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<blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 1799683" data-attributes="member: 10079"><p><strong>Chapter Two: First Kill, First Death</strong></p><p></p><p></p><p>They spent three months training. Simulator runs were the most common occurrence for the first month, but soon after they were each supplied with our own X-Wing and R-Unit and the real training began. The squadron even got a name. They were now pilots of Zephyr Squadron. It was an interesting name, and all of the members took to it well. All of them were assigned permanent wingmates and uniforms. Raan would have been overwhelmed by it all if he hadn’t been so engrossed in it. He was Zephyr Five, and his wingmate, Zephyr Six, was Elizabeth Mare. The two had developed a good friendship in the time, as had all of the wingmate pairs. They all could work together as a squadron, but when it came down to it, you relied on your wingmate to always help out when you needed it. </p><p> </p><p>The assault on Coruscant was nearing, now in the final stages of planning. It was decided that the first real mission for Zephyr squadron was flying fighter escort for an assault on the strongly defended planet of Kuat. Kuat was far enough from Coruscant to be a good diversion, and was only planned as a hit and fade attempt with a few troop transports(that would be empty) to feign a stronger assault. A good plan, but a dangerous test for a rookie squadron. Thankfully for the Zephyrs, a squadron of experienced Y-Wing pilots would also be participating.</p><p> </p><p>Raan sat alone in the cockpit of his X-Wing, looking at the long blue tunnel of hyperspace around him. Idly, he checked the chrono. Two minutes until leaving hyperspace. The one thing he hated about hyperspace jumps was how alone he felt. Isolated. He smiled slightly to himself at the thought, glancing around and up to see R5-P8, or ‘Plate’, sitting in his slot in the X-Wing. Alright, not so alone. But it still would have been nice to be able to talk to someone...especially Mare.</p><p> </p><p>From their friendly talks, he’d learned she was the daughter of rather modest family of farmers from Naboo. Being a heavily controlled Imperial world, the fact that the family had Rebel sympathies was kept quiet. Like most children of farmers, Mare grew up wanting to see the stars, and left Naboo at the first chance she could. At nineteen, she hadn’t been gone long, but had quickly found her way to the Alliance, working as a courier between some of the Core worlds and the Alliance command ships for a short time. She was then invited into Starfighter Command, and inducted into Zephyr squadron with the other ten of them.</p><p> </p><p>It was amazing to Raan how thinking about Mare caused the time to pass so quickly. Plate made a few beeping noises, and he looked to the chrono to see it was just about time to revert to realspace. Taking a deep breath, not sure what he would see once reverting back, Raan watched the chrono intently. It hit zero. Reaching over, he pulled back the hyperspace levers and the blue tunnel faded into stars...stars and a large, industrious looking planet. Surrounding the planet, which Raan knew to be Kuat, were hundreds of kilometers of shipyards. Kuat was where the Imperial Star Destroyers were built, among other large capital ships for the Empire.</p><p> </p><p>The comm beeped, and Commander Tsun’s voice followed it, “Zephyr One here, the rest of you kids alive?”</p><p> </p><p>There was a chorus of ‘yes, sir’s and other acknowledgments from the members of the squadron before a new voice came through. It was hard to tell separate voices through the crackling comm, but they had all gotten used to it in the second month, “This is Blackmoon One, good to hear you Zephyr’s made it okay. Base One will be here in another minute. Until then, you know what to do.”</p><p> </p><p>The comm cut off, replaced by Tsun again, “Just a reminder, Zephyrs, we’re flying fighter screen for the bombers. Stick with your wingmate and no heroics, that especially goes for Rulae and Marin. You two hear me?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yes, sir,” replied the voice of Rulae Nok, Zephyr Eleven, a Duros with a passion for the spotlight. He was a good pilot, but had a way of trying to do things that were well beyond even his abilities, and at the same time dragging his wingmate, Marin Essenu, a Mon Calamari female, down with him.</p><p> </p><p>As the squadron continued closer to the planet and the surrounding shipyards, the pilots opened the S-Foils on the X-Wings and charged the weapons. This came in response to the group of signals coming around the planet. In just a matter of minutes, they identified an Imperial Star Destroyer, an older Victory Star Destroyer, and a small Carrack Cruiser. This defense force was quickly answered by the Mon Calamari Cruiser Intrepid reverting back to realspace not far behind the two squadrons. With the Intrepid was the rest of the attack force, consisting of two Nebulon-B Frigates, four Assault Transports(two of which had only two pilots aboard and were to be used as decoys), and three small Corellian Gunships. </p><p> </p><p>The comm crackled with these new arrivals, “Zephyr and Blackmoon Squadrons, this is Base One. We are moving into position for the attack, proceed with the operation. You are clear to attack.”