As the lights came flickering on in the pilot's barracks the cold blackness of sleep was replaced with the pain of suddenly being exposed to light and consciousness. The light was not the usual bright white, but instead a burning red and the wailing of the klaxon pierced through what remained of the pilots' grogginess.

Every pilot was into their flight suits and to the briefing room in a "few" minutes.

A lone figure was there waiting for all the pilots, Macintosh.

"If this had been a real alert half the fleet would have been gone in the time it took you people to get in your suits and get here, this is totally unacceptable. Until we can cut the response time to a red alert under 12 minutes we will be running more random drills. Now back to bed and get your rest because you never know when the enemy is going to make a suprise attack and a fatigued pilot is no use to us."

Aaron "Shadow Hunter" Scorpion slumped against the cool bulk head. He looked around at the younger pilots, most of them shaking off the drill. He sighed ran his hand through his long hair, taking a look towards Mac. "Ya know, Boss. I'm getting to old for this kinda thing" Scorp gave a mild grin and chuckled. Macintosh gave him a once over and shook his head. "Either way you and the older pilots are better than this, getting soft in the old age are we? If anything you should have been the first ones to get out here. Yet half of you came draggin you hung over buts out here with out a care in the Universe"

Scorp smiled, "Yeah, Dirty Harry would've been proud." At this some of the older pilots and officers doubled over in laughter. After a few moments they looked up only to find Stan standing beside Mac. He didn't look very pleased.

He hates drills. He had always hated them. At least he had always hated them back in the time when he still was a pilot. but that was a long time ago, now General (ret.) Philipp 'Piler' Jardas is only on vacation visiting his old friends - and has to find out that his 'love' to drills has never gone.
Remembering old times he recalls the last fight of the 'old' IWS Darkstar, when nearly all of the crew died in a huge attack. the reason why all this happened was because it had taken the pilots too long to get to their ships and hunt those torpedoes and rockets down. But that are old times, hopefully the remnants of the crew have learnt from these faults.
Just a few minutes after he has fallen asleep the sirens shout again, Red Alert. This can't be a second drill, can it? But you never know with Stan and Mac. VA Caliban had once called the crew three times in one night just to hear 'practice keeps you alive!'.
Piler turn’s to the window and looks out into the skies. And there it is, the proof that this is no training: a huge amount of battleships advancing towards the Darkstar.
His fist hits the Comm system: 'Mac, is my old F-Wing still in duty?' - 'Of course' is the reply, 'We always kept it in honors'. Piler grins. 'Well, I hope you also kept it in best condition...'

The FC knew his place was on the bridge, and that’s where he was headed when he ran into Macintosh. "Another drill Mac?" "No sir, this one is for real." "Alright, get the fighters launched, and meet me on the bridge." "Yes sir!" Macintosh continued down the corridor shouting orders to pilots and flight crews. Stan entered the turbolift that leads to the bridge.

As soon as FA^Stan stepped off the bridge, the guard quickly announced his presence. "Fleet Commander on the Bridge!" "As you were." Stan said as he was walking to command chair. "Report! What’s going on?" The radar officer was the first to speak up. "Sir, we picked up a small rebel fleet exiting Hyperspace about 10 klicks off the port bow." "What is the size of the fleet Lieutenant?" "Sir, it contains of a M/FRG, 2 Corvettes, and MC-80 Cruiser."

Stan turned towards the gunnery officer. "Activate all turbloasers." "Yes sir." The gunnery officer responded and quickly activated all of the Darkstar's turbolaser batteries. The communications officer quickly spoke up. "Sir, our fighters are launched, and are moving to intercept." "Good. Has the Nova Prince launched fighters?" "Yes sir, they are launching now."

Fletcher Christian moaned as he looked around his barrack. There were no other pilots in the room and the red alert siren was blazing. Two drills in one night was where he drew the line. After having his squadron taken away and being demoted to sleeping in the barracks with all of the other pilots, this was the last straw. He was going back to sleep and he didn't care what reprimands he received.

Throwing himself back into his bunk, Christian cried out "Shut up! SHUT UP!" as if the he could will the blazing red alert sirens to stop.

And then they did.

Christian let a small chuckle of awe escape his lips as the red alert chimes subsided suddenly and the lights in his barrack went off. He had actually willed the ship to do as he wanted. He rolled over and closed his eyes.

In an instant, he was off his bunk across the room as the ship shook violently. And then it occurred to him. This was no drill. The Darkstar was in combat, and he hadn't willed the sirens to stop- the primary energy core had been taken offline. She was dead in the water. He couldn't move- he had been an idiot- he could've cost some pilot his life. He ran to the hangar bay as fast as he could. He punched in his callsign, "Brittania," and said a silent prayer. "Let us hope that I don't make any further mistakes." He cringed as the ship shook violently a second time. It seemed that something had penetrated the hull. "Maker help us all."

As soon as the second alarm sounded Daishi knew that it was no drill. The first hits knocked his last bottle of Varneck Citrus off its rack and Daishi made a spectacular diving catch to save it.

"Too bad no one was here to see that, no one will believe me." Daishi muttered to himself before being slammed into the bulkhead of the Royal Barkalounger and the bottle breaking in his hand.

"Fraking rebels, it will be two months before I can get another bottle of this stuff." Daishi cursed at the air.

After bandaging his hand Daishi changed into his uniform and started for the bridge.

FA^Stan stood at the bridge barking out orders as Daishi emerged from the lift. The lights were flickering as the warheads were impacting on the shields, making the entire ship rock from the force.

"Sir, the rebels are concentrating on the power systems, it appears they intend to either cripple us or board us." Shouted the senior damage control officer from his post.

"They intend to cripple us then." Daishi said calmly, revealing his presence to Stan.

"Daishi, how can you be so sure?" Stan asked without even looking away from the battle in front of him.

"Simple, they don't have the troops. Even if they managed to capture a small section of the Darkstar in the boarding op, they could not hold it for more than an hour at best. We just have too many troops on board for anything they can board us with."

