Drall's Open Orbit

=CDF Captain Wil Paredes=
The commanding officer of the Golan-III space defense platform in order over Drall stared at the datapad that his chief engineer had handed him. His eyes widened slowly, and then narrowed once more as his gaze shifted from the reactor status report to the troubled face of the man standing before his command chair. "This can't be right, Watkins." Captain Paredes bit out, his eyebrows knotted in anger. "If there were this many leaks in the coolant system, they would have triggered radiation warnings all over the station." He waved the datapad in agitation. "I want you to run the analysis again. And have the chief programmer re-inspect the analysis program before you do. I want reliable data!"

=Watkins=
"Y-yes sir, right away!" His flushed face turned even whiter, and he picked at his shirt pocket nervously. "But sir, there is one other possibility we must consider. If there is a leak, it may be venting directly into space, rather than into the crew compartments, and that is why it was not detect--." He held up his hand as he sensed the Captain ready to explode. "I'm going, I'm going ..." He added hurriedly, turning and rushing out of the bridge.

=Captain Paredes=
"Good." The captain responded simply, swiveling in his chair until his back was to the door, and taking a long, deep breath, the anger fading from his face to be replaced by genuine concern. He had reacted severely, because he believed that was the best way to force Watkins to focus on double-checking his measurements, but he was not as dismissive of the report as he had led the chief engineer to believe. Any problem with the reactor on a sealed bubble of air, surrounded by hundreds of miles of empty vacuum space, was automatically serious. He reached out a finger to tap the radiation meter embedded in his own Corellian Defense Forces badge, and sighed. Hopefully this was just one more false alarm.

A CR-90 fell out of Hyperspace, cloaking device activated. On the Bridge, Commander Oryon Melan considered the transmission. An SoS, apparently. It's was an older, Galactic Alliance code and technically to interfere here could cause a diplomatic incident, regardless, it was clear the Bothan didn't care too much, as a unit of Commandos were shipped to the surface for extraction.

CDF Ensign Damiano Ricci looks out to port as he banks his HLAF-500 starfighter to begin the return trip to the Aurellia, the Proficient-class cruiser he and his two fellow pilots had set out from on a routine, so far uneventful CAP over Drall's western hemisphere, watching as he passes near the Cardan III-class space station in order over Drall, looking as though it has been fully repaired after being damaged in the First Order attack.

Checking his fuel gauge, Damiano sees that he has just enough fuel remaining to make the trip back to the Aurellia's hangar and adjusts his heading to bring his HLAF-500 onto a heading to make it's approach.

Along with the Aurellia, a pair of Assassin-class corvettes and a CC5000 frigate have been dispatched from Corellia to patrol Drall's orbit while the planet's own defense force is repaired or replaced. The ships deployed from Corellia are spread out around the planet, their fighter compliments making regular combat air patrols to increase the vigilant watch over the world below, the more green pilots and officers among the ships' crews nearly all still a bit jumpy as they think of the First Order's attacks, while the more seasoned vets approach their jobs with cooler heads.

"Hmmm." Hummed Endor as he stared at the dejarik table, his brow furrowed and his eyes focused with sheer determination of will, while his mind performed a series of mental acrobatics. Across the table from him within the rec room of an old EF76 Nebulon-B escort frigate affectionately named the Mossflower, a fellow rebel by the alias Drenlin Vortek grinned from one pink hued human ear to the next, certain of victory. While this agent of the rebellion was fully prepared to trust the bushy bearded General with his life, he also knew the former forest druid was also a terrible cheat. The entire game Drenlin had been trying to picture big bosomed wookiee women in bikinis to distract his opponent, assuming Endor would use his abilities to predict his moves or attempt to read his mind.

Cautiously a calloused hand tapped the game controls, causing Endor's kintan strider to take out Drenlin's ng'ok, played out for their concentrating eyes in the holo-tables projected light. Drenlin's smug grin turned into a scowl as he leaned forward, staring at the board in confusion.

