Star Wars 8: Battle over D'Qar (One Shot Writing Practice)

[Kara Sheridan]

Ello reader. This is a simple piece of fiction that I made after my dissatisfaction with SW8's opening scene. I originally envisioned this as the opening scene for a whole rewrite of Episode 8, but decided that it was more than a little presumptuous and arrogant. So here's some light space battle fluff instead.

***
"I have my orders from Supreme Leader Snoke," Hux declared to the bridge crew of the star destroyer Finalizer. "Set course for the Ileenium System. This is where we snuff out the Resistance and complete the job we started."

The hundred or so officers who made up the brains of Hux's personal flagship and base of power saluted and dispersed to their work stations. Hux stalked among them, making his presence known as he simmered in his thoughts. He has been most pleased when the Supreme Leader had given this job to him. Starkiller Base was his dream come true. A technological terror that Grand Moff Tarkin would have been proud to witness. A weapon to bring true, everlasting order to the galaxy that had been destroyed by a tiny band of degenerates and renegades.

He would not just snuff out the Resistance for this. He would slaughter them. Any prisoners who had the great misfortune of surrendering to him would be repaid a thousand fold for the destruction of Starkiller Base. Though he doubted there would be any survivors to capture. The Finalizer would be joined by the Imperious and the Avenger. Three star destroyers to destroy an organization numbering less than a thousand personnel.

It was almost comical and more than one general and admiral had objected to this apparent misappropriation of resources. Star destroyers were a precious resource. Just one being sent in was overkill. Three? That was criminally incompetent!

Those leaders had thankfully been purged and removed after the disaster that was Starkiller Base's defense. There would be no second chances taken with the Resistance. They would die like maggots ground under the boots of the First Order.

When the fleet left hyperspace the first fly in the ointment made itself known.

"What is that doing there?" Captain Edrison Peavey demanded. Naturally nobody had an answer for him. Nobody except Hux.

"It seems we missed a few of their ships," Hux deadpanned as he beheld a wireframe readout of a battleship sitting in orbit of D'Qar, surrounded by support ships and shuttles streaming up from the surface. Oh sure the New Republic didn't call it that. Officially it was a MC85 Star Cruiser, or just referred to as a heavy cruiser, but it was a battleship all the same.

"War book says it's the Dawn of Tranquility, sir," a lieutenant announced. "She's supposed to be retired and broken up for scrap three years ago, according to naval intelligence."

"It seems that our intelligence, is not," Hux opined. "No matter. Deploy the fleet and our fighters! We will wipe these scum from the universe, once and for all!"


***
"Three contacts just jumped out of hyperspace!" an officer called out. "All star destroyers and closing in for attack!"

General Leia Organa Solo rubbed her thumb in circular motions over the dark jewel of her mourning ring. She stood in the command center for the Raddus, one of the last MC85 Mon Calamari Star Cruisers left in existance. Huddled around the heavy cruiser was a smattering of corvettes and transports trying desperately to extract the Resistance out of their formerly secret base on the surface of D'Qar.

She realized she was nervous and stopped fidgeting with the ring. It was Hoth all over again. Another Disaster over Tingel Deepspace Besh. Another close call for her outgunned and outnumbered rebels against the forces of the Empire. Except this time she was in the roll of Mon Mothma. Even with Ackbar here this was going to be a close one for the good guys, and she was at her limits of what she could do.

Not for the first time she wished Luke was here. Or Han. Or maybe the whole Republic Starfleet while she was playing wishing games.

"Admiral Ackbar, deploy the Raddus and our fighters to protect the transports coming up from the base," she commanded. "Let's get our people out of here and go home."

"Yes general!" the elderly but still deadly potent Mon Calamari freedom fighter turned fleet admiral declared. "Black Leader, are your fighters in position?"

"Yes, sir!" Commander Poe Dameron replied, flying his X-Wing in formation with the rest of the fighter wing: What was left of Black, Red, and Blue Squadrons, plus three fresh squadrons of X-wings and A-wings from the Mon Calamari defense forces.

"Commander, have your fighters prepare to engage the enemy once we've established the defensive perimeter!" Ackbar instructed. "Until then, hold fast and protect the transports!"

"Yes, sir!" Poe replied.

The sixty or so fighters of the New Republic Starfleet seemed pitifully small as close to three hundred TIE fighters launched from the approaching star destroyers. The sleek, dagger-like vessels closed in like wolves on a wounded animal. They would focus their fire on the Raddus's large broadsides and hammer her shields down to nothing, then gut her from the inside out as their fighters overwhelmed the escorts and destroyed the shuttles.