Scorp jinked hard, yanking his T/I into a tight spiral. The A/Wing blew by him, attempting to perform a similar maneuver. Too late, the Alliance pilot attempted to roll out, only to fly into a green spray of laser fire.
"Flight two, ya still with me?" Scorp picked up an X-Wing tearing into a GUN. He switched over to Concussion missiles and kicked the engines over to full. The space clicked off rapidly, just as he got in range he dumb fired a pair of missiles. The canopy darkened as the fighter was engulfed in a ball of flame.
"This is Two" "Four here." "Three here, I've got one on me!"
"Roger that three. Hang on Darksaber, we're on our way. Master and Cabble, let's get over there" Scorp checked his panel, located the pilot. He was holding his own, but his shields were starting to fail. Squints never lasted long without shields. He shivered at that thought, all of the pilots he watched die over the years. He shook his head, dropping everything over to engines. He brought up a target on the pursuing X-Wing. The HUD changed to yellow, slowly beeping off the acquisition. Just as it turned red, Scorp fired a set of missiles as the Snub fighter rolled over. He came right at the missiles spraying laser fire over the area. Scorp pulled up slightly, then did a half roll, coming in from above the X. As both missiles exploded, green death rained down on the X-wing. The other pilot attempted a snap roll, but Scorp wouldn't let go, he watched the rear shields finally give. A few quad blasts later the fighter was a mass of molten slag.
"And that ladies and gentlemen, is what we call...situational awareness." A few chuckles came over his headset. "How you doing Darksaber?"
"Fine sir, thanks"
Scorp checked his MFD, the fight was going well, not too many IW losses. Though, what the hell is that?
"Frag, This is Scorpion to Cmdr. Hippie. Sir, there are Two ATRs inbound. Looks like they're attempting to board the Dark Star!"
"You sure about that Aaron? Be quite suicidal given the size of the DS."
"Yeah, well no one ever said that the rebs were sensible, now did they?"

Brittania dove down, evading a torpedo intended to cripple the Darkstar’s primary hangar bay. Quickly swerving around, he locked on to the torpedo and fired. With a small burst, the torpedo exploded. Satisfied, he moved on to inspect the hull. He could not shake the feeling that there was *something* trying to penetrate the hull. Those two shakes had simply been too violent. He dove around the bottom of the hull, moving slowly, so as not to catch the eye of a watchful Rebel pilot. It seemed that there was little to no activity on the Darkstar’s belly. All of the firepower was being directed towards her top-

And then it struck him. The bridge. They didn't need to board and take the entire ship, they simply needed to destroy the bridge. He flipped on his Comm, "This is Commander Brittania," he started.

Hippie responded, "we were beginning to think we weren't going to see you out here. Glad you could join us. There's two ATRs out here, we need to direct our firepower at them."

So they had come to the same conclusion as him. They were trying to take the ship. He nodded, his suspicions confirmed. "Sir, there's no activity on the bottom of the ship- those ATRs must be aiming for the bridge."

"That's what we suspect-" Hippie paused. Brittania hadn't heard him, perhaps he had forgotten to flip his Comm on. He toggled his switch, "Fletch, we need to-"

Brittania continued, "I think they're aiming for the-" and then he went silent. He pulled back violently on his throttle, sending his ship into an uncontrolled ascent away from the ship.

"You there, Fletch?" queried Hippie, "Fletcher? Please respond-" there was the sound of a grunt as Hippie pulled off a delicate maneuver, destroying a Rebel ship. He soon returned to the Comm, trying to break through the static. "Darksaber, Scorpion, get down there," ordered Hippie, "see if you can see what happened to Brittania."

"Aye sir," came the reply. "Darksaber, you with me?" asked Scorpion.

"I'm right behind you," responded Darksaber.
The two Imperial fighters dropped below the hull and two gasps permeated through space at what they saw. There was a virtual fleet of mining ships cloaking and decloaking behind a massive cloaking beacon below the ship. They were slowly tearing back the Darkstar’s hull like a can of dried vegetables. It had all been a ruse, and they had fallen for it.

Scorpion toggled on his Comm, "we have a problem down here, I think we made need some help in picking off some small targets-" and then he went silent as all of the ships disappeared. He could only stare in awe.

"You there? Aaron!" Hippie cried out and dove towards the bottom of the ship, redirecting all energy from his shields to his cannons. He was ready to take on whatever he awaited. And then, just as he could see the horizon of the bottom side of the hull, he saw it.

There was nothing there.

"Humph, these rebels are a little more cleaver than I expected," Daishi muttered as he saw the two ATR's making for the bridge. "Stan you may want to get some troops up here in full environmental armor and have the auxiliary control stations stand by to override any hyper jump commands coming from the bridge."

"Way ahead of you Daishi, now get below before I have security remove you from the bridge, for this is not your place and quiet frankly you are distracting me." Stan grumbled as Daishi removed his presence from the bridge.

The rumbling of the ship was getting worse with each successive attack.

"Fraking rebels, I haven't been tossed around like this since I was a pilot." Daishi muttered to himself as he was tossed from one bulk head to another, realizing that this is no standard attack. "Alright Stan, you don't want your Baron Administrator of the ETD on your bridge, then I'm going where I may still do some good."

Marching down to the hanger Daishi was stopped by three rebel troops.

"Well this is new and unexpected, but that is what they taught me to expect back at the academy." Daishi spoke as he used the rocking of the ship to get away from the barrels of the trios blaster rifles.

Using the momentum of another shock Daishi propelled himself toward the trio of rebels and brought the lightsaber he took of a dead Clan Panther warrior and neatly sliced through the trio of troopers and the bulkhead on the far side.

"Sure beats my old vibro katana." Daishi muttered to himself as he continued his march toward the hanger.

Stan Pushed a button on his console, and activated the com system. "Security! I want three teams in full environmental armor on the main bridge now." "Full environmental armor sir?" "Yes! Now get up here on the double." "Yes sir. On our way!" Stan then flipped another switch to activate the bridge's internal com system. "Attention all bridge personnel." Stan continued. "We believe the rebels plan to try to board the Darkstar through the bridge." Comments of disbelief broke out all over the bridge. "Silence!" Stan continued. "Three security teams are on the way to repel borders. Gunnery control, target the ATR's when in range and open fire. Take the hyperdrive off line. Under no circumstances are you to engage it without me entering in my personnel command codes."