"Hold on a second. That piece can't move that way." He looked up from the board, staring accusingly at the greying rebel who held himself like a beacon of purity and truth, his attempt to project naivety obvious to all. "You cheated. Again." The annoyed expression writ on the agent's face was one the former Jedi turned woodsman was quite familiar with.


Drenlin's scowl deepened, the colour leaving his face as he had heard these sort of tall tales before. The General had a way of embellishing the truth about the accomplishments of the tribe of ewoks that had raised him as a child after his parent's ship crash landed on the Forest Moon, setting the young baby boy on a journey that would change his life and the lives of others forever. The way Endor often spoken of ewok ingenuity and ewok engineering, it was a lot to swallow. Still, they usually humored him all the same. Not today though.


"Well no." Replied Endor, scratching his beard with a pale finger. "We made them out of wood. It was actually the ewoks that invented the game. My great great great grand-pappy Ol'Shewfang created it as a way to sharpen his mind before going into battle against those evil green duloks. So you see, I'm something of an expert on the rul..." Interupted.

Before the General could complete his work of utter fiction, the PA system overhead barked in static laced repetition of the distress call the tynnan communications officer Lieutenant Nutter-butter had just picked up as they were returning from collecting another shipment of snubfighter parts from the Incom Corporation on Fresia. The short otter-shaped rebel with large buck-teeth knew the General well enough that he would want to hear the message for himself and would need little in the way of explanation. The motley crew of the spunky frigate that had flocked to the rebel cause were used to Endor's approach of jumping headfirst into danger whenever someone needed help. He never seemed to hesitate when the call of justice came a-knocking.


The game was quickly forgotten as both Endor and Drenlin dashed towards the bridge. The General was already on his personal comlink, radioing ahead to Major Flounder who was currently sitting in the captain's chair on the bridge of his ship.


General, we don't know the situation or even what the Damini is or who they are. But if what they say is true about being under attack by a Liberty cruiser, the odds of us prevailing...

"Never tell me the odds." He cut in, putting away his comlink as he finally reached the bridge and approached the holographic projection of the bridge's strategum-table. He placed his hands on the edge, leaning over a displayed series of star charts as his face was illuminated by the projector's glowing emitter. "The call came from here." He pointed at one motte of light amongst many in the star speckled image. "Drall. That's in the Corellian system." He reached a hand under his chin and stroked his beard thoughtfully. "I'm pretty sure they have their own defense force, but...Headmaster Frantz would probably throw a hydrospanner at me if he knew I was in the area and didn't show up to help." He turned away from the luminous table and locked his forest green eyes with the moist looking Mon Calamari getting fish stink on his chair. Major Flounder nodded his bulbous head.

The Mossflower groaned as she dropped out of hyperspace with a lurch, drifting across the blackness of the open void as its maneuvering jet spun it around, then leapt back in the swirling blue bands as it returned to lightspeed. Several rebels returning from the mess hall lost their lunch on the crew deck at the unexpected maneuver that caused the inertial compensators to strain as they tried to do their job.

---

A few hundred kilometers of empty void from the scene of the in-system conflict over Drall, the Mossflower rapidly slowed to sublight speeds as it appeared in the system. There like an unwelcome splotch of dark ink against the beautiful green and blue backdrop of the planet was the Liberty heavy cruiser they'd heard about in the distress call. A quick scan of the sensors revealed a disabled assassin corvette with a transponder signature matching the Damini. "R6." Started Endor as he opened a private channel to his astromech droid elsewhere on the ship. "Get to the hangar and prep my X-wing. Endor's Ewoks have got their work cut out for them." Despite the name, the rebel squadron known as Endor's Ewoks did not actually feature any ewok pilots. They did have a bark brown paint scheme with leafy green racing stripes down the center of the fuselage, along with several ewok tribal markings dotting their frames. Word had already been sent to the General's squadron to make ready in the hangar. Beep-Boop, Ba-beep, Blip! Complained the surely astromech in binary over the channel before it was silenced.



