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Dented Shield mission narrative
Written by Dagger Squadron members,
Col. Naesa Draw
Ltcm Jay Forerunner
CMDR Mia StormChaser (BLUE Text)
BGN Swifty Chapple
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[WCRS Windstorm - Fighter Hangar]

Naesa Draw shifts in the cockpit of her blue trimmed T-65, going over the display of a datapad. Ever since the bombing that put the task force on edge, they’d ramped up pilots on standby. Not being one to put squadmates into a situation without being willing to do it herself...

And then the alert comes in and the colonel almost instinctively stows the pad and starts final checks as the green trimmed R2 mounted in the astromech slot sings out readiness. She keys unit comms as everything comes back green and ready.

“Dagger, double time to your fighters let’s go!”

Jay was just landing into the hangar of the Redemption. Before he could switch off, Dagger CO was identified on his radio, asking him, “Where have you been?”
“It’s complicated.”

That voice was not one he recognized. He also saw it was clearly coming from his CO. He asked, “What happened to the former Colonel Draw?”
The voice was almost familiar, but not quite. “I’ve not gone anywhere, Four. Another time. Dagger will be launching from the Windstorm this time, be ready to form up on me.”

A heavy force inbound on a forward outpost in Aurora sector, one that’s unlikely to be able to hold them back. Orders are to hold the position as long as possible, and in the event that retreat is necessary their orders were to cover the evacuation to get everyone out.

The fighter controller: “Squadron leaders, report.”

“Dagger One reports readiness. Standing by to launch and will report squadron ready status.”

-

Mia StormChaser awoke to the sound of the squadrons call to readiness blaring out, and shuddered awake. Groaning, the young Commander rubbed her head in a futile attempt to banish the hangover the Corellian Whiskey from last night had given her as a parting present. Damn that freighter pilot and his foolish bet he could drink her under the table. Of course, Mia had won, but as she lurched up from the ruin of her bunk, she really wished she had turned in early. The Colonel was going to skin her alive if she turned up late again for a patrol.

As quickly as possible, Mia rearranged her flight suit to something a little more befitting the Squadron’s second in command, and quickly splashed water on her face. Fighting the urge to be sick over the metal floor of her spartan living quarters, so pressed the door open button and headed out, turning only quickly to say to one night stand bedfellow, who was only just slowly coming round with a groan.

“Next time flyboy, don’t offer to buy me a drink. Save your credits.”

With a wicked chuckle, Mia left, and even managed a slow run towards the flight deck.

---------------------------

The flight deck was in organised chaos. Mia realised that something big was going down, as the Windstorm flight crew and techs were prepping was seemed to be the cruisers complete complement of starfighters. Mia raised her hand in greeting seeing Jay Forerunner starting the move out of the hanger, closely following Col. Draw’s blue T-65.

With a hurried greeting to her tech crew, who unlike her had got to her ship quickly, and sober, Mia felt a an unexpected surge of pride at how well organised the support crews were, being able to marshall a rag-tag groups of pilots, and keep their bashed up craft flying at moments notice was no mean feat - yet they achieved it every time.

And Mia’s ship, the venerable Wildcard Two, took some looking after. Like it owner, it lived a hard, fast life, and whilst Mia was still a slim, eighteen year old with unruly raven black hair, both her, and her ship, carried all the scars of their past encounters.

Her brief reverie was broken as she climbed into the snug cockpit, by a series of beeps, which Mia could swear held a distinct note of disapproval.

“I know Warhog, I know.” Mia spoke into her headset as she pulled on her flight helmet. “Just don’t tell the Col. I was up drinking all night again okay? There’s a good droid!”

A sharp series of bleeps told her all she needed to know, that her equally battered, disgruntled R4 unit thought of that suggestion.

Switching quickly the startup sequence, and thankful that Warhog had already finished the pre-fight checks, Mia started to move the Wildcard Two out of the hangar.

“Dagger Two reports readiness. Launching now.”

[Aurora Sector: Engagement zone]

Flying his modified fighter felt refreshing, as Jay spun around the cruiser waiting, knowing what was coming…

Then the three small dots appeared kilometers away. The Star Destroyers were ready, and they were pouring out waves of TIE fighters and bombers.

Lt. ‘Crazy’ Carl had barely enough time to get all my systems adjusted when the Titan force came hurtling out of hyperspace. True to their name, the force was substantial. Even knowing that they were in for a losing battle didn't change the fact that if the squad did their job right, most of the RS forces could get the hell out of there safely and only lose hardware instead of lives. Clicking his com over to a private channel with his wingmate Ralis, Crazy Carl issued the plan: “Cover me while I start to work on the dupes.” “Roger that” came Ralis’s reply. Flipping over to dual-fire and knowing it would buy the platform the most time to bring all of her guns to bear, Crazy started driving at the first flight of dupes making for the Golan, cutting through three of them on the first past and managing to get wheeled around and knock out the fourth before the bombers were able to get any torpedoes off. A good start, but by that time it was clear that there were more fighters than Ralis would be able to handle all by himself, so instead of searching for the next flight of bombers, Crazy dialed up to quad-fire and dove into the fray of fighters, barely having enough time to wonder how the rest of the squadron was holding up in this fight. . .

Naesa locked s-foils as the Daggers launching from the Windstorm formed up and followed suit. “Break up by flights, remember we’re here to buy time, no heroics. Five, take Guard and rush the dupes, try to foul their approach. Blade, since you’re short keep the home fires burning and sing out if you need an assist. Hilt, you’re on me...” She made a quick check of the scopes to find her wayward pilot... there. “Loosen up and get ready to hit the escort fighters. Break by pairs when in cannon range and engage.... Four? Four!”

“Acknowledged boss, I’m right behind you, and looking for a party.” Mia spoke, trying to keep an eye on both her Colonel and any incoming TIE’s.