Just then Macintosh walked in. "Sir, fighters are away and engaging the enemy." "I know Mac, good work. Notify Lightning that they are to destroy the two ATR's heading for the bridge." "Yes sir." Macintosh spoke into the comlink. "Hippie, I wan-" "No, wait." Stan said, interrupting Mac's transmission. "Sir?" "Have then try to disable them. I want to know why the rebels are doing something this insane." "Aye Sir." Mac spoke into the comlink again. "Hippie, your squad's mission is to try to disable the two ATR's headed for the bridge. If you cannot disable em, you are to destroy them." "Yes...sir." The reply was garbled.

As Daishi turned off his lightsaber, he flicked his com to life.

"Daishi to security. The rebels have snuck troops onto deck six somehow. I found three rebel troopers, they have been neutralized. I am proceeding to the ETD/EO offices." Daishi rambled off to security anticipating every question they would ask.

Another rock sent Daishi into the wall and pain went up his arm as his shoulder was dislocated.

"Arggg...." Daishi snapped at thin air as he relocated his shoulder using a doorway.

Arriving at hanger 6C Daishi found the Royal Barkalounger and his office in a mess. Daishi quickly opened the Royal Barkalounger and climbed the ramp into the main cargo area.

Finding his armor in no time at all Daishi decided to equip his environmental equipment rather than his ysalimiri pack.

"Sorry old friend, but I need the air, I don't expect any Jedi will be a part of this raid anyway." Daishi muttered to the ysalimiri as he connected the last seal on his helmet making his armor fully sealed for combat in a vacuum. The pair of blaster rifles that Daishi had duct tapped together and rigged to the same trigger were becoming his trademark, a "double barrel blaster rifle" as he called it. Slinging the blasters over his right shoulder and securing them to his back pack, Daishi next equipped the Ion rifle he improvised from a ion cannon off a Y-wing and snapped it into place on the left side of his pack. Next came the blaster pistol selection.

"Hmmm... do I want penetration or firepower this time around. Ah hell one of each." Daishi mumbled to himself as he picked up a DL-44 blaster pistol and a M-105 super heavy blaster pistol.

The last thing Daishi equipped himself with was his lightsaber.

"You stay put, I got me some varmitin' to do." Daishi said to his ysalimiri as he sealed up the Royal Barkalounger.

Brittania slammed his fists down on his control panel and cursed. There was no power in his ship- it was as if something had simply sucked it dry. He could tell that he had been pulled into some sort of bay, only because the stars had disappeared. Other than that, he couldn't *feel* anything different from being in normal space. There didn't seem to be any gravity and he wasn't even sure whether or not his ship was situated on stable ground of some type.

He reached down below his feet and felt around until he located his emergency kit. He clicked the box open and drew his emergency glowrod. Flicking the small rod on, he sighed. Just as he'd thought- the power source to his ship had been disabled completely. He slammed his fist down again, cursing.

And then, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted another light. There was someone else with a glowrod about 65 meters away from him. He thanked the maker that he, unlike a Rebel pilot, had a personal oxygen source on his suit. He decompressed his cockpit, popped the hatch, and stood up. He began waving the glowrod around in hopes of catching the other pilot's attention.

Scorpion hopped out of his cockpit, jumped onto his Interceptor's cross beam, and jumped off, taking a leap of faith that there would be a floor to land on. Luckily, there was. However, with a lowered level of gravity, he fell quite slowly to the floor. Surprised, he dropped his glowrod. "Dammit," he said to himself. As he drifted to the floor, he prepared to repel himself back towards his glowrod. Instead, he let out a grunt as he slammed near-weightlessly into Darksaber's TIE.

Brittania sighed. Getting out of here in the dark was going to prove more tricky than he had originally imagined.

Daishi started moving from section to section on his way to the other auxiliary control areas. So far only Daishi had found any rebel troops to combat, and yet the shaking still continued. Soon the reason became apparent, the rebels were concentrating their efforts toward only a few specific goals but had spread their force in such a way that it would be impossible to know if all had been neutralized until a room to room search was commenced.

Daishi flicked his Comm over to the security forces' frequency and started to listen for clues so that he would know where to go to head off the rebels.

"Contact reported near Auxiliary control room #4 sir, we have sent a squad to check it out." An enomonus voice came over the com.

Daishi cursed as he was heading for Auxiliary control room #2 and was sorely out of position.

"Frak I'm getting to old for this." Daishi muttered to himself as he was forced to the wall once again.

"Sir definite confirmation of rebels near control room #2 and possible contacts near engineering, we have sent out the squads." Some other junior security officer piped over the com.

"Well at least I'll get me some varmints." Daishi said to himself with a southern drawl.

Master flew into the battle, it wasn’t turning out to be a good day, night whatever it is it wasn’t good, not only had their been a drill and him and the other pilots had been yelled at by Macintosh the Rebels attacked. As soon as he had heard the second Red Alert he knew it wasn’t a drill so he ran to his trusty fighter. After some time in space and blowing away a few fighters and taking shots at the ATR's he noticed more and more fighters coming in, this wasn’t good. Luckily the IW hadn’t taken allot of losses so that was some comfort. He was glad of some of his force training in the SoH. As wave after wave entered the battle he abandoned himself totally to the force.

