The Millennium Falcon maneuvered deftly among the assembled fleet of cruisers, a single file row of fighters following in perfect formation. In the cockpit, just behind the co-pilot's seat, Sunset looked up from a bank of sensor and communication readings. "The gang's all here, General."
Lando Calrissian, in the pilot's seat, nodded and switched on the ship's comlink. "Admiral, we're in position; all fighters accounted for."
"Proceed with the countdown," replied the rich voice of Admiral Luna from the speaker. "All groups assume attack coordinates."
Cray, seated in the co-pilot's position, was reviewing the attack plan. "This could get real ugly real quick if that shield's still up," he thought aloud.
"Don't worry, Han's down there," Lando assured him. "He'll have that shield down on time."
Cray looked to the other earth pony with a humorless chuckle. "Yeah, or this'll be the shortest offensive of all time..."
"You took the words right outta my mouth," the chocolate stallion muttered.
The banter was interrupted by Admiral Luna's voice through the comlink. "All craft: prepare to jump into hyperspace on my mark!"
"All right, stand by," said Lando, who then nodded to Cray. "Punch it." As Cray slowly slid down the set of control levers to his left, the starfield outside the ship's viewport blurred and the Falcon accelerated beyond the speed of light.
A moment later, Lando excused himself and headed out of the cockpit. Sunset turned and leaned forward from her position, over Cray's shoulder. "So, I gotta ask: why the change of heart?"
Cray just grinned sheepishly, not really looking at her. "I figured, if you can stop running, so can I." He then sighed softly. "Besides, my life hasn't really meant much to anypony; maybe my death can..."
"Don't talk like that," she softly admonished him. "We'll make it out of this... and I know at least one pony your life means quite a bit to." Her ear twitched, picking up the sound of Lando's return; she very lightly kissed Cray on the cheek and slid back to her own position.
"Did I miss something?" asked Lando with a smirk, noting that both of his newest crew members were blushing.
"Tell ya later," said Cray, making a point to not look the other Corellian in the eye.
"We're coming up on Endor," announced Sunset, also keeping her eyes glued to her instrument panel.
Lando nodded, sliding back into the pilot's seat and confirming Sunset's readings. "Cray, cut into sub-light engines in three... two... one... mark."
The swirl of hyperspace receded back into the familiar sight of space. Before them floated a green-and-blue swirled ball: the moon of Endor. In front of it was a smaller, incomplete dot: the Death Star. Everyone in the Falcon's cockpit took in the sight uneasily, then Lando flipped on the comlink. "All wings, report in."
"Red Leader, standing by." Cray noted that it was the same voice that had greeted him and Sunset when they'd first arrived at the fleet.
"Gray Leader, standing by."
"Green Leader, standing by."
The next command came from Red Leader: "Lock S-foils in attack position." All around them, X-Wings and B-Wings deployed their weapons.
"May the Force be with us," came Admiral Luna's voice solemnly.
Sunset tilted her head, a bit concerned about the display on her instruments. "General, I've got no reading on the Death Star's shield."
"We've gotta be able to get some kind'a reading on that shield," replied Lando, "up or down..."
The unicorn mare rechecked her instruments. "It looks like we're being jammed."
Cray looked back over his shoulder. "How could they be jamming us if they don't know..." his face fell as realization set in, "if we're coming..." He exchanged nervous looks with the pilot.
"Break off the attack," Lando barked at the comlink. "The shield is still up!"
"I get no reading," Red Leader's voice replied, sounding confused. "Are you sure?"
"Pull up!" yelled Lando, his hooves and Cray's dancing over the ship's controls. "All craft PULL UP!"
As the fighters veered away from the Death Star, Admiral Luna began calmly issuing orders through the comlink. "Take evasive action; green group, stick close to Holding Sector MG-7."
Sunset's instruments picked up a new... and very unwelcome... reading just as a second voice from Admiral Luna's ship was overheard. "Admiral! We have enemy ships in Sector Forty-Seven!"
