Renegade Squadron: Chapter 8

[sharpiefan]

Title: Renegade Squadron
Fandom/Canon: Star Wars
Author: sharpiefan
Word count: ~ 1670
Rating: U
Spoilers:
Pairing/Characters: Wedge Antilles, Hobbie Klivian, original characters
Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars or any of the canon characters who may show up in the course of this book.
Author's Note:
Summary: Commander Wedge Antilles won his Wraith Squadron bet. Now he has to take a shattered unit and forge them into something new and stronger than they were before, in preparation for taking on the command of his own snubfighter wing.

<--Chapter 7



The base being an ex-Imperial command outpost, there was no tapcafe as such. Instead, there was a rec room, with a bar, that had been appropriated for the pilots. While the underlying décor was still that of the Empire, with the Imperial symbol still visible in some places although a half-hearted effort had been made to remove it, it had been overhauled as thoroughly as possible. There were a few battered sofas scattered around, some mismatched tables dragged in from who-knew-where, and one wall was spray painted with some half-decent artwork depicting a fantastical city scene.

There were small groups of pilots scattered around the room, around the tables or on the sofas, with various different conversations taking place. One group was playing sabacc with a worn deck of cards.

Vika sat at a table with most of the other survivors of Renegade Squadron, a Bith and two other humans, the core of what was going to be the new Renegade Squadron. There were only five left of the original twelve – Commander Xin had returned to Fleet but not before informing them that the famed Commander Antilles had taken an interest in the squadron and was planning on taking command, to rebuild them.

It was both encouraging and infuriating. Antilles was probably the most famous pilot of Starfighter Command, the only one to have taken part in both Death Star attacks. Not only that, he’d survived, and his Rogues had likewise taken part in some of the most famous and hard-fought battles of the entire war – Hoth, Endor, Bakura, the taking of Brentaal IV, Mindor, Borleias, the taking of Coruscant, Sluis Van, Bilbringi…

And yet there was an air of resentment. Why should Commander Antilles, an outsider and someone who had no stake in Renegade Squadron, be the one to take command and rebuild? Why couldn’t Commander Xin have done it?

It was the thousandth time the question had been posed by one or the other of them and Vika sighed. "Because Antilles has the reputation and can, and Orelia… doesn’t. She’s lost too many, it’s worn her down. We’ve probably gained a reputation as an unlucky unit and she doesn’t think it’s fair to try to rebuild, bring people into a unit just for them to die. Who knows who’s going to be next?"

It wasn’t helping Vika’s mood that the pilot who Antilles had brought with him to serve as XO was Derek Klivian, who might be a Third but whose Family on Ralltiir had something of a reputation for ruthlessness, a reputation of which Vika was all too aware.

"Hey, you’re looking cheerful." It was Will Scotian’s voice and she looked up to see her fellow Lieutenant, the fifth and final surviving Renegade, standing by the table, still in his orange flight suit having apparently just completed his sim run. He had another pilot with him, a much younger human male, who couldn’t be much more than a teenager.

"This is Vaine Senesca," Will said, indicating the kid, and directed him to drag up a chair. He appropriated one from a nearby table for himself, which he spun around to sit astride, resting his arms on the back of it. "You look like you just lost the winning ticket for the Coruscant lottery. Why so miserable?"

Vika shrugged but was saved from having to answer by her wingmate. Tyan leaned forward, her hands wrapped around her mug of lum. "It doesn’t seem right, that the person who’s going to bring the Renegades back up to strength isn’t one of us, that’s all."

Will blinked. "I don’t think any of us has the experience Wedge does. He’s done this for years, with Rogue Squadron, and look at the reputation they have."

"You would say that." Tyan trailed her finger through a patch of spilled lum on the table, smearing it.

Will glanced at the youngster. "Would you get me a mug of lum, and whatever you want for yourself?" He slid a credcard across the table to Senesca, whose uneasy look gave way to relief as he stood.

"He can’t be old enough to drink," Tyan objected.

"I’m old enough to drink on most planets," Senesca said, irritated in the way only a teenager could be. He left to cross to the bar.

Will watched him go before returning his attention to his fellow Renegades. "Don’t go making such a deal of it – you know if the squadron wasn’t brought back to full strength, we’d be disbanded, and you know that Commander Antilles is the best person to do it. Just because he’s not a Renegade doesn’t mean he doesn’t want what’s best for the squadron."