Jay did the only thing he could imagine: kick his engines into high gear and dumb-fire his rockets onto the closest Star Destroyer, then head back to the Windstorm.

Lead blinked at the change in vector and narrowed her eyes. “Blast it Four, Three I need you to deal with him. Keep on our current run, then peel off and see what you can do.” “Will do, Madam.” The trio of fighters slashed in, then broke formation amid streaks of verdant fire as they hit cannon range, forcing the inbound fighters to split up their fire and giving time for the X-wings to do what they do best.

Swifty managed to pull off and do as he was instructed. But deep down, he was thinking. Geez, back when I was Academy brass, we taught folks NOT to run in and do stuff like like this. Oh well, what else could he do?

Mia watched as Jay dumped his rockets and started to move back toward the Windstorm. Suddenly there was a series of urgent beeps from WarHog. Picking up her visual scanning, Mia took a quick intake of breath. “I see him, Hog, well spotted.”

Coming in on attack vector to Jay was a brace of TIE’s. Mia knew that Jay was a damn fine pilot, but still with him concentrating on getting back to the Windstorm as soon as possible, there was chance he hadn’t seen his fan club moving in. And it wasn’t a chance Mia wanted to take.
Mia dumped as much energy into her X-Wing’s engines as possible, rerouting shield energy and the WildCard responded as she knew it would, fairly eating up the distance between her ship and the TIE’s until she had a target lock. In her first pass, Mia managed to send on the TIE’s to hell, whilst the other broke off with some fairly extensive damage and started to limp back to the nearest SD.

Jay landed, and the crew scurried in a panic to reload his rockets. Jay impatiently tapped the console and played with his joystick. “OK,” the crew leader announced, “You’re all set.” Swifty swings back around, picks off a few fighters, then sighs. Jay repeated his sweep against the same destroyer, harassing it with the gold arrows of rockets from 5 kilometers away. Time and again, the shields soaked up the pounding strikes until after a dozen rockets, when the shields gave way and the first destroyer attempted to escape. The rockets are far more frightening against bare hull, as it took about 2 or 4 more to completely wreck the destroyer, turning it into a floating pile of scrap and death.

At that time, Jay tried to circle around and drill the other destroyers all the same, but before landing, the crew radioed him to explain, “Sorry, Commander. We’re all out!” Jay cursed and swiveled around to help pick off some straggling fighters. One and Two perform a pincer on an unfortunate squint pilot as Jay shows back up, shredding it’s panels in unison as the CO speaks up. “It’s about time, Four, stay on the fighters- Five watch it you have one at point oh three!” She lets off a snap shot that doesn’t hit, but manages to dissuade the aggressor's wingmate long enough to help give Five some room to maneuver.

Reset called out the destruction report Naesa already knew was coming as she pulled a rolling turn to head out. “Alright Dagger, we’ve overstayed our welcome! Head for the rally point, we’re omega. Does anyone have damage bad enough to possibly knocked out your drive?”

Mia cursed to herself, seeing the fleet start to retreat in the face of overwhelming odds. “Jay, lets leave this party, time to get your butt out of there.” With that Mia raced towards the hyperspace point already programmed into Warhog.

Minutes passed until most of the NR pilots retreated with their ships intact. The two remaining Star Destroyers closed into the giant bases, eventually overpowering most of the allied defenses. Now almost all alone, Jay groaned, “Nuts to this! I’m outta here!” With a dozen TIE Interceptors on his tail and the two star destroyers firing out TIE Advanced models, he punched the speed to 180 and blasted for the buoy.

Escape was at hand. It was too bad the stations were inevitably overpowered and allied grip was lost. The task force would have to lick their wounds and strike back. It wasn’t the first time they’d been pushed back, and it wasn’t nearly as bad as the past...

[Back aboard the NRSD Redemption]

Nasea paid Jay a visit, as he was on his computer by his bunk admiring his handiwork. She asked for him to give his report as she was compiling as many accounts from Dagger as were available. She pressed, “Seriously, where *did* you go?” He massaged his eyebrows with his right hand and mumbled, “I don’t think you have enough time for that.” He turned around to face her and nodded, softly answering, “I’ll be sure to catch up with you after our deadline crunch is over and we can take a break. OK?”

Naesa nods, exhaustion from the mess of a delaying action beginning to set in. “Fair. I’ve... been gone a bit myself. Your timing wasn’t too bad, admittedly... If not your tactical choices. We’ll talk later, Forerunner.”

He got up, printed his report, and handed it to her. “There,” he said calmly.
-
Swifty had been bouncing between command jobs and semi-retirement for years. But after a while, he’d had enough of that, and decided that he’d rejoin his old friend still commanding Dagger, where he got his start. He goes to quickly see Naesa alone. “Hey, so uh, we should probably talk later. If you can, bring Mia too. It’s good to see you again.” Naesa smiles and gives a casual salute, mood only soured slightly by the earlier events. “You too, Swift. And, I do want to see my CS for a meeting soon, but not now. There’s matters that need attending to. I’ve been gone longer than I should have.” Swifty smiles and gives a casual salute in return. “Oh, well, if there’s anything you need my help with, just let me know.”

After checking that there was no major damage to her ship, Mia headed towards the officer’s mess, nodding to the pilots she knew and like everybody else, keeping an eye out for any missing faces. Luckily, it seemed that losses had been minimal to the starfighter pilots providing cover, and without really knowing it, Mia left out a breath she had been holding, and relaxed her tense muscles.

Grabbing a nearby drink from a pilot who had just been served, and ignoring his protest, Mia raised her borrowed glass, and called out to the tired and grimy pilots and exhausted support staff.

“To the Hilt” The Daggers are back in town!”