"To War"
by Chun Li, Escort Pilot
Axon (R2-X1), Astromech Droid
Cameo by Admiral Kano, Rebel Leader (NPC)

Location: Space around Chimearia
Date: Vadris 26, 5 ABY

***

Axon beeped and Li looked on the translation screen she had installed. "Indeed," she said as she started to move again, "shields on, weapons ready."

They had been waiting for over an hour at the edge of the Chimaeria system for information on the latest Jau ship movements. Now they had gotten them they could start their mission. "We aim for this one," Li said, indicating a destroyer on her screen. What it was exactly wasn't completely clear, but it was situated so that they could pop into the system on its aft, shoot a bunch of missiles at it and then move straight on while spending the least amount of time in the planet's gravity well. Also their data suggested that it was running without shields on.

Axon beeped an affirmative and started the calculations for the in- and outbound jump. As soon as he had finished the calculations were displayed on Li's screen and she pulled the hyperspace lever. The jump only took twenty seconds but Li wouldn't have minded it to be longer. Fortunately she came out as perfect as possible with a hyperspace jump. She also saw that her information was correct as she came out near the ship's engines. She flipped a switch to put her sensors to maximum and to record all the data. That would give them some more intelligence on the Jau and their reaction to an attack.

From her comm she heard a challenge from traffic control, but she ignored it. "Axon, paint the target," she ordered.

As the ship was big, at least compared with her fighter, that was quickly done. They had agreed to target the engines, as explosions there could ripple through the rest of the ship. Still her first two missiles were targeted at what they thought were shield generators. The missiles were still on their way when she linked both tubes and started firing at the engines. The first two missiles hit their spots and the two structures exploded while more voices came out of her comm. It became annoying to Li so she shut it down. She had nothing to say anyway.

Now she also started to see a reaction. A patrol frigate started to turn and some fighters were also on their way, but they would be too late. Li had launched all her missiles, two at the shield generators, six at the engines and her last two at the bridge. The destroyer was a bit larger then half the size of a Victory Class Star Destroyer. While it probably wouldn't be totally destroyed by the missiles, it would be put out of commission for quite some time, if not scrapped altogether. The missiles all hit, although missing a ship a bit more the 500 metres would be difficult. Immediately fires broke out and secondary explosions rippled through the ship. But Li didn't loiter to see their effect. She continued full speed and even engaged her -now rebuild- third engine for extra speed and the ability to go to hyperspace earlier. And she knew from the desert combat that those fighters were mightily fast and packed a big punch so she wanted to stay away from them as quickly as possible.

As she passed over the ship she fired her lasers and ion cannons as well, to do as much damage as possible. As soon as she had passed the destroyer she turned on her outbound course, keeping her rear firing blasters on the ship to do even more damage. The enemy fighters were closing in, but only slowly and Li was off in hyperspace before they were close enough to fire their missiles. All in all it had been a perfect mission and while the actual damage was only one ship and a small one at that, the amount of resources used were even smaller. Of course, Li knew that they would adapt. One the things that would probably happen was that the ships would keep their shields on so she couldn't kill them that easily.

They stayed in hyperspace for half a minute, before popping out and turning on a course that would eventually bring them to Coruscant if they followed it all the way. But Li had no intention of doing so and a minute later she popped out of hyperspace again to turn towards her final destination. It took fifteen minutes for her to reach the edge of the pirate system as she called it. Her IFF was on a setting they had to recognise and she moved slowly into the asteroid belt. Fifteen minutes later she had landed in the main hangar bay. When admiral Kano had taken over the base they had kept most of the layout, so Li knew her way around. After Axon had been taken out of her fighter, she walked to the admiral's office to report.

"When you said quick strikes against the Jau, I didn't think you meant quite so literally," Kano said. "How'd it go?"

"It went very smooth," Li said, "I came in, shot my missiles at a destroyer and flew out again. It was as if they were asleep. But they won't be next time. We'll have to think of something else."

"That we will," he said. "Most of our resistance has been on the ground, I imagine they didn't expect us hitting anything in space. It might give us a clue to how they're planning this out. We'll have to devise a different strategy for the next run. See that Commander Hobbes gets the sensor data. I'll have him go through it and see what we can turn up."

"I'll add some comments later," Li said, "but now I would like to have some sleep. With your permission?"

Kano nodded and Li left his office to go to her quarters after bringing Axon, who had stored all the sensor information, to the intelligence people.

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