"Well isn't this just a fun little situation, Dee check that power failure and try to get this tub back up and running." Scorp thanked himself that Dee had a separate self contained power source, something else Erik* could be thanked for.
"I'll get right on it sir." Dee was a droid brain that Scorp had installed some time ago. Quite a handy addition, he only just recently started understanding why Alphabet pilots enjoyed the astromechs. He couldn't stand having a trashcan to beep and whine at him all day. But the company in the T/I cockpit was a welcome change to the silence of deep space.
"Alright now to see where the hell we are," Aaron pulled out a glowrod, cracked it, then looked around the cockpit. He popped the canopy and looked out, another glow rod appeared. Peering through his visor he zoomed in to see Brittania waving his hands.
"Nice, alright Dee speed that up we need to get out of here. Where ever here is, run a scan the second the power is back on line."
Scorp looked down, pitch black below him. He reached out, not able to really feel anything more than a few other pilots. Scorp stepped off, expecting to fall for some time. When the ground suddenly stopped his downward decent, he made a stab for the now free glow rod. He came into direct contact with another solid object, Aaron let a muffled groan. "Alright, enough of this." With that two cylinders appeared in Scorp's hand, flipping a switch an audible but familiar "snap hiss" and a sudden leap of light. Scorp held the twin lightsabers in a defensive position attempting to see something, anything.
"Brit, you coming down or what?" A light tap on his shoulder caused him to spin around, "What the...? Dang it Dark Saber, you'll get yourself hurt that way. Something is clouding this area, suppressing the Force. Probably those infernal Ysalamari creatures." Dark saber only nodded, nodding in the other direction, Scorp turned to see Brit come bouncing up. "Here, you dropped this." A muffled chuckle could be heard from the other two pilots. "Cute ladies, real cute. This is another fine mess you've gotten me into..."

VA Eucilid hit his head on the wall, and it woke him up instantly.

He groaned, looked around, and wondered why he and all of his covers were sprawled across the floor. He sat up, and grabbed for the empty bottle of Ewokain Green Wine. It was empty. Eucilid stood up and stumbled across his Large Executive Officer quarters. There was all kind of ruckus going down in the hallway. The XO quarters are at a corner in a decent size hallway, on the same deck as the bridge. He looked through the peekhole in his door, and the hallway was filled with smoke. Eucilid saw people running very fast through the hallway, and they looked like they were in their environment suits.

"This must be some kind of a drill" he said to himself. Eucilid opened the door and dizzily stumbled into the hallway, hair messed up and wearing only his boxers. "What's going on?" he asked dumbfoundedly.

"Euc, you Moron! Get back in your quarters." It was Daishi, in his full environment suit and a gun in each hand. A blaster shot almost took Eucilid's head off. he looked down the hallway, and there was a squad of rebels. "Here, take this!" Daishi screamed as he handed Eucilid his DL-44.

Daishi pushed Eucilid back into his quarters, shut the door, and shot at the controls. He took a few shots at the rebels, and ran the other way.

Eucilid, confused as hell, stumbled backwards until he hit his be and fell on to it. Eucilid fumbled around for his comlink, switched it to full bandwidth broadcast mode, and said, "Could somebody bring me more wine? Ahhhh, screw it." Shortly thereafter, Eucilid was on the floor with his pillow and covers, asleep.

The duct tape that Daishi used to hold his double barreled blaster together was starting to come loose as Daishi was firing into a unit of enemy boarders.

"Frak this is not a good time for this." Daishi shouted at his rapidly degrading duct tape.

Daishi found a door way to duck into while he started work on converting his double barreled blaster rifle back into two separate blaster rifles.

"Fraking rebels, only they would be sadistic enough to interrupt a good dream and make it worse by boarding the ship I'm on." Daishi grumbled to himself as he removed the last of the duct tape and started on rewiring the triggers.

As Daishi was finishing with the last trigger he felt a tap-tap on his helmet, and when he looked up there was an enemy trooper in full environmental armor with a blaster rifle pointed right at Daishi's face.

"Give me a good reason not to pull this trigger." The trooper said to Daishi.

"Simple, you won't be able to." Daishi snapped back as he wrenched the blaster away from his face just in time for a blaster bolt to fly to the side of his head rather than his face. With the trooper now at bay Daishi pulled his other now empty hand own to his lightsaber and ignited it and cut the trooper neatly in half.

"Well I guess I was half right, oh well. Frak, now they have the main bridge." Daishi mumbled as he turned off his light saber and reattached it to his belt and picked up his now two separate blaster rifles.

"Euc! Wake up you drunk bastard!" It was Eucilid's comlink.

"Frak," Euc said, "why the heck did I leave this on?!" He had a splitting headache.
"Ah well." Euc looked to his viewpoint, and saw a bright flash of light. He slowly stood up, and started walking over to the viewpoint. He stepped on the empty bottle of Green Wine, and fell on his butt. "Frak!" he screamed as he got back up. He walked to the viewpoint and looked out.

There was a battle going on, a big one. out of the corner of his eye, he saw an explosion. a little speck got bigger and bigger, and all of a sudden the flaming inferno that used to be an X-Wing plummeted into the Darkstar's shields, directly above Euc's viewport. Euc was startled so much, he turned around, ran and leaped over his bed. After he realized that the shields had held the blow, he stood up, brushed himself off, and walked back to the viewport. "Well, at least it wasn't one of our guys," he thought to himself. He was fully awake now. 3 TIEs flew by his window, and he could clearly hear howl of the ion engines. Euc could identify the TIEs as Scorpion's, Darkstar's, and Brittania's. he watched the TIEs circle around, and begin to attack a Y-Wing heading for the Darkstar. Eucilid was getting in to this. "Get 'em, guys!" he yelled. the TIEs fired, and the Y-Wing exploded. Euc traced the now-far-away blips of the 3 fighters, and as the rounded a turn to go for the next wave, they blinked out of his sight. Like they just ceased to exist. Euc pressed his head against the viewpoint, trying to see better. He squinted, but could not see the fighters. He backed his head up and wiped off the slobber from the viewport. "I gotta tell Stan."

He picked up his comlink from the floor next to his bed, and keyed in Stan's Personal Frequency. "FA Stan! Are you there?! This is Euc!"

"Yeah Euc, what is it?"

"Stan, I was looking through my viewport, and I saw three of our fighters just disappear. there might be something out there we don't know about."

"Euc, you're drunk. our fighters didn't disappear."

"No, I really saw them. One moment, they were there, killin rebs, and the next moment they were gone, I mean it's like they were gone, and then they disappeared and ....." he mumbled to silence.