Everyone who heard it could tell Admiral Luna was struggling to keep fear out of her voice with her next words. "IT'S A TRAP!"
As they turned away from the Death Star, the Rebel fighter squadrons, led by the Millennium Falcon, found themselves heading directly for the assembled Imperial force.
"Fighters coming in," announced Cray; an instant later, the ship was awash in a swarm of enemy craft.
"There's hundreds of them," said Sunset, staring at her readouts, "thousands of them... this has to be over half the fleet..."
"Accelerate to attack speed," Lando ordered through the comlink. "Draw their fire away from the cruisers." He then addressed his flight crew. "Sunset, keep calling coordinates for the highest concentration of fighters; Cray, keep a sharp eye on deflectors and thruster readouts." Both ponies nodded, and the Falcon went to work, eliminating entire groups of fighters then moving on to the next.
As the ship swooped past the medical frigate, taking out a particularly stubborn knot of TIEs, Cray's eyes started drifting back and forth between his readouts and the viewport, concern clear in his features. This didn't go unnoticed by the pilot.
"Hope you're not getting cold hooves now," Lando quipped.
"No..." Cray glanced over his shoulder. "Sunset, you know more about Imperial procedure than we do; anything seem strange to you?"
"I don't... wait..." she paused, looking at the readouts of the unfolding battle. "Yeah... only the fighters are attacking."
"Wonder what those Star Destroyers are waiting for..." said Lando, trying to keep a hint of nerves out of his voice and not quite succeeding.
"I've got a bad feeling about this," Cray muttered. As if on cue, the star field before them exploded with light, nearly blinding Cray and Lando. "WHAT THE BLAZES?!"
"We just lost the Liberty," Sunset informed the pair, hoping what she was seeing was wrong. "The blast came from the Death Star!"
"That thing's operational?!" exclaimed Cray, disbelief mixing with a slight hint of panic in his voice.
Lando maintained his composure a bit better, flipping on the comlink. "Home One, this is Gold Leader..."
"Dejarik!" replied Admiral Luna's voice. "All craft, prepare to retreat!"
"We won't get another shot at this, Admiral," Lando pointed out.
"We have no choice, General Calrissian," the admiral countered. "Our cruisers can't repel firepower of that magnitude!"
"Han will have that shield down," the earth pony assured her. "We've got to give him more time!"
Sunset looked over her shoulder as Lando turned off the comlink. "Any thoughts on how?"
"Maybe," Cray answered for him, then hesitated.
"If you've got an idea, this isn't the time to keep it to yourself," Lando told him.
"Well, if this was the 'dancer, I'd make sure the biggest gun didn't have a clear shot," Cray explained, "even if it put me in range of the smaller ones..." he looked to his fellow Corellian, who slowly started to grin.
"Cray, you're a genius." Lando turned back to the comlink. "Admiral, I recommend we move our cruisers closer to the enemy fleet."
Admiral Luna's voice sounded incredulous. "We must have a bad connection, General; I thought you said..." her words were cut off by a second shot from the battle station... and another Alliance cruiser being reduced to debris.
"Yes, I said closer!" yelled Lando. "Move as close as you can, and engage those Star Destroyers at point blank range!"
"At that close range, we won't last long against those Star Destroyers," Luna reminded him.
"We'll last longer than we will against that Death Star," the con artist turned general shot back, "and we might just take a few of them with us!"
There was a short pause. "All cruisers," the admiral said finally, "close in on the enemy fleet as General Calrissian suggests".
"Actually, it was Captain Cray's idea," Lando commented, giving his co-pilot a grin and a wink.
Admiral Luna's response was deadpan. "I don't care whose idea it was if it works..."
