Nigel kicked his left rudder pedal and held it down, pushing the stick forward as his XJ4 X-wing decanted from the hangar of his Defender-class Star Destroyer. Nichole followed him easily enough through the maneuver in her own XJ4, anticipating his moves through the mind-link they had in the Force.

The rest of the Shrikes followed, each X-wing in the squadron personalized with a bit of art on the nose of the individual craft. Nigel's nose art was the predatory shrike clasping a lightsaber hilt in its angled jaws. Nichole's was a lightsaber with an amethyst blade down either side. It went so on down the ten other X-wings, each piece of art varying according to the pilot.

Nigel snap-rolled his X-wing onto its starboard S-foil, and then barrel-rolled it into a shallow dive towards Coruscant's upper atmosphere. His R2 bleeped a warning, text appearing on a small multi-function display. He spared a second to read the blue text, and then spoke to the overprotective astromech droid. "Yes, Skate, I know the planetary shields are up. We're going to shave some travel time off." Nigel and Azrael's fleet had emerged from hyperspace mere moments before the Yuuzhan Vong fleet. He'd reacted instantly, directing Azrael to deploy his fighters.

He was now receiving one of those commanders over the comm. "This is Aversor lead. Aversor squadron deployed," came the mildly static-laden and clipped speech through Nigel's headset. He grinned, he knew this guy was an Imperial and hated abbreviations.

"Roger that, Av lead. Engage and destroy all skips." Skate bleeped condescendingly--the droid knew what he was doing and didn't like any of it.

In response, Aversor squadron pulled ahead of the Shrikes in their faster TIE Defenders in perfect formation, the commander's terse acknowledgement breaking through the static of the comm. He chuckled, opening a private line to Nichole. "Hey you, listen to this." He opened a channel to Coruscant's space-traffic control, and immediately a shrill and thoroughly annoying voice came over his comm.

"Unidentified bandits, you are in unauthorized space. Power down all systems immediately." Nichole broke into instant laughter; Nigel silenced her with a nudge through the Force.

He responded immediately, laughing. "How do you expect us to save your hides while we're powered down?"

Chris ignored the twinkling amber lights on his control panel as he cold-started the fusion engines on his X-wing. They didn't look important, so they weren't. The chief squadron mechanic had been working on his fighter the day before, he knew. The cinnamon-colored Wookiee was nearly finished when Chris had left, as far as he knew.

But he had also seen the squadron quartermaster while he was exiting. Though their quartermaster wasn't a droid, she was nearly mechanical and emotionless as one. The squadron even had a pool going to see if she was a human replica droid or a human. The quartermaster and the Wookiee got into notorious fights over anything and everything, yet the quartermaster still lived. Point in favor of the HRD.

Chris sighed as he waited for the check-in to get to him. He still had a headache and those amber lights weren't helping. He was positive the two had gotten into a fight and whatever the fur ball had been working on wasn't finished. It was his turn to check in. "Nine, checking in. Ah, four green and ready to go." Which was true--his engines did check in the green. He shook his head to clear a slight blur and the pre-combat action jitters from his vision, looking to the labels of the amber warnings. They were all ancillary power relays. Nothing important. He engaged the repulsorlifts; raising the fighter smoothly off the duracrete floor to three meters barely a moment after Eight had done so. Eight was a good pilot, Chris and her got along, but he still had trouble explaining to her that he was a taken man. She would never take no for an answer. His flight followed suit, and they all raised and locked their gear.

In pairs, the defenders of Coruscant streaked out of their hangars into the dark, foreboding sky.

Nigel dropped his fighter down in a vertical roll, thanking Nichole silently through the Force as she broke high and chased after the skip. She was wide on her first shot of darts only, thanks to the enticing picture he projected into her mind. Her voice crackled over the comm as he snap-rolled his fighter onto its port s-foil. "Three things, flyboy. One: You're lucky I didn't hit you." She growled as she triggered another salvo of darts. "Two: One of us isn't going to live to see that happens tonight you do that again, and I know you know who I mean. And three--" she paused, trigger a full quad burst of coherent shafts of light that impaled the skip dead center. She barrel rolled her fighter out to the right, and as if by magic was off Nigel's right wing.

"And three?" he called to her, dropping in on Twelve's uninvited dance partner, Nichole following him the whole way.

"And three: STAY OUT OF MY MIND!" He winced as the words cut into his ears, blinking at the sheer volume more than the content. Twelve got away. His pursuer didn't as Nichole blasted him with laser darts.

Azrael strode across the foredeck of the bridge in his ever present and highly polished armor. Coruscant was filling the lower portion of the bridge view ports more rapidly, the large portion of the city planet cloaked in dark gray clouds. Flickers of lightning occasionally streaked through the clouds, the dark colors illuminated to a light gray.

The two Defenders were in a flanking position alongside the MC-40 Destiny. Destiny was by no means the flagship; it was more of an escortee. It was being protected by the Defenders' heavier armor and armament while still being able to strike back.

Azrael glanced down to the portside holoscreen and saw the Destiny half a klick to port. He despised the gentle curves and earth tones of the alien ship. Azrael was not bound to take a subsidiary role in this battle. He was out for blood.

"Flank speed, take us after the battle cruiser analog," he said in his commanding tone, no tension expressed in his voice. In fact, nothing was expressed in his voice. It was cold, dead. "Relay the orders."