"Listen Euc, I’m kinda busy now, can we talk about this some other time?"

"No! This might be serious, I mean --"

"Euc! Go Back to sleep! Look, I gotta go! We can talk about this Late---" He was drowned out by blaster fire "---Oh Frak!"

"What, Stan?"

"Euc, get to the second bridge, I'll meet you there as soon as---" The comlink went silent

Euc ran out the hallway to the suit closet and jumped into his Environment suit - still in his boxers.

"Shoot, Eucilid is trapped in his quarters, this is not good. Now I'm going to have to go back for him." Daishi reprimanded himself for sealing Eucilid in his quarters.

The hallways were no longer occupied by the rebels, apparently they were content with having just the bridge. Making his way back to Eucilid's quarters Daishi still kept a watch out for snipers and ambushers because taking out two members of the command staff of the IW would be a great boon to the rebels.

Arriving at Eucilid's door Daishi kicked it down despite the fact it was sealed tight.

"Lucy, I'm home. Sorry couldn't help myself. Ready to make a run for the secondary bridge?" Daishi said over his shoulder as he watched out the doorway due to his paranoia that there might be rebels waiting to take down the XO of the IW.

"I'm ready but we have slightly bigger problems than just getting to the secondary bridge, we seem to have had a few fighters disappear on us." Eucilid rambled to Daishi.

"I knew there was a cloaked ship when I saw three troopers in rebel uniforms on deck six when the ATR's were still about a click away and heading for the bridge. This could be very bad. The enemy troops are conducting this boarding operation the only way it can be successfully carried out, small concentrated teams going for certain key locations, disregarding other standard targets that most boarders would attempt to neutralize in normal boarding procedure, and they intend to jump the ship where they have enough troops standing by to finish the job. I haven't seen this kind of operation since it was taught to me in my second year at the academy." Daishi rambled back at Eucilid.

"Dai, you need your skull examined because that level of tactic's is not taught until the fourth year at the officer training schools." Eucilid responded as he finished putting on his uniform.

"Read my record sometime, you will find I was not trained in any imperial academy. Now if you are ready Let's get the hell out of here and get down to the secondary bridge." Daishi grumbled as he started out the door.

His F-Wing really was in good condition. But Piler had no time to wonder who had flown it that often.

"Target disabled". He loved this voice. One day he would find out about the woman who had given her voice for the onboard information system and invite her for dinner. If she was as sexy as her voice was...

Dammit, there's more important work to do, he shouted at himself. "Flight Control, this is Quartz 1. Both ATRs disabled, commencing boarding operation. Over." - "Roger that, General". His rank was the only thing that showed that he once was an army officer, special operations. Well, this could be of use now...

He steered his fighter towards the cockpit and blasted the windows out. Then he opened his cockpit and used his rocket backpack (or whatever it was called) to reach the now empty bridge of the ATR.

For being off duty for one year now he was still pretty good in entering ships. The two pilots had no chance when he blasted their lives out of their bodies. He kicked the door to the big crew rooms open, ready to be welcomed with a helluva blasts. But there was silence. No voices, no blasts, no screaming, not even breath. Piler flicked on the light just to see the whole big huge room entirely empty.

He quickly jumped back to his cockpit and had his comset activated before he even sat in his seat. "Flight Control, this is Quartz 1. These damn ATRs are empty. Don't know why, but they wanted our lasers being distracted for a while. Over." - silence - "Darkstar Flight Control, do you copy?" - silence - "This is Quartz 1, calling anyone on board the Darkstar. Over." - silence. Dammit, these ATRs HAD a function.

Well, there's only one way to find that one out, Piler said to himself when he pushed his fighter back. When he was in a save distance he blasted the ATRs to hell, hoping that this would destroy the in them.

Still watching the ATRs becoming debris Piler flicked his Comm active again.

"Flight Control, this is Quartz 1. Do you copy?"...

"We've got to find Stan." Eucilid said to Daishi as they were leaving his quarters.

"I saw him 10 minutes ago, he was fine" Daishi replied.

"No, something happened. We were chatting over the comlink and his just went dead."

"Are you sure it wasn't jammed?"

"Definitely, When comlinks are Jammed, you hear an electronic noise, I just heard light static."

"Maybe his power source went dead..." Daishi said.

"No, Stan would have found another way to contact me. He must have been caught in trouble, I heard blaster fire."

"Alright, lets go" Daishi glanced into the hallway to see if anyone was coming, and then started into the hallway. Eucilid followed close behind.

"He said he was headed toward to Aux Bridge. We should probably head there, and then backtrack." Eucilid said, and they headed to the main turbolift.

"... do you copy, over." - no response. well then, it was time to do something about that.

There were nearly no enemy fighters left, it seemed that the IW pilots had learned a lot in the last years. as far as he could see there were not even any capital ships left.

As far as he could see.

But wanting to inspect the Darkstar’s hull, he reached her lower side, and it was then when his mouth formed a well known voice, onomatopoetically described as 'yap'.

Smasher dropped out of Hyperspace to pay a visit when he noted the carnage in the sector. After a quick check in with the flight controllers onboard the mother ship he requested permission to come aboard.....

As Daishi and Eucilid came to the auxiliary bridge they both realized why contact with Stan had been lost, the enemy boarders had cut off power to the entire deck.

"Frak, either the boarders have gained partial or temporary control of the power control systems on this deck or they have control of engineering itself." Daishi rambled on in his disturbingly calm manner.

"We need to see if the fleet admiral is safe before we worry about the power systems." Eucilid replied in not so calm a manor.

"Make a deal with you then, if you see to it that Stan is alright, I'll worry about the power systems." Daishi mumbled as he rose from the duo's temporary cover.

"What if I need to open the door to the auxiliary bridge, it is a little large to be opened manually?"

"Then take these, these are my "keys", use them wisely. You may want to stand a fair distance away before setting them off." Daishi replied as he handed Eucilid four command detonated explosive packs with almost a hint of sorrow at giving up his explosives.

"What if I need your help?" Eucilid asked as he stored the explosives.

