Memory 64

[sticksofthejedi]

Memory: Wedge and Tycho hit the Vong with the Empire. "They're not going to like the Empire."
Received: Day 246, night
Form: Two palm-sized lion statues in a team-colored bag. Break the statue to receive; two uses.
Summary: Rogue Squadron's Wedge and Tycho are managing a ragtag fleet and group of ground forces at Borleias in a campaign to hold the system against a Yuuzhan Vong invasion. The two have decided the reason the New Republic is currently doing poorly against the invaders is because the republic's not only been divided in leadership, but also extremely predictable in military maneuvers. So they're switching up strategic styles throughout the campaign. Instead of fighting like the New Republic, they've gone to fighting like the Rebel Alliance.

Forty-eight days in, they've decided to switch it up and handle things the way the Empire would. This is the story of Operation Emperor's Hammer.

"It has all the characteristics of a major push," Tycho said.

He, Wedge, and Iella stood before the control chamber's hologram display. It showed the compiled readouts from all the garrison's ground based sensors, including the gravitic sensors Luke's Jedi had planted in the jungle beyond the kill zone, and incorporated live feeds from starfighters out on patrol.

At the center of the display was the large friendly signal marked "Base." Out at a distance of a few hundred kilometers, in every direction of the compass, were masses of red blips; Iella counted sixteen separate groups. "What are they doing? " she asked.

"One or two groups are landing personnel, vehicles, everything an invasion force needs," Wedge said, "The others are distractions. We're supposed to divide up our attention among them in a desperate attempt to figure out where their landing zone is, and we're supposed to become nervous because we're not succeeding."

"'Supposed to,'" Iella said. "Meaning that you're not? Not doing either one?"

Wedge shook his head. "Oh, we're sending out scouts to all these sites, but they're under orders to show up, stay alert, and then make a run for it if anything comes after them. We don't want to lose pilots acquiring information we essentially don't need."

"So you don't care where their landing zone is?"

"It doesn't matter."

"Why?"

"Because, sometime in the next day or two, they're going to attack us here - and that's exactly what we want them to do."

"And when they do," Iella said, "who are you going to face them with? The New Republic or the Rebel Alliance?"

Wedge and Tycho exchanged a look, and both grinned.

"Neither," Wedge said. "We're going to face them with an enemy they've never had the displeasure of fighting. We're going to hit them with the Empire."

"They're not going to like the Empire," Tycho said.

--

Occupation day 49. Vong ground forces are attempting to make a push for the Borleias post, with a fleet incoming in space. Jaina is one of several scrambling for starfighters with alarms going off all over. A large man stumbles into her way, looking half-dead; he announces that he is going to die. She starts to comm for medical help. The man continues, rambling madly.

Man: "I'm a Yuuzhan Vong spy, and I'm going to die. I'm supposed to capture you now, with the bugs in my pocket, and carry you to the edge of the kill zone. But I'm not going to."
Jaina: "Thank you." [activating a comm link] "Twin Suns leader to Control. I'm in front of the special ops docking bay. I have a civilian male here. He's, uh, experiencing distress and needs medical help right away."
Comm: "Acknowledged, Twin Suns."
Man: "I've won." [He's developing a massive nosebleed.] "I don't have to do what they say. All they can do is kill me."
Jaina: "Of course." [She starts edging around him toward her X-wing -- after all, she has orders to scramble her squadron.]
Man: "I took the bug off your X-wing. So don't worry."
Jaina: "I won't."

She drops into her cockpit and rushes through power-up. She's got a new astromech droid; it says it's designated R2-B3 and she announces it's terrible that it doesn't have a name -- droids don't get famous without names. "How about Cappie? For a friend of mine, a pilot named Capstan." She neglects to mention Capstan is dead.

She looks out the cockpit to where Jag Fel's fighter is; they smile and thumbs-up before launching. Jaina's got Feelings so there's a flutter in her stomach. She comms Kyp Durron, the only member of Twin Suns that hasn't given the ready, and does a sarcastic sweet voice as she informs him of this. "All the other little Twin Suns are ready to go."

The military is pretending Jaina's the incarnation of Yun Harla, the Vong's trickster goddess, so he apologizes to the "Great One." (They know there's Vong spies and other incredibly effective invasive techniques so the military's treating her as a goddess at all times in public as a strange psychological warfare thing Wraith Squadron's cooked up that isn't actually explained in this memory.) They launch.

In space: Vong capital ships approach on the far side of the planet. Commander Davip wants to alter Super Star Destroyer Lusankya's orbit to intercept, but Wedge transmits alternate orders. Twin Suns and a few other squadrons (Wild Knights, Blackmoon, and Rogue Squadrons) merely deploy in the atmosphere. Reinforcing squadrons are coming down from the orbiting star destroyers. For the first time in a long time, Jaina realizes she's afraid, and she decides that being aware and keeping it controlled, she doesn't mind. Fear and pain is part of life; the odd thing, in her opinion, is that's one thing she and the Vong might agree on. The squadrons are radioed to be informed enemy fighters are now engaging the Lusankya and Rebel Dream's squadrons in orbit. The Vong ground forces, which use giant reptiles in place of armored battle vehicles, are finally spotted and the atmospheric squadrons engage, strafing the enemy. The laser fire has limited success, as the Vong have some sort of miniature black hole projectors that get deployed as defenses. Jag observes that they've got more defenses than usual. A mechanical voice (Wraith squadron pilot "Piggy") gives a heads-up that enemy fighters are coming in at ground level. The jungle canopy is soaking up shots for them and making it hard to aim precisely. Piggy advises Jaina they either keep shooting from above, or join them in the woods.

