*Carrack Cruiser Amethyst en route to Abrae. Somewhere in the outer rim. Payload, Nazgul Flight 3 – Tie Clutch Fighters*

Casca was polishing his boots in the barracks, oblivious to anything that may be going on around him.  The fact was that when Casca concentrated on polishing, nothing else mattered until he was finished.  As he cleaned the leather with a wet cloth, he pulled out the shoe shine and cracked open the can.  It was old his fathers, and it smelled like sweaty bantha droppings.  Casca had used it all his life. It was amazing that the polish never ran out.  It was, however, dwindling down and would need to be replaced soon.  Casca dabbed the cloth in the polish and began making circular movements on the toe and continued up the boot.

Klaxons, all over the ship would go off as what felt like an earthquake rippled through the ship.  A young voice would announce the attack, "All able pilots report to the hanger bay immediately.  Gunners to positions.  We need all medical crew to the bridge!"  Casca was thrown to the ground during the strike, his shoe polish thrown against the bunk, going everywhere.  Casca pulled his flight suit on over his uniform and grabbed his helmet before heading strait to the hanger.

"Casca!" called Tomas, "Bridge was hit, they took out the shields, we need to get up now!" Tomas looked seriously worried.

"If that is true, why don't they just destroy the ship now?" Casca asked as the twp ran for the hanger. "Where is the rest of our Flight?"

"Injured in the blast. Besides, two of the tie fighters are damaged anyway,” Casca nearly slipped as he slid to a stop in front of the fighter loading ladder.  Tomas and he quickly entered their fighters and tied up all but the most trivial checks on the list.  “Nazgul Squadron, Flight Three, flight leader Warrant Officer 2nd Class Tomas Dagoram requesting permission…”

“Just go already, we don’t have time.  They have four of what looks like uglies, and two y wings.  Definatly parts of some rebel snub fighter and tie interceptors on the uglies.”  The announcer said. He couldn’t have been more than eighteen.  Casca recognized the fighters as RDA z-ceptors. Only these were built with x-wing parts and had heavier weapons.  “They say that they want our ship and are offering us a chance to surrender.”

"Hell no! Nazgul 9, let's show them what we got!"  Casca said as he came up on Tomas's wing.  The two y-wings broke from the uglies at the site of the interceptors.  Casca fired behind them as a warning before following Tomas into a sharp break to avoid the several missiles heading for them. "They aren't locked, break and get on them."

"Can't, we got two turning to take our tails if we do.  Curse, immel now!"  The two were barely meters from each other as they struggled to keep a tight immelman.  As they rolled their fighters around the pinnacle of the maneuver, they had all four fighters in the bottom of their viewports.  "Break`an Engage!"  Tomas ordered as he fired wildly into a flight of x-ceptors.  Casca dipped his nose down and locked onto one of the excecptors, launching two missiles and then switching targets to launch a third missile at the final enemy ship.

Tomas eliminated one target and damaged.  Casca hit both, one punched its throttle and escaped to hyperspace, the other was too damaged to do anything.  Casca got back on Tomas's wing and helped strafe the last able exceptor's wing, destroying it and causing the last two y-wings to escape to hyperspace.  "Nazgul Flight 3, we have a reactor leak.  We are evacuating the ship, make your jump to Tadath and tell them to send rescue ships to our locations, we are launching escape pods at minimal velocity to reduce drift."

"But what about the ship?" Tomas asked.

"We have to follow orders, Tomas.  There is nothing we can do."

"You have your orders, good luck."  The com shut off and there was nothing for them to do but calculate the jump to Tadath.



Mission: Failure
Casualties: 23
Outcome: Ship lost, most of crew retrieved. Patrol reports pirates around Ammund Sector.