AN: One step closer, y'all. Enjoy.

Chapter 14: Wearing Their Colors

"We're gonna die. Vika'biur, please, hukaat'kama, get me out of this dar'yaim..."

Shana was certain of it now. A dozen different alarms filled the cockpit with noise. The ship rocked and pitched as another series of blasts triggered a short distance off.

"Oh ye of little faith," Wren sarcased, though he still winced as a blue exhaust trailing gray arced out of the darkness. The starboard quad laser tracked swiftly and riddled the weighty projectile, and Wren shifted the Lady out of the tremendous blast radius. It was then that Fink burst back into the cockpit.

"Astromechs are fitted and ready to space," the youth reported. "But I think we can add a hull-contact countermeasure to the drawing board."

"We can worry about it when we're done with this dirty bastard and his diamond-boron missiles," Wren shot back. "How's our armor integrity?"

"Between the pistodekas and the rough love from the missile attacks, we're down to 47.5 percent of the modular ablative components. They seem to have realized they're not going to be reaching anything important for a while, because they've taken to trying to compromise as many armor sections as possible." Fink got right back into the Lady's performance data. "I'm spacing the astromechs now."

At the Lady's waist, between the crew and engineering sections, one of the YZ's two airlocks slid open, and a file of three astromechs droids quickly passed through. Sticking magnetically to the hull of the ship, each wore a ring-like harness around it's shoulders. Bronzed, flat-topped R6-A9. Chrome-detailed, dome-headed R2-E7. And richly blued R3-C3.

The skittering forms of the buzz droids quickly closed in from all sides, their drills and saws working eagerly in anticipation. The pistodekas charged, and all at once a spray of red bolts shot from the three astromechs droids. Each combat harness boasted four turreted blaster pistols; little things, but more than enough blaster to send the buzz droids sliding off the sides of the Lady with smoking holes in them.

Huzo was practically gushing as he slid into another attack vector, watching his optical sensors as modified astromechs rolled across the freighter's hull and exterminated his saboteur droids before retreating back into the shelter of their starship.

"So crafty," he muttered. "You've got an answer for everything, don't you?" Huzo took a moments hesitation before launching his attack. His ship slipped into the visible and released a spray of green blaster pulses from his sloop's forward guns. The four quad laser turrets and the dorsal and ventral dual turbolasers battered the YZ-775's shields. It bucked and twisted but Huzo followed close, its six solar-radiator wings flexing as their thruster arrays shifted the sloop along with its target. Huzo muttered to himself. "You don't like that, eh? Your hull isn't built for combat visibility. You know it isn't, but you haven't quite figured out how to overcome."

Yet even as Huzo said this, payloads launched against his pursuit. Three fields of cluster missiles covered his upper arc, forcing him to dodge downwards. When his vision cleared of the blossoming explosions, there was his erstwhile prey, doubed back around and closing with blistering speed. Huzo tried to reactivate his hybridium grid, but his power management console spat back a refusal. Then, to his surprise, passive sensor warnings belated that Huzo was being directly targeted. "How...-?"

As the barrage came slamming home, Huzo figured the trick; his cold plasma shield operated by masking the ship's thermal emissions against the cold background of space. But when he dipped past the defensive screen of cluster missiles, he'd silhouetted his cold hull against the hot gasses of their detonations. And the YZ was perfectly positioned to capitalize.

The concentrated salvoes of cannon fire converged on the sloop with ruthless accuracy, smashing down Huzo's shield meter and completely shredding his cold plasma shield, rendering him fully visible on the full sensor spectrum. Then the missiles came sizzling in, and his quad lasers struggled to hold back the spread of proton torpedoes that rocked the sloop with their force and proximity. Tricks on top of tricks, four devilish little mass driver shots sped through the dissipating blast plumes of the proton warheads.

Huzo twisted his vessel. His cannons spat emerald counterfire. But two of the shells got through, punching a pair of holes into his drive compartment. Immediately his power management console began shouting warnings at him. "Reactor cluster breached," it concluded it a distorted, mechanical voice. "R4 damaged and offline; remaining reactor nodes compensating at 74 percent efficiency."