"You would say that, you’re an ex-Rogue," Polin put in, running a hand through his messy blond hair. "Twice over, in fact."

"The second time was only because they needed to borrow pilots for the media while Rogue Squadron was off undercover on Thyferra."

"Propaganda… I thought the New Republic was supposed to be above all that sort of thing."

Vika glanced at Polin and shook her head warningly. "So, what’s with Senesca? How come you’ve taken him under your wing?"

Will sighed. "He’s the kid of one of the pilots killed on Hoth. He’s fresh outta the Academy, wants to make a name for himself like his dad did, and figured Renegade Squadron might be the best place to do it. Doesn’t hurt that it’s with Wedge, too, of course."

"Hoth… have you done your sim run yet?"

Will nodded, accepting the mug of lum Vaine Senesca brought over. The youngster dropped into his own seat as Will sipped at his drink.

"Yep," he said, lowering the mug back to the table. "It seemed pretty much the way it was, too – we got just under half the transports away at the actual battle, lost some good pilots there too."

He seemed more serious than he usually was, as if it had got to him. If Antilles had wanted to remind the Renegades that they weren’t the only ones who had lost people, well, message received and understood, Commander.

Or Captain. It could easily have been Klivian’s idea, after all.

"So, how’d you do?" Polin wanted facts – Polin always wanted facts and figures.

"There were only the two of us – you all did it in two wingpairs, right?"

The others nodded.

"There were only us two left, the last to do it. I guess because I was there and…"

"Dad was killed there," Senesca said, with a shrug. "I suppose they weren’t sure if I ought to do it because of that."

"You all ran it. The point of the sim was to get the transports out of the gravity well, so they could get to hyperspace – you don’t need me to give you the mission objective, surely. So, we get out of the atmosphere and there’s an ImpStar Deuce right in our path, biggest damn headache you’ve ever seen – unless you count Executor lumbering around the planet, of course. Gives me the shivers to remember that thing. We’ve got Thon’s Orchard so we’re lucky the ion cannon’s still firing."

At Polin’s expression, Vaine interjected, "Thon’s Orchard was the last transport to get away – the ion cannon crew should have been on it."

"So we’ve got an ImpStar Deuce in front of us, Executor hustling to cut off the retreat – not that we want to head back down with Imps swarming the base – and TIEs swarming like an angry horde of Yilvian mudwasps. Not much two X-wings can do against that lot, of course." He paused, long enough to have a good long sip of his drink. "We pulled a Tallon Split."

Vika’s jaw dropped. "You… In front of Antilles and Klivian?" The two pilots who’d performed the same insane manoeuvre defending the same transport at the original battle the sim was based on. "Are you crazy?"

"It worked, though," Vaine put in.

"Though not as well as it did when they did it. I ended up getting vaped. The kid here got the transport out – and had enough time and presence of mind to wait to see it go to lightspeed first." He ruffled Senesca’s hair, and Vaine batted his hand away.

"Wedge has come here to rebuild this unit. That means he wants us all to work together, us five – six –and him and Hobbie, and whoever else they think will make a good Renegade. It’s not going to be the same unit it was with Comander Xin, and that’s a good thing. We need to trust each other, and that means the new people as well – if we insist on it being ‘us’ and ‘them’, we’re going to keep losing people and then we will get disbanded. And you’ll have to stomach a lecture from the Commander first, and you don’t want that to happen."

He swallowed the last of his lum and got up. "C’mon, kid, let’s go meet the rest, see what the competition’s like."

They watched the two of them depart.

"He’s right," Ishan Qa’re said. The Bith had so far not spoken, but had taken in every word that Will had said. "It’s never easy, to have to see a unit as outsiders see it, but we have to try to work with these people if they are to be Renegades and part of this squadron. That doesn’t mean forgetting our history and what we’ve done, the battles we’ve fought. I think Commander Antilles will recognise that – he was there when Commander Narra founded the original Renegade Flight, after all. We can build on something old, to make something new. If we choose to. And I would like to."

There were murmurs from the others and she looked around the table at them. "I think it will not be easy – but that is why Commander Antilles is here. But if we choose to, we can do it. And better to choose for ourselves than be made to by Commander Antilles or anyone else."


Chapter 9 ->