Renegade Squadron: Chapter 18

[sharpiefan]

Title: Renegade Squadron
Fandom/Canon: Star Wars
Author: sharpiefan
Word count: ~ 2400
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 17


The morning’s briefing had been short; the whole exercise was straightforward enough, after all. Despite the apparent simplicity of it, Vaine was keyed up in a way that none of the older pilots were; they had all seen and done things that he hadn’t – yet – and they all seemed much more calm than he felt.

The blue of hyperspace swirled around his cockpit and he sighed, trying to relax despite feeling as if Commander Antilles was going to spring something on them even in hyperspace, which was impossible.

There was a quiet chirp in his headset, enough to make him glance down to the text screen You seem… thoughtful.

"I am. I guess. I found out some more about Dad yesterday that I didn’t know." He let out a breath. "It’s kind of hard to imagine Dad being one of Commander Antilles’ pilots."

YOU ARE VAINE SENESCA. YOUR FATHER WAS ZEV SENESCA?

"Yeah."

A more thoughtful-sounding series of tones and then more text. I USED TO BE CAPTAIN ANTILLES’ ASTROMECH, BEFORE ROGUE SQUADRON WAS DISBANDED.

Well, that was something Vaine hadn’t expected.

"You’ll have to tell me -"

He was cut off as an alarm shrilled in the cockpit and the blue of hyperspace abruptly coalesced into starlines then stars, throwing him hard against the crash webbing. They weren’t supposed to be reverting to realspace yet, not for another twenty minutes or so.

"What the…?" Vaine wasn’t the only confused pilot; there were several other equally bewildered voices on the squadron frequency.

"Cut the chatter. S-foils to attack position, break by flights and wingpairs." Commander Antilles’ voice was calm, cool and collected, slicing easily through the confusion to impart a sense of purpose, and Vaine reached for the S-foil actuator switch over his head. It was with a reassuring rumble that the paired S-foils split into the configuration that gave the X-wing its name, bringing his targeting scope alive.

He slotted himself into position on Lieutenant Scotian's right and a little behind, looking around to see what was happening.

Distances in the vastness of space were confusing – civilians thought that starfighter battles happened at much closer ranges than they really did. Even so, it took him a moment to see the Imperial capital ship hanging there in space, lit by the far-distant star at the centre of the system they’d stumbled into. It was several kilometres away, seemingly doing nothing at all.

It seemed big and the computer informed him it was still tens of kilometres away, which made him realise just how big it was. Sims were good at illustrating the vastness of space and the relative distances and sizes of ships but there was still something about seeing it for real that made him give a quiet gasp.

"That’s an Interdictor, kid," Will said, over the flight’s private channel. "Pulled us from hyperspace like pulling the peel off a tava fruit."

"It’s not here for us." That was Vika. "Look where it’s aimed."

There was a group of at least a dozen ships, of the size and type that Vaine recognised as being bulk freighters – they’d been a plentiful sight on Bestine, bringing in raw materials for the shipyards there, and the Interdictor was oriented towards them, not towards the Renegades.

There was motion among the group of ore haulers that he couldn’t parse – it looked like a group of TIEs, and something else, something bigger. Shuttles or something, he thought, and some of the big haulers seemed out of position, although he couldn’t tell if that was because they’d been towed out of position or were moving under their own power, cowed into compliance due to the threat of the TIE fighters, which would make easy work of them if they chose (he’d seen the sort of threat the Imperials could be, and knew they had little compunction in carrying out those threats on innocent people).



Wedge had reacted to the same alarm instantly, reaching for the S-foil switch even as he keyed his comm and while he was still taking in the situation; the squadron was not in the Champala system where they had planned to drop from hyperspace and begin the next leg of their flight. They had been pulled from hyperspace far short of any planetary body and without disengaging their hyperdrives themselves, which could mean only one thing, and a cursory scan solved the query.

The Interdictor was not oriented towards them but to something coming the other way, inbound from – he’d query Gate about that later. The interdiction field it threw out still interfered with ships approaching the system from elsewhere, though, which was apparently how the Renegades had been pulled from hyperspace. Right now, there were ships in trouble; his sensor board was alight with enemy fighters and the emergency channel was alive – at least one ship was broadcasting a call for help.

