Luna was in a good mood. Zatt and Fenn had finally set up an encryption system and had already resumed work, sending reports to First Order intelligence, along with an apology and explanation of a stray asteroid damaging their antenna, but the damage had been patched. that should garuantee some peace and quiet for the time being. Luna had even persuaded Face to send false or incomplete information along, so that they weren't doing as much damage as they otherwise would be doing, and her conscience felt lighter for it. The squadron, together, had the beginnings of a plan and, even in its infancy, it felt good to finally have a goal to pursue. And most importantly of all, she was back in a cockpit, doing what she was best at. The fact that it was a TIE fighter cockpit was a mild inconvenience.
'Oh, Force,' said Luna, 'how can people see with this helmet on? No wonder they're so easy to kill, they have to fight looking through these tiny slits.' A little bit more of a mild inconvenience, she reflected.
'Don't fight it,' said Face over the comm. 'I've had my fair share of operations undercover. The trick is to just embrace it. Learn to look beyond the mask, trust your HUD to see for you, when you can't.' Out of the front facing window of her TIE, she watched Face race ahead in his own TIE, sneaking between two asteroids. 'Oh - and a little trick I picked up: make little movements with your head. After a while it becomes automatic and you'll just see more, from force of habit.'
'Copy that, Face,' said Luna, wondering if she could do the same with her TIE. She was too used to the open freedom of an X-wing cockpit and the TIE, with its one forward facing window and solar panels blocking her side view, felt incredibly claustrophobic. Deciding that his advice applied not just to helmets, but to TIEs, she turned her attention to her sensor readout, using it to plot out a course through the asteroid field, in her head, while her hands handled the steering, placing her trust in her years of training to read a 2D imagine and translate it to 3D space. She passed through the large, icy rocks without incident, but that didn't stop it being terrifying. She aimed her TIE to come up behind Face's, fifty metres, forty, thirty.
'Trying to shadow me, huh?' said Face, then boosted his engines to shoot off and away, disappearing behind an asteroid. He didn't reappear.
Luna frowned at her sensor readout. He wasn't appearing there, either. She increased her speed to follow his tracks and, as she came round the asteroid, saw him flying away in a straight line. Clever, she thought, realising he'd used the sensor shadow that the asteroid created to hide from her and get away. She reached down to boost her engines, then realised that she had accidentally turned down the inertial compensator. 'Blast it,' she swore as she felt herself being pinned in her seat. Hastily she ramped it back up to 95% - enough to keep her safe from dramatic changes in speed, but just enough to let her feel them tug at her, give her that extra bit of information that often meant the different between life and death. Finally, she could breath properly again and, being careful to use the right control this time, shot forward and chased after Face.
'Hurry up, slowpoke,' taunted Face, though she knew it to be meant good naturedly. 'Got to be better than that if we're to fool the First Order. After all, we're dealing with the geniuses who thought copying the idealistic and technological designs of the losers of the last war was a great idea.'
'Of course,' said Luna, deadpan, 'how silly of me. Grr. Smash the Resistance. Dark side good. Grr.'
'Much better,' said Face, chuckling. 'Now see if you can follow me better this time.' he then abruptly swooped down and twisted his TIE through a group of recently collided asteroids, before again ducking behind another large rock, again disappearing from sight and sensor.
Luna didn't hesitate, and followed his convoluted path through the rocks and debris, took her fighter in close to the surface of the large asteroid, following the curve and shooting around to the other side - but where she should have seen Face flying away from her, there was nothing.
'Bang bang, you're dead,' said Face, several green jets passing from behind her. She looped her fighter round so that she was facing the surface of the asteroid. Nestled tight against it, half hidden behind a jutting outcrop of rock, was Face's TIE.
'Cute trick,' Luna grumbled, feeling a little silly.
'Han taught me that one,' said Face, and just from the tone of his voice Luna knew he was lost in a memory. Here it comes. 'I remember us all sitting around in a bar in - hmm. Sullust? Nah, couldn't be. Anyway, we were all in awe of this cocky General who would deign to talk to us grunts, but he was a friend of Wedge - Antilles, one of ours C/Os for a time - and so there we were, happily drunk and getting drunker, and he's telling us about how got away fro-'
'Face,' said Ka'iulani, in the outpost control room. 'We just intercepted a message. You need to hear this.'
'Patch it through,' said Face, and he and Luna flew to the edge of the field, to better receive the call.
Luna turned on the autopilot and upped the volume to her proximity alarm, so that she would definitely notice if a wayward asteroid was heading for her, then keyed on the audio message, then bolted upright as she heard who it was speaking.
'This is General Leia Organa of the Resistance,' said the voice - a voice from her childhood. Her heart raced as she listened, enraptured. 'Calling all allies in the Outer Rim territories. We have scored a key victory against the First Order, their planet destroying weapon is destroyed, but now I need your help. We've been chased to the planet Crait, in the system of the same name. We're holding out for as long as we can, but it's only a matter of time before they break through our defences. I beg you, if you are able and willing, please come to our aid. The Resistance needs you. I need you.'
The message was cut short by the blaring of Luna's proximity alarm and, panicked, she grabbed the yoke and looked to her sensors to find a free space to fly into, away from danger, but when she looked she couldn't find any incoming asteroids. None near her, at any rate. Confused, she dialed up the range, expanding it to encompass the listening outpost and the rest of the mid-system area. There: a ship had just dropped out of hyperspace. Her stomach turned to ice as she saw the familiar triangular outline. 'Oh, no,' she groaned.
The First Order had found them.
