The Squadron had spent the last hour picking their way through the debris field, working their way from the hangar bay of the Immobilizer 418 Cruiser ‘Interruption’ towards the ambush point. Trained by their commander to be patient and cunning, they had run at minimal power, ghosting through the remains of what had once been a large Clone Wars battle with nary a word spoken in between them, maintaining disciplined radio silence, making sure to do nothing that would give away their position. Their target was a New Republic convoy, ferrying vital supplies to the fighting on a major skirmish just at the border of Vast Empire space that was threatening to spill fully into their territory. A Squadron of TIE Interceptors and an the Interruption had been sent outside VE space in order to ambush the convoy, board it and take the supplies for themselves. The only problem was that the convoy had a powerful escort – a full squadron of 12 X-Wing starfighters, still the finest starfighter in service to the New Republic. Armed with proton torpedoes, overpowered, long-range laser cannons and shields that could soak up a lot of damage, they were a threat for any enemy.

The Interceptor’s Squadron Commander, a young officer from Timbra Ott named Sam Jack Dunn, had been instructed with drawing the escort away so that the Interruption’s marines could close and board the transports without being shot to pieces en-route. Known and feared for his applications of stealth and ambush warfare to a field of combat not used to such concepts, he was deemed the perfect man to ambush and overwhelm the escort squadron. The TIE Vanguard he’d personally flown out earlier to make sure the convoy was there had determined that there were three unarmed Rebel Transports, along with the escort squadron. His mission was two-fold: Destroy the escorts, and ensure that the transports were not damaged during the fighting. He and the Flight Commanders had discussed the plan they would be going with, and had eventually settled on a double-double bluff.

As planned, Cresh Flight split off from the rest of the squadron first and peeled to the left, a little earlier along the convoy’s projected flight path than the location of the ambush itself. Sam Dunn had faith in Cresh 1 to perform his role well, and the Flight Commander had seemed eager to fulfil his role – even if it meant sitting out the first part of the battle. Though he could not break radio silence, within the privacy of his own helmet, he wished the man luck, remembering his own time as a flight commander and hoping he had passed on enough knowledge to the young man to give him an edge – the mistakes he himself had made were ones he was determined that his men would not repeat. The four Interceptors disappeared without a sound, the scream of their Twin Ion Engines muffled by the vacuum of space.

It wasn’t long after that before Besh Flight broke off and dived, heading below the plane of the battle and waiting for the right signal, their fighters facing upwards. Besh’s leader would get the job done, Sam knew how much she loved to use unexpected vectors to full advantage in battle, and when she had suggested setting the horizontal plane of battle, and then come up at the enemy from below, he had not only congratulated her thinking, but put her in charge of coming up with the plan for this counterblow. It was a chance for her to prove herself, and they both knew she was determined to not let him down. He didn’t think for a second that she would.

Finally, he stopped  his own fighter just inside the edge of the asteroid field, and powered down his engines, the other three members of Aurek Flight doing the same. As one, they transferred the power from their weapons to the targeting computer, boosting its range and accuracy. He had instilled his men and women with an instinctual knowledge of power management, and when their opening missile salvo came at the New Republic convoy from nowhere, he knew that Aurek Flight’s retreat would be organized and disciplined…and lead any pursuit over the metaphorical spike pit that Cresh Leader had formed her team into. For now, however, there was nothing that he could do but sit and wait in silence. Though there was no way the Rebels would be able to understand what they were saying, with the VE’s superior encryption abilities, the very presence of radio chatter would warn them.

His Squadron took the wait well, having been trained in some techniques for passing the time and keeping attentive that he had learned the hard way – patience was not only a virtue in his team, but it was a skill to be developed and honed, something that anyone could learn. It was about another fourty five minutes before his passive scanners picked up the convoy, negotiating through the asteroid field on their way to the next jump point. The twelve X-wings were in standard escort formation, with one Flight protecting each of the three New Republic Transports. He trained his sights on the first X-wing, and waited until exactly 16:35, about two minutes after they came into view. His flight members were doing the same, selecting a target and then waiting until a pre-determined time before trying to get a lock – an ambush technique that Gamma One had helped him develop in order to ensure that firing was perfectly synchronized in a radio-silence situation.