Huzo growled in frustration. This engagement was rapidly becoming unsustainable, and despite Huzo's earnest desire to find a warrior he couldn't best, it was a mark of deficiency for a warrior to die with a weapon left undrawn. And there were other adjacent fields for this fight to play out upon. Huzo pulled away, boosting off as the Hasty Lady rocketed past. As soon as it was possible, he triggered his hybridium grid, dropping into relative safety.

The fleet docking complex loomed slowly, kilometer by kilometer.

As soon as the phantom assaults had ceased and the deadly sloop's CGT signature had pulled away, the cockpit erupted into cheers of relief; Shana's peals of hysterical joy, Fink and SENA with their smug chuckles, punctuated by Hakyo's victory roar and the small flick of Wren putting the lighter to his cigarra, before Shana shot up and pulled him into a tight embrace that Wren would've found lovely, had it not been broken up by Shana's hard beskar breastplate.

"Your Vika'biur came through," Wren said with a laugh when Shana released him. The look on Shana's face, the way she smiled with her eyes as much as her lips, made Wren's own face flush.

"She always does," Shana said reverently. "You'll need to meet her some time." Wren sat speechless, and before Shana elaborate or Wren could catch his breath, the comms crackled.

"That was quite the show, Hasty Lady. I dont think anybody here is ever going to forget this one." Captain Ekmeno's grizzled middle aged portrait hung suspended in light springing from the dashboard projector, and he had an amused grin on his steely visage.

"I concur," said a woman with narrow eyes and closely bobbed dark hair. It gave Wren an amused twinge of surprise to see her IDed as captain of the assault frigate Voidwatcher. "You guys left us quite the mess over Naruku III, Hasty Lady. But after watching that I would call us even."

"Much obliged," Wren ground out, trying to shield his headset microphone from the riotous laughter filling the cockpit, before yet another head sprung up on the holoprojector.

"We brought in the cavalry, Captain Eschlan!" It was Liani Desto and her Jesters. "We'll make sure that shifty devil can't jerk you around any longer."

The cluster of New Republic ships, having fought their ways into position, broke away from the space battle as one, powering out of the melee and towards the docking complex; the huge protective bulk of the Conciliator, the monolithic body and skeletal frame of the Voidwatcher, the flowing tan form of the MC80B cruiser Confluence, several smaller supporting vessels, and the adjoining screens of fighter craft. The Lady came about and pulled in next to the Correlian prowler Third Eye, a darkly painted and heavily streamlined CR92 Assassin-class corvette, the classic CR-90's updated sibling. Third Eye's captain, Eseril Tulany, sprang up on the dashboard.

"Glad to see you're still with us," Eseril said, and it surprised the crew of the Hasty Lady to see a boy younger than even Fink on the other side of the comm system. "The enemy stealth ship has retreated to the docking complex. Our boarding parties are prepping now."

"Thanks Captain Tulany," Wren responded, perhaps judt a touch more curt than he could've been. He was simply glad to be done with the conference call. "SNEA, take the stick. Let's get dangerous, folks."

The four humanoid members of the crew stood and moved into the adjoining pilot's lounge, where their gear and armaments waited. They strapped themselves down, and then headed down below where their cargo of NRSF operators waited. All eyes in the cargo hold flashed to the four.

"Who's flying the ship?" Came one sly remark, and the whole host took a round of laughter.

"She can guide herself to a spell," Wren responded with an easy calm, no stranger to the jousting of hotshot soldiers. "Hope the ride wasn't too bumpy."

The soldiers decended into motley jests as one man stepped forward, slipping off his helmet and pulling back his balaclava. "Koda Flareley. Sorry about the boys, they're just ruffling any feathers they can."

Wren scoffed, waving his other hand dismissively as he took Koda's handshake firmly. "Reminds me of old friends," the spacer said with a grin. "We'll be hitting the deck together."

"Damn straight," Koda responded. "Let us take the Imps, Captain Eschlan. We've all been briefed, its our pleasure to be your battering ram."

"I seem to be owing people drinks left and right today," Wren joked.

"That's just how these things go," Koda said. "Listen up people! We all stay sharp, we all come home to collect!"

There was no real doubt in the cargo hold that this was anything but a bold faced lie. But the intent behind it sung true regardless. Each and every one of them burned with a desire to see then other side of this struggle.

