With a deep breath and a bit of concentration that wasn’t quite second nature, Luke Skywalker pushed the feeling of loss from his mind and concentrated on the task at hand. Years of using the Force and several very tense occasions and close calls with the dark side had made it apparent why attachments were exceedingly hard things to keep in one’s life if maintaining a ‘bright balance’ with the Force was one’s goal. Fear, anger… these often led to a desire for control.
There was always… something out there beyond the light, whispering dark promises to Luke when he just didn’t have the strength or near omnipresence to prevent loss from occurring in his life.
War meant his life was ever full of loss, however, this was ‘normal’, relatively speaking, for Luke. What was new was the sensation that he could reach into the well of the living Force, pluck out Valarus and… Well, he wasn’t sure exactly. Still, there was a new and rather sudden ‘disturbance’. Or rather, an epiphany telling him that someone losing a body was more “inconvenience” than anything else and that he could opt to have Valarus back if he so desired it.
Unsurprisingly, this notion was absolutely soaked with dark side power.
Luke opted to file the new premonition away for future discussion with Twilight. A feeling that he should bank down and to the left with his vehicle now ran through Luke’s mind and instinctively nudged his hands so that the starfighter began a change of course. This was followed by a feeling of pure, destructive power tearing through the sky he had occupied. A split second later, and far too late for him to have done anything about it had he not already moved, he watched the electric blue bolt of destruction fly over his canopy.
Clearly protesting the proximity to such blasts of wanton destruction, R2 howled a frightful screech. A screech that turned into a moan as the micro storm of destruction struck a far off mountain peak and turned the elevated land into a plateau seemingly suffering a freak dust storm.
Luke’s entire X-wing shook from the blasts trailing aftershock, but impressive as the blast was, there wasn’t a lot he could do against Starlight’s likely goaded attacks that were turning the once pristine landscape into a 360-degree warzone of craters and missing hillsides. Reaching out with his senses, a few things became very apparent, the Crimson TIE Defenders suddenly had put some space between him and the magical FORCE battle he was rather close to and Tempest had Twilight and Starlight on the ropes. Likely because Tempest kept baiting traps and Starlight kept taking the bait. This wasn’t such a big deal for Twilight and Starlight but… Luke glanced at the mountain…
One misdirected shot, orchestrated by Tempest or just fired off haphazardly, and the base and likely everyone inside it would be reduced to dust.
Another pillar of electric blue-colored molecular destruction flew in front of the X-Wing much to R2’s infinite protest about ‘Not wanting to be disintegrated into a state far beyond the potential for recovery!’ among a few choice words unsuited for polite company.
He really needed to have a talk with that droid about his language.
“I get it, R2!” Luke snapped. Not very ‘Jedi Master’ of him, but even as some akin to his closest non-pony companion, R2 objected to the general state of affairs quite often for a droid that had only been shot a handful of times.
Luke pointed the nose of his X-Wing towards the mass of conflicting energies below. “R2, on my mark, pull up as fast as you can and take control of the fighter…”
R2 replied with a series of worried-sounding beeps.
Luke shook his head and began to undo his safety harness. “Something I hope I won’t regret.” He closed his eyes and concentrated on a sense beyond his sight or any of his other basic, biological senses. He was approaching the ground FAST and R2’s pensive beeping had just about built into a screech.
With a flick of his wrist and a few motions of his fingers, the X-Wing’s canopy flew open. “MARK!” Luke screamed as he ignited his lightsaber and gave himself a heavy telekinetic push towards Tempest Shadow.
The already quite lively battle suddenly hit a crescendo as several unexpected things unfolded over the course of a few seconds.
Eager to continue functioning, R2 pushed the Incom T-65 to its absolute stress limits as he pulled the fighter up so that it would continue to travel through open air and not make a go of attempting to tunnel through solid ground.