When he fired up the targeting computer and got a lock, the warning that the X-wing pilot received came at the same time that the rest of his Flight got their own warnings, and under a second later, Sam Jack Dunn pressed the fire button on his control yoke, four times in quick succession. The fighter bucked as four Concussion Missiles streaked from it towards the nearest X-wing starfighter, and watched as another twelve leapt from the asteroid fields and homed in on their own targets. Outrunning four anti-fighter missiles was all but impossible without warning first, and at this range. The battle began with three detonations lighting up the black of space – the lead pilot, apparently, was some kind of missile-dodging god. After he was damn sure the convoy had gotten a look at his fighter, he and his flight turned and ran.

Radio silence rescinded.
“Aurek Two, reporting confirmed kill.”
“Aurek Three, same here.”
“Aurek Four, got mine.”
“Aurek Lead – mine got lucky. Besh Lead, we’re coming back, be ready for them.”

The New Republic pilot that had just lost his flight-mates appeared to be upset by the sudden bereavement, and gunned his fighter in the direction of the retreating fighters, eager to extract revenge by whatever means were necessary. A lone X-wing against a flight of TIE Interceptors was suicidal, and one of the flights peeled off as well, joining in the pursuit. They had to clear the asteroid field – they couldn’t risk that more ambushers were waiting inside, to pick off the transports. The third flight remained where they were, but spread out to cover the rest of the transports and kept moving to make a target lock more difficult to achieve. They had taken the bait, but wisely left a rearguard. So far, so good – they were playing right into Sam Dunn’s hands. The nimble Interceptors of Aurek flight made swift progress through the field, dodging and weaving past the rocks that made the place into a virtual obstacle course. However, the pilots of the X-wings showed remarkable skill and co-ordination in their pursuit, and though a target lock wasn’t possible yet, they weren’t falling behind.

“Enemy is in my sights – let’s gut ‘em.”
Those words sealed the pursing X-Wing’s fate, as the Interceptors from the waiting Besh flight pounced, screaming up from hiding to engage the vulnerable underbelly of the X-Wings. Blind-firing concussion missiles then remote detonating them when they were close enough, the area around the X-Wings became a shrapnel-filled hell, as the missiles detonated around them, damaging the shields and destroying their forward momentum. One lucky hit blew half of one of the fighter’s wings clean off, leaving it without one of its oversized laser cannons. That wasn’t all, though, because the nearby asteroids were hit too, and suddenly bits of rock were propelled in all directions with impressive force. The shields of the X-Wings, already reeling, failed entirely as the fighters were bombarded with shrapnel. The damaged X-Wing was unlucky, damaged enough for the life support systems to be compromised. The pilot quickly suffocated, leaving the pursing force down to four craft. An uneven fight, by anyone’s book.

After softening up their opposition, Besh Flight went in for the kill, screaming up as the shrapnel cleared the area and filling the void with bright-green laserfire whilst the enemy was reeling. Their shields gone and pilots stunned by the swift, explosive attack, another of the fighters was holed by Besh Leader’s laserfire, and drifted through space, demoted from deadly war machine to another piece of debris by a single, well-placed shot. The fighters flew straight through the broken enemy formation, and swung around for another pass. By then, Aurek Flight had split into two – one pair, including Aurek Leader, swung back and headed straight for the developing brawl, whilst the other moved towards the transport convoy – aiming to meet Cresh Flight there, where they’d operate under Cresh Leader’s command.

“He’s on my tail – get in behind him!”
“I’ve go – damn it! He’s slipped away!”
“I can’t –AAAARGH!”

The death-scream, a cry of rage, fear, pain and futility was something that each person never made than once in his life, and as he gunned the Twin Ion Engine of his TIE Interceptor, passing asteroids by barely more than a meter as he raced back towards the fight, he knew that one of his troops wasn’t coming home. As he reached the edge of the fighting, he saw the remains of what had once been Besh Three, and bit down hard on his lip to stifle a growl of rage. Damn it, they’d planned this perfectly – and the execution had so far been textbook! What had he done wrong, how had he let one of his own die like this? He gripped his control yoke tighter and narrowed his gaze, watching as the two remaining X-wing fighters moved with droid-like precision to pounce on Besh Two from opposing angles, and riddled the fighter with a crossfire that turned the stars red for a few seconds. Damn it!

He looked closer at the two remaining fighters, and noticed that the lead one was the survivor from the first flight that his troops had attacked – the lone survivor, and his flying was putting everyone to shame. Damn it, they just had to have taken on a multi-ace, didn’t they?

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