</p><p> </p><p>“Zephyr One, this is Blackmoon One,” came the voice of the commander of the Y-Wing squadron, “We’re breaking off to begin our runs on the shipyards. We’re picking up fighter signals launching from the planet and the defense fleet. Think you can handle them and keep us covered?”</p><p> </p><p>Commander Tsun almost laughed slightly, “That’s what we’re here for, Blackmoon One. Begin your runs and we’ll be there to keep those fighters off of you,” the comm clicked slightly, a noise to indicate the Commander was switching to the Zephyr’s private comm channel, “You heard them, kids. Break off into your pairs and engage the fighters. Ignore the ones coming from the planet for now, focus on the ones launching from the attack ships. And keep your eyes open for any stationary defenses.”</p><p> </p><p>The channel was then filled with the double clicking of comms, a sign to acknowledge the orders Tsun had just given. Raan double clicked his comm, checking his sensor screen and picking up the fighters coming in. He banked the X-Wing off to a more direct course to them. He caught sight of Mare following suit, off to his starboard side. Angling the shields to double front power, Raan held his breath.</p><p> </p><p>The comm was strangely silent and the world outside the X-Wing empty for what seemed like an eternity. Nothing happened. Then, space lit up. The capital ships had gotten into range and were beginning their bombardment of each other. Bright red and green lights streaked across the space over his X-Wing, and Raan found it was almost unnerving. This was it...the first real combat. The first real live fire engagement. And deep down, he knew they wouldn’t all go home.</p><p> </p><p>“Stick with me, Five,” Mare’s voice came over the comm just as his droid beeped something. Checking the range, he realized what it was. Now not only the capital ships were firing, but the fighters were in range. Raan saw so many green flashes streak towards him and those around him that he was sure they would all die. But at the same time, he and the others let loose a barrage of return fire, weaving through the blasts. There was a bright flash far to Raan’s port side, and a screen that was cut off.</p><p> </p><p>One of the Zephyr’s was gone already. Two more flashes, but these were from the TIEs ahead of them. Raan quickly realized that there was a TIE directly in front of him, coming in firing. Reacting with an almost unnatural speed, he pulled hard to port, firing off a stint of laser fire as he did so. The last of the shots managed to catch the TIE directly in the cockpit, and scoring Raan’s first kill. Strangely, he wasn’t proud of it. Besides, there wasn’t time to be. </p><p> </p><p>Another scream was cut off through the comm, and another of the Zephyrs was gone. The two waves of fighters having past each other, Raan quickly evened out his shields started to pull the X-Wing around towards the TIEs again. Through the current chaos that was coming through the comm channel, he called out, “Six? Six you still with me?”</p><p> </p><p>“Same place I’ll always be, Five,” Mare responded, but Raan didn’t have the time to look to see if he could find her. He was sliding around and dodging laser fire all over, amazed at how truly chaotic the fight was. Raan switched his weapon’s to linked fire, coming up behind a TIE and firing off all four of the lasers in one flick of the trigger. The caught the TIE in the solar panel as it tried to dodge, sending it into a long death spin towards the now much closer shipyards. As he pulled around past the dimming flames, two quick flashes of green went over his cockpit. Raan cursed, but then saw a bright flash and heard Mare’s cheer as she hit the TIE behind Raan.</p><p> </p><p>“Thanks, Six,” Raan breathed a sigh of relief and brought his X-Wing through a long loop, weaving through the laser fire of two TIEs that were trying to get behind him. Quickly, he cut the thrusters and watched as first Mare’s X-Wing shot past him, then the two TIEs did the same, except seemingly panicked in trying to avoid a collision. Raan put power back to the thrusters and did his best to catch up to the TIEs, which were now trying to get a shot on Mare, who was making her way much closer to the shipyards. As he brought his targeting reticle around, firing off a stuttered blast of the lasers and missing, he noticed that it was possible to see Blackmoon’s Y-Wings starting their bombing runs on the shipyards. </p><p> </p><p>Most of the proton bombs and torpedoes they fired were aimed at a half-constructed Star Destroyer, deep within the floating mess of metal that formed the shipyards. There were bursts of green light all around the shipyards, indicating that there were in fact a large amount of stationary defenses in place. Raan caught sight of two small flashes, and instinct told him that two of the Y-Wings were gone. </p><p> </p><p>This was quickly followed up by an interruption in the chaotic chatter across the comm channel by Blackmoon One, “Zephyrs! Where the sith are you? We could use that cover about now!”