"We don't need to beat it, just distract it long enough for those aboard that corvette to evacuate or get their systems rebooted. They won't stand a chance if we don't get that cruiser off their backs." He stared at his friend, unwavering confidence carved into his rugged woodsman features. "The chair is yours, Drenlin." He snapped his fingers at Major Flounder to get the clammy officer out of the captain's seat. "Take care of her. But first, open a channel to that ship. What's its transponder say? The Endless? Let's see who were dealing with here first."

Well away from the boarding action taking place but still very visible on the piratical MC80's sensors, the EF76 Nebulon-B broadcast the audio of the General's somewhat bearish tone.

"Huh." Muttered the General in surprise, feeling some of the wind leave his sails as this may all be a simple understanding. With his thumb off the mic switch, his naivety was on display for the bridge crew alone. "I guess we misunderstood the situation. No villains could be that polite." He nodded matter-of-factly. "Stand down everyone. False alar..." Interrupted.


Turning around, Endor looked over at Drenlin who had spoken up from the captain's chair he had just taken over. The rebel agent had his eyes locked on the viewscreen where a magnified look of the Endless was on display. The younger man's lightly stubbled face could have been carved from marble, such was the unwavering conviction of his words, more than just a simple hunch. He was certain of what he spoke. Crossing his arms over his chest, the former forest druid turned rebel organizer asked the question that was all on their minds when no more explanation appeared forthcoming.


"I don't know." Replied Drenlin almost instantly, eyes still locked forwards on the viewscreen as though he saw something the rest of them were all missing. Maybe he did. Slowly the agent peeled his ice blue irises away from the image and attempted to explain himself. "Listen, my parents owned a moisture farm on Tatooine when I was growing up. I worked on the damn thing until I was old enough to leave that barren dust ball. That meant dealing with the jawas anytime we needed parts or maintenance." He seemed to hesitate before he finished making his point, almost reluctant to speak what was going through his mind. "The um, rumors, about jawas being dishonest and cheats when it comes to business...well, I don't want to paint all of them with the same brush unfairly but the ones we dealt with were as crooked as they come. I got pretty good at telling when somebody was lying. Certain inflections of tone, word choice, sometimes just a gut feeling." From his place by the comms station, Endor could see the confidence writ across his comrade's face, which gave Drenlin in turn the confidence to reiterate his claim. "They're lying, I'm sure of it."

Alright, back to Plan A then. Endor reached into his pocket and withdrew his personal communicator. He handed the device to the green furred Lepi sitting in front of the console.

"Patch my personal device into the transmission. I'll keep them talking on my way to the hangar." While the long eared officer got to work, Endor returned his attention to Drenlin. "I hope you know traveling through space ain’t like dusting crops, farm boy."


"Once we're clear of the hangar they'll know the jig is up. I want you to harry that MC80 with the Mossflower. Its guns will rip through our shields like parchment if we get too close, but if you stay just at the edge of effective firing range, you should be able to properly irritate them while I get close enough to see if R6 can patch us through to anyone onboard that corvette. With the modifications we made to the engines you should be fine as long as you don't get hit."


"Heh." Endor snorted, taking back his personal comlink from the rabbit eared alien sitting at the comm station. "Probably not a good idea to find out. To boost the engines we had to divert power from somewhere, and I wasn't about to draw from the weapons..."

Of course he did. "You drew power from the shields." He winced, sighing low and slow as he shook his head from side to side. "What's the output on the deflectors?"

"About half of what it is normally." He could feel the agent's judgemental gaze on his back as he crept towards the bridge doors, which parted with a sliding whoosh as he reached them. "Just don't get..." The doors closed behind him. ...hit.

---

In the half second following the doors closing behind him, Endor was already Force sprinting his way down to the modified hangar installed on the starboard side several decks below. Opening himself completely to the Living Force's guiding light, the General was a leaf on the wind, every footstep propelled by a miraculous gust of air despite the artificial environment they found themselves in. Twelve seconds later, he dropped through a maintenance hatch the last thirty feet to the hangar floor, landing in a crouch as his booted feet smacked the deck. Rising to stand, he raised the comlink he was holding in his right hand, holding it out in front of his mouth as he approached his parked X-wing. All around the hangar, the other members of Endor's Ewoks were in the process of climbing into their cockpits. Like their squadron leader they were all flying X-wings, though they all flew the XJ7 variant rather than the relic T-65 that Endor preferred. For his part, the rebel leader attempted to sound non-chalant when he finally replied to the Endless, doubting very much he was addressing Captain Beskon.