He flipped the switch to the emergency channel.

"This is the Velspar. If anyone can hear me, please send help, we are under attack."

The Imperials are jamming communication, Gate noted on the comm screen.

"Great." Nobody outside of a hundred klicks or so would be able to hear them. He hit the transmit button. "This is Renegade Leader, coming to your assistance."

He switched back to the squadron frequency.

"Leader, this is Four. Velspar’s an ore hauler."

"You’re sure?"

"Very sure, Lead, she used to call regularly back at… the shieldship depot."

Clever of Cab to refer obliquely to Nkllon; who knew whether the Imps might or might not be listening in. even if they’d pulled the Renegades in unexpectedly.

"Eleven here. Sensors show a squadron of squints and some shuttles – it looks as if they’re attempting to take the freighters in tow."

"Why would they be taking bulk freighters in tow?"

"That’s a question for later, Ten. Engage the TIEs and let’s discourage the shuttles."

The Renegades were not slouches when it came to taking on the enemy, Wedge would give them that. The only pilot of the twelve of them who had no prior combat experience was Vaine Senesca, and he wasn’t hanging back, either.



If this had been planned, Antilles couldn’t have picked a better mission as a shake-down, Vika thought. There were maybe a squadron’s worth of TIEs, all of them the standard fighter with hexagonal wing-panels. The ore haulers had been moving, slowly, seemingly reluctantly shepherded by the TIEs but the Renegades weren’t slow to go on the offensive, forcing the TIEs to break off what they were doing to respond to the sudden and unexpected threat.

The core group of Renegades had so much combat experience under their belts, and so did the majority of those that Commander Antilles had brought in. "Roll left," Xarcce said in her headset and she slapped the stick left even as twin green laserbolts sliced through the space where she had been. Cycling red lasers took the TIE apart even as Vika found its wingman.

"Good shooting!" Vika was never one to stint on the praise in combat, at least, and brought her fighter around to scope out the rest of what was going on. There was a TIE diving in on another X-wing and she tracked it, firing at it as it crossed her line of fire. The pilot could not have been tracking everyone and flew right into her lasers; she saw it spin out even as she rolled and twisted to pick up her wingman again.

"Good shot, Eleven!" How Commander Antilles could track everything happening was something she didn’t know, but wanted to learn. Somehow.

"Thanks, Eleven!" Klivian’s voice made her grasp the flight stick tighter momentarily before she took a breath and made herself relax. It hadn’t been censure, it had been a genuine exclamation of thanks.



There was so much going on, everything was happening so fast. It felt almost like the first time he’d ever got into the pilot’s seat – so much to take in and remember. Vaine drew a breath; it was like the sims. He knew how to fly, knew exactly what every switch did and what every gauge and screen showed. He didn’t know the foibles of this X-wing but he’d learn those as he grew used to it. He kept on Will’s wing, determined not to let him down, not to let his dad down, not to let Commander Antilles down.

"They’re… they’re trying to hijack the ore," he said, puzzled, as what he was seeing resolved itself. The TIEs were there to threaten them into compliance, the shuttles maybe to tow them – but they had their own engines. Perhaps the Imps were trying to land troopers to force the crews into compliance more directly?

One of the TIEs broke off from what it had been doing and came at them. Vaine’s thumb found the trigger almost before he realised what he was responding to, and the Imperial fighter disintegrated into a fireball and a cloud of shards.

"Hey, good kill, kid!" That was from Will.

"Good shooting, Ten!" Commander Antilles. "Don’t lose your focus now."

It wasn’t an admonishment Vaine was about to ignore, of course. "Yes, sir."

With the advice, and trying to tamp down the thrill of being able to add his first kill marker to his X-wing, Vaine took a breath and let the focus come – it really wasn’t all that different to the various scenarios and exercises he’d performed in sim at the Academy and since.



"Lead, Five." Hobbie’s voice, a little strained. "That drag-ship’s dumping another unit of TIEs."

"I see them." Wedge flipped back to the channel Velspar had been using. "Renegade Leader to Velspar. I don’t suppose you folks have weapons over there?"