</p><p> </p><p>Raan could tell that Mare was moving that direction already, and he heard Commander Tsun responded that they were tied up at the moment but would try to get there as quickly as possible. Cursing to himself again, Raan took his focus back to the TIEs in front of him(and behind Mare, which was the important part at the moment). He slipped around a large piece of an empty shipdock, coming down from above at the two TIEs and letting off another burst of stuttered fire. This time, the blasts caught one of them. It hit the TIE to the left on the solar panel, sending it spinning in towards the second before they both burst into a cloud of quickly diminishing flame.</p><p> </p><p>“We’re even now!” Raan called out, a grin on his face as he leveled out the X-Wing next to Mare’s and they continued on towards the Y-Wings. His sensors picked up two ships approached from behind, but the IFF screen identified them as Zephyrs Eleven and Twelve. There was no word from them, but it seemed that they had also manage to break away from the chaotic dogfight to move in to help Blackmoon out. That would be the Duros, Rulae, and his Mon Calamari Wingmate, Marin. </p><p> </p><p>Approaching the shipyard that the Y-Wings were attacking, Raan found himself pointing out all of the turrets and defense installations that were giving Blackmoon so many problems. So far, there didn’t seem to be any fighters. Before he could say anything, however, Mare’s voice came across the comm, “We should try and hit as many of those laser batteries before they catch sight of us.”</p><p> </p><p>“You mean use Blackmoon as bait?” that was the watery sounding voice of Marin.</p><p> </p><p>Rulae spoke up sounding confident, “The two of us will take out the ones on the far side of the destroyer if you two can handle the ones closest.”</p><p> </p><p>“We’ll do what we can,” Raan responded, angling the X-Wing up. The shipywards themselves were large cylinders with hollowed insides. There were many holes and long lines of emptiness between the outer walls which allowed smaller ships to pass through. From the looks of the laser blasts, most of the turrets were on the upper sections of the outer walls, able to fire inward and outward. Currently, they were all aiming in towards the Y-Wings which were making strafing runs across the front of the Star Destroyer. Raan and the other three X-Wings were coming in from the side, making it easier to pick off the turrets.</p><p> </p><p>Zephyr Eleven and Twelve angled down, looking to go under the cylinder and come around on the other side to catch the opposite sides’ turrets. At the same time, Mare and Raan were already letting off bursts of fire at the turrets on the closest side. Four were gone before the others moved to directly fire on the new arrivals. Doing their best to still fire on the turrets, the two of them wove in and out of the oncoming fire in different directions, trying to make it as difficult as possible to get a hit on them, despite the fact that there were at least five bearing on each of them.</p><p> </p><p>Both of them managed to get through the hole in the cylinder, now inside the actual dock and able to see the extent of the damage done by the Y-Wings. They had done a serious job, but were having to avoid most of their runs to stay out of the way of the turret fire that nearly blanketed the inside. Inside now, and realizing how small it actually was, Raan did his best to loop around to come at the turrets on the far end before they could come to bear on him. As he did so, the comm channel was drowned out by a loud cry that was cut off. A sound they were all getting far too used to. Before anyone could call out to identify who that had been, another cry...but this one wasn’t cut off, indicating that the speaker hadn’t been destroyed, “My port thrusters are out and I can’t get out of this spin! Ejection seat is jammed!”</p><p> </p><p>It was Rulae’s voice. This was quickly followed by his Mon Calamari wingmate speaking, but in a rushed and almost panicked way that Raan had never heard before, “Five, Six, is there anyway you can get to us? Eleven’s spinning towards the planet and he’s going to either hit the atmosphere or another shipdock! I’m trying to hit the turrets before they can fire on him again! Is there anyway you an help out?!”</p><p> </p><p>“How can he be helped?!” Raan called out, pulling just over a turret’s fire before sending his own return fire, which hit but didn’t destroy it, “Its not as if I can dock with him in this thing! And I’ve kind of got my hands full at the moment!”</p><p> </p><p>Raan watched his sensor screen as Mare’s X-Wing looped around to head towards where Eleven and Twelve were, “Stay here, Five! I’ll do what I can!”</p><p> </p><p>As she pulled away, Raan managed to send a few more blasts into the same turret, destroying it and giving him and chance to loop around to follow her, “You’re insane! You’ll get killed on your own!”