Luke breathed an internal sigh of relief even as he pushed out thoughts of external distractions as well as a voice that sounded an awful lot like Obi-Wan muttering, “I hate when they do that…”
Luke made for a rather odd, noticeable projectile with his ignited green blade and orange flight suit. Even if Tempest hadn’t visually noticed the lightsaber-wielding human MISSLE flying in her direction, her senses had already alerted her to the fact that she needed to do something aside from continually goading and counterattack her two opponents if survival was a priority. She took a wild swing at Luke as he approached and felt a malicious joy well up as he batted her lightsaber away.
In a mere moment, Tempest had already begun attacking with deadly lightning from her horn. And within half a moment she found herself rolling and bouncing across the flat grasslands as Luke followed up his first attack with a Force push. Tempest’s shot went wild as she responded to Luke’s attack with several undignified half-curses which she couldn’t finish because it was extraordinarily difficult to even curse when one had gone from ‘feared Lord of the Sith’ to ‘pony-sized runaway shock ball’. Once again, Tempest’s Force sense let her know that she needed to change the situation very rapidly otherwise someone else would be changing it for her. Concentrating with such speed that Tempest could feel her already achy head explode into pain, she telekinetically steadied herself and placed her armored hooves back on the ground just in time to begin dodging electric blue bolts of energy from Starlight who was ever the opportunist.
Tempest felt for her lightsaber, which she found quite quickly, and willed to her just as fast. Magical beams were soon being swatted away by her crimson blade, but her body ached with pain. Even her considerable endurance, training, and dark side rage, she was beginning to fail to keep the agony of under oxygenated and overworked muscles at bay.
Luke, who would be the first to admit his plan had several flaws in it, was relieved to find a familiar shimmering purple aura had stopped him from relying on his flight suit and helmet to protect his body as he had quite overspent his focus with his two attacks and didn’t quite have the mental quickness and Force/magical wherewithal to prevent a collision-course with the ground.
If Twilight asked him “what he was thinking” for pulling a stunt like that, he resolved to tell her that it was ‘the will of the Force’. This would at least shift the conversation away from reckless behavior and towards a useful meditation exercise. Or at least an interesting philosophical debate with the attractive mare.
Twilight’s mind reeled with what could possibly be an appropriate response to what she had seen.
She decided to take a short break from her reality in which she had just prevented the death of a mentor who was trying to save her from one of her best friends who was trying to kill her.
… Now, that of course SOUNDED absurd to the outside observer, but Twilight had found the occasional attempt on her life added an extra level of depth to specific friendships; be it Sunset, Tempest, or Pinkie Pie.
So, to that note, Luke, being someone who spent a lot of time with Twilight and would want to see her safe, would - naturally - come to her aid, even if Tempest was likely just misguided and probably wouldn’t SERIOUSLY hurt anyone. (and-no-doubt-those-attempts-at-getting-Starlight-to-destroy-the-base-where-COMPLETE-misunderstandings), so naturally Luke would do something like send an X-Wing into a death spiral before heroically ejecting at the last minute to deflect a potentially life-ending threat and WHY THE HECK DID TWILIGHT JUST NEED TO SAVE A JEDI MASTER FROM BECOMING PASTE ON THE GROUND OF SOME UNKNOWN, OUTER RIM PLANET? WHAT THE BUCK EVEN WAS HER LIFE?!
Okay, calming thoughts! Luke must have known she’d be able to save him and made a very calculated risk… Not a risk at all, in fact! More an opportunity for Twilight to show she was on top of her new abilities like Twilight acing a pop quiz that was delivered to her via crossbow bolt.
...Twilight reminded herself to fess up to another round of subjecting Spike to a few moments that where perhaps too “Twilight” and too “real” for the little dragon.
What was she thinking about again? Why was Luke strolling up to defend her? Oh! “Nice thinking, general! Tempest will never be able to hit Starlight or I if you’re just concentrating on keeping us safe.”
Starlight’s expression tightened as she fired off a few more bolts of energy. “How come you never praise me when I do something impressive, but when Luke pulls off stuff that’s crazy by my standards you’re all ‘I dropped an egg for you, General!’”