"Negative, Renegade Leader."

Of course; he hadn’t expected that they would, or they would probably already have been firing. Ore haulers weren’t smugglers and didn’t haul valuable cargo, as a rule, which begged the question just why these Imperials were wasting resources on them.

"The shuttles seem to have been recalled, Lead." That was Will, who was doing a good job of keeping an eye on Vaine. The others were all acquitting themselves well, too – even as he looked around the combat zone, he noticed Vaine score another kill, and he was not the only one. Even with another squadron of TIEs entering the fray, odds were less than two-to-one against the Renegades, which were good odds for pretty much every active unit Wedge could bring to mind.

Even as he looked around, he saw Vika’s lasers punch through the solar array of another TIE, melting it into slag.

"Looks like the newcomers aren’t happy," Hobbie said. "One squadron of squints coming up!"

This whole thing was perplexing; why send good units and an Interdictor after ore haulers?

That was a puzzle he’d have to figure out later; probably passing things across to Intelligence. For now, they had to keep the newcomers from doing any damage to the unarmed ore haulers.



Vika gritted her teeth as the new unit of Imperial fighters swept towards them in tight formation, their flying economical and accurate. The ore haulers were pulling away from the action, slowly putting distance between themselves and the Interdictor, though it would be long painful minutes before they could make the jump back to hyperspace. The Rens would have to do their best to buy them those minutes and stop the Imps from trying anything else.

Interceptors were faster and more manoeuvrable than X-wings, this was understood by the pilots on both sides. The X-wings were slower because they were equipped with inertial compensators, hyperdrives and their corresponding astromechs, and (more importantly) shields. The Renegades had tangled with Interceptors many times over the years but Vika always hated them.

"These are good pilots," her wingman said over the comm. The Tunroth didn’t sound particularly put out by facing down Interceptors – but then, she had been a Rogue at one point.

Vika tracked one, using the etheric rudder to swing her fighter to the left even as she rolled right, sending red laserfire after the enemy fighter. It jinked out of her path and into Xarcce’s line of fire, coming apart even as Vika shifted to try to get another.



Wedge felt something change even before Gate drew his attention to the droid communication screen with a brief beep. His snubfighter was moving a little more lightly, more naturally.

"Lead, the dragship’s powered down the gravity well generators," Hobbie said, even as he noted the same information from Gate.

The TIEs broke off, twisting away from the Renegades’ X-wings on course to return to the Interdictor

"Lead to squadron, if the TIEs return to base, let them – only engage if they fire at you first," Wedge said, listened for the acknowledgements begin to come in and flipped to the channel for the Velspar and the other civilian ships. "Renegade Leader to Velspar - the Interdictor’s powered down. We’ll watch you make your jump, make sure there’s no more trouble for you here."

"Thanks, Renegade Leader – we owe your boys!"

He looked around the combat zone, as much as he could see, and then down to the sensor board. The last TIEs were ascending to the open hangar bay of the Interdictor. Eventually, the last of them vanished from his sensor board and there was the pseudo-motion of a ship going to hyperspace and then… nothing. The shuttles took off themselves, leaving the Renegades and the ore haulers the only ships in the area.

It didn’t take much to work out where they were, the Uviuy Exen system, at the junction of the Shwuy Exchange and the much more travelled Hydian Way. There had been a battle fought in and around the system two years after Endor, one that Wedge and the Rogues had, somewhat surprisingly, not been involved with although the Renegades had.

"Where are you heading to, anyway?" he asked.

"Heading down to Kuat with duralium, lanthanide and hfredium for the shipyards there."

"We’ll provide an escort if you need," Wedge offered, already calculating who to detach for escort duty.

"Thanks, but there’s no need for that."

The ore haulers began forming back up in their convoy, ready to move out. The Renegades had formed back up on Wedge as the cargo ships made their jump to hyperspace.

"Lead to squadron. We’re in the Uviuy Exen system, I’m transmitting a course to you to the Champala system, we’ll resume our exercise from there. Four, delay your jump by fifteen seconds, make sure nobody’s left behind."


Chapter 19 -->