Backstory (for those of you into this sort of thing):
Omichron Rebel Base:
“Here they come”…the static filled voice came over the link as the speeder’s raced over the low rocky cliffs and knotted trees that clung to them. The low wings gave them just enough surface to “bite” the air, and the powerful Incom T-47’s engines pushed them faster and faster as they raced towards the approaching enemy, initial reports from the now destroyed satellites traced several heavy armored units, as well as some air support…this wasn’t going to be a walk in the park, but last year’s victory on Hoth had proved that the nimbleness of the little speeder’s proved to be more than a match for the heavy firepower of the Imperial Army.
Drab tree limbs flashed by the cockpit glass as the flight of T-47’s clung to the nap of the ground, if they flew too high, the long range sensors of the Imperial dropships could pick them up, and the power cannons would obliterate them in a second. Sticking close to the trees and rocks gave them almost as much protection as their speed, by weaving in and out, down and around, the automatic lock-on systems couldn’t keep pace with their silhouettes.
“Turret five, what do you see?” the voice of the wing commander, Nielsen, was tense as he leaned forward, as if by moving his head a few inches, he could discern more through the misty haze ahead.
“ We detected the dropships, they are still….and looks like…-f -loading some…wait a min…” the speakers crackled and hissed. “Three, no four, Imperial Walkers with support…and something odd, there’s a …”
Seconds went by as the seventeen ships raced towards the target area, but the speaker remained silent.
With a grimace, knowing that his friends at the forward station were dead or dying, he thumbed on his sighting array, “ Go to sensors”.
The display projected onto his helmet glass showed four large, fuzzy images that quickly resolved themselves into the lumbering Walkers of the enemy, huge tanks full of troops, and loaded with pulse weapons…slow, yes…but deadly. Around the bottom of these massive behemoths raced smaller tanks and missile carriers, all headed towards the main rebel base that was under lock down, all of the non-necessary personnel had evacuated days ago under the command of Captain Antilles.
“Ok, you all know the drill…Sasha, you take the two on the left, Tender, you take the middle, I’ll hit the right…the rest of you cover us, and remember to stay low !”
Commander Skywalker and Captain Antilles had come up with a fool-proof way of taking out the elephantine walkers, by wrapping up a hypercord around their legs, they would come falling down as if struck by a bola…it was the only way to stop them, other than a direct hit with a large pulse laser. Nielsen was sure that the long range rebel turrets were warming up even now, ready to do their damage as soon as the enemy came into view..
“I’m picking up an anomaly, sir”, Sasha’s voice sounded confused, which was odd for the veteran pilot, she was usually unshakeable.
Nielsen couldn’t see anything unusual, but she was more experienced at reading sensors than he was too. “ What is it, are you sure you don’t have a glitch?” The tracking figures were changing steadily, only another two kilometers to the target.
“Some sort of jamming is being used…I’m getting contrasting information from my active scan…” Sasha’s frustrated voice was interrupted by static, “what the…wait a sec, scanner burning through now…it’s a...!”
An incredibly loud blast ripped by, like a sheet being torn down the middle.
Nielsen glanced right to see two of his wingmen blow apart in a cloud of black fragments, another spun out of control and crashed into the rocks below, spreading a narrow trail of fire pointing to the targets. “What the hell?” he thought, in a state of panic and disbelief, “we aren’t even in range of blasters yet!”
Warning tones started warbling as he fought to maintain control of his own craft, somehow still intact after the nearby explosions.
“All of you, form up on me.” He struggled to maintain a level flight path. “Sasha…Sasha…are you there?” A quick shrug was all that he could afford to acknowledge the death of one of the best pilot’s he’d ever known. “ Tender, all of you, form up on me, Delta pattern.”
The white and red speeders fell into position behind him as they flew through the mist, all of them looking forward to see the targets.
“Getting a bearing on One-Three-Seven” Squirrel’s voice popped over the mike. “She’s coming into range” they could all hear the tension in the new sensor leader’s voice, “Designate Alpha target”.
“Lets roll” Nielsen spat out. There was a hum as the hypercord cable covers moved back, exposing the launcher. He turned around and gave Squirrel the thumbs up, and a grin.
.
Fast as a thought, they streaked in and under the path of the Walker’s, zig-zagging and jinking like crazy to stay out of the path of the blasters. It took all of the pilot’s concentration to keep from being shot down, but it left the scanning intercept officer free to launch the grapple and cord assembly.