</p><p> </p><p>And for some reason, they went after Eleven’s signal with no idea how to get him out. Raan had figured that the Duros was already dead, but part of him couldn’t accept that. He knew that he could do something...it was just a matter of what, how, and if he’d get a court martial afterwards.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ankh-Morpork Guard, post: 1799683, member: 10079"] [b]Chapter Two: First Kill, First Death[/b] They spent three months training. Simulator runs were the most common occurrence for the first month, but soon after they were each supplied with our own X-Wing and R-Unit and the real training began. The squadron even got a name. They were now pilots of Zephyr Squadron. It was an interesting name, and all of the members took to it well. All of them were assigned permanent wingmates and uniforms. Raan would have been overwhelmed by it all if he hadn’t been so engrossed in it. He was Zephyr Five, and his wingmate, Zephyr Six, was Elizabeth Mare. The two had developed a good friendship in the time, as had all of the wingmate pairs. They all could work together as a squadron, but when it came down to it, you relied on your wingmate to always help out when you needed it. The assault on Coruscant was nearing, now in the final stages of planning. It was decided that the first real mission for Zephyr squadron was flying fighter escort for an assault on the strongly defended planet of Kuat. Kuat was far enough from Coruscant to be a good diversion, and was only planned as a hit and fade attempt with a few troop transports(that would be empty) to feign a stronger assault. A good plan, but a dangerous test for a rookie squadron. Thankfully for the Zephyrs, a squadron of experienced Y-Wing pilots would also be participating. Raan sat alone in the cockpit of his X-Wing, looking at the long blue tunnel of hyperspace around him. Idly, he checked the chrono. Two minutes until leaving hyperspace. The one thing he hated about hyperspace jumps was how alone he felt. Isolated. He smiled slightly to himself at the thought, glancing around and up to see R5-P8, or ‘Plate’, sitting in his slot in the X-Wing. Alright, not so alone. But it still would have been nice to be able to talk to someone...especially Mare. From their friendly talks, he’d learned she was the daughter of rather modest family of farmers from Naboo. Being a heavily controlled Imperial world, the fact that the family had Rebel sympathies was kept quiet. Like most children of farmers, Mare grew up wanting to see the stars, and left Naboo at the first chance she could. At nineteen, she hadn’t been gone long, but had quickly found her way to the Alliance, working as a courier between some of the Core worlds and the Alliance command ships for a short time. She was then invited into Starfighter Command, and inducted into Zephyr squadron with the other ten of them. It was amazing to Raan how thinking about Mare caused the time to pass so quickly. Plate made a few beeping noises, and he looked to the chrono to see it was just about time to revert to realspace. Taking a deep breath, not sure what he would see once reverting back, Raan watched the chrono intently. It hit zero. Reaching over, he pulled back the hyperspace levers and the blue tunnel faded into stars...stars and a large, industrious looking planet. Surrounding the planet, which Raan knew to be Kuat, were hundreds of kilometers of shipyards. Kuat was where the Imperial Star Destroyers were built, among other large capital ships for the Empire. The comm beeped, and Commander Tsun’s voice followed it, “Zephyr One here, the rest of you kids alive?” There was a chorus of ‘yes, sir’s and other acknowledgments from the members of the squadron before a new voice came through. It was hard to tell separate voices through the crackling comm, but they had all gotten used to it in the second month, “This is Blackmoon One, good to hear you Zephyr’s made it okay. Base One will be here in another minute. Until then, you know what to do.” The comm cut off, replaced by Tsun again, “Just a reminder, Zephyrs, we’re flying fighter screen for the bombers. Stick with your wingmate and no heroics, that especially goes for Rulae and Marin. You two hear me?” “Yes, sir,” replied the voice of Rulae Nok, Zephyr Eleven, a Duros with a passion for the spotlight. He was a good pilot, but had a way of trying to do things that were well beyond even his abilities, and at the same time dragging his wingmate, Marin Essenu, a Mon Calamari female, down with him. As the squadron continued closer to the planet and the surrounding shipyards, the pilots opened the S-Foils on the X-Wings and charged the weapons. This came in response to the group of signals coming around the planet. In just a matter of minutes, they identified an Imperial Star Destroyer, an older Victory Star Destroyer, and a small Carrack Cruiser. This defense force was quickly answered by the Mon Calamari Cruiser Intrepid reverting back to realspace not far behind the two squadrons. With the Intrepid was the rest of the attack force, consisting of two Nebulon-B Frigates, four Assault Transports(two of which had only two pilots aboard and were