Twilight grimaced as she began to deflect some of Tempest’s return shots and fired off a few of her own. A sharp glance at the pony next to her suggested it was the conversation and not the battle that warranted the less-than-happy expression. “Starlight! Okay, for starters, Luke never says anything like ‘I dropped an egg for you!’ And—Ghah!” Twilight quickly put up a barrier just in time to dissipate one of Tempest’s blasts that would have probably given her some facial features that would have matched Tempest’s on some level.
This simply gave Starlight more opportunity to continue her diatribe which had taken on a somewhat envious tone, but toward whom, Twilight was not certain. “Well, of course, he wouldn’t! He’s male and doesn’t have eggs. He’d say something like… the Force has spoken to me and TONIGHT is the night to fill my sack full of seed destined to bring balance and harmony to the galaxy!’”
Twilight let out a heavy sigh, then a groan, as she watched Luke stroll into position in front of the mares. He wordlessly began running defense for both ponies with his lightsaber with a grin that spread from ear to ear showing that he had, in fact, heard everything with his improved senses and he wasn’t about to chastise Starlight or ask her to cease this infuriating line of conversation.
Starlight, for her part, showed no signs of stopping. “ ‘Breed me, oh Child of the Chosen One!’ ” she cried dramatically over the continual din of exchanged magic and lightsabers humming with energy and hissing as they deflected magic bolt after magic bolt. “ ’Together we shall fill the galaxy with our double-ultra-mega-SUPER Chosen magical Jedi offspring!’ ”
“Okay, I might not be the most romantically inclined mare, but I’m CERTAIN I could come up with a better line than that!”
“Honestly, you’ve already come up with several. Also, do I get a say in this?” Luke chirped mirthfully.
“I’m sorry, Luke!” Twilight said. “She just keeps going on like this!”
“Of course you get a say, General!” Starlight cheered, her tone taking on a more playful note. “How many scores of children do you want to start your unending dynasty of peace and love with?”
“Wha-SCORES?!” Twilight bleated anxiously.
Luke continued to swat energy bolts out of the air almost effortlessly. “Geez… At least two.”
“Two?! Luke, I don’t think I’m ready to be a mother to 40 chi—AH!” Twilight let out a startled yelp as Luke’s lightsaber fell within a few inches of her face, deflecting a bolt that probably would have made the scar aspect irrelevant and things more of a ‘closed casket’ situation. “IS THIS REALLY THE TIME FOR THIS CONVERSATION?!”
Starlight smirked. “Tempest has made no less than seven tactical blunders since we started talking about magical Force foal-babies.”
Twilight paused for a moment and reached out toward Tempest. The unicorn Sith was haggard at this point and frustrated in a way that wasn’t conducive to fueling any sort of attack or ability except her lightning blast which lacked the range to be effective at this point. Her armor had even taken a few hits and was smoldering in a few places.
Tempest, it seemed, was acutely aware she had stopped being taken seriously as a threat and this had completely thrown off her emotional state. Given she was also outnumbered three to one, all the trio had to do was keep up the pressure.
Twilight machine-gun fired off her magic at a snarling Tempest as she shouted, “400 babies!” as if it were a battle cry.
Luke responded with shocked laughter that was echoed by Starlight.
“Luke?” Starlight began. “Can you even handle that many kids?”
“Well, my Jedi training was pretty useless in terms of child-raising, but I’m sure Leia, Han, and Chewie could help babysit,” Luke replied.
“HAH!” Starlight exclaimed. “The heroes of the rebellion reduced to babysitters. I’m sure they’ll all love that.”
Tempest let out a roar of furious irritation. While Twilight was continuously leaving herself wide open, Luke was completely focused on swatting away anything Tempest shot or deflected in the direction of the trio. Worse off, despite appearing as if she were completely unfocused on the battle, Starlight had managed to maintain complete control over the situation even as Tempest was unrelenting in her return fire.
To think, almost complete control over her! And as easy as it should have been to focus that feeling of anger into power—
“So, how many kids do you think Han and Leia will have?” Luke posed.