“Grapple away!” shouted the rear sensor officers, almost in unison. The little speeders began weaving in and around the legs of the walkers to tie them up in a neat falling package.
All around, Nielsen could see his wingmen disappear in puffs of destruction, as one or the other went too far into the tracking range of the Imperial energy weapons. It was happening to fast to feel sadness or remorse. This was war.
There was a wrenching feeling of heavy gravity, and suddenly, his ship lost all control and fell from the sky like a brick, whirling around in a tight circle, and tearing off the starboard wing mount. A scream in his headset, then another, then a cacophony of shrieks as the speeders all went down.
The ground rushed up at him, a tornado of red rock and tangled brush, then a loud crash took all of the pain away as the ton of metal and plastic came apart around him, and he knew no more.
1600 meters away, Sasha crawled from her mangled cockpit, Thom, her SIO, had already set off the fire damage controls, and she slipped down the ripped wing to join him on the ground, charging up her binocs at the same time.
“They’re all gone,” he said forlornly, “All of them. At once.” Shaking his head in disbelief, he staggered down the arroyo towards the second staging area.
Sasha glared at the metal monsters impotently, unable to do anything except to find her next group, and try to figure out what the hell had happened. She threw her high tech helmet to the ground in frustration, and followed him down into the shade.
Just as they made it to the tree line, a visceral boom sounded, and then another, making the water in the small stream shake and the limbs on the trees dance. Something blocked out the light from the twin suns, and Sasha and Thom shrank to the ground as the bulk of a immense walker reared overhead.
“It can’t be, it just can’t be”, she repeated to herself while looking straight up into the belly of the beast. Large generators under the protective shielding hummed and sparks flew from the spike projections that ran along the Imperial’s side.
The massive head rose as if howling to the moons, and both side cannons fired, leaving a cloud of smoke billowing around the neck. There was no sign of energy discharge at all, no laser light, just a loud bang. Far, far off in the distance, she could hear a whistling sound, and then a loud crump as whatever these tubes had launched hit the target.
“ Interesting, isn’t it?” came a calm voice from the dark of the trees. Both of the rebel officers spun around to see a tall figure emerge carefully from the foliage.
“Jastin? What are you doing here? You should have left with the rest of the techs two days ago !” Sasha was confused by the sudden appearance of the lead technical advisor from the base.
“ I call them projectus. You see, the amount of airborne fodder makes any sort of long range energy weapon expenditure useless, even the motes of dust eat up some of the power, limiting how far one can damage a target in a gravity zone. This device, however, can be fired on targets hundreds of kilometers away. Fascinating.” He grinned widely, as if his head might split open at any moment. “ Oh yes, the base was destroyed just after you launched, we could have shot you all down too, but Lord Vader wanted to see if the new leg wires worked on the Walkers, an easy solution to the hmmm…shall we say, inventive way your two hotshot pilots came up with to bring down the heavy’s ?”
Jastin sighed. “It seems your rebellion is at an end. Too bad really, you had some really great thinkers on board that last freighter.” To the look of shock on Sasha’s face, he replied,” Oh yes, gone, all gone. I made sure of that myself.”
80 meters above them, the metallic generators under the head began to whine to a fever pitch, Sasha and Thom covered their ears, but couldn’t take their eyes off of the scene.
“And now, to test the Magnetus,” the Tech said quietly. “ I do believe the civilian base will do nicely, perhaps the hospital?”
One of the square guns directly mounted under the chin blew out a blast of air and an impossibly fast moving chunk of metal that fell into pieces just after being launched, a golden arrow continued to fly on into the distance.
“It moves so fast, it almost becomes a plasma, you see…wonderful device, came up with it myself.” Jastin was talking to himself now, the rebel pilots just stared at him in horror.
He tilted his head to one side, “ Ah yes, Vader…it certainly did go well. I do believe we can go ahead with the implementation on all of our AT’s. “ After a pause, “Yes, perhaps I shall join you to view the sights from above, my TIE should be ready by now. Of course, you are very welcome. Always willing to lend a helping hand to a brother,” he chuckled.
Sasha shook her head in disbelief, as if she was punch drunk or spiced, for the figure of Jastin began to waver…shimmering itself into something much larger, much darker, as if a hole had been cut out of the surroundings and filled with hate. In that deep well of black, a light flared.
“But first, I have some business to attend to.”
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