Innocent Deception

            A small one-man fighter barrel rolled, and headed for the darkened base. With a small click the targeting computer was engaged. Still no sign of the enemy. That was good. The entire place was asleep. He targeted the main tower, got tone, and released the bright blue proton torpedo into the night. Immediately, he targeted the living quarters, and fired again. That same instant he was spotted, and alarms all over the complex blared. To late. The proton torpedoes impacted. Goodbye Jedi.

            Jerika sat bolt upright, in her bed. The nightmare still swirled through her mind, pumping adrenaline through her. A warning through the Force, it had to be. She leapt up tearing herself free from Kaidd’s grasp. No time. She thought as she hurried into her flight suit. She strapped on her utility belt as Kaidd opened a bleary eye.

            “What is it?” Jerika stretched out an arm towards a panel on the far wall and hit the general alert button with the force, which set a siren wailing.

            “Rissa’s throwing us a party, I’m gonna go welcome them” she said as she dashed out the door towards he waiting fighter   Kaidd was on his feet in an instant. Snatching up the comlink, he thumbed it on. The tower was loudly demanding to know what in the Force was going on. “Tower, Master Fel! We have incoming! Scramble fighters ASAP! This is not an exercise, this is real world, repeat this real world!” As he spoke, he hurried into his cloths, and sped out the door. Jacy was in the hall of their reserved wing, running towards the war room. As soon as they rounded the corner, they were joined by other Jedi running towards their stations

“Jay!” he called. She glanced back “Heading for Jer’s ship, I need a gunner” Jacy grinned, and nodded following him to the hanger where Jerika’s cruiser sat waiting.  In the huge hangar bay, Kaidd caught sight of Jerika shouting orders to the fighters. Cam was among them, he knew. Tarri was in the tower, or the war room with Talsyn ready to help direct the coming battle.

“Hey Fel!” Jerika shouted. His head snapped up. He grinned at Jeri, who was jumping into the small fighter

“What is it Commander Mansel?” She loved hearing that.

“Don’t you hurt my baby!” She blew him a kiss, and closed the cockpit. Kaidd ran up the ramp, using the force to hit the ramp release. Jacy had started the engines already, and was in the port turret warming up the guns. He slid into the pilot’s seat just in time to see the hangar door slide open, and fighters pour out, led by his girl. Concentrate. He told himself.

“Hope you’re strapped in Jay!” He called as he initiated the repulsors, and fired the sublight engines.

“ She’ll be okay.” Jacy voice came through his headset. “She’s a great pilot” Kaidd flipped the comm. To open freq.

“ Forty-five seconds to engagement” Talsyn announced

“Forty-five seconds to engagement.” Talsyn boomed through Jerika’s narrow cockpit. She glanced at her radar. Twenty-five little red blips, representing the small cylindrical fighters commonly referred to as “blanks” and two bigger ones, light cruisers, probably. Then twelve little blue ones, representing her Jedi fighter squadron, and one larger blue; Jerika’s private cruiser, currently being operated by Kaidd.

“Alright Rogues, form up on me. First to shoot five drinks free this weekend. Switch to open freq, and cut all unnecessary chatter.” Jerika said into the squadron frequency.

“Copy Rogue Leader” Cam dutifully replied, obviously excited, and determined to win the bet. She grinned. She’d demanded that her squadron of Jedi fighters would be Rogue Squadron, or nothing. Eventually she got her way. They’re not X-wings, but they’ll do. They were about as far from X-wings as you could get actually. They looked more like stingrays. She pushed the throttle, coaxing more speed from her little fighter, and caught sight of the first enemy craft. The one from her vision.

            “Stay alert, cover each other” Jerika ordered, and then took a breath, letting go, as the force took over. “Rogue squadron engaging enemy”

            “Try to disable as many as possible, Rogue Leader” Talsyn said. “We need any information we can get.”

            “Copy that,” She said. “Rogues, you copy last? Disable when possible, but blast ‘em if they get fresh”

            “That’s affirm” Cam again. As the other affirmations came, she targeted the first fighter. She didn’t use a targeting computer. You didn’t need one, not with the Force. Even so, they still had shields. Pretty good ones at that, and it took a few shots before the fighter exploded in front of her. She pulled hard to port as a fighter came up behind her. He followed easily. She twisted back starboard, and dove into a corkscrew. The fighter stayed on her tail. No problem. Without warning, she pulled her craft straight up, the engines whined in protest, threatened to stall, as she turned the dive into a tight loop. She was now directly behind him, firing as she finished the roll. Seconds later, she was in search of a new target. Two down twenty-three to go

            Talsyn sighed. From the way Jerika talked, you’d think her squad outnumbered the enemy two to one, instead of the other way around. Kaidd, and Jacy were no better.  Tarrius leaned closer to the com unit.

            “Watch it Jer-ah, Rogue Leader, those fighters are fanning out.” He said quickly, as the enemy ships spread out, and formed up, trying to surround their prey.

            “You watch those cruisers, control, I’ll take care of the fighters” She snapped.  Tarri bristled

            “Copy that.  GIR What’s your status?”