—it was infuriatingly difficult to be the RIGHT kind of angry when your opponents wouldn’t shut up about babies!
“Those two?” Starlight thought for a moment. “Hrmm… One and done.”
“WHAT?!” Twilight exclaimed. “No way, they’re at least going to have two… probably three.”
Starlight chewed on that for a moment. “Haha. No way. I mean, maybe in an alternate unive—”
A sudden roar, courtesy of the Imperial Shuttle flying overhead toward the base suddenly cut the conversation short.
For a moment, all the Force users stopped what they were doing and took stock of the sudden change.
Tempest felt a sense of pride and accomplishment seeing the shuttle fly by. Luke abandoning the sky must have tipped the air battle in favor of her Forces. This combined with magic/Force battle near the base easing up to something with far fewer blasts capable of ripping a starship apart, meant her pilot had a much better opportunity to approach and move on to phase two.
Starlight, on the other hoof, just saw a target and prepared a blast capable of removing the shuttle as a threat permanently.
For the first time in the battle, Tempest felt a profound sense of dread. Starlight wasn’t known for leaving survivors or even recognizable wreckage of her target. Disregarding her own safety for the sake of the lives on the shuttle and the mission, Tempest quickly poured her energy into another bolt and fired it off in the direction of the three enemy combatants. She smiled inwardly as Starlight’s shot went wide, the unicorn Jedi opting to live and abandon the accuracy of the attack for the safety of a magical barrier. Skywalker also extended a hand to absorb and dissipate the energy of the small maelstrom. And Twilight…
Twilight Sparkle, safe behind two barriers took aim and fired with her magic. Tempest Shadow’s sense told her to move. Her instincts told her that simply wasn’t going to happen. Her eyes saw a bright beam of purple energy right before she felt it tear into her chest armor and send her reeling once more across the plane.
This time, Tempest didn’t curse as her body rolled almost ragdoll limp through tall grass, over soft earth, and the occasional rock. In fact, she didn’t so much as stand or open her eyes as she came to a stop, a smoking hole still smoldering from her chest plate.
“Nice shot,” Starlight said in a tone of genuine adoration. “Though, I would have gone for the head.”
Twilight let out a sigh as trio cautiously approached the downed foe, the battered and smoking base a few hundred meters behind them. “Starlight, we’ve been over this. We should be trying to preserve life wherever possible.”
“Tempest can also tell us a great deal the Death Star,” Luke chimed in. “Assuming we can get her to cooperate.”
Starlight let out a defeated sigh and glanced at her companions, “Well, if any power couple in the galaxy could get a full-blown Sith Lord to turn to the ‘light’ or at least ‘dark gray’ side, it’s you two.”
“We are not a power couple!” Twilight growled out in reply, much to Luke’s delight.
“You are BASICALLY a couple and both in the top 20, at least, of entities not to be messed with,” Starlight called out. “I’ve never met anyone more worthy of the title in my entire—”
A new sound suddenly cut off Starlight and she looked up just in time to see two torpedoes sail away from the shuttle on course for the base.
The spoken conversation suddenly changed to something much faster as the trio psychically reached out to the other to better get ahead of this new development.
“How did that shuttle slip past us?! It’s way too noisy for us to stop noticing!” Starlight ‘said’, her voice reverberating through her own head and those of her companions as time slowed to a crawl around them.
“The pilot must have powered down and gone into a glide,” Luke said. “Whoever the Empire has flying that thing could give me a run for my credits.”
“Could we concentrate on the torpedo situation!” hissed Twilight.
“I’m trying okay!” Starlight said. The torpedoes from the shuttle had slowed from the perspective of the three Force users, but they were still moving towards their target at a rapid pace. The torpedoes where nearly invisible to the living Force as they were purely mechanical in nature, such limitations ultimately DIDN’T matter to Starlight as she could just about see through the very fabric of reality if she was given enough time.
For once in her life, Starlight had no time...