Jaina puts Piggy in charge of the squad to continue aerial assaults, and orders Jag and Kyp to fly down with her.

(Elsewhere: Wedge and Lusankya Commander Davip are arguing on private channels; Davip is protesting the orders of Wedge's plan, complaining that the crew that's been assigned to him is misfits that probably can't provide the precision Wedge wants. He's not sure how he got "this incredible collection of screw ups. . . " and Wedge explains someone in the bureaucracy wants them out of the way. Someone higher up considers every person assigned to Borleias baggage they'd like to get rid of. "Command of the Lusankya isn't a ticket to promotion anymore. It's a ticket to obscurity and early retirement, and you'll deserve them if you don't learn to think outside your training. Lusankya is your last command, Davip, unless you get the job done today. Any more questions?")

Back on the ground, Jaina and Kyp are maneuvering just over the ground, essentially invisible from the air. Jag is two hundred meters ahead, with Jaina and Kyp using Force telekinesis to carry shadow bombs four meters directly behind him. Shadow bombs are a Jedi weapon -- learning to use telekinesis to throw missiles means they can get rid of propulsion systems and pack in more explosive material. Jag is relaying to them the enemy forces he can see, and actually laughs when friendly fire almost hits him.

Jaina: "Try not to get hit with your shields down, dummy."
Jag: "Good advice, that. I'd never considered it before."

He gives directions for Kyp to direct a shadow bomb into one of the Vong's giant reptiles. Kyp's complaining about how difficult it is to guide the bomb blind with just verbal directions; Jaina suggests he use hand motions to supplement his directions, then slave his fighter's controls to Jag so Jag can just use his control yoke to steer Kyp and thus Kyp's bomb. It works well, so they position the second bomb. Above, the New Republic fighters are being ordered into a fighting retreat.

Jag's discovered, and he and Jaina argue briefly, with her ordering him back. He complies, narrowly escaping getting vaporized by Vong fire. Enemy fighters take off after him. Jaina and Kyp coordinate in the Force, still holding onto the bombs, waiting for the enemy to be in optimal position. . . BOOM. Two of the three giant reptiles are obliterated, and she orders her squadron to converge on the final one and overwhelm its defenses. Wedge orders her to fall back, and Jaina puts on her goddess voice.

Jaina: "We want to know why we're being summoned back when we're winning."
Wedge: "Because you're holding up the Yuuzhan Vong advance."
Jaina: "What? I thought that's what we were supposed to do!"
Wedge: [laugh] "Goddess, as usual, you're doing your job too well."

The squadrons retreat toward the base. Twin Suns does a good fighting retreat, and each time they start making progress against the enemy, Wedge orders her a half-kilometer back. She's getting pretty frustrated with him. Eleven republic squadrons are converging to defend at the final line. Vong capital ships have come down into the atmosphere are joining the attack. Jaina's displeased; now that they've fallen back they won't be able to hold the site, from the looks of it. But she does realize now that if she hadn't kept the pace of falling back, Twin Suns would've been cut off from the other units and get overwhelmed. She tries thinking about it as "Jaina the Goddess," and checks her sensor board again. She finally comprehends Wedge's plan, and tells Jag she's going to have to apologize to his uncle.

All units are informed over the comm they have fifteen seconds to clear a designated kill zone. During a countdown, Jaina has her squadron form up on her.

Zero.

And it began to rain.

It didn't rain water. It rained columns of destructive energy, massed fire from turbolaser batteries far overhead, brilliant needles of light that poured into the jungle all around the kill zone.

The turbolaser blasts tore through vegetation, through everything beneath it. Blasts hitting trees detonated them in clouds of smoke. Beams hitting ponds and creeks and stagnant water sent up clouds of superheated steam. Beams flashed down through those clouds, but the manipulators of voids couldn't see them coming, couldn't maneuver the voids into place in time.

Jaina sat transfixed. This was orbital bombardment, what the Empire's Star Destroyers had been built to do, what no Star Destroyer under the command of the New Republic had ever done. Jaina had heard about it, but it was just history, just some old-timey thing that no one ever had to worry about.

And now she was seeing it. Lusankya was finally fulfilling the purpose for which she had been built, before Jaina had even been born.

For four minutes, death rained down from overhead, in a circle neatly surrounding the kill zone. Then it stopped, and the rumbles, the screams uttered by bodies of water suddenly superheated, the bellows of distant rakamats meeting their doom, all died away.

Jaina jumped as her comlink crackled back into life. "Ground forces," Wedge said, "commence mop-up."

…

As night fell, Jaina finished her power-down checklist. She exited her X-wing, gave it an affectionate pat, waved at Cappie, and turned toward the docking bay exit.

But waiting for her, as he usually did now, was Jag. He wore the slight smile Jaina suspected that only she could see. "What's up?" she said.

"Calrissian got back from Coruscant alive. So, being Calrissian, he's throwing a party for family and friends. And friends of friends, and anyone who looks interesting. He says he has pre-invasion brandy. Care to go?"

Jaina felt herself start to shake her head, the refusal that had become second nature to her since she'd come to Borleias, but she caught herself in time. She linked her arm through his and smiled up at him. "Love to."