to be used as decoys), and three small Corellian Gunships. The comm crackled with these new arrivals, “Zephyr and Blackmoon Squadrons, this is Base One. We are moving into position for the attack, proceed with the operation. You are clear to attack.” “Zephyr One, this is Blackmoon One,” came the voice of the commander of the Y-Wing squadron, “We’re breaking off to begin our runs on the shipyards. We’re picking up fighter signals launching from the planet and the defense fleet. Think you can handle them and keep us covered?” Commander Tsun almost laughed slightly, “That’s what we’re here for, Blackmoon One. Begin your runs and we’ll be there to keep those fighters off of you,” the comm clicked slightly, a noise to indicate the Commander was switching to the Zephyr’s private comm channel, “You heard them, kids. Break off into your pairs and engage the fighters. Ignore the ones coming from the planet for now, focus on the ones launching from the attack ships. And keep your eyes open for any stationary defenses.” The channel was then filled with the double clicking of comms, a sign to acknowledge the orders Tsun had just given. Raan double clicked his comm, checking his sensor screen and picking up the fighters coming in. He banked the X-Wing off to a more direct course to them. He caught sight of Mare following suit, off to his starboard side. Angling the shields to double front power, Raan held his breath. The comm was strangely silent and the world outside the X-Wing empty for what seemed like an eternity. Nothing happened. Then, space lit up. The capital ships had gotten into range and were beginning their bombardment of each other. Bright red and green lights streaked across the space over his X-Wing, and Raan found it was almost unnerving. This was it...the first real combat. The first real live fire engagement. And deep down, he knew they wouldn’t all go home. “Stick with me, Five,” Mare’s voice came over the comm just as his droid beeped something. Checking the range, he realized what it was. Now not only the capital ships were firing, but the fighters were in range. Raan saw so many green flashes streak towards him and those around him that he was sure they would all die. But at the same time, he and the others let loose a barrage of return fire, weaving through the blasts. There was a bright flash far to Raan’s port side, and a screen that was cut off. One of the Zephyr’s was gone already. Two more flashes, but these were from the TIEs ahead of them. Raan quickly realized that there was a TIE directly in front of him, coming in firing. Reacting with an almost unnatural speed, he pulled hard to port, firing off a stint of laser fire as he did so. The last of the shots managed to catch the TIE directly in the cockpit, and scoring Raan’s first kill. Strangely, he wasn’t proud of it. Besides, there wasn’t time to be. Another scream was cut off through the comm, and another of the Zephyrs was gone. The two waves of fighters having past each other, Raan quickly evened out his shields started to pull the X-Wing around towards the TIEs again. Through the current chaos that was coming through the comm channel, he called out, “Six? Six you still with me?” “Same place I’ll always be, Five,” Mare responded, but Raan didn’t have the time to look to see if he could find her. He was sliding around and dodging laser fire all over, amazed at how truly chaotic the fight was. Raan switched his weapon’s to linked fire, coming up behind a TIE and firing off all four of the lasers in one flick of the trigger. The caught the TIE in the solar panel as it tried to dodge, sending it into a long death spin towards the now much closer shipyards. As he pulled around past the dimming flames, two quick flashes of green went over his cockpit. Raan cursed, but then saw a bright flash and heard Mare’s cheer as she hit the TIE behind Raan. “Thanks, Six,” Raan breathed a sigh of relief and brought his X-Wing through a long loop, weaving through the laser fire of two TIEs that were trying to get behind him. Quickly, he cut the thrusters and watched as first Mare’s X-Wing shot past him, then the two TIEs did the same, except seemingly panicked in trying to avoid a collision. Raan put power back to the thrusters and did his best to catch up to the TIEs, which were now trying to get a shot on Mare, who was making her way much closer to the shipyards. As he brought his targeting reticle around, firing off a stuttered blast of the lasers and missing, he noticed that it was possible to see Blackmoon’s Y-Wings starting their bombing runs on the shipyards. Most of the proton bombs and torpedoes they fired were aimed at a half-constructed Star Destroyer, deep within the floating mess of metal that formed the shipyards. There were bursts of green light all around the shipyards, indicating that there were in fact a large amount of stationary defenses in place. Raan caught sight of two small flashes, and instinct told him that two of the Y-Wings were gone. This was quickly followed up by an interruption in the chaotic chatter across the comm channel by Blackmoon One, “Zephyrs! Where the sith are you? We could use