“Pirates, here? Are you quite sure, Bett?”
“Yes, sir!” Lathril’s wingman snapped back. “Ten of them, coming in fast from the north, north-west!”
“I see them,” confirmed Teft from Lathril’s other side.
“Well, we’ll make them regret messing with the Banshees,” Lathril said firmly. “Star formation. Loose and easy does it!”
The Banshee wing, starfighter defenders of Bonadan, broke from their V. They accelerated and raked the pirate ships with laserfire, passing more swiftly than the bogeys could account for.
“Three down, seven to go!” Bett hooted. “We’ll be back for dinner in no time!”
“Don’t get cocky,” Lathril warned. “Those missiles they’re carrying are no joke.”
“You think they wanted to crack open a supply frigate or something?” Guy asked. “Why are they so heavily armed?”
“Don’t know,” Lathril answered her. “Second rake, come around!”
The Banshee wing turned smoothly and accelerated again, but the pirates were beginning to catch on. Though two more of them went up in flames, the others scattered and then turned, chasing the Banshees as they dipped down further into the Bonadan atmosphere.
“Let’s see how they like gravity,” Old Crusty growled.
“Very much or not at all,” Bett joked, as he fell in behind the old man and his pirate “passenger”, gunning it down. As the battle devolved into dogfighting, comms became a spitting of commands and warnings, no time for jokes left.
“Careful, Banshee Two, you got one on your tail.”
“On it. Scatter fire, then bend west.”
“Banshee Lead, two broke off from main. We following?”
“No. Increase speed 20% and engage the main cluster.”
“Main cluster engaged. Firing… shit!”
How quickly things could fall apart in a battle, Lathril reflected. There was a growing chill on his neck, like someone had placed a cold hand upon it.
“Breakaways out of scope range now. Anyone have a visual? What’re they up to?”
“I can see them. Two bogeys returning and… they’ve got another one with them, sir!”
The cold hand tightened. Lathril shrugged it away. “What do you mean, they’ve got another one with them?”
“I don’t know! There’s no debris it could’ve been hiding behind, but now there’s three of them! Scopes are–“
“They’re accelerating.”
Hurtling down a canyon. His rudder not responding. Lathril put a hand on the control panel as he peered out his cockpit. He recognized the maneuver, where one starfighter had provided visual cover for the other, so that it could charge its weapons and lock on without being rushed. Yet there was something off about their formation, and the Dark Side was yawning inside him. What was the Force trying to tell him? Was it…?
“That’s ram speed,” Old Crusty suddenly put in. “Banshee Leader, move!”
“I–“
No missile was coming at him, merely a fast-moving fighter, its prow shaped like a spear.
“Lathril!”
“–can’t–“
Snap.
Time stopped.
Flames. Crash. Choking smoke. Red pain.
Black finality.
The Banshee wing flew on above, inklings just beginning to kindle that something terrible had happened, even as the battle raged on. The broken starfighter was a smear on the landscape. It sent up a billowing of black smoke, and for a moment, all there was was the understanding that this was a flying hazard. The wing was a man down, and they had to reorient themselves to compensate for it, dodging around the wide, dark column.
“Come around on their starboard flank, Guy.”
“On it!”
Another bogey went down, spinning like a pinwheel of fire. Guy felt the unsettling notion that any of those explosions could’ve been her, just like —
No time. Job to do.
“Five o’clock! Five o’clock! Watch it, Banshee Three!”
The necessity of the moment stole her thoughts. She rammed herself into the side of her cockpit as she twisted her body, as if that would help her starfighter to twist faster out of the way, too. It didn’t help, of course, yet the starfighter turned, a missile passing mere inches from the ship’s underbelly.
“How dare you!” she screamed at nobody. Breaking ranks, she flipped around, jamming her fingers down on her control board. She knew this bogey was the one that had caused her leader to crash. Laser after laser streamed away, as she flew right towards it. She felt heat bloom across her face as the other fighter exploded, and she flew through it, up into the atmosphere again where the chill of thin air cooled her ship just as quickly as the firestorm had warmed her.
Cooled the tears on her cheeks.
“That’s the last of them.” Old Crusty’s voice came in over the comms. “Banshees? You good? Lord Ja’eel…?”
There was a short silence in each of the cockpits. No one wanted to admit it, until… “No one could have survived that crash,” Bett said lowly.
“Form up,” said Old Crusty, reminding them they still weren’t out of trouble. The patrol needed to be completed, and there might have been more pirates around. War marched on.
For a split second, Guy thought how terrible the Sith machine must be, chewing up lives like this, with no time to waste on honoring the fallen. She could see split paths diverging from her into the future. Resentment. Hatred. Acceptance. Loyalty. Zealotry… All emotions she could choose to feel, if only… she was able to feel anything.
Why… wasn’t she able…?
“Banshee Three, come on,” said Old Crusty, and the concerned note in his voice braced her.
“Coming, sir. I just can’t believe…”
“I know. We will mourn properly once we’re at base.”
“Yes, sir.” Relief. Unexplained. Sudden. A direction. The paths snapping back as one.
“He wouldn’t have wanted us to falter.”
“No, sir.” Tears spilled over. She hit the autopilot to give herself a moment, as her starfighter rejoined the formation and they all flew on.
“Good man. Good Sith,” Bett attempted a few minutes later.
“Not now, Bett. At base.”
The rest of the patrol was completed in solemn silence.