            “Terrible, control” Kaidd replied “We invited Rissa’s guys over for a drink, but they not-so-politely refused, and frankly I’m crushed” Talsyn kept his eyes on the sensor display, as he shook his head. No, Kaidd’s still got the lead on arrogance. He’s good though. He thought as cruiser one took another volley from the GIR’s turbolasers. There were considerably fewer little red dots, and that was proof enough that Jeri had earned the right to lead her squadron. A warning klaxon sounded throughout the war room, announcing the arrival of reinforcements, and not theirs.

            “Tarrius.” Talsyn said quickly. Tarri glanced over, and swore.

            “Rogue leader, since you’ve got these fighters under control, you could probably handle the dozen that just dropped out of hyperspace with that bulk cruiser right?”

            “Oh, sure, I’ll get around to it, control” There was a definite edge in her voice now. Talsyn sighed, and turned to one of the com officers.

            “Call Seffie from the hospital, tell her to come run the tower, I’m taking Tarrius, and the Nexus up.

            “Yes sir” the tech replied, and Seffie was on the way before Talsyn even left the war room.

            Blast! Jerika thought as more than a dozen fighters, and a bulk cruiser swarmed into the battle. Bulk cruisers were slow, but they were tough, and positively bursting with weapons. Their shields were no laughing matter either. It wouldn’t be in range for a few minutes, but they would be out of luck if at least one of the light cruisers, and most of the fighters weren’t scrap by then. She carefully aimed at her newest target, and pulled the trigger. The fighter dodged a half a second too late, the first beam overloaded the shields, and the second blew the canopy apart, incinerating the pilot. So much for taking prisoners. She calmed her mind, letting the force take control. 

            “Nine, Take your flight, and help the GIR with the cruisers. The rest of you, watch your six, and stay the hell away from those cruisers till we get those fighters under control.” She yelled into the com quickly as she fired on another ship. As she blasted though the engines, she saw the tiny blue blips representing Cam, and his flight break off, and join the GIR. Another blip caught her eye in the process. “Four! Break hard right, you got a blank on your six!”  It was too late. Four banked, but caught a blast of laser in the engines.

“Who gave those cruisers permission to be such BASTARDS” Jacy snarled from her turret. Kaidd didn’t respond, he was too busy rolling the GIR to avoid their rather imposing laser turrets. He snapped off a few shots with his forward guns, as Jacy fired from the port turret.

“Wait! I got an idea!” Kaidd shouted Jacy’s eyes grew large

“No wait! You tell me the idea, and I shoot it down, that’s how teams work”

“Don know if you’ve noticed we’re out of time. As soon as that bulk waddles over here, we’re done. Cruiser A’s shields are almost gone. so I’m gonna come up between the two, and hopefully they’ll shoot each other, meanwhile you blast the rest of their guns, and theoretically we should disable them.” Jacy took a moment to let his words sink in, as she caught a stray fighter in her crosshairs.

“You are a lunatic. You are almost as crazy as Jeri, and if Rissa’s boys don’t kill us she will because this is gonna destroy her ship.”

“We’re out of time, Jacy” Kaidd’s voice had a finality in it, that convinced her.

“Ready when you are”

“I’m hit!” Rogue Four shouted, “I can’t maneuver!” The ship went spinning off out of control. The blank pulled up behind it, moving in for the kill as three came in, and incinerated it.

“Good job three. Four, what’s your status?” Jerika said. Silence. “Four respond”

“No control…shields gone” came the broken reply. The gs were obviously getting to her. Her presence in the force was fading. Three couldn’t concentrate on the fighters, and defending her wingman.

            “Eject, four,” She ordered. Silence. “FOUR!” No reply. An alarm sounded, announcing that someone had gotten tone on her. She yanked her yoke straight up, then immediately to starboard, rolled sideways, and dove, the g-force of the maneuver threatening to black her out, or stall the engine. She came out of the dive at a right angle to the fighter, blasting it as she went. As it vaporized, she directed her mind to four’s. She was unconscious, and slipping. Using all the strength she could muster, she pressed the ejection lever, and four blasted off into space.

            “Control, Rogue leader, got one extra-vehicular Jedi, requesting pickup.”

            “Copy that” Now, back to the main fight

            Kaidd made one more pass around the starboard side of cruiser b. This was insane. Flying right between two fully armed cruisers. Sure this ship was heavily armed. Much more heavily armed than the council knew, or would approve of, but that still was nothing to the TWO heavily armed cruisers and a bulk on the way.

            “We have less than two minutes till that bulk cruiser gets in range” Jacy announced. Kaidd sighed.

            “This is the GIR, starting our attack run on the cruisers” Taking a deep breath, he pulled around behind and below the two cruisers. He had to position the GIR so that Jacy’s port turret would be in range of cruiser a, while he could shoot either from the cockpit, while ignoring the sudden flurry of protests coming from Rogue Leader who had apparently just figured out what was about to happen. His mind flickered to Jeri as he increased his throttle, pushing the GIR to maximum speed toward the two gunships.

 As Jerika spoke, yelled rather, at Kaidd she checked the radar again. Seven available Rogues, and sixteen blanks. The GIR, and three flight was about to disable the first cruiser, or be blown to icy bits, and on top of that, the bulk was all but in range and about to start firing at any moment. This was quickly getting out of hand.