His executive officer, nostalgic in an old Imperial Naval uniform like the rest of the crew, repeated his orders. This crew was recruited from the Remnant, like Nigel's was from the Republic. "Helm, flank speed. Weapons, target is the battle cruiser analog. Comm, relay orders." A chorus of 'Aye, aye' responded to his orders and all three ships were underway.

"The outer shield is down! I repeat, the outer shield is down!" came the panicky voice through Chris' headset.

Chris winced as he took another hit, his X-wing rocking from the blow. "This is nine! I can't shake him!" he shouted over the comm., his voice panicking as he threw his stick to the wall and dropping his fighter into a diving roll, his pursuer doggedly following him.

"I'm on it, Nine," came the crisp, calm voice of his commander through the staticky comm.

"Hey! Don't think you're gonna get all the fun!" came an unfamiliar, but defiant female over the comm.

An XJ4 with an amethyst lightsaber down the nose flashed past his cockpit, lasers blazing at the skip behind him. Another XJ4 followed the first, a dark form emblazoned on the nose.

"Hey you! Get back here!" That voice he knew--it was Nigel. He threw his X-wing in a roll out of reflex, lowering his chin to open the comm. "Nigel? That you?"

He was answered by a slight chuckle and then Nigel's unusually cheery voice. "Who else would save your hides? Seriously, I need to talk to you, but not now. Nichole, get back here!"

Immediately, a horrible feeling of unease settled into his stomach. Something was wrong. Nigel never showed up for no reason or anything that didn't directly involve him. It wasn't just for this battle, couldn't be. The queasy feeling from earlier made a sudden reappearance onstage. Was it about her? Had something happened to Andrea? He didn't know.

"The inner shield is down! They're coming through! Repeat...!" Chris, Nigel, and Nichole slapped off their comms and dove their X-wings for the breach in the shield where skips and corvette to cruiser size chunks of yorik coral were slipping through. Already, several ships from the defense fleet were diverting course to interrupt the invaders, but it was too late. The Shrikes and Chris' squadron poured through the breach in the shield as one inflamed cruiser entered through the shield. The ember-tinged edges of the chipping piece of coral streaked a light gray as it heated the atmosphere. It burned hotly down upon a block of the cityscape. Chris knew the people inside stood no chance.

The duracrete block ceased to exist in a ball of argent flame and a cloud of dust. Nigel gasped for air and Nichole shrieked briefly as the deaths of tens of thousands broke over them through the Force with the power of a turbolaser.

Chris growled as he saw it happen and threw his X-wing hard over and dove through the atmosphere at the tail end of a skip. Squeezing the stutter trigger tightly with his middle finger, he followed the skip with literally hundreds of crimson laser darts. The coralskipper shuddered under the onslaught as the singularity provided by its dovin basal withered away.

Several more capital ship size masses of yorik coral passed through the breach in the shield before Chris's eyes. Losses in both the military and civilian population were tallying, but the fleet was already victorious. The Galactic News Network correspondent Ghitsa Dodger later declared the attack on Coruscant the most devastating of her generation, citing that nothing like it has been seen on the planet since the rebirth of the Emperor, almost twenty years earlier.

Chris was chasing after a skip in the upper atmosphere around a skyhook when Nigel interrupted his fun. &uqot;Chris, we need you to pull out now. You're coming with us." Chris's target, which had responded to his shower of laser darts by making the mistake of putting energy into his shielding instead of maneuvering, withered under a full power quad fusillade and began an arc into Coruscant's gravity well.

"Gotcha, boss." He pulled back on the stick, climbing up through the gradually thinning layers of atmosphere and heading for the breach. He didn't bother telling anyone; he didn't expect to return. Streaking through the breach, his four ion engines left a trail of blue through a shower of yorik coral meteorites that were left in a deteriorating orbit. Looking around him, he saw several corvettes venting atmosphere in both small and large jets of vapor, several cruisers sitting dead in space, and more debris raining down on Coruscant. He decided he it was best he didn't look back at Coruscant.

It was several minutes before he reached Nigel's outbound ship, and another before he was settling down in the hangar bay. Nigel, Nichole, and a woman he'd never seen before met him there. He powered down his XJ4 X-wing, and then popped the canopy with a hiss. A tech moved a ladder over to the cockpit for him and he climbed down to the stained durasteel decking. Turning around to face the trio, he pulled off his flight gloves. With his flight gloves in his left hand, he took off his helmet with his right, releasing his braid to the power of gravity.

Nigel stepped forward, his brown eyes sober and his face without a smile. He placed a hand lightly on Chris' forearm, taking a moment to gather his thoughts before speaking. "Chris… I'm sorry. Andrea-"

Chris nodded once, he didn't need to hear it to confirm it, "I know. She's dead. How many did she take with her, do you know?"

Nigel shook his head sadly, looking to the decking. "I don't even where her body is. With time, I can track her down."

The unknown woman stepped forward, interrupting, the bun she had done up behind her head bobbing slightly. "I'm sorry sir, but the bridge says we're ready to make the jump into hyperspace."

Nigel looked up and met her gaze, and in a voice so soft she had to strain to hear it, he said, "Alright, thank you, Eva. Tell them to make the jump." She relayed the order, and klaxons all over the ship sounded thrice, and the jump was made as stars became star lines, and star lines became the mottled blue lightning tunnel of hyperspace.

Continued in Part Four.html">