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"Look, I know the risks, but I have to be out there too. We both have a war to fight." Sara insisted as she pulled on her flight gear.

"I know that...it's just..." Nicolai paused, before visibly deflating and then nodding, "You're right."

Sara smiled, "I can handle myself, you know that. Besides, we both have a reason to come back."

"Yeah." He looked down at the floor for a moment and then back up at her, "Yeah. Well, I need my best pilots out there, and since we're the last two non-nuggets with Resurrection here over Aurora, I guess that's us."

"Don't worry." Sara said as she grabbed her helmet from her locker, shutting it behind her, "We'll be fine."

"ATTENTION ALL PILOTS, REPORT TO YOUR STATIONS! ALL PILOTS, TO YOUR STATIONS!" The PA blared.

"That's us, then." Nicolai said, "Good luck out there." He started to walk away when Sara grabbed his wrist and spun him around. They stared at each other for the briefest of moments before finally, for the first time in an eternity for both of them, they kissed.

"Come back in one piece." Sara said, and they both headed for the hangar.
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"Resurrection Two, this is Redemption Control, you are clear for launch."

"Copy, Redemption." Sara said, and guided her X-Wing out of the Star Destroyer's hangar.

"Two, take Two Flight, and rendezvous with the Windstorm. Dagger Squadron should already be there." Nicolai ordered.

"Understood, One. Two Flight, on my wing, let's go." Sara said, targeting the navbouy, and led the other two X-Wings. A short hop through hyperspace later, and they were with the Mon Calamari Cruiser Windstorm.

"Dagger One, this is Resurrection Two, leading a three-ship formation of X-Wings."

"Welcome to the party, Resurrection. We're just..."

"Alert, alert! Imperial forces hypering in!"

Sara looked to her sensors, and despite everything, her blood ran cold. Three Imperial Star Destroyers had just arrived, and were disgorging fighters en-masse.

"Resurrection, we need to keep the station alive as long as possible. Do whatever you can to stop it."

"Resurrection Two, copy. Three, Four, let's go." Sara said, banking her X-Wing around.

The TIEs were numerous, and checked off the usual list of types. Fighters and Bombers came first. Sara banked in, cutting power to her engines partially to boost her shields and lasers, and traced in on a TIE Fighter. Setting her cannons to dual-link, she adjusted the crosshairs, and fired. Two crimson bolts drilled through the TIE and sheared it's wings off, sending it careening into space.

Suddenly, Pixy, her R2 unit, began hooting.

"What ATRs?" Sara asked as she bore down on a group of TIE Bombers.

Pixy began whistling and hooting.

"Well. I...yeah. Hang on." Sara said, "Let's finish these guys off first."

She lined up on the trailing Bomber of the formation, and fired. The first two bursts missed, but the third pair of lasers found the bomber, damaging it. Sara hit the trigger again, and the TIE was no more.

"Heads up, they're launching against the platform." Sara reported, as she saw the tell-tale blue streaks of proton torpedoes racing from the munitions pods of the remaining TIE Bombers ahead of her. She took out one more before a friendly A-Wing cut in, tearing up the last one.

"This is Resurrection Two, I'm going after the transports." Sara banked around and began pursuing the ATR-6 Assault Transports. She bracketed up the lead transport and began firing, but the transport wasn't going down without a fight, and a turbolaser blast hit directly onto her shields, rocking the ship.

Pixy hooted and warbled.

"...good thing I overcharged the shields then." Sara replied, and kept firing. Even with full power to the laser cannons, it was still taking a good charge out of them to tear through the transport's shields. But her persistence paid off, and the ship's shields were down.

"Going to torps." Sara said, and toggled over to the warheads. As soon as the crosshairs turned red, she launched the torpedo. It streaked out and slammed into the top of the hull, where the ventral fin was, and detonated. The transport spun out of control, spraying out oxygen, other gasses, and Stormtroopers, before finally exploding.

"One down, one to go."

Sara swung around and began engaging the second ATR, but this one was a bit more feisty, but her shields held off long enough for her to whittle away theirs, and finish it off with a pair of torpedoes.

"Two, we've got Avengers hypering in." Resurrection Four called out.

"...this is getting bad." Sara said, when she finally was able to look at the big picture. The Star Destroyers were tearing the Golan apart with their guns, and although the RS was holding on, once that station was gone, it was all over here.

Sara broke in to engage the TIE Advanced formation that had arrived when the message readout finally reported that the station was lost, but the Windstorm was finally pulling out with the station's command staff.

"We're out of here. Resurrection, go for the bouy, now." Sara said. She had no intentions of taking on three Imp Star Deuces today, though the gunners were trying to provoke her as a turbolaser blast slammed into her shields, and several more streaked around her X-Wing.

"Not this time..." Sara said to herself, before finally reaching the nav bouy launch point. It had happened all so fast, and yet, the battle was over. Now it was time to see how Nicolai had done once they got back to the Redemption...