Launching from the assembled capital vessels that had managed to break away, the avian forms of Old Republic Nu-class attack shuttles pulled up alongside the Hasty Lady. The old birds still soared in pace as fighter squadrons pulled in to solidify the spearpoint.

Ahead, a final cluster of imperial vessels spread out between them and ISCA's home; Sentinel-class landers and Delta-class escort shuttles, both built of shades of the iconic Lambda-class imperial shuttle. The Sentinels boasted significant arsenals of eight defensive cannons, paired forward repeating blasters, paired concussion missile launchers, and an ion cannon each as well. The smaller and swifter escort shuttles wore three forward heavy laser cannons, a pair of missile launchers, and a pair of rear-facing turbolasers. All the while, a stream of Imperial forces undertook a mad chase to catch them with New Republic elements gnawing at their heels.

The sides collided and despite their heavy punch the Imperial assault craft fared poorly without fighter support. The Jesters and the Lady leading the way, the assault ships sliced through and rocketed up to the docking complex. It was a moment of quiet fear as they passed between the sleeping bulks of the docked vessels; each soul knew that these still behemoths could come alive at any moment, but the tension passed for a new one as the assault force dipped down and angled up towards the dreadnought's hangar bays.

"Go time, people," SENA said, her voice spreading through the crowded hold. The entire host stood, weapons at the ready. "Ramp down in ten... Nine..."

The Hasty Lady slid through the magcon field, and into a wash of firepower. All across the cavernous hangar bay, entrenched Imperial Stormtroopers sent a storm of scarlet shots to ripple the Lady's shields. Pilotless, the vessel obeyed SENA's commands, and the cannons swung back, chewing through the blank armored forms. The assault shuttles followed, and soon the huge bay, kilometres long, was filled with New Republic ships. One by one, the attacking forces set down amid covered positions to release their passengers.

The Hasty Lady dropped her cargo elevator, and the fighting men and women of the New Republic Special Forces charged ahead into the cluster of cargo crates to take up firing positions, and the battle erupted in earnest. On one side, the white plastoid, silent coordination, and unflinching aggression of The Stormtrooper Corps. On the other, the NRSF; low tech by comparison, fighting by eye and voice, but with hard-earned skill, vicious cunning, and emotional force of bond. The exchange was furious beyond measure, as each side directed its entire panoply of war against the other. The Imperials lashed out from prepared positions with heavy repeating blasters. The New Republic soldiers struck back with ordnance, grenades and missiles. Shuttles that had delivered their cargoes took to the air, cruising about the hangar to attack the Stormtroopers with their cannons.

They dropped to the durasteel elevator, four sets of boots moving as one, while NRSF operators continued to pour from the Lady's 400 ton cargo hold. Shana, her eyes bathing in tactical info through her helmet HUD, motioned left, and sure enough there was Koda. He directed his comrades as they approached, reading off the strategic pad on his wrist to a missile team. The crew stepped clear of the backblast as the soldiers launched a high-test round into an E-WEB replacement high on the wall of the hangar bay.

"Hot damn!" Koda slapped the missilewoman on the shoulder plate, before turning to face the four. "Wasn't that just pretty?"

"Lovely, Koda," Shana commended. They sheltered behind cover together.

"It's Lieutenant Colonel out on the battlefield," he joked. "We're working on an exit route as we speak, but it's gonna take a little work before we can get moving; these guys have been setting this pudu up for a while, damn sure. Any preference in direction?"

"Our best bet is one of the tertiary personnel lines, their constructions are the most difficult to fortify and they should fit 50 at a time," SENA explained, coming through Kalom's communicator as well. "There's an access complex on our two o'clock."

"On it," Lt. Colonel Flareley said simply, pressing his fingers to his earpiece. The NRSF operators shifted their orientation, and slowly the disseparate pockets of NRSF began to coalesce into a unified front with secured flanks and rear. Much more free to maneuver within their side of the hangar bay, Colonel Flareley's forces began pushing for their objective. And as the Nu-class attack shuttles began coordinated attack runs, the Hasty Lady lifted under SENA's direction to join them. Colonel Flareley let out an awestruck; "Force."