To the Endless No problem. We were in the neighbourhood picking up a shipment of blumfruit and thought we would lend a hand, but since this is all a misunderstanding... VROOM! VROOM! As Endor ascended the boarding ladder beside his modified X-wing snubfighter, his foul-tempered astromech droid took the opportunity to rev the engine block that protruded out of the starfighter's nose a foot in front of the open canopy window. After finding the starfighter abandoned in a swamp on Dagobah, the General had put in the work restoring the classic model, with a few improvements to boot. He gave it the standard outer rim hot-rod treatment, adding a beefed up engine that quite literally jutted out of the fuselage, along with several chromium exhaust nozzles. Endor groaned. There was no way they hadn't heard that. Still, he continued with his deception as he slid into the cockpit of his fighter. ...we will, uh, just get out of your hair then. Have a nice day.

As the General returned his comlink to the front pocket of his flight jacket and secured his harness straps, R6-66 chimed in, bleating and beeping away in droid-speak. Endor scowled as he read the translation of the astromech's chirping flash across the screen of his cockpit computer. "Let’s keep a little optimism here. It's still early. Now open the squadron channel." Fortunately this time the robot just did as he asked instead of offered more of its brutally honest mechanical insight. The squadron leader could hear a hiss of static in his ear as he slid the rebel flight helmet over his unkept mess of hair. He spoke into the mic.

To Endor's Ewoks If whoever is on that cruiser hasn't figured it out yet, they soon will once they see us coming. Expect that thing to have fighters and to launch them to intercept our approach. Chances are there are going to be a lot more of them than us, so watch each others backs and only engage long enough to peel some of the attention away from the Damini. He grit his teeth, feeling the warning embers of a fire beginning in his belly. Determination was etched across his face as though chiseled from duracrete. I don't know yet if we can help them, but we're sure as hell going to try. For Maarva.


'I sure hope you are right about this Drenlin', he thought, 'otherwise we are going to be in a heap of trouble'. The cockpit window slid down and sealed him in to the bark brown painted X-wing with its signature green racing stripe running down the middle. His squadron mates all launched ahead of him, gliding out of the hangar on repulsors before their engines fired up as they dropped into the airless void of space. The last out of the starting gate, the flaps of the four 4j.4 fusial thrust engines at the rear of his snubfighter flared as fuel fed this hungry mechanical beast, causing it to fishtail left and right as it first started to accelerate, eventually evening out by the time he had passed through the energized hangar barrier and took to the naked vacuum. His X-wing rapidly accelerated to the front of the twelve man squadron's formation, forming a flying-V shape in space as they began to pick up speed, heading straight towards the ray shaped MC80 Liberty-type heavy cruiser.

As was typical of their interactions with one another, the General's temperamental astromech droid was stringing together a series of expletives in binaric droid-speak that would have made even a Mon Calamari sailor blush. Having been raised from an early age by the ewoks of Bright Tree Village, it was safe to say the forest druid turned rebel organizer had limited interactions with machines. It was only after the Jedi had visited his village and taken him to begin his new life at the temple that he first came into contact with the animate metal constructs. Grandmaster Brulax Ruso of the Jedi Order on Rodia had insisted the simple woodsman familiarize himself with several models of droid, though all had seemed as equally unimpressed with the forest simpleton, more often than not refusing his instructions. Sometimes he wondered if the Grandmaster had been a droid himself. Sakiyans were not known for displaying emotion and despite his best efforts he'd never so much as managed a smile out of Ol'green ears.

