck."

"Thanks," Lock replied. He knew that he'd need it; Y-wings, though sturdier, were much slower and much less maneuverable than TIE Interceptors. If this guy was as good as people said he was, Lock might be in some trouble.

Lock immediately set himself to the task. Erasing all doubts about whether the squint would be able to take him down or not he brought up his HUD and set the TIE between his crosshairs as he pushed his starfighter to full throttle. The HUD turned green, indicating a clear shot, and from behind him fate let out a tone. Lock squeezed the trigger and the two bolts flew directly towards the interceptor... and missed! The TIE slammed on its rudder and banked downwards just in time to avoid getting hit. He brought his speed up and started twisting through the asteroid field in an attempt to find his assailant.

"Kriffin' Corellia's Nine Hells!" he cursed allowed, Fate squealed in a panic. He may have been a droid, but he understood the implications of not having knocked the target out on the first attempt. "He kriffin' saw me! Fate, keep an eye on him and distribute shields! I want to know where that squint is at all times!"

If you can see the enemy, Lock thought to himself as he gritted his teeth and pulled hard as he could on the stick of his starfighter, then he can see you!

He decided to remedy that as quickly as possible and ducked behind a rather large piece of ice as he rolled his fighter. Compared to the X-Wing, Lock felt like he was rolling in slow motion. "Go faster, damn it!" he yelled at the fighter. Fate must've done something to boost the speed because the Y-Wing jolted forward and slipped past the piece of ice just as he pulled up on the stick and used curve of the asteroid to mask his presence long enough for him to attack the TIE by surprise again. Lock popped out from behind the chunk of ice and set the TIE between his crosshairs again just as he noticed that the Interceptor was doing the same with him: both started firing at the exact same time. Green lasers and blue ion bolts flashed past each other at high speeds as the two crafts flew at each other.

"Reinforce the forward shields, Fate!" he called out to his astromech. Fate wailed and did as he was bid, the shields started dropping and Lock started to juke and weave his way towards the TIE who was rolling from side to side and making it very difficult for the Y-Wing to follow. If Lock hadn't have had shields he wondered if he would've even survived the barrage that the Y-Wing received. The green lasers splashed against his forward shields making it almost impossible to see anything. Instead, Lock looked down to the tactical monitor which was giving him a constant and accurate feed from the sensor. Due to their proximity, Lock was even able to tell that he had been able to knock the systems of the elite TIE Interceptor pilot to 66% functionality. He cursed, wishing that the 34% of systems that he'd managed to knock out had been the pilot's weapon systems.

The TIE stopped firing and his sensor notified him that he was turning upwards through the rings. Lock, now able to see, stopped firing and twisted his stick upwards in an attempt to follow his objective. The TIE started ducking through and past large space rocks in an attempt to stay out of Lock's crosshairs. This guy is better than I thought, he thought to himself.

"Fate, set the canons on recharge," he told the R2 even though he knew that he'd have to sacrifice a little bit of speed for that. It was better than running out of his ion cannons and not being able to complete the mission.

The two fighters weaved through the rings for a few seconds, every little bit Lock would attempt to catch Larson with a shot from his ion cannons but every time the man evaded it with a roll or ducked behind an asteroid just in time. As Lock had predicted, the TIE Interceptor was having a hard time fighting in the rings because of its fragility compared to the robust and steady workhose that was the Y-Wing starfighter. Why is this guy just running? Lock asked himself as he kept up with the squint. He can't run forever, he's going to have to confront me at some point...

Then it dawned on Lock.

Larson wasn't just evading his pursuers, he was leading Lock on. He was at a disadvantage here in among the rocks, but... Suddenly in front of Lock there was empty space; they had left the ring! He could see the TIE in front of him perform a tight loop and start firing at Lock. The green lasers sprays across the front of the Y-Wing's shields. Lock quickly slammed his stick to the side and began juking his craft to avoid the TIE, but the TIE was on him like butter on bread. The advantage of location in space, Larson being above Lock, gave the Interceptor even greater advantage of the Y-Wing who was, at the moment, little more than a moving target.

Knowing that he wouldn't last long like this Lock swerved his Y-Wing and duck down back into the rings where he would be protected by the large rocks. He started cruising through them, weaving himself a path as he avoided laser fire from the fighter he was supposed to be pursing. And now it's the other way around, Lock though grimly. Time to put this right!

