Chapter 2 - Living with flashbacks

She must have seen that plume of smoke for miles and she couldn't help but investigating it. It was several kilometers going toward the sarlacc pit but when she arrived she already smelled the stink of burned flesh and sarlacc vomit. The smell was atrocious and she could hardly bare the scent.
Nightwalker had done a number on Jabba's forces just as he had said he would. Boba Fett's jetpack laid off to one side, coated in a large amount of acid. Pitting and scoring had probably already eaten away at all the good components. There were pieces of the sail barge littering the desert for almost a half of kilometer but from what she could see was a large sail mast and the front end of the barge were the largest pieces. The crew compartments and countless other compartments were all in shreds. Including Jabba's fat platform. She recognized only one small piece of it.
Looking out over the desert she could only reminisce of her past experiences with the rebels. She was a standing commander still if she was to return which she was debating very heavily.

(Several years ago. On Dantooine, preexisting SWG)

"Captain... wake up." came the deep male voice of her squadron commander. She was the CO to blue squadron and had been since her arrival on Dantooine. She proved a damn good pilot and her previous rank as a Lieutenant in the Clone Wars still stood in the Alliance. Although she was too young to have actually been a Commander, and she didn't want to tell them how a Lieutenant meant a Jedi Apprentice whereas a Commander was a Jedi Padawan.
"Yeah, yeah, Jenko. I'm up." Mala replied through the cracked door. "And I'm not nude either. Come on in..." she added. The night before had been exhausting. They had just retreated again from battle with the Empire when a series of Star Destroyers dropped out of hyperspace right atop the freighter they'd been guarding. Mark up another loss to the Empire and another two pilots who will never see the end of the war...
Commander Jenko of Blue squadron. Lead Squadron in Blue Group. It was actually three squadrons of fighters, two of headhunters and one of Incom T-65 X-wing fighters. Jenko was a human male. Age was ranging close to his forties which was probably midlife for a human male from Chandrilla. His blue and orange R-2 unit was called Chandrofan just for the fun of it. Hers was Squealer since he always started screaming in droid language when the battle began. Purple and white R-5 unit.
"Mala," Jenko began. "Time to do patrol duty again. Two flights rotation."
"How long have I been asleep?" she asked.
"I covered the debrief for you about using your flight to cover the TIEs while we scrambled. That alone was worth a medal. You may have lost two pilots but you thwarted the Empire's attack on us and all three squadrons were able to escape. You earned it. Jenko replied.
"Cut the shoot Jenko... how long have I slept?" Mala replied
"A standard Dant day..."
"Twenty-five hours?!!!" Mala yelped in surprise.
"Yes, Captain."
"Alright Ill get prepped." She said reaching over to grab her helmet. Her flightsuit was still on and her lifesupport monitor was strewn over the corner of the bed. She zipped the front of the flight suit back up to her neck and pulled the plate and monitor on. She pulled the boots on her feet and then tucked the helmet under her arm. It was a cold day for Dantooine so she pulled her flight jacket over her shoulder and started toward the small flight deck.
Since they'd based on Dantooine, they had four fighters run a patrol every minute of every day. Rotating through four fighter groups. Although it was Blue Groups, Blue Squadron's turn it was Two Flight's rotation time. So Mala would have to run her eight hour patrol above Dantooine. She'd picked up two green pilots fresh from some outer rim system. Jet and Biggs, she thought they were named. She moved Cerie up to Six and paired the too kids together hoping that they'd cover enough for her. She thought about tagging them in space running them through drills to pass the time. After all they had eight flipping hours...
As she ran through the flight mission details, the kids looked bored so she uploaded some training to the mission and hoped for the best. After that they ran through flight checks and launched.

(Present time... During Episode VI after Jabba's death)

Mala had already jumped back on her swoop. The steering vane was bent and she knew it. Obi-wan had had to wedge it in a rock formation to get it hidden well enough to look natural. She was surprised it still flew since the swoop had been there for almost 3 years. He hid it in preparing for Jabba's demise. He knew Mala would survive it. But he couldn't give much detail on the account. Surprising that Nightwalker was the other one on Tatooine that ol' Ben was looking after. The hills were beginning to look much the same as she went over one dune then the next. She knew Anchorhead was in the general direction she was headed and she still had a ship there... she hoped...