"I know." Endor growled as he gripped the flight-stick in a vice grip and yanked it hard to the left, peeling out of formation as the Endless opened up with its deadly arsenal of heavy turbolaser batteries, filling the star speckled tapestry of space with a luminous light show of emerald green oblivion. "It's not my fault!" Continued the rebel pilot as he put his T-65 into a downwards spin. 'I'll try spinning, that's a good trick', or so he thought. The result, however, was quite to the contrary. A coherent lance of energized brilliance nearly took them in the canopy, only narrowly avoided by the extra thrust the agile starfighter's engines were bleeding off, allowing it to outrun the targeting algorithms the Liberty star cruiser's gunners were using. The distance between them helped as well, though that margin was becoming more narrow the closer they got.

Flipping a switch on his dashboard, the rebel pilot linked all four of his X-wing's laser cannons. It would use more tibanna and take longer to recharge, but it was worth it for the result. As they engaged the porax-38s, his linked cannons drained the shields of one of the Clone Wars era fighters with a single blast, followed up by a second that turned the enemy ship into flaming space debris. Similar sights were taking place across the conflicted stretch of void, as his squadron had broken off into four three man teams. Without even looking at the screen, Endor could feel his own wingmen on either side of him, no more than a few meters behind.

They were good lads, both of them. Lance Bassanius and Ricky Martinez, a couple of comrades he would trust his life too, and had on more than one occasion. They trio had grown so close, his wingmen had taken to joining him in the communal sonic shower aboard the Mossflower. When asked why they always seemed to appear whenever he needed to wash the cockpit stank from his pits, they answered cryptically that they preferred the company of bears, which made little sense to the hairy chested General as he hadn't ever seen one of the ewok crew members take a shower. They typically preferred baths. Hopefully this fight would finally put some calluses on their well moisturized hands, as the duo seemed to have a difficult time keeping a grip on the soap, which they always seemed to wait for Endor to bend over and scoop up. Irritating, but he knew they meant well as their eyes never left his posterior when he'd inevitably reach down to pick it up, no doubt making certain their fearless leader didn't slip and hurt himself.


Endor and Ricky followed after, jerking and jinking out of the way of heavy turbolaser blasts, fire-linked laser cannons, and enough ordnance to make a torpedo sphere envious. Quickly switching back to rapid fire, the General lit up the void with crimson bolts as he targeting the concussion missile hot on Lance's tail, blasting it to smithereens as they closed on the Damini. R6 poured every last reserve of power into those growling engines, causing his nimble fighter to streak past the assassin corvette. He tried to transmit to whoever was on board as he passed, though each time he seemed to make contact it was only for a few seconds, before inevitably he went out of range of personal comms again.








Alright, that last one he didn't mean to transmit, but he got excited when his X-wing blasted apart another porax-38 and zoomed through the expanding cloud of flame and debris where it had been moments prior.

---

"Punch it." Ordered Drenlin, as the EF76 Nebulon-B escort frigate's engines flared cobalt blue. Impossibly, or perhaps simply never done before, the Mossflower's inertial compensators dialed up to ten as the ship lurched, rapidly accelerating as though it has just jumped to lightspeed. The SubLight Acceleration Motor the crew had installed boosted the three hundred meter long frigate faster than it had any right to go, causing it skip across the void like a stone thrown across a pond.

The SLAM system was designed with much smaller ships in mind. Typically included on the K-wing, this overdrive device was never meant to be used on something as large as a capital ship. A surprise to be sure. Though it soon became clear to the rebel crew aboard the frigate why exactly this was the case.

"Systems in the red. Wait, no, we're good." Chimed up Lieutenant Nutter-butter. Good was one way to put it, assuming they were willing to overlook the hull plates that had come free during the overdrives short activation.

"Fire first volley." Came his second order, as the gun crews opened up with six of the Mossflower's turbolaser turrets. Narrow beams of crimson light lit the darkness of the airless vacuum as the ship opened up at the Endless from just inside firing range. Drenlin was under no illusion about the damage this would cause. He likened it to his youth when on occasion the Sand People would take pot shots at the sancrawlers of the Jawas he bartered with. Or as Endor probably would have put it, this was like an ewok trying to take down a gorax with a slingshot. Not ideal.


"Punch it." He repeated, feeling his stomach churn as the Mossflower lurched forwards again, leaping another few thousand meters in the span of a couple seconds, bleeding hulls plates and ice crystals each time it accelerated.