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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 3630547" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 487: Skips“Tell me we aren’t the only ones here!” Adria growled over the comm as the four members of Zephyr squadron reached the nearest of Kuat’s orbital shipyards.    Rulae glanced over to his X-Wing’s port side to see Adria’s X-Wing. There were a few scorch marks on the new starfighter and he made a mental note to get her to be more careful, “Just us for now. We’ll break off in pairs...try to intercept as many of those skips as you can.”    “They aren’t even firing on us,” Loro commented quietly as he and Adria banked away from Rulae and Rea, firing at a nearby skip.    That was odd. There were Coralskippers just flying right past them, firing forward at the shipyards but ignoring their four starfighters. Small explosions were easy to see at various points across the shipyards as the skips simply rammed into them. It was insane.    “Is anyone else bothered by how easy this is?” that was Adria again.    “A little, yes,” Rea finally spoke up as she stayed on Rulae’s wing, firing on another of the skips that wasn’t even trying to evade their attacks.    “Is it possible they are unpiloted?” Loro asked a very valid question.    “Its possible,” Rulae answered, banking to avoid the debris from another skip, “But I doubt it. That isn’t the Vong’s style.”    “They’re probably loving it,” Adria’s voice was no filled with a good amount of venom.    Suddenly, one of the Vong ships exploded and Rulae was fairly sure he hadn’t been shooting at it yet. This thought was confirmed when a pair of new ships flew straight past his viewport. He immediately knew they weren’t New Republic ships. They were pincer shaped, with curved wings tipped in laser cannons. As they passed by his viewport then banked around to take aim on another Coralskipper, a new, heavily accented voice cut into the comm channel, “You boys think you’re getting all the free shots, eh?”    Hapan.    Rulae grinned as much as he could considering his small slit of a mouth. Breaking off to move closer to the shipyards and catch more of the suiciding skips, Rulae switching on his own comm, “This is Zephyr One...Plenty here for everyone. Glad for the help.”    “Don’t thank us yet, Zephyr One,” it sounded like the Hapan was actually laughing, “There were a few skips on our tails and they seemed quite fine with firing while they flew, unlike these.”    “I see them,” Adria cut in again, “Bearing two one five and they’re coming fast.”    Rulae looked to his sensor board and, through the mess of ships all around, he found them. At least ten of them, coming in from roughly the same direction the two Hapan fighters, Miy’til fighters, if he remembered correctly, had come in from, “Zephyrs, form up on me again.”    “Sir,” Loro at least had the decency to remain formal and rather calm during battle, “There’s too many skips getting through as it is, if we break off...”    “Our new friends can keep up with some of the defense,” Rulae cut the Mon Calamari pilot off, and was glad to see the two other X-Wings were headed towards him despite the objection, “But we’re no good to the shipyards if we’re dead.”    In a matter of moments, the four X-Wings were close enough again that their shields were overlapping. It was one of the best defenses against the strong weapons of the Yuuzhan Vong. It was one of many new little tricks that the New Republic had learned over the few months of the war, though it still didn’t seem to be enough. At least it worked.    And then they could see the incoming Coralskippers. Immediately, the four X-Wings opened fire , quickly converging onto the same target to overwhelm the dovin basal defenses. The rocky ship erupted just as the others began to fire, the two groups of ships charging right for each other unloading laser and magma fire at one another.    There was a sudden, bright explosion off to Rulae’s starboard side, and he reacted before he realized what he was doing, banking away from it to avoid any debris striking his ship.    “What the hell was that?!” of course it was Adria that screamed over the comm first as they spun around in formation to get the Vong’s back into their crosshairs.    “I’m hit!” Loro’s voice no longer sounded calm. In fact, it was actually hard to hear and coming in and out through static, “Slammed right into me!”    It wasn’t easy to stay alive in a dogfight and see if Loro was alright. Rulae had to look up to see, but easily caught sight of Loro’s X-Wing...which was completely missing its two starboard wings and was spinning uncontrolled towards the shipyards.    That was also about the time that Rulae’s ship shook again, and he looked forward to see one of the skips firing on him, thankfully not getting through the shields. Rulae lined up his crosshairs on the ship and squeezed the trigger, glad to see both Rea and Adria also firing on the ship. In a flash, the Coralskipper exploded and they were soon firing on another.    “Two of the skips have broken off from the group, One,” Rea said, and Rulae noticed her X-Wing was slowing down and starting to turn at a much sharper angle because of it...looping around completely, “They’re heading for Loro.”    “Do not pursue them!” Rulae snapped, and thankfully Rea had the sense to listen, easing her turn so that Adria and Rulae would stay close enough, “Loro, eject!”    There was no response from the Mon Calamari pilot, and Rulae was too busy firing on another of the skips to look. There was another bright flash in front of him and Rulae followed his instincts and pulled his X-Wing almost straight up.    “Are you alright, sir?” though he could hear her clearly, Rulae couldn’t actually see Adria’s X-Wing anymore. He’d broken off from the two others too fast for them to react and they were probably below him.    Quickly, Rulae’s eyes scanned his systems, “Forward shields are down. Navigation’s a bit fried, but I’m alright.”    As he spoke, he went to diverting power from the starfighter’s engines to boost the shields a bit more and hopefully get the forward shields back up. The X-Wing slowed a bit, and in a second there was Rea and Adria, easily catching up now that he was flying a bit slower.    “Loro’s alright,” Rea said as her X-Wing spit laser fire at the rear of a Coralskipper, “Saw him get out.”    “Good,” Rulae really was glad to hear that.    And then, yet again, Rulae saw a bright flash in front of him, but this time it was in the distance. His X-Wing was banking away, pulling back in a direction to put the main chaos of the battle into view, but he knew what the source had been. The shipyards. Something big had hit them.    “Zephyr One, this is Teril One,” it was the Hapan pilot, “A large Vong cruiser has just broken off from the main fleet. Its firing on the shipyards!”    Rulae forced his X-Wing down, trying to shake off a pair of skips that had gotten behind them and failing to do so, “Are you two okay?”    “Not for long, Zephyr One,” the Hapan’s voice was strained and there was an odd noise in the background that Rulae couldn’t identify, “Looks like another couple of Vong cruisers are coming to join in and they’re going to take notice of us soon.”    There was a yelp of surprise from Rea as her shields took a strong hit, but she quickly reported that it was just minor damage as the three of them vainly attempted to get the rest of the skips off of their tails. These pilots were good. Staying together made it harder to shake them off because Rulae had to worry about slamming into one of the two other fighters. But breaking off meant losing the extra shielding, and that was something they all badly needed.    “Teril One,” Rulae’s head was spinning around to try to see the ships behind him to get an idea of how close they were, “If you can get to us we could really use some help right now!”    “What about the shipyards?”    Rulae spotted one of the skips. It was a good distance behind. Damn. That made it harder to outmaneuver them with so much room for them to react in. After a quick signal through comm clicks to Rea and Adria, they all cut their engine power down a bit more to force the gap to close, then turned hard to port as the skips fired wildly, “Get these skips off of us and then we can worry about the shipyards!”</blockquote>

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