The idea of teleporting to the top of the base and putting up a barrier to protect it simply felt beyond her abilities given the speed in which that would need to happen. She wasn’t confident of her ability to survive such a maneuver as well if she was being honest with herself, and one of Starlight’s most evident traits was she was always unflinchingly honest with everyone, including herself. Given that neither Luke nor Twilight had reached out to quickly solve this situation, either, it seemed the trio had simply been outmaneuvered this time and their friends would pay the price.
And then a massive light blue rocket adorned with Trixie’s cutie mark launched from the base, trailing silver sparks as it slammed into one of the torpedoes.
Immediately, all three Force user’s danger sense went supernova as an explosive shockwave and burning atmosphere approached.
Twilight extended her wings and pulled both Luke and Starlight closer to her. She and the others quickly put up barriers around themselves.
The world outside their bubble turned into fury and fire.
An explosion that was far too close to home, somewhat literally in this case, rocked the base with such Force Han momentarily lost complete sense of his surroundings. He quickly snapped to attention at the voice of Leia yelling, “Han! Han!” over his com.
In danger of being exploded or not, it felt good to warrant that level of concern from someone. What didn’t feel good where the sparks shooting out of his gunner console and the alarming amount of fire and smoke coming out from behind the flickering screens.
The preferred amount of both smoke and fire in this, or any situation, would be none.
“I’m alright!” Han replied as he quickly unbuckled himself from his chair and scrambled for the dura-steel ladder that lead up onto the turret’s gunner chamber. He quickly clambered down into an open hallway then smashed the bottom of his fist against a button console by the chamber’s ceiling entrance. With a quick ‘whoosh’ a blast door closed above him. Like anything made with conventional blaster technology, the heavy turret required a highly volatile gas to function. Han would prefer DISTANCE in between himself and the remaining blaster gas if it was going to ignite all at once, but he’d settle for a few inches of durasteel in the meantime. His boots touched solid ground and he immediately broke into a jog down the base corridors. “My turret is out of commission though.”
“Mine too,” Leia’s voice replied over the commlink. “I’ll meet you on the way to the mess hall.”
“It really is just one of those days,” Han mused to himself. He raised the commlink to his lips once more. “Trixie?”
“Trixie LITERALLY hit the rocket as requested!” Trixie exclaimed. “I CAN’T HELP THAT THE PILOT IS JEDI LEVEL CRAZY AND FIRED SO CLOSE TO THE BASE!”
“Nice shot, Trix,” Han said, completely ignoring Trixie’s incredulous tone. “I’m not sure even Luke could have pulled that off.”
“…Oh… erm… Yes, no power in the galaxy can stand up to the great Grrrrrrrreat and Powerful Trrrrrixie’s superior sharp shooting!”
A series of small explosions rocked the base. No doubt the shuttle continually peppering the base with blaster fire which likely meant it had just run out of torpedoes.
At least there was something to be said about small wonders in a galaxy that was more often at war than not.
Trixie continued, “However, I am completely out of rockets worthy of taking out a shuttle and would rather not die in this transparent metal bubble.”
“Understood, get yourself to the mess hall,” Han replied evenly.
“Very well! The Great and Powerful Trixie shall comply with your request, General So—”
“Also, shut up,” Han said, “I need to talk to more than just you so we all survive this.”
A haughty “Hmph!” sounded out over the com, but Trixie went silent.
“Col, we’re regrouping in the mess hall, what’s the base entrance situation look like?”
“The door is wide open and we’ve got the welcome mat all laid out if the Imps come to visit,” Col responded in a gruff tone laced with the barest hints of grim mirth from his gallows humor.
“They just might,” Leia’s voice chimed in over the com then down the hallway, from Han as she likewise sped through the corridor in a jog. “No dedicated bombers. Tempest attacked despite being outnumbered. This isn’t a search and destroy mission. It’s a recovery mission. They’re after our ‘guest’.”
“Understood, General,” Col replied. “Well, we’ll give them hell.”