The tension was almost physical in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon as the battle around them intensified to a fever pitch. "Some good news, at least," Sunset announced. "They're not bothering to jam us any more, and none of my readings indicate the Death Star prepping for another shot." She looked over her shoulder at the co-pilot's seat. "Looks like your idea worked..."
Cray didn't look overly pleased. "Trouble with good news is it usually has bad news with it."
The unicorn mare sighed, turning back to her instruments. "Both sides are taking heavy losses... and they can afford it a lot more than we can..."
Cray then turned to his fellow earth pony. "Remember what I said about this getting ugly?"
"Tryin' not to," Lando muttered, then looked out the viewport toward Endor and added, "c'mon, Han ol' buddy, don't let me down..."
As if on cue, a new reading popped up on Sunset's panel... one that quickly lifted her spirits. "General!" she began excitedly.
Admiral Luna's voice interrupted her from the comlink, unknowingly confirming the mare's new readings. "The shield is down! Commence attack on the Death Star's main reactor!"
"We're on our way," Lando replied with a grin. "Red Group, Gold Group, all fighters follow me!" He released the comlink and turned to Cray. "I told'ja they'd do it!"
The gray stallion couldn't resist a grin himself. "Never doubted it for a second..." out of the corner of his eye, he noted the smirk Sunset shot him. "Well, maybe a second..."
A short flight (and slight modification to Lando's order from Admiral Luna, who had one fighter group stay behind to help cover the cruisers) had the Falcon skimming the Death Star's half-finished surface. "I presume we have a way in?" asked Cray.
Sunset nodded, though he wasn't looking at her at the moment. "There's a heavy maintenance passage that runs from the surface to the reactor chamber, though not quite directly. Crews take supply shuttles through it, so it should be big enough for us and the fighters."
"I've got it marked," added Lando. "We should have visual in just a moment." Sure enough, what appeared at first to be a row of red scaffolding ahead was revealed to actually be a circle of scaffolding around a large hole.
"I'm going in," announced Red Leader through the comlink, then the various fighters ahead of the Falcon swept up and dove into the hole.
"This is it," said Cray, glancing toward Lando.
"Here goes nothing," the chocolate earth pony replied, guiding the Falcon to follow the fighters.
Cray looked around at the corridor they were now flying through. "Glad I'm not claustrophobic."
"Lock onto the strongest power source; it should be the power generator," Lando instructed both Cray and the fighter pilots.
"Marked and plotted," said Cray after a few taps on his console. "Approach won't be easy, but we'll fit."
"Form up," came Red Leader's voice through the comlink, "and stay alert; we could run out of space real fast."
"We've got company," Sunset announced. "Nine marks right behind..." she noticed one of her readings change shortly after the ship took a particularly tight turn. "Correction: eight marks; one just hit that wall." Another reading then came up, causing her to frown. "We just lost Red Three..."
"We're sitting mynocks in here, Lando," Cray added.
Lando nodded, then tapped the comlink. "Wedge, stay on target with me; the rest of you, split up and head back to the surface... and see if you can get some of those TIE Fighters to follow you." A chorus of "copy, Gold Leader" followed, then the fighters, save Red Leader, broke off.
Sunset rechecked her instruments. "The TIEs are breaking off also," she said. "We're down to two... they're staying on us, but they're not firing."
"They've figured out they can't get through the aft deflectors," Lando nodded, looking down at his own instruments. "We should have nothing to..."
"LANDO! EYES UP!" screamed Cray, just in time for Lando to see the jutting catwalk ahead of the ship and avoid a full collision. It wasn't in time, though, to avoid a glancing blow that shook the cabin despite inertia dampers.
"That was too close," Lando muttered amid blaring cabin alarms.
"We've lost rectenna signal," Sunset told them, noting that one of her displays had gone blank.
"I think we just lost the rectenna," Cray replied with a smirk toward the pilot.
"Short-range communications are still up," she continued, then her jaw fell open at a display update. "I don't believe it... they took out the Executor!"
