Interception

Admiral Kebod

Admiral Kebod could not believe the audacity of these rebel scum. Didn’t they realize they were facing the Devastator? Vader’s onetime flagship, the pride of Death Squadron… Kebod prided himself on having the best trained crew in the entire Imperial Navy. Ever since he had taken command of her at the battle of Hoth, Kebod had personally and ruthlessly combed the ranks, recruiting and promoting only those officers and ratings who had met his meticulous and exacting standards. And even though he found his TIE fighter commander X’radd personally distasteful, there was no doubt that his skills as a fighter ace were almost on a par with Darth Vader himself. Kebod watched the engagement unfold on the Devastator‘s giant tactical display. Several B-wings had been destroyed already; the remainder were taking heavy fire from the TIE interceptors. At this point most sane pilots would have broken off their attack to deal with their pursuers, but the rebels waited until they were deep within the Devastator‘s flak envelope before executing their own high speed turns, insuring the ensuing dogfight would occur in uncomfortably close proximity to the ship. And the irrational human factor didn’t stop there: Kebod watched as a single B-wing fighter spiraled back, directly into the heart of X’radd’s squadron. The pilot knew full well what he was doing: buying time for his comrades; one surprised TIE pilot died in a hail of laser fire from the B-wing’s quad cannons before he even knew what had hit him. The rebel pilot then abruptly cut his speed, allowing two TIE interceptors to pass, which he then lacerated with pinpoint shots from his craft’s ion cannons. He might have been able to score a fourth kill had not X’radd threaded the needle of fire and blown the B-wing to pieces. Kebod rounded in fury on one of his gunnery officers who had continued to shoot into the dogfight, hitting one of the B-wings but just missing two of the TIE interceptors:

“Cease fire you slave, you’ll hit our own pilots!”

The blood drained from the gunnery officer’s face�"he stopped firing as Kebod turned back to the tactical display, absorbing the fleet positions of the larger battle raging all around.

“Helm, change course by seven degrees, keep us between the rebel attack force and the Death Star. We’ll make sure none of their ships reach the station.”