Cadet Vodnik followed his flight group out of the Alderaan's hanger and reviewed the mission, his first, in his head. Blue Group, his squadron of X-wings, would move in and engage the gunboats, while Alderaan moved in and attempted to lock tractors onto the transport before it got out of the planet's gravity well. So far, everything looked good; well, to a rookie, anyway. Green Group's A-wings were already looping around wide, ready to take out anybody who tried to hyperjump. If nobody did, the Imps would likely get a tase of the "A-wing slash", something he was REALLY looking forward to seeing. From everything he had read, the XG-1 was a tough little boat, but the A-wing was twice as fast, and that was that. Even better, sensor scans showed the Imps hadn't reacted to the Republic's presence yet. Except, when he got within visual range, there was a definite problem; that was AWFULLY big for what he'd been told of an assault shuttle, and those couldn't be gunboats moving that fast, could it? On a whim, he switched his sensors away from Alderaan's downlink and tried his own, and got absolutely nothing. "Uh, Blue leader, this is 4...somethin..." "I see it, 4. Alderaan, this is Blue Leader. Targets were misidentified; say again, NOT transport craft. Visual indentification shows Imperial Strike Cruiser with TIE escort; interceptors, judging by speed." "Blue Leader, this is Alderaan, we can't confirm; sensors maintain previous readings" "Then have the techs clean the spice off the boards, damnit! I'm STARING at the thing. TIEs have us on visual and are engaging, I need those A-wings in here yesterday, and I strongly recommend we get one of those frigates up here, sir. Aw, hell, it looks like they're launching some bombers, too; I thought those things couldn't carry more than a squadron?". As Vodnik evaded the incoming TIE fire (gods but those bastards're fast!), he heard the call go out over the Republic band for the Revolution to move up to support, and a call for something called "contract escort security" to provide point-defense for the capital ships.