"Find a working personnel comlink, I can be reached on any IW frequency." Daishi replied as he tapped his helmet to indicate the location of his own comlink.

As the duo separated Daishi suddenly had a very bad feeling.

Fortunately Piler managed to stop in time to avoid punching into the cloaked ship in front of him. The only thing by which you could tell that there were a few or more enemy ships under the Darkstar, was the missing of stars. It looked like there was a big black hole somewhere swallowing all the light. There was just darkness in front of his cockpit.

He tried to estimate the type and amount of ships that were hiding there, concluding to about two or three corvettes and at least five assault transports. To get a better image of the situation he fired a few blaster bursts randomly into the sky to enlighten the darkness. And suddenly he felt like in hell. Recognizing that they had been spotted all enemy ships suddenly uncloaked and opened fire at his fighter. And because he had stopped his F-Wing was like a sitting duck on a silver plate...

"Mayday, Mayday, enemy capital ships spotted under the DS, can anyone hear me? I need assistance, fast!" - "This is Commander Brittania, roger that, General. Over." - "Brit, where the hell are you? Get your squad here by an instant! Over." - "Aye aye, Sir. I'm currently in one of that enemy ships' hangars. Suddenly they've all uncloaked, I can even see the DS from here. And the spot where all the laser blasts cross probably is your position, Sir. Over.", Brittania replied not without a little grin in his face.

Piler made his F-Wing fly logarithmic spirals, icositetraeders, lemniscates, hypocycloids, chlothoides and other fancy weird things he couldn't even name, just to evade enemy fire. With a little bit of satisfaction he noticed that his guess about the amount of ships was pretty good. But that made it even worse. Three corvettes and five assault transports just docked at the Darkstar without requesting the Darkstar’s clearance. This was a clear infringement against the well-known military laws and should be prosecuted with all available force.

He open all IW Comm channels and tried to reach as much of the fleet as possible: "This is General Piler to all IW fighters currently in space. Get your craft down under the DS ASAP, this is crucial! Brit, split your squad and gimme a wingman please, then we'll start runs on the ATRs at once. Over" - "Aye, Sir. Does anyone want to join Piler voluntarily?" No response. "Hehe, that was mean =)"

And again, IW pilots could prove why they are one of the best in the galaxy.

Brittania and Scorp immediately recognized that the power dampers had been disengaged as lights to the hangar bay shot up.

The ships had decloaked.

Scorp ran towards hid fighter and issued a command. "All pilots back to their ships, we're gonna get out of here while we can!" He grinned, "and we're gonna take part of this ship with us. We're gonna go out 'the fun way'"

"Delay that order," came Brittania, who had remained standing in place. "Might'ent it be prudent to discover who these attackers are so we can-"

"Knowing who they are will only slow us down," Scorp interrupted. "If we don't take out this ship and get back out there, we're going to have a lot more to worry about than unidentified attackers. The Darkstar -will- fall." He climbed into his cockpit, "Fletch- this is the right thing to do."

Brittania nodded in agreement. Scorp was right- there could be little gained from knowing who was doing the attacking. What mattered was the here-and-now. He ran to his fighter, climbed up the side and pulled himself in. As he secured the vacuum, he was already engaging the primary power systems. He flipped on his comm. "All right, boys, let's arm some torpedoes and get the hell out of here."

"Lock and load," came the response.

With that, all fighters began lifting off and creating chaos onboard the uncloaked warship. Explosions rocketed the vessel as it was exposed to the vacuum of space. All fighters shot out and then pulled back around to engage the already crippled enemy.

Then, something caught Brittania's eye. The ship was too close to the Darkstar. If they blew it up, it would surely be caught in the Darkstar’s gravitational pull and destroy all of the ship's lower decks.

"Break off the attack!" he called out.

"Sir?" came the confused responses.

"Disable only! We can't risk damaging the Darkstar." Brittania silently thanked the techies aboard the Darkstar for mounting all ships with ion cannons.

Piler blasted through an X-wing and started on another not noticing the A-wing closing in on his tail. He was just finishing off the X-wing when linked blasts started hitting his rear shields and immediately went into a dive "Frak, this guys good, I cant shak'em" he pulled up and headed straight for the Darkstar. Just as Piler's rear shields started failing the A-wing exploded .. "Piler, this is Hippie, looks like you could use some help down here, I’m on your wing"

Hippie then changed his comlink to Lightning’s frequency "This is Hippie to the rest of lightning, get down here now" He then pulled into a tight loop as Piler went into a tight turn and they both ended up on each others wing "Piler, we need to do something about those cap ships docked with the Darkstar, you got Ion cannons on that thing?"

Piler smiled when he heard Hippies voice. "Thanks a lot, Commander. Nice to hear from you, although I had hoped to meet you at better circumstances. Over. And by the way, of course my fighter's got Ions. This is a real ancient old F-Wing!" - "Alright then, let's disable those ATRs first.", Hippie replied and with an angry grin they both drained their shields and engines while firing with everything mounted on their ships.

With the tremendous combined firepower they managed to disable all five ATRs within one minute, two of them hadn't even able to dock on the DS. Now it was on time to 'delete' the Corvettes, of which one was a modified model.

As they finished their first run, drowning the modified corvette's shield to 10%, Hippie shouted over his squad's Comm channel: "Lightning, this is your leader. Get out of that ship AT ONCE!" But instead of a reply they were both blinded by the explosion of the corvettes hangar just in front of them with three fighters shooting out like bullets. "Lightning Leader, this is Brit. Reporting in. Over." Everybody on the channel could sense Brit's grin and Piler's and Hippie's open mouths. "G... g... good work, Cmdr..."

With five ships the disabling of the remaining corvettes was a pretty easy game. While the rest of the IW fleet kept perimeter defense, Lightning and Quartz prevented the Darkstar from boarding of any corvette. So there were only the two ATRs left, who had managed to deliver their cargo, whatever it was.

"Light, this is Piler. Can anyone scan what's in these ATRs? Or was?" - "No Sir, they've got sensor jammers on board." That was Scorp's experienced voice.