(Dantooine Space - Past)

"Blue Five this is Seven," Biggs said cockily. "Come on, we've ran this drill enough... how about some low laser duels?"
Mala pondered that inside her helmet for a while before dialing down her lasers and setting her shields to the right program. She keyed the comm and replied, "One round, seven... then I want you and Eight to swing out to the mining cluster again and light up a few more ice asteroids."
Seven's voice whooped over the comm as the young Tatooine native changed his settings as well. Six and Eight were doing the same as her and Six cruised out with S-foils in cruise position to get a kilo on the young pair. "No missiles. Other than that... anything goes." she added.
Each fighter was loaded with a standard package of six proton torpedoes, three in the launcher pairs and were equipped to fire linked or singly. The torps were good for evening the odds when outnumbered by TIEs and she knew that they had no paint missiles loaded. So missiles would be bad in this duel.
She and Cerie turned in perfect unison and she double clicked her comm to signal the exercise had begun. She tucked her fighter in behind Cerie's and evened her shields out as Six set hers forward. Both S-foils on the fighters opened in unison. It was a quick tag and as the two rookies jumped Cerie and put her out of commission, Mala slung out from behind her X-wing and lit up Eight with a pair of Quad linked lasers. His fighter shut down and now she was just after Biggs. She throttle hoped and rolled lazily as he started a corkscrew to try to pick her up on visual. But she never lost sight of him.
Another dive and she was on his tail dialing up her throttle to match his speed. He jinked and juked but she switched to single fire and filled the space around him guiding him closer to the planet. He juked and dove through her line of fire and her computer registered a few good hits so she inverted and dove on him tagging his damaged fighter with a quad burst.
"Damn, Five..." Biggs groaned as he went through a restart.
Mala smiled and brought her fighter around resetting her fighter settings for livefire. Then squealer started screaming.
"shoot... got contacts. Shut down IFF and wait." Mala ordered scanning the HUD. Four TIE scouts had dropped from hyperspace just inside their patrol vector. She knew they were scanning for Rebel activity and hoped that her fighters had shut down IFF in time. She cruised running vector jets and life support only, getting a good look from three clicks out at the four TIEs.
"Squealer... on my mark run a frequency jam. Then send a radio transmission to General Dodonna on what we see. We'll tag and bag these four and hope that the jam caught their alert to Rebel Activity here...." She told her droid. Squealer twirped in acknowledgement.
"Two Flight," she said over squadron channel. "Form up."
The fighters tightened on her and she could almost smell the fear through the vacuum of space. "Those are Squints... expect slower speeds for shields and hyperdrives." A squint was a rebel slang term for a TIE Interceptor but she knew that these had to have been modded for long-term travel.
As the range scrolled down to two clicks, she gave the order. "Squealer, Mark now... Two flight S-foils in attack position. Tag and bag. Pick your targets and go."
Dialing the throttle up to full the TIEs turned to engage. She was getting funny readings herself but she swore it was the shields on the TIEs, throwing her targeting computer off. She picked the middle fighter and locked on switching over to missiles. She linked one and fired as the HUD dropped below a half-click.
Switching all shields forward she linked two lasers and started spraying the squint she had targeted with the missile to cover its approach. The shields weren't all that strong and the proton torpedo plowed right through them before detonating, filling the Octagon Cockpit full of shrapnel and fiery heat and light. The engines ripped free of the housing as the wings tore themselves apart from the shrapnel and sudden change in momentum. Then the ion engines exploded filling the whole area with bright white light and very small debris. She dove through the center of the collapsing fireball and inverted. Cerie stuck to her tail but only partially took out the one fighter she had picked.
Seven and Eight had double teamed their first TIE and Seven actually got the linked kill shot that reduced it to nothing more than a hollow TIE with no engines. The odds were now in her favor but she didn't let up on the second squint. Cerie led this time and the pilot juked and jinked in and out of her line of fire. Mala added single shots over her shoulder and started to guide the Squint back to Cerie's lasers. Two dual bursts and the Engine exploded, shredding the rest of the squint...
And then there was one...
Biggs had throttle hopped it and was chasing it with all four of his lasers cycling single fire mode. The shields kept his shots from seriously penetrating the TIE but it would soon cross the hyperspace threshold. Jet had not turned as sharply as Biggs had and was just now coming around. About a half click behind the fighter and Biggs. He locked his missile on the TIE and started a long dive. Biggs began guiding the squint down toward the missile as Jet fired...
The torps impact wasn't loud or brilliant but it stripped the shields and Biggs again ate it up with lasers. A dual shot then a quad shot and there was nothing left but an expanding cloud of Ion gas.
"Nice work, Two Flight. Let's report in..." Mala said over the comm...

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