Sithspit Raven cursed mentally as she watched the form completely disappear on the catawalk above. How had she succumbed to such a simple and obvious trick? If there were ever a generic deception in all the Jedi arsenal it had always been the use of illusion, and it had almost cost her her life.
Having touched down on the durasteel deck down by the Strike Cruiser they were all fighting over, she held her hand out, extending her reach with the Force to summon her lightsaber back into her hand - which had been discarded during the fall.
With the metallic grip touching back into her palm she looked up, allowing the Force to build itself under her like a kind of sling shot. When it had been "pulled back" to its extent she crouched and leapt, lifting as though flying through the air until he feet touched down again on the grates.
Raven sighed, her entire visage turning to one of distress. All the adrenaline, all the passion she had just felt, the eagerness to go relieve the pinned down
Mosquito Unit had just evaporated as she fell.
She had called into doubt her own abilities, truly wondering if she had what it would take to assist them - much less save them.
Was she even a real Jedi? Would a
real Jedi have fallen for such a cheap and obvious trick?
But then again...would a Jedi be asking herself these questions? Deciding there was a time later on in life to seek out answers, she held her lightsaber down at her side and pointed away in case she needed to turn it on in a rush. Reaching out with the Force and practically probing the icy, dark feeling that was no doubt the Dark Jedi who had startled her, she continued on.
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A horrified and pained scream broke Dyrien's concentration, causing him for just a moment to look out the right of his cockpit. There he saw the spinning S-Foils, the bits of astromech droid, the chunks of engine that used to be Green Three. The howl had been inhuman, a sound that could not be repeated, nor could it be described.
It was everything Colonel Jacob Dyrien had ever feared about flying in the Kiyaran Space Force.
Though he was jolted back to reality by the grinding metallic sounds of the lasers penetrating past the decimated rear deflector shields, scraping the hull below. Immediately images were conjured to his mind's eye of scorched and torn durasteel in his aft, damages that would cause his fighter to manuever like an encumbered Y-Wing and would make him a sitting bantha.
Unwilling to resign himself to that fate nonetheless, he eased up on the left rudder pedal while pushing his yokestick down and to the right, a typical diagonal dive manuever most often used to outrun rookies.
Though given his luck today, Dyrien doubted these Serasian pilots were rookies.
"Gyro," he yelled as he almost finished the manuever, "get those shields back on-line, get them back on-line now."
A few more green shots sped by the cockpit, near misses that probably should have ended his life in one firey blast. But something, be it luck or fate or maybe even the Force, had stopped those last few shots, giving the colonel just a few more precious seconds.
This time slamming both rudder pedals to the ground - which was accentuated by a brilliant purple flame emitting from the ionic engines on the aft of the fighter - and pushing completely down on the yoke stick the X-Wing did an odd looking bump and long winded drop.
By now the two Interceptors tailing Dyrien were getting tired of his constant drop techniques, and spread out a bit to offer themselves a wider arc of fire with which to hit the annoying colonel with.
But the Kiyaran pilot had something else in mind that the Serasian pilots had not been trained to expect. Just as he had begun to dive, Dyrien eased off the pedals and instead began pulling at the hand-brake, hoping to bring the X-Wing to a near stop in almost no time.
The inertial compensator had all but given up trying to keep up with him, and he was glued to the synthetic leather seat. The TIE Interceptors - the squints - had attempted to do the most logical thing and drop with the X-Wing for when he reverted laterally, but with his sudden stop he pushed a bit more forward while engaging his back up thrusters, allowing him to bring the X-Wing's nose down to bare on the Serasian TIEs.
His finger, which had been itching itself against the red button that was the trigger, pulled back a couple times, letting loose a few short bursts, as though he were testing the waters. The six blasts that lanced out barely struck the left most TIE across a solar panel, which caused it to move skitishly. When Dyrien had gotten more confident in his shots he began letting loose more heavily accentuated volleys, which ripped through the ball-shapped hull of the TIE Interceptor to the left.