Piler thought a second, then his decision was clear. "Brit, cover me while entering the hangar, then follow me into the ship. We have to inform the DS's troop about the invaders' position. The rest of lightning may follow or keep defensive positions around the DS. But whoever commenced this attack, he's got no fighters left. Only his troops, and they will fall soon, I hope. Your choice: Who dares to dive into the lion's cave? Over."

Brittania nodded upon hearing Piler's command. He slowed down, taking a flanking position behind the more experienced pilot's F-Wing. Luckily, there was little opposition in flying straight up into the Darkstar’s massive hangar bay for either pilot.

When they had both set down and disembarked from their respective ships, Piler issued another order. "We're going to go up through the auxiliary work chutes. That way if there's already enemy troops crawling around, we'll be able to avoid detection."

Brittania nodded. "I suggest we arm ourselves with something a little more powerful than our pistols, sir," he said, motioning towards the hangar's arms locker.

Piler grinned, "You read my mind, Commander."

Both pilots walked over to the arms locker, but stopped suddenly as they realized that it was hanging open. Piler checked it out and confirmed the problem. "Looks like someone else made it in here before we do." He cocked his blaster, "I guess we'll be using our 'pistols' after all, Brit."

"All right sir, then I suggest we get a move on." He walked to the auxiliary work chute and opened the door. "After you," he said with a grin.

"Just a few more seconds!" Said Vykk from the console.

"We can't hold them much longer!" Daishi said, firing another shot down the hallway. "There are just too many of them!"

"Just cover me for one more minute!" Vykk replied as he crossed another wire. Vykk thought to himself, "Come on... I know this grid better than anyone else! Hell, I built this grid! What could be wrong?"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" was all that was heard as another ensign dropped from the fire fight.

"There it is!" said Vykk, "The main power valve! Everything else is ready, now we need to trigger the restart!" Vykk pressed the button and watched the countdown. "Everyone! Get Back!"

5...
4...
3...
2...
1...

The blast door closed with incredible speed. "How much power do we have?" Daishi asked.

"Auto-weapons, Door locks, you name it, we got it!" Vykk replied. "Try this on for size!" Vykk pressed a button and a number of auto guns emerged from behind the blast door. "That ought to take care of those invaders. Now we need to find Stan! Daishi, you have the lead."

"Yes Sir!" Said Daishi.

Daishi took point as he and several troopers started a systematic search of the Darkstar's auxiliary control rooms.

"Sir I found him." An anonymous trooper spoke up.

"Excellent. I'll see to him." Daishi replied.

"Is he..." Vykk spoke up revealing his presence.

"No just unconscious. He has no serious injuries, I can bring him back around with a medkit." Daishi replied as he examined Stan.

"What happened? I feel like I've been hit by a metric ton of bricks." Stan half mumbled as he sat up.

"Near as I can figure you were knocked unconscious by a piece of debris, as soon as the last few boarders are neutralized you should get down to medbay." Daishi countered.

"Status." Stan said as he rose and still groggy.

"We have power and automated security back on-line. With a few teams and a good hour or so per deck we will be able to declare all boarders neutralized. All enemy ships have been neutralized. The Darkstar has been significantly damaged and will need to head to Trifid for repairs." Daishi replied.

"Excellent. Daishi I trust you can see to the removal of the remaining boarders then." Stan replied now standing at his post.

"Yes sir, I will need at least six teams of four, more will speed up the process." Daishi replied on his way out the door.

"Take a full company. I want this ship cleared as fast as possible. All other troopers will see to it that your prey does not double back on you." Stan ordered.

"Right away sir." Daishi replied, his evil grin could almost be heard in his voice.

Vykk chose to remain with Stan while sending the rest of the troops with Daishi to sweep the ship.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Asked Stan.

"Of course I am." replied Vykk, "We need to get to the bridge and retake control. I think this is a good time to test your ability in the Unify Shadow Technique."

"All right, I think I'm ready to move." Stan said after using the force to heal his minor wounds.

"Let's go." Said Vykk. The two Ar'Kell made their way quickly and silently to the outskirts of the bridge. Only their Shadows could be seen. Once outside the bridge, Vykk accessed a control console. He said, "Deactivate bridge lights, authorization Olyronn 4 Alpha 5." The console displayed an acknowledgement and the two Jedi entered the bridge.

Stan immediately let lose fire from his blaster as Vykk covered Stan with his lightsaber. It was only a matter of moments until all enemies on the bridge were neutralized. "Seal bridge." Stan said, and the blast doors came closing down around the bridge.

"Good work Stan, you are ready for the Trials." Said Vykk, "Restore lights."

"Let's stir up a little trouble while we are here." Said Stan.

Piler coughed. The narrow chute they were crouching through, was dusty and stuffy like no one had ever used it since the DS had been built. But since they had to get to the lower decks as fast as possible, they had no time for time consuming shooting-outs. And they would have been overweaponed anyway. Taking the uncomfortable but much safer and quicker way, they both managed to arrive at the main power core in less than fifteen minutes. The room had already been cleaned as they could see from all the corpses all over the floor. Brit inspected one of the casualties. Finally he concluded, "Sir, these guys have been killed only five or ten minutes ago. Fortunately they're not ours."

"Alright then, let's see if we can catch up with the rest of the cleaning commandos." Piler replied. Then they left the room, not without taking one rifle each from a dead soldier. "With this little thing I feel much more safe. Did you notice that it's an Imperial model?" - "Yes, Sir. But with some money you can buy these things all over the galaxy. So the guns aren't a hint at who has done this, I think." Brit replied. Piler just nodded.

Then they left the main power supply section to get to the crew quarters astern, where the ATRs had docked. They proceeded very quick but very carefully. This is one of the things you learn when becoming a Rebel Seal, Piler thought while thinking back to his times when he still was a young Captain commanding a Rebel unit that was known as one of the best ones in the New Republic. But that was a long time ago, now he was an Imperial high-ranking officer who had retired more than a year ago and found himself inmidst of a big space battle. What a live...