Streams of automatic fire stitched across the imperial positions, spraying from the YZ's nose and flanks. Thick packets of energy leapt from her dorsal and ventral guns, blasting apart clustered Stormtroopers and their stationary armaments. Her composite beams tracked molten lines across the floors, walls, and ceilings, mowing down ranks of Imperial soldiers. The attack shuttles loosed their own blue salvoes, sending smoking white plastoid shade spiraling through the air.

"Oyaaa!" Shana bellowed, popping up to loose powerful bolts from her DC-15A. The rest of the crew followed suit, and before long they were leaping up from their positions.

"Push in!" Koda called over the comms, and the NRSF charged into a close assault.

"Form behind me!" Hakyo bellowed, pairing his translator droid to the crew's comm net. He marched up in front with his ACP cannon blazing, and roared in pain and rage as bolts began to sear his thick hide. Shana sprinted up to match his long-legged gait, spraying down enemy positions up on the catwalks with her wrist blaster. Hakyo regarded her with an expression Shana now recognized as pleased. "You think you can play my game, little Mandalorian?"

Shana scoffed over the comms, but Wren could tell she was grinning ear to ear, somehow. "Please, brute! You didn't invent the bar'hukaatkir!" Like fate, a string of potshots came streaking past, and one took Shana in the breastplate, sparing Hakyo's gut. Shana coughed out, her voice still full of mirth; "Body cover!"

Shana staggered a touch, but there was just a scorch on the thick beskar, and she marched onward. Slipping a projectile with a green tip into his S-5, Wren aimed over Shana's shoulder. The projectile spiraled off through the air before homing in on Wren's shifting aim. With the point of his pistol Wren guided the round until it burst upon the offending Stormtrooper's armor. "Hands off," he muttered.

Eventually they made the corridor, taking cover in its alcove. With an invisible signal, SENA bid the door open, and in they spilled. There were stormtroopers here, but they were fewer and unprepared. Wren and Fink, first inside, gunned them down; Wren's emerald blaster shots punched smoking holes while Fink's alloy spheres drew blood as they tore through their targets. Shana and Hakyo picked up the sides, and then the NRSF came rushing through behind them, quickly seizing control of the transit complex.

"This is where we part ways," Colonel Flareley said, extending his gloved had to each of the Hasty Lady crew in turn. "I need to stay here, keep managing the hangar bay operations. Give them hell up there."

Wren, Shana, Fink, and Hakyo, along with as many NRSF operators as could fit, boarded the single tram of the tertiary complex. The tram sped away, deeper into the bowels of the gargantuan warship. As it wound its way through the structure of the dreadnought, the assembled forces took a moment to rest and prepare. Blaster packs were changed, wounds patched and sealed, and the soldiers went around checking on their comrades. Seeing who had made it. And who hadn't. It forced Wren to push off the wall; slowly, carefully, he picked his way about the tram. One by one, he introduced himself to each of them, and offered heartfelt thanks for their assistance. Sighting this, Shana nudged Hakyo and Fink, and together, the four of them made rounds as the tram took an incline upwards.

It was a powerful experience. At first it was a quiet thing, one person at a time, careful not to interrupt comrades no matter what they spoke of. But the special forces operatives quickly realized as the four moved from one side of the tram to the other, and by the end they all stood, waiting to greet their strange allies. Their eyes, voices and faces broadcast their emotions. By the end, Wren could hear Shana sniffle under her helmet, and even Fink and Hakyo had somber airs about them.

"We're almost there," SENA said softly into Wren's earpiece. Wren circulated the information, and the feels of unity and togetherness were gone for the cold rigor of the fight.

The darkness of the transit tunnel gave way to a lit chamber, the command tower primary transit complex. Across the chamber, up three levels of stairs and tram platforms, the access corridor to the command tower. The operatives clung as best they could to the cover of the tram, and when they spilled out into the station, hell broke loose yet again.

From up the stairs, on the other platforms, from every corner and wall, thick streams of plasma bolts cut the air and splattered burning plasma across the NRSF as they dove for what positions they could find. Those who were unable to leave the tram quickly perished as its thin walls were reduced to a melting mess. Missiles arced from the enemy positions, sending bodies tumbling.

The four fought like hell, but despite their highest efforts every other blink witnessed the fall of one of their new friends. Eventually, a woman with blood soaking her armor dove into the crew's position.