With it resolving to a circular inferno, its companion broke off, hoping to use its speed and agility - which were greater than almost any other fighter in the galaxy - to circle around behind Dyrien.
The TIE had rolled on its side with its attempted spin. In response Dyrien switched to quad-linked fire, shooting a pair of shots that caused the entire infrastructure to simply pop, shooting debris everywhere.
Two Interceptors down.
But that wasn't enough. If Dyrien and Green Two were going to be occupied all day by these damn Interceptors and Fighters, the Bombers were going to have clear shots to the shipyard, killing Raven and everyone else on board.
"Green Two, where are the Bombers?" he demanded as he eased off the rudders to let the back up thrusters die down, which would allow the main drive to auto-repair itself afte that stunt it had pulled.
So for just a few seconds he would be a sitting duck.
"Everywhere sir...I got a few but they just keep coming, they'll be in range of the shipyard in less than a minute."
"Gyro, how long until my engines are back?"
The little astromech droid cheeped and blurted a few times, and the translation rolled across the screen to indicate that it would be another twenty five seconds.
Dyrien swore under his breath, slamming his control panel in front of him with the palm of his hand. By the time he got back into the fray it would be all over, the shipyard would be as good as dead, and all who had died here would have done so in vain.
It would be the ultimate insult.
Dyrien looked up at the six craft flying directly at him - six TIE/ln Fighters hoping to finish off the troublesome colonel no doubt.
Conceding to admit that this would be his last few moments, he took the yoke stick in hand once more and switched the controls of the guns to free aim. They were not turrets and so did not have a largely varied firing arc, but they could adjust just a bit to allow the pilot to fire up, down, left or right.
The targetting reticle befell one of the TIE Fighters, causing it to light up in a red glow with a low-pitched ring. Pulling against the trigger button the gold-red blasts shot forward, destroying the TIE.
Fifteen seconds until the engines were back up.
He took aim and shot at another one, this time blowing off a solar panel with the quad-linked cannons.
Thirteen seconds.
The TIEs opened up their own volleys that scraped across what was left of the X-Wing's meager shields. In a few places there were even instances of lasers penetrating and shooting straight through hull.
Dyrien brought the reticle to bare over another, the shots penetrating the cockpit itself, killing the pilot before the craft spun out of control to its firey doom.
Eight seconds.
So this was it. This was how he was going to die.
At least... he thought
it will have been in the cockpit of an X-Wing.
He brought his target over one more TIE. He squeezed the trigger and in unison the remaining TIE Fighters exploded in a brilliant show of fireworks, followed by the vooming sound that could only be emitted by ion engines.
Dyrien looked on either side of him, his eyes wide with both disbelief and curiousity.
There they were, X-Wings, it seemed like hundreds of them flying over head, soaring past Dyrien's in mint condition, their purple-flames being vomitted from their engines trying fast to keep up.
The fighters dipped and rolled, dodging what meager resistance the other TIEs tried to put up. Whoever the hell these pilots were, they were good.
Very good.
Gyro whistled a few times to indicate that engines were back on-line and that he was going to try to work on getting the deflector shields up.
Dyrien tapped his helmet in acknowledgement and sped up as quickly as he could. There was a lagging TIE Interceptor which had dropped behind the others, no doubt to try and pick off one of the X-Wings who was assisting in the complete destruction of the sixty Imperial model craft.
The Kiyaran lined up his targetting reticles once more with the squint-shaped fighter and attacked with his needle-point cannons. The re-adjusted two-linked cannons blasted across the tiny TIE.
Looking down at his HUD to get a quick count, there were only seven Serasian fighters left, those who had been on the flanks being completely mopped up by A-Wings who had come with these mysterious X-Wings.
Dyrien did not know what to say as he saw the two TIE Bombers and three TIE Fighters fleeing back to their carrier in the distance, which was making a similar flight toward the nav buoy.
Pulling on the hand-brake, Dyrien came to a complete stop, opening up a hail with the unidentified fighters.