Or at least, that was the plan.

"Reinforce the starboard shields and being our broadsides to bare!" Admiral Ackbar ordered. "Starboard cannons target the lead star destroyer! Point defense cannons prepare for anti-air combat!"

The massive heavy cruiser rumbled as her reactors fed power to her systems. She turned with a grace that she had no right to that only the Mon Calamari could give to their cruisers. Scores of heavy turbolasers and light laser cannons turned and tracked their targets.

"Fire!" Ackbar yelled.

The massive broadside of the Raddus opened up with everything they had to offer. The starry night of space became eye searingly bright with red and blue laser bolts as the Resistance resisted. The lead TIE fighters simply ceased to exist as they were blasted apart under the deadly fusilade. The survivors turned back and ran in confusion back to their motherships as the heavy turbolasers focused on the lead First Order battle cruiser.

The Avenger's shields buckled quickly and her forward hull crumpled. While the warship was a deadly opponent the First Order made their ships for maximum aggression, hoping to overwhelm their targets before they could offer proper resistance.

"How the hell did the Resistance get their hands on that much firepower?" Captain Peavey demanded. "That is a proper battleship!"

"And what do we have, a couple of tug boats?" Hux snapped at him, annoyed. This was no time to gape in awe at yet another paradoxal failure of the military's intelligence. "Open fire!"

The rest of the First Order fleet opened fire on the Raddus. The Imperious and the Finalizer took positions to setup a crossfire that pounded the Raddus's shields for all they were worth. Even the Avenger made herself know with bristling cannonade barrages. Ackbar and Leia both grimaced as the shields dropped a full twelve percent within the first few moments of battle. They wouldn't last long against three star destroyers, even if they managed to take one or even two with them. Even now the TIE fighters were circumnavigating the laser cannon barrages and vectoring in on the vulnerable escort ships and the evacuation shuttles.

That was fine, though. They just had to last until the evacuation was complete, and the extra firepower wasn't the only trick Leia had up her royal sleeves.

"Admiral, overcharge the shields!" General Organa ordered. "Deploy our fighters to protect the transports."

"Yes, general!" Ackbar replied. He tapped a comm switch and declared, "Black Leader, our defensive perimeter has been established. Engage those fighters and protect our transports!"

***

"Copy you, Admiral!" Poe Dameron replied, talking as fast as his tongue could waggle. "Okay, this what we do boys and girls! Blue and Red squadrons, you take the head and head off those fighters! Gold and Green, protect the fleet! Everyone else, you're with me! We're going to keep these thugs on their toes!"

A ringing chorus of affirmatives filled his ears and Poe locked his S-foils into attack position. He and the rest of the air wing flew into the fight. Two hundred and change TIE fighters broke into groups of wingmen and individual squadrons as they attacked. Dozens died in the first few seconds of the battle. The fact that most of them were First Order meant nothing. They outnumbered the Resistance by a factor of three and they pressed it home.

Even as Poe pushed his piloting skills to the limit, shooting down a TIE every few seconds and with every blast from his X-wing's guns, there were ten more flying towards their objective. Mag-pulse bombs and missiles were fired into shuttles, breaking them apart like glass ornaments and spilling their crowded contents of personnel into space. They were fired into the hulls of the escorting corvettes and frigates that protected the Raddus from fighter attacks, breaking their light hulls apart.

Hux almost allowed himself a smile as the enemy was being decimated and the protection around their precious flagship eroded. Then the Avenger exploded as her hypermatter reactor was finally hit and destabilized. The Mon Cala battleship still had half shielding and her guns were training on the Imperious now. The battle cruiser was attempting to rotate and maneuver to keep the enemy fire from breaching their shields. The TIE fighters, while numerous and pressing hard, were still being shot down by the superiorly trained Resistance pilots while the last of their shuttles were on approach runs for the cruiser.

"What's taking our fighters so long?" Peavey screamed at the Finalizer's crew. "Tell the squadron leaders to press the attack! Destroy those Resistance shuttles, now!"

"Calm yourself, captain!" Hux snapped. "Tell the Imperious to pull back. Pull us back as well."

"We're retreating?! In our moment of triumph?!" Peavey demanded.

"We're getting into a better position," Hux declared. "We conserve our resources and hit them when we have something to destroy that battleship with. That said, tell the wing commanders to keep up the attack. Let's not let them go so easily."