that cover about now!” Raan could tell that Mare was moving that direction already, and he heard Commander Tsun responded that they were tied up at the moment but would try to get there as quickly as possible. Cursing to himself again, Raan took his focus back to the TIEs in front of him(and behind Mare, which was the important part at the moment). He slipped around a large piece of an empty shipdock, coming down from above at the two TIEs and letting off another burst of stuttered fire. This time, the blasts caught one of them. It hit the TIE to the left on the solar panel, sending it spinning in towards the second before they both burst into a cloud of quickly diminishing flame. “We’re even now!” Raan called out, a grin on his face as he leveled out the X-Wing next to Mare’s and they continued on towards the Y-Wings. His sensors picked up two ships approached from behind, but the IFF screen identified them as Zephyrs Eleven and Twelve. There was no word from them, but it seemed that they had also manage to break away from the chaotic dogfight to move in to help Blackmoon out. That would be the Duros, Rulae, and his Mon Calamari Wingmate, Marin. Approaching the shipyard that the Y-Wings were attacking, Raan found himself pointing out all of the turrets and defense installations that were giving Blackmoon so many problems. So far, there didn’t seem to be any fighters. Before he could say anything, however, Mare’s voice came across the comm, “We should try and hit as many of those laser batteries before they catch sight of us.” “You mean use Blackmoon as bait?” that was the watery sounding voice of Marin. Rulae spoke up sounding confident, “The two of us will take out the ones on the far side of the destroyer if you two can handle the ones closest.” “We’ll do what we can,” Raan responded, angling the X-Wing up. The shipywards themselves were large cylinders with hollowed insides. There were many holes and long lines of emptiness between the outer walls which allowed smaller ships to pass through. From the looks of the laser blasts, most of the turrets were on the upper sections of the outer walls, able to fire inward and outward. Currently, they were all aiming in towards the Y-Wings which were making strafing runs across the front of the Star Destroyer. Raan and the other three X-Wings were coming in from the side, making it easier to pick off the turrets. Zephyr Eleven and Twelve angled down, looking to go under the cylinder and come around on the other side to catch the opposite sides’ turrets. At the same time, Mare and Raan were already letting off bursts of fire at the turrets on the closest side. Four were gone before the others moved to directly fire on the new arrivals. Doing their best to still fire on the turrets, the two of them wove in and out of the oncoming fire in different directions, trying to make it as difficult as possible to get a hit on them, despite the fact that there were at least five bearing on each of them. Both of them managed to get through the hole in the cylinder, now inside the actual dock and able to see the extent of the damage done by the Y-Wings. They had done a serious job, but were having to avoid most of their runs to stay out of the way of the turret fire that nearly blanketed the inside. Inside now, and realizing how small it actually was, Raan did his best to loop around to come at the turrets on the far end before they could come to bear on him. As he did so, the comm channel was drowned out by a loud cry that was cut off. A sound they were all getting far too used to. Before anyone could call out to identify who that had been, another cry...but this one wasn’t cut off, indicating that the speaker hadn’t been destroyed, “My port thrusters are out and I can’t get out of this spin! Ejection seat is jammed!” It was Rulae’s voice. This was quickly followed by his Mon Calamari wingmate speaking, but in a rushed and almost panicked way that Raan had never heard before, “Five, Six, is there anyway you can get to us? Eleven’s spinning towards the planet and he’s going to either hit the atmosphere or another shipdock! I’m trying to hit the turrets before they can fire on him again! Is there anyway you an help out?!” “How can he be helped?!” Raan called out, pulling just over a turret’s fire before sending his own return fire, which hit but didn’t destroy it, “Its not as if I can dock with him in this thing! And I’ve kind of got my hands full at the moment!” Raan watched his sensor screen as Mare’s X-Wing looped around to head towards where Eleven and Twelve were, “Stay here, Five! I’ll do what I can!” As she pulled away, Raan managed to send a few more blasts into the same turret, destroying it and giving him and chance to loop around to follow her, “You’re insane! You’ll get killed on your own!” And for some reason, they went after Eleven’s signal with no idea how to get him out. Raan had figured that the Duros was already dead, but part of him couldn’t accept that. He knew that he could do something...it was just a matter of what, how, and if he’d get a court martial afterwards. [/QUOTE]
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