“Copy that,” Leia said into the com as she and Han pivoted to jog side by side as the hallway met in a ‘Y’.
“Great,” Han uttered. “Maybe we can let him out and use him as a human shield.”
Leia shot Han a glare. “You know for someone who picks on Starlight a lot, you sure don’t have any trouble thinking like her.”
“Excuse me, Princess!” Han exclaimed. “I said ‘let’s use him as a shield’ not, ‘let’s put a blaster bolt in his head’!” He shook his head. “I’m just trying to be pragmatic! I’m not a psychopath!” Han narrowed his eyes. “And I hate to tear open an old wound, but you can’t tell me you hadn’t thought about firing off a few rounds into his heart more than once.”
Leia went stone cold silent. Han was right of course. Doing the ‘right thing’ was certainly something a grey area when that went hand and hand with keeping someone who thought ‘destroying a planet or two… or however many it takes’ was a reasonable way to maintain ‘safety’ in the galaxy.
Ethical issues wear further blurred by the fact that this person had technically already died once.
Slowing down the as durasteel hallway became increasingly hole-ridden and burnt, Han glanced upwards into bright daylight where once there was a durasteel roof. He and Leia strolled into an open space that was once the mess hall, but thanks to a collapsed and partially melted roof that had claimed plenty of tables it was now… well… rather ironically named. “Remind me to hand Starlight the bill for reroofing this place,” Han said to Leia, as he took a moment to admire the remnants of a table that had been flattened by a collapsed support beam that wouldn’t have been holding up any bit of ceiling had it still been upright anyhow. “Or just a new base in general.”
“That shuttle pilot blew off the doors to the base, Han,” Leia replied dryly, her green camouflage tunic sporting several burns and her helmet a fresh dent just above her right temple. “Also, they launched the torpedoes that almost took out the center portion of the base and us along with it.”
“Well, responsible or not, I’m hoping the pilot is too dead to collect anything from by the end of all this,” Han replied. Han took a glance down a connecting Hallway and sighed to himself. “What do you think are the odds—”
“There is no way Trixie is not grooming herself before she shows up dramatically,” Leia interrupted. “I’ve tried to talk to her, Twilight, even STARLIGHT about Trixie coming to terms with being a combatant actively fighting a war, but I don’t think the mare realistically wants to do anything that isn't ‘putting on a show’ for someone.”
Han sighed again, if those three had tried at one time or another to get through to Trixie, then it was best to drop it so long as she continued to be a help and not a hindrance to the cause.
Frankly, Han had no idea how a non-Force using anything could pull off the accuracy Trixie displayed, but maybe she just felt she needed to do something to stand out surrounded by others with near godlike strength. Han respected that, or perhaps it was more accurate to say he greatly identified with, Trixie’s predicament. But she was far from the only one ‘fighting the good fight’ where that meant risking life and limb to laser-sword wielding magic and Force users who were getting disturbingly good at taking out mountains, or the occasional densely populated city surface…
Han pushed the later from his mind and raised the commlink to his mouth once more. “Chewie, how’s the Falcon holding up? Any new holes I should know about?”
Chewbacca replied with a few grunts and a howl.
“Oh, no reason outside the usual,” Han replied as he saw another bolt of energy burn the air above the somewhat, now, open airbase.
Chewbacca was quick to respond with a few more grunts, trills, and concerned sounding murmurs.
“Yes, yes. Starlight is the ‘usual’ reason.”
Leia made no attempt to hide the annoyance in her tone. “Han, you may have noticed but there’s also a full Sith Lord unicorn out there who’s actively trying to kill everyone.”
“Yeah, but chances are she’ll be locked up by the end of this even if she even survives fighting Glimmy,” Han closed his eyes and shuddered as if he was remembering something particularly unpleasant. “Most don’t.”
Leia shot Han a scowl, “Okay well, just don’t… try to stay on her good side, at least, please?”
