Dorn: A Star Wars Story

48. General Vengeant

I was barely back in the air before, to my horror, an entire fleet of ships burst out of hyperspace. And by fleet, I mean more than was even close to necessary for any invasion force, and none of them were ours.

"Holy-!" I swung my Interceptor back towards where the Summa was, "Hipshot! Farthen! Get the Summa  to the Apalis ASAP! Now!" 

"Don't need to tell me twice- Dank farrik!" I saw a bomber narrowly hit the Summa when Peavey shot it clean out of the sky right before it dropped its payload, I saw it feebly bounce off of the deflector shields as she made a hard turn towards the Apalis which was to my horror, becoming the target of several fighter groups.

"We need to get to the Apalis," Nyra called into the comms, "because Admiral Ahuff is still onboard!"

That was enough for me. I slammed my controls forward and launched myself in the ship's direction along with Peavey, Tarkona, and Balos. I had no idea where Jag and Shenna were, but I wasn't about to wait. I needed to get to Thesh. We were so close to being able to leave, and I wasn't going to lose him again. I saw the Summa launch forward faster as her turbolasers slammed into the squad of fighters and sent a chunk of them spinning from the air as Peavey and the others engaged them in ships. I focused on getting to the hangar as quickly as I could. I needed to get to Thesh.

My Interceptor slammed screaming into the hangar, missing the damaged catches and skidding across the floor as I popped the hatch right before it slammed into the base of the observation deck. If she crashed now, it didn't matter too much. The Apalis was taking heavy fire and not even the Summa was going to be able to help her. That was also getting me worried for my own ship. The Apalis was a juicy enough distraction to keep them off of the Summa, but I wasn't expecting that to keep them at bay for long. 

She was collapsing around me as I sprinted to the command deck to find Thesh rattling off orders as calm as I had ever seen him.

"Evacuate decks eleven through thirty-six and give my engineering crews that all clear to depart. Nothing they do will keep her flying at this rate. Now, we need to save as many of the crew as we ca. Let decks ten through one know that as soon as those shuttles launch, we'll sound the alarms per level to allow them to evacuate accordingly. If we do it right, everyone will get out okay, but they need to trust me," he was looking over at his first officer when I ran up.

There was a massive explosion and half of the bridge crew fell forward with shouts and grunts, and I barely caught Thesh as he lost his footing. 

"What- Dorn!" He stared up at me and blinked before he pushed himself upright, "What are you-?"

"Admiral!" One of his officers called up, "We're receiving reports that the engineers are trapped on level seventeen!"

Thesh swore under his breath and turned to me, "Can your men get them out? I need those engineers alive to keep whatever shuttles we launch going in the event that they get shot!"

Before I could reply, the entire sky lit up with a magnificent display of lightning that began striking every Rebel ship we could see. It stopped the entire battle in its tracks. Every Imperial ship could only watch in awe as this mighty tree of lightning bought us just enough time. I hopped on my comms, pressing my fingers to my helmet, "Nyra! Get the ground team together and start working your way through the Apalis! Open up as many routes to the hangars and escape pods as you can! We've got people trapped on here! I'll stay with the command crew and make sure that they get out alright!"

"Roger that, General. We'll save who we can!"

"Dorn, you should get going," Thesh turned to me, but I shook my head.