***

"They're retreating!" someone on the Raddus's bridge yelled as the lead star destroyer broke up."They're running!"

"Someone tell that to their fighters!" Poe cried. "We're getting swarmed out here!"

"Focus, people!" Leia declared. "We're not out of the battle yet!"

She cut the comms and looked at Ackbar, saying, "we need to preserve our fighter strengths. We don't know who else will be at the rendezvous."

"Yes, General!" Ackbar nodded. "Release the escort corvettes! Protect our fighters! How long until the last of the shuttles are aboard?"

"Seven minutes, sir!" an officer declared.

***
Hux felt his jaw muscles flare as the Resistance light ships, now released from protecting their command ship, fell amongst his fighters like poison gas released into a crowd of rioters. Entire squadrons of TIEs blinked off the map as the light laser cannons of the corvettes blasted them apart. Hux kicked himself for not grabbing a Nebulon-K frigate squadron or a wing of Raider-V attack corvettes, but not too much. These rebels would only be escaping one doom for another.

"Last of the shuttles are docking," Captain Peavey stated, sounding dejected. "They'll be jumping to hyperspace any moment now."

"Not until they recover their fighters, Hux," replied.

***
Poe sent his fighter spinning as he jinked out of the path of three TIE fighters and their blasters, feeling his teeth getting yanked out of their sockets from the G-forces at work. BB-8 squeaked at him and he ignored the little droid. He wasn't saying anything Poe didn't know. His X-Wing was breaking apart from under him and he couldn't do anything about it.

"Tallie! What's your status?" He barked as he blasted another TIE out of the sky while those original three vectored in on him.

"Onboard!" his female XO replied. "We're just waiting on you!"

"Well there's a lot of TIEs between me and you!" Poe cut his forward velocity and hit the reverse, overcharging his RCS thrusters to send him zipping down while he pointed his nose up at the trailing three fighters. He blasted them out of space and hit his thrusters again, sending him back into his chair and his lunch into his throat. "Just jump without me! I'll catch up!"

"Commander Dameron, this is no time for heroics!" Leia sighed. "Just get yourself on this cruiser before those star destroyers stop running!"

Poe almost argued with her, but thought better of it when a TIE fighter strafed him and took out the last of his shields. He turned his fighter around until he saw the Raddus and hit his afterburners. No more time for special tricks, just hard math as he tried to get out of their attack range and into the Raddus's hangar bay.

"Happy beeps buddy, happy beeps!" Poe muttered to himself as BB-8 unleashed a new wave of protests as the already overstrained X-wing began to truly fall apart. "Raddus, I'm coming in hot! Better clear the deck!"

Black One was trailing smoke and flames when it came crashing down into the Raddus's primary hangar deck. The landing skids buckled under the weight of the broken X-wing as the underside of the abused fighter shredded itself on the landing. Poe didn't want to check but he was pretty sure his boots were touching the ground through his ship's guts as he stumbled out and fell face first onto the deck.

"Looks like you broke your ship, Black Leader!" Tallie teased him as he put himself back on his feet. Despite the split lip and bloody nose he was smiling as she threw herself into his arms. They kissed, and for a moment Poe was alright with his ship being shredded into spare parts.

For a moment, anyway.

***
The Tranquility jumped into hyperspace as the last of the fighters docked. Hux glowered and didn't bother hiding his displeasure as the Resistance escaped from his wrath. Barely a hundred TIE fighters were returning to his launch bays and he was down one star destroyer. A few enemy frigates and unarmed shuttles were his tally for this battle, and he hated it. There was no way to make things worse, it seemed.

"General Hux," the comms lieutenant called out from the command trench, "Supreme Leader Snoke is contacting you. He wants a status update on the attack on the Resistance."

***
Poe was forced to break the kiss when BB-8 started beeping loudly. Something about Fynn being naked and leaking. For a moment he thought his trusty droid buddy had fried a chip when he looked at the bulkhead entrance to the flight deck. Sure enough there was Fynn wandering around in nothing but his intensive care bacta suit. Which is to say, wearing nothing at all.

Poe left Tallie's arms and rushed to Fynn crying his name.

"Fynn! Fynn, Fynn, buddy! It's so good to see you up and about. Uh, let's get you dressed. You must have a thousand questions."

Fynn looked at him dead in the eye with a queer, intense glint in his own brown eyes. He asked, "Where's Rey?"