Lock pulled on his throttle and stopped in full. Because of the high speeds that both fighters were flying at, the Interceptor overshot Lock's Y-Wing. Lock pushed his throttle to maximum again and lifted the nose of his fighter to break the surface of the rings behind the TIE Interceptor. He quickly set the enemy fighter in his crosshairs and started shooting. One bolt hit the starfighter square in the circular eyeball shaped cockpit. The Interceptor's engines immediately died on him and he was unable to maneuver. A grin grew on Lock's lips.

"Gotcha!" he said as he flew his fighter closer to the TIE to get a good look at the craft that had given him so much trouble just a few seconds ago. As he flew past, he could see Commander Larson moving around in his cockpit. Lock opened up a frequency to the TIE Interceptor. "Commander Larson, this is Rebel Y-Wing Red Five. You've been beaten. Stand down and prepare to be boarded."

"Beaten? Have I?" asked Larson, one full of scorn. "You forget that my communications are still working... I have already called for reinforcements! I doubt that one Y-Wing can face an entire squadron of TIE Interceptors."

Lock didn't bother responding. It was typical Imperial. Instead he switched over to the Liberty's frequency. "Liberty, this is Red Five. We've got a package for you to pick up."

"Ooh, nice. On my way."

"Copy that. Hurry it up; we have a squadron of squints inbound."

There was a pause from Frosty. Then, "Still on my way."

Lock sighed and turned his craft to start a patrol around the TIE Interceptor. It was only then that he remembered that Pinto, his wingmate, was nowhere to be seen. He checked his board for any signal coming from Pinto's Y-Wing. "Uh... Fate, where’s Pinto?" When Fate told him that he had no idea, Lock dialed up Pinto's frequency. "Red Six... are you there? Do you read me?"

No response.

"Fate, find Pinto," he told his astromech, knowing that Fate would boost the sensors in an attempt to find the missing pilot.

By the time the Rimward Liberty had reached the TIE Interceptor and had begun to pull Commander Larson and his special, modified TIE Interceptor into its bay, Fate had located Pinto... or what remained of the Bothan's Y-Wing. Lock sighed heavily. The Bothan, in an attempt to keep up with the dogfight ensuing between Larson and Lock, had not kept an eye out for the large chunks of rock and ice that formed the rings of Merrill. From the remains of the fighter, Lock assumed that he had pulled up into a rock, slammed into it and had destroyed his fighter in an instant. Another wingmate gone. Lock rarely had wingmates that lasted... He was just surprised that this was the second one he had lost in a week. First Toro, then Pinto.

The wail of Fate brought Lock out of his thoughts. "Kriff," he said, noticing that his sensor board had lit up. The squadron of TIE Interceptors that Larson had called where starting to get dangerously close to him and the Liberty.

"Uhh... Frosty..."

"I know, I know. Just a few seconds... alright! He's in! Let's get out of here!"

The Rimward Liberty shot off towards the buoy at the end of the system that signaled the end of the gravity well caused by the planet Merrill. Lock followed suit, staying a little bit behind the freighter as the two charged towards safety. Behind them, the TIE Interceptor were gaining on them faster than they could cover ground. Lock cursed... They had gotten the objective but had lost Pinto, and by the looks of things, they weren't going to get any better.

"Liberty, I hope you have a couple of gunners on that bucket," he told Frosty.

"I've actually got a couple of marine volunteers here. They've just put down the Imp; they're manning the turrets now."

"Copy that, Liberty," he paused, and then added "If those squints catch up I'll tie them up. You keep going for the nav at all costs."

"Shut up, Five, we're almost there."

Lock glared at the ship, and then looked over to the buoy, about two kilometers ahead. The TIEs were three clicks behind them... one more click and they would be in firing range. A click and a half more and they would be able to make it to hyperspace. It was going to be much too close for Lock's liking. Kriff it.

"Fate, give me all you got on engines and put whatever shields I have left to the rear," he said to the astromech and watched Fate immediately comply. His speed was boosted to that almost of an X-Wing. He caught up to the Rimward Liberty and looked towards the cockpit. Inside he could see Frosty holding a bottle of alcohol to his lips and drink while flying with the other hand. Frosty caught a glance of Lock and quickly put down the bottle. Lock shook his head at the man's antics, but couldn't help but smile.

That arse... he thought to himself as the reached the nav buoy.

Behind him the TIE Interceptors came into range and started firing at the Y-Wing and the freighter... but before their green lasers of death could reach their objectives both ships disappeared into hyperspace with the captured Commander Joel Larson and his modified TIE Interceptor with hyperspace capabilities. Mission completed.

The End