I was on my way to the Sovereign's hangar bays with a friend from Beth Squad. We still had about 20 min until it was Beth's turn to patrol the area around the Sovereign and he asked me to help prep. his Defender. We finished in about 10 min and he offered me a drink. Normally I don't drink much but Daleth wasn't due for their shift for about 12 hours and I decided to accept.

The next thing I now a stormtrooper pulled me out of my chair.

"Sleeping on patrol duty huh?"

What do you mean I'm not due for patrol for 10 hours.

"The rest of Beth have almost finished their shift."

Beth? I'm from Daleth

"then what is that Beth uniform patch you're wearing?"

I'm not...

I noticed the Beth patch on my uniform and nearly went into shock.

"I'm taking you to the General"

He ignored my protests and three of them dragged me of to the detention cell...

Some mate that turned out to be, got me drunk, and then switched uniforms to avoid his duties. Luckily a scan confirmed my identity, but I wasn't getting off lightly. As it turns out, Beth had had a little run-in with some local pirates nearby, and with Daleth next up on the duty roster, command decided we were going to be the ones to sort them out once and for all, and had a special assignment saved away from me and my 'friend'.

"Pilot, you are to take this modified interceptor into the asteroid belt, and find out where these pirates are staging their attacks from, then assist your squadron in dealing with them. Your Beth friend will finally do some work and will fly a transport loaded with torpedoes, to assist the missile boats in destroying major targets."

Basically, we were target practice.

"The rest of Daleth squadron are to hunt down enemy fighters, and take out targets of opportunity."

We filed out and went down to the ready room, and pulled on our flightsuits. We glared at each other across the deck, then I pulled on my helmet, shutting off the outside world, and focused on my upcoming task.

I went to my ship and climbed the ladder to the cockpit. A few seconds later I was ready and flew out of the hanger. I flew to the Hyperpoint and jumped with the rest of Daleth to the pirate base. When we arrived, I said "Oh shit..." because the pirate base was very good defended. I flew to the pirates Asteroid Hanger and inspected it. I armed the rocket launcher and fired on it. The rest of Daleth hunted down one enemy fighter after the other and so the enemy fighters did not fire on me. Together with the missile boats I destroyed the pirate base. Then the missile boats went back to the Hyperpoint and I helped Daleth to strike down the rest of the enemy fighters. But then a rebel calamari cruiser entered the area and started its A and X-Wings to destroy us. The missile boats had gone already and so we had to destroy the cruiser by our own. Suddenly I was hit by an advanced missile and my shields were down...

I started to weave left and right, Up and down. My sensors showed a trio of bandits heading my way. I desperately wanted to snap off a concussion missile to shake up their formation, to put extra energy to my forward shields, but the broken shields didn't give me either option.

Instead, I gave the yoke a little sideways tug, and I was hurled to starboard. My engines screamed with the change of course. The maneuver was just in time; red lasers cut through the space I had just occupied.

The targeting display showed a lock on the closest enemy. It was visible in the viewport, the sleek body of an X-wing, I fired across the port S-Foils, a snap shot which prompted the pilot to turn rolling the X-wing to starboard presenting me with a larger target profile, so I put my finger down on the firing stud and split the X-wing straight through the middle, bisecting the doomed rebel craft and sailing the through the explosion.

I reversed the engines turning my craft 180 degrees in less than 100 meters then stabbing my left etheric rudder pedal. One of the other X-wings who was hot on my tail flew straight across the front of my viewport. I hit the firing stud and that was number 2 kill as the ship exploded and I burst the cockpit bubble and destroyed the R5 unit.

My whole cockpit shuddered, I'd been hit on the left solar array, "That was close, I think I should be leaving shortly!!"

"This is Omicron 1, you people need a hand?"

I suddenly remembered the Beth pilot who was piloting the transport, which had been loaded with a huge amount of torpedoes. I activated my comm:

"Daleth, give Omicron 1 cover, he's got the firepower to get us out of here!" I heard several replies, but didn't have time to listen as an X-Wing had just picked me out as a dancing partner. I broke hard to starboard, then immediately to port and up, and thankfully the Rebel was too slow in his cumbersome ship to follow me, and did a large loop while I twisted in behind him and blew his top engines out of the wings. The fighter began a corkscrew then detonated when it hit an asteroid, filling space with fiery fragments. I turned back towards Omicron 1, and could see it had just begun launching a volley of torpedoes at the Cruiser. I noticed a couple of TIE Advanced shooting at anyone that came near it, and a trio of Gunboats playing hide and seek with some Y-Wings in a denser part of the asteroid field, and decided to help them out. As I neared, the Y-Wings suddenly broke off and started to flee. I smiled smugly as I thought Id just single-handedly scared off a squad of Rebels, then checking my sensors, realised I was wrong as a pair of A-Wings leapt out of nowhere, and offloaded a pair of missiles into one of the pursuing Gunboats.

They ripped the fighter in two.

I shouted in anguish over my fallen comrade, and mercilessly flamed one A-Wing, but was relieved to see my squadmate eject out of the mangled Gunboat. I was about to call the transport to pick him up before he got lost amidst the rocks, but then remembered that it was busy bombing the cruiser.

What was I going to do? Call the transport, and save 1 pilot from certain death, and hope reinforcements come quick, or leave it to clear a path out of here?