"The what?" asked Cray
"The super star destroyer?!" asked Lando in unison.
Sunset nodded, grinning. "The flagship of the Imperial Fleet is nothing but debris!"
"There it is," Wedge's voice interrupted through the comlink. The passage they flew through opened into an enormous chamber with their objective, the Death Star's main reactor, at its center.
"All right, Wedge, go for the power regulator on the north tower," Lando instructed.
"Copy, Gold Leader," he replied. "I'm already on my way out." The Falcon's flight crew watched as the X-Wing with them banked up and to the right.
The pilot then turned to his fellow Corellian. "Proton torpedoes at your control."
"Got 'em primed," said Cray. "Almost in range..." The freighter steadily approached the massive reactor. "A little more... in range!"
"FIRE!" Lando barked. A tap on Cray's controls later, several balls of light streaked from the Falcon's nose, colliding with the reactor and igniting a gigantic fireball.
"Direct hit!" Sunset told them. "Reactor's going critical!"
"Job's done, let's get outta here!" Cray said nervously.
"Don't gotta tell me twice," Lando responded, banking the Falcon around and making for the passage they came in through.
The Falcon raced back through the corridors, still cautiously but much more quickly than coming in, one TIE and a wall of flames in close pursuit. Sunset's eyes were fixed to her displays. "Good news and bad news, gentlecolts," she said. "Good news is Red Leader is clear of the Death Star."
"Do I dare ask the bad news?" asked Lando.
She answered his question with a question. "You ever seen a star go nova?"
"Once," said Cray as Lando shook his head.
Sunset sighed. "We're about to see it from the inside... we'll make the final straightaway, but according to my calculations, we're not fast enough to get out before the firestorm overtakes us."
Cray started thinking quickly. "How far from the last turn to the exit?"
Sunset checked her readings. "At current speed..."
"Top speed at the moment," Lando added.
Sunset nodded and continued. "We'd need twenty-four seconds to get clear. However, once we pass the last turn, the firestorm will overtake us in eight and cook us in another ten... twelve if we go to full shield."
"We need to buy ourselves four to six seconds," Cray mumbled, then turned to Lando. "Malastare gambit?"
"We'll lose a lot more than credits if we bust," Lando reminded him.
"You got a better idea?"
"What's a Malastare gambit?" asked Sunset as Lando shook his head.
"It's a desperation move in sabacc," Lando explained. "You bet everything you've got on one risky play and hope like hell it works." He glanced at Sunset, who nodded, then to Cray before returning his eyes forward. "Do it."
"That TIE still back there?" Cray asked as they came around the final turn.
"Yes... no," she replied. "Firestorm just got it."
Cray's hooves flew across the controls. "Shields down, diverting deflector power to main thrusters." His eyes, as well as Lando's, remained fixed forward, staring at the approaching exit as flames began to lick at the edges of their view. Soon, all they could see beyond the viewport was fire. Cray felt a hoof... Sunset's... rest on his shoulder and held it, prepared for the worst...
"YEA-HA!" Lando screamed in triumph as the flames gave way to open space, Endor and the Rebel fleet in the distance.
"Wha... WE DID IT!" yelled Sunset, first hugging Lando then turning to hug Cray. As she did, the space station behind them exploded, buffeting the Falcon in shockwaves greater than the cabin inertia dampers could handle and dumping Sunset into Cray's lap. She just laughed and hugged him anyway.
"You were wrong, Calrissian," he laughed as he returned her hug. "THAT was too close!"
"That extra power boost to the thrusters gave us the extra speed we needed," Lando agreed, then grinned at the pair in the co-pilot's seat.
"Don't think this gets you out of the rest of the credits you owe me," Cray told him with a smirk.
Lando just laughed. "Get out of it? I'd say this earned you a bonus!"
Cray looked into Sunset's eyes, his smirk turning into a warm smile as she smiled back at him. "I'd say I already got one..."