[right][h3][b]Y[/b]ellow [b]S[/b]ix – The Deep Core[/h3][/right][hr]
Space was mostly empty, except when it wasn’t. It was full and alive now, with screaming engines, flashes of laserfire, and the wreckage of gutted ships drifting across the solar plane.  

Camara Effree had graduated first in her class out of the academy. She’d been good at flying all her life, since she was a girl on Mirial at the helm of her father’s airspeeder. As a teenager, she was obsessed with the idea of flying with the Republic Navy, engrossing herself in hours of guncam footage from the frontlines of the Great War. She realized, now, that she’d never [i]really[/i] considered the bone chilling fear of live laser fire that could cut her from the safe, sheltered cocoon of her cockpit and spill her out to freeze in the black depths of space. 

But now she was here, and her hands were slick with sweat under her gloves as she followed her wingman’s lead through her first dogfight. Captain Tav Codey brought his Aurek into a sharp bank, rolling onto the tail of an interceptor, and she followed suit. A green lance came across the nose of her fighter. She assessed her HUD, fear gripping her by the throat. The cold analytical half of her brain, assisted by years of training sims and live flights, determined she was clear, but she looked again and again. 

Red lights flashed ahead, and her eyes were pulled forward just in time to watch Codey tear the fighter apart with a burst of laser fire.  

“Yellow Six, you okay back there?” Codey’s voice came through her intercom. Cool and collected, a veteran of how many sorties through the years of war. 

“Yes, sir!” Camara answered. She did her best to sound confident, and her best to guide her Aurek smoothly after his. She managed the ship better than the affirmation.

And then the old man’s voice came through her comms. “Yellow Squadron, this is Colonel Tua speaking, do you copy?” Colonel Vos Tua, the aged Nautolan commander of the convoy’s fighter wing, spoke with calming authority. It reminded Camara of the day to day, the preparation, the easy confidence she felt before she strapped in today. She stretched her grip and breathed, banking with Codey as he moved to tail another interceptor, this one on the tail of a friendly Aurek. 

“This is Yellow One, we copy, Colonel,” came the crisp response of Camara’s squadron leader over the command-comm. 

Codey loosed a hail of red lances, and this time Camara followed suit, pulling the trigger and unleashing a burst of laser fire from her Aurek’s twin cannons. The nimble fighter stayed out of their line of fire, the pilot reading their target locks and adjusting while keeping on target himself. 

“Yellow One, the enemy have jammed our communications.” The voice was far off, even in her ear, as she watched with horror as green blades cut through the Aurek’s left wing and turned the fighter into dust. “. . . launching a hyperspace capable shuttle . . .“ the voice continued, but Camara was paying no attention now. She pulled her Aurek up on the z-axis as Codey dove, trapping the interceptor between their guns. As the hostile pulled up to maneuver away from Codey’s sensor lock, he drifted directly across Camara’s line of fire. She squeezed the trigger and reduced the ship to wreckage.

“Great shot, Six!” Codey shouted over the wing-comm, and Camara exhaled a sharp breath. It was all she could do to keep herself from screaming with exhilaration. 

“You need to escort that shuttle to the hyperspace egress. Your tac-net is being updated now.” Colonel Tua’s voice brought her back to her base, and she realized their commander had been feeding them an assignment. 

“Understood, Colonel,” Yellow One answered.

As he spoke, Camara’s holographic display of the battlefield updated with a dozen flight routes to guide Yellow Squadron to a hangar on the far side of the refueling station, still undamaged and operational in the face of the flying turbolaser fire. Less than a dozen, she realized with a numb chill. Yellow 3 and Yellow 10 were no longer on the map.

“Make sure someone hears about this, pilots,” Tua said, and the command-comm went dead. 

Camara brought her Aurek to bear on Codey’s left, watching as the hull of his ship was illuminated red and green in the exchange of cannon fire in the void, and followed him toward the target.