Han raised an eyebrow. “I have literally called Starlight Glimmer a murderous sociopath to her FACE and she responded with a disturbingly coy smile, a wink, and a ‘Well, thank the maker I’m one of the good guys, right Han?’” Han shook his head. “I don’t think it’s possible to rub her the wrong way, Leia and I’m more than a little worried that she likes me.”
Leia paused for a moment. “Well… uh…” Leia smirked. “May the Force be with you?”
“The Force has apparently decided the galaxy needed an entire species of super-powered quadrupeds to take an already devastatingly deadly civil war and up the ante considerably.” To Leia’s great surprise, Han leaned forward and kissed her on the lips. Giving her that lopsided grin that she had tried, and failed to learn to hate several years back, he added, “I think I’ll stick to trusting my blaster, Chewie, and you.”
Leia let out a laugh and pointed upwards at herself. “Jedi Knight in training,” she reminded.
Still smiling, Han shrugged. “No one’s perfect.”
“Speak for yourselves!” Trixie’s voice bellowed out as her silhouette appeared in a puff of smoke. “For no mere mortal can compare to the majesty of” —
Han sighed. “Do you think she hid and waited to make an entrance?”
— “the Grrrrreat”—
Leia smirked. “She must have, otherwise…”
— “and Powerful Trixie!”
“How did she just show up on such a great line?” Han posed rhetorically.
“Please hold your applause!” Trixie stated as she stepped out into the light. Her main, hat, and cape all looking pristine despite the hazards of increased temperatures, fires, and smoke she most have encountered earlier in the day.
Han took a quick mental note that no one present was applauding, but he had long since learned it was quicker to let Trixie play out her delusion than bog down the conversation with things like ‘facts’.
“Now then” Trixie began. “Shall we—”
Leia suddenly flinched as if she had been hit by a sudden electric shock and turned in the direction of a third hallway. “We need to get out to the hanger, NOW!” she shouted as she broke into a sprint.
Han followed. “Leia? What’s wrong?”
“I think you’ll find out soon enough,” Leia murmured as she reached for her blaster.
“But Trixie has so many more lines prepared!” Trixie whined as she galloped after the two Rebel generals.
Comlinks suddenly crackled to life. “Generals? Are you there?” Col asked.
“We’re here and inbound, Col,” Han answered. “We’ll be there shortly.”
“Good,” Col said into his commlink, the whiskers of his mustache and goatee nearly brushing against it as he peered over the scope of his blaster with his ‘normal’ right eye and his cybernetic patched left eye. The white, if rather scorched, shuttle had already deployed a smokescreen, and sounded like it was landing somewhere well beyond the reduced visibility of the artificial smoke that was beginning to waft into the base. “Those guests I mentioned have arrived.” through the haze of smoke, Col Serra’s patch picked out something moving and… glossy moving quickly towards the base. “And they like wearing ‘black’ if you catch my meaning.”
Col heard something that more or less sounded like an ‘affirmative’ but had already put the commlink away as he steadied his blaster rifle. He waited for another hint of motion behind the thick smoke, jerked his weapon so the barrel was pointed as accurately as his cybernetic eye could calculate, and squeezed the trigger. “OPEN FIRE!”
Seeking cover behind a heavy durasteel crate a few yards across the hanger, Chewbacca let out a roar and fired off a bolt from his bowcaster. Col had picked out his cover as he continued to lay down suppressing fire from his own position behind a collection of heavy drum barrels, the bases latest dehydrated ration shipment. Around Col and Chewbacca, a mixed group of men and women of various species similarly let loose with everything from heavy blaster pistols to repeating rifles.
Even the “Ground Buzzer” blaster cannon of the Falcon was pouring out blaster bolts. Honestly, it seemed like things were going quite well…
Then return shots began to lance out from the smoke and Col and Chewie watched many of their friends and comrades take wounds and fatal shots in the first volley of return fire.
As Col watched several thermal detonators fly out of the smoke and towards the cover of his allies and himself, it became painfully apparent that ‘Death Trooper’ wasn’t just some a name some upstart Moff came up with because he thought it sounded menacing.