2 o’clock. Why do we always have drills at 2 o’clock in the morning? Why can’t we have one in the middle of the day for once?
“All personnel, report to your battle stations immediately. All personnel, report to battle stations.”
This message continued to repeat itself as Gordon groaned and got himself out of bed. He had known there was going to be a drill sometime in the next week, but hadn’t been informed when it would be. He had tried to get to bed earlier, so that these drills wouldn’t be as much of a problem, but had not been able to. He had spent too much of his time stopping the pilots in his squadron from harassing or heckling the pilots in other ones. They were an elite group, originally from the Outer Rim Sovereignty, and some of the newer pilots that he had brought into his squadron were quite full of themselves. He trusted his main core of pilots, the ones that had been with him all along, to behave respectably, and help him out when the younger pilots proved to be a problem, but he didn’t have much confidence in the younger pilots beyond his confidence in their piloting ability. Most weren’t too bad, but there were a couple which were arrogant, had huge egos, and were generally just full of themselves. Even being vaped in simulators didn’t stop them from being so arrogant. They had really been coming down hard on the pilots in Reaper Squadron, disagreeing with Exar Shadow Fel’s idea of a combined squadron. While Gordon Fren supported the idea, he couldn’t convince the younger pilots, and hoped that Fel and Reaper Squadron would perform well in the upcoming exercise. If they did a good enough job then maybe his pilots would respect their comrades more.
Gordon quickly finished getting dressed, and ran out into the hall. Other pilots under his command, both in his squadron and in the others, were running down the hall towards the docking bay, where his TIE Defender sat waiting. He quickly hopped into it and began going through his pre-flight checklist. Suddenly his comm unit cracked.
“All pilots, this is Fleet Admiral Smith. This is an exercise. The Imperials have attacked us here at Ando, and are driving towards the shipyards. Your mission is to protect our fleet from their fighters, and protect our bombers.”
Than the Admiral’s voice cut out. Gordon quickly activate his comm unit, set to the Swift Liberty’s starfighter channel, and began broadcasting.
“All pilots, confirm readiness. Launch when Control gives you authorization. Form up in squadrons and wait for further instructions.”
He then quickly switched back to the channel he shared with Slasher Squadron.
“Slasher Lead, 2 engines green.”
“Slasher Two, ready.”
“Slasher Three, everything in the green.”
“Slasher Four, left engine in the green, right showing usual fluxuations.”
“Flight Two ready.”
“Flight Three ready.”
“Slasher Squadron ready to launch.”
“This is Control, you have permission to launch.”
Gordon quickly flew out of the hangar bay and sized up the situation as other pilots flew out behind him.
The ‘Imperials’ had brought in five Imperial Star Destroyers, 6 Victory Star Destroyers, an escort carrier, and 4 Carrack Cruisers. The ships immediately began deploying fighters, both TIE Defenders and TIE Bombers. The Galactic Coalition force included 2 Neron Xyto Cruisers, Neron and Memory of Tholatin, both of which were launching 72 TIE Defenders, 6 Skipray Blastboats and 5 Sentinel Shuttles. Also present was the MC-90 Star Cruiser Swift Liberty, the 2 Republic Star Destroyers, Ando’s Pride and Strident, both launch 72 TIE Defenders, the 2 Haven Light Cruisers, Defender and Freedom and Defender Gunship 12 to Defender Gunship 18, each launching 6 TIE Defenders. A further 48 MC-10 Starfighters and 72 B-wings were launching from the shipyard.
The Imperial Star Destroyers were arrayed in a wedge, and driving straight for the shipyard. The Victory Star Destroyers were in 2 wedges on either side, the escort carrier hung back, and the carrack cruisers were on the edge of the fleet. Fighters swarmed around the ships.
Fleet Admiral Smith had his ships in a line, with Swift Liberty in the centre, the 2 Neron’s flanking it, and the 2 Republic Star Destroyers were on either side. The Haven Light Cruisers were beside the Republic Star Destroyers, and the Defender Gunships were split in 2 groups of 3, arrayed beside the Haven Light Cruisers. The fighters were spread out below the ships.
Suddenly a blinding flash of light swept up from the planet, followed by another. It came up out of nowhere, and impacted on the shields of the lead Imperial Star Destroyer. The Imperial Star Destroyer quickly slowed down and began breaking of the attack, but the other ships were still there. When Gordon switched back to the fleet frequency he heard the tail end of the message sent by the Imperial Star Destroyer, saying that the Planetary Ion Cannons had disabled it. Then the NGC attack began. The TIE Defenders flew forward, lead by General Gordon Fren and Slasher Squadron, and immediately attacked the Imperials. As they closed with the fighters, a salvo of paint missiles was sent out, and flew into the Imperial’s tight formation, causing devastating losses, all of which immediately broke off, and their signal on the sensor board changed from red to white. However the Imperials’ return salvo was also quite deadly, and numerous NGC fighters had to break off the attack. Meanwhile the MC-10 Starfighters and SAB/SSFs were escorting the B-wings, Skipray Blastboats, and Sentinel shuttles towards the Victory Star Destroyer on the far right side of the engagement. The initial strafing run saw a titanic salvo of paint missiles fired at the ship, along with numerous laser cannon and ion cannon fire.
Some Imperial TIE Defenders immediately broke off their engagement with the NGC fighters, to strike at this new threat. Because they were forced to turn their backs to their enemies, the suffered even more casualties. However the Imperial Bombers kept on coming, and soon NGC fighters would have to do something to stop them.
Then the capital ships came into range of each other. Swift Liberty plowed ahead, slipping in between the two lead Imperial Star Destroyers, taking fire from both, but able to fire all her guns at the ‘Imperials’. The two Neron – class Xyto Cruisers also moved forward, firing their guns at the Imperial Star Destroyers on the edge of their wedge, and the two that Swift Liberty was attacking. The Republic Star Destroyers each attacked a wedge of Victory Star Destroyers, followed by a Haven Light Cruiser. The Defender Gunships, split into groups of three, were firing at the Carrack Cruisers. Currently they were suffering lots of damage, but were dishing out a lot as well. Then the planetary ion cannons fire again, ‘disabling’ a Victory Star Destroyer on the left side, and ‘disabling’ a Carrack Cruiser on the same side. Now the odds the Defender Gunships were doing good on the left side, and the Republic Star Destroyer along with the Haven Light Cruiser on that side weren’t doing bad either. On the right side the MC-10 Starfighters, SAB/SSFs and the ships they were escorting returned and strafed their target again, ‘destroying it’. They then began engaging the Imperial TIE Defenders sent to destroy them, while the B-wings, along with the Skipray Blastboats and SAB/SSFs began flying towards the TIE Bombers, which were past the NGC defence line, and on route for the shipyards.
Gordon looked around for Reaper Squadron, and initially didn’t find them. But then he saw them. They were going after one of the Carrack Cruisers on the right side, helping out the Defender Gunships, who needed the help badly. It seemed they had also recruited the 10 Sentinel Shuttles. He wished them luck, and then returned to his fight…