Finally they found a medical officer leaning over a bloody body. "Can we help you, Lieutenant?" - "No Sir, I fear not. Any help for this buddy would be too late." While saying this, the medical Lieutenant pushed an overdoses of Morpheme into the young Sergeant's leg. "He's suffered a direct laser hit into his stomach, no chance to rescue him, Sir. He's only nineteen.". Piler didn't know how to react. As an experienced officer he had seen many people die, among them very close friends. On the other hand he was close to tears every time he saw someone dying.

Piler tried to contain himself. "Where is General Daishi?" he asked the officer. He pointed with his thumb, "just around the corner, Sir.". Piler patted him on the shoulder before walking around the corner to see a very exhausted and done IW officer in a full environmental suit, wearing uncountable weapons. Piler saluted, "General Daishi, pleased to meet you.". Daishi smiled, "The pleasure is on my side, General. Commander" With this he nodded to Brit. "How's the cleaning going on?" Piler inquired. "Great. We're proceeding very fast, I think in one hour this ship is clean, but with you two guys helping me a bit, we could get to the officers' lounge a few minutes earlier." The three pilots laughed shortly before they went on to business.

Exactly one hour later a very releiving message was broadcasted over all ship communication systems. The voice of Stan saying: "Members of the Intruder Wing Ship Darkstar, this is your Fleet Commander speaking. All enemy ships and troops have been neutralized. I hereby declare this battle for won. Thanks to your great efforts we were able to defeat the enemy without too many casualties. Every soldier in the Intruder Wing has done his duty, and we have done it very good. The Darkstar has suffered many damages. we have to return to Trifid for repairs, but Trifid's a good place to spend your week of vacation. Red Alert ended, Fleet Commander out."

The whole ship was dancing and shouting, screaming and singing. After taking a shower and caring for his small wounds, Piler went to the officers' mess to have a beer with his friends. But when he opened the door he saw that it was completely empty. A piece of paper had been fixed to the door reading: "The officers' mess is closed today. Party's happening in the crew mess.". So he went down to the crew mess and could already hear the "party" from one deck further. Entering the room was nearly impossible. The catering crew had organized the biggest party he had ever seen. The whole ship crew, no matter if Private or Admiral, danced and drunk.

In a corner Piler spotted Brittania. "Commander, please to meet you. You've done a great job today." Piler said with a smile. "Thank you, General. By the way: Admiral Stan has issued offer that tonight ranks are banned. So this is going to be the best party we've had ever." Brit replied with even a bigger smile. Piler glanced around and with an even more bigger smile he added "Alright, and as far as I can see, the IW's become richer of female Sergeants, and not even bad ones. They HAVE to be checked out ".

The party held on for the whole night and following day. Literally everybody was drunk and needed another 24 hours of sleep afterwards. When Piler woke up the next morning, the first thing he wondered was, who this lady next to him was. Then he saw a message on his computer. Stan was announcing a celebration this evening at 8pm. "Dammit, another one... and in one hour..." Piler grunted. He opened his closet, and since he had been quartered in his former room, he found his old uniform. "Alright then, let's dress up."

He put on his pants and the uniform jacket, then he wondered whether he was allowed to wear all the patches and signs he had gained through his IW career. He took of the rank badge, the IO patch, the WB rank badge and the WC sign, leaving only the big Darkstar badge, his ribbons and his name badge. He replaced the CO patches on his collar by "IW"-patches, stating that he was civilian. He turned around and saw the woman who had spent the night with him dressing up, too. Dammit, he thought to himself, I'd never dreamed to sleep with a Corporal since I'd been one myself...

Then they left - separately, of course - for the big ceremonial. Many pilots and troops would be rewarded with medals for their bravery. He entered the room one minute to eight, so nearly no seat was vacant. He found one close to Daishi, who had kept one free for him. Daishi handed him a sheet of paper containing the statistics. The most interesting section, of course, was the pilot roster. It read as follows:

General Daishi - 9 kills
Commander Britannia - 5 kills
Vice Admiral Eucilid - 4 kills
Major Scorpion - 3 kills
Fleet Admiral Stan - 2 kills
Rear Admiral Vykk Olyronn - 2 kills
Second Lieutenant Master - 1 kill
Commander Hippie - 1 kill

General (ret.) Piler - 7 kills
Admiral (ret.) Smasher - 1 kill

Then Stan opened his speech.

Stan cleared his throat, shuffled his notes and looked at the many faces of the IW looking back at him.

"I'm not good with speeches, so I'm going to be brief. The following crew members and officers will be receiving medals for their hard work during this attack. When I call your name, come up to the stage. Hold all applause till all are up here. Gen. Daishi, Cmdr Brittania, VA Eucilid, Maj. Scorpion, RA Vykk,

SLt Master, Cmdr Hippie."

All 7 walked up to the stage and waited for their medal.

Stan then proceeded to pin the following medal on them:

General Daishi - MoP-br
Commander Britannia - MoP-br
Vice Admiral Eucilid - MoP
Major Scorpion - MoP
Rear Admiral Vykk Olyronn - MoP
Second Lieutenant Master - MoP
Commander Hippie - MoP

"Gen. Piler, and AD Smasher, even though both of you are retired, you will also receive the MoP"

As Stan pinned the last medal on, the crew gave a big round of applause and cheers. He waited for a few moments and then quieted them down.

"We still have some heavy damage that needs repairing. We will be heading for the Trifid system shortly. While the Darkstar is under repair, I will be authorizing shore leave for the crew."

Even louder cheers erupted.

Stan left the party to let the crew continue to celebrate. He made his way to the main bridge. He sat in his command chair, exhausted from the recent events. Tired, he looked at the bridge staff.

"Report."

"Engines are at 75%, weapons 50%, and shields also 50%" A bridge officer said.

"Very well. Set your course for the Trifid system, best possible speed."

"Aye Sir"

Stan left the bridge and headed for his quarters. He knew he needed to visit the MedLab to treat his minor wounds, but this was too important. He got to his quarters, got out of his uniform, headed to his bed and was asleep before his head hit the pillow.

"ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ"

The End