"This isn't gonna happen like this!" She shouted. "We're all gonna have to run for it!"

Wren couldn't contain his disgust at the idea. "We'll never make it!"

"We're all gonna die anyways if we don't!" The operative responded. The look on her face spoke to the grim proposition. "And a whole lot more are gonna follow, unless we can get you four up into that bridge tower!"

Wren had to fight back tears. "We can't leave you behind!" He said. His gumption failed him, salty drops flowing.

The woman laughed, shaking her head. She reached for her neck, ripping away a pair of durasteel tags. She grabbed Eren's wrist and forced them into his hand. "We'll be right there with you," she insisted. "All of us, every step of the way. Now, get ready!"

They gathered together. They laid down suppressive fire, hurled smoke grenades, and then hopped up into the charge and died in droves. One by one, step by step, shot by shot. Before they reached the top of the third staircase, every one of the NRSF operatives was dead.

Launching from their positions across the transit complex, dark grey forms boosted through the air. They landed with resounding impacts, and aimed their weapons threateningly. The crew of the Hasty Lady were rapidly surrounded, until finally a larger enemy came striding out of the access corridor, the lanky form of a black and gold armored Mandalorian following, his right arm resting easily on the hilt of a long two-handed sword. The crew begrudgingly cast down their arms.

"Bravo!" She called. Her gauntlets clashed together in the approximation of a clap, her helmet retracted to reveal her face, which shown with mirth and rage in equal amounts. "That was an outstanding performance. Truly a heroic sacrifice." Admiral Kemin eyed her comrades, before the helmet snapped shut. She demanded, her voice dripping with electronic malice. "Bring them!"

They stood stock still, staring down the barrels of a dozen assault cannons.

"To be honest, I've long wanted to speak to you, Captain Eschlan," Uyoroi said. "I was very curious to see what sort of man could survive an engagement that doomed so many others."

"I don't know who you think you're trying to chat with," Wren said bluntly. "Unless you plan on detailing your plan to space yourself, I'm not interested. Sell it to somebody who gives a fosh, you fourth rate wanna-be empress."

Uyoroi emitted a sound that Wren slowly translated as a scoff. "Such righteous indignation," she cooed with dripping sarcasm. "Such fury. For those who killed your comrades? Because you know that the bodies are down below, yes? Dear Wren, these sniveling weaklings have misdirected your ire."

Wren made a half turn, and so vicious was the movement that the darktroopers surrounding them inched their assault cannons closer. "You're talking about something that started before I was even born. Probably started when my dad survived the clone wars and signed up to settle Byss for Palpatine. So don't you dare try to tell me who my enemies are; I've been living under them my entire life. They took everything that should been good in my life and twisted it into something I had to learn to loathe, and then turned it into an ashpile that I couldn't even mourn. And you're wearing their colors."

Wren couldn't see Uyoroi's scowl as the elevator reached it's zenith, and the exoskeleton-clad Stormtroopers forced them out; even Hakyo, unflinching to his growls and threat displays. "Separate him," Uyoroi ordered, and the iron grips seized Wren and yanked him away from his comrades.

"Leave him alone!" Shana demanded, and it amuzed Uyoroi to ignore her outburst.

"Dear Wren," Admiral Kemin continued. "You clearly didn't hear, so allow me to burst your bubble; it was a Rebel droid that fired the Galaxy Gun on Byss. Rebel droid, Rebel war, Rebel Kraut Dragons, Rebel friends. Its a shame; I would considered offering you survival for your services, before you insulted me so."

"I'd do it all over again," Wren said with a sly grin, as he was forced around at Uyoroi's command. But when the door slid open and he was shoved inside, that grin disappeared. The troopers reached for SENA, and despite his best efforts, Wren couldn't stop them.

"No!" Shana cried. "Let him go! Gar'chak, kyr'am'alor! You let him go!" The door slid shut, and Wren pressed against the transparisteel porthole. Shana tore away from the Darktroopers, finding some way to escape their power-assisted grasps as she rushed over. Palm pressed to palm, only the window between them. Shana couldn't keep from sobbing, quiet as she realized none of his words could pass through to her; "Please..."

With a vicious grin, Uyoroi slammed the wall control, and the airlock launched Wren into the cold grip of space.